Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 “That face . . .”

That day was a jumble of bad memories that Marianne didn't like to dwell on. During the daylight hours she shoved them away, refusing to think upon Roland's betrayal, to feel the burn of anger it caused in her chest, refusing to recall the gaunt face in the gloom, faded sunlight catching icy pinpricks of eyes . . .

Marianne's sword lowered, hanging from her slack fingers, ready to fall at any moment. Her handmaidens fussed around her, wondering why she had stopped in the middle of practice, but Marianne was lost in her thoughts. The memory of her brief moments in the Dark Forest had a nasty habit of popping up without invitation or provocation and when they did she couldn't tear her attention away from the haunting details of the encounter. It hadn't even been a full minute, just a matter of seconds, and she played those over and over in her head, trying to . . . trying to what? Dispel her fear? Overcome the terror she felt?

But she knew why.

Because it was a story not yet finished.

Her mind kept trying to finish it for her. At night her dreams would pull her back into that gloomy forest, drag her beyond the primroses and in, deeper and deeper, far past the point she had ever gone in the waking world. In the dream she lost all sense of direction, even if she ran she had no idea if she was running toward safety or further into the enemy's domain. Branches caught at her wings, claws snatched at her feet and she kicked, but this time the claws didn't let go, gave her no chance to drop the petal and fly.

This time she was yanked out of the air, a primrose petal still clutched in her white-gloved fingers, and scaly hands scraped harshly against the skin of her arms, catching the fabric of her dress. They delivered her up before that vague shadow, sharp in the gloom and monstrously tall. The face with its razer-sharp edges turned to her, its eyes nothing more than black holes, and it reached out a hand, pointing an accusing claw—long and sharp enough to take the flesh off her bones—at the petal in her hand. Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around it that the petal was crushed and bruised, its scent heavy in the air.

Here in the heavy darkness she had no voice to cry out, her feet would not move, and her wings would not unfold. All she could do was stand there and look up at that shadowed face, a deeper shadow against the dark backdrop of the forest. The creature had no real shape. In reality she had barely seen the creature so her dreams filled in the gaps with vague shadows that crawled and rustled, only his face defined in any real detail.

That face . . .

That furious, snarling face, lips twisted over jagged fangs, bark covered brow drawn down to shade its eyes. It had looked like it was wearing a crown, pulled low over its eyes, but even in that brief glimpse she had seen that it was part of the goblin's head, and that made it all the more terrifying. This horrible creature, covered with leaves and bark instead of skin and hair . . . there was no space in her mind for it, no context to put it in to make herself understand. It was completely other to everything she knew. It was the face of the unknown that haunted the kingdom, of the unseen horrors that lurked in the Dark Forest.

It was the face that pulled in close just before she woke from her nightmares. If she was lucky she woke right before the claws reached her, waking with her fingers clutching the petals of the bed like it was the stolen primrose, her throat tight like she had been screaming even though not a sound had escaped her. If she wasn't lucky she didn't wake up until the claws raked across her arms, shredding skin and flower petals in streaks of red and pink.

That face haunted Marianne because she still didn't know.

She didn't know what would have happened if that face had gotten closer, if that clawed hand had reached out. Didn't know if that glimpse of blue in the shadows had been a trick of the light. She imagined so many things but she could never know what the outcome would have been.

The soft chirping of her handmaidens brought her back to warm and sunlit reality. Marianne's fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword and she raised the blade, nodding for her handmaidens to resume practice. She didn't know. The story was still unfinished. So she prepared herself, trained herself, so when she saw that face again she would banish her fear back into the darkness and have the power to end this story on her own terms.

Chapter Text

“. . . get out of here. And don’t tell dad where I am unless I’m not home by sundown!”

“Are you really, really sure about kidnapping him?”

“I think it’ll work out. Now go! And stay out of trouble if you can!”

The Bog King’s hearing returned before his sight did, and the faint flutter of wings told him one of the two fairies had departed. The other he could hear walking back toward him. Sight returned just in time to see the fairy reaching toward him. He recoiled, but was brought up short by a length of chain. Squinting, he saw that his wrists were manacled together, but the fairy was talking …

“I just wanted to check your head. You were only out for about a minute.”

“Seems to have given you ample time.” The king snarled, then winced at the pain in his head.

“Sorry about all this, but I wasn’t sure you’d stay still long enough to listen otherwise.”

“And you just happened to have a set of shackles on hand? First you trespass into my kingdom, then you pick a fight, then you–”

“Hold on!” The fairy interrupted, “You started that fight! I just wanted to talk!”

“You came at me with a drawn sword!”

“I was just … it was just in case!”

“Oh, well, you certainly are a very well prepared fairy, aren’t you?” The king shuffled his feet and found them bound too. He was sitting against a plant stalk and there was a net still tangled around his legs. Overhead pink primroses bloomed, their pale pink blush mixing into the darker plant life that marked the border between the Dark Forest and Light Fields.

“I thought I fell further in.” He carefully raised both hands and felt the side of his head, tracing the edges of a jagged gash. Nothing too serious, goblin skulls could take a lot more damage than that. He picked off the piece of petal someone—the fairy?–had used to staunch the flow of blood. The sodden bit of petal, more red than pink now, dropped to the dirt when he let go in disgust.

“I pulled you out.” The fairy explained.

“You?” He looked at the fairy, a tiny thing with unimpressive looking arms and legs. Soft, pale, fragile looking.

“Yes, me.” She folded her arms and narrowed her shadowed eyes at him. “After all, I fought you to a draw, obviously I’m not a complete weakling.”

“It wasn’t a draw! It was interrupted by that blasted lizard and that silly, shrieking child. Ridiculous thing, getting stuck in a bush and hanging herself out as lizard bait!”

The fairy looked pained. “Dawn was not supposed to be here, believe me! She followed me to make sure I was okay. I … I really appreciate you stepping in, though. That could have gone really …” The fairy took a breath to compose herself, “Really badly. Thank you.”

Attacked by one fairy as he was innocently patrolling the borders to make note of the primroses that needed to be pruned back yet again, then forced to abandon the battle to go pull some yellow and blue fluffy headed fairy out of a bush before she got eaten by a lizard. Right when he had been winning, too, but he didn’t want to risk trouble with the fairies by letting one get chewed up by one of the Dark Forest’s inhabitants.

The apology took him off guard.

“Ah … no problem. Care to explain?” He held up his manacled wrists and tilted his head with an inquiring scowl.

“Okay, before you attacked me–”

“Other way ‘round.”

“Before we fought I was trying to say I wanted to talk to you.”

“What does a fairy want with a goblin? Did I eat somebody you knew?”

“I am going to ignore that remark because so far as I know goblins have never eaten a fairy.”

“Not any you’d miss, anyway.” He smiled darkly, enjoying her obvious discomfort with the subject.

“Shut up!” She kicked at his leg, half-amused and half-frustrated. “You’re The Bog King, right?”

“I have that displeasure, yes.”

“Well, I’m Princess Marianne and I have a business, um, proposal for you.”

“Couldn’t you have just sent a letter?”

“Postal services don’t exactly deliver to your castle, your majesty.”

“Oh, well, pardon me, your highness. I take it you plan to release me once you’ve bored me with whatever petty little petition you have up your sleeve. If it’s about primroses or the Sugar Plum fairy you can just stop right now, no deal.”

“A love potion is the very last thing I need in my life right now.” The princess gave a huff of laughter. She dropped down to sit on the ground, facing the king, her wings carefully laid out behind her. “Whatever your answer is to my proposition, yes, I’ll unlock you.”

“Good, then I won’t have to bite the wretched things off.”

The princess winced and rubbed her jaw at the thought of teeth cracking against the heavy metal links. “Our two kingdoms have been … at odds … for a long time now. I’m here to propose an alliance between us.”

“An alliance? Shake hands and make nice. Huh.” He rolled his eyes. “Just because a pretty little fairy princess asks me to?”

“An alliance … by marriage.”

There was a ringing silence.

Finally:

“What.”

“If the heir and future queen of the Light Fields–”

“What.”

“–married the king of the Dark forest–”

“What.”

“Stop interrupting me!” Princess Marianne lunged forward to shout in his face, hands clawing in front of her in frustration. The snarl in her words brought the king up short. He hadn’t been expecting that. Though, after the mettle she had shown during their fight, maybe he ought to have. The surprise made his brow lift and the shadows around his eyes lightened enough for the princess to see that his eyes, as she had suspected, were vividly blue. A strange contrast to the rest of him, which was approximately the color and texture of dead leaves.

When she saw that the king wasn’t going to interrupt again the princess went on, “With a proper alliance, sealed by marriage, we can have stipulations about the ban on primroses, enforce it on our side of the border and allot troops to help cut them back annually. We can discuss a treaty and soothe the Light council’s fear that the Dark Forest will attack us.”

“Attack? Why on earth would we do that? We just want to be left alone.”

“How could we know that? We know nothing about you or your kingdom except that you’re very unfriendly. This way we’ll know what’s what and you get left alone.”

“Except I would be married … to you. I am not interested in being married to anyone and especially not a fairy princess who put me in chains!” He rattled the chains vehemently in illustration of his point.

“It would be a political arrangement, strictly business. You’d have to see me maybe a handful of times a year.”

“You’re quite the willing little martyr, aren’t you? What on earth possessed Dagda–”

“It isn’t my father’s idea. It’s mine. You see …” She bit her lip, “It’s … complicated.”

“Joy. What is it? Enemies on the border and you need an army? Sacrificing yourself for the good of your kingdom?”

“Don’t worry, nothing to inconvenience you. It just happens that I need to find someone to marry and you’re the best option.”

A smile twisted his face. “You have completely lost me, princess. You’ve seen me, you’ve talked to me. I’m nobody’s best option.”

“Okay, okay, cut out the brooding drama king act for five minutes and I’ll explain. My sister, Dawn–”

“Screaming girl in the bush, yes.”

“–wants to get married. Our father doesn’t approve of her choice but can’t find any real objection to Sunny. So now dad has pulled out this ancient tradition that the eldest daughter has to be married before the youngest is. A tradition, I might add, which has not been observed for generations.”

“You need to get married so the fluffy one can marry her Sunshine. Fine. How do I come into this? You’re a princess, surely there’s some willing fairy boy who’d jump at the chance to be a king.”

“That’s the problem. The willing fairy in question is after the throne. Not me.”

“So there is somebody. Tell me this isn’t you and your prince charming having a lover’s tiff.”

“My prince charming was a lying, conniving, cheating piece of work. I nearly married him and now … now I’d happily join you in burning primroses because I have no truck with romance or love. That’s why you’re perfect.”

“Perfect?” The chains clinked when he shifted back. The things that came out of this princess’s mouth!

“You don’t want love either. We’ll happily leave each other in peace and make our families happy because we got married at all.”

It would shut his mother up, he had to admit. But he still wasn’t sure the proposition was serious. At this point he was sure she wasn’t just after the primroses, or she’d have gone by now. “But why did you have chains?”

“From everything I’ve seen you don’t exactly listen patiently.”

“Everything you’ve seen?” He leaned forward. Something had been nagging at the back of his thoughts, but the throbbing in his head had kept him from focusing. “I know you.” He pulled against the chains, leaning to examine her face. There was something familiar, something nagging at the back of his thoughts. Primroses, there had been primroses before, and … white flowers? A crown of white flower and purple wings faded in the gloom. “You tried to take a primrose petal last year!”

“No, I didn’t! I … I fell in. The thing dropped right into my hand.”

“You kicked me in the face!”

“Yes, I did.”

“But you were … you were different. More like the other one, the yellow one.”

“Dawn. My sister’s name is Dawn.”

“You were afraid.”

A familiar chill of fear shivered down Marianne’s spine. She was sitting across from the king of the goblins with nothing but a few links of chain to keep him from ripping her apart. Half of the reason she had dragged the king to the border was so they would not be in that dim yellow gloom which reminded her of that horrible day. Even the clear light of the fields and the pink of the primroses did not alleviate the naturally sharp and dangerous look of the king. Especially now that he leaned forward, his sharp face pointed at hers, blue eyes boring into her own. It was a sharp face, long chin and a pointed noise to match, from razer edged cheekbones and leafy eyebrows angled harshly downward, there was nothing pleasant about that face.

The face of the man she was proposing to marry.

“What in that encounter,” He asked, “Made you come away with the idea that marriage—of any sort—was an option? Let alone a good one?” He recalled distinctly now how afraid those golden-brown eyes had been, her face full of undisguised fear, how fast she had flown to escape his wrath. Yet here were those same eyes, staring back at him with fiery defiance.

“I just thought we got off on the wrong foot.” She replied with a coolness she did not feel. That brief encounter with the king of goblins was still vivid in her mind, but it existed almost separately from the person she was talking to now. Except for moments when his scowl deepened and his movements became sharp and predatory. In those moments she remembered the monster that haunted both her nightmares and her waking thoughts.

The Bog King was on his knees, legs still snarled in the net, leaning so far forward Marianne was afraid he would topple over, but his wings buzzed behind him, their torn iridescence keeping him from tipping. Rainbows sparkled off the wings flashing behind the grim face that was scrutinizing her, watching for weaknesses. Marianne realized he was trying to throw her off balance, so she did the opposite of what he clearly expected. He expected her to draw away. She thrust her face forward and matched his piercing gaze. She was pleased to see him recoil in obvious surprise. A triumphant smirk curled the corner of her mouth.

“Here’s the truth,” She said, pushing forward until he was once more pressed up to the primrose stalk, as far as he could retreat while still restrained, “I’m sick and tired of being afraid of the dark! I’m tired of my subject shivering in fear at the sight of primroses! I’m tired of people telling me what to do! I want to fix this for my sister and fix it for myself so that everyone will just leave me–!”

“Alone?”

“Yes! This marriage business is only going to get worse when I’m queen and how am I going to get any work done with people pestering me to find a king? I thought I’d beat them to the punch and find a king on my terms and finally settle our border problem.”

Bog thought of the seemingly endless procession of eligible female goblins that his mother paraded in front of him and he had to laugh, despite his discomfort at the princess’s closeness. She was still looming over him, one hand resting on his arm to steady herself. She regarded the laugh suspiciously. “Oh,” he said, “It only gets worse—the pressure to find a consort.”

“Really? You get bothered by all that stuff?”

“My mother.” His accent rolled the word and he glanced heavenward.

“You have a—well, of course you would have a mother, but …” Wow, you really didn’t ever think about dark and evil kings having mothers. And especially not nagging mothers. “There, though, you see? Wouldn’t it be a relief to stop bothering you about it?”

Black claws drummed on the king’s knee and the chains rattled. He looked at her pointedly and she realized how close she was and carefully backed away to give him space to think. A smirk came across his face as an idea occurred to him.

“What about succession?” He asked, a little too neutrally.

“What about it?” Marianne replied suspiciously.

“Surely your father will expect … heirs. I can assure you my mother will!”

Marianne tried not to screw up her face. He was trying to make her uncomfortable. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her squirm, and besides, she had thought about this. “Dawn’s children can inherit. Won’t your people expect the same?” She shot back.

He shrugged. “Heirs or not it doesn’t matter. Someone younger and stronger will come and kill me for the throne eventually.”

“Then that’s fine, then. And goblins and fairies probably can’t even have children so we don’t have to worry about … anyone asking.”

The king’s plan had backfired and now he was staring fixedly at the primroses overhead while Marianne crossed her arms and regarded the bruises forming on her arms. Flying into a bush to pull Dawn out had not been an easy job. Think of something to say! Something not horribly awkward!

“So … what do you think?”

“I think I’m still wondering why you had so many traps and chains waiting for me.”

“Um. Well, after my dad pulled out the tradition of the eldest daughter having to marry first I looked for a loophole. Nothing to overturn my dad’s decision, but I did find something interesting about ancient courtship traditions.”

Realization dawned in the blue eyes. “That old custom!”

“You know about it?”

“I didn’t think fairies ever did it.”

“Yeah, I mean,” She waved her hands a little helplessly, “Kidnapping your chosen mate and dragging them home and that counts as getting engaged? But it’s never been overturned or contradicted so if I brought you home … um …” She waved at the manacles, “That would mean my dad can’t back out of it so easily, because technically you and I would already be betrothed.”

“You really have planned this.” The note of admiration crept into his voice despite his efforts to suppress it. This fairy had fought him nearly to a standstill, tricked him into a trap, then unrolled this simple but effective plan before him, complete in every detail. To make up for the admiring tone he scowled and sought around for a way to level the playing field.

He was just trying to scare her. Score a point against her, make those clear amber eyes flinch from his. Pull her down and make her as insecure as he was. “So brave as long as I’m chained up. So willing to marry me so long as you think I won’t try to kiss you.” He leered, jagged gray teeth bared under his curled lip.

She did flinch. He laughed, a deliberate and deep chuckle with no real mirth in it. Point to him. She dropped down out of nowhere. A moment ago she had been sitting across from him, but suddenly she was right beside him, purple wings spread behind her, light from the fields filtering through them and turning the world purple. He had not seen her wings like that before. Before they had been dull and lifeless in the murk of the forest, but now they were glowing. He might have admired them but the look on her face was distracting. She looked determined and he was already learning that once she set her mind to something she rolled over all obstacles like a boulder.

“Let’s make one thing clear, right now.” She was on her knees and since he was slumped against the primroses he was barely taller than her. Tiny, slender fingers lay on his shoulders and he could feel them trembling through his armor. Was it from fear or from anger? “I’m not afraid of anyone or anything.” Her emphasis was deliberate and he knew that he was the “thing” she was so emphatically not afraid of.

Tiny fingers with unexpected strength gripped the sides of his face, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “Nothing.” She said, then took a breath, like someone about to take a plunge into deep water. He was expecting her to hit him, smash his head back against the plant stalk, or anything but what actually happened.

Purple-stained lips pressed against his mouth, tiny fingers holding his face at the right angle so that he couldn’t turn away. He went rigid, manacled hands at the wrong angle to push her away and he was backed into the tree, so as long as he held his face he was trapped. She pulled away after only a moment, eyebrows still drawn into a dark scowl. The scowl lifted slightly when she saw how baffled the king looked and how his face was turning pink enough to match the primroses.

Point to her.

“Do you accept?”

“I … ah … yes?”

Marianne wasn’t sure what to feel. Triumph that her plan had worked? Apprehension that she had just made a huge mistake? In the end she settled on hilarity, because the king’s face was a picture of confusion. “Don’t worry,” She assured him, “I won’t do that again.”

The king made vague rumbling noises. She took the chains off his feet and untangled him from the net. Standing, he tilted his head, embarrassed expression fading into one of discomfort at the still fresh wound on his head. He held out his hands for her to remove the manacles.

“No.” She shook her head.

“What do you mean, no? You said you’d take them off!”

“Except, I’m kidnapping you, remember? We have to make this look good, and bringing you into court in chains will be perfect.”

“Can’t you just put them back on right before we get there?”

“There’ll be people who will see us along the way.”

“So you’re going to parade me as your captive in front of your whole kingdom?” The king’s shoulders flexed and rattled and he glowered at the princess.

“With so many witnesses my father won’t be able to deny the tradition or that we did it properly.”

“I’m sure he’ll try, especially after he sees that you’ve dragged my sorry carcass home.”

“Once we’re married I’m going to make you stop doing that.”

“A political marriage doesn’t give you the right to order me about. And stop doing what?”

“Putting yourself down.” Marianne tugged on his shoulder until he bent far enough over that she could examine his head properly. “Not bad, but it looks impressive. Shall we let them all think I did that?”

“You did.”

“A tree did it.”

“I’d much prefer to say that you did it than tell everyone I got tangled like a fly in a web and smacked into a tree.”

“When we’re married I’m going to make you stop grinding your teeth like that.”

'Bossy wee thing, aren’t you? What difference does it make to you if I grind my teeth or gnaw on my own hand? The point of this is that we will hardly ever see each other.”

“We will have to see each other sometimes. And you’re going to be visiting my kingdom to discuss treaties and things. And I’ll be visiting yours for the same … right?”

“I … I suppose so.” He twisted his head and made an abortive movement to try and rub the back of his neck.

“And I really wouldn’t mind fighting with you again. I really enjoyed our fight.”

“Ah. Me, too.”

“So, I need to finish kidnapping you now. Let's—let’s go get married, then, shall we?”

Black-edged glowing purple and rainbow transparency caught the sunlight as two figures flew toward the fairy castle, accompanied by the rattle of chains.

Chapter Text

 They sat as far away from each other as was politely possible. This was some comfort to the Fairy King. After the unexpected arrival of the unlikely pair—Crown Princess Marianne and The Bog King—there had been a great deal of confusion. To put it mildly. Finally the king had sent everyone away and taken the two to his study. Now the king of the goblins was sitting uncomfortably in a fairy chair that was too small, and he kept glancing over his shoulder at the window, disliking having his back exposed to attack. Marianne sat across the desk from her father, barely in front of the corner of the table. Both of them had their arms folded and legs angled away from one another.

After a few minutes of Marianne sitting in cool, silent defiance, it was the king of the Dark Forest who broke the silence with characteristic abrasiveness. “You got old, Dagda.”

“You've gotten a little rough around the edges yourself.” The king replied tartly. It had been so many years since he had seen the goblin king. Both of them had been much younger and the goblin's armor had been smooth and bright, his leafy crown not yet tattered and crumpled. They had only met twice. Dagda remembered how Bog's face had not yet been lined with anger and threaded with scars. There had been a fierce and sharp pain in his face at their second meeting, but that seemed to have died down to a dull discontent.

“If you mean I got uglier,” Bog snorted, “You would be right.”

Marianne shot a glance at the goblin. He refolded his arms and looked the other way.

The king folded his hands and took a moment to breathe before speaking. As much as he disliked—possibly hated—the creature sitting across from him he could not afford to offend the monarch of the neighboring realm. “You want to marry my daughter?”

“I wouldn't phrase it quite like that. The princess came to me with a proposal and I think her idea is sound. From what she's told me you fairies have been muttering about marching on the Dark Forest.”

“That's not--”

“That's exactly what Roland wants to do.” Marianne interrupted.

“Wait, the one with the . . .” Bog waved his hand vaguely over his head to indicate the fairy captain's endless twirling of bright gold curls. “Who greeted me so politely?”

“That's the one.” Marianne sighed.

After a nearly uneventful trip from the border, spending most of the time hammering out the details of the proposed alliance, Marianne and the Bog King had set down just outside the palace. She held the length of chain connected to his manacles, but electing to walk beside him instead of leading him as if he were on a leash, a gesture he appreciated.

The fairy guards were sweating in their nervousness, the heat building up in their ridiculous metal armor, trembling limbs making metal rattle. Glancing with obvious fear at the towering goblin who was buzzing his wings on and off in his impatience. A lopsided grin twisted Bog's mouth and he rolled his shoulders, letting the solid clack of his armor overpower the uncertain rattling. He was in chains but they were terrified.

Excellent.

He agreed to this arrangement to prevent a war, but he wanted to make sure that the inhabitants of the Light Field knew that he was still very much capable of seizing their wretched little patch of grass if he chose to. Yes, he wanted to show that the Dark Forest would contain their power, but also that they had not been de-fanged.

The princess, as far as he was concerned, handled her inferiors far too nicely. He would have been shouting and kicking things by now. In fact, he probably would begin quite shortly to do just that. The guards were listening to her, however, and on the verge of letting them pass when a voice rang out behind them.

“Stand back, darlin', I'll protect you from that creature!”

Princess and king whirled around, Bog throwing up his hands to catch a sword on his manacles. He threw a glance at the princess and found she looked even unhappier about this development than he did, so he decided not to snarl accusations at her but focus on the matter at hand. Which was a fairy in garish green armor, of a shade found nowhere in nature, Bog was sure.

“Roland!” Marianne was doing her own snarling, “What are you doing?”

“Defending you, buttercup!”

“Buttercup?” Bog asked, hardly even looking when he blocked the next flurry of blows. He was looking at the princess. She looked like she wanted to kill something. More than that, like she wanted to kill something slowly and enjoy its dying screams. Bog felt fortunate that she had not actually aimed that expression at him. It would probably have been one of the last things he saw before the sweet embrace of oblivion.

“Bog is a guest! Put away your sword before I make you!” Marianne had dropped the chain and was clutching the scepter of the Dark Forest, obviously ready to wield it if necessary.

“Calm down, lovely lady, I'll deal with this!” The fairy circled, gesturing theatrically as he dismissed the princess. This easy disregard for the crown princess irked Bog. The princess had fought him on equal terms and now some puffed up guard—her subordinate—was simply ignoring her orders? Was the fairy suicidal?

“Is this guy for real?” Bog asked in total disbelief. Bog was in chains. Marianne obviously had the situation completely in control, her sword at her side, his scepter in hand. “Is he simple?”

“I'm afraid he's genuinely this phony.” Marianne muttered.

Bog twisted his head sharply, his neck cracking. “Can I hit him?”

“Please do. Though I can't guarantee it'll do any good.”

“Tried it yourself, have you?”

“Only not enough times.”

On the next strike Bog caught the edge of the sword on the manacles and deftly wrapped the length of chain around the blade. A twist and the weapon came free from the fairy's grasp. Bog let it drop and with a sweep of his arms smashed his fists into the soldier's chest. The dull crumpling of metal brought a smile to Bog's lips and he saw that Marianne was similarly pleased to see the obnoxious fairy slam into a wall.

This did not take the fairy out of action for long. He sprang up and called upon his soldiers and they converged upon the goblin. Marianne frantically worked the key in the manacles, trying to get Bog free in time to defend himself, for in their alarm the soldiers were not listening to her. The key broke off in the lock and Bog shot her an indignant snarl. She snarled back, baring absurdly small white teeth at him before snatching up a rock and smashing the lock right off the manacles.

Chains showered down onto the paving stones. Freed, Bog was ready to jump into the fray armed only with fangs and claws, but Marianne snatched up his staff from where she had dropped it in her haste to unlock him and hefted it over to him. He caught it and followed through in the movement to slam the head of the nearest fairy guard. Complete chaos broke loose at that and Bog was very much occupied with fending off the attacks coming from all sides, getting angrier with each swing of his staff.

He let himself get lost in the moment, and when voices called to him he ignored them, too busy to pay attention. At least, until the silver flash of the princess's blade sliced across his vision, the gleaming edge laid against his throat. He rolled his eyes in his sockets so he could see the princess without turning his head and risking the blade cutting him. Chin tilted up, face contorted into a sneer, he ground his teeth together and narrowed his eyes. Brown eyes met his fearlessly and the blade did not so much as quiver.

“That's enough.” She said.

“Not by my reckoning, princess.” One hand held the staff, the other he held up, not quite in surrender. Blood was on those thick black claws and it was not his own.

“It is by mine. Now stand down. It would be a terrible thing if I had to terminate our engagement so soon.” She shifted the blade and the razor sharp edge rasped when it dragged lightly across his skin. Without moving he allowed himself a low chuckle. Uncertainty flickered on her face, unsure of what to make of this reaction.

Softly, so only she could hear, he said, “I think this will get them to take you a bit more seriously. Don't you?”

“Are you telling me . . . did you set this up . . . if you let me stop you I'll slit your throat right now!”

“Not so much let as anticipate that you would. We fought to a standstill once, but without witnesses. This will lend your story much more credibility. You just stopped the rampaging Bog King and everyone saw you do it. Now, if you please, your highness, lower your weapon?” One claw clicked on the blade and the princess allowed him to move it aside. Faint red traces marked the mirror bright metal.

“Fools.” Bog muttered, looking at the nervous fairy guards. He'd been careful not to kill any of them. Well, he'd tried to be careful, anyway. It would complicate the current situation if they perceived him as slaughtering their incompetent guards. It pleased him to see that his plan had worked, that the guards were regarding the princess with almost as much wariness as they did the goblin. But there was also admiration in their stares as they realized the strength of their future queen.

“What is going on here?”

The Fairy King arrived in a frantic flapping of wings, barely managing to heft his girth into the air. Roland was recovering and made a grab at his sword. Bog slammed a foot down onto it and flashed a sharp growl at the fairy before turning back to his fellow king. He saw Dagda's eyes had gone wide in surprise and fear. The fairy guards were being dragged off the battlefield but their comrades, the able-bodied standing at the edge of things, uncertain what to do with the princess standing right there in the way.

“Marianne . . .?”

“Father,” Marianne said formally, pitching her voice so she could be heard by the crowd of fairies gathering behind the king, “Allow me to present The Bog King, ruler of the Dark Forest. Who, according to tradition, I have abducted in the first steps toward marriage.”

The Fairy King's face went slack, jaw dropping open. His eyes raked over the pair, noting the gash on the goblin's head, the broken bracelets of the manacles, that Marianne looked like she had been dragged backwards through a bush, and foremost, the blood decorating the hands of the goblin ruler.

The Bog King did not try to hide his smirk, amused by the fairy king's discomfort.

“Dagda.” Bow inclined his head in a nearly courteous gesture.

“Bog.” The fairy king replied with politeness in kind, though his eyes showed that there were many things he wanted to say. Loud, angry things. But people were watching and Bog was smirking at him in a most unpleasant way. If that arrogant goblin thought he would not be held accountable for this display, that he would be allowed to lay so much as a finger on Marianne . . .

“Marianne, sweet thing!” Roland had gotten to his feet and was trying to pretend he had not been inelegantly sprawled over the pavement. This was hard to pull off, since the front of his armor was crushed beyond repair, but he twirled his fingers through his hair to settle his disheveled locks back into place and quickly assumed the role of concerned suitor, “Have you been bewitched? What nonsense is this? The idea of a beauty like you marrying a beast like that—impossible!” And he tried to sweep Marianne protectively into his arms. Marianne's hand in his face halted his efforts. It is hard to look commanding when your nose is smashed sideways. She pushed him backwards and they were granted a few moments peace while he sorted himself out.

“Sweet thing?” Bog asked the princess in a quiet aside, the leafy ridge of his brow twitching upwards.

She glowered at him. “It isn't too late for me to cut your throat.”

Bog raised his hands up slightly to deflect her anger. “Merely inquiring.”

“There are no plans to declare war on the Dark Forest.”

Dagda insisted afterward as they sat around his desk. Seeing as Bog had been attacked with provocation the injuries inflicted upon the guards could not be held against him, but this did nothing to appease Dagda's suppressed anger toward the monstrous king who was sitting across from him, managing to look imposing despite how awkwardly he was sitting on the ill fitting chair.

“But there are some who would like to, yes?” Bog countered.

“You've agreed to this arrangement just to quell rumors?”

“I've agreed to this arrangement because it's a sound idea.” Bog insisted, “Advantageous to both sides.”

“Yes, but your stance on . . . love . . . is well known . . .”

“Then it's a good thing that this is a marriage of convenience, then, isn't it, Dagda?”

“Do you think that's any comfort to me?” Dagda snapped, finding it harder to contain his anger when he looked at the goblin's smug face, so delighted in the fairy king's unease, “Seeing my daughter throw herself away on a loveless marriage?”

“To a monster, no less.” Bog finished the thought for him.

“Can you go just five minutes without reminding everyone you're the mighty, evil Bog King?” Marianne complained. “You get the point across, take my word on it.”

“Hmph.” Bog snorted, tapping his staff against his hand.

“It's my choice.” Marianne said to her father, “Our choice. Everything has been witnessed properly, according to tradition, so it's too late to back out now. Bog and I will be married today and Dawn can start on the preparations for her wedding to be in a week or two.”

“When I insisted on the importance of tradition I didn't--”

“You can't just pick and chose.” Marianne cut him off.

“But what about Roland?”

“What about him?” Marianne's face shut down, going blank and hard, only her eyes betraying a dangerous gleam of anger.

Bog tilted his head. “Wait, is he the guy?” He jabbed a thumb at the door, generally indicating where Roland might be. The fairy had followed them almost right into the study, but the princess had shut the door in his face. “The one who was unfaith—?”

“I broke off our engagement over a year ago.” Marianne said loudly, cutting off Bog, “Roland is not relevant to decisions I make about my future.”

“Marianne, if you're doing this just because of your sister--”

“No, I knew you might reconsider that point, but I didn't do it just for Dawn. I'm doing it because it's a good thing for the two kingdoms. If I had married Roland he would no doubt be planning to march on the forest as soon as the army could be organized. Now he can't, but don't think he won't try to find another way. We need to forge an alliance and understanding to not just prevent war, but eliminate any possible need for it.”

“Marianne, please,” Dagda began, his voice pleading as he reached across the desk in a gesture of entreaty.

The door burst open and a flurry of pink wings made Bog skew around in his chair and bring up his weapon defensively. He relaxed, slightly, when he saw it was only the fluffy one, the other princess.

“Dad! I kidnapped Sunny so now we're engaged and you're got to let us get married!” The fairy said all this in one rushed breath, shoving forward a nervous looking elf with hair that spiked up in one large tuft. The elf's hands were loosely tied with frayed rope that he could probably have slipped right out of if he tried. “Everybody saw us so it's witnessed and everything!”

The younger princess stood there, bent at the waist so that she could wrap her arms around the elf's neck while she stared with childish defiance at her father. The elf couldn't seem to decide which king he was more terrified of, his eyes darting back and forth between the polished armor of Dagda and the dark shape of Bog.

A glance told Bog that the elder princess had not planned or anticipated this turn of events. She looked a little stunned at her sister's unexpected initiative, but also approving. The mismatched lovers presented such an amusing sight, such a absurd contrast to their own “abduction” that when Bog turned and met Marianne's eyes the two of them burst into laughter.

Dagda looked helplessly at the two couples. His youngest daughter and the elf standing uncertainly in the open doorway, exchanging nervous smiles with each other at the sight of the crown princess bent double with laughter and the king of the Dark Forest leaning on his staff as he sat, one hand covering his face while his shoulders and wings shook from laughing. The fairy king watched when Marianne brushed tears out of her eyes as she regained control, but she looked over at the goblin and caught his eye when he peered out between his fingers and they both dissolved into laughter again.

It was, Dagda realized, the first time in over a year that he had heard Marianne laugh without any note of bitterness to mar her amusement. And for once the goblin king's face sported neither a menacing sneer or insolent smirk, but a sincere smile that Dagda could never have imagined those sharp features producing. He had thought the world had turned upside-down when Marianne called off her wedding without explanation, when Dawn and declared her love for an elf. But this? This didn't even seem real.

“Dawn, Sunny,” Dagda sighed, trying to make himself heard over the slowly fading mirth of the other couple, “You had better sit down so we can work out all the details . . . of these two arrangements.”

“Daddy!” Dawn flew over the desk and threw her arms around her father, “Thank you! I love you!”

The marriage ceremony was little more than a witnessed signing of the contract. A handful of the more important fairy nobles and officials were called in to witness, along with the younger princess and the elf—Sunrise or something, Bog thought—who was now officially her fiancé. The delicate little fairy once again struck Bog as being entirely unlike her elder sister. The fact that her father had been forced to agree to her own marriage apparently made her too happy to be afraid of approaching the fearsome Bog King during the very small and subdued gathering to celebrate the crown princess's union.

“Hello again!” She sang, fluttering down to stand by him. Bog's wings twitched and shoulders moved restlessly. He wasn't used to the way fairy architecture left so many openings for attack. Nor was he used to being around so many other winged creatures. His carefully honed wariness and instinct for self-preservation was bordering on panic in some moments and an overwhelming desire to flee was building up inside him. The hostile looks and murmuring of the court were no help. While he knew perfectly well that the fairies were nearly all unarmed and little threat to him even if they were, his instincts interpreted the unfriendliness as danger and he had to ignore the part of his brain that screamed at him to strike first and strike hard.

“Hello.” Bog rumbled, trying to clear a space in his head to wonder what the little creature wanted.

“I made this for you,” Dawn's tiny hand darted out and slapped something onto Bog's chest, her nervousness making her movements sharp. Bog reared back, standing up straight and narrowly missing hitting his head on a chandelier. “What is that?”

“A thank you gift.” Dawn's natural exuberance was warring with apprehension, so her smile was half-hidden behind her fingers, “I hope you like it. I didn't know what kind of flowers goblins like so I had to guess.”

“For . . . me?” He looked down at the arrangement of flowers and leaves, all of them of subdued colors. No delicate blossoms had been chosen, but tougher, spikier plants, save for a tiny white flower in the center. He had been expecting empty words from the fairies, but he had not expected a gesture like this. It was simple, but—he looked at the fairy's beaming little face—apparently sincere and grateful.

Dawn nodded. “You saved me from that lizard. I'm sorry about your head. It was very brave of you.”

Bog absently traced the gash. “It's nothing. It was nothing.”

“You're going to be nice to Marianne, aren't you?”

“What?”

“I know it's just for politics and everything, but you are married now.” The girl tucked her arms behind her back and traced the patterns on the polished floor with the toe of her slipper. “She did all this for me, you know. And I was just hoping that you and Marianne would be friends.”

“We'll be civil. That's the point of this.”

“Marianne's not very happy, you know.” Dawn said sadly, looking across the room at where her sister was enduring the company of some condescending officials who were praising her for her bold political tactics. “It would be good if you were her friend.”

“We'll be civil.” Bog repeated. He waited a moment, watching the girl scuff her toe across the shiny floor. Then he looked back across the room at the elder princess. Well, technically she was now a queen. Queen of the Dark Forest. It would be made official tomorrow. There was no smile on her face, nor fire in her eyes. There was a weariness. A weariness he recognized from his own experience as a ruler. The loneliness of ruling, of being unable to fully trust and confide in anyone.

Was she unhappy? Not that he cared, but the thought jarred him somehow. The princess was so confident, so in control, and during their fight she had flashed more than one bright, sharp smile, full of ferocious joy in combat. That was why the thought jarred him. During their skirmish she had seemed very much . . . herself. The closer they had come to the fairy castle the less herself she seemed to become. Her smiles were strained, her words stalled as she picked through her phrases with care. Trying to appease without sacrificing herself.

“She really isn't happy.” Bog murmured to himself.

“She liked fighting with you.” The younger princess remarked, “I haven't heard her laugh so much in months.”

“Oh?” What a number of contrasting pictures. Frightened little fairy that tumbled into the primroses. Ruthless warrior and politician. Unhappy princess, out of place among her own court.

“You looked like you were having fun, too.” Dawn went on.

“Mm.” Bog rumbled.

“Anyway.” Dawn scuffed a bit more before suddenly throwing her arms around the king's narrow, armored waist. “Thank you so much for everything! The lizard, and helping me get married, and especially for making Marianne laugh again!”

“Um.” The king's hands were held out awkwardly on either side of him, afraid to touch the fragile yellow and pink creature lest she break. She was not like her sister, that was certain. “You're . . . welcome.” To his relief she released him, her face sparkling, nervousness forgotten. “And . . . thank you.” He motioned at the flowers, “It's . . . lovely.”

“You're welcome!” The girl sang, fluttering up and pecking a kiss on the king's cheek before he could even think of dodging. She darted off into the air, a twirl of pink and blue happiness, calling to her betrothed who had been hovering out of earshot while she spoke with the Bog King. Still fluttering in the air, she dipped down to kiss the elf before grabbing his hand and tugging him into the crowd.

What a strange pair. They were happy, though. It shone radiantly from their smiling faces. That was something, Bog thought with a sharp pang, that was something he would never have. Not that he even wanted it anymore, but the mere fact that he had been denied even the opportunity . . .

Bog hunched over, the horrible brightness and exposure of the fairy party all at once overwhelming. No one was watching him, in his dim corner of the room. In fact, everyone was carefully not watching him, hoping he would prove to be a mere illusion if they paid him no attention. At least there was one advantage of the flimsy fairy architecture, Bog thought, slipping out and onto one of the many balconies that riddled the structure.

It was too bright here. Bog squinted at the open field that spread out around the fairy castle, hardly any trees to be seen. How did they manage with so little cover? How did they stand it? Being so exposed and vulnerable to attack every minute of every day? Bog braced his back against the rock of the outer wall and leaned his head into his hand for a moment. The dull throb of his injury competed with the stabbing pain knifing behind his eyes. It was growing late and he needed to return home soon. He had sent a message off through the mushrooms before his departure but who knows if the things had delivered it coherently or not. First he had to talk to the princess again, arrange for her to come to the Dark Forest and attend to the proper ceremonies there.

“Oh, there you are.” Marianne had nearly missed seeing the dull shape of the Bog King as he stood there, still against the gray rock like another bit of rocky outcropping. It had been the wings that caught her eye. Their edges catching the sunlight and reflecting brief rainbow sparkles into the air. It was a surprising feature for a goblin to have, such bright and colorful wings. Or, perhaps not. When he shifted and the light was no longer at the right angle his wings were once more dull, the torn holes ragged and painful to look at, the brief burst of color hidden.

He uncovered his face at her words and once again she was struck by his vividly blue eyes. Monsters that haunted her nightmares should not have such eyes. The sharp face was so familiar, but the eyes were new to her, especially right now when she caught a glimpse of how tired they were before the king's brow furrowed and he assumed his usual attitude of displeasure.

“No need to hide out here,” She remarked, “Despite the attitude of the court you're perfectly safe, you know.”

“Any endeavor embarked upon in partnership with you, tough girl, is hardly likely to any such thing.”

“Taking a breather?” She asked, leaning on the railing and considering her bright kingdom with admiration.

“It's that,” The king's wings twitched, “Or I start eating fairies.”

“Please, don't. Or, rather, do. Just let me direct you to the officials that won't be missed. I have a list prepared, actually.”

Bog snorted. “Don't we all . . . it only gets longer when you take the throne. What a strange thing it is, to be waiting to rule.”

“Is it? You've got to wait until you're old enough, at least. When did you succeed your father?” The castle library contained little information about the Dark Forest, its inhabitants and royalty. Marianne knew exactly how little because she had studied every scrap of paper they had on the subjects. It had been noted when the king had come to the throne, but no other details. Not how old he was, or the circumstances of the previous ruler's death.

“My father wasn't king. Never knew him.”

“Then how did you--?”

“I killed the last ruler of the Dark Forest and took his throne.” He ducked his face down toward hers, curling one hand into a fist to emphasize his words before turning sharply away again. Make her afraid. Make her afraid of you. She isn't afraid, but she should be, that was the proper order of things. She should be afraid.

“Oh.” The princess considered this, but was not floored yet, “So when you said that somebody younger and stronger . . .”

“Will drag my corpse off the throne someday, yes. That's how succession works in the Dark Forest. Tidier than the nonsense you fairies get up to, with bloodlines and such. Blood doesn't guarantee strength, strength enough to rule.”

“So, if I had killed you today I would have automatically become queen of the Dark Forest?” The question was accompanied by a sly little smile, showing that she didn't really mean it. She was . . . she was teasing him. Why did this fairy insist on constantly taking him off guard?

“Don't look so pleased.” He snorted, “Getting the throne is one thing, keeping it is another.”

“If I knew it was that simple . . .” She continued airily.

He swung around, a sneer showing his sharp, chipped fangs. “You're welcome to try, princess, but you might not fare so well in a fair fight.” His claws curved together and his body was drawn tight and sharp as he circled the princess. He could see her tense up and regretted the loss of that mocking gleam in her eye. For a moment he had thought . . . but no, she was as afraid as all the rest. She was still that pale little fairy with bleached flowers in her hair, eyes huge and dark in fear.

Right before she kicked you in the face, a little voice reminded him. At least she does not let fear paralyze her.

It certainly did not, for she knocked his hand away. “If you want a fair fight, let me get my sword. Otherwise you would be at a distinct disadvantage, husband.”

The word hit him like a blow. He bristled at it. She didn't have a right to call him that! Married they might be, but only in the most technical sense. He wasn't a husband to her nor she a wife to him. They were reluctant allies at most. While he had considered all the ramifications of marrying her the implications seemed to strike him anew. She was perfectly able to slit his throat if she chose and seize the throne if she desired. And if anyone could keep it, it would be her.

“What—you—!” He spluttered.

“Well?” She folded her arms and her eyes were hard. “We're married now and I expect you to respect me.”

“I would ask the same of you, princess, but I doubt I would receive it! We are a means to an end, you and I, and you see me as nothing more than that. Your sister's happiness, your people's safety, so you can be left alone. You used me to get those things.”

“As if you have gained nothing! A war averted, your people safe, your precious primroses guarded on both sides of the border!”

“Humiliated! Mocked! Gaped at by spindly fairies with their pale-faced sneering!” He threw out his hand in a wide gesture, striking the end of his staff on the ground.

“I suppose I'll be received with gracious manners and open arms when I visit your realm? This partnership is about building bridges—you can't expect to heal the rift between kingdoms in a day! You can't demand it.”

“You fairies think that asking nicely will get you anything you want! Perhaps I overestimated the possible threat of war. The plan was no doubt to walk up to my castle and ask us politely to surrender!”

“Keep your voice down.” Marianne said, glancing back toward the party.

“Me?” Bog drew in a breath to yell all the louder but he found a small hand clapped over his mouth and a pair of fierce brown eyes glaring at him. Marianne could feel him freeze up under her touch, his hands relaxing from their predatory clawing to hover uncertainly in the air, carefully not touching her.

She drew back her hand. Oh, that had been the wrong thing to do. She'd seen how he'd reacted when she kissed him. How he flinched away from Dawn's impulsive hug. The way he shied from letting himself brush against the fairies at the gathering. Whether it was a goblin trait or a personal quirk he obviously did not like uninvited physical contact.

“I'm sorry.” Marianne brushed back her hair while the king looked off to the side. “That was out of line.” He grumbled something indistinct, “So was kissing you.” The blue eyes shot back to her face. “I shouldn't have done that.”

Armor rattled in a shrug. “I baited you.”

“I didn't have to rise to it. And it wasn't fair. You couldn't fight back. It must have been . . . unpleasant.”

“That was the point of it, wasn't it? To intimidate. To win.” He couldn't argue that is hadn't been unpleasant. It had been. She had mocked him with that kiss. How humiliating for the king of the Dark Forest, who hated everything to do with love, to be kissed against his will. She had used the thing he hated most to attack him and in that moment she had won.

“In a fair fight! But I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking there was an opening and I should take it . . . that I could make somebody else feel as small and scared as I've been.” Her voice dropped and the last few words were nearly whispered. White flowers in her hair. Fear in her eyes. A kick to his face. “I've tried so hard to change myself, but I'm still the same.”

“What if you are?”

“What?” She asked, suspiciously searching for mockery. There was none.

“Still the fairy lass who fell into the Dark Forest, right at the feet of the creature she's been taught to fear most, and keeping her head enough to kick him in the nose and get away. Most of us don't do that well . . . out of our element. Fear and courage . . . are not mutually exclusive. Fear gives you caution, makes you think. It is not the same thing as cowardice. No coward could be so relentlessly ferocious.”

He had gotten close to her again, but had forgotten his predatory stance, too busy watching the play of expressions across the princess's face. Sadness, shame. Suspicion over his uncharacteristically comforting words. Finally, a spark of pleasure at being called “relentlessly ferocious”.

“Thank you.” She said. She was smiling, for the first time since they signed the papers. It was not forced expression she put on for the fairy nobles, the sharp smile she wore in battle, nor the grin caused by the amusement over her little sister's exploits. It was soft, gentle. It was . . . happy.

For this brief moment he, the terrible Bog King, had somehow managed to make this remarkable warrior princess happy. He was a king and used to power, but he had never wielded this sort of power before. It felt dangerous, fragile, but sharp, ready to hurt both him and the princess if he misstepped.

“Anyway,” He said, breaking the peaceful moment with a sharp gesture of his hand, “Anyone who would dare kiss the hideous king of the goblins can't very well be called a coward.” And he laughed, a hard and deliberate laugh to show he didn't care.

The princess's smile vanished. “I am . . . I am truly sorry about that. I regret—“

“Of course you do.” Bog snorted.

“Not like that!” Marianne said, hesitance evaporating in a burst of impatience, “I regret taking a cheap shot! I regret trying to intimidate you to make myself feel brave! I want this partnership to work, and I don't want you under the impression that I think you're some sort of wild animal that needs to be tamed.”

“Oh?” Bog infused an unbelievably amount of skepticism and sarcasm into that single, heavily accented syllable and Marianne ground her teeth together to hold back her temper. He had every right not to believe her and shouting at him again would accomplish nothing but further fraying their tempers.

“Listen, I'm apologizing. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I would like to know what I have to do in order to earn your forgiveness.”

“There's nothing to be forgiven. It doesn't count as an offense when it's against the evil king of the Dark Forest, does it now?”

“Is your opinion of yourself really that poor? You don't even think you count as a person?”

“Of course not!” He automatically denied the accusation, but he had an uneasy suspicion that the princess had hit upon a truth he had never actually put into words. It was just fact. His subjects, fairies, elves, they all looked upon him with fear. The Bog King, devoid of light and love, walled off from the rest of the world by the empty darkness inside him. Fearsome, hideous, and alone. And yet this fairy kept arguing with him, kept forgetting to be afraid of him. He wasn't sure if he hated that or actually liked it. “Of course not.” He said again, but with less certainty, turning from her gaze.

“Look, I know I'm still just a princess and you're a king, but I still think of this as a partnership. Of equals. And I know I did a really bad job of starting it off, what with the chains and the kidnapping and the . . . the kiss . . .”

The princess was awkward now, but not afraid, and a tiny breath of laughter escaped the king. “You are a queen, though,” He pointed out, “Queen of the Dark Forest.”

“Oh, yes, well . . . I forgot?” She said, sheepish. “It's just a title, anyway. No power attached.”

“That depends. The laws on that point are very malleable.” They had spent their flight to the castle discussing the ins and outs of their marriage according to fairy laws and customs. Bog had brought up what Dark Forest laws he thought relevant, but they had not truly delved into the aspects of his laws yet. “We'll discuss it tomorrow. When you come to the forest. I . . . ah . . . need to get back. Tomorrow we can deal with all the ceremonies necessary for the Dark Forest.”

“I'll meet you at the border.”

“Yes. Good.” He turned away, his wings lifting to prepare for flight, but after a second they dropped again and he looked over his shoulder at the princess. “I . . .” He paused and swallowed, finding the words he sought to speak were hesitant to pass his lips, “I forgive you.”

The princess smiled and Bog's heart gave a twinge. That spark of happy relief . . . and he had given that to her. Again, it made him afraid and he sought to find the words to nullify the accidental gift, but the princess spoke first.

“Wait, before you go. I'd . . . I'd like our marriage to start off a little better than our rocky courtship.” An involuntary breath of laughter came out of the king, “So, instead of punching you . . . trust me for a second?”

To his surprise he inclined his head in a nod as he turned around and found he did trust her. When she gestured for him to lean down he obliged, wondering what she might have to say.

