June had come as an exciting month for Shuixing, as by now, Nate had graduated college and it wouldn't be too long before his Aunt and Blueberry gave birth, which would then allow for them to make the journey to Heiya Island and then she and Nate could have their own wedding. It also came with a fair amount of encouragement from her sisters, as they were happy to see Shuixing happy and Huoxing was happy to have some attention come her way, though Shuixing thought that Huoxing was still working on getting things more "open," but Shuixing thought her sister was happy and that was good. It rewarded many of the parts of excitement in not only having a bond-mate, but being able to formally join a family that had been very accepting of her and with a young bull that fallen for her rather quickly as well.
Of course with that joy came its own bits of frustration, as she and her sisters had come from a Taiwan home and family and had some fairly traditional Chinese beliefs, and that was before their own kidnapping and being held prisoner by some cult that smuggled them out of Nationalist China (Taiwan) into Communist China and then into other areas before being rescued by Ping, working in conjunction with the Chinese government and Interpol. This then created all sorts of legal questions, as her parents and family were believed dead from the original kidnapping, which had made getting in contact with Taiwan difficult and the Chinese government also insisted that Taiwan was part of the People's Republic and therefore claimed them as citizens of their own country and wouldn't grant any visa UNLESS it was for their government's visa. This then created a nightmare's worth of paperwork regarding the marriage licenses and forms between Shuixing and Nate.
"Would it be criminal of me to wish to break the back of whichever bureaucrat thought it was a good idea for all these forms just to get married?" Shuixing asked to Tuxing as she finished with the last set of signatures that she needed to sign. "The ones that the state of Wisconsin had that Nate sent in the mail weren't this long. Even the forms Japan has with regard to Heiya Island and the Republic's forms aren't this bad."
Tuxing sighed and patted Shuixing's shoulder as they sat at the main dinner table as they went over the various forms. The documents Nate had sent that would relate to what his home state allowed for and would establish a legal license were fairly straightforward and weren't too bad, and the only thing that would be needed to finish them was to have the Bowman family's minister to sign off on the paperwork at the end, which would be handled either before the weddings or after them Heiya Island, as part of Japan had some paperwork that related to assure the scheduling for the ceremony. The biggest issue had been the paperwork that China had required as per their claim that the five of them were citizens of the People's Republic. There were things that related to family and even Nate's family standing that were applied, and what made it all the more frustrating was that since their residence was on Heiya Island and the only other listed "option" was in Lyre/Animalia, the paperwork was only a formality in that they wouldn't block the marriage.
"To purposely hurt someone would be criminal, yes," Tuxing commented with a small chuff to her sister, "you know that... but I understand your frustration."
"I know... it's just... moooaararrggguuuhhh!" Shuixing gave a groan that bellowed a bit at the end.
Tuxing nodded, as there was the added frustration that also came from the discovery of old coins near a corner of the Chinese embassy on Heiya Island. Almost immediately the Chinese government claimed ownership of the coins on the basis of the coins being found on land that was technically Chinese because of the embassy. The archeologists petitioned the Japanese government for their ownership of the coins on the basis of Heiya Island being part of Japan and that their study was intended to be more in relation to both Japan's history and Heiya Island's history. When Shuixing and Tuxing had gone to get the papers, they'd actually come into an open argument between the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors as they were trying to debate the issue, and it ended up turning what should have been a five minute mission to get the paperwork into an hour long wait as politicians tried to manage their respective claims over the coins and their worth and the secretary who was supposed to handle delivering the paperwork to Shuixing ended up getting called to deliver things to the Chinese ambassador while he debated with the Japanese ambassador on Heiya Island.
"The bigger thing relates more to all this nonsense over the coins," Tuxing commented, "all them distracted over old coins and looking to get even for things that the coins themselves don't relate to."
Shuixing nodded, "in turn making all this worse as none of them really had the time to explain any of this... and I don't know how I'm going to explain this to Nate when he and his family and their minister are able to get here for the wedding... It's just..."
"Frustrating?" Tuxing offered in a calm tone.
Shuixing looked over her shoulder to nod to Tuxing. While there were some instincts that feared the predatory potential that a Tiger Animalian had, Tuxing's maturity always came through. It was something that relived Shuixing, as it helped build her confidence and assured her that things would be well in the long run. It reminded her that while he had a happy future with Nate to come, none of the frustrations that were there at present would stop her. The arguments over lost coins might be in the way and have slowed getting the paperwork for the wedding, but Shuixing could always count on her family to help her get through the paperwork and hold things together.
"Yeah," Shuixing smiled to her sister, "thankfully, I have you and the others to help me through things."
Tuxing nodded agreement, though after the word "others" there came the pounding of feet from one of the other rooms, through the living room, and into the dining room where Shuixing and Tuxing had been working. A few calls of "Shuixing" revealed it to be Jinxing calling. The Snow Leopard Animalian soon appeared and tossed Shuixing her phone. Shuixing caught it, though found that the phone was presently "off," which only made her look to her other sister with some confusion.
"You should have had your phone with you," Jinxing commented, "Sister in Law to be."
"Nate called?" Shuixing asked.
"He couldn't stay long," Jinxing nodded, "just long enough to say that Blueberry and Meryl just went into labor... and with that they'll be on their way in a few days, pending healthy births and so on."
"Hopefully by then, all this nonsense regarding those coins can be resolved," Shuixing said to Tuxing.
"I'm sure it will," Tuxing assured her.