When the three representatives of the village who were to attempt to coax Wiper out of the tree arrived that day, they were momentarily shocked to find him gone. Then Laki—who was rather red in the face, Kamakiri observed with amusement—appeared to inform them that there was no need, since Wiper had just gone home.

As much as the knowledge gave the villagers joy, they also desperately wished to know how Wiper's miraculous recovery had come about.

The villagers who were not in the forest were the first to see Wiper and Conis—hand-in-hand and looking happier than ever—entering Wiper's hut. This, of course, led to a barrage of people knocking on the door of the hut until Wiper suggested that they relocate somewhere further removed from his kin. Conis, for the first time, invited him to her father's home.

Pagaya received them with delight—and wisely did not reveal that he had known that they would arrive long before they had, as gossip seemed to travel faster than people. The couple retreated to Conis' room and did not come out all day. When Pagaya dared to peek in to see if they wanted supper, he found them curled up together on Conis' bed—fully clothed, to his relief. The scene made Pagaya smile, for the sheer trust which Conis now displayed towards Wiper went far above anything he had ever seen since the pair had met.

The next morning, Conis informed him that she would be moving in with Wiper, and would be taking Suu this time. Pagaya did not ask if they were to be wedded. They had tried it once and it hadn't worked, and he was not about to suggest they try it again. When he heard gossip later in the week about how inappropriate it was of Conis and Wiper to be living in sin, so to speak, he merely chuckled to himself. If nothing else, Conis and Wiper were an unorthodox pair; wasn't it only fitting that they go about their lives in a similarly unorthodox fashion?

When, a week later, Conis visited to inform him—blushing heavily—that she was pregnant, Pagaya just smiled.

Suddenly, all of Skypeia was pressing for a wedding. Only Laki and Pagaya seemed content to let the young couple live as they wished, and the pressure no doubt was considerable. However, the couple did not cave this time: all who attempted to pressure Wiper were met with malice and fury, and therefore all turned towards pressuring Conis. It did not take long for all of Skypeia to learn that Wiper's malice and fury multiplied tenfold when Conis was unhappy, so the community soon abandoned its attempts to force Wiper and Conis to do what was "right."

There was no one who missed the fact that some things were entirely different about the couple now that they were not married. For one thing, they always got up at the crack of dawn for no apparent reason. For another, they absolutely never fought. By the time Conis' child was born, practically all of Skypeia had learned first-hand that the couple was seemingly telepathically attuned to each other—in most cases, this consisted of Conis being upset to the smallest degree in Wiper's presence (most people upsetting Conis never even realized that they were upsetting her until they faced the consequences) and Wiper bursting into a fury. Most assumed that this was a one-way street until one day when, while shopping alone, Conis just happened to hear a comment made about the potential abusiveness of a Shandian husband. After the entire grocery store had seen Conis erupt in a fury, half of Skypeia learned to fear Conis' wrath; the other half attributed it to hormones and resolved not to upset her only while pregnant.

Wiper and Conis seemed so wildly happy that by the time their child was one-year-old, most could scarcely remember that they were not actually married; even fewer still remembered what a disaster their attempt at marriage had been. Wiper and Conis, however, remembered it all, and never broached the subject of marriage.

By the time that their eldest daughter was six-years-old and wanted to know how Mommy and Daddy had gotten married, it seemed unimportant that they were not, in fact, married. Together they told the tale of how they had fallen in love quickly—too quickly—and had not had a clue how to go about being married. Then they had resolved the problem simply by learning about each other—and learning to communicate effectively. Talk of marriage and divorce was entirely omitted, but their children never minded.

It was when Conis and Wiper were the parents of six with the eldest at age ten that Gan Fall arrived at their doorstep to confess that his "carelessness" with Pierre had resulted in a "fire" which had destroyed one document and one document alone: Conis and Wiper's divorce papers.

"Of course," said Gan Fall conversationally with a twinkle in his eye, "If you preferred being unwed, I certainly could let you sign another divorce document."

Conis and Wiper exchanged a look, and each remembered the conversation they had had, and how they had resolved not to remain together because they had to, but only because they wanted to. They smiled and looked back at Gan Fall.

"It really doesn't make a difference to us," said Conis, entwining the fingers of one hand with Wiper's while with her other arm she bounced her newborn son on her hip. "We'd stay together whether law dictated it or not. But there's really no need to sign another divorce document. Unfortunately, it seems that the gossips will have one less thing to complain about."

Gan Fall grinned at his own genius as he left. He wondered that he hadn't thought of this strategy five years ago.