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Traditionally, the Queen of the Fae takes the king as her mortal consort to rule by her side, for such a union is required to hold open the gates between their realms. Traditionally. It is not the king who catches her eye in battle but one of his warriors: an archer who does not miss, then when set upon, draws his sword and wields it with such skill that she wonders whether immortal hands taught it to him.
Natalia is queen. She will take whom she will.
—
The archer is passing through the woods after a hard day riding. He and his men had been sent to repel a raid on a border village, which they have done, and while they rest at the site of their work, he returns to his king. He is tired now; he pauses to water his horse and take a drink himself.
He sees the woman when he has lifted his head, finished with his drink, and draws his bow with arrow nocked at a near impossible speed.
"You have taken water from my woods," she tells him, head tilting slightly, expression unreadable.
She does not seem angry, but neither does she seem merciful. He knows the ways of the fae and their folk, those who guard the woods and the trees and the springs, and he knows she would have said nothing if she were not demanding payment.
"What do you wish?" he asks, weary, arrow held steady more from habit than a continuing sense of danger.
But she is dangerous. She is fae. He knows she is dangerous, so he offers payment as is her right to demand.
He does not expect what she asks of him.
"I wish to keep you here this evening, then you may go on your way."
He stares at her, taken aback. Her hair is red as flame and curls richly down her back. Her face and body are flawless, pure grace, and she is beautiful. There is nothing to repel him at her request, but he cannot imagine what she would want with him rather than some favor or human object that holds power in her realm.
She does not wait for him to answer. She steps forward into his space and puts her hand on the tip of his arrow to push it down gently.
He allows it, swallows hard. "What else can I give you?" he asks, voice rasping low.
Her eyebrows come up, and something fleeting passes through her inhumanly green eyes. "Nothing else," she says. Her fingers wrap around the arrow. "I want you."
The archer considers this. He accepts.
—
Congress continues between mortal realms and fae. The brownies work nightly in human houses where milk is left for them. Sprites work friendly mischief and unfriendly against the enemies of this kingdom. The natural places are guarded in areas near the gates.
There is no obvious alliance between the realms. The king has no heir and in agitation delays finding a human bride.
—
The queen is not like other fae of her realm; she does not hold her husband to her land unless she has no need to open the gates. It is their bond that straddles the world through the gates that keeps them open, and so she allows her husband to serve his king as she rules her court through the winter. In spring, there will be festivities enough to give her cause to visit.
—
He dreams sometimes of faery dances, of a woman with flaming red hair and unearthly beauty. He knows she has taken more than a night and prudently does not touch other women, but he was careful enough. He never gave her his name.
—
The Faery Queen comes in the spring with her entourage and the people gather in dances to celebrate her arrival, expecting she will claim their king and renew the alliance, but when she steps into the clearing they have made for her, she looks about with fathomless gaze and holds her hand out to the man behind the king, whose arrow has guarded and whose hand has cut down.
He holds his breath and she raises her brow.
The king greets her, but she looks past him, hand outstretched.
At last, the archer comes forward.
Natalia is queen and she chooses whom she will.
—
"I have no desire to be king," he tells her in the shadow of the garden wall.
She shrugs, unconcerned with mortal conventions. "Then do not be."
He does not speak to her of the people's uneasiness, their beliefs and preferences for one to rule over them who can guarantee their protections. Traditionally, the king is her mortal consort and secures the borders of his realm. The archer's mood is dark as he studies the gathering night.
She hesitates. She has never been unwanted and she finds it unpleasant. He wanted her the night in the woods. "Do you wish to be divorced?" she asks abruptly, in the manner of the fae, ungiven to mortal ceremony, given only to their own.
He sighs and looks at her intently. She can see that he wants her personally, but she does not understand him any more than he understands her. She does not know what he will choose.
"I do not wish to be king," he says and this time, he takes on the inflection of the fae, their words, their ways. This she understands. This is his price for maintaining their bond.
She smiles, slight but meaningful. "Very well, archer."
