Two families were gathered within a temple. Standing on a dais at the front of the temple, standing as the center of attention, were a man and a woman. Both of them were dressed immaculately, with the man wearing a crisp black suit that the displayed his broad shoulders and slim, and the woman wearing a flattering white dress that hid her face but showed off her figure.
Both the man and the women were young, both of them were beautiful, the super genetics that were so prevalent in the current age, in full display.
In the forward-most balcony seats, a pretty young woman with a haughty expression and bright blue hair, quirked her brow and clucked her tongue.
"Tch...Well, what do you know...The guy actually cleans up quite nicely once you get him to shave, and wear something that isn't a pair of sweat pants and an ironic t-shirt...What a waste..." said the wedding-goer.
"....." Another young woman who happened to be sitting across the aisle from the first young woman, frowned. Her gaze slightly miserable and dreary, as she watched the bride and groom.
Hearing the girl across from her's comment she couldn't help feeling a bit of annoyance. A feeling she gave vent to by flex her fingers and making the other young woman jump from a jolt that she'd mistake as ordinary static.
The groom gave his vow, and so did the bride. Then the Priest gave his blessing them in the name of Carita, the system's resident goddess of love.
Then the Priest said,
"Now in the name of our goddess Carita, who watches of over the love of the old and young...You may now kiss the bride."
At which point, Walder panicked just the littlest bit, because in all their discussions and negotiations, they hadn't really discussed what to do at this juncture.
Henri gave Walder's hand a squeeze while feigning a look of maidenly love. Then while blushing furiously and being thankful that his caramel colored skin was too dark for it to fully show, he leaned in and gave his new bride a kiss on the lips.
The kiss was soft, and tasted of butterscotch. The pliance of the woman's lips remind Walder of the fact that it'd been literal eons since he'd last been with a woman, and making him thankful that they'd both agreed to allow each other to discretely take extra-marital lovers if they so chose.
An allowance for open affairs would be inviting scandal and the censure of their families. An allowance for quiet affairs on the otherhand, was just them keeping their options open, since their marriage was just a means to an end, after all.
The kiss was over just as soon as it had started. The guests all stood and gave the bride and groom a standing ovation, as if they were actors in some bizarre play.
Then came time for the wedding reception where Walder and Henrika would play host to their family's, and both quietly wish that they'd thought to stock a slightly stronger liquor so that even people with enhanced physiques like them could get drunk.
They'd have their first dance during which Walder would reveal that he had not one, not two, but three left feet...Then the young couple would feed each other cake. After all the after wedding rituals were complete the guests would see the young couple set off in their hovering limosuine.
Then the night would end with a young man and young woman sitting alone together in the expansive bed of an expensive hotel room. The tv would blare softly in the background, with a chipper woman talking animatedly about some device whose only purpose was boiling the perfect egg.
Walder got up, headed to the bathroom, and then came back with a straight-razor.
"So want to get this over with, so we can both sleep or do you want to wait till later." said Walder.
Henri startled, emerging from her ruminations to see the tall man looming over her with the gleaming blade in his hand. Despite being a stalwart young woman she couldn't help shuddering as she looked into the man's eyes and took in his form.
Henri couldn't help wondering exactly what kind of medicine the Cerveny family was taking for them to be able to mistake him for ordinary riff-raff.
Right now, looking at him standing before her in his pjs, he looked more fearsome and imposing then a sawtooth wielding dreadknight in full armor. Violence and death oozed out of every sharp angle on his body.
She could sooner mistake a tiger for an ordinary kitten, then she could mistake the man for someone ordinary, yet here they were married to together as a trash couple. Discarded as a pair, and married as a mere gesture of good faith for their two families.
"What's the razor for?" asked a wary Henrika.
"The old women will be visiting in the morning to say hi and see if we did the thing married couples are supposed to do….I figured we could stage ahead of time and forget about it." said Walder.
It took Henri a full minute for the thousand and one thoughts that had been going on in her head to quiet down and make way for a new thought. She slowly caught up to the words coming out of her husband's mouth and as she did her pale visage turned bright red.
