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Chapter Text

The day dawned, and everyone agreed it was absolute perfection.  It was bright and clear, a fair summer’s day with hardly a cloud in the sky.  Those that did choose to coalesce ambled agreeably across the large expanse of blue, fluffy and white and dissipating or crossing over the treetops without so much as a hint of rain.  All through the kingdom, the final preparations were set into motion; a royal wedding was not something to skimp on, especially not the royal wedding of the crown princess.  Everything, down to the last blade of grass, had to be perfect. 

Marianne had been counting down the weeks, then the days, and finally the hours.  She’d hardly been able to sleep last night for excitement.  Currently, however, she was strewn over her sister’s bed, groaning softly, one arm thrown over her eyes.

“Time to get up,” Dawn sang.  “C’mon, Marianne.  Time to get ready!”

Marianne heaved a heavy sigh, and Dawn frowned.

“What is it?  What’s wrong?”  She plopped down on the flower petals that made up Marianne’s bed, and Marianne helpfully scooted over to make room for her.

“I’m just sad,” Marianne admitted, rolling her head to the side to look at Dawn.  “I really thought they would come—the Dark Forest delegation, I mean.  I made the invitation myself.  But it’s been weeks and weeks with no answer, so…”

“Oh, is that it.”  Dawn’s button nose wrinkled in distaste.  “Well, it’s probably good they’re not coming,” the young blonde said, sounding a little prim as she reached over and tugged Marianne’s arms.  “Come on, get up.”  Her pretty pink wings fluttered, adding a little more power to her pull.

“What do you mean, a good thing?”  Marianne pouted, letting herself be dragged into a sitting position.  “I was really hoping they would.  Isn’t that just the kind of thing a king should do for his neighbors?  It’s—it’s neighborly, that’s what it is.”  Dawn landed again, shrugging, before firmly pulling Marianne to her feet.

“Well, sure.”  Dawn led Marianne over toward her table and chest of drawers, pulling her elder sister into the space in front of the mirror.  “It’s neighborly…It’s probably for the best, though.  Come on, you’re the one who said you wanted to look nice, now sit down so I can get to work.”  The blonde reached into her makeup kit, readying her brushes as Marianne plopped down onto her chair.

“Hmp.”  Marianne did want to look nice, but she also hated getting all made up.  She was an easygoing person.  She liked it like that.  Roland liked it like that.  She shook her head, looking back up at Dawn.  “But wouldn’t it be for the best if they came and we could meet and talk about our kingdoms and get to know each other?  We’ve been afraid of the Dark Forest for forever now, but they’re right next door to us!  I think that we’re just different, but if we could sit down and talk, maybe we could make them see that we’re not so bad…”  Marianne twisted in place to look up at Dawn properly, her honey-colored eyes large and pleading.  “I bet they’re not so bad, too!”

“Marianne—” Dawn sighed, licked her thumb, and wiped away the smudge which she’d been unable to avoid drawing over Marianne’s nose, thanks to her sister’s fervent motion.  “Stop moving.”  She hopped up on the tabletop and hunched, the better to draw on Marianne’s face.  “If they came, maybe there would be trouble, and a fight would happen or something, and then your wedding party would be ruined.  Is that what you want?”

“No,” Marianne said, shaking her head—or she tried to—but Dawn was too fast for her and gripped her face in her hands, keeping her still.  “Of course not.”

“Your only job today is to get married.  To marry Roland,” Dawn reminded her, smiling fondly.  Predictably, Marianne sighed, a dreamy look coming into her eyes.

“You’re right, I know.”  Marianne reached forward and hugged Dawn around the middle.  “Thanks Dawn.  I guess I’m just…disappointed.”  Dawn leaned down to hug her in return.

“If that’s the only thing that goes wrong with the wedding,” the younger woman said, “then I think you legally have to call it a success.” 

“You’re right,” Marianne said again, smiling, seeming to believe it this time.  Dawn always knew just what to say. 

Still, the younger sibling in question arched her brow.

“Is that really all you’re worried about?” she asked, dipping a brush into a small acorn pot and swirling it around, the faint scent of roses curling through the air as she dabbed blush on Marianne’s cheeks.  “The Dark Forest?”

“Well…”  Marianne’s eyes flicked away from Dawn’s, her hands tightening into fists in her lap.  “Well, no…”

“What is it?” Dawn coaxed, a small crease between her eyebrows.  She paused, the blush-laden brush poised in midair.  “What’s wrong?”

“Dawn,” Marianne said, her tone uncharacteristically careful, uncertain.  “Well, it’s just that—do you think that...that Roland loves me?  As much as I love him?”  Her voice cracked, wavering; when Dawn ducked to catch her gaze, Marianne’s was clouded over, her beautiful brown eyes filling with tears.

“Oh, Marianne!”  Dawn threw her arms around her older sister once more, laughing gently at such a question.  “How could he not love you?”

“Really?”  The elder princess sniffled, leaning into Dawn’s embrace.  “Do you really think so?”

“Marianne,” Dawn said, her voice firm.  “You’re so loveable.  To not love you he’d have to be an idiot or something, really.”  Her eyes, usually sparkling, were as serious as her voice.  “I wish you could see how you look, really see how you look.  Especially when you look at him.  I don’t think anyone could resist your cute face!”  She pressed a kiss to Marianne’s forehead, and Marianne giggled at her fierceness. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, closing her eyes.  Marianne snuggled into Dawn a little more, who replied by giving her sister a squeeze before drawing away.

“You’re welcome, you silly.”  Dawn smiled, her blue eyes warm once more.  “Now stop your sniffling!  You’ll ruin everything we’ve done already.”

“Yes, ma’am!”  Marianne giggled, running her fingers under her eyes to wipe away the moisture which threatened Dawn’s handiwork.

“Now,” Dawn said, lifting her brush again.  “Turn your head.”

Marianne did as she was told, but she began to fidget even as Dawn tilted her head in the other direction once more.

“Am I done yet?  I want to make something for Roland.  For the wedding.”  Marianne looked up at a scoffing Dawn, giving her absolute best pleading look. 

“Oh, not the eyes!”  Dawn covered her own eyes as if to protect herself, but it didn’t work.  The mere memory of Marianne’s pleading expression was too much, and Dawn heaved a sigh.  “Just….one more second, okay?”  She reached for another brush, setting the blush pot down and reaching for a smaller one, full of a pretty pink color.

“Hurry,” Marianne pleaded.  “I’ve got a great idea for where to get the center flower!”  Dawn nodded, her new brush coated with color, and when she leaned over Marianne, her eyes narrowed under the force of her concentration.  Deftly, painstakingly, she applied the lip tint to Marianne’s lips, first the upper, and then the lower.

“Just about done,” Dawn said, her tongue between her lips.  She leaned back and squinted, checking her work.  “Hold on…Aaaaaaannnd…there you go!  Perfection!”  She tossed her brush down with a look of triumph, fluttering away from the mirror to show Marianne her own face. 

The eldest daughter of King Asterian was so busy exclaiming, and the youngest daughter so busy laughing, that neither of them noticed a certain blond fairy riding past their window and toward a large oak tree, his squirrel’s bushy tail bouncing along until it disappeared in the grass long before their joy had faded.

Roland had been waiting for this day.

He had always aspired to more, of course.  More power.  More status.  More glory.  He’d joined the Guard at a young age, son of a simple foot soldier, and everyone had agreed that he looked the spitting image of his father in the brown leather armor.  He won praise quickly and easily.

