For the last hour, eighteen-year old Julian Savoy had been watching himself de-materialize. It struck him, in spite of the situation, to be one of the most beautiful things a person could ever witness. Ever since 9:09 this evening, his hand, slowly but surely, had been disappearing into thin air. Luckily, it wasn’t a particularly messy or gory affair. He felt no pain as the hand did whatever it was doing. In fact, the impression that the recent high-school graduate gathered was less of his hand being “taken away”, and more of it simply crossing the barrier into a plane of unseen existence.

Still, it was kind of inconvenient. He had planned on getting some writing done tonight. And if this “dematerialization” did end up in something as morbid as his own death, it’d be a shame to leave the project behind. Julian glanced towards his bedroom desk. He had been typing away at his antique Continental Silenta typewriter when he noticed his left hand’s middle finger start to disappear. He had attempted to persevere in his project, but when his index finger went next, he abandoned his efforts.

“We’re going to bed, dear!” His mother shouted from the next room, interrupting his musings. For a split second, it occurred to him to mention the queer fact about his hand. And then he decided against it. What was going to happen was going to happen. No point in worrying his parents needlessly about this completely unexplainable phenomena.

“Goodnight.” Julian offered.

“Sleep tight!” She rejoined. And with that, he had resigned himself to facing this issue alone. And by “facing it”, he fully intended to let it run it’s course. Come hell or high water, he’d be interested in seeing it to its end. Julian had never really bothered himself with thoughts of the afterlife, or of what happens to the soul after death. His mother was a good Catholic, while his father wasn’t particularly religious in any sense of the term. He was content enough to play along with the rituals -- but there wasn’t any priest who talked of dematerialization at the point of death. He was aware of that much.

Julian sighed and attempted to run a hand through his black hair, only to belatedly realize that his reflexes had taken over -- and that the hand he normally used to scratch his scalp was no more.

“Well, that’s an issue.” He mumbled softly, careful not to arouse any suspicion in the next room. The inconvenience did prompt a bitter chuckle from him after a few moments, laughing at his whole situation. A few more minutes had passed, and the process had reached down to his wrist, with Julian observing the steady disappearance of each centimeter of flesh.

Musing that his hand was simply in a parallel universe, he made a motion to reach out into the abyss, extending his arm to it’s full length. And, much to his surprise, he felt something at the other end. A soft, cool palm received his outstretched, inter-dimensional hand.

“What the fuck?!” He yelled, shocked at the sensation.

“Julian!”

The fellow hand that touched him began intertwining it’s fingers around his.

“S-sorry Mother -- I, uh -- s-stubbed my toe!” Julian stammered, applying a more convenient, if fabricated, excuse.

“That’s no excuse for that kind of language. Especially at this hour!” She replied from the next room.

“Yeah, I know!” Julian shouted, attempting to put matter to rest while he tried to figure out the recipient of his outreach in the other world. Was it an other world? It made sense to him as such -- but it could easily be somewhere else on the planet. Or Heaven itself.

But soon, none of it mattered. A soothing aura began to emanate from the other side, and Julian began to lose himself in that other hand’s touch. The hand slowly began to guide more and more of Julian into wherever it was -- a void of sorts, Julian presumed.

Perhaps that’s why he accepted the hand gently pulling him -- his entire body -- into the unknown abyss with such ease. At 10:02 PM on July 8th, the rest of Julian dematerialized.

* * *

“Damn it.” Julian grumbled.

While his exit into the void had gone rather smoothly, he hadn’t nailed the landing on his entry to wherever the hell he was. Landing knees-first on a stone floor was far from ideal.

“I’m sorry, my betrothed.” A soothing voice said.

Julian looked up to observe the source of the sound. He then realized that he was staring up into the eyes of a beautiful woman. She sported tan skin, white hair, an hourglass figure, and… pointy ears? Julian immediately rubbed his eyes with his freshly-found left hand only to see that that he wasn’t hallucinating.

“I-I realize this must seem rather sudden…” The lady began furtively, “a-and the manner you were summoned was most impolite, so allow me to apologize…” As she paused, Julian squinted a bit, attempting to make sense of the whole situation. Just a moment ago, he was in his bedroom watching his hand disappear. Now, he was kneeling down watching a beautiful woman with angled ears apologize to him.  

“Your highness, the window to the other world will close shortly.” A voice from the darkness eminanted. Julian craned his head around to try and figure out the location of the third person, but the room was far too underlit. Shadows dominated the room’s corners, with the pointy-eared woman herself nearly standing at it’s precipice.

