After a morning of preparation - a morning in which she was exhausted from the day before and yet had hardly slept - the wedding had finally arrived. Tetenia had been half expecting His Supremacy to call it off somehow, to take her into concubinage, but there was - as yet - no sign of that.
Tetenia and her father, King Ulsan, arrived at the traditional temple near the castle grounds. The streets around it were decorated and onlookers milled around in streets nearby, hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal wedding. Or, perhaps, a glimpse of His Supremacy, Tetenia thought. The temple was called a 'traditional temple' to distinguish it from His Supremacy's temple, after all - and the latter was much larger and grander.
Tetenia and her father entered the temple's anteroom and saw her uncle, Lord Sarly, pacing nervously. The minute he saw them, he looked at them and said "His Supremacy has not arrived yet. There is no sign of Him."
Tetenia looked confused, and her father looked panicked. Had he offended His Supremacy somehow? He tried to treat His visit with as much pomp and circumstance as it deserved, but it couldn't totally eclipse his daughter's wedding - which He was, supposedly, visiting to attend. For a moment, he considered the possibility that he may not be king for much longer, or even that his heirs would be disinherited - Tetenia, Sarly and Daymon included.
"We should send someone to find out why," the king said.
"We have," Sarly replied.
"And?"
"Nothing. I sent Henneler" - his son - "to find out what was going on, but he has not returned yet."
"OK," the king calmed down a little. It would probably take Henneler some time to get back to the castle, get to His Supremacy's quarters, and find out what was happening. The wedding would have to start late, but oh well. "Has he been gone long? We can stay here and wait for him to come back."
"Long enough, I think. But we can wait a little while longer."
***
At that moment, Henneler was still kneeling next to one of His guards. He had arrived nearly twenty minutes earlier, and requested the privilege of an audience with His Supremacy, but the term servant who had gone to Him with the request had not returned. So Henneler continued to kneel.
Growing impatient, Henneler turned to the guard. "He is in there, right? He hasn't left, or gone anywhere else?"
"He is there."
Two more minutes, Henneler thought. Two minutes and I'm leaving and we'll figure this out. He was a little embarrassed - far be it from him to be annoyed with His Supremacy - but he kind of wanted to get this over with and get on with his cousin's wedding.
Just as Henneler was about to leave, the term servant who relayed his request to His Supremacy appeared and knelt beside him. "You may not enter His Sacred Presence," the term servant told Henneler.
"What? Why not?" This was, also, pretty unusual.
"I don't know. He didn't say."
"He didn't tell you? Did anyone?"
"He didn't. I requested permission to respond so I could ask Him, but He didn't grant me that, either." The term servant shrugged.
"But He's in there, right?"
"Yes, He's in there."
"Do you know if He still intends to go to Tetenia's wedding?"
"I don't. Sorry."
Henneler had run up against a brick wall, and he knew it. There was no way to force Him to explain Himself to anyone. The rules governing interacting with Him were rigid, and designed to reinforce that all the power in all interactions lay in His hands. Henneler shook his head, and left to go back to the wedding.
***
Tetenia, the king, and Sarly had been nervously sitting in the anteroom for over half an hour, when Henneler finally appeared.
The king looked at his nephew excitedly. "Is He coming? Do you know what's going on?"
"I don't know," Henneler said.
Tetenia was thinking about how His Supremacy's visit, and His Supremacy's attendance at the wedding, had seemed to occupy more of her father's thoughts than the wedding itself.
"What happened?"
"He wouldn't grant me an audience. I went there, knelt for awhile, turned around and came back. I asked the guards, the term servants, but they didn't know anything, either. He's still there. I don't know if He's coming or not."
"So, what should we do?" Lord Sarly piped up. The king looked around the room.
Tetenia, sitting quietly in a corner, nervous about the wedding, nervous about how she could possibly be married to Daymon after experiencing His Supremacy - and wondering why none of her relatives seemed to have any idea of the reason for her lateness at last night's dinner - spoke up. "Let's just go ahead and do it," she said. She stood up. "I can't do this any longer. Let's just do it." By "this," she meant a lot more than sit nervously in the anteroom, but they didn't know that. She was deciding to just go ahead with her future. She had been tied up in knots the past couple of days, and was sick and tired of it.
"But, darling, His Supremacy could..." King Ulsan trailed off. "Surely you know." He was concerned about their family's political future, and even their future in general.
"Yes, I know. But do you really think He cares that much about us? Do you think this wedding figures that prominently in His thinking?"
"He accepted the invitation. He didn't have to. He doesn't go to the weddings of every royal family in every Subject Kingdom."
"He couldn't even if he wanted to. I don't know why He accepted, and if He shows up we'll figure it out. But can we please just go ahead and do this?" Tetenia was a little annoyed at her father - and she thought it somehow appropriate that His Supremacy was affecting her wedding day without even being there.
"OK...OK." The king breathed deeply. "Let's do this."
Sarly and Henneler went to their seats. King Ulsan walked Tetenia down the aisle a few minutes later.
***
Tetenia kind of expected that His Supremacy would show up part-way through the wedding ceremony, make everyone bow down to Him and then take Her and make Her suck His cock or fuck her in the ass in front of all the wedding guests, in front of Daymon, in front of her parents, in front of the highest-born and most-accomplished people in Nordland, and then take her into concubinage on the Sacred Estate as the assembled crowd groveled before Him. She actually kind of wanted Him to do this. She fantasized about it as she was walking down the aisle, as she was looking into Daymon's eyes. But it didn't happen.
The ceremony came and went, and there was no sign of His Supremacy. She kissed Daymon and walked out past the crowd of guests. The couple was congratulated by a seemingly endless stream of people. There was no sign of Him anywhere - and it's not like He was known for blending in.
Daymon and Tetenia rode together back to the castle. Daymon held her hand and smiled, and Tetenia tried her hardest to reciprocate his seeming happiness, to even be happy herself. She was succeeding, kind of. Daymon was a good man, an accomplished man. It wasn't his fault he wasn't all-powerful.
Nordish weddings typically had a one-hour period in which the couple would go off and consummate (or even just relax together) after the ceremony, before re-joining the guests for a celebratory banquet. Upon arriving at the castle, Daymon and Tetenia set off for their hour together, in Tetenia's bedchambers. Tetenia was nervous, albeit not for the reason Daymon suspected.