It wasn’t enough.

His chances came, though.  He was promoted to Captain—and subsequently stationed at the palace—and it was then that he finally understood.  He had never, in his heart of hearts, seen the path to his destiny very clearly, but the day he saw the princesses, he began to plan.  Looking at them, Roland knew what he wanted.  He wanted the crown.

He would be King, and damned be the consequences. 

The question, of course, was to whom he would be married.  The easiest path would have been Dawn.  The younger princess was bubbly, naturally flirtatious, and sincere in all her affections.  Most of all, she was looking for love, and that was no secret.  Even with how changeable she was, falling for one man one day and another the next, Dawn was the easier option by far.  All except for one thing.

Marianne.

It was practicality which forced him to look in her direction.  After all, according to custom, Marianne as the eldest needed to be married first…and, after all, she was the Crown Princess, just one step away from the throne, as opposed to Dawn, two steps away.  The difference between the two might as well been the distance to the moon.  Besides, this way, he only had to scheme a little; courting Marianne saved Roland from having to plan an accident for her at some future date.  Where Dawn was an open book, though, Marianne was closed off, disconnected.  She was at least as silly as her younger sister, all things considered, but she was also a bit slower to open her heart, far less gullible than the younger princess.

As time went on, though—well, who wouldn’t fall in love with him?  The dashing head of the Guard, Captain Roland, always handsome and charming, his flawless golden hair waving in the breeze, his gorgeous green eyes sparkling in the light (and an almost perfect match to his shiny new armor); he was resplendent and lovely in every way.  It wasn’t a question of if, but of when.  An eventuality, not a gamble.

In time, he learned of her dreams to make peace with the Dark Forest, and he laughed to himself.  She was twice as silly as her younger sister, if she thought to ally with those freaks!

So no, he was not surprised when the day dawned, pure white flower petals falling soft and thick around them as they strode down the aisle together.  His armor was polished to such a perfect sheen that he could see small spots of light dancing on her smiling cheeks, her arms, her dress of spider’s silk.

As the ceremony drew to a close, he found himself looking deep into Marianne’s amber eyes.  He could see his own reflection there, and he smiled.

Their marriage was sealed with a kiss, but where Marianne’s eyes were closed, where she leaned into the touch, Roland hardly noticed.  The cheer of the assembled crowd washed over them like a sudden breeze, and his heartbeat was pounding against his ribs.  His chest swelled not with love, nor with friendship; he had no true romantic or even warm feelings for the Princess.  He was barely fond of the girl.  He felt nothing about her at all, except a dismissive kind of excitement, excitement caused by the knowledge of what it was she was handing him.  It came so easily, too, so readily, and she with a smile on her face all the time.  What he did feel was a deep, burning satisfaction, satisfaction for himself, for hard work well-done, which swelled to a crescendo when they parted and turned toward the crowd, hands clasped.  The cheers only grew louder as they smiled at their audience, and Roland’s grin grew and grew the longer they cheered.

At last, he was standing here, gazing out at the crowd—at his subjects—his dreams come true.  Finally, he was wearing a crown, just as he had always known he someday would be.

Chapter Text

In the months that passed, Marianne almost forgot she’d asked the question.  Of course Roland loved her just as much as she loved him.  Together, they danced and smiled and sat for portraits, waved to crowds, attended parties, listened to the grievances of their people.  Roland held her hand or looped his arm through hers, dazzled her with his smile, tossed his head while he laughed in a way which made his golden locks dance and shine.  He did seem…irritated, sometimes, but that was to be expected.  Before, he’d been a guard, part of castle life but not truly living it himself.  Now, as King Consort, things were different—even if the true King was still living, Roland was now less free to do the things he wanted—and Marianne was only sympathetic.  He needed time, that was all, time and a little space to adjust.  He’d settle in, and they’d have the dazzling conversations Marianne had always dreamed about, they would sit together and laugh and kiss and be just as in love as Marianne remembered her mother being with her dad.  They did love each other, after all, and what was a little irritation and strive when true love was right here, standing in front of her, glittering in green and golden armor?

A year passed, both terribly fast and ploddingly slow, as the years tended to do.

The Elves’ summer festival was drawing near, and preparations began for that; it was to be a particularly significant one, too, as the end of the week-long solstice celebrations would mark Marianne and Roland’s very first anniversary.  Everything had to be perfect, and Marianne threw herself into making sure that it would be.  Then, perhaps, she and Roland would come together a little more smoothly than they had been.

Even Dawn, who loved a good party, secretly confessed to Sunny that Marianne was going a little overboard, but who could blame her?  It was clear that Roland and Marianne weren’t connecting quite the way they’d thought.  Roland, while handsome and very invested in running the kingdom, always seemed so busy, being called to and fro, and certainly Marianne felt a little left behind…

Well, Dawn and Sunny agreed, hopefully the combined solstice and anniversary party would help.  It had been a difficult year, after all, with King Asterian falling so strangely and suddenly ill, and the whispers of goblins from the Dark Forest trying to stir up trouble at the boarders.  Even though such rumors always fired Roland up and set Marianne to worrying, nothing substantial had happened so far.  Still, the rumors were quite frightening; Roland had been seen conversing with his aides over the matter, his eyebrows furrowed in concern and upset.

Time waited for nobody, though, and the Elves’ ball approached rapidly.  Soon, Marianne and Roland were standing before the Elves (as well as Fairies, Sprites, and other assorted citizens of their realm).  Marianne and Roland opened the party together with a brief speech, and then the dancing began.

When Marianne turned from talking to Sunny’s aunt to look for her husband, she blinked; Roland was nowhere to be found. 

“What’s wrong?” Dawn asked, fluttering over to land on the balls of her feet.  She looked lovely in her party dress, smiling and blush-cheeked, but Marianne frowned as she turned toward her.

“Roland was just here,” she said, keeping her voice low.  “Have you seen him?”

“Not since the speech,” Dawn said, squeezing Marianne’s arm sympathetically.  “Sorry, Marianne.”

“That’s okay…”  Marianne forced a small smile and pulled away from her sister, turning to scan over the heads of the crowd.  He should have been easy to spot, wearing his green and gold armor.  It was extra shiny tonight, too, having been buffed for the occasion.  Yet Roland was nowhere to be found.

Where was he?

The passing year had made Roland’s teeth itch.

A year of meaningless parties, of dances and simpering smiles, of pretending he’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted.  A year of avoiding his wife as best he could, a year of pretending he cared for her, a year of waiting.

He wanted his army, and he wanted it now.

Roland wanted war.  He wanted to lead the charge, to send men into glorious combat.  The peace which suffused the land made his skin crawl, his fingers ache; his flesh almost seemed to burn against the touch of his armor, and Roland could practically hear it sizzling.  He wanted to bite the thinness of the quiet air and come away with blood in his mouth.  He wanted it.

He wanted it.

Roland, however, was not a stupid man.

He knew better than to launch himself into action, so close to his goal.  Of course King Asterian would never allow an incursion into the Dark Forest without some cause, some sort of reason; even though the Forest was plagued with creatures evil and putrid, Asterian needed something he could point to, something to justify their action.  Roland could have simply murdered him and blamed it on the Forest, gotten his war started immediately—he’d ached to do just that—but how would he have avoided the increase in security?  He was comfortable as he was, thank you very much.  The lax security around the palace meant he could sneak women into his bed whenever he pleased while having utter certainty that he wouldn’t be caught out.  His newest favorite, Sylvia, he’d gotten placed in the court as a low-ranking Lady, and now he saw as much—far more, actually—of her than he and Marianne saw of one another from day to day.  All on that front was going just as he had planned.  No, the additional security simply wouldn’t do.

