Work Text:
Stares of non-corporeal beings sent shudders down Joe’s spine- they knew he was in the fae woods. Worse yet, they knew why he was in their woods by the sigil branded on the back of his sword-wielding hand.
The moss shimmered in the dying sunlight. Vines draped from the trees like luxurious velvet in the castle. Plush flowers bloomed from the thorn bushes that hugged just too close to the path and scratched at Joe’s arms. Under favorable circumstances, Joe would have waxed poetic over its elegant beauty.
Now he just felt sick.
As he crept deeper into the thicket, the weeds and thorns wove together into dense walls as nature worked to reclaim what the village created. Joe hacked at thorn bushes with his sword, but the needle-sharp points still pricked his skin, sending beads of red welling to the surface. Echoing voices of things not quite human cackled from amongst the shadows. Joe brandished his sword with false bravado, hands clenched like iron to hide their tremble. The voices went silent. Their aura still wrapped around the trees and his senses like chains, but there wasn’t anything to fight. Joe let out a shuddering breath as his grip faltered and the tip of the rusted blade fell against the dirt.
A bitter part of him wished that the village had at least given him leather armor before turning him into the woods. Alone and without protection, he felt like prey.
No. Not yet, at least. He was the hunter. He turned back to the path’s remains and slashed through one last stubborn barrier.
The trees and shrubbery fell away to encircle a perfect circular clearing. The boughs of the branches spread and reached to form a canopy. A shaft of bright, dying sunlight wept golden over a lone figure sitting in the jade grass.
Stormy grey skin stretched taut over a bony frame, and amber ringlets fraught with leaves and dried petals fell in waves down her back. Deep blue fabric that sparkled with visions of the clear night sky and flowed like the air itself made up the otherworldly dress she wore. The woman sat hunched over herself as she braided flowers together into crowns.
Joe stood frozen at the edge of the clearing. The scar on his hand burned. It was her.
“I know why you are here.” The Queen did not pause her weaving as she spoke. She kept her gaze low and voice even. “The Kingdom sent you to kill me.”
For once in his life, Joe’s tongue was like a sack of sand in his mouth. How could anyone respond to that?
She wove on. “What was your crime?”
Joe tensed. “... I beg your pardon?”
The Queen stood and turned to face him, flowers falling to the ground. Eye contact with her sent volts down his spine. Her high cheekbones, sharp lips, and piercing green eyes made her look severe, perhaps deadly, but she was nothing less than stunningly beautiful. She held herself with dignity as she stared into his soul. “You’re not the first criminal they’ve sent to deal with their problems.” She took a few steps forward. Hedges grew and pressed up against Joe’s back. His eyes flickered from the Queen to his sword.
“Tell me,” she said, now almost within striking distance. “What is your crime?”
Should he answer? Joe swallowed the gravel in his throat. “Thievery.” Why did he say that? It was the truth, by why did he say it?
The Queen drew up her eyebrows and scoffed. “The first one they sent was a murderer.”
She shrugged and spun on her heel, meandering around the clearing without purpose. “May I at least have the name of my assailant?”
The hair on the back of Joe’s neck stood on end. He wasn’t that stupid. “You may call me Poet.”
The Queen froze in place. She glanced over her shoulder and locked eyes, a mirthful smile playing on her lips. “Then you may call me ‘Your Majesty’.”
Joe lifted his sword and stared at Queen down the blade. “Your Majesty, Queen of the Fallen Fae. I am here to collect your bounty and restore my good name.”
The Queen raised her hand in an arc. Black particles swam up her arm and condensed into her palm. The air tasted of rot. Joe winced as his stomach turned over.
“Do you even wish to go back?” The Queen asked with a slight sneer. “They have left you for dead.”
Did he? Even if they welcomed him back with joy, he would bear the painful branding for the rest of his life. Everyone would know what he did and his punishment. “... I have to.”
She tossed the pure darkness to her other hand with a raised eyebrow. “Did the kingdom tell you why they want me dead?”
Joe did not. He’d heard whispers of kidnappings, but all returned within a day. He’d heard whispers of deaths, but nobody found the bodies. “It hardly matters.”
“They don’t want to keep their end of the deal.”
Dread pooled in Joe’s stomach. As The Queen casually closed in from the right, he stalked left until they circled each other. He kept his sword at a low ready, nerves already shot. “The King would never make a deal with the fae.”
The Queen chuckled. Her magic fizzled out as she covered her mouth with her hand. “Is that what they’re telling everyone? How cute.”
She shook her head and smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I would keep their enemies away in exchange for any people cast from the village.”
Joe’s grip slackened, the edge of his blade dipping. “So the rumors of murder were true?”
“Murders? Don’t be naïve.”
“Where are the people from my village?”
“Here, of course.” The Queen opened her arms in a grand gesture to the surrounding trees. “Why wouldn’t the fallen fae live in their own woods?”
It took a moment, but it clicked. “You took the exiles as offerings.”
She grinned like the Cheshire cat. “So the Poet can think.” She laughed, a beautiful sound, like the ringing of bells. “Why would they want to go back? The kingdom will never truly love them, not like the fae.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “You don’t have to go back, either. The forest will welcome you... I would welcome you”
Joe grimaced at the thought. “I could never, I have duties back home, ones that I must attend to. I’m sure you understand?”
The Queen nodded with a sigh, an air of melancholy dusting her eyes. “I suppose I should have expected that answer.” She held her arms apart, baring her chest. She gave Joe a watery but long-suffering smile. “My living name is Cleo, my true name is Zombie. Do with this information what you will.” The temperature dropped. The ice cut deep into Joe’s bones. It filled him up but left him hollow at the same time. Frost danced over the grass, melting and reforming in a blink. He could scarcely breathe.
Oh.
Cleo stood before him, as frozen as the air. Unmoving. Waiting. Expectant. The iron blade had never felt heavier in Joe’s hand.
He hefted its might. It was unyielding in his uncertain grasp, but it would more than do the job. He looked between it and Cleo. Having a name for someone he knew as nothing more than a villainess in a tall tale made his throat clench at the thought of running her through.
Would she bleed red?
What separated her from the humans besides distance?
Joe knew what he had to do.
He drew back the blade-
And drove it into the ground.
“I refuse to end your life. Let my kingdom be forsaken, so say I, Hills.” The frigid air was choked with frozen crystalline particles.
Cleo’s arms fell to her sides. She let out a slight giggle. It built and built to a maddened, hysterical laughter. She doubled over and clutched her abdomen.
“Good sir, you are dramatic! That’s quite something coming from me of all people!” She wiped a stubborn tear from her eye and straightened up. “You are... different from other humans.”
Joe shuffled his feet, all brazen energy sapped from his soul. “Er, yes? Thank you? I try to be my own person.”
Cleo shook her head, but it was laced with a newfound fondness. “May I at least have the living name of my new suitor?”
Joe blinked. “Suitor?”
“We traded true names, making us engaged.”
Joe blinked again. “Oh.”
Cleo snickered at his confusion. “Oh, indeed.”
He brushed himself off and awkwardly bowed to her. “Your majesty, my name is Joe.”
Cleo beamed at him, a touch of pink glazing her ashen skin. She turned, sauntering to the other side of the clearing. With a wave of her hand, she parted the trees and revealed a stone brick path leading deeper into fae woods.
“Are you coming? I have so much to show you!”
Joe nodded, not trusting himself to speak without his voice cracking when faced with Cleo’s radiant smile. He jogged towards the gateway. Cleo took his arm in her own, and the sword was left behind as a monument to events unfolded.