by Gwen Perkins
“No you’re not, Bard,” Andraste shot back. “I wonder if it’s too late for me to come down with a sudden sickness. Maybe Irethel will take pity on me.”
“Now what fun is that?” Radiance asked. “I’ll only enjoy myself if you go. Besides, who will I talk to if you aren’t there?”
“The Prince of Oceania, I guess.”
Radiance blushed. “There was nothing between us.”
“Mm… hm. Your sister said differently; she was very disapproving about the whole thing. She says you’re too young.” Radiance punched the elf in the shoulder, and Andraste hissed. “Ow! That one hurt, Bard! I took the end of a spear shaft there yesterday!”
The elf smirked. “It serves you right, Lady.”
Radiance laughed as Andraste rubbed her shoulder. “Well, do you want to go to the library and wait?”
“You’re just trying to avoid Ebhlin,” Radiance said.
“Lady!” someone interrupted.
“Oh Guardians,” Andraste muttered as another elf approached them.
“Hello, Seamstress!” Radiance exclaimed.
Andraste glowered at the elf before turning her attention back to the tailor, Ebhlin, who nodded. “Guardians, Lady! Queen Xandrina has requested you begin getting ready.”
“Do we really have to get dressed already?” Andraste asked.
“Well,” Ebhlin replied, “she wants you to look very nice tonight, and she’s getting me to make your hair look nice, too.”
“What?” Andraste asked.
Ebhlin nodded. “Have you ever done someone’s hair before?” Andraste asked. “Isn’t that usually what Grace does?”
“Yes, she did Brilliance’s hair one year,” Radiance said, “and it looked simply amazing!”
“Yes, yes; now come on! I need to get you your dresses!”
The elves followed Ebhlin, and Andraste sighed at Radiance’s excited mood. She practically bounced as she waited. “Here we are,” Ebhlin said, opening a chest when they finally arrived in the sewing room. “Andraste, yours is scarlet; Radiance, yours is blue.”
“It’s beautiful!” Radiance proclaimed, smiling brightly. “Yours is, too, Andraste! It’ll look wonderful with your lavender eyes.”
Andraste nodded dully. “It will look wonderful if I can get in it! This skirt is impossible!”
“Oh, Lady, you’ll be fine,” Ebhlin said, narrowing her blue eyes at the younger elf. “It’s a new style I’ve been modifying. I hear everyone dresses like that in western Nymphia, and it is supposed to impress the Lord and Lady of the Haerans.”
“Fabulous,” Andraste muttered.
“Now go, go! You need to get dressed quickly!”
Ebhlin ushered the elves out into the hallway, and Andraste and Radiance walked back to their rooms. “I’ll see you at sunset!” Radiance exclaimed, holding her dress tightly against her chest, as if it would simply vanish at any moment. “You’ll meet me out here, right?”
“Sure,” Andraste replied.
The bard gave the princess a quick one-armed hug before rushing into her room. “Radiance, you’re my best friend,” Andraste muttered, “but sometimes I just want to kill you.”
***
She sighed. I just knew there would be a huge skirt involved. I knew it.
Andraste finally managed to pull the dress on and lace up the front. Then, someone knocked on her door, and Andraste groaned. “Who is it?”
“It’s Ebhlin!”
“Come in then!”
When the elf entered the room, Andraste rolled her eyes. “Who in their right mind designed this dress? I feel like I’m drowning in fabric from my waist down!”
“Well, I don’t know,” Ebhlin said, “but everyone in western Nymphia is dressing like that now. Besides, I heard from Queen Xandrina we are having some guests tonight- and not the usual ones. Apparently, the king and queen of Firelapsia are coming.”
“So?” Andraste asked.
Ebhlin sighed and began unlacing and then lacing the front of the dress, so it looked better. “You should be nice. Firelapsia is a very powerful nation. Their human prince is also currently looking for a mate. He’s only a few years older than you-”
“That’s tight!” Andraste interrupted.