If, however, Roland were to slip a few drops of moonseed juice into the King’s tea now and again, just enough to make him lethargic and slow…yes, that was the way.  Soon, Asterian would be deemed unfit to rule, and then he could be removed from the throne and slip quietly into death.  It was even one of the least painful methods Roland could have chosen; surely, he would have been commended for his kindness, if only anyone knew about it.

With that plan underway, he waited anxiously for the Elves’ ball.

It started well enough—with crowds of cheering, adoring citizens, all there to see him—but all too soon, he was standing at Marianne’s side again, doing his best not to look bored.  Even that wasn’t so terrible, though.

Especially when he saw Dandin through the crowd.

Dandin gave a nod, flashing a smile and winking at Roland, before turning and melting into the small group of Sprites who were dancing behind him.

It was a simple matter then to slip away.  Marianne, for all her complaining that they didn’t see enough of each other, was talking to some Elven woman, not even paying attention to her husband.  She didn’t notice when he left.

It took minutes to set the evening properly in motion, and then he returned to her side, smiling the same secretive smile.  The deed was done.

He was just bending and offering Marianne his hand, waving away her questions and her frown and nodding to the dance floor, when the cry went up.

“Fire!”

Leaping smoothly into action, Roland jumped in front of Marianne, shoving her backward as if to protect her despite the guards and the lights around them.  He made a show of scanning the area around them for danger, but it wasn’t needed.  He knew just would be.  They weren’t even remotely in harm’s way, he’d made sure of that.  He called for water and jumped into the air, wings unfurling; Marianne called out below him, but he ignored her, flying directly toward the growing flames.

Roland landed, hard and fast, near the burning festival wheel, where the flames were climbing the latticework.  The fire brigade was close behind, rushing, hauling buckets of water and rushing to rescue any non-fliers from the wheel pods. 

Meanwhile, Roland—standing in just the right spot so that everyone could see him, his face illuminated by the flames—gasped, stumbling back and raising his hands, the picture of surprise and dismay.  He drew his sword wildly, jolting forward to spar with an enemy that did not exist. 

“Stay back!” he called frantically to the gathering crowd, whipping a hand up as if to keep them from coming closer even as he leaned into his ‘fight’.  “I--!  Augh!”  Stumbling forward with a dramatic flair, Roland disappeared briefly from view, coming back into sight a moment later, framed by the flaming structure of the festival wheel.

The onlookers gasped as Roland gave a shout, running his enemy through.

“Put that fire out!” he called, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, pushing his hair back with one gloved hand.  The fire brigade did as he said, and the flames hissed and sputtered as they died, leaving streaks of white across everyone’s vision and the acrid smell of smoke in their noses.

“Roland!”

Marianne landed next to him, her green gown soot-smudged, gasping and wide-eyed.  Roland had to fight back a laugh, but he managed it, marshalling his expression into something more somber.

“Roland, what was that, what happened, I—ah!”  Looking toward the site of Roland’s struggle, she gasped, jerking away from the small, dark mass on the ground, gripping his arm surprisingly tightly in her fear. 

Roland didn’t let her recover.  He stepped forward and shoved the form with his armored foot, drawing back and allowing the dying flames reveal it to the Queen and their crowding subjects.  Ignoring their cries of shock, fear, and rage, Roland raised his voice so that he would be heard.

“That, buttercup,” he drawled, looking down on Marianne and successfully swallowing his smirk, “is a goblin.”

Chapter Text

Marianne watched the muster.

It had been three days since the Elves’ ball, since the incursion into their lands and the attack on their happiness.  In three days, everything had changed.

The call to arms had gone out immediately the next morning, several Fairies armed with official summons and serious expressions arrayed in a half-circle around the royal couple.  Given their instructions, they’d bowed as one, grim-faced, before leaping into the sky.  They split immediately from their fellows, each flying in a different direction and disappearing over the horizon.  Since that day, citizens from all over the kingdom had been streaming toward the castle; Fairies flying in from the Western Windings, Sprites swimming from the Gleaming Falls, Elves tramping in from the southern Bloom Patches, and all manner of folk from Seedhaven and the local feckoning coming in whatever ways they could.  Armor, dredged up from the basements and attics of the realm, clinked and clanged together as their people struggled to buckle it on, a low buzz of preparation and gossip falling heavily over the palace proper.  The forges, fired up in earnest, went full-tilt all hours of the day and night, sending thick smoke and tangy, heavy heat up into the air where it hung briefly before settling over the castle courtyard.  At twilight, the forge fires, and the smaller cooking fires which marked where people had made camp, twinkled in the gathering darkness.  Marianne looked quietly down at them from the balcony, her eyes somber as she watched.

Their anniversary party, needless to say, had been cancelled.  Postponed, officially, but…Marianne understood.  The kingdom was preparing for war; parties might be few and far between for some time to come.

She’d tried to make Roland see reason, to explain to him that they should really send an emissary, or, better yet, they themselves should go to the Dark Forest, try to meet the King and ask what had happened, but Roland had shook his head.

“I don’t think so, buttercup,” he had drawled in the cool morning air when they had returned to the Festival grounds to look for more clues—at Marianne’s insistence.  “There were lots of goblins here, you see?”  He’d pointed to the scuffle-marks, to the many numerous footprints in the dirt and trampled grass.

Marianne, frowning at him, had shook her head.

“There’s lots of footprints,” she’d agreed, “but it’s really impossible to tell, isn’t it?  We’re at the heart of the festival here…”

Roland had laughed.

“Oh, buttercup,” he said, his eyes just slightly cool as he’d put his hand on her shoulder.  “It’s cute of you to try, but you’re not really the tracking kind, are you?”

“No,” Marianne had said softly, shoulders slouching, her eyes flicking down to the ground.  “I’m not.”

So now, mere days later, she watched the muster from above, watched as new additions to their ranks were directed here and there.  She crossed her arms over her middle, worry curling through her—worry, naturally, but other feelings, too.

She was frustrated.  Frustrated that it had come to this, that the Dark Forest had attacked from out of nowhere and nothing.  Her father, who’d been so sick the past few months, seemed to know nothing and had no council to give.  Perhaps worst of all, she was to be left behind to rule over some pittance of her people while their bravest and best marched to war—a war that, come to think of it, hadn’t even been properly declared.  She was frustrated that her dreams of friendship with the Dark Forest were scattered around her, that they had gone up like so much smoke hovering over a small, crumpled form.  And these were only the large frustrations. 

She was frustrated, too, that Roland had had less and less time for her since the day they got married, frustrated that he was leaving her behind now with what felt like flimsy excuses—no matter how well-intended they were—that, if he would just listen to her, might dissipate…but her every attempt had been met with cheerful reasons why her counsel did not matter.  For Gusts’ sakes, she had taken up swordplay just to fill the hours when her King Consort should be at her side, months ago when her father had first grown ill and there had been no comfort to be found in the arms of her husband.  She knew, of course, that with her father falling ill, and her time so taken up by the physicians, Roland had been busier and busier with important matters of state, matters he was better suited to than she was, but all the same…she turned away from the window, sighing angrily.  He’d even been too busy to tell her when the speech to the first gathering troops was happening, and as a consequence, she’d missed it entirely.  The first truly important thing that had happened since they’d gotten married, and she had missed it.  Was she crazy, to be so angry?  She thought she was justified, but whenever she tried to talk to Roland about these things, he just looked at her as if in pity…she just wasn’t sure.