“Ah, of course. Thank you, Seneschal.” The woman said, her tone seeming much more confident than her stammering apology just a moment before. She turned again to Julian.

“My betrothed, I’ll try to explain as much as I can as quickly as possible. Would you care to listen?” Julian took note of the peculiar way she addressing him, but opted to let the matter slide in favor of hearing the woman’s story.

“S-sure. I am rather curious.” Julian said, a tinge of nervousness in his utterly alien surroundings beginning to seep into his voice.

“W-well, I should start by formally welcoming you to the Southern Kingdom of the Elvarie. Bonvena, fiancxinigita.” She stated with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm, although the words struck Julian as a bit rehearsed. And then the words themselves actually struck Julian with the force of a moving truck. Kingdom of the Elvarie. Did she mean to say that he was currently in some sort of a world with..?

“Elves?” Julian inquired.

“Yes, indeed.” The woman said with a serious air. Julian’s only reply was a frown.

“I know this must be difficult to believe, but we -- or rather, I, summoned you here, from your world.”

The high-schooler’s reply this time was closing his eyes and applying his palm to his face. Did this woman, by her own definition an elf, just state that she pulled him out of a parallel universe? Julian had read a bit into multiverse theory -- an article regarding the theory was a headline in a popular science magazine his father had subscribed to, but from what he read, these universes were completely inaccessible. Frowning deeply, his rational mind’s attempt to wrap itself around the sheer impossibility of the situation was wholly lacking.

“A-ah, did the summoning cause you pain?! It shouldn’t have!” The woman took a few steps over to Julian and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” Julian snapped. That was always a pet peeve of his -- being touched by strangers. Even given the absurdity of the present state of being, and the fact that the woman touching him was, as far as he was concerned, quite pretty -- he just couldn’t shake old habits and prejudices.

The woman immediately reeled back, offering Julian a rather compromising view of her chest bouncing. Were there no brassieres in this universe? His thoughts momentarily turned to this point as the Elfen woman collected herself again.

“E-eh?! I-I’m sorry!” Was all she could manage. Julian noted that most of the “explanation” he was getting was her profusely apologizing. But, feeling a tinge of regret for making the girl so uncomfortable, he felt the need to acquit his nervous tick:

“As am I. I’m just a bit -- shy with strangers.”

“I-I see.” She responded, contemplating the matter. A long, awkward pause permeated the room for a time, with both Julian and the woman lost in thought.

“My Lady, you were explaining the situation.” The unseen voice from the darkness beckoned.

“Right.” She replied with new resolve, “I summoned you here, Julian Savoy of Earth, because I intend for us to marry.”

Julian mouth went agape. This was altogether too much for him to process mentally. He wasn’t the type to rush into anything -- especially something with the sheer gravity of marriage. She began in a rush to babble a whole slew of things that Julian made no effort to understand -- focusing on the fact that this Elf-woman quite literally cradle-snatched him from another universe.

“So, let me see if I’m understanding this properly,” he began haltingly, “you summoned me here with the intent of proposing to me? Marriage, I mean.”

“Exactly!” The Princess responded.

“I don’t even know your name, and you’re proposing we marry?!” Julian asked impetuously, a bit angry that she’d drag him into her world and propose so brusquely. Did she not care to consider his feelings about the matter? She was a pretty woman, of course -- one whose figure and features were very much to Julian’s taste -- but this was just too much. Simply too much.

“Oh no!” She exclaimed, bringing her hand to her mouth, “I didn’t introduce myself properly, did I?”.

Julian adjusted his position, growing tired of kneeling -- opting instead to rest his buttocks on the hard stones.

“You didn’t.” He replied flatly.

“M-my name is Saena.” She said with some hesitation. “... and I’m Princess of the Southern Elvarie.”

“Nice to meet you.” He offered matter-of-factly, making a mental note of the nation he was now in. Elvarie was as good a name for any Kingdom of Elf-people as he could envision.

“The pleasure’s all mine, really!” She blurted out, “--and I’d like to personally invite you to dinner as an apology for my rudeness!”

“Dinner, huh…?” Stranded and alone on in a foreign universe, he wasn’t really in a good position to decline the offer. “Sure, I’ve got no reason not to.”

“Let’s go then.” Saena offered her hand out to Julian to help him up. Julian, still a bit suspicious of her, opted to get up entirely on his own. Saena, frowning slightly at her gesture being rebuffed, beckoned Julian along towards a doorway which had just opened, pouring light into the room. With the aid of the additional light source, Julian’s eyes darted around the room in an effort to ascertain the third person in the room, who had only spoken twice, and only to Saena at that. Much to his chagrin, there was no one to be seen, which was its own worry.

