On the Morning of a Tribal Marriage

The Moira bullying continued the next morning.

“That’s right, that’s how a girl with such a naughty ‘armour’ should start her day.” The first empress of Fusion had truly mastered the art of mixing mockery and seductive awe.

“You were the one… that insisted… I should get… a bodysuit…!” Moira’s response was interrupted by the repeated kisses she delivered to her side of his cock. On the other side, Hailey hummed, too occupied with the task to weigh into the conversation.

“And now I’m teasing ya for it.” The Foremost Voice of the Imperial Choir smugly sat on her rightful throne. Every roll of her hips moved her pussy along John’s tongue. It was only right for an emperor to eat out his empress first thing in the morning.

It didn’t take long for him to cum. There must have been something in the air, for Moira to choose that she wanted his cum all over her face. She and Hailey ended up covered in the absurd abundance of his seed. They enjoyed the look for a little bit, before a rudimentary tongue-wash initiated the harem-wide move to the bathrooms – first for the calls of nature, then over to the much larger cleaning facilities to prepare themselves for the day.

There was one missing member of the harem. Nahoa was nowhere to be seen. She had announced this in the days prior, so there was no need to be worried. She was simply making sure all of the arrangements were exactly as she wanted them. She also was building a bit of anticipation for both of them by being unavailable for a day.

Which, even by John’s standard, did not really qualify as a period of abstinence, but it worked all the same. Knowing that there was something he had to be patient for was in and of itself half of what built the anticipation.

It was the lesser of two anticipations. Today would be his third wedding in less than a month and he was still getting all giggly and nervous. After the love of his life, the maid of his dreams, the prettiest little psycho, and the dragon goddess, he would be wed to the Aztec demigoddess.

Glory! Glory was this life of his!

Breakfast had been eaten. The maids were cooperatively clearing the table of the plates and foodstuffs. What hadn’t been eaten would either be kept for tomorrow or used for something else. Many a use could be found for scrambled eggs and cold bacon.

“How do y’all-“ Jane started.

“Y’all? Sug’r, that’s mine,” Hailey interrupted.

“Shaddup.” The feline Lightbearer gently kicked her sister in slurring words beneath the table, then continued, “How do y’all feel, by the way?”

“L-like in general…?” Gnome wondered.

“I believe,” Nightingale spoke up, “that our matriarch wonders if any of us are experiencing any misgivings about changing statuses inside the harem.”

Salamander tilted her head in confusion. “Why? Because some of us got wifed up?” Heterochromic eyes swept across the table. “We all knew that it was going to happen.”

“Yeah, sure, but knowing and it then actually happening are different,” Jane retorted. “Just wanna make sure nobody feels excluded in any way? Anyone changed their mind about wanting a marriage after all?” The first of the harem checked out each of them, paying particular attention to the few who had expressed little care about the rituals.

Salamander shrugged, as did Delicia. Nia gently shook her head, signalling that she still did not care one way or another. Undine was the same. “Eh,” Metra gave her lack of care a sound. “I’ll just attach myself to Ehtra, as planned.”

The rest of the harem, all of which did want a marriage ceremony in one form or another, remained quiet. Nobody had missed that Jane and Aclysia had been especially close since their dual wedding, but that was a change from a 9 to a 10 on the proximity scale. It didn’t really change anything in their daily lives. Though John did confess that in the days after the weddings he had paid extra attention to the women who he had put a ring on, he had retained the effort to spread his love appropriately among his women.

The ritual had changed everything and nothing, as it so often was in breakthroughs of love. Everyone knew they would get their turn eventually. As long as John did not push that ‘eventually’ out too far, he was certain there would be no problems. If any problems did surface, he was also certain to deal with them.

“Alrighty, just wanted to make sure.” Jane raised her cup of cool soda to her lips and took a sip.

“A proper showing as matriarch,” Nightingale supported.

“Yeah, you go, girl!” Sylph chirped. “Being all caring and stuff, knowing when to investigate and such!”

“Now that we are penetrating into that topic,” Siena cooed. “How about you tell everyone about the resolution we came to over tea?”