Her hands curled into fists over her abdomen, her arms tightening as if in a hug, embracing her.

A moment later, Marianne shook her head and threw her shoulders back, sucking a breath full of air into her lungs.  If she wanted to have more say in the run of the kingdom, if she wanted to know what was happening in their very palace, well then she was obviously going to have to make sure of it.  And the first part of that was talking to Roland, who she hadn’t seen since breakfast; she really should check in with him anyway, before he rode to war in a few days’ time.

If she wasn’t careful, she might not see him at all before then.

Taking another deep breath and expelling it in a huff, Marianne squared her shoulders and marched into the hallway.

Leaving the royal apartments meant that the two faerie guards—one at either side of the door—who were stationed for the night jerked to attention.  Obviously surprised by her reappearance this late in the evening, it took them a few seconds to realize what was happening, but they fell into step behind her all the same.  Tonight…Marianne peeked behind her, cracking a small smile when she saw who her guards were.  Sprout and Pip were cousins who looked more like they were brother and sister, apart from their wings, and the two were always squabbling good-naturedly, one eye for each other and one eye on the royal or royals that they were guarding at the time.  Their presences were warm and friendly, always, and Marianne couldn’t help but feel at ease around them.

“Where to tonight, Milady?” Sprout asked, bowing his head slightly in respect.  His wings were almost as red as his hair, a rarity among Fairies.

“Just to the King’s study,” Marianne said smoothly, picking up the pace as she spoke as if she could leave the suddenly awkward silence behind.

“Milady…”  Pip, with her cousin’s red hair and her raven-dark wings, chewed on her lower lip and shot Sprout a glance that Marianne felt more than saw.  Pip drew closer, until Marianne could almost feel the warmth of the guard’s skin against the back of her wings.  “You know that the King Consort doesn’t like visitors when he’s in the study…”

“I know.”  Marianne’s voice stayed as smooth the silk of her dress, though she had to fight it out around a snag in her throat.  “This is important, though, so my husband will have to forgive the intrusion.”

“Of course.”  Pip fell back to keep pace with Sprout at a respectful distance, but they were no doubt communicating with glances and little motions behind her back.  Marianne kept her eyes fixed dead ahead.  It was true; Roland hated visitors to the study, especially unplanned visitors.  This was important, though, and Marianne absolutely had to speak to him, and she knew he was there.  Besides, it wasn’t good for him to stay in the study all the time, pent up with nothing but work for company…her shoulders relaxed, just slightly, a small curl of mixed worry and affection winding through her heart.  He’ll work himself to death, if he’s allowed to.

When they finally came to the study, Marianne knocked just twice, authoritative and strong, as was her right, before swinging the door open.

What she saw was not Roland, seated at his study, weary and buried in paperwork.  Instead, there was a flash of brown-and-orange wings unfurling, which was certainly odd, but not alarming.  What was alarming was the way her brain seemed to grind to a halt, slowly rewind, and then play again in slow-motion.

It was then that she realized what she’d seen, the flash of naked flesh, far too many legs, Roland’s broad, naked back…

Marianne’s eyes widened, her palm curling into a fist where it was propping the door open.

A scream, birthed in her chest, rose suddenly, pressing its hands and feet into her throat, making her choke, making her eyes water.  Everything seemed to move at half speed as the room erupted into motion, a flash of bare skin and of a second body turning to face her.  Dimly, she realized that she was shaking.

“B-b-buttercup!” Roland was saying, blathering in the background, but Marianne’s eyes were drifting slowly down his body.  She didn’t register Roland’s nakedness.  All she saw was a second, slimmer pair of feet behind his own, as if they could hide there.  Roland had turned, was covering himself as best he could, but his body, which Marianne had dreamed of seeing once upon a time and had missed seeing of late, did not hold her gaze now.  He was still speaking, stammering out something which sounded half like an excuse, half like a plea, clearly scrambling for words.

Marianne, backing away, heard none of it, nor did she hear him as she turned away and began to run.  Pip and Sprout were saying something behind her, yelling, shuffling—chasing?—but the roaring in her ears was drowning all of that out, and when Marianne bust through the doors onto the east balcony, she barreled toward the railing.  Instead of slowing, instead of stopping, she vaulted the stone rail, and plunged over the side.

Her wings snapped open a moment too late, but she was luckily fast enough that she didn’t rip her wings out of their sockets. Still, she cried out at the strain of it, the strength of her wings wrenching her back up into the sky.  She could only barely hear the people below her exclaiming, wondering who was leaping so recklessly off the palace’s outcropping, calling for people to follow her…she left them all behind.

Chapter Text

The chilly night air stung Marianne’s face, and her wings screamed at her for her painfully stupid stunt at the balcony, but all she felt was how her chest could finally move again, freed from the massive vice which had been crushing it.  She could breathe again, though her breath sobbed in and out of her like a saw through flower stalks, and her eyes were so full of tears that the world was a twilight blur. Her mind swung wildly between shock, pain, and that unsettling numbness as it continued to replay for her the one split second that had shattered everything into pieces.

Marianne had always been a skilled flier.  She was the best in her class in agility and speed, and a close second to a young lad named Down in terms of stamina; Dawn could have beaten them all in that category, so long as her interest was held, but she was interested in everything and landed too often, investigating this flower or that lady’s dress, and exasperated their instructor.

Despite Marianne’s skills, though, after a couple hours of flying, even she was having trouble.  Her mind, more and more, settled on a numb disbelief.

And not just her mind, either.  Clad only in a spider-silk dress, well and good for courtly wear, Marianne was left shivering in the damp night air; the momentary brush a breeze edged with a metallic tang made her falter, but when she slowed, her memories closed the distance, snapping at her heels.  Just a little longer kept running through her mind, as if she was fleeing from a mere nightmare, as if a little time spent sitting up in bed with a crackling fire behind the grate and a steaming cup of tea in her hands would dispel all the clinging, heavy miasma from her heart.  As tempting as that thought was, she knew—some little voice in the back of her mind whispered—that this was no dream, no nightmare.  Despite the full moon’s light filtering through the clouds, casting shadows and monsters all around, this was as real as she was.

She wondered if the guards had known.

That, at last, was the thought that sparked an emotion in her shadowy mind and aching heart.

Had the guards known?  Who else?  Who else had known, and said nothing?  Was the whole court in on it?  Were they watching her, laughing into their hands as she passed, mocking her?  Poor Marianne, doesn’t even know, hasn’t the faintest idea.  Rolling their eyes, perhaps, when she looked up at Roland with adoration in her own gaze?  What must they think of her?  And hadn’t she any friends in the court, nobody to tell her what was going on?

Dawn would have said something.

Marianne’s eyes were stinging again, and she put her head down, pushing herself faster and farther as her tears began once more.  Of course Dawn would have said something; she’d have come to Marianne immediately.  Sweet, gentle Dawn would never have let the marriage continue.  She would be as crushed when she heard of this as Marianne was now.  She had adored the idea of having an older brother.

Poor Dawn.  Marianne sniffled, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand.  She should return.  She should go back to Dawn, tell her, say something…anything…seek comfort, her mind shied away from the last thought.  She didn’t want to see Roland right now, she didn’t have the heart to confront him.  What would that even entail?  Would she have him arrested…?  She had no idea.