Hands clasped behind her back as she stood on tip toes, Marianne's purple lips dropped a light kiss on his cheek, the merest touch, but he felt as if a jolt of lightning had run through him. He stood up straight, staff held in front of him, his face blank. It was such a small gesture. Such a gentle one. It reminded him of her younger princess, in a way. And he was baffled again, wondering not how something so small could be so fearsome, but how something so fearsome could be so gentle.

He didn't know why, but he smiled. Strange. That had not been . . . unpleasant.

“Um, well.” Marianne said, smiling in return, “Until tomorrow, my king?”

“Yes.” Bog recovered his voice and managed to sweep a bow that was almost courtly, and as he did he took her hand and bent over it. Thick black claws against a backdrop of light fairy skin, shadows and light. “Until tomorrow, my queen.”

Chapter Text

The final yellow and red shafts of the setting sun filtered into the throne room of the Dark Forest castle through the skylight as the queen mother paced up and down before the throne in distraught agitation.

“You would do this to me.” She quavered in raspy, wounded tones, “Me! Your own mother.”

The Bog King's armor scraped against the throne as he slouched a little further down, one hand covering his face, the other fretting at the edges of the younger princess's gift where it was still stuck to his chest. He had not anticipated his mother's reaction to his marriage beyond the thought that she would finally have to stop bombarding him with potential mates. When he arrived back from the Light Fields he found his mother had arranged another batch of suitors. The brief message he had sent through the mushrooms had not caused her the least concern, it seemed, and she had taken full advantage of his unexplained absence to smuggle in the latest candidates for Queen of the Dark Forest.

“Not again, mother.” He had said, not finding it hard to muster his usual tone of dismay even with the thought of breaking the news to her making a smile quiver at the corners of his deliberate frown.

“I'm not giving up! I'll find someone for you if I have to look under every rock in the Dark Forest!” The queen had declared, unruffled by the show of snarling and shouting her son had just performed to drive the ladies out of the throne room in a frightened rush. It was her privilege, or so she asserted, to not have to put up with her son's temper tantrums.

“Only the Dark Forest?” Bog muttered, rubbing his upper lip to hide his smirk. The pleasure he had taken in dismissing the latest—and last!—batch of suitors was indescribable and he had to bite back a satisfied grin when he made a carefully casual remark that, “This is inappropriate. My wife would not like it.” He had counted out a full three minutes before the implication of his words sank in and his mother broke off from describing the virtues of some other girl, whipping around to demand an explanation for his statement.

“Today I was, ah, approached by the crown princess of the Light Fields,” Bog touched the wound on his head, recalling exactly how that had gone, “And she proposed an alliance between our kingdoms. A political marriage to ensure peace.” He briefly outlined the main points of their agreement, filling up the strangled silence while his mother stared at him, trying to process this unexpected information.

“And you . . . and you accepted?” Griselda's raspy voice dwindled down to a faint grinding. “You agreed to marry a fairy? You agreed to marry?”

“I not only agreed,” Bog sat on his throne, leaning the staff against the side, “I married her today in the Light Fields.” He steepled his fingers in front of his face to disguise his smile at his mother's choked cry of outrage. A range of emotions and ideas warred over Griselda's face before she settled on watery-eyed hurt.

The wicked glee he had felt upon breaking the news to her was quickly extinguished when his mother's tiny eyes went wide and sad, filling with tears. Now she was marching back and forth in front of the throne, her wreath of rocks askew over her mop of frizzy hair, gesturing with stubby fingers while Bog glowered from his throne, the grinding of his teeth clearly audible.

“You got married and didn't even invite your own mother to the wedding! Twenty-three months I carry you and this is the thanks I get! Scrape and slave to bring you up properly and see you have all the advantages and do I get a thank you? Do you fling me a crumb of gratitude? No! I ought to turn you over my knee!”

Stuff and Thang snickered from where they were sitting on the steps, kicking their legs back and forth. “Nice boutonnière!” Thang remarked. He probably meant it sincerely, but Bog flung a razor-sharp glance at them and the two goblins clapped their hands over their mouths and fell silent.

“I am The Bog King,” He said, drawing himself up a little and setting the end of the staff onto the floor with a firm thud, snatching off the offending boutonnière and dashing it to the floor. “I don't need to consult anyone about the matters of ruling my kingdom!”

“I'm your mother!” Griselda sniffed, her voice edging upwards into a wail.

Bog deflated. “Mother . . . mom.” She was crying. She was doing it on purpose. But Bog could not help but raise a hand in a soothing gesture, “The princess is coming here tomorrow for all the proper ceremonies, you'll meet her then.”

“You're going to have a ceremony here, too?” Griselda perked up, dashing at her tears with the back of her hand.

“Yes, mother.”

“With the proper celebrations and everything?”

Bog sank down in his throne again, expression sullen. “It is a necessary step, unfortunately, in acknowledging her as the queen.”

“Oh! That's not much time! Lots to get ready!” The queen mother snapped back around to cheerful so quickly, her wide face splitting in a dazzling smile, it was startling and Bog's wings buzzed in mild alarm. She had been planning her son's wedding for years and now she finally had an opportunity to put things into effect. She adjusted her crown of rocks around her broken horns and leaned on the arm of the throne, hands clasped as she looked up at her son. “This girl must have been something else to get you to agree to work with fairies.” She did not wink, but her tone implied one.

“You could say that.” Bog touched the gash again and then absently touched his lips. “The princess is certainly . . . determined.”

“A fairy.” Griselda shook her head as she considered. It wasn't what she had expected, but a wife was a wife and she could work with that. “Pah, if I had know that was what you were interested in I would have expanded my search.”

“Mother,” He cringed at her implications, “might I remind you that this is a political arrangement? The princess proposed it as such and that is all it will be.”

“Eh,” Griselda waved a hand, “There's certainly got to be something special about this princess if she hooked you, politically or otherwise. What do all these fairies think of their princess marrying a goblin, anyway?”

The sneering and frightened faces of the fairy court floated in front of Bog's mind's eye. “Completely horrified.” He smirked.

“And your wife?”

“The princess is . . . pragmatic.”

“Wife.” Griselda repeated, looking far too pleased for Bog's peace of mind. “She must not mind you too much, considering.”

Mind him? Her opinion of him had been clearly stated and it was not favorable.

I'm not afraid of anyone or anything.

The memory of the princess's words flicked on the raw of a wound he had thought had been covered by protective scar-tissue long ago. The first kiss had been a weapon used against him. The second . . . it had been a tool. Rebuilding the damage dealt in their struggle to obtain equilibrium with each other. The princess was a fairy, a creature of light and love, that she would wield such weapons and tools was only natural, even if she too had declared her own ban on love. She might not love but . . . she could still be loved. There was the true difference between them, beyond the mere physical aspects. The princess did not know—could not know—how truly effective her attack had been.

His mother's suggestion that the princess might care for him in any way was laughable. That anyone could was ridiculous. But his mother had always been a creature of stubborn optimism. It was a characteristic that came with her thick troll skull, no doubt, which refused to allow any ideas to penetrate that might contradict her personal views.

In the eyes of the Light Fields' crown princess the Bog King was a monster, to be handled and appeased, but never tamed. They would work together, for the sake of their kingdoms, and perhaps even be on good terms, but there would never be anything else. His fingers tapped against the cheek she had gently kissed. Weapons and tools. Not love. Not romance.

Definitely not romantic. He cringed at the memory of the chains and scratched at his wrists, his mother chattering on about arrangements for the ceremony, and tried not to think of that unpleasant exchange beneath the primroses. Tried not to think of the glittering and over-bright fairy gathering, the younger princess's overeager gratitude, or of how the elder had looked leaning on the railing in the sunlight, pride and love of her kingdom so clearly written on her face. That was a love allowed, affection for one's realm. It would not betray you. Nor would it love you back.

“Are you listening to me?” Griselda demanded, smacking his elbow. “There's so much to do! My little boy is finally getting married! So many people to tell, oh, I can't wait! Are you just going to sit there daydreaming about her or are you gonna get ready to marry her properly.”

“Mom.” He said, slightly thrown off because he couldn't effectively deny where his train of thought had been traveling.

Griselda noticed the reddening of his face and knew that it was not anger that caused it. She said nothing, but smiled broadly as she picked up the poor discarded boutonnière and set it on the arm of the throne by her son's elbow. She trotted off to see about getting something for the gash on Bog's head and beginning hasty preparations for a wedding.

“A fairy.” She remarked to no one in particular, “Hm. Suppose an unusual problem calls for an unusual solution.”

“I hardly think anyone in the Dark Forest is going to notice what I'm wearing, much less care.” Marianne said to Dawn's back.

Dawn pulled herself out of Marianne's wardrobe, her arms heaped full of clothes, “You should at least make an effort! And officials from our court are going to be there, too, remember. Goblins might not care, but the entire court is going to be talking about it if you wear that.”

“They saw me get married in this,” Marianne brushed at the faded panels of her red tunic. It was a little worse for the wear after the day's adventures, but still intact. “They can take what I throw at them. I'm too tired and bruised to care about clothes. Stick me in a burlap bag and call it a day.”

Marianne was sprawled on her bed, wings a tired lavender drapery against the velvet petals, elbows propped on the flower and chin resting on her fists while she watched Dawn at work.

“I'm bruised too!” Dawn pointed out, “You didn't fly into a bush!”

“Never tell dad that happened.” Marianne sighed, shifting carefully onto her side and tracing gentle circles on her wrist with her fingertips, thinking vaguely of the points of discussion she would want to focus on tomorrow and wondering what the ceremonies of the Dark Forest might consist of.

“Why not? You and Boggy saved me, Dad should know that he's not such a bad guy as all that. It might make Daddy feel better about everything.”

“Dad would flip out. And . . . “Boggy”?”

Dawn just smiled and fluffed a pile of clothing down next to Marianne, giving the stack a brisk little pat. With a tiny frown she turned to Marianne, “Does your hand hurt?”

“Hm? No more than the rest of me, why?”

“You keep rubbing it.”

Marianne looked down to see her fingers tracing the places on her hand and wrist where she had felt the pressure of the Bog King's fingers when he had taken her hand and bade her good night. She dropped her hands and shook her head quickly, “Um. No. Fine. No problem. Are there dresses in here?” She began to pull at the pile of clothing to change the subject, “Because I'm not going to wear a dress into the Dark Forest.”

“Nooo.” Dawn said regretfully, “I took that into account. You'll want something tough and comfortable. But that doesn't mean you can't look pretty, too!”

“I'm married now,” Marianne complained, “I don't have to make an effort to look pretty anymore. I am officially excused from trying.” A smile lit up her face at the thought of no one ever pestering her about that again. Of course, she knew that wasn't quite true. As a princess and future queen she would be obliged to look presentable, but at least no one would nag her to try and find a king anymore.

“You should look nice for your husband!” Dawn said, a gleam of triumph in her eye over this watertight argument.

Marianne immediately quashed the idea, wondering why the use of the title “husband” bothered her so much when someone else used it. “My husband would probably find me more attractive if I were bald and had scales. He's not going to notice if I do my hair or not.”

“Well, you're going there as an official representative. So you know what that means! You have to wear your crown!” Dawn brandished the delicate wire tiara with its intricately wrought metal flowers and leaves, gems twinkling colorfully under the lights. “And it'll look silly if you just wear it with your every day adventuring outfit.”

“Mmf.” Marianne buried her face in the petals with a weary groan, “I'm still going to wear my makeup.”

“I assumed.” Dawn nodded, placing the tiara on the other side of Marianne on the bed. “So purples and blues, nice and dark, miss rebel princess.”

“Miss rebel queen.” Marianne pointed a finger and lifted her head to correct her sister.

“Oh! I wonder if you get a crown for being queen of the Dark Forest? I suppose Bog must have a crown, don't you think?”

“I don't know.” Marianne rolled over, flipping her wings over the pile of clothing, and stared at the ceiling, “I don't know anything. I want to know all about it, though. The Dark Forest and the goblins, what they do with themselves, how their laws work. I sort of wanted to discuss it today, but the council insisted on that stupid party.”

“How else were people going to find out you got married?” Dawn pointed out.

“I think an official announcement would be good enough! Waste of time, and it certainly didn't put Bog into a good mood. I never thought I'd meet anyone who hated parties more than I did, but Bog has me absolutely beat.” She sighed over the memory of their altercation on the balcony, then felt a little queasy when she recalled how she had kissed him for a second time. What had she been playing at? Well, he didn't seem to have taken offense. Once again her fingers traced up and down the skin of her hand. His own hand had absolutely swallowed hers up, it was so large, but the touch of his fingers had been gentle and she had felt no fear of his claws in that moment.

“You've got loads of time to talk,” Dawn said, shoving the clothing over so she could scoot down beside her sister. Marianne flipped her wings out of the way to make further space. Once they had talked like this all the time and about everything. Lately Marianne had been gone more and more, coming home late and collapsing into bed exhausted after a hard day of flying and training or research.

“Not right away. Only two weeks to reconcile the council to your marriage. We managed to put them in their place today, but that was just because . . . well . . .”

“They were scared of Boggy.” Dawn finished for her, “And they aren't going to be scared of Sunny, so they'll put up more of a fuss. They don't think Sunny might get mad and eat one of them. I never thought that such a thing would be an advantage.”

Marianne laughed, then winced, her hand going to her side. The dull ache that was spread over her stomach and ribs was getting more insistent now that she had sat down to rest. She had been determined to ignore it and had managed well enough, too focused on arguing with the Bog King and dealing with the court to spare the time.

“What's wrong?” Dawn asked.

“Mm.” Marianne shifted, trying to ease her discomfort, “He might have gotten a few good hits in, too.” It had been a good hit. Right when Dawn's first scream of terror had sounded she had let her guard down and not managed to block the next blow. She had been thrown back, only cushioned by a chance spiderweb, and caught a fleeting glance of the surprised look on the king's face. He had expected her to block that. But she had ripped herself free and both of them had turned to the matter of helping Dawn. “It was my own fault for getting distracted.”

“Let me see,” Dawn insisted. She pulled up the front of Marianne's tunic to reveal a nasty red and purple bruise mottling the pale skin over her lower torso. There were darker lines of bruising from the filigree of the staff cutting across the spectacular sunset shades.

“It only hurts now that I'm so stiff,” Marianne said, seeing the shock in Dawn's eyes. “It's just a bruise.”

“You two are such a pair!” Dawn said faintly, hands covering her mouth.

“Huh?”

“Boggy spent all day walking around with his head gashed open and didn't say a word about it and you nearly get your ribs broken and just . . . don't care! You're both going to drive me crazy!”

A soft rap sounded on the door and the fairy king's voice floated into the room, “May I come in?”

“Yeah, dad!” Marianne pulled her tunic back into place as the door began to creak open. “Don't you say a word about it, Dawn! He'll--”

“Flip out.” Dawn sighed, sliding off the bed, “I'll go get you something for that. Daddy probably wants to talk to you alone anyway.” She fluttered out of the room, pausing to give her father a quick kiss before disappearing into the hall.

“Marianne.” The fairy king said. He stood just in front of the closed door and his daughter was standing by her bed, only a few steps away. It felt like there were miles between them.

“Dad.” Her head was set at a stubborn tilt and her arms were folded over her aching ribs, prepared for an argument and determined to show no weakness.

“Marianne,” The king said again, “Does all this . . . does it make you happy?”

Marianne dropped her arms. “Happy? Of course I'm—“ Her father's pained expression cut off her automatic response and she fell silent. Happiness wasn't something she concerned herself with anymore. She had been happy before Roland's betrayal but it had all been a lie. It wasn't something she wanted anymore. How to explain to her father that she was fine, she was satisfied with what she had made of herself.

“I'm working to bring two kingdoms together,” She said, folding her arms again, “Doing my duty as future Queen of the Light Fields.”

“I don't mean that,” Her father sighed, but seemed to set the subject aside for the moment when he said, “I'm proud of you.”

“What?” Marianne bit the inside of her cheek to suppress an ill-timed laugh at her accidental homage to the Bog King's mastery of monosyllabic bafflement.

The king took his daughter's hands, noticing her bruised knuckles and calloused palms. “Regardless of what I might personally think of your plan you executed it brilliantly and the goal is praiseworthy. You have the council backed into a corner.”

“Easy to do when you've got the king of the goblins looming behind you.” Marianne swung their hands, fidgeting to relieve her uneasiness.

“Don't put yourself down. They would never have yielded to mere threats. I wouldn't have yielded to them. Do you think I agreed to all this because I'm afraid of Bog?”

Marianne shrugged. “I guess not.”

The king laughed at her uncertainty. “I certainly fear what he could do if he chose, but I won't let that cloud my judgment.”

“Yeah.” Marianne's ribs ached and her stomach churned. The decision she had made today, she had done it to spite her fear, but wasn't that the same thing as making a choice out of fear? Too late for that now, though.

“My little girl.” the king said fondly, taking in her dusty clothing, ruffled hair, and smeared makeup. “I've always been proud of you. I've just wanted you to be happy. Does this,” He squeezed her hands as he asked the question again, “Does this make you happy?”

Marianne choked back the mechanical response that sprang to her lips once more. A lie would be easy, but it would not satisfy her father's question. And she did not really want to lie to him. “I . . . I don't know. It feels right and it'll be good for the kingdoms and Dawn's happy now . . . I don't know. But I'm not sorry I did it.”

And as she said it she realized she wasn't sorry. In a round about way she had come back to her dream of making peace with the goblins. No, it wasn't the way she had expected, that she had dreamed of as she danced in her wedding dress—Roland looking on in smug condescension at her naivety. But she had gotten there. She was going into the Dark Forest, freely invited across the border.

“You'll be careful?”

“Yes, dad.” She said in the same impatient tone she used since she was a teenager and both of them smiled.

“And you sister . . . and the elf—Sunny . . .”

“She's over the moon about this, dad. It's the real deal. Look at it this way: I found a king and Dawn isn't flirting with every boy she makes eye contact with.”

The king smiled faintly. “That isn't . . . this isn't exactly what I hoped for.”

Marianne felt sad and guilty when her father left. She'd set out to show him up, follow the letter of the law as he had, and she had gotten what she wanted.

But it wasn't exactly what she hoped for.

Marianne arrived at the border before her guard. She had out-flown them easily, they were weighed down with their heavy armor and weapons while she only had her sword. She landed on the border, staring at the primroses with conflicted feelings. He still hadn't chopped them down. As if in challenge to the shadows that haunted her, she reached out a hand and ran it along the soft edges of a petal. So much strife over a flower. Something moved in the yellow darkness beyond the pink cloud of petals and Marianne's head snapped up, heart racing and eyes scanning the area, hand clenched around the hilt of her sword in a death grip.

A shadow? An enemy? The enemy?

No. No! Marianne forced herself to exhale, to breathe, pry her fingers free of her sword. He wasn't the enemy. Not anymore. He was an ally. Her husband, actually. The thought was so absurd that a smile sprang to her lips. She didn't feel married. How should it feel to be married to the Bog King? She had certainly had plenty of ideas once upon a time how it would feel to be married to the dashing Captain Roland. She had thought it would be wonderful. She thought she would be happy. Was she happy now? Not especially, she supposed. She was excited. And a little anxious. Okay, very anxious. She was officially invited into the Dark Forest. Of which she was, technically, queen.

A place she'd only caught nightmare glimpses of and she was the queen of it.

“Leave them be.”

Marianne had been absently picking at the edge of a petal and her hand pulled back as if she'd been stung at the sound of Bog's voice. He emerged from the shadows, impossibly tall as ever, stopping short of the border and the light of her kingdom.

“I'm hardly in need of a love potion, husband.” Her words had their intended effect and she bent her head to hide a smile when he frowned at her.

“Please, don't--”

“Tease you? Can't the mighty Bog King take a little teasing?”

“Hm. You're alone?”

“My entourage is coming. Are you?”

“It was the only way to get five minutes peace.” The king leaned against the stalk of the primroses in a far different attitude than the day before. His scepter was cradled in the crook of his arm and while he regarded her warily he was obviously not expecting anything more dangerous than a verbal assault. Marianne, realizing her had had darted back to her sword at the sound of the king's voice, carefully pulled her hand away, loosing one reluctant finger at a time.

“How's the head?” She asked to cover her unease.

“Mm.” He waved a hand before covering his eyes against the glare of the sun. Marianne took the opportunity to study him, familiarizing herself with her nightmare and her husband. Was it heavy, she wondered, to wear armor like that all the time? There was something both fascinating and disturbing about how neatly the plates overlapped, as if nature should not be so precise. Leaning there under the primroses he might have almost been mistaken for some manner of plant himself, gnarled and covered with bark. He felt her stare and glanced up.

“What?”

“I'm beginning to wonder if you're so dour because you have a headache. If you were cured would it improve your disposition?” Now that he had taken his hand down she could see that he was wearing a crown. It was a strangely smooth band of greenish copper, no spikes or jagged edges, wider in the middle to accommodate the setting for a polished oval of amber.

“Hm. Well, what would cure yours, then?” Her outrage was tempered with amusement and though her mouth hung open in indignation a smile was curving her lips. Bog smiled, mocking but not malicious, “What, the mighty Princess of the Light Fields can't take a little teasing?”

“Point to you, sire.” She sketched a curtsy despite her lack of skirts, wings sweeping gracefully behind her.

The king leaned his head to one side, eyes caught by the flash of sunlight off of her crown. She looked different today, in darker and more formal clothing. Her tunic came halfway down to the knees of her dark purple leggings, nearly but not quite a skirt, composed of layers of purple-blue petals and edged with white. Her bracers had been replaced with dark bracelets of a twisting pattern that came down to points over the back of her hands and extended almost to her elbows, like dark swirls of ink painted on her skin. They were very nearly more armor than jewelry, which was probably why she deigned to wear them at all. Her collar rose up underneath her face, the color of the petals mirroring the paint around her eyes, and a crown shining on her dark hair. All darkness with edges of light. She looked even less like a fairy than ever. At least, less like his expectations of what a fairy looked like. Which was strange, because there was really nothing unfairylike about her, as far as her appearance went. From her vivid black and purple wings to her long, delicate limbs, soft face, and large eyes she was a creature of the Light Fields.

She stood on her side of the border and he stood on his, the primroses the only plants that dared to freely mingle on both sides. Both he and she had crossed over into each other's territory before, but never by invitation. Was that what she was waiting for? Bog wondered. Or for her entourage to arrive? And why did her gaze turn away from the primroses when she had so boldly played with the petals just minutes before?

Their followers arrived at the same time, nearly. Bog pushed himself off the stalk and stood erect while the fairies lined up before the primroses and goblins emerged from the half-dark of the forest. With the forest at his back and staff in hand he looked more regal that Marianne had ever seen him before. Maybe it was the crown in combination with his scepter, or maybe it was because he stood straight and confident, his standard expression of irritation had faded and he merely looked serious. No, Marianne looked closer, there was a definite smile lurking behind that sober facade, amused at the armored fairies who were so nervous to enter his realm. Marianne might have smiled herself, but her own feet were still loath to step across the boundary and into the world that she knew best from nightmares.

The shadow of a smile faded from the king's face when he saw that the hesitance that tugged at the princess's movements. He remembered how her previous brief visits to his kingdom had gone and could not disdain her for her reluctance. The first time she had fallen in and nearly suffered dearly for it at his own hands. The second she had trespassed, bursting through the primroses in a blaze of determination.

This time, however, she was invited, and perhaps she needed that invitation to be confirmed.

Bog took a step forward, setting one foot into the sunlight as he swept a low bow so elaborate that the princess bent her head to hide a smile. He held his hand out to her, palm up and fingers relaxed. The princess graciously accepted it, no hesitation now, and he folded his fingers around her tiny hand and gently drew her into the shadows of his kingdom.

“Why,” The Bog King hissed, “Is he here?”

“My father insisted.” Marianne murmured in reply. They were standing together by the throne in a conspiratorial sort of way, looking far more intimate than they realized. Roland stood with the honor guard at the foot of the steps, sniffing at the dark interior of the throne room as if he were mentally critiquing the decorating choices. “Try not to kill him. Unless there are witnesses to testify that he had it coming.”

The comment caught Bog by surprise and he let out a breath of laughter. Her dry sense of humor appealed to him, the way she threw out these off-hand remarks without dramatics or demands to be noticed. It was just how she was.

“I'm afraid the first thing you're going to have to do is meet--”

“Is she here? Is this her? Oh, is this the girl my boy finally picked!” The voice screeched in excitement.

“--my mother.” Bog sighed heavily, glancing at the ceiling as if to search for intervention from above, or simply hoping that what he didn't see might cease to exist.

“Griselda! Let me look at you!” She grabbed the princess's face and smashed her cheeks, turning her head back and forth to get a good look from all angles. “Don't you have a comb, dear? What lovely eyes! So you're the one who finally got my boy to tie the knot!”

“Um. Yes?” Marianne said, her teeth baring in the attempt at a smile. Bog could see her tense up, trying to lean away from Griselda's touch without appearing rude.

“I've heard fairies are flighty things, but you'd better not go breaking my son's heart!”

“That . . . that really doesn't enter into it.” Marianne replied faintly, giving a faint breath of relief when Griselda released her.

“Some people have been such backwards snobs about the idea of a fairy queen, but it's about time we got some new blood around here, I think!”

“Mother.” Bog said, “Why don't you see to our other guests? The princess and I have to discuss the details of the ceremony.”

“Lovely to meet you, sweetheart, and welcome to the family!

Marianne maintained her fixed smiled until Griselda was safely away. She whirled on Bog. “New blood? What exactly have you been telling her? She seems to expect . . . expect . . . grandchildren.” She hissed out the word, her face reddening with embarrassment.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I told her the plain truth! Do you think I want her on this track? I thought she would have to stop this,” Bog groaned, “But it seems that her focus has just . . . narrowed.”

He was so genuinely frustrated that Marianne could not maintain her indignation. The Bog King's mother was a hopeless romantic! It was hilarious and raised a lot of questions. How had he come to the point of banning love when his mother was so . . . for it? It seemed that like the primroses, love could be cut down in the Dark Forest, but not eradicated. Well, Marianne thought, Griselda would quickly learn that she and Bog were strictly business partners in this venture, no romance involved at all.

“I don't know which is worse,” She mused aloud, “My dad's horror of this marriage, or your mother's utter delight. I suppose I should be grateful she's not looking down on my for being a weak little fairy.”

“You're breathing, that's enough for my mother.”

Marianne wasn't sure how she felt about Dark Forest marriage rituals.

Especially when they involved knives.

Outside the castle, past the bridge leading to the menacing skull that guarded the entrance, a pyre was being built of wood and leaves, dozens of goblins were running around, stirring up the flames and adding more fuel, yelling and screaming with wild abandon. The smell of smoke filled the air and choked the already stuffy throne room. The smoke was thick and dark because the goblins were burning mainly primroses, which they had apparently been busy cutting down all morning.

The morning and much of the afternoon had been spent in discussion about the marriage and the required ceremonies. Bog had spent the night before wrangling with his mother and the elders, trying to cut down the rituals to something brief, but none of them would have it. The king was getting married and he was going to get married in the proper fashion, fairy bride or not. Now in the light of day Marianne was giving a hasty crash-course in what she would be facing and the more she was told the uneasier she got.

“Bloodpact?” Her voice had gotten a bit high at that point. Bog had raised a leafy brow at her.

“Is that a problem, tough girl?”

“None at all.” She replied, “I just want to know if it is necessary or if we can forgo more unnecessary fuss.” Not to mention it sounded painful, unpleasant, and outright barbaric.

Bog had frowned at that. “This one's not optional, princess.” He called her “princess” most of the time, but sometimes he infused it with a tone of scorn that raised blisters on her pride. It was as if he were remembering that, after all, she was only a fairy. The sting of his tone made her sit up straighter, ready to prove that she was a fairy, but never just a fairy.

In reply she simply said, “Then I suppose it must be done.”

The throne room was jammed with goblins, Marianne's small fairy retinue huddled near the foot of the throne. It seemed to be a matter of witnessing more than anything else, and it looked like the whole kingdom had turned out to get a glimpse of their new queen. Marianne felt completely inadequate and wished she was wearing armor because that would have at least made her look battle-ready and made her feel less exposed. Then again, she thought when she felt sweat trickling down her spine, it would have been even more unbearably stuffy. Heat she could take well enough, but there didn't seem to be any air in here that someone else hadn't already breathed and it was so close and crowded and noisy. Goblins didn't seem to believe in respectful silence. In fact, there was a lot of laughter and merriment going on and she was pretty sure drinks were already circulating. She took a deep breath of the stale air and closed her eyes for a moment, picturing the bright open spaces of home, the cool breeze that blew off the river and stirred up the comforting scent of the flowers.

The touch of Bog's hand on her shoulder—a brief brush of fingers—made her open her eyes again and face stifling reality. They stood in front of the throne—his scepter and her sword crossed against the bone of the back—and there was a small table between them. On it were two knives, the hilts set toward them, a small wooden bowl, a length of white cloth which glowed in the dull gloom, and a lit lamp fueled by oil, the uncovered flame eating up more of the breathable air.

Marianne swallowed hard and refrained from reaching up and tugging at her collar or wiping her forehead. Bog had explained the ceremonies, necessary traditions, but it made the reality no less unpleasant, looking now at the dull gleam of the blades.

The Bog King picked up his knife and Marianne held out her hand before he even asked for it. She wasn't going to flinch, not with an entire kingdom watching. Not with Roland trying to catch her eye and shoot her pitying looks. He still expected her not to go through with this. She wouldn't put it past him to try and interfere, but she had already taken measures to prevent that. Her foresight paid off, because the moment Bog brought the knife down to slide across the skin of her palm Roland made a move to come forward, no doubt worried she might be horribly disfigured and ready to gallantly rescue her from her folly. Before he could take more than two steps a hulking goblin nearly as tall as Bog and many times wider grabbed Roland and pulled him back into place. Bog saw the movement and rolled his eyes at the triumphant look in the princess's eye. He had doubted that the fool would be fool enough to interrupt, but she had insisted on a guard and now she was prove to be right. Her features stiffened again when he moved the knife, betraying no fear, only blankness.

The blade of the knife had been held in the flame of the lamp and the edge that parted Marianne's skin was still warm. Marianne's fingers were trembling from the effort of not pulling back, not fighting back, and her arm ached up to her shoulder from the tension of standing still. A disconcerting cry of approval was raised by the crowd at the sight of the blood trickling from between Marianne's fingers and into the bowl. Some howls of dismay made Marianne start a little, but Bog was smiling. When he leaned forward to reposition their hands he murmured, “There were good odds that you would either scream or faint.”

“Why didn't you tell me? I could have made some easy money.” Marianne could breathe again for the moment, the pain in her hand nothing compared to the anticipation of it.

“Betting with inside information is hardly proper behavior for a queen.”

“You didn't bet?”

“Not fair. I knew they would lose.”

The back of Bog's open hand rested in Marianne's bloodied palm and with her unsullied hand she picked up her own knife and held the blade in the flame. This part was worse then standing still, she found. She had never actually cut someone with a blade and never even attempted to without a white-hot fury to back her up. Here in the muggy gloom that made her light headed she had to look at the upturned hand and lift the knife to cut it. Was this trust, then? To stand unarmed and let someone wield a blade across your flesh? Did he trust her? She risked looking up at him. He didn't seem nervous, just patient. The scars cut across his face told her he was no stranger to pain and his calm demeanor told her he did not fear it. Those blue eyes were calming beacons, nearly as good as the open sky, and she didn't have to close her eyes to imagine her kingdom and gather strength.

A straight red line marked Bog's hand for an instant before the color spilled over. Marianne laid down the knife, relieved she had managed to cut his tough skin first try. He turned over his hand, palm to palm with Marianne's over the bowl. She could feel his pulse as his blood mixed with hers, wet warmth and the cool dryness of his skin. He didn't seem to be affected by the heat. Griselda approached and picked up the white length of cloth from the table, winding it around their hands, binding them together while the king and princess recited the traditional vows together.

You are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone.

I give you my body, that we two might be one.

I give you my spirit, 'til our life shall be done.

You cannot possess me for I belong to myself.

But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.

You cannot command me, for I am a free person

But I shall serve you those ways you require

And the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.

Overall, Marianne had to admit, those weren't bad vows as far as vows went. Griselda tied off the binding and there was more cheering from the crowd while the white cloth was slowly dyed red. Marianne's head swam as they went through further vows and promises that all blurred together in her mind even though she managed to recite them. There was quite a lengthy bit about protecting each other and one line caught her attention:

I shall be a shield for your back as you are for mine.

Compared to Roland's dismissal of her ability to look after herself, his insistence that he would protect her, this phrase appealed to her greatly. An alliance. A partnership. There was also something weighty about all these vows. Something more serious than any of the sweet and pretty lines she had once imagined reciting under a bower of flowers. How many declarations of love had she practiced? Dozens. How many promises of friendship, partnership, mutual protection, had she considered? None. She had thought a marriage without romance would be an empty thing, but she realized there was much more to it than that. Her father's words about her being stronger with a king at her side didn't seem so trite now. She hadn't considered that the king would also be stronger with a queen at his side, that neither of them were inadequate alone but that much more powerful together.

Her face must have looked a little vague—she certainly felt a little distant—because she noticed concern in those blue eyes floating up above her and she felt his fingers press gently over hers in the binding. She pressed back and gave him a faint smile. The nightmare that lurked among the primroses seemed further away than ever, which was unexpected, considering the nightmarish atmosphere pressing around her. The hand over hers had snatched at her in her dreams, claws shredding petals and flesh. But the hand over hers had only ever reached for her with gentleness in the waking world. Bidding her farewell on the balcony, drawing her across the border, pressing her fingers in a question of concern now.

Griselda unwound the cloth and dropped it into the bowl where it soaked up the pool of their mingled blood. They pressed their fingers in it, the remaining white of the cloth disappearing into the red, their hands evenly coated when they pulled them out. The final step was completed when they lifted their stained hands and touched them to each other's faces. Fingertips pressed red patterns onto Marianne's cheek and the sticky smell of blood intensified, cutting through the smoke and heat. Where he left stripes on her small face she left a proper hand print on his, feeling the prick of his thorn-studded jaw as he leaned down. When he had told her about this part she had said—as she had of many things—is this really necessary? And he had replied with that immovable argument: It's the tradition.

“Fairies exchange rings, you said, so others can see they are taken. This, for the wedding festival, serves the same purpose, marking out the bride and groom in the crowd. Showing that they . . . that they belong to each other. That they've claimed each other.” And she'd tried not to smile at his blushing.

'Till death do us part, Marianne thought, her hand lingering on Bog's face because she had forgotten what, if anything, came next. She felt dizzy and deprived of Bog's hand over hers the feeling of his angled jaw under her hand seemed to be the only thing that kept her anchored.

Somehow, suddenly, she felt much more married than she had the day before. The reality of the commitment was sinking in and she realized that, regardless of love, she was tied to this person for the rest of her life. And right now, with the nightmare pushed back into the shadows, all she could see was Bog and his uncertain blue eyes, who had fought her as an equal, accepted her as an equal, and was blushing like an idiot right now. And she didn't particularly mind being stuck with him. It would certainly be interesting.

Blue eyes flickered nervously from her hand to her face and she felt his jaw move and saw his lips form the worlds—though she could not hear him through the raucous cheering—Are you alright?

She withdrew her hand and gave a nod, blushing herself when she realized how long she had been touching his face. Sorry. She muttered.

If Marianne had thought the cheering intense before, it was nothing compared to the close of the ceremony where she handed Bog his scepter and she handed him his staff. One final sign of the marriage, giving up their weapons to each other then freely restoring them. The crowd exploded and seethed up against the walls and steps like churning tides. Drums pounded and music began in earnest. Bog took the wooden bowl containing their blood and the sodden rag of cloth and he and Marianne flew above the crowd and to the bonfire that was blazing hugely now. He held the bowl up high then cast it down into the flames. More cheering.

“So that the binding may never be severed,” He said.

“That's done, then?” She asked, finding slight relief in the open spaces, even if they were intolerably close to the flames and smoke.

“That's done,” He nodded, obviously relieved as she was. “Now there's just the . . . festivities.” And he rolled the world with all possible loathing and resignation.

“Good. I need a drink.”

Marianne's sore ribs were not appreciating all the flying and shouting she had been doing all day. Standing tensely in front of a crowd hadn't helped either. Now there was a party. Goblins swarmed her, asking her questions, offering congratulations, excited to see their new queen up close. The goblins that didn't approve of their monarch marrying a fairy seemed content to keep their distance for now so Marianne was surrounded by a throng of well-wishers, her guards—and Roland—lost in the crowd, visible only as distant flashes of green and silver among the earthy hides of the goblins. She was rather lost herself, but thankfully Bog was easy to spot when she decided she had had enough.

Marianne grabbed a goblet when a tray whisked by and took a large mouthful of whatever was in it while she fought her way toward the tall gloomy shape of her husband. The drink was stronger than she had expected and it hit her stomach like a hammer blow, leaving her coughing and light-headed. She hadn't eaten anything all day, still too edgy from the ceremonies to even think of eating anything, not with the flaking brown fingerprints still decorating her skin.

“Princess?” Bog's hand hovered over her shoulder before grasping it, afraid to lose her in the seething throng. “Are you alright?”

“Bog,” She gritted her teeth and stiffened her spine, determined not to faint of anything equally silly, “If I don't get out into the air I'm going to start screaming and hack a hole right through the crowd.” She grabbed his arm because it looked nicely solid and held onto it with both hands.

He led her up and out into the air. The moon was out and the air was cool. Marianne perched on a branch that was far away from the seething, smoky celebration and breathed in deeply, holding her poor stomach when she coughed. Bog hovered uncertainly nearby. “What's wrong?”

“Long . . . long day. Haven't eaten and apparently . . . apparently goblin beer is a lot stronger than fairy wine.” She ran her hands through her hair and encountered the crown. She pulled it off and hooked it over the hilt of her sword. Shaking her head restored her hair to its usual half-wild state and she tugged at her collar to get the air circulating around her neck. “No blasted air in this castle. Too much smoke outside. Too much noise.” She laid her aching head in her hands, the leaf bandage on her palm soothing in its coolness.

“Yes, the circulation is terrible.”

“I thought I was going to crash through the skylight and fly away screaming in the middle of the ceremony.”

“And give the bettors the satisfaction?”

“Only the thought of their disappointment kept me steady,” She deadpanned. She took a deep breath of the cool, damp air. It wasn't the grass-scented night air of home. It was thicker, earthier, but after the smoke it was most welcome. Everything ached. Her ribs, her head, her hand. She laughed a little. “I thought we would be getting some work done today. Thought it would be a quick ceremony.”

“I'm sorry, it's--”

“Traditional. No, it's fine, I understand. Actually . . . certain aspects aside,” She scratched at the fingerprints on her cheek, “I didn't really mind. In fact . . . I liked it? Or, or at least, it was good. I mean--” She leaned her head back and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, taking a deep breath before lowering her hands and continuing, “It seemed meaningful. It wasn't a bunch of pretty, fluffy stuff about love like it would have been at home. It was about partnership. Having each other's backs. I liked that.”

“Oh.”

A pause, filled only by a twitch of his shoulders and the scratch of his claws on his neck.

“Um. Good. I'm glad. Ah. Feeling better?”

Marianne let her breath out in a whoosh. “So much. But there is no way I'm flying back home tonight. That is, so long as there aren't anymore, mm, traditions.” She wiggled the fingers of her bandaged hand, “Because I have had my fill of those, both here and at home.”

“I think we're done.” Bog settled next to her on the branch, his scepter resting on his shoulder. “Are you sure you're alright? During the ceremony you . . . you seemed odd.”

“Too much smoke.” Marianne wrinkled her nose. “Are you alright? You haven't snarled at me in minutes.”

“Likewise.”

Marianne laughed. It was a little hysterical, releasing all the pent-up anxiety of the day and further compounded by fatigue making everything seem just that much more funny. She laughed even though her ribs throbbed and her arm ached from palm to shoulder, and she laughed even more when she saw the stupefied look on Bog's face.

“What's so funny?” He growled, hunching over as if to deflect the laughter, suspecting himself to be the object of her mockery.

“Everything! We're married. We are married! I'm the Queen of the Dark Forest! If that's not funny, I don't know what is!”

“How much have you had to drink, tough girl?”

She responded by punching him in the arm. His wings buzzed and he flinched away, more baffled than upset by this attack. “Excuse me, Mister Bog King, but this mental breakdown is completely uninfluenced by strong drink.”

“So it's not a drunk I've been cursed with, but a madwoman? Worse than I supposed.”

“You think I've gotten off light in this bargain? I'm stuck with you, after all. Gangling, snarling twig.”

“Wee monster!” He retorted, “Throwing unsuspecting people into trees!”

“Not until after you walloped me right into a a spiderweb!” She waved a finger under his long nose.

“Chained me up under the ruddy primroses!” He leaned forward and jabbed his own finger at her, staff laid on the branch and out of the way.

“My ribs will probably never be the same again!” Her words were mirthful and they were nearly touching foreheads as they leaned in, attempting to drive the other back while giving no ground themselves.

“Chained. Primroses.” Bog repeated, “And--”

I'm not afraid of anyone or anything.

“And?” Marianne prompted.

“And you won.” Bog drew away, picking up his staff and holding it in front of him as he stood, once more on guard. “You married the monster and showed both kingdoms you weren't afraid.”

“Bog!”

“You don't have to try and spare my feelings, princess. Monsters don't have any.”

Silver lanced, scattering moonbeams, and Marianne's sword was pointed at Bog's throat, her face contorted with anger, “First of all, I'm a queen now, so if you call me princess in that tone one more time I will make you swallow your own tongue! Second, I am your queen, you moron, and you're stuck with me. And you're my king, I'm stuck with you, and I'm not looking to start a fight or prove anything.”

“Strange words for the fairy who has a blade at my throat!” Sparks flashed when his scepter swept her sword aside and they stood, glaring at each other with nothing between them but the damp evening air.

“That's better. I want a king who meets my challenge. Not one who runs away to sulk!”

“You--!”

“Listen!”

Bog leaned back, eyes going wide at the ferocity of her voice. Marianne took advantage of his surprise and forged on:

“Maybe I started all of this to prove I wasn't afraid, but it was never the only reason. If it were the only reason why wouldn't I have just raised an army and marched on the forest? I have wanted—for years—to start talks between our kingdoms and this just . . . it just turned out to be the best way. And I'm sorry if I hurt you because I was afraid.”

Her sword hung from slack fingers at her side, the bandaged cut making it an effort to grasp the hilt properly. She could feel fresh blood soaking into the bandage and she was afraid she could feel tears of frustrated exhaustion moistening her eyes. Her fears were confirmed as a tear slipped from her eye and rolled a sparkling trail down her cheek.

Bog's eyes were riveted on the tear and his heart twisted in his chest at the sight of it. “I . . . I forgave you. For that.”

“I don't feel forgiven.” She laughed, a second tear joining the first and Bog made a small, pained noise. She wiped the back of her bandage under her traitorous eyes. “I feel rotten about it. More than ever. I know it's not a real marriage, but our . . . our alliance. I want you to know that I have your back and I want to know that you have mine. I want to be friends and I want you to feel your forgiveness means something. Because it's very important. To me. And you don't . . . you don't trust me.”

“I don't trust anyone.” He evaded.

“Neither do I. But I need to trust you. And I know it's asking a lot, considering how this all began.”

With chains and a tainted kiss beneath the flower he despised.

“Mistrust is a hard habit to break.” He said, scratching his neck and trying not to stare at the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes, or notice the lines of fatigue beneath her eyes. The past two days had been difficult, in many ways, and she looked as weary as he felt.

“It is,” The princess—the queen—agreed. “But I'm trying. What about you? Finally forgive me?”

A snarl of impatience ripped out of him. “Would you stop harping on that!”

“Not until--”

The kiss landed on the corner of her mouth and her sword slipped from her fingers and stuck in the bark of the tree branch, her words dying when she felt it touch. Whether he had meant to kiss her on the cheek or the lips, she wasn't sure. He wasn't sure. The kiss lingered for several moments, longer than strictly necessary if he were simply making a point, his knuckle under her chin, tilting her face up to look at him when he pulled back, just enough for them to see eye-to-eye.

“You were already forgiven, my queen, but now we're even, yes?”

Marianne's face was blushing so hot she was sure he must feel it, and she managed to nod her head, feeling the knobbly knuckles of his hand press against her chin when she did.

Marianne's entourage was rounded up, a little worse for the wear, and most of them dispatched back to the Light Fields with appropriate messages to Dagda. Two guards stayed behind—neither of them Roland. Roland was ordered sternly back and he didn't dare refuse with the councilors and Bog standing right there. After that Griselda quickly prepared a room for Marianne, Bog only having to say once, “A separate room, mother.”

Griselda wrinkled her face and said, “Pah!” But did not argue.

Chapter Text

Then

“This is undignified.”

Sunny had ceased kicking and yelling and now hung limply upside down, Marianne’s hand wrapped around his ankle, suspending him off the ground. His hair brushed the ground as she walked and his expression was resigned but disgusted. His short stature—exceptional even for an elf—had been rubbed in his face too often as of late. Marianne had snatched him out of the shadows of the hacked-down primroses and dragged him easily back into the sunlit fairy kingdom.

“Undignified?” Marianne slung him into a patch of pebbly dirt, making sure he wouldn’t be hurt but otherwise heedless of his comfort. Sunny bounced a little on landing and his headband slipped over his eyes. Marianne loomed over him jabbing her finger at him in outrage, “You’re lucky I don’t break your nose! Going into the Dark Forest? For a love potion! How could you, Sunny, what were you thinking?”

The sullen outrage he had been feeling over being so manhandled faded away, replaced with a sinking mixture of dread and shame. He shoved his headband back into place and ducked his head. “I don’t know.” He muttered.

He hadn’t been thinking. But he had. He had been thinking that Dawn never saw him, that he blended into the background, that he was afraid of losing his best friend to another guy, that if he could get the love potion he could keep her, keep his best friend.

“Of all the things I worry about,” Marianne sighed, glancing back at the forest behind her, “Of all the dangers that could hurt Dawn . . . I never thought you would be one of them, Sunny.”

Sunny winced, still huddled miserably on the ground. “Are you … are you gonna tell Dawn?”

“Of course I am!” Marianne snapped, “You are her best friend and you were going to use a love potion on her! If I hadn’t over heard you and Roland talking—Roland! You were going to give him the love potion to use on me! How could you have thought I would want that?”

“I–” Sunny began to defend himself, but stopped. He had been thinking that the love potion was some sort of magical solution to all their problems. Dawn would love him, Marianne would fall back in love with Roland and be happy again. Everything would be fixed. 

“I thought you would be happy again.”

Marianne paused, taken aback by this response.

“I am happy!” She finally managed to protest, unconvincingly.

“Yeah?” Sunny said, feeling a bit braver when he heard the doubt in her words, “You’re always alone, unless you’re worrying over Dawn, and you’re always arguing with your dad. What even happened with Roland? Because you haven’t been acting anything like yourself since you called off the wedding.”

“This is who I am!” Marianne took a sharp step forward and Sunny pulled back a little at the force of her words, “I’m not a weak little girl with her head in the clouds, who can’t even see what’s right in front of her!”

“Is that what you think Dawn is?” Sunny asked, a little indignant at the thought of her being summed up that way.

“No! I mean—of course not! She’s just not … she’s not strong … somebody needs to watch after her. So she doesn’t–” Marianne looked suddenly sad, the anger draining away, “So she doesn’t make the same mistakes I made.”

Marianne spun around and plopped down to sit next to Sunny in the dirt. She buried her face in her hands for a moment then looked up, taking a deep breath and starting from the top. “Okay. You’re in love with Dawn. I’m not surprised, really.”

“Yeah …” Sunny stared at the scuffed toes of his shoes.

“And you didn’t just tell her, because …?” Marianne waved her hands as if to conjure the answer out of the air.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much today, do you?”

“I—look, she’s Dawn.” He threw out his hands to try and encompass the vastness of her good qualities in the gesture. How her friendship had been the most important one in his life, how she was so effortlessly cheerful and kind, how she loved life so much that she danced through it. “She’s beautiful and nice and amazing and I’m … little. I’m an elf. A nobody. She’s a princess.”

“And how would a love potion change any of that?”

“It would—I’d be—that is–”

Sunny ran his hands down his face as he finally began to see the bigger picture. Love potion or not she was a princess and the king wouldn’t willingly welcome her attachment to a lowly elf. That if it wasn’t Dawn’s choice to love him then … it wouldn’t have been real.

“I’m an idiot.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to argue that point.”

“I’m a terrible person!”

“Okay, I’ll argue that point.” Marianne put a hand on his shoulder, “Look, you’ve been Dawn’s friend for years—mine too—and you are a good guy. Do you think I’d let Dawn hang around with you otherwise? You just made a mistake.”

“Only the worst mistake ever! She’s never gonna talk to me again!”

“Ugh! You and Dawn are such worriers!”

“Says Princess Overprotective.” Sunny muttered, stung by her hypocrisy.

Marianne knocked him with her elbow. “Yes, but am I wrong? My worrying just uncovered and foiled a conspiracy against the royal family.”

“Hey, hey! It wasn’t a conspiracy–”

“Oooh, yes it was! Roland is after the throne and you nearly helped him get it. It doesn’t matter what you thought—or didn’t think—you were doing, that’s what it comes down to. Not to mention possibly starting a war with the goblins. They don’t like people invading their forest and stealing their stuff.”

Sunny’s dark face had gone ashy as the implications began to sink in. But the thought of treason, conspiracy, and war was so absurd and distant to his intentions that, especially since he had failed in his quest, he was able to push that out of his mind for the moment. His thoughts were firmly fixed on the injury he had almost done to Dawn and Marianne and he was feeling sick to his stomach.

“I really am a terrible person. Stupid and selfish and–”

“Sunny, stop.” Marianne stood up, flicking her wings to shake off the dirt. She hauled Sunny to his feet and brushed dust off his hair and shoulders, “I know you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And you aren’t going to get a love potion now, right?”

“No way!” Sunny said with great feeling.

“Good to hear. And you’re going to tell Dawn everything?”

Sunny balked at the suggestion, “But I didn’t get it! Do I have to tell her?”

“Yes! You’re up on charges of conspiracy to dose my sister with a love potion, doesn’t matter that you didn’t get a chance to carry through. You’re going to tell her. Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. That you love her, what you almost did—everything.”

“And then?” Sunny asked in the smallest voice possible, feeling like the tiniest, most worthless creature in all of the Light Fields.

“Then you’re going to let her decide what she wants to do about it. Her choice.”

“Yeah,” Sunny nodded, “Her choice.”

“And if she wants me to throw you back into the Dark Forest I’ll happily oblige.” Marianne launched into the air with a laugh.