Sylph had a rare moment of freezing up. Her raised hand dropped to her lap. Amber eyes dashed around. Uncertainty was an uncomfortable expression to see on Sylph’s face. It was like seeing a turtle in the desert or a fly at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It did not belong there. “Soooo, us girlies had a talk between girls and then we went to talk to Stirwin, making it a not-girl-talk but I kind of needed someone wise and such to talk to and all that…”

The statement was made a little funny by the fact that said wise crocodile was currently in the form of a hatchling. He sat on the table, eyes vacant of higher thought, entirely focused on a scrap of bacon that Scarlett dangled just out of reach.

“…and I kind of, sort of, maybe found a little bit of an answer to my ‘you are just another Sylph’ mental problem of being, well, just another Sylph.” The arcvolt elemental shifted in her seat, bunny ears flopping this way and then that way. “And I think… it’s not as much that I mind being a true daughter of the wind, it’s that I don’t like that this just makes me… exchangeable.”

“You are not-“ John started, only to stop immediately when Momo pinched his thigh.

“Sometimes, you have to let someone pour their heart out without reassuring them at every opportunity,” the sassy support chastised her Master. “Go on, Sylph. We’re listening to whatever you want to say.”

“Thanks, Momo.” The petite bunny lady’s sad expression really tested John’s ability to sit still. How he loathed internal conflicts. They were a battlefield where he could offer so little aid. “So… I believe… I can accept that I am just… Sylph.” She put a hand on her chest, mustering a weak smile. “Even if I have been just what was expected of an air elemental so far, elevated because of who I am with more than my own efforts…”

‘That’s just not true though!’ John yelled inside his mind. His mind raced over the numerous times that Sylph had proven herself to be exceptional. The jump from Tier 1 to Tier 3, the many fights that she had decided, her readiness to sacrifice her fragile body no matter how much it would hurt her. His Sylph had carried a multiplicity of her weight over and over and over again.

“…and I don’t think I can fundamentally change what or who I am… and I don’t really want to. A big reason why I never even, not even a little bit, realized that I was this… standard was that I was happy with being standard. I am glad to be sunshine and rainbows and cotton candy munching and all of that. But… but…” Sylph stopped her fidgeting. “I am just too important and powerful now to be just one of the air elementals. That just is not good enough for me anymore, so I think… I want to angle to become not A Sylph but THE Sylph. When people think of air elementals, I want them to think of me, not because I embody what everyone thinks of but because I am the example that others want to follow.”

Ehtra gave that a strong nod. “Admirable.”

Equally dutiful, Moira voiced her own agreement, “Those blessed with fortitude and opportunity should wield their influence for a better tomorrow for all.”

“Y-yeah… so that’s what we resolved.” Taking a page out of Gnome’s book, the volt bunny put her two index fingers together and shyly wiggled them up and down. “W-w-what do you… think?”

“I’ll give it to you straight, Sylph,” Metra spoke up. “I have no clue why you’re being so bashful about a completely normal and reasonable path forward.”

Salamander slammed the tabletop with her palm. “THANK YOU!” she shouted.

“Do not threaten the integrity of our dinner table,” Aclysia remarked.

The red-skinned tomboy settled back down, her tail smacking the ground. “It’s just what I said as well. She’s way too embarrassed about a basic thing.”

“Yeah, well, I do not have problems like this normally, Sally! I don’t usually do stupid, emotional things, Sally! I do not invite Lorylim into me just to see if I could resist them, Sally!”

“True, bull, fair,” the fire spirit answered the chain of accusations swiftly. “Still though, just relax. It’s a good goal. No need to be self-conscious about it.”

The sentiment was echoed all around the table. Sylph accepted the love she was given with another grumble. Whatever they could do to support her in this goal, they would. If she changed her mind, they would advise her and support her in that too.

Love in the harem wasn’t entirely unconditional. They all knew what they were about. They loved each other for being beautiful, for being good people, for being successful, for being anchors and for complimenting each other’s lifestyles in ways that made them all more complete. The love wasn’t unconditional, but it ran deep, very deep, and it would take a great amount of missteps for one of their own to get anything besides the utmost support they could give.

This harem ran on realism, care and elbow grease.

With that morning announcement out of the way, it was time to get moving. The harem wandered back to the bedroom, to pick their dresses for the occasion – or, rather, have their dresses picked for them.