All the same, she should go back.

That was the thought in her mind when the skies opened up with a thundering boom which ended in a loud, shuddering crackle, not unlike the one her heart had made just hours before.  Marianne gasped, jerking her head up to stare at the sky just as the deluge began.

Marianne had always been a skilled flier…But then, Marianne had never flown in the middle of a downpour.

As best she could, she held her own, weaving through the droplets coming down, squinting through the haze, gasping and sometimes shouting as raindrops grazed her skin, tearing at her dress.  She couldn’t see properly, couldn’t risk taking her eyes off the angry sky to try, and she was trying desperately all the while to steer herself back toward the castle, but all around her was darkness, scarce light gleaming off droplets ranging in size between her head and the entirety of her body; each bolt of lightening disoriented her, each clap of thunder rattled her around within her own skin.

Another brief flash of light revealed the looming shape of the Dark Forest, all twisted branches and unknown and darkness, so much closer than she had thought; she’d been flying entirely the wrong way.  Even as she was flooded with despair, she saw it, and her mind provided one thing and one thing alone:

Shelter.

Marianne darted forward, wings straining, heart pounding, dodging by a caterpillar’s whisker raindrop after raindrop.  She could see it, getting closer, each branching burst of lighting giving her hope.  Closer now, closer, not much farther to go, and she was flying full-tilt, at the absolute limits of her speed, her whole body screaming as she made a wild run for safety.

I’m going to make it, she chanted to herself, I’m going to make it, I’m going t-

Another flash of lightening, much closer and so very loudly followed by thunder, had Marianne gasping and veering to the side.  The wet graze of a raindrop slapped against the tip of her wing, sending her spiraling wildly, rolling like a ball down a hill—the world reduced to a blur—a second flash of lightning followed immediately, Marianne screamed, and the acting Queen of the Light Meadow plunged into the briar patch she hadn’t seen in time to turn away.  The thunder that followed completely masked the sound of her impact, of  tearing skin and ripping fabric, followed by the tiniest ting as her circlet hit the loamy forest floor.

Marianne felt it ripped from her head, felt the thorns that pierced her skin, felt more than heard the pop somewhere behind her, and finally, felt the pain wrench through her back and radiate into the rest of her body, making her seize violently, new waves of pain coming with each motion, causing her back to arch and her body to contort.

She was screaming as the darkness crept across her vision, and she welcomed it as she fell into unconsciousness, her voice finally petering out and choking off, leaving nothing but the otherwise silence of the storm.

Chapter Text

When Marianne woke up, everything around her was dark.

“Roland?” she called softly, the noise croaking out of her sore throat.  She tried to move, to push herself up, and gasped—the pain that flared all through her back had her freezing, afraid to try that motion again—but it wasn’t just her back that hurt.  Her whole body seemed to ache, pulsing with each beat of her heart, and her arms trembled lightly beneath her.

“Roland?” Marianne called, a little louder, confusion compounding her rapidly-approaching headache.  Where was she?  She remembered, dimly, flying through the rain, and crying, and…had there been an accident?  Something with thorns?  Yet the springy stuff underneath her was certainly neither thorns nor mud.  There was a faintly sweet scent which she thought was coming from it, but it wasn’t sweet enough to be the woven sweetgrass matts that the healing ward used; it was common and sturdy, and it loved the sun and grew near the rivers, so the idea that the healers had used something else was strange to her.  As her eyes adjusted to the low light, she saw tiny, five-petaled white flowers dotted throughout what appeared to be moss.  That was strange, though, because moss was a rare sight in the meadows.  As a matter of fact, she’d only ever seen it for herself the day of her wedding, the day she’d accidentally flown into the—!

Gasping, Marianne shoved herself up onto one elbow, crying out before clamping her teeth together, struggling to withhold all sound.  The day before, flooding into her mind, made her headache worse with every memory.  Roland, cheating; Roland, trying to convince her all was well.  And more than that, worse than that: Roland, on their wedding day, winking into the crowd, his arm outstretched in a wave.  Marianne felt sick.  She’d been staring up at him, so in love that she’d been crying, loving the way his armor shone in the sun, the way his hair had that gentle wave, the way he looked at her, the way he loved her…

A sob clawed its way out of Marianne’s throat, tears clouding her vision.  Her head bowed, hanging low.  What was she to do?  She couldn’t very well go back, she couldn’t bear to face him.

“Is she sleeping?”

Marriane’s eyes, still awash with tears, snapped wide, and she froze immediately in place, a ringing filling her ears.

If she’d run away, and crashed headlong into the dark forest—

—Then where was she now?

“She was making noise.”

“Could it be a dream?”

“Not if she’s awake—”

“Is she awake?!”

“Not if she’s dreaming!”

The rapid-fire bickering did nothing to help Marianne breathe again; her chest felt caught tight, as if in a beetle’s crushing pincer.  There were two voices; the first was high and whining, and the second one was deep and low.

She slowly raised her head.

Now, for the first time, she saw that she was in a carved-out dungeon, the walls made of stone, the door made of woven thorns; her wings throbbed at the sight of them.  Through the thorns, two short creatures were peering...one was smaller and froggy-looking, with large bulgy eyes, and the other was larger and thicker, solidly built.  As soon as they saw her moving, they both stopped mid-argument, turning toward her as one.

“She is awake!” the froggy one cried with a large, gaping grin, his thin and reedy voice apparently delighted.

“We’d better tell him,” the solid one announced, turning away and lumbering quickly out of sight.  The smaller one hurried after her.

“Wait!” Marianne croaked, one hand reaching out as if to stop them herself, but the motion sent waves of pain through her back again, and she sucked a breath in through her teeth, freezing against the pain of movement.  As the fiery pain receded, she slowly blew out her breath, head falling forward to rest once more against the bedding.

“Damn.”

Her hand curled into the moss beneath her, squeezing it tightly, the crushing action expelling more of that faintly sweet scent.

She was in goblin territory.

Worse, it seemed, she was in some kind of a jail, prisoner of the Dark Forest.

Marianne struggled to stay calm.  She’d long dreamed to make peaceful contact with the Dark Forest, but that had always been just that, a dream, one wherein she usually had an entourage and guards and had, well, announced her arrival.  To be here, now, without any form of protection or power, was utterly terrifying.  The depths of her mind swirled with all the stories that young fairies were told, about how goblins would steal and eat those who strayed too close to the Dark Forest, tormented them, did all sorts of terrible things.  The mere thought of them had screams rising, clawing their way up her throat.  She struggled to breathe, gritting her teeth, refusing to allow the goblins the satisfaction—.

“So you are awake.”

Yelping, Marianne jerked, her attention immediately directed toward the new voice.

On the other side of the woven bars stood…someone.  Where the others had been short, he was tall—incredibly tall—and he held a staff in one hand, solidly forged and crowned in amber.  His voice, rich and deeply accented, totally belayed how he looked, as if he were covered in thorns and bark and old leaves.

Marianne shuddered, clenching her teeth again as her eyes pricked with tears.  He would not hear her scream.  He wouldn’t.

The figure before her raised a hand to the bars and pushed them up; they slid smoothly into the ceiling.  Marianne winced.  She didn’t know how heavy they were, but the way her back and wings were throbbing, she didn’t think she could raise her arms above her shoulders, let alone raise them enough to escape.