“Hey! That’s not funny!” Sunny ran after her, leaping over a twig with an easy movement, his eyes still directed on the distant flutter of purple and black wings.

“Who said I was joking?” Marianne called back. She heard Sunny give a huff of indignation as he followed below.

She cast one glance back at the border and tried not to shiver. The sigh of the forest caused an icy dread to trickle down the back of her neck. It already held enough horrors for her and a new one had nearly been added. If she hadn't overheard Roland's plotting, if Sunny had gotten a love potion . . .

Marianne had overheard the end of the conversation, listening in disbelief as Roland smoothly talked Sunny into getting a love potion from the Dark Forest. When Marianne heard Sunny say, “I’ll do it!” she was burning with anger and ready to burst through the door, pick Sunny up and hurl him at Roland’s head.

If her father hadn’t picked that moment to lay his hand on her arm and attempt to coax her back to the party she would have beat Roland half to death without a qualm. “My dear, you promised me a dance.” The king pleaded, hoping she might reclaim some shred of respectability in the eyes of the court if she behaved herself properly for the rest of the ball.

“But Roland was–!” She almost told him what she had overheard, but snapped her mouth shut when she realized that if she accused Roland she accused Sunny too. Sunny, her sister’s best friend, her own good friend. He deserved at least a chance to explain before she ripped his head off. 

And if her father believed her charges against Roland—which upon a moment’s reflection she found a doubtful prospect—Sunny would get the worst of it. Roland had status and influence, not to mention the king’s favor. Sunny had nothing. If accused of such a thing and proved guilty he would at the very least disgraced, if not outright imprisoned.

So she had ground her teeth together to keep back her anger and sullenly endured being dragged back into the gathering. At the first possible moment she could politely leave she had fled the castle and flown straight for the border, hoping to catch Sunny before he got too far.

And she had.

But if she hadn't . . .

Marianne shook her head to dismiss these speculations. There was no use wondering about What Ifs. Things had worked out for the best and an idea had occurred to her, about evil kings who hated love and love potions even more than she did . . .

Now

The stench of burning primroses hung heavy in the air, black smoke settling in a soft haze around the jagged edges of the castle. The smell pervaded the interior of the castle, filling the rooms and mixing with the warm, stale air. It choked in the throats of those sleeping and even open windows did little to dispel it, for there was no breeze to carry it away, only the heavy, stagnant air breathing off the bog beneath the castle.

Sometime close to morning the wind began to pick up, stirring up the air, the shift winding itself way into the dreams of those still sleeping. Kept awake by the smoke and his own thoughts, Bog had only just fallen into a true sleep close to sunrise, burning primroses scattering across his dreams, the wind of reality provoking strange images as it let the smell ebb and flow.

The primroses were on fire.

An ember caught up by the wind landed delicately among the petals, the tiny spark of orange and red ate greedily at the petals, streaks of black and red spreading and growing into columns of flames. The black smoke billowing off it cast gloom over the Dark Forest and Light Fields alike, clouding the sky and dimming the sun until it seemed the whole world was caught beneath the shadow, lit only by the harsh glow of the expanding fire.

Beneath the primroses Bog was helpless to stop the fire from devouring both kingdoms. He was helpless to save even himself. Chains bound him to the stalk of the primroses, winding around his wrists and ankles, slashed diagonally across his torso where they were secured with a heavy padlock, binding him so that no amount of struggling could free him, though he thrashed and fought until his limbs screamed in protest of such abuse and his armor cracked against the manacles.

He was trapped and the edge of orange fire was devouring its way through the primroses and straight toward him, ready to consume him along with everything else. So he bowed his head, sagging against the chains, and waited for it to come. Fighting had left him tired and there was nothing he was fighting for, nothing worth the struggle.

The padlock sprang open, a heavy rock smashing into it, the chains unraveling and falling away. He raised his head and looked up into fire, a fire of molten amber.

The princess.

His queen.

Marianne.

She dropped the rock she had used to smash the lock and grabbed his hand. He found that a narrow length of white cloth was wound around his hand and hers, binding them together. She pulled him away from the fire, into the air, and up, up, until they broke through the smoke and into sunlight--

A harsh shaft of light struck Bog's half-opened eyes when Griselda shoved the bedroom window open. He groaned and turned away from it, burrowing back under the light blanket of leaves to shield himself, the dream forgotten.

Griselda stood by the bed with her hands on her hips, looking at the hunched up form of her son as he vainly tried to go back to sleep, “Pah! A fine way to spend your wedding night!'

“Still a political marriage.” He muttered sullenly, pulling the leaves tighter across his head in a vain hope of blocking out his mother's voice.

“She's a nice girl.” Griselda continued.

“Mother.”

“Smart, and looks like she can use that sword of hers.” Griselda came around and pulled the covers off her son's head so she could check the wound on his head, “Pretty effectively, too.”

Bog snarled and twitched the covers over his head.

His mother pulled them back off.

“And you obviously like her.”

“What.” Bog's eyes came fully open for a moment and his wings twitched, pulling where they were tangled with the bed coverings.

“Good politics or not there's no way you'd marry someone you didn't get along with. You like her.”

“I don't—she's—she's a canny politician. We both want what's best for our kingdoms, and that's the beginning and end of it. Do not try and matchmake me with my wife. Now go away, it's barely even sunrise.” Bog rolled onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes.

“I just think you two should think about making a real match of it.”

“Mom.”

“I'd like to see some grandchildren running around the castle, that's all I'm saying.” Griselda pulled his arm off his face and began to unwind the bandage from around his hand so she could change it.

“Fairies and goblins can't even have children.” Bog growled, flinching when Griselda began to clean the cut on his hand with more efficiency than gentleness.

“Then adopt some.”

“Still a political marriage. Your irrational want for grandchildren will have to be left unfulfilled.”

“It's not so much grandchildren I want, sweetheart. I want you to be happy. I don't want you to—”

“Die sad and alone.” He finished for her. He chuckled, “Well, I won't die alone, anyway. Ow!” Griselda had tied off a fresh bandage with unnecessary force. He pulled away, turning over so his back was to her,  “Go away and let me sleep.”

“Well,” Griselda gathered up her medical supplies in preparation to leave, “your wife is already up and getting ready to head home so you'd better hurry up if you want to see her off.”

“Leaving?” Bog sat up, the possibility of falling back asleep entirely gone now, even though there was a dull tiredness aching behind his eyes. “Why?” But his mother, seeing he was actually getting up, trotted out of the room to nag someone else for awhile.

Bog stood up, armor and wings spreading out as he stretched, falling back into place as he relaxed. He picked up his scepter from where it rested, leaning near the head of the bed so it could easily come to hand if a situation requiring it arose.

The princess—Marianne—was leaving. Was it because of their last conversation? Was it because he had . . . because of the . . . the kiss? His shoulders shifted slightly, wings twitched, fingers inclined to curl into fists. What had possessed him to do such a thing? Marianne had stood there in the moonlight, pale with fatigue, her eyes sparkling with tears and he just . . . just wanted to comfort her. Let her know that he had truly forgiven her. He had been so tired, choked on smoke, and . . . and it had seemed the right thing to do at the time.

At the time. At the time she hadn't seemed upset or disgusted. She had . . . she had looked as confused as he had felt. Which was understandable. How had they even ended up in circumstances that called for such strange discussions? Three days ago the thought of kissing anyone had been not just the last thing on Bog's mind, it didn't even make the list.

By the time he had seen her to her quarters last night and reached his own rooms his mind had been racing in half a dozen different directions at once and anxiety had him pacing his room long after he should have been asleep. How could he have dared to do that? It endangered the fragile new accord being worked out between kingdoms. It endangered the strange friendship that seemed to have grown between himself and the princess. Queen.

Yes, his mother was right on that score. He did like her. She was the first person in a long time that he didn't just tolerate, but actually liked. To his confusion, she seemed to feel the same about him. Her triumphant laughter echoed in his thoughts as he remembered their fight along the border and how his anger had given way to enjoyment as they exchanged taunts with each clash of their weapons. His initial goal had been to kill her, repel this incursion into his kingdom, but soon he was determined to win. In a moment she had turned from enemy to opponent and winning their duel would have been a victory indeed, to best such a fighter.

He never cared what those he battled with thought about him. He knew what they thought. That he was a ruthless creature devoid of love or mercy. He didn't argue the point. But he argued with this fairy. Somehow what she thought about him was important and he wanted her to think him as worthy an opponent as he thought she was. Yet at the same time he knew that she could never—should never—see him in any light but that of a monster.

Should he apologize for last night? He wondered, flying down the corridor with his staff held at his side, heading for the front entrance. Or should he pretend it didn't happen at all?

Just before he reached his destination he had to pull up short to avoid flying right into Marianne, buzzing backwards a few feet to create a more comfortable amount of space between them, switching the staff from one hand to the other to avoid knocking it into her wings.

“There you are.” She said, both of them drifting away from each other and circling a bit to regain their composure. “I'm about to leave.”

“Yes, I . . . heard. Is something—is something the matter, princess?”

“Queen.” She corrected.

“Marianne.” He compromised.

“No, nothings wrong, nothing at all!” She waved her hands to brush away the idea, “I just need to go reassure my dad that I haven't been eaten or horribly disfigured.”

“Oh. Right. I see.”

“I just wanted to make sure to say goodbye before I headed off.” He saw a fresh white bandage on her hand as she tucked back her hair and ducked her head. “Didn't feel right to fly off without telling my husband where I was going.”

They had finally landed. No one was about, everyone busy in the front rooms.

“Oh.” He couldn't help letting a smile spread across his face. She didn't seem upset at all.

She folded her wings back into a cape, scuffing at a pebble with the toe of her boot. Sword at her side, a small bag sewn out of leaves was slung over her shoulder and Bog could see the gleam of her crown in it. Her jewelry was in there too, no doubt, for her arms were bare and she was running her hands nervously over the unprotected skin. “I'll be back tomorrow and we can get to work with all the details of trade and such.”

“Oh. Good. Good.” Bog nodded, fingers moving restlessly.

“I'd rather not go, but I really don't want to leave Dawn alone right now.”

“No, I understand. There's nothing urgent to attend to.”

“Wish there was!” Marianne sighed. “Well, goodbye, then.” She unfurled her wings and turned to go, one hand still rubbing her wrist.

“Wait.” He didn't grab her arm, he just touched it with two black-tipped fingers and she stopped, turning back around, wings lowering.

“Yes?” She said expectantly.

He took her bandaged hand, surprising himself by how steady his movements were. He was surprised by an unexpected urge to pull her away from the entrance and ask her not to leave. Fragments of his dream stirred up in his mind and somehow it felt that if she left he would be trapped again, chained to the burning primroses to perish alone. “I will come with—ah—escort you to . . .” He coughed and gave himself a little shake to settle himself before saying in a slightly steadier voice, “I'll see you to the border.”

These uncertain words were rewarded with a smile lighting up Marianne's face. “Okay.” She said.

“Okay.”

They both glanced down at the same time and realized he was still holding her hand, his thumb absently rubbing back and forth over the edge of her bandage.

Marianne snatched her hand free and tried to turn to it into a casual movement to brush back her hair or adjust the strap of her bag, but indecision made her flutter her hand until she let it drop to her side and squeeze into a fist while she wished she could drop through the floor and disappear.

“Yeah, um. Wouldn't want to get lost.”

“No.” Bog agreed, having wrapped his hand back around his staff which he was holding in front of himself like a shield. “Maybe I should . . . should meet you at the border until you . . . “

“Get to know my way around? Yeah, that'd be good. Um, and maybe you should put a guard or outpost there so I can get messages to you.”

“Oh, yes. The postal service doesn't--”

“--exactly deliver to your castle.” She finished for him, echoing her sarcastic remark of two days prior, but this time with a smile. “For the moment I don't think there's much chance of getting anyone—fairy or elf—to come into the forest alone, but if there were a goblin stationed on the border to receive messages . . .”

“Yes, that's a good idea. And if the mushrooms were rerouted a little and I posted someone who isn't likely to garble every blasted message beyond comprehension . . . Yes, I suppose that our first order of business will be opening up a line of communication. What about on your side of the border?”

They launched into a discussion about setting up a reliable system to deliver messages that kept them well-occupied on their flight to the Light Fields and gave them a reason to ignore the nervous fairy guards accompanying them. Several goblins came too, riding on the backs of dragonflies and buzzing chaotically around in contrast to the fairy guards' disciplined precision. Bog himself disdained to take any sort of direct path through the air and Marianne was hard-pressed to keep up when he darted through narrower spaces.

“It's best not to make yourself an easy target.” He explained when Marianne complained he was showing off.

“Is the way that dangerous?”

“No,” Bog admitted. “Just habit. Move quick and sure and make yourself hard to see.”

Marianne glanced at the leaf he had wrapped around the white bandage on his hand and nodded. That made sense. “Can we go a littler slower, though? The guards are having a hard time.”

“Oh, just the guards?” He lifted a brow at her.

She swung her bag at him. “It is too early in the morning for me to become a widow.”

Bog chuckled, but also adjusted the pace.

The nearer they came to the fields the lighter the air became, the choking smoke of the previous evening's bonfire left behind at the castle. The light breezes of her kingdom were welcome after such a stuffy adventure, but Marianne was still reluctant to return home, her wings slowing at the glimmer of sunlight up ahead. Arguing with Bog was enjoyable. Arguing with her father was painful. No doubt there would be an argument over her unplanned overnight stay.

As well she hated to leave while her perception of Bog was overlaid with the nightmares of the previous night. She would have liked to stay and talk with him more, remind herself of what was real and what was only the shadow cast by bad dreams. The flight back to the border, discussing this and that, helped, but when conversation lapsed her dreams returned once more to the forefront of her thoughts.

Exhausted, Marianne had collapsed into bed almost the moment she walked into the room Bog had shown her to. Her crown was placed on the nearest surface with fumbling hands, her sword held in her bandaged hand. She could not find an appropriate place to lay it down and she was still holding it when she planted face-first into a bed that smelled dry and spicy, like herbs. She buried her nose in the leaves, trying to block out the heavy, smoky scent of burnt primroses. Trying not to think of kisses under the moonlight.

She fell asleep almost instantly but her cuts and bruises prevented it from being a peaceful sleep, her ribs protesting at how the hilt of her sword pressed into a tender place, her hand throbbing, the bandage now stiff with dried blood. Added onto that was the fact that she had an exhausting and disorienting week and was sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, all contrived to make for a fitful sleep filled with vague nightmares that wisped away like smoke on the wind every time she restlessly cracked her eyes open for a moment to stare at the unfamiliar shape of the room.

All the classic horrors of unconsciousness took their turn, mixed in with events of the past two days. One memorable scene had her walking down the aisle with Roland while goblins cheered. Dawn screamed, trapped in the branches of a bush as a lizard advanced on her, teeth snapping at peachy-pink wings. Primroses were everywhere and they never meant good things. Shadows lurked beneath the petals, danger concealed by the pretty pink blossoms. And, of course, the number one horror of her subconscious showed up in all its vague, shadowy glory.

The Bog King.

He moved from shadow to shadow, the buzz of wings and a rattle of chains giving away his position just too late for her to do anything about it. Claws scored the primrose stalks, leaving deep grooves. And she had no bracers to protect her arms, no sword at her side, and she was wearing that white wedding dress she had stained and torn beyond use all those months ago. Twigs dug into her scalp, mixed in among the flowers of her wreath. Her pretty, useless wreath. She'd had enough of pretty, useless things, including her old self. Now in her dream she had been deprived of all armor, reduced to her old, useless self and the Bog King was getting closer.

Pink petal clutched in her hands, the crushed petal staining her gloves, thick and red, while she waited for black claws to slash through her flesh like they had through primrose stalks. Finally, ending the torment of waiting, a hand appeared, vividly detailed in a way it had never been before in her dreams. She could see the scrapes and scars decorating the armor on the back of it, the wrinkles in its skin where the joints flexed. But the hand did not seize her, did not slash at her. Hands took hers and gently unfolded her fingers so she was not driving her fingernails into her palms through her gloves and the petal. The primrose was snatched away by the wind and disappeared. The palm of her hand was pooling with blood, soaked through her white glove, a line slashed through fabric and flesh. It did not scare her. She knew where this wound had come from, and it was not from wicked black claws.

The hand holding hers had a red line across it too and as she watched the palm of the hand pressed against her own with careful gentleness, matching the lines as long fingers wrapped around hers and pulled her forward. She looked up into blue eyes, like a clear sky, and she was drawn into the shadows of the forest, but she was not afraid. She lifted a foot clad in a white slipper and stepped across the border . . .

And she had woken up.

The bandage had been heavy with fresh blood and the tips of her fingers were stained from when she had driven them into the cut in her sleep and they tingled, missing the imaginary pressure of the hand that had held hers with such care.

 At the edge of the Dark Forest Marianne took the lead, flying straight for the patch of sunlight shining through the gap in the plants. Bog slowed and hovered where he was for a moment, seeing the sunlight illuminating her wings into dazzling brilliance. But he turned his eyes away, the too bright sunlight stabbing a shard of pain behind his tired eyes.

He sped up and landed just a few seconds after Marianne, in time to hear her exclaim, “Dad?”

“Were you expecting an escort?” Bog asked, watching the fairy king approaching, borne up on some sort of chair with poles so that a handful of fairy guards could convey him. The contraption and the need for it made him snort scornfully.

His queen jabbed him sharply with her elbow. “Hush! We'll both be old someday, too.” She paused and looked at Bog closely for a moment before adding, “You sooner than me, though.”

Bog had been slouching to avoid knocking his head on the cropped primroses but he reared up to his full height at this remark and looked down at Marianne, his mouth hanging open as he tried to form a response that suitably expressed his offense over the comment. Marianne smiled sweetly and flew off to her father before Bog could say anything.

“Dad? What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Is Dawn--?”

“No, no,” Dagda rose from his chair, “Everything is fine. I was just--” The fairy king's gaze flicked over to Bog for a split second before returning to Marianne, “I was just worried.” He pulled his daughter into a hug and Bog could see Marianne go stiff at his uninvited embrace. She quickly freed herself and said, “About what? Didn't you get my message that I'd be staying overnight?”

Dagda's eyes glanced between the bandage on Marianne's hand and Bog, his expression apprehensive.

Bog gritted his teeth together at the unspoken implication. He planted the end of his staff in soft ground, eyes narrowed against the unfiltered sunlight. He knew that promises of protecting Marianne would mean nothing to the fairy king, that the word of the monster was not binding in his eyes, so Bog phrased his next words to sound self-serving, “What kind of king would I be if I let harm come to my queen? I would lose the respect of my subjects if I were so weak.”

Dagda hesitated, trying to pick a diplomatic answer.

Another voice slipped into the pause and said smoothly, “It's not so much what you might let happen as what you make happen.”

Bog saw Marianne's wings flutter against her shoulders as she resisted an impulse to take flight. He echoed her sentiments and had to force himself not to fall into a fighting stance, managing to quell the tremor that made his armor and wings shift uneasily when Roland fluttered into sight. Already inclined to glare, Bog twisted his face up against the shine of sunlight scattering off Roland's well-polished armor until his eyes were barely glimmers of blue in the dark shadows underneath his brow.

“What has he been saying?” Marianne demanded of her father, “Whatever he's told you is a lie—or he's twisted it!”

“Now, darlin'--”

Marianne darted toward Roland and Bog's lips curled into a lopsided smile when he saw how quickly the fairy guard retreated, trying to put distance and people between himself and his former betrothed. The goblins lurking in the fringes of the Dark Forest were openly laughing at the scene. In spite of his amusement, and a strong inclination to let Marianne make short work of Roland, Bog caught up with her and swung his staff in front of her and cut off her advance.

Marianne's wings spread out to keep her from stumbling, falling back into place when she found her footing. For a moment she glared at the staff as if it had acted independently, then flashed her anger up toward Bog. “I can take care of myself!” She growled.

Bog laughed.

He couldn't help it, though he regretted it when he saw a flash of hurt in Marianne's eyes. “You think I don't know that, tough girl?” He hurried to say, keeping his voice low so that those nearby might not hear. Their movements had taken them away from the group of fairies and none of them seemed eager to approach the newly weds. “But he hasn't attacked you. He's baiting you.”

“Well, it's working.”

“In my experience, princess--”

“Queen.”

Bog snorted. “Very well, your majesty. In my experience when someone is so eager to encourage an attack that usually means they've got a dagger behind their back.”

“Are you lecturing me on patience? You?”

He put his fist on his hip and looked offended. “What is that supposed to--”

“Two days ago you tried to kill me because you thought I was going to take a primrose petal and you wouldn't listen to my explanation.”

“I . . .” He slumped again, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to piece together his answer, “That is . . . oh, stop looking so smug!” He leaned forward and snarled at her self-satisfied expression but she just folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. He closed his eyes and inhaled a steadying breath before speaking again. “Yes, I acted with more haste than care. And look where that got me.”

“With your head bashed open?” Marianne asked sweetly.

“Married to you.” He retorted.

Marianne put a hand over her mouth to stifle the sharp burst of laughter this remark elicited from her. Bog's snarl shifted into a dry grin at her amusement, glad that he had been able to shift her mood.

“I see your point. Assess the situation and then punch him in the jaw?”

“Or smash him over the head. Whichever is more advantageous.”

“Very well, husband, I'll take heed of your council, seeing as you have the advantage of me in years.”

“Impudent wretch.”

“Decrepit crank.” She slipped her arm through his, “A united front, husband?”

“Cool and calm, wife.” Bog agreed.

The Fairy King hardly looked pleased when his daughter returned on the arm of her husband, but he was relieved to see that her anger seemed to have abated. Marianne relinquished Bog's arm and came over and hugged her father. “I'm fine, dad.”

“Roland said--”

Marianne stepped back to stand by Bog, “I'm sure he did.” She muttered. Bog flicked his wings so they glanced off of Marianne's, a reminder to behave herself. She thought about stepping on his foot but decided against it for the moment. “I'm sure he gave you an extensive report.”

“Well, naturally,” Roland began, tossing his head to settle his curls back into place, flashing a smile as he prepared to launch into a recitation of the highlights of his report.

“However,” Marianne went on, her only acknowledgement of Roland's interruption being to raise her voice slightly, “Seeing as he was not privy to the meeting with the council members and it was so crowded in the throne room during the marriage ceremony I'm afraid that—through no fault of his own—some details might have been overlooked.”

It was only through a great force of will that Bog refrained from voicing an appreciative, “Nice.”

“Was there anything of particular concern you would like to address before my husband--” Here she shot a pointed look at Roland, “--returns to his kingdom?”

“Roland said you were injured . . .”

“I wasn't.” Not today, anyway, Marianne thought, feeling the ache of her bruised ribs.

“Your hand?”

“This isn't an injury.”

“Blood bond is traditional part of our marriage ceremonies.” Bog pulled off the leaf he had wrapped around his bandage, showing his corresponding wound. “A cut with a clean knife and nothing more, Dagda. I hurt her no more than she hurt me.”

Dagda still did not look reassured. “When Roland said you were hurt, and you didn't come home, Marianne, I thought . . .”

“I was exhausted, dad. There was a party.” Her unaffected disgust finally brought a smile to her father's lips. “I've spent the past two days flying up and down both kingdoms, being polite to people, and getting married. Twice. I collapsed into bed and probably snored loud enough for you to hear it here in the fields. And, to be honest, I'm still exhausted, so can we go home now?”

“Yes, let's go home.” His fears somewhat eased, Dagda gladly agreed, eager to remove his daughter from her husband's side.

The fairies prepared to leave and Marianne was pulled aside by a couple of the younger guards who were curious about what the Dark Forest was like. Bog took the opportunity to speak his piece to Dagda.

“I'm not going to hurt her.” Bog spoke bluntly and without preamble. If it suited him he could be diplomatic enough, but he was too tired and irritated to bother. Beside that, he wanted to make it plain how things stood. Dagda followed the example of this informality.

“So you say. You say you'll protect her because she's your wife, but how can it be any sort of real marriage without love? How can you really consider her your wife?”

“I don't have to love Marianne to respect her or esteem her as an ally.”

“You didn't have to marry her and ruin her chances at happiness!”

That accusation hurt more keenly than Bog would have liked to admit. Happy, unhappy, he had not considered or cared which she might be. Not until the younger princess had bluntly stated it. Now he could not help but see that his queen was indeed not happy. But there were moments, when they were deep in discussion or playfully mocking each other that she seemed to find a spark of happiness. Bog touched the place on his cheek were her hand print had marked it the night before. No, she wasn't happy, but binding herself to him had not made her unhappy.

At least, not yet.

“She did it because she loves her sister and her kingdom. Because both of us want to keep our peoples safe. We've been divided for generations, do you really think anything less drastic would initiate any sort of understanding?”

“Not that you tried anything else.”

“Nor did you.” Bog shot back.

“After the scene you made announcing your ban on love? I wasn't going to risk sending anyone into your forest, knowing they'd be sent back in pieces if they were sent back at all! You didn't want to talk then, why do you want to talk now?”

Bog shrugged. He hadn't especially questioned why he'd so readily agreed to the arrangement, not until everyone seemed to be asking at once. Dagda was easier to put off than his mother, however. “Marianne is persuasive.”

The fairy king looked unsatisfied. “Tell me something, Bog, if one of my people had ever stolen one of your precious primroses or—heaven forbid—a love potion, what would you have done?”

“Kidnapped one of your daughters and held her hostage until the potion was returned.” Bog said with a promptness that left Dagda's stomach tied in worried knots. “The smaller one, probably. I wouldn't want to risk trying to hold Marianne prisoner. I doubt I'd survive.”

“You'll have to pardon me if I don't find the idea very amusing.” Dagda said coldly, “What would you do now, if a love potion were taken?”

“I suppose I would talk to my wife. And we would look for the thief together.”

After hitting a few mushrooms and tearing some less important bits of the forest apart, he added to himself. Then once the culprit was found he could personally deal with them. His fingers flexed restlessly at the thought of his kingdom being invaded and the effects of the love potion loosed upon the world. Even the thought of such chaos made him deeply uneasy.

“I suppose I'll have to be satisfied with that.” Dagda sighed.

“I suppose you shall.”

They were both watching Marianne. Bog had noticed how her demeanor had shifted upon their approach to her kingdom. Once she was in the company of her own people again a wariness fell over her, like she was on her guard, her hand always on the hilt of her sword. She did not feel safe. A sharp little pain stabbed at Bog's heart and he wished she would come alive again, the blade of her sword shining almost as brightly as her eyes.

“Why did you agree?” Bog asked, still watching Marianne.

“Hm?” Dagda asked, not understanding the question.

“To the marriage. You don't seem the type to offer your children up as sacrifice, no matter the gain. Why did you agree?”

Dagda would have slumped if his armor allowed it. “Marianne chose her moment well. We were closer to war than you know, Bog. If I had refused, sent you packing, there would have been panic over what you might do in retaliation for the insult. The council might have insisted on . . . taking initiative. Striking first.”

Fingers tapping against his arm, Bog processed this.

“And . . .” Dagda said suddenly, “And when—in my study—it was the first time in a long time she looked . . . happy. I thought that this alliance . . . that it might make her happy. I just want her to be happy.” The last words were spoken softly, the fairy king's eyes watching his daughter talking with the fairy guards.

“It is not my intention to ever give her cause for unhappiness.” Bog said, then, to end the conversation, he swept his staff upright and said, “I have my duties to attend to, as I'm sure you have yours.”

“Bog.” Dagda dipped his head and turned toward his chair.

“Hm. Dagda.”

Marianne detached herself from the guards and came back to to Bog, saying, “I didn't hear shouting so I assume no insurmountable diplomatic breach has happened. Yet.” She looked over at where Roland was keeping a safe distance. He smiled when he saw her looking.

“You know, even in the Dark Forest we have rules about harassment.” Bog remarked.

“I can manage him. See you tomorrow, Bog.”

The reluctance in her voice an manner were obvious. She did not want to go home and deal with Dagda and Roland. Bog wanted to take her hand and pull her back into the comforting dim of his forest, where she might find the same peace he sometimes did. He had to content himself with taking her hand and bowing over it again in farewell. When he had held out his hand she had offered hers immediately, almost as if asking him to lead her back across the border. For a moment he let her hand rest in his, roughly aligning their bandaged cuts, then he took her fingers and, giving in to an impulse, Bog brought her hand up and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles where they showed above the bandage.

“I, uh,” Bog released her hand and turned away, his movements jerky. “Until tomorrow . . . my queen.” His fingers were laced together, his staff leaning in the crook of his arm while he contemplated the ground, the primrose stalks, and anything except the pair of amber eyes staring fixedly at him.

Though he had withdrawn his hand Marianne's stayed in the air where he had left it, her other hand up to her face, trying to hide the spots of red blossoming over her cheeks. Somehow this was even worse than the kiss last night, which she had managed to push to the back of her mind with the aid of heavy exhaustion. Once again her thoughts had scattered and her heartbeat gone erratic. If he'd hoped to even the score between them he had surely succeeded.  “Point . . .” She swallowed and slowly lowered her hand, “Point to you.”

Bog held up his hands, startled and dismayed by her words. He had just been . . . he didn't even know what he had been doing but he hadn't done it to score points against her.  “I—I wasn't--”

In a flash of purple she was fluttering in front of him, hands on his shoulders and lips brushing a kiss across his forehead. She hovered at eye-level with him so he could see the gleam of mischief in her pink face, a glint of challenge. “Point to me. Until tomorrow, my king.”

A flash of black and purple and she was in just time to meet her father's chair as it was lifted into the air and pointed toward the castle. Bog was left speechless, mouth open and jaw slack, until he realized Stuff and Thang were standing a little ways behind him, chortling at the exchange between the king and queen of the Dark Forest. The end of Bog's staff sliced through the air, missing Thang only because Stuff pulled him out of range. “Enough of that. Get back to the castle and start cleaning up the blasted mess from the party.”

“Okay, BK!” Thang squeaked, trotting over to where the dragonflies had been tethered.

“And don't you go carrying tales to my mother!”

“Dad?”

Marianne said, flying alongside her father.

“Yes?” Dagda turned to her immediately, still concerned, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Fine. Just tired. Um. Dad? I know this isn't what you wanted, what you meant . . . but when you said you wanted me to have a king by my side . . . I see what you meant now. And this isn't the same thing, I know, it's not what you wanted . . . but it's what I wanted. And I think I'll be stronger for it. I think this will all work.”

Dagda pulled thoughtfully at his beard, thinking of his conversation with Bog, how the goblin's face had soften while he watched Marianne. “I hope you're right, my dear. I hope you're right . . .”

All told, it was another week before the king of the Dark Forest saw his queen again.

A few hastily scrawled notes informed Bog that she was busy, and a official letter bearing the seal of the Light Fields informed him he was invited to attend the engagement party of the fluffy younger princess and her elf betrothed. Sandy. Sammy? He glanced at the letter again. Sunny.

Surely Marianne did not mean him to actually attend. Surely the younger princess would  prefer not to have his grim presence dampening the festivities. The thought of the boutonnière drying on a shelf in his room nagged at the corners of his mind and told him the overly sweet little thing probably would want him there, even if only because he was now her brother-in-law. There was also the consideration that he had not seen Marianne in a week and for some reason he didn't like the prolonged separation.

Weighing against the idea of going was what he would inevitably have to endure from his mother if she thought he might be missing his queen. As it was she was already insisting he ought to court Marianne properly and was offering him endless suggestions on how he should go about it. It was a blessing to be able to honestly tell his mother that Marianne would outright loathe romantic dinners, candle light, and all manner of syrupy nonsense his mother brought up.

“Listen,” Bog had pinched his mother's lips together in order to quiet her, “You're right, I like her.”

Griselda made a muffled noise that sounded something like, “I knew it!”

“Not romantically.” He growled through clenched teeth.

Griselda made scoffing noises.

“Mother,” He sighed and released her, stalking back to his throne to sit down. “This marriage is strictly political.”

“As you are forever saying.” Griselda huffed.

“The terms of which we both agreed to: that it is an alliance, not a union of love and that there would never be any such expectations of it. You are not going to endanger this alliance with your accursed matchmaking!”

“Oh, pah, you like her and she likes you! That's hardly dangerous.”

The end of Bog's staff slammed into the floor hard enough to chip the stone, the ringing thud making Griselda swallow what she had been about to say.

“Love is dangerous!” Bog stood, his fingers contorted into predatory hooks, “It weakens, it rots, it destroys order!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Griselda interrupted, “and without order we're left with chaos. You've been singing this song for years now, son, I know it by heart. Usually I only have to put up with it when the primroses are in bloom, though.”

It almost worried Griselda when her son did not flash a snarl of irritation at her interjection. Instead he slumped back down onto his throne, staff laid across his knees, and looked very tired. “This alliance is meant to bring order, to both the kingdoms. Love would destroy that.”

“Or strengthen it.”

“No!” Bog slammed his fist on the arm of his throne, “What if I fell in love with her? Broke our agreement and took advantage of our situation? She would be horrified!”

“You don't--”

“And while we're discussing fantastic impossibilities, what if she fell in love with me? She would have to find out the truth about me eventually and the result would be the same. Horror, disgust, fear, and the end of the alliance, the end of order! And these speculations are irrelevant because nobody can love me!”

Griselda dropped the subject. Not because of her son's raging, which she was quite unruffled by, but because of the fresh pain it brought to his face and manner. A hurt she had been unable to soothe, despite all her best efforts. Besides, the best way to deal with Bog's dramatics was to ignore them.

“It's only proper that you go to your sister-in-law's engagement party.” Griselda pointed out, getting back to the original topic, “You can't go all reclusive already. Building bridges, striking while the iron's hot, and all that. Maybe I ought to come with you . . .”

“No. So many reasons . . . no.” Bog said quickly, “I think the fairy court needs a little time to prepare for you, mother. Also . . .” He thought of Roland and the powers that backed his cause for war, “I'm not entirely sure it's safe. Yet.”

“Well, if you don't go, I'll go.”

He went to the party.

Barely in the door and he was almost tackled by the younger princess, “You came, you came! Thank you, thank you! You're early!”

“Ah, hello.” He gingerly pushed the princess away, turning the motion into a gentle pat of his fingertips on her shoulder so it would not seem an entirely rude gesture. The princess took no notice of it one way or another.

“Marianne's over here!” The princess took him by the hand and dragged him toward the distant glimmer of purple wings. His escort cautiously followed, skirting around the edges of the room while Bog was pulled straight across. “She's been missing you. Marianne! Marianne! He's here! Boggy—I mean, Bog—is here!”

“Um.” Bog tried to stem this flow of enthusiasm, but wasn't sure how to. Usually his mere presence was enough to get people to go quiet. The little princess seemed oblivious to his discomfort and pulled him along until they were in front of Marianne. The fairies gathered around Marianne quickly found reasons to be elsewhere and the three of them stood alone.

“Here is your husband,” Dawn giggled, “So cheer up!”

“Um. Hi.” Marianne said, a strained attempt at a smile on her face.

“Hello.” He replied, feeling equally ill at ease. He had hoped to see Marianne in a more private setting, or in the council chambers. He knew where he stood when there were politics to wrangle over. Surrounded by flowers and finery he felt like if he moved too quickly he was going to break something.

“Now!” Dawn swooped over to a table and snatched some things off it. In a moment she had plopped a wreath of flowers on Marianne's head. “That's for you! And this is for you, to match!” Dawn stuck a new boutonnière on Bog's chest. “Yes, it looks good on you! Now, have fun, you two, I've got things to do!”

The princess flew off to fuss over flowers and snacks, leaving her sister and brother-in-law standing in a daze.

“Now,” Bog found his voice and the words rolled slowly off his tongue as he framed his question, “I've only met the wee fluffy lass three times now so I'm in no position to know, but . . . is she brighter than usual?”

“Oh, yes.” Marianne collapsed into a chair, wings draped carelessly on either side. Bog noticed she was wearing a dress. It was a light lavender, lighter than her wings, and made her seem washed out and pale. She twitched at her skirt, her hands encased in matching lavender gloves, the slight bulge of a bandage showing through the cloth. “Blindingly radiant. She's been flitting around like a hummingbird on a sugar high all week now. I'm exhausted from trying to keep up with her.”

“Is she . . . is she okay?” Bog watched Dawn flitting to and fro, never pausing in her cheering chattering for a moment. There was something almost frantic in her movements. Like she was trying to outrun something. Even when her betrothed—Sandy? No, Sunny—approached her she barely slowed. She took his hands, spun him around, dropped a kiss on his nose, and flew off to attend to table settings.

“She's excited.” Marianne shrugged, “And . . . a little afraid, too. That dad might pull the plug at the last minute. We weren't even supposed to have an engagement party, just a wedding next week, but dad insisted on waiting a month. He wanted to make it a year, but he's not invulnerable to tears.”

“Ah, extortion.” Bog nodded.

“She looks so innocent, too.”

Marianne wiggled in her chair until she was sitting up straight and carefully tugged her dress into order. “I keep forgetting I promised Dawn I would behave myself. By the way, I'm issuing an order as Queen of the Dark Forest.”

“Oh, are you now?” Bog folded his arms and raised a leafy brow at her.

“Yes, I am indeed. I hereby declare that you're to stick with me all night so as to prevent me from murdering anyone at my little sister's engagement party.”

“Ah.” Bog said, enlightened. He did not spot the green and yellow fairy guard nearby, but could picture him clearly enough.

“Yeah.”

“Even after everything he's harassing you?”

“He's very stupid in a clever sort of way.”

“What's to stop me from murdering him? It would be entirely in-character for me. Practically expected.”

“I didn't think of that.” Marianne admitted, “I just assumed you wouldn't find him as tiresome as I do.”

“He is harassing my wife.”

“And you'd murder him for me? How gallant, my king.”

“It would be my pleasure, my queen.”

“Hm. Maybe after the party. Speaking of, the guests are arriving.” She stood up, brushing at her skirt and tweaking at the collar and waist in a fussy way he found uncharacteristic of her. She noticed his puzzled look and stopped fidgeting with her dress, rubbing her gloved hands together instead. “I haven't dressed formally in awhile.”

“You look . . . not like yourself.”

Marianne gave her pale skirt another tug. “I look like that pathetic little thing that fell into the forest because she had her head in the clouds.” She turned to push the chair back into place, snapping about so quickly that her wreath went askew. Hissing under her breath she tried to put it straight, but her impatience shifted it too far one way then too far another until it tipped over her eyes.

Black claws brushed her hands away and took hold of the wreath in a delicate grasp, moving it a few inches and into its proper place. They brushed past her cheek on their way back down, the tips barely touching her skin and the faint contact leaving ghostly trails tingling on her face. Her hands had dropped to her sides, fingers relaxed, temporarily drained of their restless energy. She looked up, watching his eyes and looking for mockery but finding none.

“You look,” Bog remarked, brushing her bangs back into place and sending another tingle across her skin, “Like a warrior deprived of her sword.”

“And what does that look like?” He met her eyes and her heart gave a startling jolt.

“Angry.” Bog said with a slant of a grin, “and dangerous.”

Marianne ducked her head, reaching to tuck back her hair, trying to hide how pleased his words made her. “Dawn wouldn't let me carry my sword. Said it was too much temptation.”

“She was probably right.”

“But I can stand looking ridiculous in this finery for her sake.”

“You don't look ridiculous. I think it's just that dark colors look better on you.”

“Oh.” Marianne saw pink glow on the gray skin of Bog's cheeks and tips of his ears. He looked slightly horrified by what had just come out of his mouth.

“Um. Shall we terrify the masses?” He extended his hand.

Marianne took it. “We shall.”

A stream of officials and nobles sketched out some basic courtesy with the king of the Dark Forest, none of them lingering long enough for Bog to distinguish one from another.

“All you fairies look alike when you flutter around like that.” He grumbled to Marianne during a break.

“Even me?” She challenged.

They were sitting at the high table, glad of the dancing since it shifted attention away from them. Mostly. The dark patch of gloom that was the Bog King seemed to catch more eyes than all the bright glitter of the ballroom's polished floors and sparkling fountain. Still, it had lessened enough that Marianne felt comfortable to cross her legs and lean back in her chair, chin resting on the back of curled gloved fingers.

“Oh, you and the fluffy one are easy.”

“Her name is Dawn.”

“I know what her name is, but until she learns my name I'm going to keep calling her the fluffy one. Anyway, you're easy, even when I can't see your wings. Your warpaint is quite distinctive.”

“It's called makeup.” Marianne smiled.

“I know what makeup is. My mother wears makeup on occasion. You wear warpaint.”

Marianne made a considering face, then nodded slowly in agreement. “Well, I have to say I actually like the sound of it.”

“Thought you would.”

“And you can only tell me by my makeup?”

“Um.” Bog's fingers tapped out a nervous pattern. He could recognize Marianne in a sea of faces, the way she stood, how she held herself, even if he couldn't see her eyes of liquid gold or make out the tiny point of her nose. Out loud he said, “There's also your hair.”

“What about my hair?” Her hand flew up to check the shiny locks for abnormalities.

“It's always in your eyes.”

“Oh!” She lowered her hands, but kicked him hard under the table where no one could see, “Not all of us can be so distinctive as seven-foot tall trees!”

“Hm.” The words were harmless, meant in jest, but a frown shadowed his eyes and he quickly changed the subject. “How long do these things go on?”

It felt like he had been watching fairies dance and sing for hours now and yet they showed no sign of flagging. The goblins he had brought with him as a guard were growing restless and had been trying to sneak more and more trips to the buffet table. The distinct click of a claw on metal warned the goblins they were not unobserved and they turned to see their king tapping at shaft of his staff. Drooping, they backed away and returned to their places.

“Too long,” Sighed Marianne, shifting in her seat and refolding her wings for the third time in the last two minutes. Her gaze turned to Dawn, who was dancing with Sunny. Only the tip of the elf's hair was visible through the crowd of dancers, and only that was seen when the press thinned a bit. For the moment the two of them seemed to be happily wrapped up in their own private little world, no room for anyone but each other.

Marianne's expression grew pensive as she observed the ill-concealed disdain on the faces of the party goers. She knew what was being said, about how one princess had tied herself to a monster while the other was marrying beneath her. That Marianne had been sold to appease the goblins, that Dawn had been tricked by an elf who only wanted her power. Marianne huffed out a silent breath. What would they think if they knew the only monster, the only power-hungry suitor was none other than the fairy they used as a standard of measurement for perfection? It would not be a goblin or an elf who would run this kingdom into ruin, but a fairy.

She would never let that happen.

“How's everything?” Dagda came back to the table, having been mingling at the edges of the dancing. He had tried to suggest Marianne dance but she shamelessly used Bog as an excuse not to, citing that it would be rude of her to leave him alone. No one suggested Bog might dance, he noticed.

Bog's face was eloquently dire as he attempted to muster a neutral answer to the question, but Marianne cut in first, “Don't hover, dad. We're both bored out of our minds but we're behaving ourselves.”

“Some more than others.” Bog muttered, catching sight of one of his people edging toward the buffet table. Bog snapped his fingers and the goblin swiveled around. Bog silently pointed at the space vacated and the goblin slunk back into place.

“Anyway, Bog's not going to eat anyone--”

“You're too fond of that joke, princess.”

“--and I'm not going to make a spectacle of myself.”

“My dear,” Dagda said, “That wasn't my concern . . .”

“Yes it was. But I'm not going to ruin Dawn's party, so don't hover.”

“Very well.” Dagda took his seat and picked up his cup.

“Spectacle?” Bog asked Marianne. “Is there a precedent?”

Marianne picked up her glass and took a sip to hide her face. “Yeah.”

Bog leaned his chin on his hand and motioned for her to go on.

She set the cup down. “I may have . . . run Roland out of the ballroom in the middle of the last Spring Ball.”

Bog raised his eyebrows.

“. . . chased him around the fountain and backed him into a door and then slammed his wings in it.”

Bog had to cough to contain his laughter at the image. “Such is the fate of unfaithful suitors, it seems.”

Marianne did not seem to share in his amusement, her eyes darting to look at her father and see if he had heard the comment, then quickly saying, “I think I need some air.” She was gone in a rush of wings before either king could speak. Bog and Dagda exchanged puzzled glances, the oddity of Marianne's behavior temporarily leveling their differences. Dagda's wings made a feeble movement as if to spread, but dropped again. It was useless to try and go after her, his bulk would not permit it. He sent a worried look in the direction she had gone.

Bog snapped his fingers and several goblins came scampering forward. “Stuff,” He said, “You're in charge. Keep them away from the food. Excuse me.” He nodded at Dagda and took to the air to follow Marianne.

The sun was finally setting and the exterior of the fairy castle was cool, dark and peaceful. Bog found Marianne sitting in a flower near the base of the castle, thick yellow pollen clinging to the light fabric of her skirt. He hovered next to it, giving a small cough to alert her to his presence.

Her head jerked up and her hand went for a sword that was not there. “Oh.” She saw who it was and her hand went slack, “You didn't have to follow me.”

“Yes, I did.” Bog objected, “I'm under orders not to leave your side.”

“Oh, so you are. You're very dutiful.” She spread her wings and drifted off the flower, joining Bog in the air. Her teasing was half-hearted and she set down neatly on the ground, dirt and pollen coloring her pale slippers. She looked unbearably unhappy, the effect only heightened by her poor attempts to conceal it.

Bog landed by her, resisting an unexpected urge to take her hand, instead fidgeting with his staff. “Have I put a foot wrong?”

Marianne looked up at him, not understanding the question.

“What I said about faithless lovers . . . from some things you said I inferred that—I assumed that--” It didn't seem to be any of his business but something in him desperately needed to know the cause of her unhappiness. As if by knowing he could somehow help.

“No, you're right. It's just that my father doesn't know. No one knows. Except you.”

“Even I am . . . unsure of the specifics.”

Marianne shrugged and her tone turned to false lightness, “There's not much to tell. It was the day I met you, actually. I had fallen into the Dark Forest because I was so excited about the wedding I wasn't looking where I was going. Then, not long after that, I found Roland kissing another girl.” She looked down at the pale fabric of her dress, not white but nearly. Gloves, she hadn't worn gloves since that day, a wreath of flowers in her hair. “I never noticed that he was using me, that he didn't love me. I was so blind and stupid!” She snatched her wreath off and flung it to the ground, peeling off the pale gloves and sending them to join it. “Useless! Weak!”

“No.”

Her voice had grown louder and more ragged as she spoke, her small frame going tense with anger, her fingers driving in the palms of her hands. The low, quiet word cut through like a shadow across the sun. She looked at him, almost invisible in the dusk while she in her pale clothing glowed like a beacon.

The Bog King said, “He's more of a fool than I thought.” But his mind was obviously not at Roland, his gaze focused on her.

She turned away again. “I suppose I should thank Roland. If it weren't for him I would still be that little nothing with her head in the clouds, crashing into innocent goblin kings.”

“You've no one to thank but yourself, tough girl. Other people—lesser people—would let something like that break them. Other people would never have come back to the Dark Forest after encountering . . .” He waved a hand to indicate himself, his spikes, claws, and fangs all adding up to a fearsome face and form.

“I was too scared not to go back.” She laughed at the absurdity of it. But that's what it had come down to for her. To face and conquer her fear or be consumed by it until she was lost in shadows. The shadows, however, had not turned out to conceal anything so fearsome as she had thought. Standing in the growing dim with her husband she had not the least fear of him. The moment he had turned from his battle with her to aid her sister . . . the fear had suffered a deathblow and was now slowly dying.

“Are you . . . are you still scared?” He didn't know why her answer to this question might be important, he didn't know why he was holding his breath as he waited for it.

“Not as much as I was.”

“Oh.” He released his breath, not sure what to think of this response.

“I'm not scared of you.” He glanced up so sharply she felt forced to add, “I mean—I hope that doesn't offend you!”

“No, no, not at all!”

“Oh. Good.”

“A king doesn't want his queen to be afraid of him.” That smile, that blasted smile that came over his face when he was around her, irrepressibly lit his face. He took a few steps toward her, closing the gap between them.

“Usually the queen isn't a fairy.” Marianne pointed out.

“That makes no difference.”

“Doesn't it?” Marianne asked, looking up at him.

Their discussion had brought them closer and closer until there was hardly any space at all between them and they forgot what they had been saying, overwhelmed by the closeness of each other, they fell into near silence. Her hand was just over the armor of his chest, raised as if she were about to lay her hand there, but she did not. Her head tilted up, his head bent down to meet her, they could feel the warmth of each other in the cool evening air. He did not touch her, he did not dare.

“A queen is a queen, above all other things. If there are differences,” Bog said, head swimming, “They are only to an advantage.”

Marianne's hand rested on his chest and she looked up, her eyes searching his face. The air had grown thin, Bog thought, he was struggling to breathe and fought a strange dizziness that made his stomach turn.

The only comparable feeling Bog could dredge up in his memory was of the first time he had flown any significant distance by himself. It had been exhilarating, leaving the ground behind and moving freely in the air. It had been terrifying, fearing that at any moment he might fall and crash into the floor of the forest. His instincts screamed for him to land, but the surge of freedom-bought joy kept him aloft in a furious, uncoordinated flurry of wing beats.

Now it was the same. Instinct, habit, everything told him to flee, to stop, to put an end to it. Love was dangerous. It weakened, it rotted. It hurt. It hurt far more than it was worth. But something else, something long buried and ignored, urged him on. Chains of restraint he had forged in his youth had not been renewed. There had been no need. Now, faced with this frightening reality, they crumbled away in clouds of rusted disuse. The tentative hand on his chest made to remove itself, made shy by his prolonged hesitance. His own hand caught it, capturing the moonlit glow of it in a dark shadow.

Marianne could feel her hand shaking in the king's grasp. She'd missed him so much this past week. She had told herself she missed his conversation, their discussions, the similarity of their opinions, the competitive tone of their interactions. And that was true, but not the entire truth. The loneliness had turned painful and more and more she thought of the gentle way he had taken her hand, how his kiss had lingered on the corner of her mouth. How much he seemed to care about what she thought . . . All these things she tried to push away to the back of her mind, but the moment she had seen Bog again they all teamed back to the forefront and would not be ignored. Now he had come to make sure she was alright, to ask what he had done wrong when she was used to being told what she was doing wrong. He had come with no more motive in mind than that he was concerned for her.

No wonder she was falling for him.