"Uh…."
This was yet another thing that the young couple hadn't thought of, or discussed. Or rather, Henri "had" thought of it, but then she'd been so mortified and embarrassed she'd completely forgotten erasing the throught from her head for a solid six months, until right now where she found herself being reminded again.
As antiquated as it might sound, the noble clans and hero clans still kept up the tradtion of confirming a marriage's consumation. They'd quietly, they'd do slyly, but the confirmation would be done. Usually in the tried and true method of making sure that certain stains were left on the sheet.
Never mind that decent sex really shouldn't leave either partner bleeding, if done gently enough...The clans still stuck with the old ways and this was how things were done.
Henri fell silent.
An impatient and equally uncomfortable Walder tried for a joke.
"Look I know blades aren't fun it's either that or the real thing…"
It wasn't a very funny joke. It was just noise to fill the awkward silence. If someone could ask either him or Henrika from just a few minutes ago, neither would have expected her to respond with,
"Nh...Maybe, that uh...maybe that wouldn't be the worst idea." said Henri. Regreting the words as the slipped out during the unguarded moment.
This was followed by yet more dead silence and a dead pan,
"....What?"
"I..uh...it's nothing..If you don't want to its no big deal...I just figured we're here, and we're here...and we're here and basically this was always going to happen at some point so…." A furiously blushing Henri spewed, slightly incomprehensible words as she tried to explain herself.
In Henri's mind she was always going to end up here one day. Male or female, being a child born within a hero clan meant being born with equal parts privilege and obligation. On one hand you have resources and wealth, on the other hand you except that the clan will be the one's deciding your future for you.
The clan decided what you went to school for, the clan decided what jobs you took, the clan decided who you married.
Even if she'd been able to hold on to her first-daughter role, for the sake of making the cost of raising her worth it to the family she would have eventually found herself either marrying or being married off. No matter what she did she would have found herself sitting in bed with a stranger.
It was something that she'd made a certain amount of peace with, or rather knowing that the family would take care of finding a mate for her, had actually freed the socially awkward girl from having to learn how to talk to people in non-official occassions.
In Henri's mind there was no need to learn how to talk to boys when the family was always going to either build a harem for her, or marry her off into some family.
Thus for Henri, finding herself sitting next to a man who wasn't too bad as a person( at least as far as she'd seen during the engagement period), and didn't look or smell too awful, she was actually within the baseline circumstances underwhich she'd expected to eventually end up losing her virginity.
She'd never expected to know, or even particularly like the person she would spend the rest of her life with. Nevermind any talk of love or strong physical attraction.
Now here she was, with a man that she could roughly consider a friend and co-conspirator. A man who shared her interest and seemed to get her as an individual. A man that she didn't mind admitting had looks that were far from repellant, despite his somewhat disquieting air.
What she was currently feeling wasn't love, but there "was" a quiet attraction and a building desire born from certain feelings that till now had only been explored through videogames with dating sim elements in them, certain kinds of online videos, and one not-so-brief fling with a close female friend during her time in boarding school.
These feelings, plus a sense that 'something' should happen on a wedding night beyond sleeping led to Henri's minor slip.
Naturally, she almost immediately tried to backpedal, but the words that came out either didn't make sense, or they were spoken far too softly for the man standing across from her to hear them.
Eventually she managed to spit out a, closed-eyed, red-faced,
"F-, forget it!...Forget I said anything."
However, just as she was saying that, an equally red-faced and completely taken aback Walder said,
"Er...Okay. If you want to….If you uh...don't mind it being uh...me."
His words lead to a moment of akwardness and indecision, which was only broken when Walder sat down on the bed beside Henri, and in a voice barely above a whisper, asked if she'd like him to start now.
Henri responded by nodding and giving the man a muted yes, her eyes looking everywhere except at the man, because at this point it felt like her head was going to explode because appearently embarrassment was four times more volatile than dynamite.
The lights went dim, the room went dark, and what followed next would be known only to the couple.