Despite these concerns, he followed the Princess outside into the well-lit hallway.

* * *

Saena’s dining hall was nothing short of impressive, at least as far as Julian was concerned. The size of the room was roughly the size of his entire two-story house back home. And Julian’s parents were by no means paupers -- his father was a naval engineer, and his mother an attorney. They lived quite well, and their home was by no means miniscule. But the ceilings in this otherwise empty dining room were easily fifteen meters in height. The dining hall itself was covered wall-to-wall in pristinely manicured ivy, and in the center of the spacious hall was a massive table made entirely of marble.

The table itself could probably sit thirty people with ease, but there were only two chairs at opposite ends of the rectangular stone mesa. Calling the pieces of furnitures “chairs” was probably an understatement, though. They were both the size of thrones.

As the two took their respective seats, Julian took the opportunity to size up the Elven princess as a trio of quaintly-dressed waiters began to place dishes on the table. Her features, though by no means subtle in the dark, dank room that he had landed in, really took a shine in the favorable light of the dining room. Her white hair took on a shine, and her tan skin took on a healthy hue. He even managed to get a glimpse of her eyes in the distance -- they were blue -- deeply blue, a thoroughly saturated aquamarine that could no doubt enrapture any man. Even Julian, in spite of the situation, was beginning to be taken in by her physical charms.

“Would you like me to wait for you to finish your meal before continuing on?” she inquired. Julian glanced down at the food at the table. A salad of sorts, what looked to be some roughly made sourdough bread, and a glass of red wine rested directly in front of him. He took this to be the appetizer. Julian was too young to drink alcohol, technically -- but he also wasn’t in America anymore.

“I don’t mind hearing you out first.” He offered, taking a sip of wine right after.

“It’s no trouble if you’d like to eat first, really.”

“It’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Alright. Well, it’s as I said before, I’ve summoned you here from your other world because I’d like you to be my husband.”

“Right, but why me? Aren’t there other elves that you could choose?”

“There are certainly any number of elves who would want to marry into the royal house, yes,” Saena acknowledged. “But there aren’t any who have the sort of magic quotient that’s necessary to marry one of royal blood.”

“Magic quotient?” Julian asked, bewildered.

Saena frowned. “Do they not have such a system in your world?”

“You’d have to explain what a magic quotient is for me to answer that properly.”

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“Potential to use and pass on magical ability to your offspring.”

Julian couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“What about that was humorous?” She inquired, perturbed.

“Well, I mean, it’s magic. It’s fantasy stuff, isn’t it?”

“It’s how I summoned you here.”

Julian’s expression turned sour. Perhaps it was nothing in his universe, but who’s to say there’s no magic in a parallel one?

“Ah, right, I hadn’t even realized. It must be of some value here.”

“It is, very much so.”

“But I can’t utilize magic.” Julian rebutted.

“Of course you can’t!” Saena replied confidently. “Males can’t use magic!”

“They can’t?”

The princess  was left pondering the matter for a moment. Julian looked at her expectantly.

“There’s really no magic in your world? Women don’t use spells at all?”

“Nope.”

“That must be terrible. How do you fertilize the soil? Or construct buildings? Or--”

“We have machines to do that stuff.”

“Ma-what?”

“Tools.”

“Is that productive?”

“Reasonably. I really wouldn’t know how to compare machines to magic, though.”

“Nor would I magic to your ma-chin-es.”

Ignoring her wonky pronunciation, Julian took a bite of the sourdough bread. It tasted similar to the pumpernickel his father ate. After chewing for a moment, he resumed the chat.

“Regardless, you must have the wrong person.”

“Not at all, I’m sure you’ve one of the strongest quotients in almost any universe.”

Julian nearly choked on the bread, and quickly rushed to the wine glass to wash it down. “I’ve got what, exactly?”

“Why do you act so surprised? You don’t feel it? At all?”

“Not at all.”

“What kind of world is yours like, I wonder?” She mused.

“I mean, we have magic in myths and stories. But no one goes around using it.” Julian explained. Princess Saena nodded, but seemed fixated on the words. “We have elves in books, too, but I’ve never actually met an elf before.”

“Really?” She asked.

“Really.” He replied.

A silence pervaded for a time, and Julian took the opportunity to pick at the salad. There was of course one nagging question that was hanging over his head. Saena fidgeted nervously on her side of the table.