Questions teamed in Bog's mind. The foremost being: why? Why would she ever . . . ever care about someone—something—like him? He tried to voice the question but he only got as far as her name, “Marianne . . .” He nearly whispered it, his uncertainty rolling the syllables of it. A flash of purple answered him, Marianne spreading her wings and rising up high enough to be on eye-level with him, one of her hands still retained in his. In a blinking light of purple and white, she put a hand to the side of his face, questioning, unconsciously mirroring the Dark Forest marriage ceremony and matching her hand to the place she had previously marked Bog's cheek. She felt his warm breath on her face when he released it in a shuddering exhale and she let her eyes close completely as she leaned toward him--

But one chain of restraint still remained wrapped around Bog's heart. One forged too well to break easily, that reminded him of why this was just not possible. It loosened his grip on her hand and pulled the words from him, slicing through the quiet moment of accord, shattering it:

“I thought we were done with these games, princess.”

The words stung, snapping Marianne's eyes open and kindling the dull burning in her cheeks into fiery shame. Unclouded blue eyes looked down at her, all trace of that pleasant haziness vanished, replaced with a determined sarcasm.

She took her hand from his face, dropping back to the ground, “What is that supposed to mean?”

Bog looked away and did not answer.

“You think I'm playing? You think that was—that was nothing but a game? Scoring points?”

“What else could it be?”

Her words came out small but certain, she couldn't have stopped them from being spoken if she tried. “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

“That's not . . . that's not possible!” He was half-turned away, his profile a sharp, forbidding shadow.

“I don't know. All I know is that I missed you so much this week it hurt.” Marianne's hand pressed over her heart, over the aching little hole there that only seemed to fill when Bog was with her. “That when I'm with you I'm . . . I'm happy. I didn't know I was sad until I was happy again.”

Marianne spoke boldly because the pressure of his hand on hers had not yet faded, the way he had looked at her . . . He had been about to meet her in that almost-kiss, he had deliberately stopped himself, even though he had wanted to.

“You're mistaken. You can't.” There was no anger in his words. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to reach into the reserve of hate and disdain that had kept him safe for so long, protecting him from the bitterness of being denied happiness. But it had run dry, leaving only that deep sadness that lurked beneath everything even after all these years.

“You can't.” He repeated.

“Yes, I can--!”

“You don't even know me! Anything about me! Who I am, things I've done—nothing!”

“Then--!”

“Marianne? Marianne, are you there?”

Marianne whipped around at the sound of the voice and Bog seized the opportunity to disappear into the grass, intending on heading back to the castle and gathering up his people to leave.

Immediately.

But a moment later her paused, hearing the familiar clink of armor coupled with a voice he had come to loathe. He lingered in the shadows, knowing Marianne could handle the idiot, but unwilling to completely abandon his queen. As much as he would have liked to seek out the shelter of his own kingdom without further delay—he felt the line Marianne had cut across his hand—he had made a promise.

“Darlin', there you are. All alone, sweetpea? Your dad sent me looking for you.”

Marianne, trying and failing to see where Bog had vanished to, whirled to face down Roland with an impatient snarl on her face.

“Do I have to remind you again, Captain Roland, that I am not your darling, not your sweetpea, not your anything! I am heir to the throne of the Light Fields and Queen of the Dark Forest and I expect you to treat me with all proper respect for those positions!” An emphatic finger struck the front of Roland's armor hard enough to tip him back slightly. Bog heard the hollow noise of the strike and couldn't help breathing out a tiny, silent laugh. She was amazing.

“Yes, Queen of the Dark Forest,” Roland took her hand, ignoring her violence toward him, letting his fingers play over the bandage. “That was very clever of you.”

Marianne snatched her hand free, feeling a new sort of anger welling up inside her. Right now she was angry with him not for his past transgressions, but his present ones. Roland's coming had caused Bog to leave and cut their discussion short. Roland had taken her hand. Not only had he touched her without permission but taken the hand that Bog had marked with the cut of a knife.

“What do you mean?” She asked, rubbing hard at her hand to rid her skin of the sensation of Roland's touch.

Roland smiled, a confident and knowing grin that displayed even, white teeth to great advantage as he leaned toward her and she leaned away, “Pretty little thing like you, that beast was probably bowled over by the idea of marrying you—how could he say no? Never going to have another chance at such a pretty wife, and you knew he'd jump at it. Very clever. Got yourself two thrones now. And you thought it might make me jealous, buttercup.”

“Jealous?” The incredulity in Marianne's voice was mixed with outrage.

“Maybe I was, for a little while, but then I realized,” Roland smiled knowingly, “You were just trying to get back at me for my little, hm, indiscretion. You always take things a little too far, don't you, my Marianne?”

“Okay, okay, hold on. First of all, jealous? I don't want you in my life, I don't care what you think of who I love or who I marry. Second, indiscretion? Little?! You cheating toad!” She shoved him hard so that he had to flutter his wings to keep upright. “How many times do I have to tell you it's over? In fact, it never was there in the first place! All you love,” She shoved him again, “is my crown. And now there is no way you can ever have it! Not with all the love potions in the world!”

Roland's smile did not falter. In fact, it widened. “Oh, that old goblin isn't going to live forever. Someday you'll be free again—one way or another—and in the meantime if you ever need someone a little less scaly to make you happy--” He seized Marianne by the arms, pinning them to her sides as he tried to lean in and silence her protests with a kiss.

Bog slashed away the blades of grass in his way with a swipe of his staff, intending to make short work of the fairy and his unwanted attentions, but he was too slow. Marianne wrenched an arm free, stepped a pace back, drawing her arm back while her long slender fingers arranged into a perfectly formed fist. She let loose and struck Roland right in the jaw, snapping his head around and sending him stumbling over his own wings and into a plant.

“I'm married, you creep! How can I make it any plainer that I'm not interested!”

Roland struggled to rise. The end of Bog's staff met the front of Roland's armor with a dull clank, knocking the breath out of the fairy and pinning him to the ground. Bog moved the staff only to replace it with his foot as he leaned over Roland, a snarl on his face, wings spread and shaking, shoulders flared, rendering him as a massive gray shadow in the dusk.

“There are laws,” Bog rumbled, a growl growing in the back of his throat, “Laws about assaulting the queen of the Dark Forest!” Finally his anger had returned to him, ready to be used, and he wanted to let it have free reign, let it destroy the impudent creature that dared touch his wife against her will. The fairy's armor would crumple and peel away until he could reach the soft, unprotected flesh and rip that off too . . .

Marianne touched his arm. “I can take care of myself.”

He turned to her, renewed rage fresh in his eyes, daring her to contradict him again. “You are my queen!”

“This is my kingdom! My rules, my decisions! You kill him and the accord will be over—the council will see to that. Let him go.”

“Is that what you want--?”

“No! But it's what's right.” Her hand tightened on his arm and he could feel the bandage catching on the rough texture of his armor. That wound was to be the only one he ever inflicted on her, a promise that he would not hurt her. It reminded Bog that he had already failed in that promise, that he had spoken words that had cut deep and brought pain into her eyes.

He had made her unhappy.

Bog lifted his foot and kicked Roland away. “Continue to press your unwanted attentions on my queen and it will be my pleasure to extract the price of your crimes from your disgusting hide!”

“Whoa, there's no need to--” Roland stumbled to his feet, trying to flash a charming smile and smooth his hair back at the same time.

Bog raised his staff.

“I'll just be . . . going, then. And I'm sure at some later point you'll give me a chance, King Bog--”

“Bog King!”

“--to explain how you might have misunderstood my conversation with Marianne--”

“Roland, if you don't leave right this minute I will not only let Bog kill you, I will help him.”

The king and queen of the Dark Forest watched Roland fly back to the castle.

Marianne's hand was still on Bog's arm and he had covered it with his own without realizing he was doing so. Not until she brought up her free hand and laid it on the back of his. He had wrapped his fingers around her hand and pinned it to his arm, trapping it. And she did not pull away, but ran her fingers over the back of his hand in soothing movements, fingers following the seam between armor and skin, gently retracing the path again and again until she saw Bog's tense frame begin to relax.

For the moment he did not pull away. “If he tries anything like that in the Dark Forest I will not hold back again.”

“Even if I ask you?”

“Would you hold back if I asked you?” He shot back.

“I did at the border last week.”

“That—he had not done anything. Tonight—he got you alone—he—I wish I had not stopped you then, honestly.”

“But you were right. My . . . outbursts . . . haven't endeared me to my people or the council. And Roland isn't quite stupid enough to say those sort of things in front of other people. He just assumes that . . . no one will believe me. He's not wrong.” She released his hand and moved away.

Resisting the irrational desire to take her hand again, Bog merely reached out and touched the back of it to get her attention. When she turned back and met his eyes he said,

“Yes, he is wrong. I would believe you.”

Marianne looked away again, but there was a small smile curving her lips. “So you didn't believe any of that garbage Roland was talking?”

“No. His implications were as false as they were obvious. Though if you managed to kill me you'd have more than earned the throne of the Dark Forest, in my opinion. No, the manner in which you . . . approached me let little room for doubt about your intentions.” He touched the scar on the side of his head. “If you had come speaking of love and romance . . . pretending you had affection for me . . . that I would have doubted. No, you made your intentions clear. Admirably pragmatic.”

“I suppose they were.” Marianne said, a little wretchedly. The smile was gone and Bog didn't know how to bring it back. Didn't think he could.

There was a heavy silence.

Marianne understood what Bog was saying, that he was drawing the line, asking her to stop. And she had to, because even if she was sure it wasn't what he really wanted—she knew it wasn't—he was still asking to stop. He was doing what he thought was right.

Even though she had seen that he had missed her as much as she had him, that he felt what she was feeling . . . he was saying no.

“Are you mad?” She ventured into the uneasy silence, “That I tried to k--”

“No.”

The strained silence that followed was painful. Their brief, easy accord had vanished since they strayed across the line they had both agreed upon. Everything was ruined.

“It changes nothing.” He said heavily, “We will continue with our plans as . . . as before.”

But it wouldn't be like before.

Marianne nodded anyway.

“He tried to use a love potion?” Bog asked, looking straight ahead and not really seeing anything. Marianne had said something about a love potion and he had to ask. He had to know.

“Yes.” Marianne was glad of the change of subject. Glad to feel anger overwhelm and cover the pain in her chest. “He didn't get his hands on one, but he was conspiring to. But it was only conspiracy, he never even made it across the border.”

“He did not get any?” Bog should have felt relieved, but he only felt empty.

“No. Nor any solid plan as to how. I checked.” Marianne's hands squeezed into fists, a fresh surge of anger toward Roland coloring her words, “He meant to have the crown whatever way possible, even if he had to . . . No matter how disgusting the method.”

Bog flinched but she did not see, she had cast her eyes down at the stained edge of her dress. His hand lifted without his conscious consent, moving as if he intended to touch her shoulder and give her comfort. But his hand's clawed outline showed up vividly against the background of her pale shape, the predatory shadow falling across her shoulders and the base of her wings. Fingers curled, tucking claws out of sight as he pulled his hand back. He allowed himself only a few more words. Rather, he could not stop himself, needing to give her some sort of reassurance.

“I'll make sure he never gets a second chance. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He left without taking her hand.

Bog did not get far.

He was heading back to the party to collect his people and go, but he was halted by the sound of crying and a glimpse of yellow hair. The fluffy one. Dawn. With Roland still wandering around Bog could not help but be concerned for the little princess. Marianne could manage, but Dawn . . .

He hovered in the air, glancing at the castle, then back at the patch of yellow. It was none of his business. He ought to just gather his people and leave. It went against the grain to allow such distressed noises to continue. It could attract any number of unpleasant things. But this was the fields, not the forests, and the same rules did not apply. It was none of his business. He ran his hand across the back of his neck, uncertain fingers sliding around to tap at the collar of his armor. The movement brushed his arm across the boutonnière and he glanced down at the arrangement of flowers and leaves.

Blast.

“Is all well, princess?” He asked, finding the girl curled up under a flower, a sad puddle of skirts and wings, tears dripping down her pointed little face. She was crying with the open honesty of a child, holding nothing back. She made an effort to stop, sniffing hard and greeting him.

“Hi, Boggy.”

“Bog.” He said, more shortly than he intended, but his temper was frayed and it slipped out.

“I-I'm sorry.” She gasped in a sob.

Panic rushed over Bog. “No, no, hush!” He waved his hands, almost hitting himself in the head with his own staff before he let it lean in the crook of his elbow, “It's fine! I'm not angry with you, please don't cry!”

“N-not crying!” Dawn sobbed, “Why would I be crying? It's my engagement party!” She ended on a wail and was wracked by sobs, wings flickering behind her.

“Princess . . .” He leaned over and uncertainly took her hand, tapping the small thing with just two of his fingers in an attempt at a comforting gesture, hoping it would quiet her. He had feared she might recoil from this and was prepared to withdraw the instant she did, but instead she threw her arms around his neck and began to cry into his shoulder. He staggered under her light weight, dropping his staff and letting his hands flutter in the air while he stood stooped to match her height. “Princess!”

“I'm sorry, I just--!” Fresh sobbing cut her off. With a reluctant sigh he patted her shoulders and let her cry. It was quickly becoming apparent to him that the fluffy one was as unstoppable as Marianne, in her way. He had no real desire to distress the princess further and face being the cause of more unhappiness. As well, he would rather not think about having to deal with Marianne's wrath if he dared upset her little sister.

He hated crying.

The kind of crying that happened when you were just too sad to hold it in. When you felt alone, lost. How many winters in the forest had ended with the sound of children crying because their family had not made it through the harsh season. He hated it because he could do nothing to stop it.

Maybe that was why he was being so patient with the little princess. Hoping that he could do something to stop the cause of her tears. The sobbing was fading and he dared to begin disentangling the princess and make her sit back down where he had found her. “Is everything . . . alright?”

Well, obviously it wasn't, but Bog's scrambled thoughts offered no better way to give the princess an opening to explain her behavior. She was not critical of his wording, however, sniffling loudly before saying:

“I'm scared. It's all moving so fast and I don't know if I'm ready, but there might not be another chance! Dad doesn't like Sunny and he won't let us marry if he can find an excuse and . . .”

The words, like the tears, burst out of her in an uncontrollable flood which Bog was helpless to stem the flow of. Tears were something he caused, not stopped.

“I should . . . I should get your sister . . .” A spark of relief lit up in his chest at this idea. Marianne would know how to deal with her sister and he could finally leave, finally go back to the quiet of his kingdom.

“No!” Dawn snatched his arm and tugged him back when he tried to leave, “After she's worked so hard, to tell her I don't want it? Oh, but I do want it, but I'm just not . . . I'm not ready! After she's worked so hard I can't just do that to her--”

There wasn't much Bog could do, short of tearing himself away and leaving the princess to cry alone in the dark. And he couldn't bring himself to do that. He sat down on the twig next to her and listened silently to an outpouring of the fluffy thing's woes. It was only when she was halfway through a second recitation of her troubles that Bog got a handle on understanding exactly what was wrong.

“You're rushing into the marriage because you're afraid your father will go back on his word?”

Dawn sniffed and nodded. “If I call it off now Marianne would have worked so hard for nothing and Sunny—Sunny would think I didn't really love him! He'd think I only thought of him like all the other boys I flirted with. But he's not. He's Sunny and I want to marry him, just . . . not yet.”

The princess drooped further, if that were possible, leaning against Bog and hugging his arm.

“I am . . .” Bog began uncertainly, trying to lean away without falling off the twig, but the girl seemed firmly attached. “I am . . . not the most qualified person to be discussing this sort of thing. But it isn't something you should . . rush into. That much I know. If Sand—if Sunny does love you . . . he'll wait.”

“But he's already so unsure and after the whole love potion thing--”

“Love potion?”

“Yeah. He was scared that I didn't feel the same as him so he tried to get a love potion and I was really mad at him but he was so sorry--”

“I can see why you have your doubts.” Bog said, wondering exactly how many inhabitants of the Light Fields were conspiring to obtain love potions. It was on the tip of his tongue to demand how far the elf had gotten in his plot when Dawn cut him off.

“Oh, no, it's not that.” Dawn shook her head, leaning her fluffy golden curls on the plates of his shoulder. “I was mad at him about that, but he just hadn't been thinking. I hadn't been thinking. I never realized how he felt even though he was right there. We talked a lot about it and I forgave him.”

“You . . . forgave him?”

“Of course! He was sorry and realized what a silly thing it was to try to do and he'd never try to do it again. And it worked out for the best because it made me stop and think things over and that's when I realized I loved him.”

“What if you hadn't? Loved him? Wouldn't you have worried he might have . . . tried again?”

“No.” Dawn said with complete conviction, “Not once he realized it wouldn't be right. He didn't understand before, he made a mistake. Sunny apologized and made up for it—Marianne made him do so many chores at the castle--”

“Marianne knows about this?” Bog was incredulous. Her attitude when discussing Roland's plans to use the love potion had been nothing short of complete revulsion. That she would allow her little sister, who she was so protective of, to marry the elf after he tried to do the same thing . . .

“Marianne's the one who stopped him and talked some sense into him.” Dawn giggled, “Sunny said he was lucky she didn't knock some sense into him!”

“I'm surprised she didn't.” Bog thought of the swift punch to the jaw she had delivered to Roland without a second thought.

“Anyway, Sunny was sooo sorry and asking if I wanted him to stay away and was just beating himself up over it. I think he's still a little afraid I'll change my mind and call everything off. That's why I don't know what to do. Marianne would understand . . . I hope. And she can take care of dad, but Sunny . . .”

The princess was showing signs of crying again and Bog, feeling far too damp already, quickly spoke up, “If he trusts you he'll believe you. If he . . . if he loves you he'll do as you ask. He'll wait. I'm not . . . Really, princess, I'm not the person to talk to about these sorts of things.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Boggy.” The princess's tears had receded again and she was looking thoughtful, “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Thank you for being so nice to me.” She hugged him, surprising him so much he almost fell backwards off the twig.

“Um. No problem. Um. You don't seem to—that is—you're not afraid of me?”

“Oh, no!” Dawn patted his cheek and he flinched, “You helped Marianne save me from that lizard! And you're my brother-in-law, too. Marianne wouldn't have married you if you were really scary.”

This drew a chuckle out of Bog. “Neither of you know me very well, it seems.”

Dawn stood up, brushing at her wrinkled skirts. “You're nice, Boggy.” Her tone was sure and she gave a firm little nod of her head.

“Bog. And I'm not.” He snapped.

Dawn tweaked his nose and ignored the resulting irritated snarl. “And I'm Dawn. Not 'the fluffy one'.”

“Ah.” Bog coughed and hitched his shoulders up, “How did you--?”

“Marianne does talk to me sometimes, you know. And you are nice, silly. Very nice. For listening to me and everything. And you're right.”

“I . . . am?”

“Sunny will understand. And Marianne won't let dad off the hook. I'll talk to them.”

Bog did not feel he could take credit for these conclusions, but he was glad that the little princess seemed to have put aside her tears and donned her usual smile. He just hoped she was done manhandling him.

As if to contradict this thought she reached over and adjusted his boutonnière. “It does look nice on you. But I think my first one was better, don't you think?”

“Uh.”

“I would have gone with darker colors this time too, but Marianne wore that pale dress and I wanted you two to match. There wasn't time to make her something she'd like better, so she had to wear one of her old dresses. You two weren't haven't a very good time, were you? Where is Marianne? I thought you escaped together to—I don't know, fight things. Or each other.”

“She . . . went back ahead of me. I was just preparing to leave.” Bog rose, retrieving his staff from the ground.”

“Leave? But the party isn't over!”

Bog's ears pricked at a distant voice. It was the elf calling for Dawn. Bog nudged the princess toward the voice with a gentle tap of his scepter. “I believe your betrothed is looking for you. Go drench him in your tears and leave me to dry.”

Dawn giggled and Bog couldn't help but smile back at her. She was very . . . uncomplicated. In her eyes he was her brother-in-law and therefore not to be feared. Somehow he didn't want to disillusion her of that idea, even if she was excessively affectionate. Still, he almost managed not to flinch when she smacked a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you again, Boggy.”

“If you say so, fluffy one.”

He watched pink wings vanish into the dusk and heard her greet her betrothed. When she was gone a heavy weariness fell over him and that gnawing pain in his heart that had plagued him all week returned in full force. He touched the boutonnière, pinching one of its leaves between his fingertips.

She had forgiven the elf. Sunny.

He didn't understand before, he made a mistake.

And she had forgiven him.

Marianne had forgiven him.

Bog stamped down on the tiny flicker of hope that flared up inside him.

The elf, that was different. It was different from . . . what he had done. Nobody had stopped him that fateful day, nobody had pulled him back. The deed, the ugly deed, had been done and he would pay the price the rest of his life.

He had accepted that.

He had accepted he, the hideous, evil Bog King, would always be alone.

His hand tightened into a fist and he felt the movement pull at the scar on his palm that had been given to him by his queen. The smell of the crushed petals of the boutonnière hung in the air, like ghostly traces of the younger princess.

He had accepted that.

“BK! BK!”

Stuff and Thang burst through the the grass, out of breath from their run from the castle.

“What?” Bog demanded.

“Brutus . . .” Thang panted, “Got into the hors d'oeuvres . . . tried to stop him, but . . . sorry . . .”

Bog pinched the bridge of his nose, the pang of headache a familiar discomfort and in it's way comforting. He hefted his staff, “I'll deal with it myself! Gather the others, we're leaving.”

Finally, time to go home.

Chapter Text

The frozen ground crackled and crunched under Marianne's tired feet and the border seemed no closer than it had been when she checked five minutes before. Shrugging her squirrel fur cloak higher around her shoulders she shivered against the cold, twitching her wings beneath the cloak as she glanced back at her small entourage.

The procession through the ice-tipped grass was headed by a small group of armed guards, Marianne following impatiently on their heels. Behind her were more guards, walking alongside the squirrel-drawn wagons filled with supplies, gifts, and luggage, all destined for the Dark Forest.

Under the pretense of checking the state of the wagons, Marianne let her eyes wander to the comforting gray shape of the fairy castle's exterior. Even in the chill gloom of winter the castle looked warm and inviting.

For Marianne's entire life it had protected her through the frozen winter months, safe and warm in the spacious, glittering halls. The warm air pumped into the spaces beneath the floors and in-between the walls kept the stone floors warm underfoot and preserved flowers were arranged with such artistic care that they might almost have been freshly picked blooms.

It would be the first winter Marianne had ever spent anywhere aside from that warm cocoon of safety. A pretense of Spring even during the coldest of times. Instead, Marianne would be spending the season in the wild heart of the Dark Forest, among people who did not love her, barely knew her.

Alongside a husband who was no longer her friend.

That thought chilled her more than the weather and she squeezed her hands together beneath her cloak, trying to uproot her doubts before they could gain a foothold in her mind.

“You shouldn't go,” Her father had said that morning, “It's going to snow soon and you might get stranded there for weeks! In the Dark Forest, of all places!”

Disregarding her unspoken doubts that her father was unknowingly echoing, Marianne had picked at her breakfast and attempted to maintain a semblance of calm when she spoke,

“And if I don't go I'll be stranded here for weeks with nothing to do. Everything is in order and there's no urgent business or important festivities that I'm needed to appear at. Meanwhile there's a lot of work to be done in the Dark Forest. There was some trouble with the last load of supplies we sent over and this time I want to accompany it to make sure everything goes smoothly. And somebody has to make the rounds and see how the craftsmen are getting along.”

Among the Bog King's requests had been the usual: trade, food, plants, materials, but he had also asked for books and craftsmen. “Skilled in their craft. Blacksmiths, farmers, doctors, chemists—I have the details written down. Fairies and elves willing to teach and be taught. If there be any such among them.”

The words had stung, but Marianne reined in her instinctive reaction to defend the people of the Light Fields, because the words while harsh were not unfounded. The council and nobility of the fields had been obstinately uncooperative as they could possibly be without being quite openly offensive. A faction was beginning to form and split away from the rest of the fairy court, comprised of those who thought a peaceful accord with goblins was impossible and to invite such “creatures” into their midst would inevitably result in death, disease, and moral corruption.

Naturally, Roland was at the heart of this faction. Quietly, of course, and unofficially, but his opinions were well known and he supported the ideas of the faction itself. Trying to “talk some sense” into anyone who thought that goblins and fairies might form not only an alliance but a friendship. Elves, it appeared, were not considered to be so easily corruptible or important enough to worry about the health and morals of.

It still wasn't clear to Marianne if it would be worse to be stuck indoors with Bog for weeks to wait out a possible blizzard or with Roland for the entire winter. Roland had been ever so attentive over the Summer and Fall, dancing a fine line of courtesy and careful insinuations. It was clear that he was willing to wait for Marianne to grow tired of playing coy, tired of pretending to be a wife to a goblin, and turn to the gallant Roland for comfort and council. He was willing to wait, to be the power behind the throne so that he could gradually worm his way right onto the throne, one way or another.

“No,” Marianne had told her father, pushing away her half-eaten meal, “I'm not needed here. But I might be needed in the forest. If I'm going to have a hope of being a proper queen to them—even if it's only in name—I really should know more about them.”

“Your visits . . .”

“Three. Not counting the wedding, three. Three visits! In the span of half a year and never for more than a a day. I've spent my whole life in the Fields—I think one season in the Dark Forest isn't too much to ask. Besides,” She patted her father's shoulder as she passed him on the way to the door, trying to cast a lighter note over things before she left, “Do you really want me cooped up here until the thaw? I don't think anybody wants a repeat of last year's sulking.”

The king gave a small chuckle over this even as he shook his head.

When her father hugged her good bye Marianne almost said she had changed her mind, that she wouldn't go. When Dawn and Sunny waved her off from the palace doors she almost turned around and scooped them both into a hug, almost told them never mind, she was staying and they would spend the winter together like they always had. All three of them cozy in the sitting room with half-drunk pots of tea and hot chocolate on the table, getting crumbs in their books, and painting day dreams out loud, of what they hoped to do and hoped to be one day.

They hadn't done that last year.

Marianne's dreams were in pieces and trying to retrieve the shards only caused her pain. Now Dawn and Sunny were busy working on turning old day dreams into reality and though they both welcomed Marianne's company she felt the odd one out. Excluded from their cozy little world of happiness.

Somehow, the idea of being miserable in the alien gloom of her second kingdom seemed the easier option then being miserable in the bright glitter of her first.

Bog met them at the border.

That was unexpected.

On the three occasions that Marianne had visited the forest Bog had not met her, choosing to instead send a representative and guard to greet and guide her. It was done with all courtesy due to a princess and queen, but it was stiff and formal and not at all welcoming. During her visits, what little interaction she had with her husband was completely impersonal. He kept her at arm's length with all the formality he could muster. She had matched him, bow for bow, returning each empty courtesy offered with her own hollow pleasantries.

She wished he would just get angry with her.

She wished she could just shake some sense into him.

She wished he would forgive her and be friends again.

Now he was waiting for them and Marianne's heart gave a small flip when she picked his dull shape out from among the frost-covered trees and plants. He wore a cloak she had not seen before and was unlike any fairy garment. It was not one smooth piece of cloth, but patches and layers and criss-crossing strands of dull gray and green coloring so that when the king stood still he was lost in the background of his forest. A collar of grayish fur curled around his neck, and the cloak was tailored to fasten around his pointed shoulders, allowing them free movement, and then fell down to his feet in gray-brown folds. Across the king's chest it fastened with a patch of spider's silk.

Marianne's hands twisted together even more tightly, but for a moment all the doubts and worries swarming through her thoughts settled down and things took on an optimistic light. Maybe he was a little closer to forgiving her.

A little closer to not being such a stubborn idiot.

Bog watched Marianne come, her guards clanking after her. Even in this weather the fairy guards wore their metal armor, flashy and cold. Unsuited for the climate and the terrain, especially since one could do very little flying in this weather without risking frost-bitten wings. Their only concession to the cold were capes draped over their wings.

Marianne was wearing an outfit much like her usual ones, but with a longer tunic, and over everything a coat of brown fur. Her nose was red and she wasn't wearing makeup, so altogether her face looked like she had colored it in wrong that morning and had neglected to fix it.

The sight of her fearlessly approaching the border—her step even perhaps quickening the smallest bit when she spotted him and raised a hand in greeting—made Bog feel oddly nervous. The princess had been glancing back over her shoulder as she came, but the moment she glimpsed him her gaze locked on him and did not waver as greetings were made and due courtesy observed. The golden eyes continued to rest on him as the wagons were unhitched and his people trudged out of the forest to heave up the shafts and pull the loads across the border.

It was only when he realized that he was staring back that Bog managed to break the strange spell and say something other than the usual banal remarks of two people who had nothing to say to each other.

“There's—there's a fire at the guard post,” Bog shifted his staff to one side and gestured for the princess to step past him and into the shelter of the trees, “You—we can warm up there before going on.”

The princess—queen—glanced at her shivering escorts and agreed, dipping her head in a regal gesture of agreement before stepping into the shadows of the forest. Her guards clanked behind her while Bog's scurried ahead of them, out of sight. The wagons rumbled down a different path, splitting up the party and insuring that they did not present such a noticeable temptation to any creatures hunting before winter came in earnest.

“It's unusual . . . to see you here,” The princess remarked after a few minutes of determined silence between them. She cast a quick glance up at him with her next words, watching his face, “I appreciate that you spared the time from your duties to escort me yourself.”

Bog had a suspicion that the princess was calling him out. Challenging him to admit he had all but been hiding from her. He had justified avoiding her by reasoning that his company was not such that would bring her comfort. Perhaps he was not wrong. But as she had approached the border he recognized that loneliness he had seen before, when she was in her own court, surrounded by her own people. Unhappy, stifled . . . and alone.

He hated how alone she looked.

“I . . .” He sought the words to answer her unvoiced questions, not daring to meet her eyes and instead letting his eyes dart over the unexceptional bushes that lined their path, “I have not meant—that is, I should not have—ah . . . I should not have been so neglectful of . . . of my queen. I am sorry if—“

“Oh, I didn't mean—!” The princess threw up her hands sharply, deflecting his apology, “I was just surprised. In a good way. To see you . . . here.”

The princess let out a breath of laughter, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, a smile only half forming on her lips before it was fading again.

“Oh,” Bog said, watching the brief spark of laughter disappear.

“You've been . . . occupied. So much work to do, I understand. I haven't been inconvenienced. Not in the slightest. At all.”

“That is . . . good to know.”

Marianne turned away and bit the inside of her cheek, searching for something neutral to say that wasn't an outright lie.

She hadn't been inconvenienced, that much was true.

She had just felt . . . terribly alone.

Missing that brief spark of camaraderie she had shared with the Bog King before her bumbling had extinguished it. What had started with such promise and warmth in spring was now lifeless and cold come the winter. All her tears had been spent and there did not seem to be anything left in their place except for an empty ache in her chest and a tiny chill of shame.

After that night in the garden Marianne cried hot tears of shame over her idiocy, alternating them with cold horror over how badly it might have gone. After all her talk of never falling in love again, of being strong on her own, she had gone and thrown herself at the Bog King's head as if she were an infatuated child. They had agreed this was not a marriage, but a contract. She had agreed. Why would she expect him to react any differently from how he had?

Stepping over a pebble, Marianne tried to will that last question away before her mind could produce the answer that was lurking on the edge of her thoughts. But it came anyway and she fastened her eyes straight ahead when it did.

Because he had kissed her.

She couldn't stop herself from touching her fingers to the edge of her mouth, thinking of how she had been so sure that he had felt more for her than . . . friendly tolerance.

That mis-aimed kiss had completely eclipsed the memory her spiteful kiss beneath the primroses. That memory held a shade of embarrassment and an irrepressible flavor of the comical. The kiss on their wedding night, however, had set her thoughts on that horrible path that led to that unhappy night in the garden. She had been so certain that when she leaned in to kiss him that he was bending to meet her . . .

Fingernails dug into the palms of her hands as she clenched them into fists, the discomfort helping distract her from this unwelcome train of thought. A quick look to the side showed her that her husband had apparently not noticed any particular change in her demeanor. Thought she felt her tangle of thoughts was scribbled all over her face for him to see.

In her stupidity she could have destroyed the whole alliance between kingdoms before it had even begun to be constructed. Love was a weakness she could not afford to indulge in.

“When your message was received I was, well, somewhat surprised,” Bog was saying, his eyes set stiffly to the front.

“Oh?” Marianne said, finding her voice again, “I don't recall including anything particularly exciting in that letter,”

“You stated your intentions of—that is . . . you are aware that once the snows begin to fall you will be unable to . . . that there is no safe passage between our kingdoms for the duration?”

“I know,” Marianne agreed.

“And you are . . . comfortable with that situation?”

“I am,”

“You realize that it will be impossible for you to return home for some weeks--”

“I am aware,” Marianne snapped. She had engaged in this same conversation too many times over the past week, “Unless you have an objection to the arrangement, my king, I am perfectly aware and comfortable with staying in the forest for a prolonged duration. It seems to be the place where I can accomplish the most over the winter months. As well,” She let her chilly dignity slip, “I will not be forced into attending the endless tea parties and social calls,”

The tone of disgust in her voice was rewarded with a small slit of a smile from Bog, “There are,” He said with a slow roll of his Rs, “a similar form of such unpleasant activities in the Dark Forest, too, you know,”

“Am I allowed to carry my sword to them?” She brushed back her cloak enough to show her sword belted at her side.

“Yes, actually,” The smile not only persisted, but grew slightly.

“May I hit anyone who offends me?”

“Within reason. You may not hit my mother, however. No matter how vexing she becomes. She's been pestering me about when you would visit next and was deeply pleased when we received your message.”

Marianne automatically ran a hand through her unruly hair, not even trying to hide her grimace at the mention of Griselda and her fussing. Bog snorted at her expression and she rolled her eyes at him.

Bog tapped the end of his staff on some tree roots they were stepping over. Without thinking, he extended his hand to help the princess over. Realizing his mistake, he began to curl his fingers away.

The princess grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself over the root, boots scraping into the mossy bark. She dropped it again as soon as she was over, but the cold press of her fingers burned into Bog's skin like a brand. The touch had made his heart shudder and he was hard-pressed to keep his shoulders from twitching at the jolt that ran through him.

He had missed her.

The thought slipped free from his carefully guarded train of thought. He shook his head, trying to fling it off. It was ridiculous. He had seen her a handful of times over the Summer and Autumn. They had talked.

But there hadn't been that connection. That strange balance between them in those first few days of their marriage. When he took her hand and she didn't shy away. When there wasn't this barrier of formality between them. But he knew that he couldn't breach that wall. He couldn't simply return to that accord, not without risking something else. If he took her hand again, let her close again, she might find out the truth that was at the core of him. The monster within as well as without.

The chains over his heart must remain.

“Then the social activities of the Dark Forest sound like a much better option,” The princess was saying with a smile, “And, really, winter is the hardest time on any kingdom. I want to see the ways of it in the Dark Forest. Maybe give a few tips, pick up a few. Be lonely among strangers for awhile . . .”

The princess tugged her cloak more tightly closed, “That sounded very dramatic. Honestly, I need a break. Fighting everything and everyone all the time . . . it wears you out.”

“The cold months in my kingdom are hardly a time that caters to relaxation,”

“Our kingdom,” The princess corrected, “I'm not looking for relaxation. I'd much rather fight until my arms dropped off than explain to a council member one more time that goblins are not riddled with rot and disease that will eat away at the very fabric of our society.”

“Seriously?”

“In all earnestness. Tell me now, Bog, are you riddled with rot and disease?”

“No more than usual.”

“And are you planning to undermine all the values of fairy culture?”

“Not unless a spare moment comes to hand.”

“How reassuring.”

They chuckled and fell into silence again as they wound their way along the twisting path to the castle. Marianne tried to let her thoughts to lulled into silence by the rhythmic swing of their cloaks, the graceful movements of the king's scepter catching the corner of her eye, the weight of her sword shifting at her side.

Yes, this would work.

Marianne gave the skull over the entrance of the castle her usual wary look when they crossed the bridge and passed beneath yellow fangs. It gave her the unnerving sensation of being swallowed alive. If the skull was intended to intimidate then it was doing a good job. Though Marianne wasn't sure if she was more worried about the bleached bones or by the twigs used to prop open its maw. They looked far too slender and dry to provide enough support to make Marianne comfortable.

The main entrance to the throne room was usually open, but in view of the cold weather one half of a set of double doors had been shut and the other left open only enough to make it possible for the widest of Bog's subjects to pass through.

Stepping through the crack, Marianne was hit with a wave of stuffy heat that made sweat prickle on her still cold face. A blast of busy chatter assaulted her ears as well. If not for the growling and snarling it have been not unlike the chattering and bickering of a market day in the fairy kingdom.

Her guards stepped forward to form up around her, but she waved them back.

“Consider yourselves at-ease for the rest of the season,” She said, “No one here is going to try and hurt the queen unless they have a death wish. If you feel obliged to hover then please do it while wearing something quieter.”

“Yes, ma'am!” One of the guards said with great enthusiasm, pulling off their helmet and huffing out a gusty sigh of relief, “Can hardly feel my face! Ah, ma'am.”

Helmets were discarded and the faces of Marianne's four escorts were revealed, cheeks and noses red, tufts of hair sticking out from the edges of the fitted hoods that covered their heads.

“Go check up on the wagons and then you can go stab at the corners of my room and tell me it's safe so I can vouch that you did your jobs. After that you can leave me alone until spring.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

“Bog,” Marianne turned to the king who had been observing the conversation with an eyebrow raised in question, “These are Katleen, Glory, Jesse, and Reen, my personal guard who my father politely requested I bring with me. They are complete irritations who will run wild and decay the fabric of goblin society if given half a chance. May they run around and get themselves into trouble while supposedly helping your people with the last of the winter preparations?”

“With that glowing recommendation?” Marianne could see the glimmer of a smile in the king's eyes as he turned a stern face to the fairy guards, “How could I refuse?”

The guards were holding their ground before the Bog King, but were exchanging nervous glances with each other out of the corners of their eyes.

“Talk to Stuff,” Bog continued, “She'll tell you where things are and what's off limits. Try not to upset anyone and end up eaten.”

Shedding bits of armor as they went, the four fairies fluttered over the crowd, three pairs of butterfly wings and one pair of moth wings flashing bright colors over the subdued tones of the goblins below.

“They seem . . . different.” Bog remarked, shoving a passing goblin aside to make a path for Marianne to walk through as they made their way across the busy throne room.

“I've been interviewing guards all month,” Marianne said, sounding very satisfied, “Looking for a few who weren't under Roland's thumb or too prejudiced to behave themselves. Usually those two things overlap, by the way. My father was going to insist on guards so I insisted on picking my own. They'll probably get into a fight before dinner.”

“They'll fit right in, if that's so. They seemed . . . glad? To be here?”

The thought was so unthinkable that it was a small struggle to voice it. Fairies didn't come to the Dark Forest willingly, not without some sort of mischief in mind. Or unless they managed to tumble in accidentally. Bog knew that Marianne had chosen to visit the forest but he could also see in the set of her shoulders, the stiffness of her wings held ready for flight, that she was not at all comfortable in his kingdom.

For a brief time Bog had thought that the forest might offer her the same solace as he often found in it, but he had obviously been mistaken. The thought stabbed at him like a rotten tooth. He wanted Marianne to be happy. He wanted her to be safe. To feel safe here.

“Apparently,” The princess was saying, “I've set somewhat of an example with the younger fairies. Or so Dawn keeps telling me. There's more than a few who want to see my other kingdom. Not a whole lot who are sincere about it, but a few. Most just see it as a sort of story book adventure.”

“Huh. Should've let them come. Winter would knock those ideas out of them, right enough.”

“Trial by fire. So to speak.”

“So to speak,” Bog agreed.

The noise level in the room rose abruptly and there were scolding sounds coming from the area by the doors that led down to lower levels. Only a few words were distinguishable and Marianne could just make out, “Winter sprouts! Sprouts! Get back here!”

Marianne had not had time to inquire what a Winter Sprout was before a small swarm of small goblins had flooded around her and the king, squeaky growls and shrill voices raised up in a ragged chorus of greetings. One or two of them closely resembled flies and were buzzing around the king's head.

One goblin with floppy ears was gnawing on Bog's ankle.

Bog seemed to be taking this all in stride, unlatching one small goblin from his hand and shoving it away. The gesture was rough, but the recipient just popped back up, teeth bared and ready to charge. Marianne's hand hovered over the hilt of her sword, cloak pushed back to give her freer movement, but she hesitated to draw it.

Bog's attitude was not defensive, he did not act like he was under attack, though he was growling and complaining loudly, kicking away the goblins that came too near. They rolled head over heels, bobbed back to their feet and ran right back into the fray.

“Do you . . . need help?” Marianne asked, wincing as claws scratched across Bog's armor.

“Oh, no, I can handle these wee assassins myself, I'm sure.”

“Um,” Marianne looked at the goblins nearby and saw they were paying no particular attention to proceedings save for a passing smile or two. Her eyes measured the height and width of the goblins going about their business and she compared it to the goblins mobbing Bog. All of them were significantly smaller than the working goblins.

Realization clicked into place when Bog picked one of them up by the scuff of the neck and gave him a scolding shake after the goblin had bitten into the unarmored flesh of the king's hand.

They were children.

“Mother!” Bog was bellowing, still holding the rebuked child, “Mother! Who let them all get out again!”

“As if it's possible to keep them in!” Griselda bellowed back from somewhere in the crowd, “They're called the King's Children, not his mom's!”

“The King's Children?” Marianne asked, not quite sure what to make of that or of how one young goblin had climbed up Bog and was hanging off his neck, “Is there something I should know?”

“What do you mean—no!”

Watching the confusion and embarrassment play across Bog's face prompted an explosive snort of laughter from Marianne. When bright pink stained his face Marianne's laughter started to become uncontrollable. The look of indignation on Bog's face while he stood there overrun by children pushed her right over the edge and it started getting hard for her to breathe for laughing.

“Sprouts,” Bog said to the children, “This is my wife, the queen. I think she wants to play with you.”

Tears of laughter were clouding Marianne's vision so she barely got a glimpse of the goblin children pouncing on her. She was vaguely aware that most of the older ones hung back, but she was too busy dealing with trying to keep on her feet when the younger ones barreled into her.

Claws pricked through the heavy layers of her winter clothing and someone was chewing on her hair, but mostly they seemed to be intent on tugging on her arms, pulling her this way and that while squeaking out questions.

“You really are a fairy!”

“Are you gonna lead the kingdom to ruin?”

“Why are you so soft?”

“Why do you smell weird?”

“Where's your crown?”

“Bog!” Marianne said, plastering a smile on her face for the benefit of the children, but looking daggers at her husband and his expression of smug satisfaction, “Please remember that we are going to spend all of winter here. Together.”

Seeing the wisdom of this argument Bog began to tricky process of removing baby goblins from her person. One small fellow with a beaked face had to be torn off her tunic, his claws leaving snags and tears in the outer layers of the dark petals. Another was attacking her boots, biting them and scrabbling at them with clawed hands and feet.

“Enough, enough,” Bog was nudging the children away. He tapped the floor with his staff and the children slithered back to arrange themselves in a small group, beaming up at the king. Most of them, at least. Two or three in the back were wrestling each other with more enthusiasm than skill.

“Marianne, these are the Winter Sprouts, wards of the court.”

“Oh,” Marianne said, “Nice to meet you all.”

The littler ones chirped cheerful responses. The older ones scowled at the floor.

“Now get back to where you belong!” He roared, flaring his wings and shoulders and the children ran away, screaming in mock-fear.

“Wards of the court?” Marianne asked, rubbing at the light scratches scored across her hands. They were irritating, but not deep enough to bleed.

“Orphans,” Bog nodded, “They didn't do any real damage, I hope?”

“Aside from my life flashing before my eyes I think I'm fine. So, how many kids do you have?”

“This year?” Bog tapped his claws in a vague gesturing of counting, “Twenty or so who we haven't managed to permanently foster. The last two years have been particularly hard so there have been more to care for.”

“That's a big family to start off with, my husband.”

“Oh, shut up, wife.”

“Why're they called Winter Sprouts?”

“A nickname. They're all fostered out during the warm months and come back to the castle during the winter when families have less space and food to share.”

“Really?”

“Yes, along with any sick or elderly who cannot look after themselves and have no one to do it for them.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“That's very—that's a good idea.”

It was a surprisingly generous arrangement. Not something that was done in the fairy kingdom. Oh, there was charity aplenty, but there was never any mention of the idea of sharing the extra space in the castle with anyone not of proper birth and rank. And some of the elves who lived on the fringes of things could really do with better accommodations during the snow.

The temperature began to drop rapidly with the setting of the sun and the wind picked up, carrying with it the dry chill of approaching snowfall.

The throne room doors were shut and barred. Bog and three of his larger subjects pushed stones in front of the doors for good measure. They would not risk the wind blowing in the doors, or some stray beast scratching through for a mid-winter snack. The castle's inhabitants would still be free to come and go—weather permitting—thanks to smaller doors and passages that need not be so heavily secured.

When the last stone was dragged in front of the doors a small cheer of celebration was raised and there was a festive air as last minute chores were done. The uplifting novelty of a world turned upside down. only fun so long as you knew that it would eventually be righted.

Marianne felt panic squeeze her heart, tightening its grip when the doors scraped closed, when each rock was laid to rest with a faint thud. She suddenly felt caged, her last way of escape blocked. She was in the heart of the Dark Forest! The primrose stalks had been sheathed under ice and rendered harmless, but Marianne's memories of tumbling down among them and into a nightmare was as fresh as ever. They cut her to the quick and the cheerful noise around her turned to threatening growls of monsters.

“Marianne Queen, Marianne Queen!” a little Winter Sprout with crooked fangs that caused a lisp tugged on Marianne's hand, “Can I play with your sword?”

The shadows of nightmares were driven back into the corners of the room and Marianne took a deep breath, trying to expel her fears when she released it, turning to the little goblin with a smile.

“We're using sticks for practice, remember? Otherwise the sword gets chipped and dull really fast.”

“Oh,” The little girl mulled over the wisdom of this, gnawing on the end of the twig that served her as a weapon. She was a round little thing with pebbly blue-gray skin and ears that looked like the fins off a fish, far too large for her small head. She stood just as tall as Marianne's knees, had introduced herself as Bee, proudly declared she was seven years old and that she was a Winter Sprout, as if it were a a high and noble rank.

The cheerful energy of the children distracted Marianne from her fears. The racket they made was enough to crowd just about anything else out of focus. Marianne knew that when she was again in quiet solitude it would all come creeping back, but for the moment she slipped on an appropriate mask of careless cheer and fell to wrangling young goblins and preventing them from eating pebbles.

When the last stone was pushed up against the doors Bog gave a sigh of relief.

Safe.

Everyone was inside. Warm and safe.

He looked over at his queen who was playfully wrestling with a small group of children. She bared her teeth in a snarl, mercilessly tickling one young goblin's soft stomach until he was squealing for help. Two other children sprang to the rescue, piling on top of Marianne so that she toppled over, vanquished.

Everyone was safe.

“Hey, you alright, son?”

Bog tore himself away from watching the play-fighting and looked down to find his mother at his elbow. She was looking altogether too knowing and Bog stiffened himself, preparing for whatever onslaught she had planned now.

For the past few months his mother had been . . . well, not quite worse than before. Perhaps it would be better to say she had grown more focused since his marriage to the princess.

“Yeah, yeah,” She had cut him off mid-snarl, “This is only a political marriage of convenience. But the point of it is to be friendly, right? Huh, well, ignoring your wife does not fall under any definition of friendly.”

“I am not ignoring my—the princess. I saw her last week when I met with the council to discuss--”

“Ah, right there! You saw her at a meeting. Did you talk, just the two of you?”

“I'm sure that we--”

“About something other than politics.”

“I—ah . . . no. What does it matter? Politics is our relationship.”

Griselda scoffed loudly, “Uh huh.”

“It is!”

“Hm. And so what? What're politics all about? They're about making the kingdom safe and the people happy. Or, at least, not miserable. How are you and she gonna know what you're politicking about if you don't ever talk about actual things? You ought to at least have you wife over for dinner once in awhile. Show her around the forest. Ask what her favorite color is. Something.”

And on and on it had gone through the months, only stopping when the princess had stated her intention of staying for the winter. Unfortunately while his mother stopped nagging Bog to have her visit, she began instead to nag him about what he ought to do once she was there.

So now Bog looked down at his mother's smug grin and wondered what fresh torment she was about to unleash on him.

“Don't,” He said quickly.

“Don't what?”

“Don't anything. Whatever you've got brewing between your horns . . . don't.”

“Hah!” Griselda slapped her son's arm, “I don't have to do anything. You two have all winter to get cozy. I hope you make the most of it.”

“Mother.”

Griselda laughed, looking across the room at Marianne simultaneously teaching one young goblin how to hold a sword while another was weaving her hair into tiny braids, fastening them with strands of dried grass.

“She's getting on well with the Winter Sprouts, I see. But it's always a sort of sink of swim situation when it comes to those kids.”

“She does seem to be holding her own admirably,” Bog agreed, smiling at the scene. When he realized his mother was studying his face again he quickly banished the smile, giving a cough and folding his arms, “Those little twigs would eat you alive if you let them. Aren't you supposed to be supervising the dinner preparations, mother?”

“On my way there in a moment. Hm. This is the closest I've seen you to relaxed all year. Good thing your wife is staying the winter or you'd have been clawing up the walls before spring.”

“Mother.”

“Imagine how wound up you would be by the time the primroses actually bloomed!”

“Mother, please.”

“There's no shame in liking your wife, you stubborn stick! Now go make sure she's okay with her rooms,” Griselda grabbed Bog by the arm and dragged him forward a few steps, making him stoop awkwardly. She set him free when it looked like he was prepared to go the rest of the way under his own power, “I'll be in the kitchens. Have fun!”

Bog clamped his teeth together, biting back a dozen useless retorts. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, looking around the room for some possible excuse to disappear. But he caught sight of his mother, she had turned around and was jabbing her thumb at the princess, her wide mouth clearly forming the word, “Now.”

Bog went.

One kid was braiding her hair, another chewing on the finished braids, when Bog approached Marianne in the crowded room.

“Just . . . just checking on you,” He said, flicking a glance over to the kitchen door, “Everything . . . good? Your rooms are fine?”

“Yeah. Great! I mean, the rooms are good. I'm good. The rooms are really good, actually.”

And they were.

Marianne had only stayed overnight once and she had been given a guest room, but upon hearing that she was staying for a prolonged period Griselda had arranged for proper quarters that befit a queen. Bedroom, bathroom, study, and parlor, with nearby rooms for her guards. There had been an obvious attempt to decorate to a fairy's tastes. The final product left something to be desired, even if she appreciated the effort.

“I—we just weren't sure what was acceptable. For a fairy. Princess.”

“Queen,” She corrected. It had not escaped her notice that he had been calling her 'princess' all day. Only once or twice he had used her proper title or name.

“Hm,” He grunted in response, clawed toes nudging at a crack in the floor.

