The man was dressed well, Alliance Blues and sharp, polished shoes. Perhaps he was the one she was here to meet? He looked just as nervous as she did, though maybe not in quite as obvious a way. His gaze darting around the room every few minutes, landing on the clock for the briefest of moments before locking on the scene outside the courthouse once again. But he was so much older than she was! Wasn’t the service supposed to match you with someone close to your own age? His hair, though neatly kept, was entirely silver and his face showed the signs of years of stress under a difficult job. He had to be at least in his late 40′s. She groaned internally. If she was going to commit her life to someone, well at least for a few years, couldn’t they at least have gotten her someone she could fuck without worrying that they’d break a hip?
The flowers in her hands were beginning to wilt from her constant fidgeting and with each passing second, she found more reasons to not go through with it, so, taking a deep breath, she approached him. “Excuse me? I, um. You don’t happen to be here to get married, do you?”
Steven doesn’t hear the woman approach him, the blood pumping in his ears drowns everything out but the loudest of thoughts. However, when she begins speaking he looks up at her, frowning ever so slightly. She’s young, too young to be sitting here waiting for someone to marry. But what the hell does he know? Maybe that’s the way kids did it these days. After the war he could barely blame them. Even if he didn’t exactly agree with them.
Her question throws him off balance, and he stands there, staring at her for a few moments. “I… Yes. I’m here to be married.” He doesn’t add that it’s on the orders of the Defence Committee. It must be strange enough seeing an old man like himself standing in the room. “You wouldn’t happen to know where a…” He struggles to remember the name of the poor woman he’s marrying. ”Miss Jaya Lamba, is would you?”