Okay, so somebody on Tumblr brought up the "best three words" in fanfiction, what are arranged marriage AU (Is AU considered a word? Is it two words? Idk) and so I've decided that in addition to all my other stories, I am going to write this one. Be patient with me, though, as I already have a few other projects in progress. I promised myself that I wouldn't add any more, but oh well. Enjoy!
Arranged
Prologue
Katherine Houghton Beckett grew up in a society without love. Well, okay, that's not exactly true. There is in fact such a thing as love. Like how a mother loves her child like no other in the world and how a child might love their favorite stuffed animal, which keeps them protected while they sleep. Or in the way two children might love each other like best friends, never to grow too old or too distant from each other. And, yes, there is the romantic love. Kate's seen it before; watching secret lovers share glances as they walk past each other on the street, brushing hands and giving each other soft, discreet smiles. Her own parents share such glimpses from time to time and she imagines that they might be…but then it's gone and she is back to believing it's all just a myth; something her mind made up. Real love does not exist.
Katherine—or Kate, as she is called—grew up in a society where love is only felt by family and friends, but never by a man and a woman—or a man and a man; a woman and a woman—towards one another. Romantic love is a thing in the past; it does not exist anymore.
Oh, but it used to. In the books Kate has read, ones written hundreds of years ago by authors long gone now, love was a very real thing. You fell in love with somebody either from your first glance or gradually, feeling a range of emotions flurry around inside your stomach and your heart, your thoughts consumed by only them, and vice versa. Falling in love was once the most magical feeling in the world.
Unless, of course, your fell in love alone. There were too many instances over the next hundred or so years in which one man or woman would fall head over heels for another man or woman and spend all their life in agony and heartache over them. And these instances became more and more common, where couples would no longer fall in love with each other, but with others who did not reciprocate their love and so; quite literally, humanity came to a screeching halt.
It was at this point that the powers that be decided to put an end to all the love nonsense. It was decreed, first in Europe, that love would no longer determine who one was meant to spend the rest of their lives with, that this emotion was too versatile to risk humanity ending and that spouses would be chosen in the old-fashioned way; Arranged Marriages.
The idea was thought to be ridiculous, at first, but after seeing the way the Europeans thrived on this new plan year after year, the rest of the world finally began to catch up. Of course, there were countries in which Arranged Marriage was already a traditional and used tactic, but the countries that followed it began to change the tradition, shaping and molding it to fit their societal constructs.
Now, today, on Kate's eighteenth birthday, she will meet the man whom her society and parents have chosen for her to marry. She will meet the man they chose eighteen years ago for her and Kate prays that he will be a good fit. And she hopes that he will inspire her the same sense of romantic love that she's read about in her books, the love that she sometimes thinks is a myth, but then, sometimes, she doesn't.
She prays for just a touch of magic in their meeting.
So, what do you think? Let me know in your REVIEWS!