“Whose idea was it to paint the walls . . . pink?”

“My mother's,” Bog mouth gave a twist of displeasure.

“Oh, it's okay. I like pink.”

“I don't.”

Oh. The pink of primroses.

“My favorite colors are red and purple, though,” She said, trying to change the subject.

“Are they,” Bog's mouth was twisted in amusement now and his eyes flicked to the purple newly painted around her eyes and the red of the tunic she had changed into.

Marianne smiled too, “Yes. They are.”

He remembered being on the border, how the sunlight through her purple wings had made them glow. Right now she was trying to make sure that tiny claws didn't snag the lacy black edges of them, giving a sprout a firm push before she could latch on, both of them laughing.

She almost looked happy.

Almost looked like she belonged.

“Tell me if you need anything, princess.”

“Like stitches?”

Bog couldn't help laughing.

To be honest, Marianne had not expected the feast.

The fairy kingdom had celebrated the first frost of the year with a party, inviting all those who would not be able to attend smaller festivities once the snow fell and made travel difficult. It was always an elegant and sparkling party, the fluted wine glasses etched with delicate patterns of snowflakes, the ballroom decorated in silver and white.

In the Dark Forest, the doors barred and blockaded against the inevitable storms, she followed Bog into the banquet hall. It was a vast space beneath the throne room, a long wooden table of irregular shape was stretched across it and piled with food. There was little attempt at presentation, dishes crammed together and their contents spilling into each other. A massive fireplace was set at the far end of the room and some gruesomely large piece of meat had been skewered onto a spit that rotated over the flames, two singed looked goblins cranking it in steady rotations.

The smell of roasting meat choked Marianne and the sight of it turned her stomach. Meat was not absent from the menu in the fairy kingdom, but neither was it featured so prominently as it was here. As well, the preparation of it was kept to the kitchens and away from the delicate sensibilities of the nobility. While Marianne had made a habit of sneaking into the kitchen for snacks since childhood she had never been allowed near the separate space for the preparation and cooking of meat. What glimpses she had managed had never revealed such large quantities of meat as that which assailed her senses now.

The whole dinner was as loud and chaotic as their wedding had been. Thankfully this time she was not so much the center of attention, although she sat with Bog at the head of the table, their backs to the fire. There was a mismatched collection of wooden benches and stools arranged around the table, but for herself, Bog, and several goblins she recognized as being important, there were chairs made of animal bone.

Small talk was roared across the table and cutlery was almost entirely absent aside from a few knives to cut and stab with. Many forwent that formality and ripped in with their claws.

Marianne nearly had to lie across the table to reach a bowl of berries. Her first few attempts to get food had been thwarted by goblins snatched it from under her reaching fingers. She finally figured out that the protocol was to smack their hands out of the way and snatch the dish for herself.

Bog had been cautiously watching the princess through the proceedings, anticipating her discomfort but unsure of how to alleviate it. His experience of fairy celebrations had shown him the stark contrast in custom. The food had been more decorative than anything else, it certainly wasn't sustaining, and the whole act of eating it was some delicate ceremony that betrayed no real hunger. There was no fear of going hungry, of wondering when the next meal might be. It was ornamental. A necessity elevated to luxury.

It had rankled. Seeing such wealth of food that the kingdom took for granted. The Dark Forest had struggled so much, gone hungry so many winters that the blossoming of the primroses were almost welcome because it meant that there were fresh supplies of food.

The recent trading with the fairies had done much to bulk up the forest's winter supplies, but Bog knew that if they didn't have a few good hunts there would be many empty bellies before spring. While the fairies would be feasting well into spring, no doubt. Resentment burned in his chest and he considered ignoring the princess's discomfort. Such a small discomfort compared to watching your people wasting away for lack of food.

The princess was picking at a dried berry, watching the proceedings.

“Winters are very hard here, aren't they?”

The question did not appease Bog. It brought memories to the surface that he would rather have remained buried. Of huddling in the knothole of a tree while the snow crept up to cover the entrance. Of how the food dwindled and disappeared while the wind still howled outside. Of digging their way to the surface once the storm passed, the deadly quiet of the snow covered forest allowing the wails of fear and hungry carry freely.

Digging down again and unearthing newly orphaned sprouts, their parents dead of hunger and cold . . .

“Yes,” Bog said, shaking himself back to the present with a twitch of his wings. He looked over the room, the bounty of food crowding the table, the warmth of the fire pervading the room. Cheerful chaos all over the room and contented chewing and belching. The wind outside was picking up and the distant howling of it made wailing cries echo in his head, “Yes, winter can be very hard.”

The princess took a tentative sip of the beer that had been haphazardly served to her.  When she saw him watching her eyebrows drew together in a look of defiance and she gulped down a large swallow of the beer.

“How hard?” She asked, her voice a little rough from the strength of the drink.

“You have no need to worry. The princess of the fairy kingdom won't be let to starve.”

“That wasn't my question.”

“That was my answer.”

Marianne took another large swallow of beer, glaring at the cup. Goblin beer was much stronger than that of the fairies and elves. It hit her already uneasy stomach and riled up her anxiety, her feeling of being out of place.

Finding her husband an uncooperative conversationalist she turned her attention to the other goblins sitting in the bone chairs. None of them looked anything like Bog, but all of them were obviously important even though Marianne only vaguely recognized one or two from her visits to the forest.

To Marianne's left was Margot, a beetle-like goblin with a shiny brown carapace and a long thin horn curving up in front of her face. She was the head of the committee that oversaw the food stores and had talked with Marianne over the course of trade discussions. While Margot had not seemed friendly she had neither acted with hostility toward the new queen so Marianne felt hopeful of at least a civil conversation.

“Did everything in the wagons come through alright?” She asked, more to start a discussion than actually seeking an answer. Marianne had sent her guards to check on the wagons when they were fetching her luggage.

“Yes, everything appears to be there. This time.” Margot replied through a mouthful of food.

Marianne tried not to wince. The last load of traded goods had somehow gone astray on its way to the forest and by the time it had been put back on track a largo portion of the load had vanished. The incident had raised a lengthy argument between representatives of the two kingdoms, both blaming the other side for the loss. The compromise reached suited neither kingdom in the end. The fairies provided more goods, but only half of what was lost and only after many accusations that the Dark Forest was trying to swindle them.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Marianne told Margot, “I traveled with the wagons myself to ensure that there were no mishaps this time.”

“I'm sure that made all the difference,” Margot said with great dryness, “And are you going to grace all further supply trains with your presence to make sure all continues to go well?”

“Other measures have been taken as well. More guards and a checkpoint halfway--”

“Yes. So that when goods we have rightly paid for go missing you fairies can prove your complete innocence in the matter.”

“So that we can make sure you receive what is rightfully yours,” Marianne said, trying not to let the conversation turn into a fight while also hoping that it would, “As well, at some time convenient to you I wanted to discuss the possibility of having guards from the Dark Forest travel with the wagons so that if anything happens—which hopefully it will not—then there will be less possibility of the thieves making off with anything important.”

“Still have no idea who the thieves are, huh? That's sloppy work.”

“It's being investigated. I have the notes on the progress if you would care to look--”

“Oh, no. I'm sure you're doing everything you possibly can.”

Margot didn't bother to try and disguise the sarcasm in her voice and Marianne bit down on a section of dried blueberry to keep herself from saying something regrettable in response.

Several further attempts at conversation with the nearby goblins bore little fruit and Bog did not seem to want to give her any help. He slouched gloomily in his chair, tapping his claws on the edge of his plate and avoiding Marianne's eye.

When the table was being cleared of dishes and singing began, some goblins producing instruments and playing with great energy, Marianne decided to take her leave.

Bog looked over when she stood up.

“Is everything--?”

“Fine,” She snapped out the word, pulling her sword belt and cloak from where they hung on the back of the chair.

Bog had essentially ignored her throughout the dinner and acted, as far as she could see, like he was embarrassed of his fairy wife. She could defend herself quite well against rude comments and malicious barbs, but his neutral silence toward the ill-manners directed at his wife was tantamount to approval.

“I've had a long day. If you'll excuse me, my king.”

Marianne's four guards were lingering on the edge of things and sprang forward to accompany her when she waved them over. Two of them walked ahead of her and two behind, automatically falling into a customary protective formation. All four of them were chatting, comparing notes about the day.

Tactfully, none of them asked Marianne what she thought.

“Princess?”

All five of them turned, reaching for their weapons.

It was the king.

“Yes?” Marianne asked shortly.

Bog looked at the guards and shifted uncomfortably, armor rasping dryly.

“Go on ahead,” Marianne told the guards, “I'll be right there.”

It did not escape Marianne's notice that the guards' footsteps ceased just after they rounded the corner, but she ignored that and turned back to Bog, waiting for him to speak.

“Are you sure you're . . . alright?”

“Perfectly.”

“Oh. Good. Um. Do—do you need anything?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“That's . . . good.”

“Is there anything else, husband?”

It was hard to tell in the dim light of the corridor, but Marianne was fairly sure a faint blush of shame lit up the king's cheeks.

“You seemed—um . . .”

“Seemed what? Uncomfortable? Insulted? Angry?”

“ . . . yes? All of that?”

“Well, good for you for noticing! Good job! Now, if there's nothing else you want to say I'll just remove my objectionable presence. It's been made very clear that I am not wanted here. Not in this castle, not in this kingdom.”

“That isn't--”

“But it is!” Marianne dropped her cloak and stalked forward, lessening the distance between her and Bog, “You know what, though? It's nothing I didn't expect. I had no delusions that your people would be any more welcoming to me than mine have been to you.”

“They still shouldn't have--”

“You shouldn't have sat there like some dour tree stump! You should have at least made some pretense of siding with your queen! I know you don't like me. I know you don't want me here. But I thought you at least respected me.”

“Princess--”

“Stop calling me that!”

“You are a princess!” Bog said, finally rallying himself enough to get a word in, “You're the princess of the fairy kingdom, heir to its throne!”

“I am also your queen!”

“Before anything else you're a princess! Princess of the fairies.”

For some reason it was important to Bog that he specify this, to push her back and into the category she belonged in. She was a fairy. She was their princess. That all came before the fact that she was his wife and queen.

“And there's nothing wrong with that so stop using it like an insult!”

“I'm not!”

“Yes, you are! Is that it? Is that why you dislike me so much? I'm the princess of the fairies, of the people who look down on you?”

“That isn't—I don't dislike you!”

“Then what was that in there?”

“That wasn't anything! You're blowing this out of proportion!”

Bog watched the fire of anger die from the princess's eyes as she staggered back ever so slightly at his words. Her wings, half spread and mirroring the expansive gestures of her hands, dropped back down and the princess suddenly looked so much smaller.

She spun around, walking over to her cloak and snatching it off the ground. She hugged the bundle of it to herself, arms lost in the folds of fur.

Bog's anger died too, with nothing to fuel it. He felt he had crossed some line, committed some unforgivable error, but he couldn't see what it was.

“I understand,” Marianne said, half-turned away from him, “I understand that I am not wanted here. Not liked. I know that I'm tolerated only for the sake of my rank and for the benefits that come through the alliance of our kingdoms.”

She looked up, face set with resolve.

“But I still demand respect. I will do everything in my power to earn it and I will not be cheated out of what is owed me. Good night, your majesty.”

The snow fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Marianne watched it through the cracks in the shutters over the castle windows. Every day she had to move to a higher level of the castle as the snow piled up and darkened the lower windows. The whole structure groaned, complaining of the new weight, shifting uneasily under the burden.

“Haven't you survived a few winters before now, sweetie?” Griselda asked with a chuckle after she caught Marianne jumping when the ceiling gave a sudden creak.

“In a castle made of stone. It doesn't make such a fuss about a little snow. Are you sure this castle is actually . . . sound?”

“It's lasted this long.” Griselda shrugged, grating out another laugh.

Marianne, at a loss for what to do with her spare time, was following Griselda around as she did her daily rounds through the castle. They had begun by visiting the Winter Sprouts and the harried goblin nursemaids who were looking after them. Somehow Marianne ended up with Bee riding on her shoulder and and Flo, an eleven year old goblin who looked like a fly, trailing after them.

From there they meandered up and down the castle, Griselda bringing some odds and ends for this family, chatting with another about whether they needed more of this and that, inquiring about who was planning to go on the hunt once the snow settled. Some of the conversations were stilted, the goblins throwing openly distrustful looks at Marianne. The sight of Bee trying to chew on Marianne's ear seemed to lessen the stiffness, though.

“What made you pick this place for a castle?” Marianne asked, helping Griselda carrying food to the quarters where elderly goblins without family were housed.

“Oh, we didn't pick it, mushroom. Came with the job. Unfortunately, since nobody had been keeping this place up since the previous king came into power. He didn't believe in repairs and we inherited the results. You would not believe how many beetles and spiders I had to evict from the cellars. They had just settled down there like they owned the place. Nah, this place used to be a stronghold for a couple of generations, then a castle for the last king, Argos.”

“Why not find a better tree?” Marianne hefted the hamper she was carrying, trying not to tip Bee off as the little girl was sitting on top of it, “Build something more--” The walls groaned, “--stable?”

“Hah!” Griselda cackled, “As if we had the time! Winter was coming in fast and we had our hands full making sure we wouldn't starve.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah! After all the fighting there wasn't so much as the odd shred of salted frog meat to hold against winter. Luckily we found a patch of overgrown potatoes--”

“Wait,” Bee was bouncing up and down on the hamper and Marianne had to pause until the little girl settled down, “Fighting?”

“Yeah. For the throne. Lasted from the middle of spring clear to the tail end of fall. It was a slimming winter, lemme say. If you think my boy is skinny now then you should have seen him the next spring. Nothing but skin and exoskeleton. And nobody else was much better.”

“Wait, wait, no—there was actually fighting? Battles? A war?”

“Of course there was! You think that pimply toad Argos would go down before he'd used up every last bit of spite left in him? What did you fairies think we were doing that year? Having a little disagreement?”

“Well, actually . . . we sort of had no idea there was any fighting at all. You mean that the first time Bog visited us—to talk to my dad about peace—it was right after you'd finished a civil war?”

Marianne wracked her memories for any occasion in that time that would have indicated that the neighboring kingdom was in chaos. She had been twelve, maybe thirteen, terribly self-conscious, quiet, and careful to listen when people talked in low voices in case it was about her. She had ended up overhearing many an interesting tidbit of information but she certainly had never heard a single word about a war going on next door.

“Huh,” Griselda said, “I suppose that's fairies for you. So long as it's sunny on their side they don't care what goes on in the shadows. No offense, dear.”

“None taken,” Marianne assured her.

How could she possibly taken offense against what appeared to be the literal truth.

They plodded along, Bee chewing on a rat bone Griselda had given her, and Flo flitting along behind them in sulky silence.

Flo, it seemed, did not like Marianne and had tagged along with her and Griselda solely to exploit the opportunity of being able to glare darkly at the fairy for a prolonged period. Marianne ignored it, but could not deny that it was disconcerting.

A few visits and several anecdotes about the more domestic side of the long-ago war later Marianne asked, “Why did Bog break off with us? I mean, he barely came asking for friendship before he was back telling our kingdom to stay out of his or else.”

“Oh, lots of reasons. It was a bad time to try and make friends with your kingdom, everything was so shaky after my boy became in charge. Everybody making a grab for power and saying getting friendly with the fairies was a sign of weakness. A lot of that sort of nonsense. What really tipped it all off was—well. It was tipped over, that's all, and Bog decided it was best to call the whole idea off. Anyway, dear, how are you and my son getting on?”

“Um,” Bee had decided to try and climb onto Marianne's head so this bought some time for Marianne to formulate a diplomatic answer. Gripping Bee by the scuff of the neck and plopping her back onto the lid of the hamper, Marianne said, “We've been talking of improving the roads to the border. The wagons have broken wheels or gotten stuck in mud at least a dozen times this year.”

“Yes, yes, sweetie, that's nice. But how are you two getting along?”

“Ah, well, we've been disagreeing about the distribution of work between goblins, fairies and elves . . .”

Griselda prodded Marianne about the state of her marriage for the rest of their rounds and Marianne deflected and evaded as best she could. Once they were both in the kitchens afterwards, warming up with some ginger tea and getting snacks for the two ravenous little girls, Griselda renewed her attack.

“Look, honeysuckle,” Griselda said, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of Bee crunching up walnut pieces, “When I first saw you and my son together there was obviously quite the spark between the two of you.”

“I wouldn't say--”

“You can't deny you liked him, sweetie.”

“I'm not denying that I like him, but not in the way you mean,” Marianne sipped her tea, the ginger burning her tongue and making tears prick in her eyes.

“Pah,” Griselda waved a hand, “You two were making eyes at each other all day and I've never seen my boy that happy when the primroses are blooming before. Then suddenly you weren't. My poor stick comes back from your sister's party and sudden he's moping around like it's the start of spring all over again.”

It was hard to adjust to how spicy goblins like their food, Marianne thought, wiping away a couple tears that the ginger had stung from her eyes.

“It seems to me,” Griselda poured herself a fresh cup of tea and placed a plate of sliced acorn bread on the table along with a jar of honey, “That things were flying along just lovely between the two of you. Then something happened. Had a tiff?”

“Griselda, please, you've got it all wrong. There was never anything—we agreed right from the start that this partnership was strictly a political arrangement. Neither of us had any expectations of—of anything else.”

“So when you fell in love it kind of took you by surprise?”

Tea slopped out of Marianne's cup and narrowly missed soaking the bread and honey. Griselda's wide face stretched wider in a toothy grin. Somewhere under the table Flo and Bee were scuffling over ownership of the last piece of walnut.

“It didn't—we didn't!” Marianne took a sip of the remainder of her tea to cover her flustered reaction and ended up coughing on it. She grabbed a slice of bread and honey and took a bite to wash away the burn of the ginger in her mouth and throat.

“Honey-bunch, you've got it bad. So does my boy. He's been smitten since you smashed his head in.”

“I didn't . . . he ran into a tree . . .”

“Tell me what's going on, peach, and maybe I can help you sort it all out,” Griselda paused in mopping up the tea to give Marianne's hand a brisk pat, “If I know what's going on I can pound some sense through that rock my son has in place of a head. Tell your mom-in-law what's up.”

“There really isn't anything to talk about.”

There wasn't. She had lost her head in the clouds and paid the price. Again. Bog had thought he'd made an agreement with a sensible partner and was disgusted to find out that she was just a silly little princess who played at being a hero.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Griselda refilled the kettle and set it to heat on the stove, “We're going to need more tea because when somebody says there isn't anything to talk about that means there's at least three pots worth of discussion.”

Marianne hung her head and ran a hand through her hair. Griselda was right. There was so much that Marianne needed to talk about. It weighed down on her like snow piled up on tree branches. Sometimes she could hear herself creak and groan like the snowbound castle and she was afraid that eventually she would break beneath the weight of it.

But some things were still too raw to be spoken of and she pulled her thoughts to more recent unhappinesses.

“We—Bog and I—have been having . . . differences. I think he's regretting his hasty marriage. As a political move. And I can understand that. That he'd be unhappy. Stuck with a pampered fairy princesses as his queen when he should have picked somebody . . . more suitable.”

Griselda snorted so loudly that Bee and Flo popped up to peek over the back of a chair and see what was going on. Finding it was only just the adults talking about boring things they ducked back down again and vanished off to some unknown mischief.

“Now, now, you stop that, honey!” Griselda swatted Marianne's shoulder, “Don't be ridiculous. Honestly, you two are a right pair for being down on yourselves. Now listen here. Anybody who managed to get the ball rolling on peace between our kingdoms after so long—they've just got to be exceptional. Pampered? Nah. Privileged, maybe, but you carry it well.”

Blinking back tears—caused by the fresh tea Griselda poured into her mug—Marianne shook her head, “Me—my whole kingdom—we're so wrapped up in ourselves we don't notice what's going on around us. Our kingdom is safe and the food plentiful and we never even gave a thought to what might be happening on the other side of the primroses. I'm not surprised that Bog—that goblins have a poor opinion of us. We deserve it.”

“Toadstools,” Griselda said in a firm rasp, “Sure, you didn't know what was going on in the forest, but what did you do? You went and found out! As for what everyone thinks of you, well, you're a new thing. We're wary of new things. Wariness is important. Saves you from getting eaten. And as for my son, well! My boy is gone on you. Thinks you're the best thing since strawberry shortcake. He's just being an idiot. Trust me, I know my son and I know when he's being an idiot.”

“Griselda,” Marianne's cheeks were lighting up pink and she desperately tried to steer the conversation onto less sensitive topics, “Bog has hardly spoken to me since I arrived and the officials haven't really been . . . warming to me. They don't respect me and if I don't have respect then I'm stuck.”

“Don't let Margot and her lot get under your skin. That spike-nosed snob wouldn't know a good thing if it cracked her carapace. They're sore that they weren't consulted about my boy's choice of bride. But they know it was a good move and that makes them sour. That they can't take the credit for the idea.”

“It doesn't matter why. If they're against me, for whatever reason, I'll be pushed out. I don't want to be  queen who visits her kingdom half-a-dozen times a year and forgets about it the rest of the time. I-I want to be a real queen. But Bog--”

“Needs some sense knocked into him. I'm afraid that's a chore that needs to be done regularly. The boy doesn't know what's good for him until he gets a bit of a reminder.”

“Which is why you ambushed him with parades of suitors?” Marianne asked, hiding her smile behind her mug.

Griselda just grinned, “It worked, didn't it? Not in the way I thought it might, but it worked all the same! In the end his choice was top-notch and I can tell you I'm pleased as can be.”

“Even though he chose a fairy and made a political match?”

“Political match my eye—hey. Where have the kids gotten to?”

The two children had been suspiciously quiet for a dangerously long period while Griselda and Marianne had been talking. They were discovered to have gotten into a jar of honey and were dragged out of the storeroom, sticky with their ill-gotten gains. A bath was in order and the next half hour or so was taken up with scrubbing down the two unwilling goblin children. Bee kept gnawing on the scrub brush and Flo would vibrate her wings, sending showers of water droplets over Griselda and Marianne.

Then it was time for dinner preparations to be made and goblins were trickling into the kitchen carrying bundles of food or waving small clay tablets embossed to indicate they were allowed a share from the castle stores.

“Okay, little sprouts, time for you to go home. Honey, would you take them back for me? I've got to make sure that Debra and her crony Vera don't take more than their share of the salted spiders. Again! We can chat more later, okay, honey-bunch?”

“I—yes. That'd be nice. I suppose. You won't--”

“I'm not gonna go blabbing your personal business to anybody, much less my boy. Don't you worry your head about that. You're a lovely girl, smart and tough, so no more of this silly fairy nonsense. I'd like to some some silly miss wrangle Bee in and out of the tub without so much as losing a finger!”

“It was a close thing!” Marianne held up her hands, dry and cracked from the cold weather and criss-crossed with grazes from the needle-like claws of the goblin children, “And you really won't--”

Rummaging in a drawer Griselda produced a large, solid-looking wooden spoon, “Anyone with one good eye can see he's been sulking and neglecting his manners. I'm just going to remind him that I raised him better than to act so badly to his wife.”

Griselda gave the spoon a sharp rap against the table and shook her head at the sound, “As wooden as his head.”

Marianne ended up in her study after dinner, making notes of the day's events and trying not to think of her troubles. She was trying to keep track of the people she met and the information about local culture and politics she was gathering. An attempt had been made to sketch some faces to go with the names but Marianne was eventually forced to admit to herself that her drawing skills were no better than her handicrafts. Or, she wiped ink off the side of her hand, her handwriting.

A war.

From the middle of spring to the end of fall.

A war that had either gone unnoticed in the fairy kingdom or simply been deemed too unimportant to mention.

The Dark Forest suffering through a winter of near starvation afterwards, no allies from outside the forest to provide enough supplies to see them through. While the fairy kingdom had never, in Marianne's memory, suffered anything more than inconvenience when they ran low on the more choice foods. By the end of winter everyone was complaining about having to eat the blander grains and how scarce the sugar was getting. Marianne had never once gone to bed hungry due to lack of food.

It seemed that Bog had voluntarily taken on the responsibility of a wretchedly poor kingdom and had managed to not only keep his throne but stabilize the forest and keep it going for twelve years. No wonder he looked down at a pampered princess who was being handed a wealthy, prosperous kingdom on a plate. No wonder he said--

“You're blowing this out of proportion!”

Anger and doubt stabbed at Marianne over the recollection of what Bog had said to her. The words had touched on a wound that she had not yet been able to heal. Over time she had built armor up over it, but until now she had not thought to wear it around Bog. She had thought that even if he disliked her, if he thought her silly in the matters of love, that he at least still took her seriously as a person.

“Now, now, darlin', you're overreacting.”

How many ways had Roland dismissed her feelings, belittled her concerns, portrayed her anger toward him as irrational and hysterical?

“Marianne, I understand you're upset but you have to be reasonable.”

The well-intentioned pleas from her father hurt her in a far deeper place than even Roland's cutting dismissals. Her father was supposed to be on her side. And he made his requests sound so simple, so reasonable.

“Please, just calm down.”

It made Marianne start to believe that she really was hysterical as everyone said she was.

“I miss the old Marianne. The happy Marianne.”

Marianne hated the old Marianne. The old Marianne was meek, spineless, a limp little flower that didn't dare bloom for fear of doing it wrong. She hated the pretty dresses she had worn, the flowers in her hair, his clumsy attempts to be a poised and graceful princess. Having her father tell her that he wanted that all back, implying that he didn't want her as she was now . . .

Marianne slammed her journal shut and paced the room.

Her handmaidens looked up from where they were repairing the snags Bee had left in Marianne's tunic and watched the princess walking up and down the length of the study. Griselda had been very kind while she was listening to her Marianne could almost believe that her mother-in-law was right. That Marianne wasn't just a silly butterfly, that maybe Bog didn't think she was either.

In the loneliness of her rooms there was space for all of Marianne's uncertainties to rush back in. They crowded around her, packing the room full, bearing down on her until the stuffiness of the room was made unbreathable. The desperate, trapped feeling that Marianne had been grappling with since the stones were set in front of the doors returned in full force and all she wanted to do was run.

The snow had stopped the previous day and as soon as Bog felt the it had safely settled he would allow the castle's inhabitants to venture outside again to check for any damage possibly done to outlying buildings and make sure that those who spent their winter outside the castle had come to no harm.

When Bog had briefly told Marianne that they would be cautious and wait at least another day before risking the snow it was all she could do not to stamp her foot and indulge in some most un-queenly whining. The plan was sensible and as a ruler she backed it completely. As someone who had been stuck indoors for almost two weeks she wanted to tell him to take his sensible plan and stick it in his ear right before she burst through a window and into fresh air and sunlight.

All the windows had been boarded up for the winter except for the skylight in the throne room. That let in some sunlight, tinging it blue and casting faint spiderweb shadows across the floor. But snow had piled on top of it and blocked out even that, leaving Marianne trapped in the dark castle. Goblins, she had quickly found, needed much less light than fairies. When she had her quarters lit to an satisfactory level of brightness any visitors tended to squint.

One of the handmaidens cooed a rebuke, scrubbing at a smear of ink that had somehow ended up on Marianne's cheek. Marianne meekly stopped her pacing and tilted her chin up to let the sprite fuss. The handful of sprites she had brought with her for the winter were as restless as she was. Despite all of Marianne's best efforts her room was spotless to perfection, everything in its place, even the tangle of blankets and furs on her bed straightened with tidy precision. If Marianne had not thought it unsafe she might have let the sprites loose on the kitchens. After meals there was always plenty to sweep and scrub.

Another sprite tugged at the edge of the fur Marianne had wrapped around herself, pulling it back up over her shoulders and fluffing the ends of her hair out from underneath. Marianne ran a hand through her hair, feeling how the length of it was starting to tickle past her neck now. She had not cut it since the end of Autumn. Growing her winter coat, she supposed. By spring it would probably be past her shoulders.

“Now, stop that!” Marianne shooed away her handmaidens after they began to braid dried flowers into her hair when they thought she wasn't paying attention. They cheeped at her in disappointment. She screwed up her mouth and gave a sidelong glance at the drooping sprites.

“Fine,” She sighed, “Someone should be happy, I guess. But easy on the flowers, okay?”

A chorus of delighted trills reward Marianne's concession and the sprites immediately dived into the box of preserved flowers Dawn had insisted Marianne take with her. The air was suddenly full of color. As the flowers warmed, their scent was reawakened and Marianne closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of them, thinking of spring.

In the end this only made her more restless.

It was after dark, but inside the castle there was very little to indicate the time. Marianne's internal clock had lost all bearing and her best guess as to the time was “probably late but still a long time until morning”. The actual clock she had brought with her required regular winding but after one sleepless night when she stuffed it in a drawer to muffle the maddening ticking the clock had wound down and she hadn't bothered to resurrect it.

The goblins did not seem to care for clocks and instead scheduled their lives around the movements of the sun and moon. This worked fairly well, except during storms that clouded over the movements of the heavens and everyone in the castle got restless as their sense of time wavered.

Her guards had seen her locked in for the night before retiring to their own rooms so there was no one around to protest when Marianne unfastened the bolt on her door and slipped into the corridor with three of her handmaidens accompanying her with lamps in hand.

Being alone in the dark expanse of the castle's corridors was only a degree better than being trapped in her rooms. It was a little less stuffy but much colder and she wished she had put on another layer or two underneath her fur cloak. Her sword was a cold weight against her hip, but a comforting presence all the same.

She walked without particular aim expect to go down when she encountered any stairs pointing in that direction. If she went up she felt she might force open a window and fly out into the snow.

She wanted to fly so badly.

She wanted to fly, to run, to spar, to wear herself out until she was too exhausted to move, to think, to remember what Bog had said to her. Perhaps if she wandered long enough she would find a room big enough that she could spar with her handmaidens, maybe even stretch her wings.

There was no indication of passing time so it seemed that it had been frozen along with the rest of the kingdom. There was nothing except the ache of Marianne's tired legs to tell her that she must have been wandering for some hours. The handmaidens were giving tiny yawns and dipping down under the weight of the lamps.

“Sorry,” Marianne took one of the lamps, “Let's head back.”

The sprites chirped agreement. The one who Marianne had taken the lamp from reclaimed her charge and gave Marianne a smack with one petal-soft hand.

A white shape flashed across the floor, leaping high enough to snatch the lamp from the sprite's hand and send the poor handmaiden tumbling head over heels in the air until she smacked against the wall with an indignant but musical, “Oof!”

“Hey!” Marianne's cloak and wings swirled around her as she spun, trying to track the white shape scampering underfoot, “Who's that? Quit it!”

The white shape darted a safe distance away, giving a squeaky laugh of triumph when Marianne tripped on the edge of her cloak and had to pinwheel her arms frantically to keep from falling over.

“What is the deal?” Marianne shrugged her cloak back to free up her sword, but did not draw it yet. Better not to accidentally stab some mischievous young goblin over a lamp.

But it wasn't a goblin.

Marianne squinted at the tiny . . . rabbit? It had white fur and large ears that stood up like a rabbit's, but a naked pink tail and feet like a rat. The mouth that split its pointed face was wide enough to rival Griselda's and two black eyes glittered like beads of ink in the lamplight.

“Who are you?”

The thing stood on its haunches, lamp hanging on the loop of its tail, and shrugged it's arms. It made a squeaky noise that Marianne took to mean that it didn't know. Or didn't want to answer the question.

“Are you even supposed to be down here?”

The thing chuckled at the question, setting all four feet back on the ground, tail arched over its back to cast the lamp's light in front of him.

“I'll take that as a no. Gimme that back and then go back wherever you belong.”

Marianne held out a hand for the lamp.

The thing just laughed and bounded down the corridor, light bouncing up and down as it went.

“Come back here!”

Marianne looked from the retreating creature and to her handmaidens. She unfastened her cloak and slung it over her arm. She spread her wings and kicked off the ground, “Get him!”

The handmaidens cheered.

Marianne flew down a winding set of stairs, the sprites hovering around her, the lamps they held casting a glow of light around Marianne, lighting her path and casting faint illumination onto the space echoing around her. The bobbing light of the thieving little rat-creature had bounced out of sight, but Marianne slowed to take in the sight of the room.

“Is he serious with this?” Marianne snorted, looking at the barred cages and chains hanging from the ceiling of what appeared to be a dungeon, “Even for a prison it's kind of dramatic.”

A handmaiden who had swept on ahead to scout returned,  cheeping and beckoning Marianne to follow her. Rounding a corner Marianne stopped short, screwing up her eyes against the unexpected glow of light that was lighting the space up with an eerie blueness.

Okay.

No sign of the rat. Just a new weirdness. She really ought to have insisted that Bog show her over the whole castle instead of just the more public spaces.

She was pretty sure that nobody was supposed to be in the castle dungeon right now. Bog had told her that if they had anyone locked up during the year their cases would be reviewed at the end of autumn. Sentences were commuted to community service within the castle. Criminals of a more dangerous nature, she had come to understand, were not imprisoned but dealt with more . . . finally.

Dropping to the ground and edging closer to the light Marianne could see the deep pit sunk into the floor, the top covered with bars made of criss-crossed wooden bars. She pulled her cloak back over her shoulders to free up her hands, absently refastening the clasp.

From below there was the faint sound of someone singing to themselves.

“Hello?” Marianne called, her handmaidens echoing her tone of tentative question as she approached the pit, “Hello, is there someone down here?”

“Hello? Hello!” A woman's voice fairly squeaked with excitement. It did not sound like the typical goblin. It really sounded more like a fairy, “Are you helloing me?”

“Yes?” Marianne crouched and peered down, squinting her eyes at the ball of bright blue light that was trapped down beneath the bars, “Who's down there?”

“Me! I am! Who's up there?”

“Uh, Marianne. Princess—I mean—Queen Marianne.”

“Queen Marianne of where?”

“Of the Dark Forest!”

“What? Was there an uprising? Does this mean King No Love in the Dark Forest is gone? You don't sound like a goblin.”

“I'm a fairy.”

“Say again?”

“Where were you this spring?” Marianne could puzzle out cobwebs through the blue light and she grasped the bars to heft them out of the way, “Big party? Burning primrose bonfire? Princess Marianne of the fairy kingdom married The Bog King?”

“He got married?!” The last word was shrieked and the handmaidens all flinched back at the shrillness of it, “He found love?! Griselda actually got him hitched? That crumple-horned busybody actually did it?!”

“Okay, who are you?” All that Marianne could make out was the sphere of cobwebs, the rest of the dusty pit appeared empty, “What are you? Nobody is supposed to be down here during the winter, you know. And it was a political alliance, not a love match.”

“For crying out loud! He would do that, wouldn't he.”

“Are you okay? Did you get trapped down here?”

“Oh, you're so sweet, your highness! Or should I call you the Bog Queen? Anyway, lovely to meet you!”

“Lovely to meet you too, uh . . .?”

“Sugar Plum! I'm Sugar Plum! And I cannot believe that stretched out stick insect had the absolute nerve to get married. Of all the inconsiderate, irrational, nonsensical things to do. It's inconsistent, that's what it is. After all this no love rot he goes and gets married anyhow.”

Marianne dropped the bars, dust raising up when they fell back into place, “Not a love match. The Sugar Plum fairy?”

“That's me! Welcome to my humble prison!”

The fate of the Sugar Plum Fairy had been something Marianne meant to bring up eventually, in an official way. After the sudden rift torn between her and her husband she had decided that it was a topic best tabled for the time being. Bog had made his antipathy for primroses exceedingly clear and she was afraid that trying to discuss Sugar Plum, who was well-known for being able to concoct love potions from primroses, would only upset Bog.

Marianne couldn't deny that she had speculated many times as to the cause of the king's intense loathing of love in all its forms. Much more often since she had foolishly thought that he . . . but no. It was impossible. She had known. He had said often enough, in one way or another, that he had no truck with love.

Once, before they had properly met, she had chalked it up to him being . . . well, the evil king of the Dark Forest. His was a world of wild darkness and love had no place in it. Love was bright and colorful, fresh as the primroses he beat back from his borders with ax and fire. But what she had started to feel for him—what she still felt no matter how she tried not to—was nothing like the giddy sunshine she had experienced with Roland. With Bog it was . . . it was unexpected. Something dark and rich and . . .

Nothing that mattered.

“They just stuck you away down here by yourself?”

“--pigheaded, pine cone shouldered, drama king goes and gets himself hitched and doesn't even drop me an invite! You think he would have at least called in to gloat about trapping himself in a loveless marriage, just to spit in my eye!”

Marianne moved the bars off the pit and hopped down inside, finally able to make out the tiny flitting shape of Sugar Plum inside the sphere of sparkling blue spiderwebs. The sprites placed the lamps on the edge of the pit and drifted down to peer curiously at the prisoner.

“Are they treating you okay?” Marianne asked when Sugar Plum stopped to take a breath.

“Oh, the company has been charming! Four dirt walls, an apparently unlimited number of spiders, plus the odd cockroach. I swear, if that King Cockroach would just listen to me then maybe--”

“Yes, I get you don't want to be here.”

“Hm,” The sprite fluttered forward to peer through the curve of her prison, a tiara sparkling over a fairy-like face. She looked Marianne up and down, “You certainly don't seem like his type, that's for sure. Seriously? An arranged marriage? Whose idea was that?”

“Uh, mine. Look, I know you were put down here for making love potions, but what exactly were the circumstances--”

“Nope, nope, nope! I refuse to make any more love potions! How do you think I ended up here in the first place? Honestly, I can do other things, you know . . . You didn't bring any primroses, did you, though?”

“What? No! It's winter! I mean, I wouldn't have brought one even if it was spring!”

“Oh. Okay. I just thought, an arranged marriage, wifey visiting little old me, maybe she wants a little more from this relationship than just convenience . . .”

“What? No! No. Definitely not. Not like . . . that. I mean—okay, listen--”

“Nobody does! Especially not the Bog King. If he'd just listened to me in the first place then I wouldn't be down here counting the pebbles in my cell!” Sugar Plum shrieked and tugged at her ears, “I can't believe he got married! It totally runs his whole brooding drama king act if he's got a wife sitting next to him.”

“He manages. What do you mean 'if he'd just listened'?”

“You're listening to me!”

“Trying to.”

“Eeee! One fateful day, when the Bog King was young and impetuous--”

Her hair was full of flowers.

The unreality of the situation was heightened by the sight of the bright colors of spring blossoming among the waves of brown hair. In the cold dryness of the dungeons the faint perfume wafted like some trespassing ghost. The princess was all brown and white, wrapped in her cloak of squirrel fur and her pale face cast over with the hateful tint of blue.

Bog had gone to her rooms first thing that morning but found them empty. He had come to try and apologize to the princess. After being subjected to a lengthy lecture from his mother—and several sharp raps on the head—he had reluctantly agreed that his behavior had been less than what it ought to be.

But the princess was not there to be apologized to.

Inquiring with the guards on duty Bog was told she had been seen heading downwards, toward the dungeons.

That was the moment when the world had started to blur and take on the feeling of a nightmare he could not wake up from. He had flown down to the dungeons in a daze, his thoughts stalled into blankness until he found Marianne in the pit and heard Sugar Plum beginning a story.

His story.

“One fateful day--”

Memories jumbled together in his mind.

A pale-faced fairy with flowers in her hair falling into the Dark Forest, a primrose petal in her hand . . .

No.

“--when the Bog king was young and impetuous--”

A primrose petal in his hand, held so tightly at the perfume of it clung to his skin afterwards . . .

. . . the bottle in his hands . . .

No!

Marianne might know he was a monster, but if she heard this—heard what her husband was, what he had done—

Why was she doing this? Had this been her plan from the start? To find out the monster's secrets? Free Sugar Plum and unleash chaos on the Dark Forest? The flowers in her hair looked as fresh as if they were newly picked. Was it possible, did she have a primrose petal, carefully preserved since spring, waiting for an opportunity?

She couldn't hear this! He couldn't let her hear this!

“No!”

He felt fur under his hands and then the princess was slammed against the side of the pit. It took him a few seconds to realize he had been the one to push her. He just wanted her away from Sugar Plum, away from memories of that day . . .

“What are you doing?”

The words only just fell short of coming out as a roar, the harsh sound of the question reverberating around them. Dust sparkled blue in the air from Bog's landing in the pit, his flickering wings kicking it into a glittering frenzy. He could feel himself curving into a defensive crouch, trying to leave no possible openings for attack.

The princess pulled herself up, wincing, trying to untangle herself from her cloak, the hem of which had gotten caught on the heel of her boot, “I was just--”

“What were you doing talking to her?” His hands were tight, fingers curved, anger rushing through him to mask the deep fear he didn't want to acknowledge. He jerked his head back at the sprite's prison, ignoring Plum's attempts to get his attention.

“I was asking--” The princess began again, still unsteady on her feet, her voice faltering at the sight of Bog silhouetted over her.

“Asking? Asking what?”

“I was just—do you know what?” The princess's squared her shoulders and tilted her head up to look him in the eye. The uncertainty in her voice and manner vanished, “None of your business!”

With a violent jerk of her hand Marianne ripped open the clasp of her tangled cloak and slung it to the ground, raising up a puff of dust. Shoulders throbbing from hitting the side of the pit, fists clenched in anger, she spread her wings and rose out of the pit. Her handmaidens followed, taking up their lanterns and lighting her way.

Bog leaped out of the pit after her, scratching in the dirt on the edge of the pit until his staff came to hand. It had fallen from his grip at some point before he interrupted Sugar Plum. Marianne could vaguely recall the sound of it hitting the ground a split second before she had found herself pitched into the wall.

“Hey, wait!” Plum called from below, “Come back! I was just getting started!”

Bog's voice caught Marianne just as she was hovering over the stairs.

“How much—what did she tell you?”

Marianne's hand squeezed the hilt of her sword and she said nothing. Anger choked her throat closed. It was not fear. She refused to admit it was fear. Even if an enraged Bog King slipping out of the shadows to attack her was the stuff of her nightmares. She was not going to be afraid. She had conquered her fears, chained them up beneath the primroses. This wasn't the creature of her nightmares, this was Bog. This was just Bog--

“Tell me!”

Marianne flinched at the snarled order. Her fingers gripped her sword convulsively. Her heart jerked in her chest. He was walking over to her and she floated back so that she was further away from him, taller than him. She took in his stance, the grip of his hands on his staff, waiting for him to betray the intention to attack. Waiting for the moment to obey the desperate voice in her head that was screaming at her to run.

Marianne tried to silence the insistent impulse to flee, pushing it back down, letting her anger bubble back up. The resentment that had been building up inside her all year, that had been sharply prodded into growth in the past few weeks. The fresh outrage over him shoving her into a wall and questioning her like a criminal caught in the act, trying to scare her into answering. Angry that it had been working, that she had been afraid. Was afraid.

Bog had seen that she was afraid.

He bit off another question, blue eyes flicking to where her hand clutched at her sword. He ducked his head, making himself smaller. There was a tension about him, making his wings twitch and the line of his back and neck tight, vibrating like the string of an instrument about to snap. Between her fear and their anger the air seemed to be humming.

“Just . . .” His free hand worked, fingers curling and uncurling, never quite forming a fist, “Just tell me.”

“Or what?” The question tumbled out of Marianne, she couldn't stop it.

Bog gave an irritated growl, his teeth grinding together, “I'm not—I'm not threatening you!”

Marianne was startled by the sarcastic laugh that burst out of her, caused not by any amusement but simply from being struck by how wrong everything was. And everything was just so completely wrong. The Bog King, evil king of the Dark Forest, stood there buzzing with barely contained anger, every sharp line of him pointed to threaten, to menace. There was nothing about him at that moment that was not threatening.

Bog bristled at her apparent amusement, wings flicking out and the leaves of his shoulders spreading, a growl rising up from deep in his chest. When he spoke the words were almost lost in the rumble of it, “You are going to--”

“No, I'm not! You can ask your questions, but you will ask them respectfully!”

“Princess, just tell me--!”

He moved. Marianne had been waiting for it. She did not pause to see whether he was actually moving with the intent to fight, or just taking to the air to match height with her. Her body moved of it's own accord and she recoiled, afraid, darting backward like a creature startled by the appearance of a predator. It was pure muscle memory that made her unsheathe her sword and interpose it between her and the king. There was nothing in her mind except blind panic.

Perhaps Bog only likewise raised his staff in instinctive response to her drawn weapon. She didn't stop to wonder, just slashed at his staff, knocking it aside before whirling around and making for the exit, flying past the winding stairs and straight for the door.

Bog stayed frozen at the bottom of the stairs, watching purple wings beat furiously as the princess fled up the stairs. Away from him. She had shied away from his voice and looked at him like a cornered creature looked at its hunter.

She was frightened of him.

The thought stabbed more painfully than Bog expected it to. After all, he knew she was afraid of him. She should be. He was a monster. Everyone was frightened of him, in some way or another. The princess's bravado was just that. A show of courage to hide the truth. That she had feared him all along. That anything else she might have felt about him was simply imagined.

And now she hated him.

But she had already hated him, since that night in the garden. So why did he hurt so much now?

Bog shook himself, twitching his shoulders and wings back into place and remembering the matter at hand. He glanced back at the open pit, briefly wondering if anything could be got out of Plum, before discarding the idea as useless.

“Yoohoo! Anybody still there!” Plum called up from the pit.

Bog snarled, flitting over and kicking the wooden grate back over the pit.

“So lovely to meet your wife!” Plum trilled, looking up at him between the wooden bars, “She's such a good listener!”

“Shut up! If you told her anything I'll--!”

“What?” The sprite's airy tone turned harsh and snappish, “Lock me away forever? Oooh, I'm so scared.”

Bog gave the grate a swat with his staff, but did not linger any further, winging his way upstairs, face set with determination. He still needed to know what Sugar Plum had said to the princess.

Marianne flew upwards.

All night—ever since the start of winter—she had fought against her need for sunlight and open spaces. Pushing herself downwards, forcing herself into her role as queen. Patient, enduring. But she wasn't a goblin queen. She was a fairy. Queen of the Dark Forest no less, but still a fairy. And she needed air.

In the levels of the castle above the throne room she found a window that allowed some faint, rosy light of sunrise through the crack at the top of the shutters. She pulled at the heavy bolt that kept the shutters in place, hearing the creaking of snow weighing down against the outside.

“Princess!”

She was so startled at the sound of Bog's voice that she lost her grip on the bolt, spinning around, heart beating wildly. The buzz of his wings and rasp of his armor awoke recollections of her nightmares, of the shadow stalking her among the primroses. How she tried to escape but never could.

“What are you doing?” Bog set on his feet a generous distance away.

“Going out!” She snapped, sliding the bolt free and feeling a rush of uneasy jubilation. With the actual possibility of escape within reach her hands were starting to shake from fear that it would be snatched away.

“No one is allowed--!” Bog made to come closer, but when she snapped her head around to look at him, hands frozen on the shudders, he stopped again.

“Shut up! You don't have the right to order me around! I'm not your subject!”

“But you are my queen!”

“Oh? Now I am, when it's convenient! When you want me to do as you say! But tomorrow I'll be nothing but a princess to you again! A silly little princess who doesn't know anything about anything! Who makes a fuss over nothing!”

The shutters sprang open and clumps of snow slid into the passageway, powdering the floor with white. There was only a few inches of space between the top of the window pane and the snow, letting in pale pink and yellow light. A breeze whispered through and Marianne gasped in the taste of fresh air.

The shutters slammed shut, Marianne pushed roughly aside by an armored shoulder. The breeze and the light were cut off and for a moment Marianne felt like she had gone blind. Bog was drawing the bolt, waving one hand to shoo away Marianne's indignant handmaidens, who had set down their lanterns to aid their mistress and now circled the king's head, scolding and swatting.

“We still need to send out patrols for animals and to knock the snow off overhanging branches!” He growled, “You can wait a few more hours, or a day! Or a week, if necessary!”

“Stop pushing me!” She shoved her shoulder into his midsection, so violently that Bog nearly toppled over, only saved by the rapid beating of his wings. The bolt slid free more easily this time and she slammed the shutters open so that they bounced off the walls from the force. She plunged her hands into the wall of snow and began widening the open space. Her handmaidens rushing forward to help.

For a few seconds Bog didn't move to stop her. He stood out of the path of the sunlight and away from the snow. Staying to the shadows, disappearing among them. It was almost as if the light kept him at bay, like the breaking of dawn chased away her nightmares and banished them until sunset.

But Bog proved to be all too real, springing forward and grabbing her by the wrist, “Why are you so eager to leave?” He demanded, leaning down to peer into her face, fangs bared and eyes shadowed by his brows, “What did Plum say to you? What did she give you?”

The nightmare had caught her. Claws, sharp and black, were on her arm. If he flexed his fingers those claws could tear through her sleeves, her skin, shredding her as easily as the primroses.

Except in her dreams she never had her sword.

She gripped the hilt in her free hand, slamming it into his stomach as she unsheathed it, only space enough for it to come partway free. But it was enough to make him let go of her wrist and allow her to fly back and free the blade entirely, flipping it around in her hand and pointing it at his throat.

“You are being—” He sneered at the length of the blade, revealing a glint of chipped fangs, “—unreasonable.”

Marianne's fear gave way to a great wave of irritation.

“I'm not the one pushing and bullying and snarling, you impossible, scaly-backed cockroach!”

Marianne flew straight upwards so fast she almost smashed her head into the ceiling. She spun and kicked a large clump of snow off the edge of the window, her aim proving to be devastatingly accurate when the missile exploded all over Bog's chest and face.

The handmaidens paused in their digging and gave a delighted cheer. Then squeaks of horror when Bog scrubbed the snow off his face and aimed a deadly glare of pure fury at his wife.

The window was cleared enough that Marianne shot through it, folding her wings at the last moment and scrabbling at the snow with her feet and hands until she surfaced into a brilliant, blinding landscape of color and space enough to spread her wings full.

Even time was frozen out here and Marianne forgot how she had come to be there, taking in the sight of the transformed forest. No walls, no roof, just tantalizing glimpses of the sky above the tree branches. A gasped breath of the frigid air made Marianne cough, and she had to squint her eyes against the rising sun and the hues of pink, purple, and orange that tinted the soft, curving layer of snow. The shadows out here were not the shadows like those under the primroses of spring. These shadows held no nightmares, only unknown adventures.

Her wings beat furiously, celebrating the freedom of the open air and were already starting to tingle from the cold. She would only have a short time before ice started forming on the edges of her wings. Not to mention the tips of her ears. Regret over not wrapping up in more layers washed over her again, but she did not have long to dwell over this misfortune.

The crystallized moment of time was shattered by Bog bursting up through the snow, shoulders clacking and wings thrumming to shake off the invasive white powder. With a crack of his neck Bog shook loose the generous sprinkling of snow that clung to his brows, clearing his line of vision so he could properly direct a grimace of displeasure at his wife.