Then, the newcomer stepped under them and released the bars, which fell to the ground with a very loud sound, trapping her in the cell with the tall and glowering goblin.

Marianne did not cower—she didn’t—as he stalked toward her, the amber in his staff glinting in the low dungeon light.

Chapter Text

Roland was not having a good day.

Not only had Marianne—stupid, ridiculous, foolish Marianne—walked in on him the night before, she’d caused quite a scene.  It was only down to Roland’s quick thinking, shoving Sylvia behind the desk and grabbing up his robe, that he’d been able to keep Peep and Squirt from seeing what he’d been doing in there.  They’d had questions, though, even as he ordered them after the princess; Sylvia’s hands and knees were scraped and bruised from how she’d fallen, so she was unhappy when Roland ordered her away, despite this all clearly not being his fault.  When the guards returned empty-handed, it was only through throwing the fit of the decade that he’d gotten them to shut up and stop asking questions.  Despite that, they’d followed him to the royal quarters.

The rest of his night had been filled with half-threatening, half-ordering them not to say anything to anyone—“Buttercup doesn’t need people askin’ questions right now, I just need to find her and comfort her, that’s all”—and eventually he’d made them believe that she’d be more upset if she came back and saw them there.  Clearly reluctant, they’d finally agreed, leaving Roland to track Sylvia down once more, and by the time Roland returned to his chambers, the new guards had already arrived.

Roland had poked his head out the door a little while later to wish the guards a good night, making sure that they knew that the princess was in their quarters and was safe and soundly asleep. 

That night, however, he’d not seen Marianne anywhere, and when he awoke she hadn’t returned to bed.

Sulking somewhere, I suppose, he thought sourly, gazing up at the ceiling.  He’d not been out of bed yet when two chambermaids entered, busying themselves with the state of the room and gossiping to one another as if he wasn’t there.  Usually, of course, their nattering meant nothing to him…today, however, something caught at his ears and dragged his attention from his darkened mood to their conversation.

“—a literal flying leap, I heard!”  One of the maids was saying, shaking her head grimly as she dusted the mantle.  She was young and pretty enough, but too common for Roland’s taste.

“No!” the other maid gasped, her face white, her mouth hanging open.  “No they didn’t, Terra, you take that back!”  She was a little rounder of figure; charming, to be sure, but not someone Roland would waste his time with.

“Yes, they did!” insisted the first—Terra—nodding her head vigorously.  “Right off the east balcony, they went, loads of people saw ‘em, what with the encampment and all!”  She changed tack, then, shaking her head in a mock-mournfulness.  “Wonder what they were thinking, poor souls.”

Throughout the day, Roland found little moments to sneak away from the muster—always on the premise of the business of the kingdom—and was able to hear much.  All the servants and even the gathering fighters, now, were buzzing about it: someone had burst onto the balcony and leapt over the railings in a dangerous fashion.  The gossip was already distorting the story wildly; some claimed it had been a shamed chambermaid, others professing very authoritatively that it had been the boyfriend of one of the soldiers, who feared his mate would never return from war, while still others held that it was the ghost of the late Queen (or of one from far earlier than recent memory).  Some said the figure was alone, some said she had one or many companions.  Almost all of them said that they were crying; some insisted that she was screaming.

No matter what the actual case was, it was clear to Roland that he had to do something; by the end of the day, he realized that Marianne, with all her theatrics, had given him the perfect way to do it.

So, at the close of the day, Roland spoke to his people, somber, yet resplendent as always in his shining armor.  His speech was naturally full of sad yet insightful words, asking for patience and begging for strength and for help, and he even came close to shedding a tear in front of those assembled.  As waves of shock ran through the crowd, he turned away, only then allowing a smile to bloom over his features.  Having put his back to the crowd of soldiers and servants alike, he let his shoulders bow ever so slightly, and pretended to trudge toward the doors that would let him inside.  One thought, one sentiment, was being repeated in whispers that were too loud not to be heard, a buzz of horror and fury beginning to rise and swell, echoed in the words he had said that now became their own.

Queen Marianne, captured?

Kidnapped?

From right inside the palace?

He could have planned it better, Roland thought, feeling self-satisfied as he pushed the doors open and stepped inside…but not by much.

Chapter Text

Bog, King of the Dark Forest, Champion of the Realm, loomed—he knew he was looming—over the fairy on her bed of moss, who looked unnaturally pale and shaky.  Her wings were splinted and covered in leaves, and she was definitely expending a lot of her strength to stay propped up on her elbow the way that she was.

Her brown eyes, though looking rather watery, were narrowed into a fierce glare, and her teeth were clenched.

Well, Bog thought grumpily, color me impressed.

“Nothing to say?” he asked, stopping a pace or two from her, just short of invading her personal space.  “Not even to the person who saved your life?”

“What—?”  Her voice broke and he thought he could hear her cursing mentally about it.  “What do you mean?”  The audacity of the question surprised him into laughing, short and sharp. 

“What do I mean?  I’m asking you if you have no words of thanks to another living being, who dragged you from the thicket your stupid fairy head led you into, and took you out of the worst rain of the season to safety, and then had you patched up besides.”  He rested the butt of his staff on the floor and leaned idly against it, raising his eyebrows.  “Or don’t they teach manners where you come from?”

“I would have gotten out just fine, thank you very much.”  The fairy’s nose crinkled, her voice lilting and dismissive, and he snorted with a shake of his head, irritation rising within him.

“Oh, aye.  And your poor wing wouldn’t have slowed you down at all.”

He saw the words hit her like physical blows; she paled, swaying, and he saw the tremble in her arms.  Those brown eyes widened in shock, filling with tears, and though she let her head fall forward, hiding them, she wasn’t quick enough to mask the way her lips were trembling, too.

Oh.

A small curl of guilt in Bog’s heart had him relaxing from his pose and pulling up a slice of log to sit on.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wrestling his voice down into softness, feeling uneasy.  He hadn’t realized that lurking under her rude bravado was someone so…soft.  All the same, Bog was desperately unused to comforting anyone, let alone a small and weepy fairy.  His fingers fluttered nervously around the shaft of iron in his hands.  He was painfully uncertain what to do with a crying woman—any crying person—intruder though she might be.

Upon remembering that she was trespassing here, he cleared his throat.  She was an intruder from the kingdom to the west, a kingdom with which his own nation’s relationship was already tenuous and rocky.  She’d been perfectly happy to dismiss his aid, despite the great pains he’d taken to aid her, and she was likely a spy, to boot.

Remembering that had his voice firming up again.

“You’ll be fine.”  His voice was gruff, and he looked at the cell door to avoid seeing her dry her eyes.  He cursed himself for not watching her, though, immediately after he looked away; if she was a spy, surely they were only crocodile tears.  He had to be more on guard than that.  “And flying within a week or so, provided you stay off of them for the time being.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Her voice surprised him.  There was a tremble in it, true, but underneath that uncertain fear, he sensed something stronger, like spider silk, like iron.  She was truly afraid, yes, but there was that deeper side to her, the one he’d suspected mere moments ago.

“Yer right wing is sprained at the joint,” he said after a moment.  “Your left one…”  He trailed off, uncertain how to break this sort of news to a fairy.  Even a spy would be upset at this knowledge, of that he was sure.

When he looked to her, she was looking right back at him, brown eyes soft and pleading with him.  Be gentle, they seemed to say, and Bog heaved a sigh.  She seemed so small, and so delicate, that his voice when it came forgot entirely that it ought to be gruff.

