E’lin was to go for a Bride.  She was perfect now, had been made perfect.  Her teeth were straight and white, her lips painted pink like the roses they’d put in her hair.  Then, of course, those roses had been gilded, like her hair; simply being combed to a high gloss and flawlessly arranged so that not a strand was out of place was not good enough, not for a Bride.  Head bowed, E’lin sat, eyebrows trimmed, and lashes lengthened, cheeks tinted, and lids lined and brushed with silvery color.  Everything had been done.  There was nothing left but to wait.  She was fourteen cycles old.

It was an honor, she’d been told, as though this were an original concept.  From the time that she was old enough to be aware of the Lords of Out-of-Plane, E’lin had accepted that this might be her fate.  After all, her eyes were blue, the hue of the skies of Old Earth, the shade of luck.  Yet still they continued their litany of thin comfort: any girl should feel proud to represent her home shelter, her sector, her world.  The shelter was all the world that E’lin knew, since she’d never been allowed beyond the boundary stations, but that was about to change radically.  Shortly, she was to go for a Bride.

Perhaps, they suggested to her, the eldresses and headmen of her shelter, she might succeed in winning the favor, or even the heart, of her Husband.  It was known to have happened before, and if the cases were rare, they were all the more cherished as bedtime stories for pretty, young girls.  Children who might be fortunate enough to be selected were supposedly mollified by the romantic tales.  E’lin had not felt particularly passionate about the prospect of impending Bridehood one way or the other, neither eager nor fearful.  It simply was the way that it was.  She was to have no choice in that just as she had never had any choice of vocation in her home shelter.  Would becoming a Bride be worse than Hostess training?  In her secret inner thoughts, E’lin privately believed that the two would very likely be quite similar, just on a galactically different scale.  However, the Lords of Out-of-Plane must not be offended by her suppositions, and they were famous for their ability to read minds, so she kept her reflections hidden.

Her gown was metallic white and lustrous, but it was also hot and uncomfortable, being long skirted and long sleeved.  E’lin had no real idea of when it would suit the Lord who was to be her Husband to arrive, when he might consider it convenient to come and claim her.  She might have to wait for days, but she was not to be given anything but a light fruit nectar to eat or drink.  It was tradition.  The teen was beginning to contemplate dark thoughts regarding the nature of tradition which she hoped were equally well protected from prying.  Therefore, she was completely shocked by the arrival of the man halfway through her first night of Vigil.  ‘This is a Lord of Out-of-Plane?’ she could not stop herself from thinking, and was immediately abashed and now, a bit afraid.  ‘If he’s over twenty cycles, I’ll eat my roses!’

He smiled, though the twitch of the lips did not reach his eyes.  “I recommend against it; the gold paint improves neither texture nor taste, I believe,” he said softly, for E’lin’s ears only.  As he performed the ritual greetings to the eldress and headman whose lot it had fallen to accompany the prepared Bride that night, she learned that his name was Kehrol ben Da’u Shaam.  His name, of course, would grow with his accomplishments among the Elite, his peers.  Apparently reassuring the two elderly folks of his status, he commented, “E’lin is my first Bride, as next span, in less than seven days (OE), I will be twenty cycles and must take a Wife Prime.”  Kehrol ben Da’u Shaam’s statement won appropriate degrees of awe, as a Wife Prime was a position of considerable power and influence, usually.  This would grant her the privilege of his full name:  E’lin ben Da’u Shaamzohe.  An ordinary Bride added to a Coterie would become Shaamzohe only.  The girl began to feel some reluctance, finally, for power and influence were, she suspected, tools that were quite beyond her skills or character to wield.

“My Lord Kehrol,” she whispered as he turned to meet her demurely lowered lashes.

“It will do for the moment,” he said, and took her hand to raise her to her feet.  Her own fingers had been scrubbed and creamed as soft as flower petals, but his were nearly as silken, though E’lin found surprising strength in them.  “You will come with me, now, E’lin.  The wedding will be held in the Chapel on my mother’s estate.  She is one of the lesser known, but by no means less powerful, Ladies of Out-of-Plane.”  The Bride attempted to both listen to every word spoken to her and move gracefully in her awkwardly long, sparkly gown, and found she could not truly excel at either.  Because Brides had been rejected due to inattentiveness or clumsiness, E’lin did genuinely try her best, but the dress defeated her and worries about her clothing drove half of what her new Husband was telling her out of her head.