“Um,” Marianne said, remembering the sword in her hand and adjusting her grip on it. The slap of cold had sobered her and she wasn't sure she could—or wanted to—work herself back up to her previous levels of anger. Instead there was only the sinking feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach, of consequences to be faced for rash decisions.

“Um,” Marianne said again, noticing the handmaidens hovering around the newly enlarged exit before she flicked her attention back to Bog, “Look--”

Somehow Marianne had forgotten how lightning quick Bog could move if he tried and she almost didn't raise her sword in time to--

--be hit square in the face with a huge snowball.

Blinded and coughing she didn't have time to stop her sword being yanked out of her hand or evade the large, cold hand that gripped her upper arm. When she blinked snow away from her eyes she found a set of blue ones disconcertingly close. Tiny surges of panic closed her throat and made her stomach do an uneasy flip.

“I want a divorce.”

“A—what?” Marianne wondered if she had gotten snow in her ears. The tone of the question had been as grim and growling as all his conversation so far that day, but the words didn't make sense. She might have ventured a guess that he was making some sort of joke, but he looked far too peevish for that to be true.

“Or an annulment. I'm not sure about the law. Which do you think would be easier to get?”

“I don't—”

“Do you think getting melted snow between the cracks in my armor is sufficient grounds?”

“I—“

“Because,” Marianne suddenly realized Bog was not holding his staff, but another handful of snow. He held onto her arm, doing his best to cram snow down the back of her collar, “It is very uncomfortable!”

“Y-you cockroach!”

“You infuriating . . . fairy!” Bog spat back.

Marianne drew up her leg and gave Bog a sharp kick in the knee, twisting her arm free and ramming her shoulder into his chest. They plummeted into the snow, hitting it with a soft puff! Bog on his back, Marianne with her knee in his stomach, pressing more weight down on it when she struggled to get free, her wings weighed down by the clinging snow.

Climbing out of the hole they had made when they landed, Marianne smacked a handful of snow down at Bog, hoping to blind him and slow him down.

Not bothering to brush away the snow, Bog lunged blindly, snagging Marianne around the waist and pulling her back under the snow. She elbowed him hard, gasping when her elbow crashed against his armor. But his hold slackened enough for her to fight her way back out of the snow and scramble up onto a firmer patch of ice.

Shivering with cold and adrenaline, Marianne cast her eye around, trying to orient herself and locate cover. The glint of her sword caught her attention and she tripped over herself making a dash for it, the snow shifting underneath her boots. The dead weight of her wings on her back did not help her balance and she plopped down face-first into the snow right in front of her sword.

The exasperation caused by yet another face full of snow made Marianne spare a second to wonder what in the two kingdoms she was hoping to accomplish. Wings dead with cold, ears and nose completely numb, and fingers almost too stiff to wrap around the hilt of her sword as she regained her feet.

This was becoming ridiculous.

Bog's staff hit the back of her legs and swept her off her feet again. Laying in the snow once again Marianne was ready to scream with frustration. Instead she gritted her teeth, growling when she smacked the flat of her blade across Bog's shins.

A kick aimed at her head met only empty snow after Marianne rolled away, whisking her wings out of the way of clawed toes just at the last possible second. But a wild swipe of Bog's staff caught her in the ribs, almost knocking her down again, but she managed to stay upright and block the next swing. The force of it drove her feet a few inches into the snow and it was difficult to plant her feet and put force behind her own blows.

She looked at him across their locked weapons, “Where do I sign for that divorce? Or should we just duel to the death?”

“It would save on paperwork,” Bog said, his armor rattling slightly when he shivered, “Then I would be free from interfering, prying fairies!”

“No,” Marianne pushed away and aimed a slice at his stomach, but was blocked when Bog managed to spin his staff with a surprising amount of finesse, considering how little feeling must be left in his hands, “I think you'll find I'll be free of stubborn, bullying goblins!”

“I wasn't bullying you!”

“I wasn't prying!”

Their form and footwork was growing sloppy and when Marianne's sword skidded along the length of the staff and caught in the netting around the amber at its head she could not dislodge it. She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bog, desperately trying to angle the blade so it would come free, knocking her elbow into Bog's to try and get him to lose his grip. Bog smirked and gave the staff a twist to pull the sword out of her hand. He was successful, but his cold hands fumbled with his weapon and somehow both sword and staff went flying off to the side, disarming both of them.

They both stood there, breathing hard and exhaling clouds of mist, while they looked a little blankly at their wayward weapons.

“I hate you,” Marianne said, her tone heartfelt even if weary, before she darted for her sword.

Bog brought her down in a tackle and she shrieked in anger. He just growled, picking himself up and going after his staff. Marianne grabbed his ankle and gave it a sharp tug. His wings worked, trying to catch him, but the cold made them sluggish and disorganized, iridescence lengths swatting uselessly at each other. Before Marianne could make use of Bog being sprawled out on his back she was caught on the back of the head by a handful of snow.

Then another.

She threw up an arm and shielded her head from a third, peering through the powder of snow to see Bog had fumbled to his knees and was scooping and pitching snow in a practiced way.

A tug on her sleeve made her look to the side just in time to receive a neatly packed snowball from one of her handmaidens. The three of them were busily scooping up snow and forming ammunition for their princess, pausing in their work only long enough to smile and giggle at Marianne's goggling.

A fourth snowball caught Marianne in the side, making her abused ribs complain, but she slung her own snowball and was pleased to see it hit Bog in the shoulder. She hoped that the snow would get in all those stupid layers of armor and freeze there.

A rapid-fire bombardment from Marianne and the sprites kept Bog on the run, unable to do more than kick some snow at them, so it took Marianne completely by surprise when a slushy ball of snow hit her in the back of the knee and dripped down into her boot.

She spun around and shot an accusing glance at her handmaidens. They chirped with complete innocence.

Two snowballs hit her almost simultaneously. The one that hit between her shoulder blades was definitely from Bog. It came from the right direction and was thrown with the expected amount of stinging force. The other had a rather feeble end by splatting against her shoulder and falling off again in a wet clump.

A snowball from directly above smashed into her head, knocking her into the snow, which lead to the illuminating sight of Flo buzzing in the air overhead. The little insect girl wore a knitted green scarf and cap that were downright adorable, and she was dusting snow off her tiny little feet, buzzing out a gleeful laugh.

Rolling her head to the side Marianne peered across the snow and saw the dim gray shapes of the Winter Sprouts scampering up and down along the edge of the castle, a multitude of footprints showing that they had followed Bog and Marianne out through the window at some point. From inside the castle there was the muffled sound of Griselda shouting for them to all come back inside before they caught their death of cold.

“Okay, we're not having a snowball fight, actually.”

Flo buzzed scornfully.

“Yes, I know we were fighting with snow, but that was actually—” The crunch of Bog's feet on the snow, his shadow cast in front of him and over Marianne, made her pry herself out of the snow. She retreated to a safe distance, waiting for him to make a move.

“Ah,” Bog looked at where his staff was, still a considerable distance away, and then to the sprouts skittering towards them. Snow dropped off his forehead when his frown deepened, “None of you should be out here!”

“Snowball fight, snowball fight!” The sprouts jumped up and down on the snow, scratching and scraping to form more snowballs.

“Ah, no,” Bog said, slightly distracted by a sprout with a droopy nose digging a hole and showering everyone with the dislodged snow, “This isn't a game, you all need to go back inside!”

“Why do you and Marianne Queen get to play but we don't?” One sprout complained.

“We aren't—this isn't--! This isn't a game! This isn't fun! This is--” Bog cast a wild-eyed look at Marianne, obviously expecting her to back him up.

But Marianne was bruised and aching. Fear and anger had rubbed her raw and Bog's assumption that she would help him made her bristle. She folded her arms and looked away, trying to figure out if she could get past him and to her sword while he was distracted by the sprouts.

Finding no support from Marianne, Bog turned back to the sprouts, jabbing a claw toward the castle, “Back inside before I take it into my head to have you all up on charges for violating a royal command! All of you will be--” Bog broke off with a harsh snarl when he noticed Marianne attempting to slip around behind him, “What do you think you're doing? You're going back inside, too, and going to answer my questions! Go--”

No time to pack the snow together, Marianne grabbed up a handful and slung it into Bog's face. While he growled and rubbed at his eyes she scooped up more snow and kept throwing, moving around him to get closer to her sword.

He lunged blindly, clawing at air and snow when Marianne dodged clumsily out of his reach. She kicked at the snow, trying to aim it at Bog, but her heavy wings dragged her down and she lost her precarious balance, sitting down hard in the drift.

A rough cry of alarm escaped her when Bog's hand wrapped around her ankle and she looked up to the faint glint of blue eyes from within the mask of shadows cast over his face. The sight made images of primroses, white wedding dresses, and shadowy monsters whisk through her head, speeding up her already pounding heart and making her struggle to breathe.

Snowballs splattered all over Bog's back and wings.

“What?” He looked over his shoulder to identify the source of this new attack and a puff of snow slapped him right in the mouth. With a sharp downward jerk of her leg Marianne freed herself and fought to scoot backwards and out of range. A helpless fairy flailing wildly to pull herself free from the grip of the goblins slithering out from beneath the primroses.

Another volley of snowballs rained down on both of them and the Winter Sprouts crowed, delighted with their victory.

The next few minutes were full of flying snow and sprouts.

Both Bog and Marianne tried to call them off, order them back inside, but all authority had been lost, it was a revolution and the monarchs were torn from their thrones and into the mayhem below. At first Marianne tried to aim her attacks at Bog and make another move for her sword, but after about the fifth time the sprouts got her in the face she was forced to retaliate in self-defense. After that all of hope of order was lost.

At one point Bog was driven under a bush by the sprouts' relentless attacks, and then somehow the tide of the battle turned and Marianne found herself under fire from all sides, roaring in protest as she tripped and stumbled her way to the shelter of a drift of curved snow. Her three handmaidens darted after her, squeaking with breathlessness, snow trimming them with white edges.

Snowballs were smacking into the other side of the drift, the sprouts screaming, their little clawed feet pattering on the snow as they closed in. The sprouts had the advantage of being light enough that they could cavort recklessly across the snow without fear of falling through and having to drag themselves free. It gave Marianne very little time to catch her breath.

Goblins tumbled over the crest of the drift, smacking down into the snow around Marianne. One landed in her lap, knocking the breath out of both of them.

“Marianne Queen!” The sprout turned out to be Bee, “I'm on your side! We're on your side! Help! We are being murdered!”

“Okay!” A laugh escaped Marianne at the dramatic declaration, “What do you need me to do?”

“Murder them back!”

For a short time the small group of them successfully defended their drift from the murdering invaders, the sprites whipping up snowballs almost as fast as they could be thrown, and Bee clinging to Marianne's neck and shouting orders in her ear.

It was all going very well until a shadow fell over them, cast by a snowball of unbelievable size, arching overhead and blocking out the light from the rising sun. A desperate evacuation was put into action but it was too late, the snowball smashed into their forces, the resulting explosion of snow blinding them and destroying their stash of snowballs.

The resulting damage to the drift and the morale of the occupying force was crippling and everything dissolved into the chaos of a frenzied free for all.

Bog stopped to catch his breath, the icy air scraping down his dry throat. His feet and hands were leaden while his head was too light. The world kept turning upside-down today. So frequently it might as well be permanently rotating. The moment of chaos after he threw the insanely huge ball of snow that the sprouts had rolled up and presented to him with eager grins was the first moment of relative calm he had encountered since coming outside. The princess and her cohorts were occupied with digging their way out and fleeing from the invaders, turning the sprouts attention away from Bog for the time being.

She had been laughing.

Through the shrieking of warfare he had heard the princess—queen—laughing. That was important. He wasn't sure why and the thought distracted him, setting itself uneasily on top of his smoldering remnants of anger.

Something cold and heavy slammed into him.

Laying on his back, wings twitching uselessly in the snow, Bog looked up into the princess's golden eyes, blazing with outrage.

“Bog King!” She had one knee in the snow, one on his stomach, her hands on his shoulders, “That was unsporting warfare!”

A smile touched his lips for a moment, at the sight of the princess looking so fierce. More alive than she had been since she had come here, though his next words were a complaint, “As is impaling me with your knee, tough girl!”

He thrust a handful of snow into her face and she slid off him, getting wrapping up in her own wings, snarling through a mouthful of snow, but making no effort to get back up.

“Are you alive, tough girl?” Bog propped himself up on his elbow and considered the sad bundle of red and purple huddled next to him.

“I'll get back to you on that.”

“At your earliest convenience.”

The day began to catch up with Bog and he closed his eyes, seeing the princess's face illuminated by blue light that filled the pit, washing the color out of the flowers in her hair. The thought that she might have betrayed him made his hands curl into fists, claws stabbing into his palms. He sighed and opened his eyes again, looking at the brilliant rosiness of Marianne's cold-nipped face, the warm brown of her hair sprinkled with snow.

Her hand was bare and lay on the snow, palm up, displaying the scar of their binding, pale against the reddened skin. The scar was visible only an instant before Marianne turned her hand over, pushing herself up out of he snow, “We need to get the kids inside,”

“Easier said than done,” Bog said, following suit and rising to his feet, glancing down at his own hand and the scar that was counterpart to Marianne's.

The following battle for control was fierce and the winner undecided because Griselda, bundled up so she was nearly as wide as she was tall, ventured into the snow and demanded they get back inside before somebody lost an eye. So saying she threw Bog's cloak at him before she waddled back inside, shooing sprouts toward the path that had now been cleared to an actual door. The sprouts gave in, knowing they might be able to overrule the king, but never ever Griselda.

Bog looked at the cloak in his hands, then at the princess.

“Why didn't she bring me mine?” Marianne complained through chattering teeth, pulling a sprout out of the snow by it's feet and slinging him in the general direction of the castle.

“I have no idea,” Bog said, pretending he really didn't, “Here.”

Marianne looked at the offered cloak, “No, I'm fine—oh, Griselda!” Her eyes lit up with realization and a touch of horror.

“Um,” Bog shrugged.

“That—Bog, your mother is—something else. She is something else.”

“That she is,” Bog sighed, folding the cloak in half to make it more reasonably fairy-sized, “Here, take it. I'll have the fairy kingdom howling on my doorstep if you get sick.”

“No, it's fine,” Marianne flung another glance at the castle, “I hope she doesn't think she's subtle. Trying to make us share. Seriously.”

“It's not one of her more clever schemes,” Bog agreed, still holding out the folded cloak.

There was a long stretch of silence.

“You're not going to move until I take that cloak, are you?”

“Likely not.”

“For the sake of expediency . . .”

Bog draped the cloak over her shoulders, pulling it up around her neck. He tore off a bit of the cobweb clasp and stuck it where the cloak overlapped, holding it closed, “Thank you, princess.”

“I'm your ruddy queen.” She complained.

“That you are,” Bog sighed, too tired to argue the point, “That you are.”

A mug of tea warming his hands, sips of the hot liquid running down his throat and thawing out his stomach, Bog sat in a small room off the feasting hall. It was a space for private meetings and would only fit a handful of people around the small table. His mother had ushered him in there to thaw out and he was grateful for the escape from the boisterous spirits of the rest of the castle's winter inhabitants.

He was across the room from the fire, his back to it, waiting until feeling started to return to his hands and feet before edging closer to the heat. The door was in front of him and he watched the rough wooden shape of it with an anxious fascination. He had been alone for only a minute, maybe two, and expected his mother to bustle back in at any second to fuss and demand explanations.

Snow and ice were melting from between the crevices of his armor, making the blanket wrapped around him damp and uncomfortable. He hunched over in his seat, wings shivering against his back under the light pressure of the blanket. The events of the morning were running through his mind in disordered snatches.

The princess had betrayed him.

He had betrayed her. He had promised her she would be safe in her kingdom, that he would never hurt her.

What had she been doing talking to Plum?

The door creaked open and Bog looked up, expecting his mother with more tea and fussing. And he was correct, his mother's head of frizzy red hair bounced as she came into the room, chattering to someone else as she came, tugging them along by the hand.

It was Marianne.

“Now,” his mother was saying to the princess, “You stay in here and warm up while they get the fire going in your room. Stay wrapped up and drink some tea. Slowly, mind.”

“Um,” the princess said, catching sight of Bog and coming to a halt, “Maybe I should wait somewhere else.”

“Nonsense!” The princess was jerked forward and she stumbled along after Griselda, the cloak over her shoulders slipping askew, “It's nice and cozy in here and we haven't got anywhere else warmed up nearly as well. Except the kitchens, but we can't have you underfoot in there!”

“I really think I had better not . . .”

But Griselda had whisked back out of the room, shutting the door so quickly that it failed to latch close and creaked ajar again.

With the door propped open Bog could hear the noise of his subjects celebrating the end of the first snowfall, eager to be let out of doors on the morrow. They were loud and overwhelming, which was why Bog was glad to be tucked away by himself. He could see that Marianne was reluctant to be thrown in among them.

“Close the door as you come in,” Bog grumbled, filling a second mug with tea, “Otherwise we'll be overrun.”

Marianne shut the door properly and came further into the room, trailing the excess length of Bog's cloak behind her like a train. The shoulder holes had been temporarily fastened closed with an embroider of spiderwebs that formed patterns like frost on the water. Bog had a feeling that was the sprites' work.

“Am I ever getting that back?” Bog asked, putting the mug of tea on the table for her to take, carefully directing his eyes away her her.

“Not until I thaw. And that might be in the spring.”

“And I am to freeze in the meanwhile?”

“It's that or having the fairy kingdom howling on your doorstep because you let me catch the sniffles.”

“Mm.”

The cloak slipped further when the end of it caught on a splinter in the floor, and the jerky movements of the princess trying to free it made Bog turn to look at her. He began to make a remark about her destroying his cloak, but the words died on his tongue when he saw the state of her.

The princess had changed out of her wet clothing and put on a long white dress, sleeveless and falling loosely to her knees. With the cloak half off Bog could see the dark bruising and cris-scrossing of tiny red scratches discoloring her arms and shoulders. Her skin was still red from the cold, her hands swollen and clumsy as she tried to jerk the train of the cloak out from under the legs of a chair.

The cloak finally came free and the princess pulled it back up over her shoulders and wings, wincing when the heavy fabric rested on her arms. Kicking the cloak out of the way, Bog could see she was barefoot and that the unmistakable shape of his hand was stamped in bruises on her leg.

Settling into a chair, holding her side as she carefully sat down, the princess caught him staring,  “Going to have me searched for illicit love potions?” Her hair hung around her face in damp strands, all her flowers lost in the snow outside.

Bog ducked his head over his mug of tea and did not reply.

“Mm,” She took the mug of tea off the table, grunting at extending her arm, “And how do your bumps and bruises tally up?”

“Oh,” Bog considered the dull pain in the places where the princess had hit him, the bruising beneath his armor, the itch of scratches where snow had gotten into the cracks and scraped up his skin, “Nothing of consequence.”

“Oh,” Marianne took a swallow of tea and pulled her legs up under her blanket, giving Bog another glimpse of the dark, almost black, marks on her leg, “I didn't mean to complain. I was just . . . joking.”

“It's well within your rights to be . . . put out.”

“Hm,” She shoved the clinging locks of hair off her face, pushing it behind her ear. Her eyes were rimmed with red and circled with gray, her skin red and raw from the cuts of a thousand tiny grains of ice.

Bog rose from his chair and walked a few paces from the table, keeping his back to Marianne. He didn't want to look at her, the red soreness of her face, the bruises on the hands wrapped around her mug.

Grinding his teeth together, he spun around, blanket slipping off one arm, “Marianne, I'm sorry--”

At the very same moment the princess had looked up began to say, “Look, I'm sorry that--”

They both stopped.

“I'm sorry, Bog,” Marianne rushed on, “I'm sorry I threw a tantrum. I should have—I shouldn't have.”

Marianne knew she had acted like an incredibly spoiled, self-centered . . . well, princess. She had let her feelings get the better of her and acted spitefully. She had been afraid, but that was no excuse. She should have been braver.

“You didn't—that is—I'm sorry. I'm sorry I-I hurt you.”

“Oh, please. A couple of bruises are hardly life-threatening.”

Bog looked at the stiff way the princess held her sword arm, the mottled purple and blue staining her neck, “I—I pushed you.”

“And I pushed back. If I had just—just—I don't know!”

If she had just kept a hold of herself, kept calm, instead of running away from the shadows of her nightmares. Behaved with dignity instead of running wild and plunging out into the snow. If she had tried to reason with Bog instead of striking back at him, trying to give hurt for hurt.

“I threw a fit,” She said, scowling at her tea, “And I got what I deserved.”

“You didn't, you don't . . .”

You don't deserve being chained to me.

Peeling his damp blanket off his shoulders, Bog walked over to the fire and laid it over a rock to dry, taking up the dry blanket that had been warming there. He felt the weave of it between his fingers, the fabric catching on his callouses.

“What were you doing in the dungeons, princess?” His question was directed toward the blanket.

“Taking in the night air,” The princess snapped, shrugging the fur collar of the cloak higher around her neck.

“It was past sunrise.”

“What do you think I was doing down there? Do you really think I was trying to get a love potion?”

No. Not really. Not after he had spared a few seconds to think it over. Her disgust over the idea of a love potion was too strong. She would never obtain a potion for her own use or anyone else's.

“I was afraid that you had—that Plum had done something—something she shouldn't have.”

Bog turned away, watching the fire, flexing his fingers, feeling the painfully sluggish movement of his blood circulating in his hands. He claimed the chair next to the princess, sinking into it with a pained grunt at having to bend his stiff joints.

“No,” he said, hearing the tiredness in his own voice, “there was no reason for me to do as I did.”

“I picked a fight,” Marianne leaned back in her chair, feeling the soreness in her back where she had fallen against the wall of the pit, “Like a spoiled brat who wanted to get her way. Can't blame you for getting mad.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Stop trying to talk me out of apologizing. I'm trying to be big about this. Which is a real chore when I'm sitting next to you.” She looked at the absurd length of his legs stretched out in front of him, noticing how he was as taller than she was even sitting slumped in his chair.

Bog rolled his eyes at her, “You're not precisely making it easy for me to apologize, you wee fairy.”

“I'm not small. You're too tall.”

“Mm,” Bog growled, reaching for the pot of tea to refill his mug.

“Why can't I keep my mouth shut,” Marianne sighed, swishing the lukewarm puddle of tea that remained at the bottom of her mug, “I keep giving you reasons to regret this marriage even more.”

Bog looked up at that, seeing her drooped in her chair, exhausted and sad. He didn't regret the marriage. He regretted chaining the princess to him when she deserved so much better. She deserved happiness and—and love. For all his promises to himself and others all he did was cause her pain.

“Look, Plum didn't tell me anything.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“Yeah.”

The mug had gone cold in Marianne's hands and her fingers ached, missing the warmth. Exhaustion pricked at her eyes. She was still mad. Afraid. But she was too tired to let it overwhelm her. Mostly she felt upset by how close Bog was, sitting so near, but at the same time so far away. She was sick of fighting him, of pushing him away, of being pushed away.

“I should have trusted you.”

The words were barely more than a whisper and it took Marianne a moment to puzzle out what Bog had said. He was bent over, face hidden in his hand, shoulders hunched up over his head.

The words worked something loose inside Marianne's chest and she felt such a strong surge of affection for her husband that tears formed in her eyes. He was apologizing. Really apologizing, not just trying to mollify her, get her to calm down and behave. There was regret in his voice and it stabbed at Marianne's heart.

“I should have trusted you,” She said, thinking of that moment in the dungeon, when he had pushed her away and she had been filled with fear. She had seen only her nightmares and not her husband.

“I hurt you. Again. I always hurt you.”

“Do you know what, Bog? I forgive you.”

“But I--”

“I forgive you. You can't stop me from forgiving you.”

A pause.

“This is where you should forgive me, Bog.”

“Forgive you? For what?”

“For—for being a pampered little princess with her head in the clouds.”

“You're not! Wait, is that what you—do you think that's what I think of you?”

“That's what I am.”

The matter of fact tone Marianne delivered this absurd declaration in left Bog gapping in disbelief. She had elected to stay in the heart of the Dark Forest during the harshest part of the year, she worked from dawn to dusk working out the complexities of the new relationship between kingdoms, and what little spare time she had she filled with helping his mother tend to the winter boarders. Her hands were cut and cracked from work and cold, knuckles scraped almost to the bone after their battle in the snow . . . there was nothing pampered about this princess.

Yet . . .

Ever since the princess had arrived in the forest he had been treating her like all the rest of the spoiled fairy court, looking down on her for not possibly being able to understand the hardships his kingdom had suffered.

His hand moved toward hers, hesitating when he saw the grotesque size and shape of his limb hovering over her small, battered fingers. With great care he slipped his fingers around her hand, turning it over to expose the scar on her palm. The only hurt he was ever supposed to cause her. A scar that symbolized all the promises he had made her. The promises he had failed to keep. He bowed his head over it, looking at the scar and not at Marianne's face.

“Marianne . . . I am so sorry. That your life has been safe, happy, that's not . . . you shouldn't feel guilt over it. I envy your kingdom it's wealth. And I resented it—you—for having such ease when my people . . . it isn't fair. But it isn't your doing, your fault. You . . . you are the strongest, bravest, most noble person I have ever known.”

He was a monster. Trying to tear her down until she suffered as he did. His fear of winter, of painful memories, the fear of new pain yet to be suffered. He wanted her to be scared, scared as he was. Scared of him. But when it seemed she might have discovered the truth about him he wanted nothing more than to erase the memory of it from her head. To preserve that last shred of affection she might have had for him.

“I already told you,” Marianne's voice spoke close to his ear, “that I forgive you.”

“How can you?” He ran a claw over her palm, tracing back and forth over the scar. How could anyone forgive him?

Marianne was having a very hard time preventing herself from tilting Bog's head up and pressing a kiss to his lips. She struggled with the temptation to run her fingers over the layers of leaves that lay damp and shiny over his bent head. But instead of doing either of those things she gave his ear a sharp tweak.

“I said I forgive you,” She said again, trying not to smile at the look of outrage on Bog's face when his head shot up, “Stop making me repeat myself, husband.”

“I've hurt you. In so many ways . . .” He began to draw his hands away.

Before his hands could slip away Marianne took hold of his wrist and flipped his hand palm up. Cupping his hand in both of hers, she bent and pressed her lips to his marriage scar. She rested her forehead in his hand and spoke against his skin, “I forgive you. Just . . . please don't shut me out anymore.”

She was so tired of being alone. Of being scared. She didn't want to be scared anymore. Not of the forest. Not of Bog. He didn't have to love her. His friendship would be enough. If she could just have that back maybe she could be happy again.

“Marianne . . .”

He was calling her by name again.

She really, really liked the way he said her name.

Claws slipped through her hair when his hand shifted across her face, his fingers tugging through the wet tangles in her hair. Then he pulled away, fingers curling in, as if he were snatching them away before they got slammed in a door. He rested his hands in his lap, thumb rubbing his scar.

“I-I'll try.” Bog would have promised, but he had made and broken so many promises already. He couldn't stand to make another false oath to Marianne, “Just don't—don't ever think you're anything less than . . . amazing.”

“Same to you.”

“How could I forget?” He offered her the faintest trace of a smile.

“N-no! I didn't mean me!” Marianne waved her hands, flustered by the mistake, “I meant you.”

“Me?”

“Yes! I mean—yes? I mean--”

A tap at the door saved Marianne from further embarrassment.

“Heyah!” Griselda poked her head inside, “Got your room all toasty warm, sweetheart, and a nice bath waiting for you. You two done making nice?”

“Mother,” Bog protested faintly.

“Just asking, son. C'mon, dear, the doctor is waiting to take a look at you. Hmph. Both of you going out without bundling up, you ought to have more sense.”

Draping the excess drapery of her borrowed cloak over her arm, Marianne followed Griselda out of the room on unsteady feet. Sitting had given her body time to stiffen and her legs were not moving as they should.

“When do I get my cloak back?” Bog called after her.

“I told you: spring!” Marianne shot back.

“What about after lunch?”

“Is that when spring starts?”

'No, but it's when I'll come to your rooms with the rough plans for the new roads. If that's alright with you, that is.”

“That would be . . . perfect.”

“Alright, alright,” Griselda gave Marianne a shove out the door, “It's a date, now let's get you cleaned up.”

“Mother.”

Chapter Text

Marianne was snug in her pile of quilts and furs, having finally achieved a position for maximum warmth and comfort. Or, it would have been, if she didn't have a wing folded the wrong way, forcing her to kick the blankets out of their harmonious alignment, exposing her feet briefly to the chill of the room.

Turning over also reminded Marianne that she was still suffering from the effects of a bad head cold that had hit her hard enough to keep her in bed for the past two days. Moving made her stiff muscles creak, having developed the undesirable habit of getting stuck in place if she stayed still too long. The resistance of her muscles was the cue for her throat to remember that it was inflamed and dedicated to making Marianne cough until her ribs considered maybe joining in on the fun, tossing around the idea or pulling a muscle or two.

There was no window in the bedroom room, no way for Marianne to mark the passage of time. It probably wouldn't have made a difference, even if there was a clock parked in front of her nose. The world had fallen out of sync with her. Or maybe she had fallen out of sync with it. Whichever, the results were the same.

A warm rock, wrapped in leaves, had been tucked up by her feet, but it was cold now. This small inconvenience made Marianne feel sad and abandoned. It felt like days since she had seen anyone, even though she had heard the murmuring of voices and light tap of footsteps that followed her in and out of her dreams.

Yes, someone had been reading to her. The book was on the table, a pressed flower petal peeking from between the pages to mark the place the reader had left off. Marianne thought it might have been Bog, except she seemed to recall the story was from one of Dawn's romance novels, which had struck her as odd even in her vague state. Another odd dream, hearing the mighty Bog king reading from a fairy novel.

Compared to some of her dreams that one was practically commonplace.

The memory of the duel in the snow had got mixed up with their first duel at the border, and she dreamed they had sparred again around the evening fire, goblins cheering and hooting with each blow struck. It was a good dream, because unlike their first two fights with sword and staff, this time it was just entirely in good-natured fun. It was just the kind of thing Marianne had anticipated being part of the relationship before she tried to kiss him and ruined everything.

A kiss.

There was something more than a dream stirred up by the thought. It hung out of reach somewhere above the bed, twinkling. Was it twinkling like a star or dew on the flowers in the morning . . . or like some sharp-edged thing that would draw blood if she grasped it?

Unable to divine the answer to that particular mystery, Marianne turned her mind to other recent goings on. Bog had been dragging around in a gloom since the patrols were sent out and he had only truly smiled again when they were out in the blinding snow, giddy with relief that everyone was safe.

Bog had laughed. Marianne had laughed, not fully realizing the weight that had been heavy on her heart until it was lifted. She had still been so afraid that her relationship with Bog was permanently strained, even in spite of their reconciliation.

Everyone was safe, everyone was happy, Bog was happy.

And somehow it followed that Marianne had challenged Bog to a duel.

She seemed to remember more than one drink preceding the proposal.

But that wasn't right. Before that had been a frantic rush of activity. Dizzying after the stale confinement forced on them by the long snowfall. The skies had been clear for the moment and Bog had seized the chance to organize parties of goblins to be sent out and assess any damage the snow might have caused to outlying villages and dwellings.

He had been worried about that, to the point of distraction, otherwise he might have been more insistent that Marianne curtail her efforts to assist and get some rest.

“He's like this every winter,” Griselda confided to Marianne, the two of them watching Bog race off to meet the messenger that had come with news of the goblins outside the castle, “All you can do is let him tire himself out and have hot tea and hot food waiting for him when he does and bully him into taking a nap. Sometimes I'm tempted to ask Plum for a sleeping potion I could slip into my boy's tea . . .”

It was with disgust and resignation that Griselda regarded her daughter-in-law as Marianne was pulled into Bog's fretting over the conditions outside.

Marianne couldn't help it. Bog was so distressed by any news that might indicate his subjects were facing some peril or another and she wanted to relieve some of his stress if she could. Not that he acted distressed. No, he grumbled and growled and snapped at everyone, making exasperated remarks about the incompetents he had to work with, double checking every little thing because of his purported mistrust in their ability to get anything right.

“I think you need some tea,” Marianne interrupted, giving the current victim of Bog's ill-humor a chance to escape, “And five minutes peace.”

“I'm busy.”

“You're--” Marianne tried to clear a tickle in her throat and was seized by an uncontrollable fit of coughing.

“You need tea,” Bog countered, “And at least ten minutes peace.”

“Sure, but you have to come with me to make sure I drink it.”

“I'm sure I can trust you to manage that on your own.”

“And I'm sure that you can trust Stuff to finish up here.”

Bog snorted, stepping away with the intention of going about his business.

“Hey!” Marianne called him back, “If you walk away I won't drink my tea and will fall dramatically ill and die. It will be tragic and, more importantly, my dad would be upset. Declare war on the Dark Forest levels of upset.”

“Are you . . .” Bog turned around and looked at her in disbelief, “Are you threatening to die and plunge two kingdoms into war . . . just to get me to have a cup of tea?”

“Whatever it takes. After all, I am only a frail fairy, fading away, imprisoned in this dark and intimidating fortress.”

Marianne laid the back of her hand on her forehead and tried to look tragic.

The effect was ruined by a sudden sneeze.

“That was the most unconvincing acting I have ever seen, tough girl,” Bog shook his head, but pressed his hand to the back of Marianne's fur cloak, pushing her toward the kitchen, “Try not to waste away before the kettle boils.”

“I'll do my best, but if I don't make it, I have just one request to ask of you.”

“Find an excuse to have that preening tin soldier beheaded?”

“Oh, nice, I hadn't thought of that. Okay, two last requests. The other is,” Marianne leaned back on Bog's guiding hand as if she were swooning, so that Bog had to hold her up. She looked at him upside-down and said solemnly, “Plant primroses on my grave in memory of our first meeting.”

She was giggling when Bog shoved her away.

“Wretched little troublemaker!”

“I'm not little. You're just too tall.”

Marianne gave him a jab with her elbow, wondering how he would react if she linked her arm with his. She still wasn't really sure where the boundaries of their relationship lay.

There were moments, moments of intimacy when she looked into Bog's eyes and she saw none of the walls he built around himself to keep others out. She felt her own walls and armor melt away and she felt vulnerable and afraid in their absence. An attack could come from any side and she would not be prepared to counter it. She would be hurt again and humiliated for being such a fool as to let her guard down.

In these moments there seemed to be nothing but a border of primroses between them, soft petals floating on their stems, a barricade too weak to keep anyone from crossing They watched each other through the gaps between flowers, uncertain of their next move. Marianne fleetingly felt that if Bog held out a hand she would have taken it and be led across the border into the dark. She felt that if she held out a hand Bog would take it and be led into the light.

But what if she was wrong.

What if, as it was likely, she was imagining it all.

They kept to their sides of the border and raised up walls around themselves again.

Playful squabbling about trivial little things was safe. If they accidentally stepped over the boundaries of friendship with some slip of the tongue or look that lingered too long, well, it obviously meant as much as the bickering and teasing.

That is, nothing at all.

“Try not to swoon before I have a chair to dump you in,” Bog caught her prodding elbow and pulled her back, taking her hand and looping her arm through his, “I would hate to have to leave the queen of the Dark Forest laying in the corridor until I can send someone to tidy her away.”

“Such a gentleman,” Marianne said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

For a long time Marianne had disliked walking arm in arm with anyone. Roland had used it as a way to keep her by his side during parties, steering her to where the most people would see him with the princess on his arm. Her father took her arm out of affection, but also to keep his daughter from trying to sneak away from festivities. It had always been about controlling her.

When Bog took her arm it felt almost stately. The dignified ceremony that so many at the fairy court tried to achieve, but fell short, achieving only stiffness of demeanor. There was nothing possessive about Bog's touch. It was, somehow, a gesture that indicated equality between them. It was a sign of trust for both of them, letting someone else into their space.

In the end they got three minutes peace and half a cup of tea between them before a messenger skittered into the kitchen to report that a family was trapped in their house under a fallen tree branch and a crushing amount of snow.

The news sent a look of panic flashing over Bog's face. The expression lasted no more than an instant, but for that instant he looked as if a blade and slipped between the plates of his armor and struck his heart.

“Where?” Bog stood, grabbing his cloak off the back of his chair and fastening it around his shoulders while he all but ran to the door, “How bad? How many people do we have in the castle right now that can be sent out?”

Not enough, it was discovered.

“There's me and my guards,” Marianne said, her cloak billowing out behind her, the warmth it had trapped lost as she kept pace with Bog.

“No,” he said without a moment's consideration or even bothering to turn his head to look at her.

“Excuse me?”

Bog's stride faltered at her tone but he remained firm in his decision, “No. You're sick.”

“I'm fine.”

He tried again, from a different angle, “You're under no obligation to put yourself in harm's way.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

He might as well have started calling her “princess” again, he was so carefully excluding her from his world, his life. Marianne was caught in a mixture of anger and disappointment. She had hoped they had gotten past this. She had been scared they hadn't and something like this would happen again.

She sped up and walked a step ahead of him so he had to look at her.

“Am I queen here, husband, or simply a guest?”

She pulled out her title with bravado, holding it up as flimsy shield and mask to disguise the truth: that she was only a princess, and a fairy princess at that, who had no place in this kingdom, among these people, or in Bog's life.

“That is not--”

“This is my kingdom now, too, these are my people. Or do you refuse me that? Am I not allowed to care about them?”

That was something she was certain of. She did care about the goblins after spending this time among them. She admired their strength, she even loved them, almost to the same degree she loved her own people.

“No--”

“Because I am not your idle guest, who is obligated to do nothing else but sit by and watch you struggle. So why--”

“Because I don't want anything to happen to you!”

They had stopped walking and Bog looked ashamed at his admission. He ran his hand over the back of his neck, looking at the floor as he searched for words. She could practically hear him thinking of logical, political reasons to make her stay. In the end he settled for looking her in the eye and telling her the truth.

The primroses and shifted in the wind and once again they met each other's eyes through the gap.

“In winter . . . it is so easy to die. Freeze, starve, be crushed beneath the snow. Even just walking on the surface of the snow, stepping onto a patch that gives way and snow piles on top before anyone came come . . . it's just so easy to die.”

“And you think I'm so easy to kill?”

“Winter takes more than it's share, strong and weak alike. I just . . . want you safe.”

Marianne felt her cheeks starting to burn and she wasn't sure why. Possibly because there was an emotion in Bog's words, an inflection, that almost sounded like, well . . . Marianne's face grew even hotter and she found it hard to look Bog in the face.

It had sounded like he was saying he loved her.

No, that was overstating. It sounded like he cared. He cared deeply about her welfare, beyond mere concern for the princess of the fairies and the consequences if her wellbeing was endangered.

This castle was where he gathered everything important. Everything he cared about. He gathered in as many of his people as could fit, and kept them safe and warm through the winter. It would have been easy enough to exclude Marianne from all of that. A curt note in reply to the message that announced her coming, saying it was inconvenient, unnecessary, unwanted.

Instead, he let her come and be among everything he cared about and wished to be safe.

Marianne should have resented him trying to lock her up like a lifeless gem, to be kept in a vault, but that wasn't why he wanted her to stay behind. Not because she was an useless ornament. He wasn't shutting her in. He was shutting winter out.

Unable to help herself, Marianne took Bog's hand between hers, feeling the startled curl of his fingers, the shift of his bones beneath the skin, the hard plate on the back of his hand. The inside of his wrist was not covered by his armor and she felt the beat of his pulse jumping.

“I'm queen, Bog. Your queen. And the queen of the Dark Forest does not stay behind to let her husband go into danger alone. I want you safe, too.”

The words were nothing exceptional, and yet Marianne was sure she must be scarlet with blushing, the heat having traveled down her neck and even her shoulders. She couldn't think why, her words were only meant to relay the same sentiment that had been in Bog's. The affection of friends, partners. Of a queen for her king.

A black claw delicately pushed back a few strands of hair from Marianne's cheek.

There was a wordless moment between them when complicated things simple and they forgot everything that they meticulously reminded themselves of. She found herself teetering on the edge of precipice, searching for reasons not to step off it, finding none.

The moment passed and Bog's hand slipped from her loose hold and all the reasons returned, more solid and logical than over, bricks in the wall.

“Dress warm,” Bog said, walking down the corridor, “you already have a cold.”

“I'll be fine.”

Hacking out a cough in her cave of blankets, Marianne had to admit to herself that she had been wrong on that point.

The time after they stepped out of the castle and into the cold was fragmented in Marianne's memory, the pieces out of order, the trudge through the snow sprinkled with pieces of her duels with Bog, beneath primroses, above the snow, around the evening fire.

The day had been long and the trip lengthier than it would have been in warm weather, that Marianne did remember. Neither she or Bog could risk their wings to the cold and the goblin's dragonfly mounts were stabled for the winter. They had to go on foot, avoiding loosely packed snow and branches that creaked under their burdens of ice.

“Didn't sign up for this,” one of Marianne's guards had said cheerfully, puffing out white clouds when they laughed. It was unclear in Marianne's mind as to who had said what, and even though the guards had not worn their armor, in her mind's eye she saw their faces masked by their helmets.

“Oh, please!” said another, “We signed on to spend a winter in the Dark Forest, guarding the princess who brought the Bog King to court in chains. This is exactly what we signed up for.”

“I didn't bring you here to listen to you talk,” Marianne snorted.

“An added bonus, your highness.”

“Your majesty,” they said, smacking their companion on the side of the head.

“Marianne,” said Marianne.

Little of the journey stood out otherwise. There was just the feeling of endless walking, her arm linked with Bog's, and a tension in the air, heavy as the snow.

Marianne did remember arriving at the site of the collapse with complete clarity. The reality of it, cutting as the cold winds and deadly as a blade sliced across the surface of her heart. It cut loose the small spark of joy she had been cherishing since talking with Bog, and left her cold right to her core.

A branch was twisted up in the snow, the fall having knocked it clean so that it's twigs clawed at the white powder like dark fingers. Goblins scuttled here and there, dressed in light-colored leaves and downy white feathers to keep their mottle skin from standing out on the clean sweeps of snow. Their movements were full of anxious energy as they tested the snow for a place where they could dig a tunnel that wouldn't collapse.

Everything went fuzzy again, the only clear spot being how she had kept her arm linked with Bog's while they waited for the goblins to finish their assessment. His arm had been shaking, hand clenched in a fist.

Marianne couldn't remember if it was then that Bog had spoken, or sometime later in the evening, but she recalled his words: “Sometimes you can hear them under the snow. Hear the children crying. Even when there's no way to dig them out, you can still hear them.”

There was a lot of digging, hard and unpleasant work. Then there was the matter of packing down the snow so it didn't crumble back into fine powder, which was even worse than the digging. The recollection of it rested in Marianne's head like a bad dream of endless digging and tunnels collapsing again and again before planks of bark could be put in to brace the tunnel.

Blisters had raised up on Marianne's hands and smarted when she held her sword in that dance around the fire. Laying in bed, she flexed her hands, feeling traces of some sticky salve that she couldn't remember being applied. She still couldn't remembered how she had come to be sparring with Bog or anything after it.

Marianne had helped pull the goblin family free of the snow, grasping clawed hands and hefting them up into the sunlight. There were light scratches on her arms where they had gripped, the sleeves of her tunic slashed full of holes. But all physical woes were forgotten when the goblin family crawled out of the tunnel and the tension broke, the danger over.

Bog had laughed. Everyone had. It was uproarious laughter, an explosion of the emotion everyone had been holding in. They laughed hard enough that they were warm with it even while their hands and faces tingled with the cold. Bog had broken away from his usual hesitant, almost silent laugh and was as loud as anyone else.

“They're safe! Everyone is safe!”

Had he shouted that out in the blinding white landscape, or whispered it in the orange glow of the fire, in a voice so low that no one was meant it hear it? Had he really picked her up and spun her around, in front of everyone? The crushing hug he had wrapped her in after he lowered her—her feet still hanging well above the ground—was clear enough that Marianne was almost positive it had truly happened. Her cloak and wings rumpled up under his arms and the plates of his armor catching and tugging on the fur trim, those details seemed too uncomfortable for her to have made up in a fever dream.

She had let out a small shriek of laughter at being so suddenly picked up and whirled around, but at the time had not been shocked by Bog's actions. It had not seemed out of place in that riot of emotions to cling to each other and laugh until Marianne felt weak with it.

It was about then that her fever must have really set in because everything after that was veiled in a light-headed haze where she seemed to watch herself from a distance with little control over what she did or said.

Several fragments of memory were lost, skipping forward to sitting around the fire, beer and mead flowing freely as the good cheer of relief. The winter sprouts tumbled over each other, gleeful over the noise and Griselda's permitting them to stay up and join the fun. It was crowded and stifling, reminding Marianne of her wedding day, except this time she was part of the the celebration instead of a stranger jostled by an unruly crowd.

Marianne tried to turn over, causing the ache of fever in her muscles to burn, waking her up a little Enough that she remembered that she and Bog had been sparring around the fire. Everybody had been showing off, fighting with and without weapons, everyone wagering on the outcome. Mostly the wagers were small or jokes, loser did the winner's chores or perhaps had to sing an absurd song.

A kiss.

The elusive memory was closer now and she was beginning to fear it was a thing made of blades and spikes that could not be picked up without slicing open her heart and her hands.

Somehow she had been drawn into the wagering and challenged Bog to a duel. The crowd had hooted and cheered them on. The noise only grew when Bog declared, “I accept your challenge!”

The crowd scooted back to make space, their queen and king circling the empty floor.

“What's the wager to be, then, tough girl?” Bog had laughed, “My scepter? My throne? Or merely to make a fool of myself in some ridiculous manner? Name the stakes, anything and everything!”

“I'll let you know,” Marianne had sliced her sword through the air, her feet falling into a fighting stance as easily as her cloak was discarded to free her wings, “after I've won!”

Marianne groaned and covered her face with her hands, embarrassed by her past self's reckless actions that were becoming clearer and clearer in her mind as she started to really wake up.

The brightness of the wild merriment slipped off to the side, dwindling until it vanished, leaving Marianne to pick her way through an unlit corridor. Bog's cloak was wrapped around her, it's train sweeping up dust from the floor. She pulled it more tightly around herself, feeling the bruises up and down her arms throbbing, the tiny cuts on her face stinging. She had fought with Bog after he had caught her talking to Sugar Plum, but everything was alright after they had talked, even if Sugar Plum's story remained a mystery.

No.

Everything was not alright and this was a different day. A hard day, but a good one. It was the evening where it had all gone wrong, when she had tumbled headfirst into the primroses and continued to fall, crashing into the forest, unable to halt herself. She fell and she fell, grabbing at leaves, but it was no use.

A kiss.

A spike of memory pricked her and she recoiled from it, but too late, the moment was already vivid in her mind.

Shame colored Marianne's face, right to the points of her ears. She remembered now, that she had won their bout. She remembered the wide-eyed shock on Bog's face after the fight, after she had whispered her prize in his ear. That look smothered her reckless cheer, tugging her back into her own body, no longer a dispassionate observer floating just overhead and took no responsibility for anything that went on below.

“A kiss.”

Marianne didn't know if she had meant to say that or it had just slipped out, her usual tight hold on such thoughts having been loosened by the wild abandon of relief. Her regret over this recklessness was immediate and she stumbled over herself trying to retreat, snatch the words out of the air and thrust them into the fire so they would burn away and their ashes be lost among the burning logs.

“Your cloak!”

The substitute prize was put forth on the heels of the first, and yet it felt that there had been an eternity for Bog to process the foolish demand and be repulsed by it.

The cloak was claimed, Marianne making some glib remark about the cold while avoiding Bog's eye. She had tumbled through the primroses again, crashing uninvited across the border because she had not been looking where she was going.

Head in the clouds.

Not looking where she was going.

Silly, clumsy girl.

She had taken a joke too far, a little too wild and tipsy to keep herself in check. She had mocked Bog with her demanded prize, poked fun at his ban on love, reminded him of that forced kiss when he was chained to the primroses. She had only meant to be funny, but instead she had been cruel.

Now they were walking side-by-side, Griselda having ordered Bog to make sure his wife got back to her room safely. The way Marianne was swaying had not escaped Griselda's keen eye. Not much did. Even though Bog and Marianne did not want to be within ten miles of each other there was no disobeying Griselda's decree.

The air between Bog and Marianne was thick with things unsaid and she felt herself floating up among them, their silence so loud she could hear every word with complete clarity. Regret laced through her share of the silence, a burning shame brought on by breaking all her promises and resolutions as if they were brittle as spun glass.

She waited for Bog to speak. He would be angry, of course, but also disappointed. There had been an understanding between them, there had been balance, and she had destroyed it. She wanted to apologize a hundred times, assure him it meant nothing and would never happen again.

Instead she waited in silence, hoping that somehow if nothing was said then it meant that nothing had happened.

“Thank you.”

She looked up at Bog with eyes that were beginning to blur, watering because she was tired and the smoke from the fire so thick. The two words he offered her were like fragile flowers, ready to be blown away by the least breeze, exposing the thorns beneath. She did not trust them.

“Thank you for everything,” Bog continued without any sign of anger, “For coming today to help. You—you and your people were a great help and—and I was glad. That you were there. Winter can be a terrible time and you wanted to share it with us regardless . . . thank you.”

“I'm beginning to think you hate winter even worse than spring.”

That wasn't what she wanted to say, but her brain had flicked off for a second when Bog thanked her and the words had tumbled out of their own accord.

Bog laughed. It was that whispery sound that almost wasn't there. The loud, free laughter of the day was gone and all his defenses were back up.

His guard was back up, slammed into place the moment he processed what prize she was claiming. Her own were wavering uncertainly in front of her, her mind wandering in a haze, too vague to analyze the situation and shore up weak points against attack. It was not within her power to restore the balance of her relationship with Bog back to their careful friendship.

“I suppose I hate both seasons in equal portions,” Bog replied, “just in different ways. Are you cold?”

“No,” Marianne lied, folding the cloak over her hands to try and gather up a little more heat and stop the shivering, “It's a very good cloak.”

“Your prize.”

There was a question lurking there, in Bog's tone, in the way he laced his fingers and tapped his thumbs together.

“Yes,” she agreed, answering the question, “my prize.”

And nothing else.

Marianne felt miserable. Her throat was tight and a headache was building up pressure behind her eyes. Bog's cloak was a warm around her, but she was still shivering with the cold. The day had been a whirlwind of activity and now that she had a quiet moment to begin processing it she was overwhelmed. Mostly by self-loathing.