“It’s torn.”

Chapter Text

“Torn,” he said, and the ground beneath Marianne opened up.  Se felt as if she was falling from a thousand feet, spiraling wildly as she dropped like a stone through the cold earth, her blood raging and her skin growing cold.  She gasped for air, unable to breathe.

“How badly?” she managed, desperately ignoring the tears crowding her eyes.  She hadn’t cried properly yet, not upon waking up a prisoner, nor upon seeing her captor stride into the room, frightening in his largeness, nor even at his harsh tone when he had addressed her; now, though, the idea that she could lose her wings had her calm cracking, her already-unstable footing falling away like crumbling sandstone. 

The large, rough figure sitting before her said nothing.

“Please tell me.  Please.”  Her voice was harsh and broken in its desperation; her breath was coming in pants, yet she felt like she was swallowing a scream down from bursting out of her chest.

“It’s a mostly even tear,” the goblin said, obviously uneasy with her distress.  “It runs nearly up to the base of your wing, but the edge is intact, so it may be able to be fixed—”

“Fixed?!”  Marianne choked on the word as it came out, a sound which began as a laugh and then turned into a sob.  She thought—she felt—that she was fighting a rising tide of vomit, and she swallowed desperately against it.  “My wing is torn, you said.  You don’t have to spare my…my feelings…”  More choking, more desperation-fueled powering through the feeling.  Tears were burning hot on her face and plopping onto her arms, molten against her skin which had at some point become so incredibly cold; she was trying not to shake with the force of the cries that she wouldn’t release, trying not to let him know that she was crackling and splintering into pieces.  What had she done to deserve this, she wondered dimly, struck suddenly by the sensation that she was watching herself from above.  What had she done to deserve this?

Memories rose, unbidden: a young Fairie in her flight class, just slightly older than Marianne herself, fast and strong and sure; she’d been in some kind of horrific accident just after her birthday, and her rich brown wings had been all but ripped away from her body.  Bird attack, they’d whispered to each other, all of them wearing matching pitying faces whenever they saw her in a hallway or a corridor around the palace, peeking and yet shuddering when they saw the stubs of wing that remained, shorn close to the skin, ragged.  She’d disappeared shortly afterward, but sometimes Marianne thought she might have seen her, working as a servant, emptying the ash buckets, beating the rugs…she’d tried to speak to her, upon occasion, but the servant in question had always scurried away before she’d had the chance.

“Get some rest,” Marianne heard through the fog, dimly registering that the goblin was standing up, shifting his weight.  “I’ll be back down to check on you in the morning.”

“Wait—” Marianne looked up so suddenly that she felt dizzy.  Sniffling, huffing out her breath as she fought to regain it, she shook her head, a few more tears trickling down the wet tracks down her face.  “Wh—I—I…”

 He did wait, pausing and looking down at her, one eyebrow quirked inquisitively.  It might have looked intimidating, but the way he held his staff was still so clearly unnerved.

“I…”

The large, dark figure waited, looking oddly patient despite his pinched-together lips.  Something in his eyes; the thought flitted away before she could think it properly, but Marianne’s eyes were caught by his.  Soaking, earthen brown were caught up in eyes of a peculiarly soft-looking, almost-sky blue, and Marianne felt oddly pinned beneath their gaze, as if trapped, and yet…yet somehow, soothed by them.

Marianne let her eyes fall closed, her head drooping down until her forehead rested against the cool springiness of the moss.  She felt detached, and her head felt as floaty as an unanchored dandelion seed, and each beat of her heart hurt like the muscle was actually bruised and torn.  She felt tired.

“Get some rest,” she heard again, the words softer for their repetition or her lack of solidity or, perhaps, for his pity for her plight; she did not hear the gate lift, nor the stranger’s slow retreat, merciful sleep quick to overtake her.

She would have been surprised to hear the falter in the goblin’s steps.  She would have been surprised to hear him hesitate.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t like Marianne to go missing.

Well, of course it wasn’t.  In the year that she had married Roland, many things might have changed; she’d become slower to laugh, more somber…but then, she had had a lot on her shoulders, especially after their father began to get more sick by the day.  She’d been constantly worried about doing her part, about filling her role to the best of her ability.  Even on the days where she was visibly upset by Roland’s lack of warmth, by her lack of seeing him, she’d thrown herself into whatever she possibly could in order to help their kingdom.

Which was why the news of her kidnapping had come as a shock, and then as a relief, an of course.  It wasn’t like Marianne to go missing.

Then, of course, it had become a panic.

Dawn had spent the entire rest of the day with Roland’s words to their people ringing in her ears.  Kidnapped, taken, stolen from within. They repeated over and over and over again in her mind, until she felt like grabbing the tips of her ears and pulling them down to block out the noise.  They accompanied thoughts, visions, of Marianne, snatched out of the very palace itself, dragged into the Dark Forest.  Marianne, tortured, tormented, perhaps even eaten like in all the scary stories they’d ever heard as children, or perhaps even worse—

“Dawn?”

The tone of Sunny’s voice snapped her immediately out of her thoughts, the constant loop of images and of Roland’s words.  She jerked her head away from the wall where she’d been staring, blinking against the dryness of her eyes.  Suddenly, she was sitting at her vanity again, and despite the warmth of the afternoon sun streaming in through her glassless window, she had to fight back a shudder.

Sunny’s warm brown eyes stared up at her, his eyebrows pinched together, worry dark and deep in her eyes.

“Dawn, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, laying a broad, calloused hand over hers.  She could tell that he was, really; he was as worried about Marianne as any of them.  Almost as much as she was.

Sniffling, Dawn dropped her gaze.  It landed in her lap as she reached up with a shaky hand to scrub at the wetness on her face.  She wanted to speak; she wanted to tell Sunny everything.  How she’d tried to find Roland before the speech, how he’d heard her call out and looked in her direction before looking away and continuing down the hall, how that had felt like a blow to the chest.  How she’d cornered him after the speech and begged him to let her come with, to help.  How he’d scoffed at her and waved her off.

Don’t be stupid, he’d said, in a tone so different from his usual honeyed drawl.  What are you gonna do in the middle of a war, Dawn?  Sing ‘em to death?

It was clear that Marianne’s being missing was weighing on him.

But not so clear as it was that Marianne’s being missing was making him mean.

Dawn wanted to tell Sunny all of it.  She wanted to spill all of her worry and pain out into the warm sunbeam where she sat and let him take it all and make it better, the way he always did.  She wanted him to pluck through her worries and her fears with his broad, careful fingers, examine them one by one, and tell her why each and every one of them was much smaller than it seemed to her, why each of them was false and nothing to be afraid of.

She just didn’t know how to start.

“We’re gonna get her back,” Sunny promised.  He took her smooth hands in both of his rougher ones and squeezed, almost like he knew that her fingers felt cold and numb, like she needed the warmth.  “We’re going to go and get her, no matter what.  We’ll bring her home.”

“Thank you, Sunny.”  Her voice, which had come out in a whisper to begin with, crackled on his name.  She hated that it had, that even this simple thank-you should be marred by the way she felt inside, but she threw herself forward anyway to fold her friend in a hug, sniffling and fighting the hiccups newly rising in her chest.  “Thank you,” she whispered again.  It was all she could manage. 