He does not give his name—she does not expect it—nor does she offer her own. He holds out his hand and their fingers tangle together.
—
The king cannot cut down his servant without cutting off the favor of the faery realms, and he would surely lose his kingdom. Indeed, the archer pledges his sword and his bow in the service of his king and takes the fiercest battles. He turns away the favor of the people, and sprites worry the homes of those who speak out for him to be made king.
In his own home, he is visited by his red-haired bride who holds him and listens to his concerns. Eventually, she gives him a son. Traditionally, men need heirs as they do not live forever.
Traditionally, men will eventually die.
—
The king has displeased the fae. He does not treat their child well and ignores the archer's son at court.
Crops fail and farmers' children must work their own chores as the little things are left undone and small curses are visited upon the works of men's hands.
The people grumble against their king. They have overthrown kings for less.
—
The archer's bride comes to him in winter and sits by his fire and warms his bed. She studies the worry tightening the lines of his shoulders and brow. She sets their son of eleven summers to sleep.
"You could come to my realm," she tells him, "and take your place in my court." It is not unheard of for the queen to take a lover and bring him into her land to let the years pass on without him. She would keep him longer. It would please her well.
He shakes his head, brooding as he stares into the fire. "And close the gates?" he asks, but it is not question but admonishment.
She frowns and tells him what he should have known. "You would live and not die in my land."
He looks up sharply with his clear-seeing archer's eyes, narrowing them at her intently. She has aged in the years he has known her. She fits her body to his own, and should he become an old man, she would be an old woman beside him. But she is not old; she is ageless, and he has forgotten this.
"I will not be king," he says, the pronouncement holding power she doubts he understands.
In her court, he would be king for he is hers, and their child would be the son of a king.
"Say yet, my love," she asks of him.
He sighs heavily, wearily, and it is certainly a concession when he answers her, "Yet."
—
The gates between the realms will close if she takes him into her land, for their bond will not stretch out between them to hold them open. Their will be no human bound to fae and no fae bound to human, only two realms on either side of an invisible barrier to be crossed by only the strongest of magic.
The Faery Queen visits the king in his court and sits at his table to speak diplomatically and confirm their alliance again. She is not pleased with the treatment of her child, but she does not speak of it, for that is her husband's concern.
The king promises to meet her terms, and she promises that if he does so, nothing more shall plague the crops. If he does so. He does not ask what will happen if he does not.
—
The archer knows the ways of the fae and their folk. He knows that they are not merciful if what payment they ask is not paid.
—
"I will not be the destruction of my people." The kingdom matters to the archer, and Natalia understands the darkness in his tone and the worry in his eyes. He will not be the cause of the kingdom's end, nor will he countenance a war with the fae.
Natalia is queen and she will give her husband what he wishes.
She traces her finger across his face and whispers, "What do you wish?"
—
There is no more congress between the realms, though the fae openly voice their dislike for the loss. But Natalia is queen. They subside when she tells them they must only wait a little while before she will open the gates again.
Her warrior husband rests with her in her land but avoids the court where he may. He teaches their son the arrows and remembers his own land with longing.
"Natalia," he whispers against her skin as she holds him as comfort at night.
His breath is warm on her neck. She loves the scent of him, the weight of him in her arms.
"I will give the kingdom to our son," she tells him, "and you can ride over your land again." Soon. Their son will grow and return to the household of her husband to claim his own as the holder of the treaty with the realms of the fae. And her husband can see his own land and keep his own youth if he does not dismount from the horse she will give him. "My husband?"
He acknowledges her words and holds her closer in their bed. "My name," he tells her, "is Clint."
—
In time, no man of wisdom or prudence will wage war with the House of Barton, for there is congress there between the realms of mortal and fae and the folk clearly fight on behalf of that House. In time, there will be legends of a rider who appears by times when needed most near the wild places that belong to the fae, an archer who never misses and who cannot be killed. He passes in and out of this world without offering his name or ever dismounting before he returns again to his beloved queen.