Ebhlin ignored her and continued. “So this could be a good opportunity for you. Sit!”
Andraste sat, feeling a little uncomfortable, and Ebhlin began unbraiding her hair. “Are you going to do mine like Xandrina’s is?” Andraste asked, thinking that if she was going to this party, she might as well look her best.
“No, your hair is just far too short. You ought to let it grow out some. Oh, I know, I know. You say it interferes with fighting. But it’s just so short.”
“It’s not too short. It stops just below my shoulder blades.”
“Radiance has waist-length hair.”
“Well, that’s Radiance. Do you have that pin the traders brought? The one with the rubies in it?”
“I do, and we’ll get to that later. I didn’t have this problem with Radiance.”
“Well, who else is coming?” Andraste asked, hoping to distract Ebhlin from complaining about her hair.
“Oh, yes, well, I’ve heard the Duke’s son - from the southern Corveantes of Nymphia- is coming, too. He is a good sort, they say, but I do not know if he is coming or not; it’s just a rumor. That might be something you want to look into, you know.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, I think it’d be a splendid match! Guardians, girl, don’t you ever brush this hair?”
“I don’t think any of the warriors care how great my hair looks; and I do, actually.”
“Well, you need to maintain a good image. Who cares what the common warriors think! Royalty look at things like this, dear, and the royalty are the ones that matter! I just wish you cared more about this! I feel like you don’t.”
Andraste sighed as Ebhlin pulled back sharply on her hair. The elf fiddled with a golden swirl embroidered on her dress. She had to give Ebhlin that; she could embroider with the best of them. Her tapestries were hanging on at least half a dozen walls in the palace, and they were usually what guests first noticed about the palace. “Hm. Embroidery is a lovely skill for a young lady to have,” Ebhlin remarked, looking briefly over Andraste’s shoulder.
“What did they say at the war council this morning?” Andraste asked suddenly.
“Not much,” Ebhlin sighed. “Of course, there’s not much to say anymore. This winter will make five hundred years of war. The Sharae match us in numbers and strength presently. Queen Xandrina expects they’ll launch another campaign this spring… but you shouldn’t worry about that tonight!”
Andraste winced as Ebhlin pulled back a strand of her hair. “Now we’re almost done. Just don’t move! I’m going to get something to pin this last part of your hair up; I have an idea. I think this will work…”
Andraste listened to the elf rummaging through something behind her, and, against Ebhlin’s instructions not to move, the elf looked around at her reflection in a mirror. She leaned her head to one side and turned back around. She leaned her head to another side and smiled. It is a nice dress. I really wouldn’t mind wearing it if it weren’t for this blasted skirt. It’s so hard to walk. I’m not even sure I can sit in this- not in a chair, anyway; it’s so big!
The elf glanced down at her left hand, tracing a scar across her palm with her right. “Aw, this is perfect!” Ebhlin said. “You look … ravishing!”
Andraste stood and looked in the looking glass once more. I’m not as pretty as Radiance. She may have that one eye, but she’s beautiful. Brilliance is, too. I suppose I look fair enough, although it’s hard not to look nice in this. It is a nice color on me. Heh, I could hide a horse under this skirt, though.
“What are you thinking?” Ebhlin asked, interrupting her musings.
“I was thinking… I actually look kind of pretty,” Andraste admitted, not daring to repeat her thoughts about the horse. Ebhlin wouldn’t
take that kindly at all.
“You should. Your mother was gorgeous, and your father was fair enough himself. Although, your mother was much more ladylike,” the elf said with some disapproval. “Still, your parents were fair enough, and so are you. You should think you’re pretty because you are.”