Lorelei had advanced further into her role as the harem’s tailor over time. Organically, haremettes had asked her for recommendations on what to wear for certain events. This had spread, and one inter-harem meeting later, an agreement had been made that, at least for big events, Lorelei would be the decision maker when it came to coordinated dressing.

And the coordinated theme for the tribal wedding was… very revealing.

It was to little surprise. To begin with, the Aztecs had lived in a warm climate. Not quite so hot that they usually went borderline nude, but certainly warm enough that they preferred lofty clothes. However, as per Nahoa, there had been an expectation of showing more skin as one went higher in power.

According to the Abyssal Aztec religion (which was undergoing reform, but not extinction), there were two heavens and thirteen hells. The first heaven was where the new gods awaited their birth, a representation of the leylines in effect. The second heaven was where the Illusion Barriers were located, so the Abyss and Gaia’s domain at large. The thirteen hells held the old gods, which were considered degrees of dead.

It was a fascinating little cosmology which John did not believe a word of. He was informed enough about it because Nahoa still held onto much of it, for cultural reasons at a minimum. Him not thinking any of it was correct did not mean that he was going to insult what his woman had grown up in.

Due to this belief that the mundane was between two heavens and thirteen hells, those that had deeper connection to the second heaven were considered purer of form. Thus, it was not just socially acceptable but indeed expected of them to ultimately wear less. There, too, was some sense to it. As Abyssals rose in power, they typically got more beautiful. Even when they did not, they definitely had less of a need for clothing. Since their bodies quite literally were living idols to the Aztec faith, showing a lot of skin was to show those around divine favour.

Since they had been the ones to slay the surviving sin, the god of gluttony, to say that John and his harem were considered ‘divine’ could potentially be an understatement. At a minimum, the Aztecs were currently looking at John and Nahoa like the Egyptians had looked at their pharaohs.

All of that was to say that the clothes presented to them could scarcely be described as such. A twisted cloth made for the belt from which the thinnest of strips dangled, barely even enough to hide a woman’s sex when beheld straight-on. For the chest, there was no attempt made at even covering the breasts. Instead, a red string connected to loops worn on the upper arms created a decorative underline.

The only bit of modesty the outfits offered came in the form of the highly decorated cloaks. Each sported two feathers of the serpent that he and Nahoa had hunted. They were lesser feathers, much smaller and less vibrant than the ones used in the creation of Nahoa’s crown. The cloaks themselves were made for each individual, dyed in the dominant colours that were also found in each harem member’s lodge in the imperial throne room.

Beatrice picked up her white-black-blue cloak and turned it around. “Statement: we really need to get house crests.”

“That is your commentary upon this indecency?” Moira asked, blushing at the mere suggestion that she was to wear these clothes. “Lorelei, do you truly believe we should display ourselves in such wild and pagan a manner?”

“There will be no cameras nor outside observers, honoured Warden,” Lorelei assured. “I believe it will be easier to draw these lost souls to the Lady’s light if we show respect to their agreeable customs.”

“Strutting around practically naked is agreeable?”

“They do it in respect to those who have been greatly blessed by the Lady.”

A theologically sound argument, especially with an angle of syncretism.

Moira picked up her own cloak, then looked at herself. As per usual, she wore her red lingerie. With its excuse for a bra and the wispy thin, red overhang that covered her midriff, her highly sexualized clothes covered more than what she was holding. “These days are just full of exhibitionism,” she muttered, considered her options, then let out a long sigh.

There was one addition to the outfits that John had not really acknowledged so far: gold, and lots of it. Torcs, necklaces, loops for arms and shins, even ear caps. By the end of it all, his women truly donned the tribal look. Though some of them were entirely too European in their descent to quite appear natural in that kind of garb, all of them looked fantastic in it.

As for John, well, his outfit was even more revealing than that of the others. Effectively, he was given golden rings for his arms and legs and that was it. Charitably, he was also given a great cloak, but he knew enough about the rituals of the day to realize he wasn’t going to wear it for long.

“It’s not every day we are allowed to be this tribal.” John smirked as he pushed the last of the metal rings over his wrist. “Let’s enjoy it.”