The room heaved up at the edges and Marianne tipped dangerously when she tried to turn a corner. Bog caught her from behind, hands under her elbows, keeping her upright.

“Tough girl, how much did you drink?”

“Not enough,” Marianne laughed, without any humor.

A sigh brushed the top of Marianne's head before Bog carefully guided her around to face him, “Here's your rooms, you tipsy lightweight.”

“I'm not drunk. Where are my guards?”

“They are drunk. And losing at dice.”

“I'm not lending them money again,” Marianne said vaguely, “They promised they wouldn't gamble anymore. Or for at least a week. I don't even know why I thought they would. I'm . . . I'm tired of broken promises.”

It had been Roland's broken promise that had led her down this path, to this moment. How often he had professed his love for her, feeding her honey-coated lies that she was so eager to accept. Someone who loved her, for all her faults, her clumsiness, her awkward nature. She found out in the end that Roland merely endured these things so that he could use her as a means to an end. It was then that she realized that there was nothing about her that could be loved save the promise of a crown.

She had accepted this. She had used it to her own advantage, forging ties for political gain and keeping her heart safely tucked away. An indifferent marriage, a useful tool. That was the promise she and Bog had made.

Why did she keep breaking that promise?

Tired and dizzy, Marianne was grateful for the way Bog's hands tightened on her arms.. She wanted to take her leave, but if she did she would be along with her thoughts and the shame of her blunder.

There was no reason Bog should love her.

There was no reason she should love him.

They had agreed.

“I . . .” Bog said, eyes cast the side in thought, “I keep my promises.”

Marianne's head was light and her thoughts unanchored, it took her a few moments to puzzle out Bog's meaning.

“You gave me my prize,” she looked down at the folds of the cloak over her arms, Bog's long fingers lost in the mottled weave.

“I promised.”

Marianne kept her head bowed. If she looked up now, would she see an expression of disdain? Or perhaps a sarcastic weariness of one who has suffered too much at the hands of an empty-headed fairy? If she kept her eyes down then Bog was only a shadow curved over her, his warmth near and holding some of the chill in her bones at bay.

She would not look up.

The world slammed back into place, the mist of fatigue clearing, when Bog pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her hair had been brushed aside by one knobbly finger, not touching her, but the warmth of it still felt on her skin.

She might have gasped. She definitely went bug-eyed. She couldn't process what was happening. Why Bog would make such a gesture. She tried to find the sting in this sweetness, and was not at all comforted when she could not immediately find it.

But . . . oh, it was nice.

Marianne stopped looking for danger and let everything else melt away when the kiss ended, eyes sliding shut to seal in the memory while it still retained its soft glow, before she had to look up and see Bog's face. For a moment, just for a moment, she could pretend that she was more then a cold metal crown, that past the crown there was something that could be loved.

The kiss, the loophole in a silly little wager, she accepted it gladly, almost imagining it meant something more. A giggle, an obnoxious little noise, escaped her. She was so relieved that the incident was being so easily shrugged off and tidied away as just another jest between them. Point to her, point to him, just a silly back and forth. Because it was nothing more than that.

“Marianne?” Bog asked from somewhere beyond Marianne's closed eyes, “Marianne, are you alright?”

Was the room spinning, or was she swaying in place again? She tipped forward and everything slipped away.

Nothing remained in Marianne's memory of what happened directly after that. Things skipped ahead to her laying in bed, the dizziness abating, Bog tucking blankets up to her chin. The topmost blanket gave off a faint smell of pine and leaves wet after the rain. It was Bog's cloak. He settled it a little better over her shoulders and she snuggled into it, the chill starting to melt from her bones. Sleep was just moments away.

Her eyes flew open when a forehead crowned with leaves gently pressed against her own. Bog's hand, wonderfully warm, was on the back of her neck to keep her steady. There were blue eyes, closer than they had ever willingly been in the last year, blocking out everything else.

The half-light of the garden, the eerie blue of the dungeons, the orange glow of the party . . . all drowned by the eyes as bright as a clear sky, untouched by the frost of winter. Nothing at all like those pinpoints of blue that had haunted her in nightmares of her fall through the primroses.

“I think you have a fever,” Bog said, sounding worried.

“Oh?” Marianne asked.

“Oh.”

All at once he realized how close they were, his eyes going wide. Marianne was sure she was similarly goggle-eyed with shock, but the sense of unreality hanging over her took the edge off. Most of her brain-power was redirected to thinking about how lovely Bog's eyes were, how he was so close. Willingly close. That was nice.

A kiss.

Everything had been cast in a glow as pink as primroses, the last of the cold banished from her and she had done something unbelievably stupid. In the present, the fog of fever cleared from her mind, Marianne wondered if it was possible to smother herself with a pillow.

“What is the matter with you now?”

Bog flinched when his mother spoke. He had thought the room was empty. For such a loud person his mother managed to pop up in the most unexpected places without being noticed until she wanted to be.

“Nothing,” Bog growled.

“Your wife is doing just fine, you know. Just a bit of a fever.”

The words were no comfort. Over the years Bog had watched many people eaten up by fever. A 'bit of a fever' was serious when the afflicted was overworked and half-starved. Like a spark falling into the crackling dry underbrush of summer, the slight illness easily turned deadly.

His mother knew this, Bog could tell. But she said the words anyway, in her brisk way that somehow bent reality around to her way of thinking. She never wallowed, she had no time. The way Bog dwelt on things, turning them around and around in his head, was not something she had ever quite understood, even if she had long ago accepted it. She let him sulk, as she said, then prodded him along when she thought he had done enough obsessing.

“I'm not worried.”

“Mmhm,” Griselda narrowed her small eyes so that they were smaller still, “I bet.”

“Not anymore,” Bog sighed. He couldn't deny he had been worried. Deeply worried. Possibly somewhat frantic. However, Marianne's fever had broken and everyone told Bog she would be fine.

Now he just felt guilty.

“It's my fault she got sick. Fighting in the snow. Letting her come with me and the patrol.”

“Bah. There's something else.”

“Isn't that enough?” Bog hunched himself over the papers he had been going through, trying not to think of what had happened or how it had been . . . very nice.

Marianne's request for a kiss had taken him completely by surprise and left him completely baffled. He had been certain that she had finally seen that he was . . . well, evil. Full of selfish greed and cruelty. How someone so valiant would waste their energy on a bitter coward who shied away from the blossoms of a primrose, Bog could not understand.

The moment Marianne spoke her wish Bog forgot where they were, the pressing crowd of his subjects watching their king, forgot who he was, and for a mad, impossible heartbeat he felt words of acceptance forming on his tongue. Yes. Gladly.

Fortunately, Marianne had immediately thought better of it and saved herself with a swift replacement.

Fortunately.

His misstep was to honor the original debt, being so presumptions as to believe that Marianne still wished it to be repaid. He just wanted to clear that sadness from her eyes. No, he just wanted an excuse to kiss her. Or maybe it was both. Whichever, it shouldn't have happened, and even after it had he should have left it at that. He should have handed Marianne over to the care of her handmaidens instead of helping her to bed himself.

And he certainly shouldnot have checked her temperature. It was obvious she was not well, that much was easily seen. All he had to do was fetch his mother and she would have taken in hand. His only excuse was that he was in the habit of checking the winter sprouts' temperature in the same way: pressing his forehead to theirs, hand on the back of their necks to keep them still.

Such was the force of habit that it took an absurdly long time to realize his thoughtless invasion of Marianne's space. Only when her the light caught her widening eyes, painting them gold, did he realize how close he had come without invitation. The back of her neck rested in his hand, the delicate bones pressing lightly under her skin. He felt the shift of her shoulders when she gasped and her muscles pulled tight.

Marianne's eyes were wide with realization and Bog knew that this would be followed by fear and horror. He knew that as an indisputable fact right up until the moment that Marianne kissed him.

He shouldn't have kissed her.

Marianne had been so close, her hands on his face, touching him not only without fear, but with affection. The wild abandon of the day was still with him, in some small measure. That day they had fought the cold grip of winter and won, snatching that family from its deadly hold. Pure elation had followed and Bog had felt that anything was possible.

Even someone being able to love him.

He had frozen in place when she kissed him, his instincts shutting him down, as if stillness would hide him from what was happening, like when he tucked himself under a leaf and held his breath until a bird passed by overhead.

The hurt on Marianne's face when her kiss was met with only stillness had been what doomed Bog to committing his grievous error. He wanted to do something to make that go away, and that want lined up nicely next to the very strong desire he had to kiss her.

So he kissed her.

Everything had gone rosy. Once invited, Marianne pulled him closer, even as he pulled her to him. Her lips against his, she let her fingers explore the layers of leaves that covered his head, trailing her hands down to his neck and pressing him closer still.

He couldn't breathe. He didn't know how to. He didn't mind.

His hand touching her face, matching up to where his fingerprints had marked her during their wedding, he couldn't believe how smooth her skin felt. None of the bumps or ridges that decorated a goblin's hide. Bog had often thought the fairies' sleek, indistinct features uncanny, but now he did not mind it. Not on Marianne. She was a fairy, yes, but that was part of who she was, of her beauty. He would not change her for all the amber in the forest.

Finally, it seemed to be time to breathe, and the kiss ended. Marianne had given him another, a sweet little kiss, like the first hadn't been quite enough. Then she settled against him, arms around him, her head tucked between his shoulder and the collar of his carapace.

“Was that so difficult?” She murmured.

It scared Bog that it had actually been so easy.

Marianne had fallen asleep and Bog had fallen into guilt.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bog's mother scattered the memory with the sound of her harsh voice, “maybe you're worried because you think you're responsible for getting her sick, but since when have you been moderate about worrying? Never. You like to be efficient and worry about at least ten things at a time.”

“Marianne's sister is coming,” Bog said, picking up the letter from Dawn, hoping to change the subject, “To check that we're not killing Marianne with our shoddy practice of medicine, no doubt.”

“Oh, that's nice! I finally get to meet the young lady who gave you all those flowers. But the girl coming isn't what's eating you. You've got the same guilty look you always had when I caught you stealing treats between meals.”

“Mom!”

“Did you two have another tiff?”

“We haven't had any tiffs.”

“Snapped at her again, did you?”

“No!”

“What then?”

“Mind your own business.”

“You are my business, boy. 'Fess up or I'll ask Marianne.”

“Don't you dare.”

“Oh, so something did happen. Look, whatever you said can't be totally unforgivable as long as you apologize right.”

This sensible little bit of wisdom just made Bog groan and drop his head onto the desk, squashing his nose. The problem was a mass of knotted threads that only pulled tight when he tried to unravel them. The simple solution would have been to cut it all out and be done with it. That would mean either Marianne going home as soon as possible, or Bog dealing with some things he'd rather not even acknowledge the existence of.

“That embarrassing? Well, it can't be that serious, then.”

Bog groaned again.

“Give it up, son, what did you do?”

The worst thing he could have done.

“I kissed her,” Bog mumbled into the top of his desk.

“Say what?”

Bog lifted his head, “I kissed her!”

That had come out louder than he intended, causing him to duck his head and clap his hand over his mouth, as if he could retroactively keep the words from being heard.

Griselda's face spread into a grin. In all his life Bog had never met a grin as wide as his mother's.

“No, mom, it's not a good thing.”

The grin did not falter.

“Mom, look--”

“Finally!”

“No!”

“You two have been dancing around since the end of autumn, it's about time--”

“I shouldn't have done it!”

Griselda's smile finally faded, but only so she could lift a quizzical brow at her son, “And why shouldn't you kiss your wife?”

Bog really hated how his mother phrased things. She swept aside all the reasons that should have been obvious, forcing Bog to actually say them out loud. Not that he didn't try to avoid that.

“You know why.”

“Do I? Refresh an old lady's memory.”

“She—she was sick. She had a fever. She didn't know what she was doing when she kissed me and I shouldn't have let her.”

“Oh, so she kissed you? Not surprising, really. Takes you forever to do things sometimes.”

“I shouldn't have let her! I knew her thinking was clouded by the fever, I knew her reasoning was compromised. She would never have—not if she hadn't been half asleep and already dreaming.”

“Careful you don't get tangled up in your own logic there, son. Suppose you haven't considered that maybe she just kissed you because she wanted to kiss you? Because, boy, she certainly did. You two are terrible at not being in love.”

“We aren't--!”

“Bah!”

“Look, the princess—Marianne—was not in the state for making decisions. I should have respected that. I should—I should have learned that by now.”

Griselda did not have an immediate answer for that. She knew that look in his eyes, the way he shrank in on himself. Not in the crouch of a hunting goblin, but of someone trying to fade out of the world, as if he offended it merely by existing.

“You're borrowing trouble, you know.”

It was beyond understanding. It should have been beyond imagining. That Marianne would look upon him with anything other than disgust. How could she not see him for what he was? Even if she looked beyond his appearance she should only have found an even worse ugliness. Yet by accident or subconscious design Bog had managed to hide this from her. And he pushed her away, to keep her from seeing it.

With trepidation Bog returned to visit Marianne now that her fever had broken. She still looked flushed, but felt well enough to complain about having to stay in bed. Nothing was said about recent events and Bog began to wonder—hope—that Marianne didn't remember what happened.

The conversation was stiff. That was probably because Marianne was tired.

Marianne sipped a spoonful of the soup Bog had brought her, trying to study Bog's face without drawing his attention. She was looking for any sign that the kiss had been anything other than a fever dream. It had not felt like a dream. At least, it hadn't until she was awake and face to face with Bog again, her conviction wavering when he made no mention of anything having happened between them.

There was a sinking feeling in Marianne's stomach when she considered the idea that she might have actually kissed Bog, but had made up the part where he kissed her back, and now Bog was tactfully remaining silent to spare her embarrassment.

“Two questions,” Marianne said, dropping the handle of her spoon onto the rim of the bowl with a sharp little clang.

She spoke so abruptly that Bog's wings twitched and he felt the instinctive urge to fly out of danger's path. Dread made his stomach turn. Marianne did remember, she remembered and was about to call him out on his disgraceful behavior.

“First,” Marianne held up a finger.

Bog stared at Marianne's index finger, feeling not unlike a prisoner awaiting the fall of an ax to separate his head from his shoulders.

“Have you poisoned my guards?”

“Ah . . . no?” Bog's words tangled up, caught in apologies that had stood on the tip of his tongue, tripping over each other when the conversation so abruptly swerved from it's expected path.

“It's just that they took shifts standing outside on guard and when Reen to lunch she was fine, but then came back looking like she was going to throw up. Then Glory went to eat and came back looking pretty much the same as Reen . . . and so on and so forth. I was wondering if this was the start of some convoluted assassination attempt.”

“Oh,” Bog might have laughed if his stomach wasn't churning, “They agreed to . . . evaluate the soup.”

Bog did smile when Marianne looked down at her own soup with suspicion, looking sharply back up at him to ask, “What's in this? It makes my mouth feel weird.”

“About three-quarters less cayenne than what was in the first batch. I wanted to make sure it wasn't too hot, just enough to warm you up. Is it not to your taste?”

“No, no, it's fine. I can actually taste it and I can't taste anything right now. But . . . cayenne?”

“Cayenne. Cayenne pepper?”

“Like . . . peppercorns?”

“Nothing like, actually. Honestly, what do fairies have against seasonings? It's a spice. A hot seasoning. Like chili peppers.”

“You eat chili peppers?”

“Why, what do you do with them?”

“They're—they're just an ornamental plant! They're supposed to be poisonous!”

“Poisonous? Ridiculous.”

“You killed my guards.”

“I did not kill your guards. They're just . . . a little singed. I wasn't sure how much cayenne would be too much. I cut the usual amount in half to start, but I wasn't aware of how little tolerance fairies have for anything that isn't made with a sugar base.”

“Our food is not that sweet, you're just a sour—wait. You cut the usual amount of half? Do you mean—you made the soup?”

The incredulous tone that pervaded Marianne's question made Bog prickle with resentment. Her response indicated that he had violated some fairy nicety in a shocking way but he couldn't see how.

“Yes,” Bog folded his arms and sat up straight, “and?”

A few seconds delay preceded Marianne's answer while she struggled to state the obvious without being rude. It would indeed be rude to say say something to the effect that Bog didn't have a face that looked like it belonged to someone who knew how to make soup.

“How—how do you even know how to make soup?” Marianne said weakly, to buy herself a little more time.

“I was taught, of course. One does not usually pick up cookery without the intention to do so.”

“Um.”

Marianne mentally backed up and searched for a different angle of approach. She was saved the trouble when Bog relaxed his offended pose and asked, “Is knowing how to make soup so strange in your kingdom?”

“Sort of. If you're royalty. I mean, the kings are too busy ruling and herding councilors to have time for homely little things like cooking. I wasn't supposed to ever go in the kitchens at all.”

“What, seriously? But . . . but . . .”

It was the rare goblin who did not have even rudimentary cooking skills, knowing at least how to cook tubers wrapped in leaves at the edges of the fire, or how to turn meat on the spit. Bog wondered how fairies had managed to survive while lacking such vital skills. They might not eat much meat, but a lot of plants still required preparation and cooking.

Bog decided to shelve the topic in the meantime, looking forward to Marianne's second question with great anxiety and hoping to get it over with. A swift end was always best. Or so he kept telling himself.

“I wasn't born a king, tough girl, and my education suffered for it.”

“Well, I was born a princess and my education suffered for it. It's good soup. Different. But good. Thank you for making it for me.”

It was a thoughtful gesture for Bog to have taken the trouble to personally make her something to help her cold. Marianne had a feeling that it was meant to show her he did not carry a grudge for her foolish slip.

“You had a second question?” Bog prompted, slumping down in his chair again, the point of his chest plate scratching slightly on the plates below. It was a mystery to Marianne how he ever found a way to sit comfortably in a permanent suit of armor.

“Yes,” Marianne's eyes slid to the book on the table, “Were you reading to me while I was sick?”

The even cadence of Bog's voice, blurred on the edges by his slight accent, rose and fell in the back of Marianne's mind like a song stuck in her head. The words did not matter, just the sound. It might have been her fever mixing and matching memories, tossing Bog's voice together with excerpts Dawn had read out loud from romance novels.

“Oh,” Bog wasn't sure if he was entirely grateful for another postponement, but he answered the question, “Yes. I hope you don't mind that I presumed . . . it seemed like it helped you rest more quietly, and . . .”

And he had just wanted to be near her, guarding her as if he could protect her from the illness if it pulled her too near the edge of life and death. He had known she was in no real danger, but his heart had been twisted by fear and haunted by the wraths of past winters. No amount of rational reasoning could ease his worry and he had come into Marianne's rooms uninvited.

“What were you reading?”

“This,” the pages of the book crackled when he took it off the table and handed it to Marianne.

“It is a fairy novel!”

Bog watched her long fingers flip through the brittle pages. Sometimes he marveled that such delicate looking hands had landed such a solid punch on his face.

“Windswept,” Marianne read the cover, “I can't believe—I mean, Dawn owns this book. And it's a romance. A romance!”

“I'm aware,” Bog huffed.

“But . . . why?”

Indignation had made Bog straighten his spine again. Marianne recognized his offense as being mainly pretense. If he were really upset with her he would curve over, head down and guard up. The way he had been alternating between slumping and sitting up straight told Marianne he was agitated. This seemed to be further evidence that her silliness had been more than wishful thinking caught by fever and painted over with convincing shades of reality.

“The charm of nostalgia,” Bog raised a hand as he shrugged one shoulder, “When I was young books were a scarcity. Argos didn't approve of the masses sharpening their wits with books and picking up bad habits like thinking. Such things might have been honed into blades and turned on him. What books we had, silly or not, were cherished.”

“I see.”

Marianne smoothed the pages, rippled with exposure to the damp, running her fingers across the ragged binding. There were notations scribbled into the margins, smeared pencil thoughts about unfamiliar turns of phrase. The last page was crammed with tiny writing and a remarkable number of question marks.

“What happened to the other pages? It's missing quite a few.”

“It entered my possession in such a state.”

“Huh. I guess it's just as well all these books end the same way.”

“At the time I wasn't aware of that. Drove me a bit mad, wondering how things turned out.”

Marianne squinted at the blurred writing on the final page. It seemed to be speculation about how the story progressed and ended.

“My mother says her mother would tell stories about the last Bog King's libraries.”

There was a faraway look in Bog's eyes that somehow made Marianne comfortable enough to settle back against her pillows. If his thoughts were cast back in time then they would not be dwelling on current events.

“What was the library like?”

The sprites had been flitting around, twitching the edges of blankets into place, brushing specks of dust off spotless furniture. Now they settled on Marianne's pillows, looking interested at the prospect of a story.

“It filled an entire tree stump. The floors were petrified wood, polished smooth, and the walls lined with slabs of stone.There were . . . so many books. History, textbooks, and stories too. They had more printing presses, and people who knew how to use them.”

The book was back in Bog's hands and he ran the tip of his claw over the neatly printed words.

“The building was lined with stone, and the wood treated to keep it from rotting or burning. I've often thought that would be a useful trick to know. It would be a blessing to this brittle old log. Not that any of those precautions were of any use when Argos had the library doused in oil and set alight.”

“Oh,” Marianne said, unable to find the words to express her regret for the loss. It was too big to fit in her head. Too impossible. Books and libraries, they were forever, harmless necessities that couldn't be done without, but paid no particular attention.

“I went once to see the ruin for myself,” Bog put the book back on the table, “Some of the walls and shelves can still be seen, under the new growth. Slabs of petrified wood here and there. The books are all ashes, of course.”

“All of them, just gone?” Marianne tried to think of where books would go if there was no library to house them.

“Oh, there's always a few brave souls who'll fight tooth and claw for the sake of a handful of crumbling pages. Hands can only carry so much and hiding places that are both safe and dry are too few. And, as Argos knew it would, survival became more important. Paper cannot be eaten, but it can at least fuel a fire and hold off the frost.”

The story had a wistful note, slightly detached. These were things Bog had not witnessed, only heard through stories even as he lived through their consequences. Marianne knew the story was a melancholy one but she couldn't help but find Bog's voice soothing when he discarded growling and spoke in that soft, natural way. It was like his laugh, suppressed and muffled beneath the front of the powerful, deadly king.

Once Bog had been a little boy, earnestly wringing every last bit of knowledge out of a fairy novel that had been made with the expectation that it would be read once and discarded once the little substance it contained was exhausted.

Marianne had forgotten her troubles for the moment while she thought over the snippets that Bog chose to share of his life. She might have reached for her journal to jot down notes if she didn't feel so tired and heavy. A cough rattled in her chest and Bog handed her a cup of water before she even reached toward the pitcher set next to her bed.

“How do fairies get through the winter?” Bog muttered.

“We manage. Hot air circulating under the floors . . . hot water in pipes . . . greenhouses.We have greenhouses. Made of glass. Have you seen them yet? They're all glass panes in thin metal frames . . . they look so delicate but they keep food and flowers growing in the winter. It's a shame it wouldn't work here. You'd need sunlight.”

“More than you'd find in the forest. It's beyond me how you can stand as much brightness as you do. It blinds you and dries you out. Fairies seem to thrive on it in spite of all reason. Then you polish everything up so the light doubles as it bounces off metal and mirrors, like you were trying to capture it to save for the darker seasons.”

“That'd be nice. I could use a little stored sunshine right now.”

This offhand remark reminded Bog of half-formed thoughts that had been plaguing him since the castle door was sealed for the winter and he saw the spark of panic in Marianne's eyes. He feared that the dark and cold weakened fairies, accustomed as they were to their cozy gilded castle. Flowers from the fields always whithered in the forest.

“I'll survive, Bog,” Marianne said, seeing the worry on her husband's face, “Light is just what I'm used to. Dark is fine too, once you live with it for while.”

Bog rather thought that his wife's last remark had more than one meaning.

“I'm told,” he said, “that things were a little brighter, as it were, in the forest before Argos.”

“Then you became king and brought some of it back.”

“That is . . . it is what I intended. There is a sadly large gap between intentions and results.”

Youth and righteous zeal had seen him well down the path to kingship. Blood and bitter anger had gotten him the rest of the way, delivering him to the throne room where Argos had sat, bloated with power and excess like some inflated toad. But strong yet. Strong enough to make the fight prolonged and wearing.

“Blood dims all things,” Bog twisted his hands together, feeling the warm blood growing cool and crusted in the seams of his armor.

“Dimmed your head enough to marry me,” Marianne made little lines in her fur blanket, parting the hairs in orderly rows. Bog's cloak had disappeared sometime between the kiss and her fever breaking.

Bog touched his head, where he had been wounded after he had flown-head first into a tree like some scramble-brained dragonfly, “Or maybe cleared some space. Enough to see that even the Dark Forest needs some light.”

Little as he might deserve it, his people still did. Light was dangerous and necessary, like it's source, fire. It had to be contained and handled with care or it would devour everything. Libraries, villages, lives, and hearts.

“But not too much?” Marianne asked, as if she glimpsed his thoughts.

She had a habit of doing that and sometimes it terrified Bog. What other hidden things did she see, stumbling into them like she had stumbled into the dungeons and found Sugar Plum.

“More than we had. My people need it. They need more than merely surviving for the sake of surviving. There needs to be something they are surviving for, time to . . . to build and grow. And just . . . silly things. Silly books, bad poetry, mistakes . . . room for mistakes. We can't afford mistakes now, for there might not be a chance to try again because one mistake might destroy us.”

No room for error, lives depended on it. He had to be sure of everything, minimize risks. Every time he had charged blindly in he had suffered for it. Primroses, there had been a mistake. He had thought he was taking a calculated risk. He had thought he was taking a calculated risk when a fairy princess charged into his kingdom, slammed him into a tree, then proposed marriage.

He shouldn't have taken her bargain. He thought he could keep a balance with light and dark. Thought he could keep the fire from burning them both.

“I want . . .” Bog thought of light coming through the primroses, “I want the children, the winter sprouts and all the rest, to grow up . . . more like you.”

“Me?”

“Like you, like Dawn. Healthy, safe, educated. Have time for flowers and books. Rich enough for leisure.”

The sincerity and weariness that mingled in Bog's words made Marianne's already watery eyes sting with the threat of tears. It was beyond understanding how Bog couldn't see how admirable a king he was. He hadn't even inherited the throne, he had sought it out and deposed a tyrant for the sake of the people of the forest. There was no obligation that kept him bound to shoulder the burdens of ruling a starving kingdom and caring for it's orphans.

A detail struck Marianne as contradictory, and she asked, “The last king, the one you deposed--”

“Killed.”

“Yes, killed. His name was Argos?”

“Yes.”

“But you call the king before him the Bog King.”

“Of course.”

“Don't give me 'of course'. You can be disdainful of my ignorance when you can recite the family tree of fairy royalty back ten generations while keeping names, titles, and ranks all organized in your head.”

“Of course,” Bog said again, with a great show of meekness.

“Hmph,” Marianne sniffled, “If the royal line of the Dark Forest isn't hereditary, why are you called the Bog King? Did Griselda just have really good foresight about naming you?”

“Ha, no. You see . . . this is complicated to explain. It isn't something that often needs to be explained.”

“Enlighten a shockingly ignorant fairy,” Marianne commanded as regally as she could manage while her nose was stuffed up.

“The ruler of the Dark Forest is always called the Bog King.”

“So, it's a title?”

“No. Yes. In its way. The king relinquishes the name he was given and takes the name of the Bog King. Argos refused to let go of his own name. It was a declaration of his greed, because when you take on the duties of king you aren't . . . your time isn't your own. Your life isn't your own. So you give up your name and become king to serve your people. Argos did not see himself as serving anyone.”

“Huh. Argos sounds perfectly charming. But, wait . . . your name isn't Bog? I—we—you—we're married and I don't even know your actual name?”

Her outburst started up her cough again and once it started she found it hard to stop and it bent her double.

“Hey, hey,” Bog's voice sounded panicked, but his movements were steady. He put a hand on her back to support her as he gently guided her back into the pillows, “I'm going to get you more tea.”

“You can't just leave without even giving your name,” she said, voice broken up by the cough.

Bog's hand on her back made her remember how he had held her during that kiss. She wanted him to go so she didn't have to think about it. She wanted him to stay so she could find out what was fact and what was dream.

“You already have it.”

“I mean your real name.”

“It's more real than any name I may have had before it,” Bog stepped back, but only to pull his chair closer to the bed.

Satisfied that Bog wasn't going to run off, Marianne rolled around to lean on her shoulder and let her wings stretch out a little behind her.

“Now you're just teasing me,” Marianne said, “Teasing your poor queen when her health is so delicate. I have a right to know, you know. What is it?”

Bog laced his fingers together and leaned over them, bowing his head low enough that he had to lift his eyes a little to look at Marianne. There was no playfulness in those blue eyes. His face was serious, arranged in the expression of someone discussing things too important to be taken lightly.

“It doesn't exist anymore. That name is gone.”

“Very dramatic,” Marianne said, taking it lightly all the same. It was easier to be silly than serious when she was snuggled up in a nest of blankets, “I appreciate the symbolism, very powerful stuff. But I think--”

“Marianne, I don't know it.”

“Don't know what?”

“The name I gave up. I don't know it.”

“I . . . I don't follow.”

“It isn't symbolism. That name was given up entirely, the memory of it cut out of me and everyone who ever knew it. You cannot pick up the scepter of king without putting down everything else, and this way I could not go back even if I wanted to. I am the Bog King, and all my honorable predecessors were the Bog King.

Propped up on her elbow, Marianne looked at Bog with a confused frown puckering a line between her eyebrows, “How can you even do that?”

“Magic. Sugar Plum and her like have had their uses.”

“You don't have a name?”

“I do! The Bog King. That's my name. That's who I am. That's me.”

The knuckles of Bog's hands strained against his skin as he twisted his hands tightly together. A slight lift of his shoulders and flicker of his wings showed his anger plainly, but his eyes were directed at the floor and not at Marianne. He wasn't speaking to her, he was speaking to the memory of people who had challenge his right to rule and tried to take away his name.

He was the Bog King. That was what he wore around himself, an armor over armor, to keep the ugliness of his heart sealed away. He was the Bog King and he was nothing else.

Marianne felt that this was information she should be recording in her journal, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out how she would write the baffling tradition down in a way that made sense. The messy method of Dark Forest succession was foreign enough, never mind the idea of giving up your name, your previous life, so completely.

In the light fields the children of the royal line were brought up so that their titles were intrinsic to who they were as people. The crown had rested on Marianne's head since she was born the first child of the king. But her name was her name, hers whether she took the throne or renounced it. When her rule began she would exchange the title of princess for the title of queen, discarding nothing in the process. The crown, the education that prepared her to rule, they had all been handed to her.

Bog had fought a brutal war to pull the crown from the grasp of a greedy tyrant and the reward for this was to be stripped of his name and wear only the title of king. It seemed that Bog didn't even think he had the right to anything besides his duty to his kingdom. Really, his only indulgence seemed to be his hatred for primroses and all they represented.

Marianne didn't think she could ever make such a sacrifice.

The very tip of two fingers touched Bog's knuckles, resting there like a fallen feather, the rest of the hand curled away with gentle caution. Just a touch, just enough to snap the cord of tension wrapped around him and make him look up.

“So, can I keep on calling you 'Bog', then? I've always thought of it as your name . . .”

“Yes. Yes, that would be fine.”

It had only ever been the fairies who treated his title like a name. There had not been many people in his life that were in a position to want to call him by name. There was only his mother, really, and she refused to use his title at all. To her he was always 'son'.

“Good. Bog?”

“Yes?”

“You're amazing.”

“What?”

“You gave up your own name and there was no reason you had to. But you did it, you've done so much at the cost of yourself to help this kingdom. You even married a flighty fairy princess for a chance at trade.”

Bog didn't know how to classify the last item, but he wouldn't have called it a sacrifice.

“You're amazing, Bog. Why can't you see it?”

Bog released a shuddering breath and took the hand that was hovering just above his. He let his forehead lay on the back of Marianne's hand, his fingers wrapped around the petal sleeve of her nightdress.

This wasn't allowed.

He wasn't allowed to have this. Comfort. Understanding. Love. Not a creature like him.

“Why can't you see I'm not?” Bog said, voice cracking because Marianne didn't pull away. He wanted so much to accept her love. To love her in return, “Why can't you just see me?”

“Bog, I do.”

“You don't!” he released her hand and stood up so quickly he had to buzz his wings to keep himself from falling over. Still, he tripped over the chair and had to grab it before he flung himself into a wall. He stood there, wanting to carve angry white lines into the wood, trying to breathe, trying not to cry when he said, softly, “If you did you wouldn't be able to stand looking at me.”

“Bog--”

“I'm sorry. I'm going.”

“Bog, wait,” Marianne shoved back the blankets and slipped out of bed, the floor cold under her feet, desperation forcing out a question, “I kissed you, didn't I? Did you . . .?”

“You were sick,” Bog said, “It shouldn't have happened. We won't . . . we won't talk about it.”

“But did you--?”

Bog paused, facing the door, hand on the knob. Marianne thought he might turn back around. But he only stopped long enough to say, just above a whisper:

“I'm sorry.”

And then he was gone.

Marianne snatched the book off the table and hurled it at the closed door, a few pages fluttering loose on impact.

“Idiot. You ruin everything.”

Marianne wasn't sure which one of them she was talking about.

Chapter Text

“Boggy!”

It was not with the most receptive frame of mind that Bog greeted his sister-in-law. Dawn took no notice of his mood, barreling into him with a small shriek of delight.

“Hello, fluffy,” Bog said, resigned to the inevitable manhandling that came with the princess's affection, “I'm surprised Dagda let you come.”

“Dad thinks I can convince Marianne to come home,” Dawn laughed, finally releasing Bog.

Considering Bog's last conversation with his wife, he couldn't imagine that Dawn had been set a very hard task. Dawn and her party thrust their way into the castle like sunlight through the trees, sending the creatures of dark and dreams back into the shadows. The people of light were here to rescue their princess and she would gladly be reclaimed. Bog had no intention of trying to persuade Marianne to stay.

This resolution was tested when Bog caught sight of the blonde fairy guard strutting his way to the head of the gaggle of fairies to make an elaborate bow. Bog stepped forward, making sure the light of the lamps was behind him so that his sight was clear and that his shadow fell over the fairy.

Roland rose from his bow with less grace than when he had swept into it, eyes squinting at the king's obscured silhouette.

“What,” Bog asked the princess, “is this doing here?”

“Your majesty--” Roland began, infusing his words and manner with sickening charm and confidence.

“I was talking to the princess,” Bog snapped, sweeping his scepter to the side and cutting the guard off mid-sentence. The ingratiating smile on the guard's face became a little fixed and unnatural when his eyes uneasily followed the scepter's path.

“Forgive me, your--”

A sharp look from Bog cut Roland off again.

“If you'll come this way, princess,” Bog gave her a small bow, “we can talk privately.”

“Your majesty, I must insist--”

Bog had little enough patience to start with, even before the last few days had exhausted it. He turned on Roland, cloak sweeping behind him. He shoved his face in front of the guard's. Roland cringed, charm gone and replaced by open disgust at such a close view of Bog's face.

“What,” Bog asked, dragging the end of his scepter along the floor until it rested firmly by his feet, “is it that you must insist?”

The grating noise of the scepter across the floor had made the fairy cringe again, but he made an effort to recover himself when Bog finally stepped back.

“It was only . . .” he cast a look behind him at the other fairies that had accompanied the princess Dawn on the journey. Most of them looked nervous, some even frightened, but all of them looked scandalized at the goblin king's behavior. Roland seemed to gather encouragement from this, throwing back his shoulders and producing another gleaming smile.

“Bog King, I have been charged by King Dagda of the fields to deliver a message to you concerning the princess Marianne, after which I would see the princess immediately.”

The goblins in the throne room raised a soft growl of protest at the wording. Bog raised a hand and all fell silent.

“You forget where you are, messenger,” Bog swept a hand at the crumbling glory of the castle, “while you are here you are speaking of the queen.”

“You must forgive me, sire,” Roland waved a hand as he sketched a bow so slight that it was insulting, “for we who love Marianne have always, and always will, look upon her as our princess, above all else.”

“You should adjust yourselves to the change, for she will be queen of both kingdoms one day. The respect you show her should reflect that.”

“Sire, it is our respect and love--”

Bog was certain Roland was using that word as much as possible.

“--that bring us here to see for ourselves that our beloved princess is not suffering from the harsh winter, away from her home and her people.”

This jab backfired, making the goblins bristle at the insult.

“Not that we assume you, sire, are lacking in hospitality,” Roland hurried on, “or your castle in comfort.”

Several of the fairies sniggered.

“King Dagda, has every confidence in the safety and comfort of the princess in her visit to your kingdom, and his only concern is that of a father missing his daughter and wishing to see her again. His majesty wishes to inquire if his daughter would be ready to travel and return home with our party. And so I request an immediate audience with the princess, so that she can begin the arrangements for her departure.”

Bog did not let himself think about how eagerly Marianne would leave, even if she had to travel with Roland. Now was not the time for those sort of thoughts, not when half the castle was gathered around to watch their king deal with the fairies.

The primping creature did love an audience, Bog noted, not for the first time. Roland knew how to work a crowd. But only if the crowd were comprised entirely of fairies. In the few encounters Bog had endured, he had always been at the disadvantage of being in enemy territory and outnumbered.

Not this time.

And under the right circumstances Bog too loved an audience.

“The queen,” Bog's emphasis prompted a general murmuring of approval from his people, “will be told of your message.”

“Excellent!” Roland stepped forward, obviously with the expectation of being shown to Marianne's rooms immediately.

Bog blocked the way with his scepter.

“The queen will be told of the message,” Bog repeated, “and will send a reply to you at a time of her own choosing. You will wait here until she sends word indicating how she wants you disposed of.”

There was no doubt that Marianne would want to leave. There was also no doubt that she would be enraged to be at Roland's beck and call. Bog might have hurt her beyond forgiveness, but her could still do her the small service of keeping the yellow slug in his place.

“You'll have to forgive me,” Roland pushed the staff away with one finger, “I was told to deliver the message to the princess personally to make sure there is no miscommunication and to appraise her condition so that I may make a full report to the king.”

Bog planted the staff back into place with a bang.

The fairies flinched.

The goblins chuckled.

“Your insolence will only be suffered for so long, messenger. The Queen of the Dark Forest is not subject to your command, or even the command of her father, if she choses. Your message will be delivered. I cannot speak for the queen, I cannot tell you when, or if, she will see you. Know your place.”

“My place is fulfilling the king's commands, sire! If I am turned away at the door, how can I reassure him that the princess is well and happy, or staying here through her own choice--”

The snarls of the watching goblins drowned out the last few words of Roland's protest. The fairies were reaching for their swords, the goblins clawed at the floor.

Bog waited for the noise to die down enough so he could be heard when he spoke again. He leaned over Roland, knowing how he was a ragged shadow while the would-be hero was smooth and shining. The shadow was not the hero, the shadow was the villain and villains had no need for niceties.

“Messenger,” Bog rumbled, tapping a claw on Roland's chest, “if you once more use your clever little tongue to imply slanderous falsehood I will do you the favor of cutting it off at the root.”

There was a sharp screech. Bog's claw had cut a silver line through the green of Roland's armor.

The look on the gaudy little fool's face was unspeakably satisfying.

“Enough!”

Dawn swept between the two of them, cloak pushed back and hands on her hips. She jabbed a finger at Roland's scarred chest.

Bog jolted back, as if he had been dreaming. He remembered that his audience included a fairy envoy and that he shouldn't have indulged himself by terrorizing Roland. Yes, the primping fool was in need of being put in his place, but not at the cost of alienating the rest of the court. He could only imagine the horrified reports that would be taken back to the fields.

Still. That had been most enjoyable.

Dawn was in fine form, looking so displeased that the fairies grew visibly uncomfortable.

“That is absolutely enough. I can give Marianne the message and I can tell dad what's what. You just need to wait here for me and stop being so rude and insinuating. We are guests here, please remember, and we are not going to abuse the hospitality given to us by the king and queen.”

“Sweetheart,” Roland shook his head, as if laughing over the hopeless simplicity of a child. He seemed recovered from his fright now that he was on familiar ground again. “You don't understand--”

“That,” Dawn jabbed her finger again, “is not the point. The point is that this is the Bog King's land and his castle, which he shares with his wife and queen. Yo u have no right to interfere in how they do things. And even if I were a hopeless idiot I am still princess and you are still just a guard! What I say goes. Now, Boggy?”

Bog didn't even bother to correct her. The goblins were hooting with delight over this turn of events while the fairies looked uncomfortable and guilty.

“Yes, your highness?”

“I'd like to see my sister now, if she will receive me.”

“I have been assured she will.”

“Thank you.”

Dawn accepted the arm Bog offered to her and he led her out of the throne room.

It was easy to forget most of the time, he thought, that Dawn and Marianne were sisters, but when family resemblance did arise it is was striking.

Dawn breezed through Marianne's rooms, opening all the doors so the closeness of the castle was alleviated to some small degree. Over the fire in the little private sitting room Dawn brewed some of the tea she had brought with her which spread the warm scent of home.

The night had been long and uncomfortable for Marianne. She was still dragged down by her fading cold, but restless with inactivity and anxiety. When she did sleep it was a heavy, unrestful sleep. Throughout the night she would regularly wake up with a gasp and a jerk, startled by dreams she couldn't remember.

Morning found Marianne with dark circles stamped under her eyes and a fretful edge on her mood. She knew that the visiting fairies—Roland included—could only be ignored so long without taking offense, or starting rumors that Marianne was kept under lock and key by her goblin husband and forbidden to communicate with her own people.

Nor could she put off figuring out a plausible reason for leaving that would not cause offense to the Dark Forest. Because she was leaving. Bog didn't want her here and, more importantly, Marianne didn't want to be here.

“So,” Dawn sat down on the foot of Marianne's bed and bounced up and down to test the mattress, “You're a total mess.”

Marianne could not disagree with this assessment.

“I'm allowed to be. I'm sick.”

“It's not just that. From what Griselda tells me . . .”

Marianne found the thought of Dawn and Griselda conspiring to be unsettling. And they had had plenty of time to do it, Dawn roaming the castle throughout the day, making herself acquainted with her brother-in-law's domain.

Several of the winter sprouts had popped in to visit Marianne and show off the flower crowns that Dawn had made for them. Dawn had seen fit to bring a whole trunk of flowers and set about decorating Marianne's room with them, showering the excess on any goblins she came across in her tour of the castle.

Bee and Flo were decked out in flowers while they built a blanket fort out of covers stolen from Marianne's bed. They had both come down with the sniffles too and Griselda had asked to put them in Marianne's rooms. “So that I don't have to trudge from one end of the castle to the other to check up on all of you.” The number of sick sprouts invading Marianne's rooms was slowly growing and while Dawn bounced up and down on the bed, Marianne had a roly poly little sprout snuggled at her side and a prickly little fellow wedged behind her pillows.

“What exactly does Griselda tell you?” Marianne delicately removed the edge of her wing from the winter sprout's claws as he kicked in his sleep.

“Lots of things. That you and Bog made a complete spectacle of yourselves by trying to kill each other in the snow. Which I did not expect to happen, but I don't find at all surprising.”

“Hmph,” Marianne slid down on the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin. The sprout behind the pillows squeaked.

“And apparently violence helps you work through your problems because you two started being all friendly and flirty again.”

“We don't—we have never--”

“Um, yes you did? Like, all the time before you broke up.”

“We didn't 'break up'. We were never together! Not like that!”

“But you want to be. You want to smooch and hold hands and raise adorable adopted goblin babies together. You were, like, halfway there last year. Then you weren't. And, as is the new norm for Warrior Princess Marianne, you won't tell me what happened.”

“I--”

“Can't? Just like with the Roland thing. You always refuse to talk about the important things! How am I supposed to be a good sister and help you figure things out if you won't communicate?”

Dawn flopped dramatically across the bed.

“There isn't anything important to talk about,” Marianne insisted, pulling her hand away from the sprout that was trying to chew her fingers, giving him a mouthful of blanket instead.

“You have obviously experienced emotional trauma and that is important,” Dawn sat up and took Marianne's face in her hands, “your feelings are very important and you deserve happiness and if you disagree with me I will have your sword melted down and made into silverware.”

“You wouldn't dare. Besides there really isn't--”

Dawn smushed her forehead into Marianne's, “Foul, filthy lies.”

Disgusted by all the noise and movement, the sprout finally pulled himself out of the bed and dropped onto the floor with a squeak before pattering away to where Bee and Flo were playing in the outer room. The sprout behind the pillows snored loudly.

“You are a captive, trapped in your bed, forced to talk about your feelings.”

“Get off!” Marianne pushed Dawn away, “I'm sick, don't bully me! I'm getting up!”

“Nope!” Dawn dropped herself across Marianne's stomach, her wing covering Marianne's face, “Time for feelings.”

“I don't have feelings!”

Dawn burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she had difficulty breathing and gave an explosive snort. It was so abrupt and ridiculous that Marianne started laughing too. It hurt, because she did not want to laugh. She had been taking care to hold herself together in front of Dawn and had not dared to risk the paper-thin facade with any extreme emotions. Because Marianne knew that if she felt anything she would feel everything.

From one breath to the next Marianne's laughter turned into a choking sob.

“Marianne? Oh, Marianne!” Dawn rolled over and tangled her sister in a hug, “What has Bog been doing?”

An overpowering need to be comforted kept Marianne from rejecting Dawn's hug and turning away to hide her tears. It was weakness to break down like this, especially in front of Dawn. Marianne was supposed to be the one who protected Dawn. Right now, though, so tired and sick, Marianne just wanted to be held.

It such such a relief to let go. Even if she hated being weak in front of Dawn, Marianne still knew she was safe. Her tears wouldn't be used against her, no one would say she was overreacting, hysterical. No one was watching.

In the fairy court everyone was watching. Casting disapproving looks at their wild princess that Marianne did her best to ignore, and when she couldn't she could at least make sure they didn't see that she felt the sting. She could not let her guard down, otherwise she would be tripped up by Roland and his kind.

In the Dark Forest Marianne was a representative of her people and had to strive to make a good impression. She had to be strong, decisive, willing to work hard without complaint so no one could call her a frail fairy.

Dawn . . . Dawn expected none of that. Dawn expected a big sister that hovered and worried and did her best to protect her, who went off on wild adventures and got married to a goblin king. She expected madness, chaos, and accepted the fact that this was how Marianne lived her life.

There was no princess, no queen, no warrior, there was only Marianne.

“It isn't Bog's fault,” Marianne said between sharp, painful breaths, “It's me . . . it's everything . . . it isn't his fault that I love him . . .”

She had said it. Finally said it. Somehow it felt like the world should have paused to take notice of this. It didn't. The sprout behind her pillows continued to snore, Flo was buzzing out giggles in the other room. The world was indifferent to Marianne's feelings. It was her own shortcomings that kept her from being indifferent too. Instead it hurt.

A fragmented account of the disastrous kiss was cried out onto Dawn's shoulder, interspersed with snippets of how afraid they had all been about the family trapped in the snow, Sugar Plum in the dungeon and how for a moment Marianne was scared of Bog, even a brief sketch of the almost kiss in the garden. And how Marianne tried and tried, but she was never going to be everything a queen of two kingdoms needed to be. Everything she had been holding inside and keeping secret came out of her in one sob after another.

“I am going to flatten Bog's nose,” Dawn vowed, having understood only about half of what Marianne told her, but enough to get an idea of what had been going on between her sister and brother-in-law.

“It's not his fault,” Marianne shook her head, “It's me. I make all the wrong choices, I've let him down, I'm letting everyone down. Peace and cooperation between the two kingdoms, it's so important, but I can't even keep peace with Bog--”

“I don't care! Bog made you cry and he needs to pay! I need a stick so I can pound a few facts into his dumb salad head! He's your husband and he needs to start treating you right.”

“It . . . it doesn't work like that. It's not a marriage, it's an alliance of two kingdoms. He married me for my crown and I married him for his. There's no other reason he—or anyone else—would even consider looking at me twice.”

Dawn gasped.

“You take that back, Marianne!”

“It's true! Everyone needs me to be things I'm not, because they don't like me. They like my crown, that I'm a princess, nobody cares what I am beyond that. So I'm stronger alone, because the only way I can be myself is if I'm alone!” Marianne leaned her head back and blinked away tears, “I don't need anyone. I'm not weak.”

Dawn administered another hug to her sister, “There is so much stupid in what you just said that I don't even know where to start. Anyone who doesn't think you're absolutely fantastic needs their nose tweaked. Like I'm gonna do to Bog.”

The thought of Dawn pinching Bog's long nose and the disconcerted look that would no doubt be on his face made Marianne cough out a brief laugh.

“You have the worst luck with guys,” Dawn sighed, rocking Marianne back and forth.

“No. It's not Bog's fault that he doesn't love me. My feelings are my problem.”

“Please, if he doesn't love you then he's been leading you on. And I'm not so sure he doesn't. I've seen him look at you—before you broke up. He looked at you like he can't believe someone so incredible exists.”

Marianne could only shake her head. Maybe Bog had liked her, but that was before he knew her very well. On further acquaintance he had changed his opinion, and not for the better.

“You need cookies,” Dawn decided, lifting up Marianne's face and wiping away tears with a rose petal handkerchief one of the handmaidens dropped into her hand, “And tea. You'll see sense once you've got something warm in your stomach.”

“I'm drowning in tea,” Marianne said thickly, “Everyone wants to pour tea and soup into me until I'm sloshing with it.”

“Well,” Dawn hopped off the bed, “if you insist on dueling in the cold and then running off to heroically dig a hole in the snow, you could at least fit in a few cups of tea and and a couple of minutes quiet here and there in your schedule. Now you have to catch up all at once. This is the price you pay for a disgraceful lack of moderation.”

A cup of tea and five minutes peace. Marianne and Bog hadn't even managed to fit that into their schedules, and now Marianne was plagued by an endless parade of tea mugs and more empty time than she could fill. It had been shaping up to be such a nice winter. Lots to do. Lots of useful things to do. No one expected her to don finery and sit around looking regally ornamental, speaking in modulated tones and keeping her temper in check. Now that was all ruined and Marianne was reduced to a useless lump that everyone poured tea into. At least she didn't have to be regal, Marianne thought, running a hand through the tangle of her hair, which she had not allowed the handmaidens to comb.

Dawn took the kettle to the fire in the reception area, tiptoeing around Bee, who was laying on her back and basking in the warmth.

“We are going to have a nice long talk,” Dawn said, “and I am going to tell you how lovable you are, even when you look dreadful.”

“You have a way with words.”

“Oh, let's put on your makeup! That'll make you feel better, once you've got your face on. And I brought you some books to read while you get better. I thought you might need some entertainment.”