Ebhlin opened the door and Andraste stepped outside. A few moments later, Radiance joined her, her red hair gathered on her head, with a section of bangs covering her bad eye. Ironically, Andraste thought Radiance looked more like a princess than she, herself, did. The first Warrior Queen was said to have thick, red hair that went to her waist, and Radiance definitely had that. Radiance may have one blind eye, but the eye not hidden by her hair was a warm, brown-green, the color of the forest between summer and autumn. “Andraste, you look so beautiful!” Radiance exclaimed, in her high, very friendly voice.
“And you think you don’t look beautiful?” Andraste asked.
“Of course I’m beautiful!” Radiance laughed. “Except for my eye… but I think I covered it well enough.”
“You look fine.”
“Well, come on!” Radiance said, linking arms with Andraste. “It’s almost evening! There’s such a lovely sunset outside.”
The elves walked outside into the palace gardens. The grass sparkled from ground up mica that glittered in the grass. The entire place sparkled, giving the gardens a magical atmosphere. Columns wrapped in blue and silver matched the imported silk linens spread over the tables, and the trees sparkled from the colored glass orbs suspended from their branches. A fire was burning in a clearing on the courtyard, and elves began stacking wood near it. The carnations and roses in the gardens glowed and sparkled in all different colors like a miniature rainbow on the ground.
Andraste was astonished. “How did she do all this without magic?” Andraste whispered in her awe.
“Is it glass?” Radiance asked.
“No, it’s like the flower just… sparkles,” Andraste said, stroking a rose petal. “It doesn’t even feel different.”
“Queen Xandrina went all out for this party,” Radiance muttered. “This place looks beautiful…beyond beautiful! I suppose she hired some magicians to work on it, but it’s just…gorgeous! It’s…unbelievable!”
“It… really does. It looks magical.”
Radiance pulled Andraste aside as more people entered the garden. “Look what she did to the gates!”
Andraste turned her attention to the gates of the garden. Normally wrought iron, the slender bars of the gate looked like they were made of something close to pearl.
“There are so many people here!” Radiance exclaimed.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Andraste said sarcastically, turning her attention back to the garden, trying to take in everything at once.
“Well, I’m going back into the palace until it gets darker. That’s when the party really starts. Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” replied Andraste.
“Yes!” Radiance exclaimed. “I have this necklace I meant to put on, but I forgot it in my room.”
“Wonderful.” Andraste sighed and following her friend, thinking of all the people that were coming. It’s going to be a long night.
Bridgeworld by Travis McBee
Prologue
On a day like many others, born into the world with skies of morose gray and docile temperature, two people were preparing to act on the biggest decision either would ever make. Those two people were a pair of newlyweds, Barbara and Steven Haynes, who had a desire to move, and not a short move by any stretch of the imagination. Their families had tried to convince them to reconsider, Barbara’s mother going so far as to cry at her feet the previous day, but their decisions had been made and they were indeed moving from the only home they had ever known. They had chosen a place most people they knew laughed at. Words like ‘Alien’ and ‘Backwards’ were often used to describe it. The proper name for that place was much kinder: Earth.
You see, if there was only one fact that would be important to know about the Haynes, it would be that they weren’t Earthlings. Barbara and Steven had grown up on the small planet of Broglio. It was a dull, dreary place that had the color variety of a box of sawdust. The soil was dusty and devoid of the tiniest hope of vegetation, and the sky managed to be insolently gray, even if the large red sun was shining bright enough to blind anyone who dared to glance away from the powdery soil. The man-made artifices lacked any spice of character as well, each one, while monolithic, seemed to be terrified to venture away from the comfortable brown color which every surface was made of. It was a world that Barbara in particular thought would be inhumanly possible to love, or even stand. Oh, yes don’t be mistaken, while the Haynes were definitely not from Earth, they were in every way shape and form, human.
Steven would not look out of place on Earth; he was a tall man with intelligent green eyes. His hair sat in tight black curls on his head and, even though he claimed to never fix it, there was never so much as a single strand out of place. He did not have an athlete’s body, yet his trim figure hinted at the exuberant energy that lay quietly below the surface of his pale skin. The ink on his professional certification in medicine was still wet, and he was genuinely interested in saving lives and found himself disinterested in the glory that becomes associated with doctors, no matter what planet they call home.