“Soon we will come to where my private vessel is berthed.  I suspect that you will find a flight suit much easier to manage, my E’lin.”  The Lord’s use of the possessive with her name as much as the welcome suggestion of a change of garb caused E’lin to finally look up into his face.  Her initial impressions were now confirmed; his hair was thick and mildly curly and almost black, eyes a surprising amber, nose somewhat aquiline, lips generous but not so full as hers, well-defined cheekbones and jaw, sharp chin with a slight dent.  In skin tone he was moderate, not pale like E’lin, but not beyond tan.  And it was a nice, agreeable face, handsome even, but by no means remarkable except for his clean-shaven appearance, which would be unusual for a man his age at E’lin’s home shelter.  “Well, what do you think?  I’ve quite decided that I want you, although I could wish you were a little older.  However, I can wait for that.  What’s your opinion of me, so far?” the young Husband asked, meeting her eyes with a deliberately neutral expression in his own.

“My Lord Kehrol,” she murmured slightly louder this time, “I have barely had time… I mean, it would be presumptuous of me to…” and she hung her head in sincere distress and confusion.  What was wrong with this Lord of Out-of-Plane? Did he honestly require her to judge him?

“Please, E’lin, ‘My Lord’ if you must, and just ‘Kehrol’ if you can call me that.  Unless you cannot abide being my Wife at all, in which case, something will naturally be done to free you with your honor intact… I’ll find a way.”  Oddly enough, she trusted implicitly that he would be competent and willing to do what he had said.

Unable, at that instant, to think of any other staff to measure him by, E’lin answered him by confiding her faith in his abilities and truthfulness.  And, also, she added, “I never minded going for a Bride.  I imagine that it will have happy and sad or disturbing moments just like any other life… only perhaps grander ones.”

“Good.  Call me Kehrol, my E’lin.  But whether you can bring yourself to such familiarity quite yet or not, I will do my best to see that the delights outweigh the unhappiness.”

The flight suit was navy and snugged down to her skin in a disconcerting way, but it was certainly easier to maintain her poise while wearing it.  It consisted of clingy, long pants, a tight-fitting jacket, and soft booties.  Though E’lin fastened it all the way up, she still felt more on display than she had been in the metallic white gown, especially since Lord Kehrol ben Da’u Shaam insisted on helping his Bride remove the golden roses from her hair before attempting space flight.  His body was warm and close and capable, and the shy, modest girl from the northwest sector’s fifth shelter ought to feel alarmed, or at least discomfited, yet she did not.  Her Husband, despite his abrupt arrival, was rapidly becoming ‘just Kehrol’ to her, another fact of life.  Well, perhaps not ‘just’ Kehrol.  After all, he was her entire world at present, everything that was familiar to her.  E’lin let the fancily painted roses fall onto the pavement.

It was equally unexpected when Lord Kehrol slipped from his maroon tunic encrusted with braid into a flight suit himself and showed her toward the cockpit of the vehicle.  Apparently, the young Lord of Out-of-Plane elected to pilot his own craft, rather than lounge in the passenger cabin, whiling away the time until arrival.  This meant that they would probably be going where he could take her best, and without effort.  E’lin was unsure whether she was nervous due to the novelty of this form of travel or not.  Normal space flight was one thing.  It was taught and described in school, even though there was a 98% chance that none of the students, even among the potential Bride Candidates, would ever leave their home world of Otralto.  Journeying Out-of-Plane, however, was something else entirely, and the ability to enter this fourth or fifth dimension elevated those who had it to the status they now possessed.  Almost all of them had at least some psychic tendencies, in order to know how and when to maneuver to get beyond Plane, and these had become wider spread in their children, despite an effort to avoid excessive inbreeding.  Thus, their famed telepathy arose, among other things.

Lights from her planet’s surface changed color as they seemed to zip by outside the window screen.  Sometimes they passed by a settlement close enough that she could pick out zones, or even sectors, but mostly she took in the darkness while Lord Kehrol ben Da’u Shaam of Out-of-Plane flew.  “We’ll be leaving normal space shortly,” he warned her.  “Transition makes some people very dizzy the first time.  There is no shame in putting your head between your knees at need.”  Silently E’lin nodded.  “While theoretically you can reach beyond Plane from anywhere in normal space, it is easier from previously charted locations.  That was the reason for our short excursion tonight,” explained her Husband-to-be.

And then it happened.  Space seemed to bend itself over and fold in upon itself like an origami figure.  Thankfully this was not prolonged, and suddenly everything was flat again, well, slightly curved, actually, but normal space was not visible any longer.  All of the familiar references were gone.  Stars, planets, solar systems, even constellations had vanished and the domed sky glimmered shiny and blank like oil.  E’lin wasn’t sure she dared to look down, although the window screen could be tilted to show beneath her.  She closed her eyes and sat back decidedly in her couch.  “Alright, my E’lin?” Lord Kehrol asked her, solicitously.  The Bride shook her head, but not in denial, more to clear it instead.  He seemed to understand.  “All very new and strange, is it not?” her Husband empathized.  Possibly he had read her emotions.  E’lin didn’t even mind the prospect, at that moment.