“I suppose now would be a good time for me to tell you the marriage terms.”

Julian looked up from his salad bowl, but said nothing.

“If you’d agree to the terms, I’d just like to let you know that I’ll do everything in my power to make your stay here as comfortable as possible. You wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to, excluding royal functions… and producing an heir.”

“An heir with a high magic quotient.” Julian noted.

“Yes.”

“With you.”

“Y-yes.”

“And otherwise, I’ll be free from obligations.” Julian repeated, mindless poking the vegetables in his salad bowl.

“Yes!”

Julian couldn’t really argue the lucrativeness of those terms. If he were to return to life on Earth, he’d have to attend university. Normally, that was a happy time for most people, but his parents were forcing him to study medicine. Julian thought of his “project” back in his world. If he was here, in the Elf World, he could laze around without needing a job or money, acting as a sort of breeding stag for this Elf lady, and write away to his heart’s content. It was a deal that was nearly impossible to refuse. But he was also rather particular about the word”marriage”. He would have to live with this beautiful woman, which was a blessing in itself -- but the fact that he knew nothing about her except that she was some magical princess was a bit unsettling.

“Would we get married right away?” Julian inquired idly.

“No, there’s a mandatory betrothal period.”

“Oh?”

“It’s so the couple can get to know each other better. For some it lasts as long as a year, but I would like to… speed up the process more, if possible.”

“What’s the rush?”

“Well, as I’m sure they must be in your homeworld, marriages are mostly… political and genetic unions. There wouldn’t be a rush if we were of common status, but since I’m Princess of a Realm…”

“Ah, so they want you to secure a male heir, I assume.”

“...Yes, the nobility has been pressuring the court as of late.”

Julian leaned forward and rested an elbow on the table, resting his chin in his raised palm.

“Thanks for being honest with me.” He said after a moment’s silence.  “Not everyone in your position show their hand like that.”

The Elven Princess lit up at the compliment.

“R-really?” She stammered, “You think so?”

“Politics is deceitful stuff,  isn’t it?” he mused,  “I suppose you could’ve minced words about the gravity of the whole situation, seeing as I’m totally new to this universe and all.  But you seemed honest and genuine about it all, and I appreciate that.”

“I-I appreciate honesty as well. Would I be able to ask you a question in turn, and receive an honest answer from you as well?” She asked, almost meekly, twiddling her fingers.

“Of course. Ask away.”

“What are your ambitions?” Came her question.

Julian recoiled a bit at the statement, and then realized that it was only fair he answer in kind. He had mentioned his desire to be a writer to his parents once, who had dismissed the matter with a condescending ease. The profession of a writer wasn’t befitting of their house.

“Ah, well, I’ve been writing something,” he began vaguely, “and I suppose if I was here, living like a leech in a Royal Palace, I suppose I would set about finishing it. It’s a long piece, so I’d probably be preoccupied with it for a very long time. Maybe years.”

Saena’s interest appeared piqued. “What’s it about?”

“F-fiction.” He stuttered, declining to answer her query in further detail.

“Could I read it when it’s completed?”

“S-sure. I mean, I doubt it’d translate well, culturally, and linguistically I guess, but yeah. When it’s done.”

The Elven Princess chuckled a bit at his defensiveness.

“So you don’t care much for the political realm?” She asked pointedly.

“Not at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like doing harm to others.” Julian stated plainly. “That’s what politics strikes me as -- justification to do terrible things to others on a massive scale.”

For a moment, the Princess’s eyes cast downward, but in the proceeding moments a bitter smile crept across her face.

“So you’d be content to enjoy the luxuries of the palace, and work on your project.” She extrapolated. Julian affirmed her statement with a tentative nod.

“‘Enjoying the luxuries’ makes me seem like a bit of a hedonist, but yeah. I’d treat it like a hermitage, I suppose.” He corrected.

Saena tilted her a bit. “Enjoying yourself here isn’t a bad thing.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“Never mind. It’s just an expression.”

She nodded anxiously.

“So… would you agree to my proposal?”

“I’ve just got one more question to base my decision off of.”

“Please ask!"

“When, or rather, is it possible, to return to my world? Or would I be forced to remain here for the rest of my days?”

Julian noticed Saena bite her lip. After collecting herself a bit, she met his gaze and responded.

“You wouldn’t be able to.”

Julian nodded knowingly. He figured as much. He probably couldn’t just drop the Prince-Consort title and head back home at whim.