If Steven had had a custom made bride fabricated, Barbara would have been it. She was adorably short with a curtain of blond hair that tickled her shoulders when she laughed, and her eyes were breathtakingly blue. Those eyes, which instantly drew attention from new acquaintances, didn’t just sit idly on her face; instead they sparkled like a sea of diamonds and radiated joy when her warm laughter filled a room. Her skin was soaked brown from the ancient sun that beat Broglio relentlessly, but instead of looking like dried leather, her skin seemed vivid amongst the monotony of the planet.
So the day had come for this wonderful young couple, fresh from their teens, to set out on an intergalactic expedition. They met their families at the local space port and kissed them farewell as they hefted their bags onto one of the hovercarts that could be rented with a casual wave of a card and a single Pom disappearing from their account. The belongings that they piled onto the small platform were remarkably inconsiderable in number even though they were everything that the Haynes had acquired during their two decades of life. They pushed this sparse collection of belongings through the spaceport and through gate fifteen.
An elderly man dressed in a crisp uniform welcomed them aboard while directing several teenage boys to put the Haynes’s luggage in the cargo hold. A startling beautiful girl awaited them inside the ship and showed them to their seats. As they settled into the gray, overstuffed seats Steven returned the broad smile of the stewardess and earned a hard pinch on his side from Barbara. He laughed aloud at her sudden display of jealousy and returned the pinch with a flurry of playful tickling and in less than a minute they both dissolved into hysterical laughter that bemused the seven other people that shared the craft with them.
The emotions radiating from the Haynes were as hard to read as a textbook on Quantum Mechanics written in ancient Greek. Fear, excitement, sorrow, joy, and uncertainty fought viciously for dominance inside of both of them. They were leaving the only home they had ever known, yet it was a home they both despised. For them it would be analogous to a terrible tooth ache, when all you want is for the pain to stop but once it does you find your tongue probing, almost longingly, for the aching tooth out of habit.
The wait for takeoff was brief and within ten minutes of their boarding the doors to the ship slid smoothly closed sealing them off from Broglio for the last time. The ship they were in was one of the largest available. It was capable of seating several hundred people comfortably but on that day it had less than three dozen occupants. Earth was not a place Broglians often voyaged to, and those who went seldom intended to live there. On that day the Haynes had become what they had intended, unique.
He would have become lost in a dark maze of paradoxical brooding if Barbara hadn’t chosen that moment to lay her head on his shoulder and whisper softly into the crisp air of the shuttle,
“Off we go, for better or for worse, but we will always have each other.”
He turned his head and stared into those wondrously blue eyes. “Yes my dear, yes we will.”
His thoughts changed course to more relevant questions that had meandered into his mind. One of the thoughts decided to mine his brain for attention behind his right eye and his left hand rose automatically to try and soothe the budding headache that he feared would follow. The pain increased as well it should; after all it was a very important point, one which should not have been overlooked as it had.
How exactly were they supposed to pass as Earthlings?
* * *
It was a dark, quiet night, and once again Jacob Kenderson found himself sitting at his station. He hated his job with a passion. His detestable duty was to handle night shift in the control tower at the little airport that was situated outside of Pleasant Valley, Alabama.
To understand why Jacob felt such animosity towards his job you must first understand the town. There are thousands, perhaps millions of towns like Pleasant Valley sprinkled across the country. It was the type of town that was never the backdrop of anything more exciting than a high school football game or a school play. Located in southern Alabama, it was unbearably hot in the summer and people only dreamed of having a mere chance of a white Christmas. None the less, like it’s name hinted, it was a exceptionally pleasant place to live and few people born there ever bothered to move away. The entire town was as amiable and tight knit as a flock of geese, while rumors spread faster than a kid could run once the bell rang in Pleasant Valley Elementary.