Dawn left the kettle over the fire and opened on of the boxes she had brought with her. She gathered up an armload of books and dumped them on the bed.

“Well, where the entertainment?” Marianne asked, seeing the flashy covers of the books and realizing they had all been taken from Dawn's personal collection of sentimental garbage.

“Oh, ha ha.”

“You might as well have left them at home, we'll both be there soon enough.”

“Aw, don't be like that!

Marianne knew they were going home. She would remove her unwelcome presence from Bog's castle and hopefully maintain the chilly cooperation they had established in the past year. It meant having to travel back with Roland, which was an extremely distasteful idea, but at least it was an annoyance and not a sorrow.

“Why don't you read one while I get tea,” Dawn picked a book out of the pile, “this one has lots of sword fights.”

“Do any women sword fight?”

“Um, no, actually.”

“Then no thanks.”

Marianne turned over the books, her head full of unhappy thoughts about the sound of Bog's voice weaving into her dreams while he read from a tattered, old, very precious book. She couldn't remember how that particular story ended. No doubt it was with the hero and heroine embracing and swearing grand promises of love and eternal devotion. They always did. Still, she wouldn't have minded specifics.

“Wait,” Marianne wiped the back of her hand across her sore eyes, clearing her vision a little, “Wait . . .”

She rifled through the jumble of books, a half-formed thought compelling her to look for something that probably wasn't there.

But it was.

An almost pristine copy of Windswept.

It's world-worn sister lay in a drawer, the loose pages slipped carefully back into place while it waited for Bog to come back and fetch it. The forlorn book would have to wait until after Marianne left, because it was certain that Bog would not be visiting her rooms while she was still in them.

“Oh, that's a pretty good one,” Dawn looked at Marianne's chosen book when she returned with tea and a plate of cookies, “I cried at the ending.”

“You cry at all the endings.”

“True.”

“Did you . . . would it be okay if I took this, to keep? There's somebody who would like it, I think, unless you don't want to give it away?”

“Oh, sure! I can always get another copy.”

“Yes, I guess you could.”

So easy. Get another copy, just like that. They truly did live in a wealthy kingdom.

Marianne leaned over and put the book in the drawer with Bog's copy. She would give them to Griselda before she left, to spare Bog the trouble of having to see his unwanted fairy wife again.

She wished she could see his face when he saw the silly book, watch him flip to the pages where his copy had ended, his eyes taking in the white pages and empty margins. Maybe he would skim the pages then and there, answering the trivial little mystery of his youth. Maybe, if things had been different, he would pick up where he left off reading to her and she would listen to the fierce, terrifying Bog King read the sappy romance to her in that soft, accented voice.

Anyway, Marianne put down the book and that train of thought, it was nice to think that Bog would finally get to read the end of the story.

Dawn always cried over the end of stories, happy or sad, because the story was over and that little world was closed. Marianne was rather beginning to see Dawn's point of view about endings.

“Look,” Dawn said, pulling a shawl around Marianne's shoulders, “I can't speak for Bog's feelings. I mean, my record for noticing how people feel has been kind of atrocious.”

“Poor Sunny.”

“Yeah, exactly. Anyway, in my opinion Bog's besotted. And if he's not then he's an idiot. You're brave and strong and smart and you love really hard. You deserve someone who appreciates that.”

“I didn't—I don't want anybody. I didn't mean . . . for any of this . . .”

“But it happened. Warrior Princess Marianne fell in love and fell hard. And I think you two are a good match, if you can just get yourselves sorted out. You two have gotta sit down and talk.”

“We don't need to talk, I already know--”

“Oh, do you?” Dawn poked her sister's nose, “What has Bog said about all this, then?”

“He—he didn't exactly . . . he made it clear enough--”

“Nope! Not good enough! You gotta talk to Bog before we leave.”

Marianne saw the primroses crawling with shadows of unknown horrors. She had faced that fear, she had conquered it. She had to conquer this one too. Find out once and for all what was beyond the primroses. Good or bad, she needed to hear Bog say it out loud. And she had her own share of things that needed saying. She took a deep breath, preparing for the plunge into the unknown.

“I do,” she agreed, “I will.”

“Good!” Dawn squished Marianne in another hug, “I'm betting on an outcome that involves a lot of canoodling.”

Marianne smacked her with one of the romance novels.

The Winter Sprouts romped in the throne room, petals drifting free of the flowers given to him by the younger fairy princess. The sight of flowers in winter made Bog uneasy. It was unnatural. It also reminded him of confronting Marianne in the dungeons when she had so nearly found out everything he wanted to keep from her.

Yet, he did want her to know. She would finally see him as he was and stop being hurt when she tried to care about him. It would be best if she knew, let it be over with one blow instead of a thousand tiny needles drawing one drop of blood at a time over an agonizingly long period. It gave false hope, for the wounds were minor, the pain little, recovery possible. Until the next jab, the next drop, never time to heal.

But he didn't want her to know.

All day he waited for Dawn or one of her entourage to visit him to discuss the details of Marianne's return home.

No one came.

He spent some time prowling the corridors near Marianne's rooms to discourage any of the ingratiating slug's attempts to go where he was not invited. Perhaps Bog could finally find a legitimate reason to throw Roland out into the snow.

Roland must have anticipated something of the sort and remained in the room he had been shown to. Perhaps he had decided against alienating royalty of both kingdoms through any foolish tricks. Or perhaps he was merely preparing himself for a renewed attack on the next day. Either way, Bog had no one to take his anger out on except a few hapless goblin guards who got in his way while he stalked his way through the castle.

Once he had exhausted every excuse to be up and about, Bog reluctantly returned to his rooms for the night. The family that had been dug out from under the snow had been squeezed in with another family for the winter and were making the best of things. The fairies were safely tucked away for the moment, and the winter sprouts had been been put to bed. How long either the fairies or sprouts would stay where they had been put, that was up for debate.

Resigned to facing his empty rooms and being alone with his thoughts, Bog at least looked forward to the quiet dark where he could rest his tired eyes and ears.

Which made him tense up when he saw the glow of lamplight seeping through the crack under his door, and smelled the scent of flowers in the air.

Fairies.

Come to garner favor or pick a fight?

Bog felt more than a little foolish when he flung open the door, expecting to confront Roland or his cronies, but instead found the princess Dawn examining the bits and pieces on the shelf over his desk.

“There you are,” Dawn said, not at all bothered that she had been caught snooping, “I was wondering if you'd come back at all tonight. If I had known you were going to keep the boutonnières I would have made sure they were treated to last.”

She waved her hand at the dried flowers lined up in an orderly row on the shelf.

It was embarrassing to have been caught being sentimental, but any blushes Bog might have suffered were supplanted by dread.

The fluffy little princess was here to say Marianne was ready to leave.

To go home.

Because Marianne's home was not here. Not in the castle, not in the forest, and certainly not with Bog. She had looked so lost and alone among her own people, he had thought that if he could just bring her into the forest she would find the same solace he did.

“Hello, princess,” Bog said, leaning his staff at the desk and hanging his cloak by the door.

“Sit down, please, Boggy,” Dawn had brought a stool with her so she could sit by his desk while still leaving Bog's own chair for him.

“All the arrangements for your return to the fields can begin first thing in the morning, there will be no problem. We can discuss it all then.”

“Bog,” Dawn said, folding her arms, “sit down.”

He sat.

Dawn sat down herself, smoothing her skirt and wings, “I want to talk to you about your behavior toward my sister.”

“I--”

Dawn held up a finger, silencing him.

“Now, this seems a silly question to ask at this point, but what are your intentions toward Marianne?”

Bog was thrown by the question. That was happening a lot, as of late. Nobody wanted to react as Bog expected them to, so all the answers he composed anxiously in his head never got to be used and all his efforts were wasted.

“I don't . . . understand the question?”

“Where do you want your relationship with my sister to go? Because I can't figure out what you're at, with all this back and forth.”

Bog's stomach sank.

Marianne had told her about the kiss that shouldn't have happened. How much hurt and disgust there must have been in her story.

“I did not intend--”

“I don't care about what you didn't intend. I want to know what you do intend. Where are you going from here? Are you just going to ignore what happened and make both of you miserable again?”

“Haven't I don't enough already? I don't intend to annoy her again.”

“You're annoying her right now! Look, answer me this,” Dawn stood up, grasped the edge of the armrests of Bog's chair and leaned so close that Bog slid down a few inches in his seat, “When Marianne kissed you, did you kiss her back?”

The heat of embarrassment still refused to warm Bog's face. There was only the cold of dread and a sharp twist of anxiety in his stomach when Dawn put forth the question. The whole wretched business was being dragged into the open now. Soon both kingdoms would be buzzing with outrage at the Bog King's disgraceful actions. Marianne would never return to the Dark Forest.

“Yes,” Bog said, making himself look into Dawn's eyes and face the disgust that would fill them.

“Then what is the problem?” Dawn straightened up and threw out her hands, “She kissed you, you kissed her, it was an enjoyable exchange for all involved. So what is the deal? Listen, I'm here to find out whether or not you want to put your face on Marianne's face and kiss each other stupid again. Because Marianne is open to discussion on that point but doesn't think you are.”

Bog shot upright in his chair, blood rushing to his face, “What? But—but she was sick! She didn't know what she was doing—I shouldn't have—”

“Uh, yes? Yes, you should have! Like, a year ago! And Marianne kissed you first! That's a pretty clear signal that she kinda likes you. A lot.”

Bog was at a loss at how to respond or even what to think. He had done something unforgivable, acted just as that wretched blonde slug would have, and yet Dawn was here telling him that Marianne . . . didn't hate him? That wasn't possible. Somehow Dawn had misunderstood, or Marianne hadn't told her the whole story.

Bog wrapped his hands around the arms of the chair, his claws fitting into the grooves already etched into it, digging them a little deeper.

“Do you,” Dawn pointed a finger at Bog, “Like my sister? Like like. Romantically. I know you have the whole ban on love thing going on, but that's really besides the point at this point. Unless there's a clause about flirting being allowed, just as long as you don't mean it. Because if you've just been toying with her for fun I will tear the leaves off your head.”

Dawn's threat was so surprisingly fierce that Bog involuntarily put his hand up to his head. If anyone else had spoken to him like that he would have snapped back at them. Somehow it wasn't possible to do that to the living embodiment of sunshine and clear blue skies.

“I wasn't—I haven't been flirting.”

“Ugh!” Dawn threw her hands up, “how can you two flirt so outrageously and not even know you're doing it? Now answer the question! Do you like my sister?”

Yes. Excessively.

“I . . .”

I can't.

Bog stood up, building up the resolve to send Dawn away and end this uncomfortable conversation.

Dawn stood up and shoved him back into his chair. Bog was startled enough to let her.

“This is like pulling teeth! Marianne cares about you, do you care about her?”

“Your sister . . . if she cares about me then it's a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why. Your fearsome evil king act is impressive, I'll admit, but you're really very sweet. I mean, if you really want to be thought of as evil then you shouldn't cuddle the baby winter sprouts. It ruins your whole image.”

Bog ground his teeth together and looked away.

“Look, Bog,” Dawn poked the tip of his nose, “Marianne likes you. You like her. And you'd better not be avoiding admitting it just to keep up your No Love policy, because if you're that stupid I'll—I'll scream! No! I'll stand outside your window all night and sing love songs at you!”

“That isn't it!”

“Then tell me why!”

It really shouldn't have been so terrifying to have Dawn's round, pink face so close to his, their noses almost touching. It was like being threatened by a dandelion, yet Bog found himself unnerved.

“I'm waiting,” the killer dandelion said sternly.

Bog wanted her to go away, for this conversation to be over. He felt cornered and panicked and upset. Marianne was leaving, she wanted to, because of what he had done, because--

“There's nothing in me worth loving!”

He was on his feet, Dawn was across the room. He thought he might have shoved her, sent her stumbling that far. He wasn't sure, his head hurt and his eyes blurred, and nothing mattered except that Marianne was leaving forever. He had to let her go.

“Boggy!”

Dawn sounded shocked and maybe a little tearful. Bog bowed his head and waited for her to burst into tears, run away, call her guards. But like all of Bog's expectations in the past week they were doomed to disappointment.

For the second time since she arrived at the castle, Dawn crashed into him for a hug, knocking the breath right out of him.

“Dummy! You and Marianne, you're idiots! Absolute idiots! How can two such amazing people be so stupid.”

The impact of Dawn's collision knocked a few tears loose from Bog's eyes. His hands hovered uselessly, undecided between reaching up to wipe away the evidence of his distress, or to unwind Dawn from around his torso.

“There's so much to love about you!”

“You . . . you don't even know me!” Bog broke away with a growl, “You think because I put up with you and kept a few flowers that I'm some soft fool?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Isn't it?” Bog snatched up one of the dried boutonnières off the shelf and crushed the brittle petals in his hand. The crackling pieces dropped to the floor, fragile and dead.

“Well,” Dawn said, hands on her hips, “that wasn't very nice.”

“Listen, princess, I don't need you sticking your nose into my business--”

Dawn pinched his nose and forced his head down so she could look him in the eye.

“I have had it up to my eyeballs with this nonsense! You don't get to be the big scary king of the Dark Forest with me! They day we met you smashed yourself into a tree to save me from that lizard! At my engagement party you let me cry all over you! I don't think any of that qualifies as evil. In fact, you're very sweet,” she gave Bog's nose a twist, “when you're not being a moron and making my sister cry!”

“Let go!”

“What're you gonna do? Snarl at me? Punt me into the hall?”

“I . . . I might!”

Dawn's fierce expression broke and she giggled, giving Bog's nose another gentle tweak before releasing it. He straightened up immediately to remove his nose from Dawn's reach. He didn't dare to take up a predatory crouch again and risk further indignity.

“You're not putting your heart into your act, Boggy. Probably because your heart is otherwise occupied.”

“I . . . I wish you would go away.”

“Not yet,” Dawn's hair fluffed gently as she shook her head, “First I have to tell you that you are a very lovely person with a crusty crunchy outside and a squishy middle. Why do you pretend to be all  . . .” Dawn clawed up her hands and waved them around.

“It isn't a pretense. It's simply who I am.”

“I mean, that must be exhausting.”

Bog wished that Dawn had not said that. He was tired. The winter was wearing on him already, the usual cares hanging heavy on his shoulders. The banter he shared with Marianne had lightened it, her presence at his side evidence that things were changing. The coming winters would not be so hard as they had been, the Dark Forest was not alone anymore.

Bog was not alone anymore.

That would last very little longer. Though he knew it was for the best, it hurt. There had been so many moments this winter that he had thought that maybe, somehow, Marianne . . . cared for him. But she couldn't. She shouldn't. She deserved so much better and if he hadn't agreed to this marriage she would be free to find it.

Yet the thought of her finding love elsewhere wrapped around Bog's chest like a cord being pulled tight. The only comfort was that he knew Marianne would never break her marriage vows. He hated himself for finding comfort in Marianne being trapped, chained to him in this way.

He was so tired.

“Your sister . . . deserves better.”

“She deserved the best,” Dawn agreed, “But that's relative. Listen, Bog, I just need you to tell me: do you love Marianne?”

Bog sank into his chair, the weight of this request too heavy for him to keep standing. Dawn reached out to take his hands but he pulled them away before her fingers could touch the scar across his palm. Right now that wound felt as fresh as the moment it had been cut.

A tear made a shining dot on the scar.

“Please, go away, Dawn.”

“Answer me and I will.”

“I can't.”

“You can and you will!”

“I can't . . . love her.”

“Why not?”

“It's . . . . it isn't allowed.”

“I don't speak cryptic, Boggy!”

Bog scratched his fingers anxiously on the armrests and kept his eyes lowered. He couldn't tell her, he couldn't tell her the truth.

Dawn sighed and gave his arm a pat, “Boggy, love her, can't love her, you have to talk to Marianne. Tell her why you supposedly can't love her and live happily ever after with sword fights twice a day. Just tell her. Dancing around the subject is making you both miserable. I expect you to come to see Marianne first thing in the morning or I'll drag you there by the nose.”

“Go away, Dawn.”

“First thing. Unless you want me wailing love ballads outside your door.”

Dawn bounced lightly out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Bog slumped in his chair and sighed deeply.

The door slammed open.

“I'm making you a new boutonnière!” Dawn said severely, “I'm making you two.”

The door slammed shut again.

 “You look horrible.”

It mystified Bog how his mother managed to get into his room even when he was positive he had locked the door. Not for the first time he contemplated the possibility of shoving a shelf in front of the door before he went to sleep.

“I'm awake,” he rasped, shoving away the lamp his mother was holding up to his face.

“Good, then you can do something about those fairies. We keep catching them wandering around the castle by themselves. And you can go visit your wife and apologize before she decides to take herself back to the fields.”

“That's her choice,” Bog said dismally, shoving himself upright.

“I think you underestimate your influence, son.”

This struck Bog on the raw. He still couldn't imagine that Marianne would even speak to him, much less favorably consider his suggestions as to how she would spend the rest of the season. By now she must completely revile by every aspect of him.

Dawn insisted otherwise. Dawn insisted that Marianne . . . cared.

This thought, among others, had kept him up half the night, spinning around and around in his head. Everyone seemed so keen to tell him that his convictions were misplaced. How could so many people be wrong, all in the same way? And he felt the truth, knew it was rock solid, that there was nothing good in him.

It was indisputable.

Or should have been, anyway.

Thinking of asking Marianne to stay was like standing on the edge of the castle's bridge, looking down into the mist, unable to see the bog below. If he flew down he didn't know where he would land. He might slam himself right into the side of the cliff. Everyone kept telling him he would be fine, told him that the mist had cleared away and the path was visible, while he peered into an blank white expanse. He wanted to see what they saw, but to his eyes there was nothing.

And it wasn't allowed. Not for him.

Not allowed, not allowed, not allowed

The words pounded in his brain with relentless rhythm and would not be silenced. He was glad, for all his grumbling, that his mother had woken him. It broke him out of the cycle of worry and frustration. The cobwebs of the night were brushed away with a bright light and a sensible manner.

“Sweetheart?” Griselda put the lamp next to his bed and looked into his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed, “Have you been crying?”

“Didn't sleep well,” Bog evaded the question, rubbing his gritty eyes so that his mother couldn't see his face. It was time to get up and face the day. He had to shove the anxieties of the night back into the darkest corner he could find so that there would be room for the day's tasks. The flaw in this plan was that the dark corner was growing. It was running out of space and all the hidden things were spilling out into the open.

Bog took a deep breath, hearing a rattle in his throat, and tried to push everything back. His throat was tight and his head felt like it was stuffed with moss, making his thoughts slow. It was time to stand up, but that order was getting lost somewhere between his head and his legs.

“You're a liar, son,” Griselda said affectionately, “And it sounds like you caught Marianne's cold. That's what happens when you go kissing her when she's sick.”

This jab was too much for Bog to take. He dropped backwards onto the bed and covered his face with his hands. He was too tired to deal with this knotted mess of feelings and politics. He was expected to present himself to Marianne soon, then deal with the fairies with some measure of tact and politeness. If Marianne stayed he would have to deal with the fairies' objections to their princess's rash decision. If she went Bog had to work out a reason for the departure that would not offend either kingdom.

Whether Marianne would stay or go would be decided after Bog had talked with her.

“Silly boy,” Griselda sat on the edge of the bed and knocked Bog with her elbow, “It's not as complicated as you make it.”

Still laying down, Bog took his hands away from his face and looked up at his mother. It had been so many years since he was still small enough to have to look up at her. When he was a tiny, soft-shelled sprout he thought her tall and fantastically strong. She raised him through terrible days, keeping him alive even with death threatening from all sides. Running and hiding, scratching the bare bones of a life in the dense thickets of thorns that Argos did not bother himself with, somehow they survived. Them and a handful of his father's people.

Even now his mother's presence brought a sense of safety. Irritating as she might be, it made Bog glad to have her in his life.

At least, until she opened her mouth.

“While pining away because of unrequited love is romantic, sweetie, pining away when your wife is ready to fall into your arms is just plain stupid.”

Bog just coughed.

“Poor boy,” Griselda gave his shoulder a pat, “You've had too much going on at once, haven't you? I wanted you to be sensible about this, I didn't want you to worry yourself sick.”

“I'm fine.”

Bog stood up, giving his stiff neck a crack. He felt sore all over. And heavy. He wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't even be able to lift himself off the ground. Not that he relished the thought of flying. Just standing up quickly had made him dizzy.

“Another one lost,” Griselda shook her head, “is there anyone in this stump that isn't sick? Go talk to Marianne and when you're done you two can tuck yourselves up all cozy together and sleep this cold off.”

Bog walked into the corner of a shelf.

“You're too easy,” Griselda grinned. “C'mon, let's get some breakfast into you. Never do important things on an empty stomach if you can help it.”

Bog pulled his cloak on and let his mother lead him toward the kitchens. He knew if he ate a single bite it would all come right back up again. But going through the motions of obedience at least delayed talking to Marianne.

But only for so long.

Finally Bog had to go to Marianne's room. His shoulders heavy, his feet dragging.

He had to tell her to go. They would part and she would be disgusted, but at least she wouldn't know what kind of monster he truly was. Even if she was offering him love he had to reject it. Her feelings were misinformed. Better for him to reject it now than to have it ripped back out of his hands in shreds.

Bog was shocked, somewhere under the fog covering his thoughts, that he was actually thinking that Marianne really did . . . love him. He could not imagine how he had been so fortunate to be offered something like that. He wanted to deny the possibility, as he had always done before. This time, however, it was as if the thought had snagged on the spikes of his armor and could not be dislodged.

Bog's feet would only carry him to the point where the corridor branched off. He paced up and down, out of sight of the guards at Marianne's door. He could hear them playing cards with Thang for flower petals.

Soon enough Bog knew how many paces long the corridor was, and he still couldn't make himself turn the corner. There was heavy clouds of mist around that corner, and if he stepped into it he would plunge down into a muffled white that was more terrifying than any shade of darkness.

What if he asked her to stay and she wanted to go? It would be best to simply let her leave without asking at all. If she wanted to stay she would say something . . . no, no she wouldn't. He taken away that option, rebuffing her one too many times.

What if, for all the reassurances to the contrary, Marianne was indeed disgusted by that kiss? His behavior had been vile, almost as vile as it had been years ago when . . .

Bog shook his head, attempting to banish a memory of glittering pink and horrified screaming. It would not go. Bog sighed in defeat and leaned against the wall, wishing he had not gotten out of bed that morning.

The soft padding of feet, and their abrupt silence, had Bog standing up and turning around.

It was that elf with impossible hair. Dawn's elf. He was standing still as a rock, staring at Bog with huge, terrified eyes. Bog scraped around in his memory for the elf's name so he could offer a few words to get the elf moving again so he could pass by and leave Bog in peace.

Sammy? No, Sunny.

“When did you get here . . . Sunny?”

“H-hi, Mr. Bog—King—Bog King, sir. I came with Dawn.”

Bog couldn't remember seeing the elf among the gaggle of fairies, but that didn't mean anything. The elf could have easily been hidden from sight by the fairies, who were easily twice his height.

The sight of the elf made Bog prickle with annoyance. It made him think of primroses and love potions and things he would rather not ever recall. It irritated Bog and he decided that if he was so plagued the elf might as well suffer a bit too before he moved on.

“What are you doing, wandering around by yourself?” Bog asked the question with a subtle baring of his teeth, “Looking for more love potions?”

Sunny somehow made himself look smaller.

“No! No, I would never--!”

“Oh? Never?”

“I—I never actually made it into the forest! Dawn told me she told you, so you know that I--”

“Didn't manage to get past conspiring with your charming friend?”

“I-I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean . . . I wasn't going to . . . please don't shout at me, sir, Marianne already did it once!”

That made Bog cough out a harsh laugh, “She would.”

Sunny looked up, daring to hope a little that the ordeal he faced was not too awful.

“I'm not going to clap you in irons and toss you in the dungeons. I'd have Dawn after me, and something tells me I would be worse for the experience.”

Sunny risked a smile.

Bog didn't have the energy to try and crush it. The round-faced little elf hardly looked the part of a conniving thief. His face was so easily read that it might have been printed words on a page and all Bog could see was earnest regret. The elf looked like he had been slapped down too many times and now feared to put himself forward.

“And Dawn is too sensible to let herself be duped,” Bog admitted.

Sunny's smile grew a little brighter. Obviously Dawn was a favorite subject.

“People always think she's a little clueless,” Sunny said, “but she's not, really, sir, she just decides not to worry about things in front of people.”

“She's like her sister in that,” Bog observed. He could have ended the conversation there. He glanced at the branching corridor. Another minute or two would hurt no one.

“Oh, Dawn and Marianne are a lot alike, sir. I've known them since we were all little.”

There was a pause where Bog very carefully did not make any of the remarks that sprang to his mind.

Sunny coughed and went on, “They just sort of branched off in different directions in the past couple of years. But Dawn's tougher than people think, and Marianne, well, she's sort of . . . not soft, exactly, but nicer, I guess. She just doesn't like people to see it, because some of the people at court, they think that means she's weak.”

That was the way of it. There were always people looking to pick at weak points to bring you down. If no weaknesses were found then the rules were changed and virtue turned to vice. Resolution would be called stubbornness. Caution scorned as hesitation. A princess with a cheery disposition would be considered flighty and a princess who played their game of politics would be told she was reckless and did not understand the rules.

How did an elf fare in all this? A nobody with no presence or distinguishing skills. The only thing distinguishing about the elf was his hair.

“The fairy court loves elves almost as little as goblins. It is a singular thing you've been allowed a place at all.”

“Hah, well, sir,” Sunny fidgeted with the end of his scarf. Bog noticed the scarf was much newer than the rest of the elf's ragged outfit. He had a feeling it had been a gift from Dawn, “They sort of put up with me I guess. They think that Dawn will . . . get over me.”

“I see. The real difficulty begins when they see that it is otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sunny was an elf and he was not even an important elf. The marriage between Bog and Marianne had been tolerated because it was a useful alliance and because the fairies feared that so openly slighting the Bog King by rejecting the idea would bring war to their doorstep. Sunny had no such leverage. The road would be long and hard for Sunny and Dawn, and it seemed they were fully aware of this.

“She would do this, even after you intended to use a love potion on her?”

The question wiped the smile from Sunny's face, but he did not try to avoid the question, simply saying, “Because I was stupid.”

Bog raised and eyebrow. He had expected more elaborate justification.

“I thought that if Dawn didn't notice my feelings then she never would and she would never feel the same. I should have just told her and let her decide,” Sunny tugged on the scarf and looked ashamed, “I was afraid she would tell me she didn't feel the same and I was a coward. A love potion would have made sure she wouldn't say no.”

Oh, Bog understood that all too well.

“I know now it was stupid and cowardly. I wish I had never even tried, that I had stopped and just thought for a second . . . but I would never do it again, sir, I swear.”

“You don't need to,” Bog said sourly, wondering how the elf had gotten so lucky. Maybe it was because he hadn't managed to actually get his hands on the potion and throw the dust in Dawn's eyes. Marianne had stopped him in time. Oh, but it must have been nice to have someone to stop you from doing stupid things.

“Yeah,” Sunny agreed, “I wish I could take it all back.”

“She forgave you, didn't she. She's going to marry you.”

“I—I still almost did it. I still feel guilty.”

“Then . . .” Bog tried to puzzle it all out, “Why let her marry you?”

“I told her I would go away if she wanted,” Sunny sighed, “I tried to. But Dawn forgave me and-and she told me I didn't need to keep beating myself about it. Marianne just told me it was dumb to keep punishing myself for something I was really sorry for.”

Yes, Bog thought, it made all the different that Sunny had not managed to actually use the potion. Intentions were far more easily forgiven than actions.

“I really am sorry, sir--”

“Stop groveling, it's does nothing but annoy me.”

“That's really all I can do, usually, sir.”

That was a valid point. And despite all the groveling, Bog had to give the elf credit for standing his ground and confessing to something he could have easily tried to deny. Sunny was brave enough when it really mattered, it appeared. Perhaps that was one of the things Dawn saw in him.

It occurred to Bog that this under-sized elf had shown more courage in the whole business than Bog would have. The thought made his mood darken again and he started to grind his teeth.

“Get along,” Bog slashed his hand through the air, “try not to wander around alone.”

“Yessir!” Sunny scurried off, glad of the dismissal.

Bog indulged in a few minutes more of pacing, scraping his teeth back and forth while he resumed wrestling his thoughts into order. Out of the corner of his eye Bog thought he saw a flash of white. When he turned his head there was nothing, and having other things to worry about, he disregarded it.

Tell her everything.

Let her decide.

Some things were just impossible.

Bog turned and walked away from Marianne's rooms.

First thing in the morning Marianne was out of bed and letting the handmaidens fuss over her. They gleefully smoothed her hair and applied her makeup, glad to at last be given a chance to make their princess look presentable.

Marianne tipped her head back and forth to examine the coloring around her eyes. War paint, Bog had called it. It was like that, in its way. She was fighting the world every time she put it on, showing everyone she wasn't afraid to defy them and their rules. Today it was more of a mask to hide her nervousness and still sickly pallor. The handmaidens smoothed milky lotion under her eyes to hide the dark circles and they brushed a bit of powdered rose petals on her cheeks to give her skin some color.

“I didn't mean this early,” Dawn said, still heavy-eyed from sleep, “You look spectacular. No, don't you put on those boots. It's slippers for you, your majesty. And a blanket for your lap.”

“I don't—”

“Blanket or back to bed.”

Marianne sat and pulled the blanket over her lap.

The handmaidens began to brush Marianne's wings clean of the bits of fur and dust that had collected during her illness.

Speaking of illness, she felt like she was going to throw up. Bog would arrive soon and they would talk. Dawn would probably guard the door and keep them both from escaping until they did. Chances of escape were very low. Marianne considered making the attempt anyway. Maybe a feigned relapse. That would put off both the conversation and the idea of going back to the fields.

“I'll tie you to the chair if you keep fidgeting,” Dawn said, “Sit still. He'll be here any minute.”

But he wasn't. Hours passed and the morning was giving way to afternoon. Dawn was in a foul temper. She fumed underneath the pile of sprouts who had decided to nap on top of her. “I'm going to rip his stupid pine cone shoulders off.”

“Please stop making boutonnières.”

Dawn tossed another flower arrangement on a steadily growing hill by her seat. “I'm going to cover him with so many he'll look like a tree in full bloom and he'll be so pretty that he'll lose the respect of the entire Dark Forest.”

“He has things to do, Dawn.”

“I think the relationship between our kingdoms is kind of super important!”

“That's putting it too strongly.”

“He's trifled with your affections! He's trifled! I can't put anything strong enough!”

“You're going to wake the sprouts.”

“You are too calm!”

Marianne was not calm at all. Tingling waves of anxiety washed up and down her body. It wasn't as if she was waiting for something of vital importance, she reminded herself. The feelings of a queen were of little concern when compared to her duties. She knew that Bog would be in agreement that the alliance should remain, whatever happened. Marianne was acting like a silly little girl waiting to hear if her crush liked her back. It shouldn't feel so important, as if the whole world had rearranged itself to take up a slow revolution around these moments leading up to Bog's arrival.

A knock at the door made Marianne jump so sharply that the sprout abandoned her lap. Her heart had given such a leap it felt like it had bruised itself slamming into her ribcage. She wasn't so sure there wasn't a crack in her breast bone too.

Reen stuck her head in. “The Bog King awaits her majesty's convenience.”

“Let him in!” Dawn bounced to her feel, scattering sprouts, “In, in, in! And all you kids get out! Out!”

“Alrighty.” Reen gave a jaunty little salute and withdrew.

The sprouts were herded from the room in a growing, giggling mass. The handmaidens darted around the room putting things in order. Dawn gathered up her box of flowers and shoved it behind a chair.

Marianne would have preferred them not to make such an event of it. It set a weight of formality on the whole business. Her stomach tickled like it did before grand events in the fields where she had to make sure to present a dignified, composed manner at all times.

She wasn't ready.

Bog walked into the room anyway.

“You are late,” Dawn rebuked him. She followed that by dumping the collection of boutonnières into his arms. “Now get on with it. You'd better have a spectacular excuse to give Marianne. Now, excuse me.”

Dawn kissed Marianne on the cheek before she left and murmured, “Your sword is behind your chair, I fully approve of you using as necessary. Love you!”

After the door snapped shut there was silence.

Marianne sat in her chair, hands twisted in her blanket.

Bog stood there with his arms full of flowers, looking completely bewildered.

Chapter Text

It had been hours before Bog worked up the nerve to make the necessary arrangements and a few more to force his feet to take him to Marianne's door. All these hours were spent trying to get on with reorganizing the day-to-day tasks to accommodate the fairy guests while eluding his mother. There were also three elf guests in addition to Sunny, Bog discovered. They were introduced as representatives of the three largest elf villages, filling positions somewhat like lords, seeing to the maintenance the lands, only without the rank or profit.

“Dawn invited them,” Sunny explained to Bog, “We've—Dawn and me—been trying to get a couple of them onto the council, but I didn't even think of inviting anybody along on this trip. Dawn figured that it would be good to make sure fairies and elves were on friendly terms with the Dark Forest.”

“A canny girl.” Bog had said, considering Dawn in a new light. He hadn't thought she was one with a head for politics. Really, it shouldn't have been surprising. The girl had been raised to it from birth and it would have been a wonder if nothing of her education was retained beneath those yellow curls.

Bog was still unsure if he approved of the system of a throne passed down through bloodline rather than being taken by one who was strong and sharp enough to take it, but the idea of being educated to fit the role from the start made him wistful. When he had started out to be king, once upon a time, he hadn't had the faintest notion of what tedious, worrying work it was to run a kingdom.

Maybe if someone had been there to teach him how a king ought to behave . . . maybe things would have been different. Maybe he wouldn't have been entering Marianne's room with a heavy heart. Maybe he would have at least been able to face this trial sooner rather than hiding like a snail in its shell.

“Hi,” Marianne offered after several minutes of them sitting across from each other in silence. She creased folds into the blanket on her lap. He tried to decide what to do with the armful of flowers that had been forced on him. There didn't seem to be anywhere convenient to dump them. Dropping them on the floor would have been rude. Continuing to hold them felt silly.

“Hi,” Bog felt a cringing smile touch his lips, “How are you feeling?”

“Well enough that they should stop keeping me captive and torturing me with tea.”

She made a little motion to the pixies and they relieved Bog of his flowers. Marianne looked much better. It was nice to see her feeling well enough to be wearing her makeup again. She still wasn't dressed to go out, still in one of those robe things she had been wearing while she recuperated. They were light, floating garments, flimsy compared to her usual wear. Bog thought they looked nice.

Bog tried to clear his throat and ended up caught in a brief fit of coughing. He wasn't feeling altogether well. In any respect. He had made his preparations for this conversation and rehearsed at least seven different speeches at least three times each. And yet right up until he was admitted to Marianne's sitting room Bog expected to be turned away by the guards, the final decision taken out of his hands. Instead, Dawn popped out and grabbed him by the hand, yanking him in so suddenly that he only just managed to avoid slamming into the door frame. Dawn did not let go of his hand, apparently anticipating that he would bolt back into the corridor if given the chance.

“There's something I should--” Bog began.

“We really need to talk about--” Marianne started at the same time. After a breath or two of silence Marianne spoke again, “We really need to talk about . . . us.”

Bog wanted to let her continue. Then he wouldn't have to take the lead in this conversation. But if they were going to have this conversation properly all the facts had to be set out for both of them to see. Which, put like that, sounded straightforward. Except the facts were a tangled ball of dirt and roots that had to be unpicked. It couldn't be done without making a mess.

“There isn't--” Bog grasped for a way to begin, “There shouldn't be an 'us'.”

Marianne's eyebrows were very dark against the pallor of her skin and they drew clear lines of displeasure over her eyes. Bog ducked his head. That had been the wrong way to begin. Of course it had. He didn't think he had ever started anything any other way.

“If you don't want there to be an 'us',” Marianne said in a tight voice, “Please just say it clearly.”

“No, that isn't what I meant!”

“Then what do you mean?” Marianne's self-control was crumbling. She had promised herself she would be firm and calm. It would do no good to lose her temper. So of course that was the first thing she did. She lashed out, striking first before she could be struck. “Please, tell me what exactly we're supposed to be to each other so that I can behave accordingly and stop making a fool of myself, husband.”

“What do you think I'm trying to do, wife?”

“Are you here to tell me to go home?”

“No!”

“Are you asking me to stay?”

“No—ah—that is—what would you do if I did?”

“I couldn't say. I haven't been asked. One way or the other.”

“Do you want me to ask?”

Marianne bunched up one of her blankets and hurled it at Bog. Why couldn't he just ask? Why couldn't she just say what she wanted? “You don't get an answer without a question!”

“I asked a question!” Bog struggled with the blanket, its delicate weave catching on his armor.

“You did not!” Marianne's hands were clutching the arms of her chair and her wings starting to rise in anticipation of balancing her when she surged to her feet.

Bog ripped the blanket off, also on the edge of his chair, prepared for a fight. “I did--!” He stopped himself. “I didn't, did I? I'm sorry.” He did stand up, but only to come over and return Marianne's blanket. He started to lay it over her lap but the pixies smacked the back of his hand and took the blanket. It didn't hurt but Bog rubbed the back of his hand and backed away to his chair.

“No, you didn't.” Marianne agreed. Two feverish spots of red glowed on her cheeks. “You just shouted.”

“I'm not the only one! Ah. That is . . .” Bog struggled to push down his instincts to snarl at his difficulties. This wasn't something that would edge nervously out of the room and break into a run once through the door after being growled at. He had to stand his ground and speak of things that hurt him even to think of. It would be like peeling the armor off his chest and laying bare his heart. The princess . . . Marianne . . . his queen . . . she would know. She could hurt him. She could reach into his chest and squeeze his heart until the disease that festered inside spilled over and everyone would see the rotten core of him.

“It doesn't matter what I want. I don't have the right to ask you to stay.” Bog said.

Marianne's heart jumped. Her stomach twisted. She couldn't work out if she should be happy, disappointed, or frustrated. Her fingers twitched, grasping at the arms of the chair in preparation to heave herself up again. She pulled her hands back and folded them on top of the blankets on her lap. Calm. She was going to be calm.

“If you wouldn't mind, Bog, I'd like a more direct answer. Or question.”

“I—it isn't . . .” Bog ran his hand down his face. He needed to start talking. From the beginning to the end, or from the middle outwards. He just needed to push the first few words out and hopefully the rest would follow. But his throat was too tight to let the right words through. All he could get through was, “I don't know.”

Blankets and shawls fluttered to the floor. A blade bit into the back of Bog's chair, right by his left ear. Marianne's fever-flushed face was close enough to his that he could see the blue veins beneath her skin. She had grown so pale, even before she took ill. Now she looked as if a rough touch would split her skin open. Bog wanted to pick up the blankets and wrap them around her again, put her back to bed in a protective nest of blankets and furs.

“I'm trying to be patient,” Marianne informed him through clenched teeth.

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“I'm not the one who should be worried about that.” Marianne wrenched the knife out of the back of the chair. That is, she tried to. Her grip was too weak and her arm was shaking from stabbing the knife into the chair in the first place. She huffed impatiently and seized the hilt with both hands, but found that this produced no better results.

Bog's hand covered both of hers. “You're terrifying.”

“I don't need your help!” She pulled again. The blade came free with a jerk and Marianne began to tip backward. Bog caught her, rising from his chair and wrapping his arm around her. The knife had landed softly on a blanket.

“I'm fine. I'm fine!” Marianne snapped, shoving him away and going back to her seat. At least, Bog thought that was what she had intended. Somehow she ended up falling forward and bumping into Bog's front.

“Please don't kill yourself while you're trying to kill me.” Bog said.

“If I were really trying you'd already be dead.” Marianne snapped.

“Oh. Of course.”

Bog wanted to hug her. Hold her close and whisper in her ear a plea for her to stay because he loved her and never wanted to be without her. The thought was pure foolishness and he stepped away, only retaining her hands to keep her from toppling.

“Fine. Fine.” Marianne grabbed the collar of Bog's carapace and pulled him down to look her in the eye, “I've humiliated myself enough already, I might as well follow it through to the end. Bog--”

“Don't.”

“I'm talking. If you asked me to stay then I would stay. I want to stay. Here. In the Dark Forest. With you. Thats what I want. If that's not what you want I'll go back with Dawn as soon as the weather permits because I'm not going to . . . if you don't feel the same . . .”

Marianne had learned the hard way that love could hurt. Except the lesson didn't seem to stick, because here she was, opening herself up for another devastating blow. It had only taken one sharp rap of reality to make her break away from Roland, so why did she keep coming back to Bog? The moments of understanding between them, was that happiness really worth all this pain? She felt like she had lifted her head high so that a knife might more easily find her throat. She was tired of glancing blows that were killing her by inches. Let it be over with once and for all.

Bog hugged her.

He completely lifted her off the floor, one hand around her waist more than enough to support her. He held her . . . she couldn't describe how he held her. Gentle, but fierce. Pulling her close but not trapping her.

“I'm sorry you feel that way.” He said.

The words hurt. The way Bog said them hurt worse. The regret in his voice. He held her so close while his words were pushing her away.

“I see.” Marianne was cradled against his shoulder, fingers still gripping his collar. “You don't—put me down. Put me down!”

Bog sank to his knees, loosening his grip only enough to let her stand.

“Let me go, Bog. I don't need your pity! You don't love me, I understand! I'll stop making a fool of myself, I'll stop wasting your time, I'll go home, I'll go away--”

A guilty whisper interrupted her, “I love you.”

Marianne choked on her words. “Say that again.”

“I love you, Marianne, but--”

Marianne kissed him. A gentle, cautious kiss, though it felt like she had thrown herself at him with wild abandon. And he kissed her back. It was a wet, salty kiss, because one of them—or both of them—was crying. Fierce, hot joy fought to spill over inside Marianne. She fought back, trying to keep it contained until that unexplained regret and sadness was banished from Bog. She hooked her arm around his neck and pulled him in for another kiss. She thought she might have been laughing a little.

Bog pulled himself away from a second kiss, painfully aware and ashamed that he had let the first one happen. “I shouldn't. I shouldn't. I have no right.”

Weakness had let Bog slip into a moment of denial. Pulling himself out of it was terrible. Love. It was impossible, but such an appealing impossibility. He had let his guard down and the words came out and Marianne was in his arms. So close to him. How could she be so close and not see the truth of his rotten heart.

“Why not?” the laughter had not entirely left Marianne's voice in spite of the note of annoyance, “I'm right here telling you that you should!”

What Bog needed to say could only be put into words by brute force. The heavy chains he had bound himself with over the years, they had been loosening. This winter he had struggled against them, then clung to them. They were heavy, they hurt, but they were familiar. They felt to be as much a part of him as his wings or carapace. Now he attacked the links that had weakened in his struggles. He tore at them, edges of broken metal slashing his hands.

“I used the love potion!”

The chain gave way and Bog reeled back, no tether to keep him from falling back into the dark.

A chill bit into Marianne, right to the bone. The warm relief, the fierce, overflowing joy, dried up under the withering chill. Conflicting thoughts bashed against each other in her head, chipping off little shards of ice-like fear. There was no way Bog would use the love potion. He wasn't like that. But, if he did use it, who would he even use it on, except, perhaps . . . Just touching on the idea made her throat tight and her breath short. Her eyes darted wildly to find an exit, an escape, or even just a safe hole to bolt into. The knife, it had fallen, she couldn't see it.

She was afraid.

Bog's hand on her back felt feverishly warm in contrast to the chill that had overtaken her. That touch should have pushed her further into fear. It didn't. The confusion grew worse over this inconsistency. She found herself unable to flee or attack.

“On . . . me?” the question felt wrong in Marianne's mouth.

The shock that widened Bog's eyes took the edge off the chill. He was still kneeling on the floor, completely failing to look fearsome. “No!” He spoke in that fierce, candid way he did when taken off-guard. It was familiar and reassuring. “No. Never. I—I—never!”

Eloquent lies would fall readily from Roland's tongue in the same situation. The sort of person who would use the love potion would be riddled with lies, woven so thick and tight with them that they believed the lies were the truth. Marianne's panic was subsiding but her confusion remained. She was lost, not knowing what was happening.

“It was long ago.” Bog bowed his head. His hands slid from Marianne's waist and down her arms until he took her hands. She was sure that if he didn't think she might fall over he would pull away completely.

She backed away to her chair, letting her fingers pull from Bog's hands, just their fingertips touching, then the contact broken. She sat down. “Tell me.”

“Before . . . the king before me,” Bog remained kneeling on the floor, like a petitioner before a ruler's throne, “Argos. He took things. Anything he wanted. He wanted the throne and its power so he took it, but he did not give anything back. He did not give up his name and he did not give his time and power in service of his subjects. He was fat with it. No matter if the the year had been fat or thin he demanded everything he wanted and paid no heed to how his subjects starved and froze in the winter.”

This was not how Bog had meant to start. The story he wanted to confess seemed to have begun earlier than he thought it had. He hoped that Marianne would be lenient and give patience to his wandering thoughts.

“My father's people were hunted by Argos. He came and killed the last of them, save me. I was angry. He had taken what was mine. Nearly everything I had. He was taking everything from all of us. I gathered those like me . . . we fought . . . I killed Argos and took his throne. I took it . . . and when I was still a very young, angry . . . frightened king . . . I fell in love.”

So young. Still able to delude himself into thinking his actions and intentions were noble. That there was an excuse for what he did and had done. He had thought the worst was behind him and there was something left inside him worth salvaging. But he had known.

“I didn't think she could love me . . . I knew she couldn't.”

Marianne stirred in her seat. Bog hurried on before she could speak.

“I went to Plum for the love potion. To use on the one I fell in love with. Like everything else, I tried to take it. Her love. To take her choice. I would have . . . I nearly . . . everything. I would have taken everything from her if the potion at worked.”

“It didn't . . .?”

Bog shook his head. Pink, the pink of primroses, sparkling like the morning sun off dewdrops. His breath held in anticipation of the world finally coming right and the happiness he would gain.

“She was so afraid. I was the king. She trusted me, believed I was better than Argos. I don't think that there was anything inside me for the love potion to take a hold of. The magic knew what I was and that I was too hideous to be loved.”

A tear dotted the floor. Bog didn't know when the tears and started. He couldn't stop them. He crouched there on the floor, hoping that his head was bent low enough to keep Marianne from seeing them. He thought he had accepted these things and they wouldn’t hurt so much anymore.

“They praised me for killing Argos. They said I had saved them. That what I did was good. But it wasn't. Because I did it so I could take his power. Because I'm just like him. That's why you can't . . . you can't love me. There's nothing in me to love.”

The soft drapery of Marianne's gown whispered across the chair. Her feet came into his line of vision. He curled himself tighter, waiting for the blow, whether it was hot anger or cold disgust.

“Killing Argos to save your people . . .”

Bog flinched. He hadn't expected her to speak so softly. He hadn't expected her to begin to excuse his actions like all the others did. Tell him that he did what had to be done. There was no other choice. It was necessary.

“It must have been so hard.”

Bog gasped. The words attacked him from an undefended side and stabbed into his chest. He tried to speak. He choked on his tears instead.

“You didn't deserve that.” Marianne said.

“They cheered!” Bog burst out through his tears, dragging up every last shred of horror he could find so Marianne could see it, “They saw Argos's body and they all cheered! There were so many dead on both sides of the war . . . that was the only time they celebrated it. I only did it because of what he did to my father's people. For the people dying in the snow. I was just angry. I locked Plum away to keep her from telling everyone about the love potion and what I had tried to do. That was celebrated too. I haven't done a single deed worth praise. What I did I did for myself and no one else.”

The swirl of Marianne's skirt was a white frill on the floor when she knelt down in front of Bog. If she hadn't her knees might have given out and brought her down anyway. Bog was in so much pain from his confession and so convinced that he was as foul as his predecessor to the throne that Marianne thought her heart might break. It was all wrong, his view of himself. The winter stay in his kingdom had only shown Marianne that Bog was a generous and caring king. An exceptional ruler, seeing the forest through such difficult times. That Bog hadn't the slightest inkling of the truth was unfair and wrong.

She leaned toward him and cupped his face in her hands, tilting his head to so he had to look at her. He didn't resist, but his eyes slid away and refused to meet hers. Marianne leaned forward to make it harder for him to avoid her when she asked her question.

“Bog,” she said, “do you think that Argos could make soup?”

Bog was thrown so badly by the question that he met her eye. “I don't . . . no?”

“I don't think so either. I doubt there was a single person in the whole forest he cared enough about to bother himself over if they were sick or hurt. Then you, the evil Bog King, spend an afternoon fussing in the kitchen for the sake of a fairy that's done nothing but annoy you.”

“You don't--”

Marianne refused to let Bog object to anything she was saying. He tried to speak when she stopped to take a breath, but she wouldn't let him get more than a word or two out. She spoke on, as relentlessly as she would have attacked with a sword.

“Do you think Argos cared if what he did was good or bad? Do you think he spent one sleepless night tearing himself up over the wrongs he'd committed? I doubt it.”

“The love potion . . .” Bog whispered.

“You let her go, didn't you?”

“What else . . . could I have done?”

That answer just about melted Marianne's heart. It said so much about Bog that he didn't recognize his own decency. “A lot of things. A lot of terrible things. The terrible thing you did do, you regret with all your heart. I'm not meaning to say that it makes everything right, but it does mean you're not a monster. Who you were then, I didn't know him. I only know you as you are now and this Bog would never use a love potion. I know it.”

“I--”

“Right now, Bog, in this castle—your castle—everyone is safe, cared for, and happy. Because you became king no one is dying in the snow.”

Marianne had meant that to be just the opening strike in a new line of attack but Bog crumpled when her words hit him and his crying became uncontrollable. Abandoning her attack, she threw her arms around his neck and held him tight to steady his shaking. “To be a part of your kingdom—to be your wife—I'm honored.”

It was only because Bog was running out of strength that his tears slowed and his emotions settled. Like bleeding out on the battlefield and beginning to feel peaceful as the end neared. Except that it wasn't ending like Bog had believed it would. Marianne was embracing him. He had shown her the truth and she was embracing him.

“I don't understand.” he said.

Marianne's breath brushed across his shoulder when she answered.“What's there to understand? I'm your wife, I love you, and I'm staying. That is, once you properly ask me to.”

“I can't—”

She shoved him away and pressed a finger to his lips. “Ask me.”

The chains he expected to pull him up short were no longer there. Nothing stopped him from taking Marianne's hand and bending over it. His dark fingers and her winter-paled hands. He didn't understand. He turned her hand over and kissed her marriage scar.

“Please. Stay with me, Marianne.”

“I will.” she said.