“A-and, I know you will be mad at me for doing this, but please listen to everything. Regardless of your decision...  I-- t-the magic I used to bring you here would make it impossible for you to return to your homeworld permanently even if you decline my proposal. You see, bringing someone out of their world creates a rift in time. That rift isn’t meant to be open, and so the worlds begin to make efforts to close that rift from each end. That rift -- has been closing as we speak.”

Julian blinked. “What do you mean ‘closing’?”

“By pulling you into this world I’m erasing you from the other.”

Julian slumped in his seat, slackjawed and silent.

“It must seem like what I’ve done is horrible, and that I’ve forced you to come here and accept my marriage proposal. But I’m fully responsible for my actions -- and if you choose not to accept, I will do everything in my power to arrange a comfortable life in this universe regardless.”

“So my parents and friends back there…”

“Will have their memories of you erased.”

The recent high-school graduate turned his neck down and away from Sena, and attempted to clench shut the tears that threatened to roll down his eyes.

An awkward silence punctuated the room for several minutes, in which the Princess refused to press forward, and which the young man steadily maintained. After choking back his cries, he lifted his head again, this time with a fury in his eyes.

“You mean to tell me that I had no choice from the very beginning?”

“I’m sorry.” Saena managed. “But I needed to summon you here on the off-chance that you might be willing to accept my proposal.”

“And you thought that tearing me away from my world and the people that I love was an acceptable way to do that?!”

“I--”

“No, I don’t want to hear your explanations.”

“But please, you must understand--”

“I do understand!” Julian snapped.

Saena went silent.

“I understand that I was dragged here on some foolish gambit on your part to give your heirs some of my ‘magical energy’ or whatever bullshit. But you framed all this like I had a fucking choice in the matter!”

“But you do!”

“Oh right, great setup you gave me here! Becoming your magical breeding stag or live in royal confinement on some foreign world utterly alien to me in every respect! I mean you’re all elves, for fuck’s sake.”

“If you’d help me, we could save millions of people regardless of race!” She pleaded.

Julian cackled miserably, not even giving that line the time of day.

“Ah, and now my first insight to Elven psychology: you guys are more than content to assign a finite value to human life. Fantastic!”

“Don’t mock my efforts!” Saena suddenly fired back, enraged. A clenched fist of hers delivered a dull thud onto the marble table. The waiters, seeing the conversation take a nasty turn, retreated back to the kitchen. Julian thought he could hear metallic footsteps in the adjoining hallway. He might have just hit a weak spot. And that probably wouldn’t end well for him. Realizing that it’d probably be all over for him soon, anyway, he decided to play out the sick farce for all it was worth.

“Just throw me in a prison cell, then. That was lese majeste, after all, wasn’t it?”

Saena again averted her eyes from him.

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Julian pressed.

“I--”

“I don’t want to hear your apology again. You’ve made the point clear. You feel really guilty about it, I get it. So stop rubbing salt in the open wound.”

Saena’s eyes widened.

“Just take me away. Anywhere but here. Any place that’s away from you right now.” Julian said, with an air of confidence that bordered on arrogance.

“Marechal.” The Princess said in a tone just above a whisper.

Storming through door came a woman clad in full plate armor. She sported bright red hair on tan-skin, a figure composed of lean muscle, and possessed naught at all in the bust department. Julian prepared himself for the worst. He knew girls who looked like she did often had deep-seated man-hating issues. A popular website he visited occasionally featured many of their angry blogs. Elven or not, those emotions struck him as standard even across the pale of parallel universes.

“At your command, M’Lady.” she said to the Princess  in a gravelly voice.

“Would you be so kind to escort Sir Julian to the guest suite?”

“My Lady…”

“Please, Cordelia.”

Cordelia. Julian couldn’t help but think about what a feminine name the soldier-woman had, especially when she didn’t look to have a single ladylike virtue in her whole body. Her eyes then darted to Julian, boring like drills into his soul.

“Sir Julian.”

“Yeah, Yeah, I’m coming.” He said, shuffling out of the uncomfortable chair. “Not like I’ve got any other option.”

“You could resist.” The Marechal said bluntly. “And I could kill you right here and now -- providing My Lady wills it.” She added, with her lady’s permission deftly included after a pause.

“P-please excuse Marechal Cordelia!” Saena stammered, shocked at her retainer’s bluntness. Pitying eyes from Julian met hers shortly after, indicting her for not even being to control her cabinet properly.

“Well, thanks for the meal.” Julian stated as he exited, not even deigning to make further eye contact with his host. He gave the Princess a backhanded wave as the Marshal lead him out, leaving Saena alone in the great, empty hall, holding back her own tears.