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Sunny, of course, was hugging her back.  Solid, firm, smelling of earth and soap and the flowers in the field, Sunny had been a constant in her life, never ever letting her down.  “We’re gonna get her back,” he whispered into her ear, his breath ghosting over her skin.  He tightened his hug, squeezing her gently.  “I promise.”

A horn from outside sounded, brassy and loud; regretfully, Dawn drew back, sniffling and wiping tears off her face, smiling ruefully and huffing a laugh.  When her blue eyes met Sunny’s again, there was an apology there, the same apology that was in the droop of her wings and the slight downturn of her ears. 

“I have to go.”  He smiled up at her, but it was a sad smile, something almost unheard of for the usually cheerful elf.  “I’ll come back before we have to march, okay?”  She nodded, and he seemed to struggle, to fight with himself for just a second; the moment passed, though, and he raised onto his toes to peck her on the cheek, squeezing her hands just once more before he ran out the door.

Dawn, left alone with her thoughts and the quiet of a room just outside a huge buzz of activity, let her stare drift back toward her vanity, coming to a rest on some of her makeup brushes and different pots of colors, covered and lined up carefully, each of them in their place.

A minute passed, the clash between Dawn’s silent room and the courtyard’s loud muster growing more and more discordant, the sounds drawing her repeatedly back in to the present.  Just when she thought she would burst, either into tears or into flat-out screams, something inside her seemed to click into place.  Her spine straightened.  As her eyes cleared from the way they’d been clouded, she caught sight of her reflection; she watched her own mouth thin, watched herself surge to her feet, something brave and impulsive twanging through the core of her being, resonating deep and steady like the deepest bass drum.  She turned, eyes narrowing, to the open air of her own balcony.

It wasn’t like Marianne to go missing.

Dawn spun on her heel, grabbing her cloak and flipping it over her arm, before sweeping her way out the door.

Chapter Text

Marianne hadn’t known she’d fallen asleep again; finding herself waking back up was a surprise.  Her tongue was too large in her mouth, and everything tasted of cold tears and the mustiness of a fitful sleep.  Breathing in shakily, she shivered, wincing just a little when her back gave a short, sharp twinge.  The scent of moss underneath her curled through her nose, as well as something…different, something like lavender and sage combined and yet like neither of them.  Becoming aware of a cool, wet tickling slowly creeping down her right arm, she turned to face her right side, feeling how her cheek was impressed with the intents of her moss bed.  Suddenly, all that filled her mind’s eye was the image of a very large and very wet centipede crawling across her skin; sucking in a breath, Marianne screwed up her face and cracked open her eyes, flinching on instinct.

Catching sight of what was happening, she stiffened abruptly, just barely swallowing down the urge to shout.  It was no centipede, but it was almost as terrifying.

The tall, fierce-looking goblin from the night before—the one she’d fought with—was sitting on the same stump at her bedside, perched forward on the front edge and looming over her.  Yet, after a moment’s heart-pounding pause, it slowly began to sink in that he didn’t look quite so intimidating as she’d thought; his long legs were folded rather awkwardly due to the height of the stump, so that his knees were very nearly touching the ground, if they weren’t indeed resting there, forcing him more into a strange kneeling position rather than the sitting pose she’d taken in at first glance.  There was a vial of some kind in his hands that she couldn’t see apart from the glass top, and the strange smell that was assaulting her nose obviously came from within; between his lips, he held a brush, small and fine.  A second brush, larger and broader, was held delicately in his fingers.

Startled, brown eyes wide in her shock, it took a moment for Marianne to find her footing again, to allow herself to breathe.  When he felt the tension release from her body, his blue eyes flicked up to meet hers, but they quickly returned to his work.  She followed his gaze when it dropped down, but what she saw only confused her.  He was…drawing on her arm?  Oddly delicate, spindly marks marched down her shoulder, past her elbow, and the way he was going, they were going to go all down her wrist.

Despite the irritated ‘v’ between his eyes, which were blue—very blue, now that she had a moment to see them rather up close—he looked decidedly less intimidating than he had the night before.  Actually, he looked almost ridiculous, but Marianne thought it would be very hard for someone to appear intimidating with a paintbrush held between their lips like a very long and skinny cigar.

“So, you’re awake,” the goblin muttered around the handle of the brush.  “I wondered how long you would sleep.”

“Wha…?”  She cleared her throat and swallowed against the crackling of her voice when she tried to speak.  “What is this?  What are you doing?”  The wet tickling she’d felt had obviously been his brush; even as she watched, he dunked the brush in his one hand into the vial in his other, bringing the newly-wet tip to her arm.  Watching him work, it was clear that the symbols were lettering of some kind, oddly sharp and brief in contrast with her own beautiful, flowing script.  She couldn’t decide which was more childish, when she’d thought he had been drawing on her or now that she had recognized the dark brown marks as lettering; either way, marking one’s skin, or the skin of someone else, either with drawings or with letters, was rather childish, and strangely at odds with the very tall and intimidating goblin before her. 

Scowling, her captor paused in his work, plucking the second brush out of his mouth and holding each of them between his fingers, which really only highlighted how very long his fingers were. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?”  His accent bent at the sounds of his words, bowing the o’s and blending over the t’s.  “I’m healing you, you wee Fairy fool.”

“I am not a fool,” Marianne snapped, rather more firmly than she thought of herself at the moment.  “Tell me what these are.”  She jerked her chin toward the signs on her arm.

“They’re healing runes,” the goblin said, sighing and sitting back a little on his seat, though he did look rather vaguely amused.  “Or did you want to stay earthbound for the rest of your natural life?”

Marianne seemed to have run out of tears, but that allowed her to scowl at him instead of crying again.  “I told you before, I know I won’t be flying again, not on a torn wing—”

“Aye, and you passed out before I could say otherwise.”  Sighing, he placed his brushes bristles-down into the pot in his hand, arching his back and stretching as if he’d been sitting at her side for hours.  She couldn’t see, but due to the way he shifted and the sounds of rustling, she could tell he’d stretched his legs out as well.  “Once I’ve finished covering your arm, I’ll dust you over, and then we’ll go from there.”

“Dust me?  Go from there?”  Marianne’s head was starting to hurt, like tiny daggers were slowly being pushed into her temples.  She dragged her left arm—free from the paint he’d been using—up to rub against her forehead, gritting her teeth to hold in her gasp when her back gave an unhappy throb.  “What do you mean?”

The goblin, suddenly, looked rather uncomfortable.

“Well, usually I’d do the same to your back as well,” he muttered, looking away and acting very suddenly interested in the pattern of the stone floor.  His cheeks appeared darker, too, and Marianne stared at him with utter incredulousness.  Was he blushing?  The goblin cleared his own throat, looking to the ceiling now.  “If you’d agree to it, that is.”

“I don’t—” Huffing out a sigh, Marianne closed her eyes against the pressure in her head.  Nothing made any sense.  “I’m not agreeing to anything.  I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to do.”  Frowning at him, she shook her head just a little, wary of causing her back to flare again.  “You keep talking like I’m going to fly again, but my wing is…torn.”  The word came out a rasp, but it did come out.  “And dislocated.  Or it was, from the way my back is screaming, so it’s got to be a pretty bad tear.”

“Dislocated?  Aye, it was.”  He was looking at her again.  Though he’d specified, she felt like he was answering both questions at once.  “But you should fly again.  You’re lucky it was so cool out, and that I got to you quickly, or it might have been a different story.”

“I know there’s nothing you can do for me,” Marianne said, her voice harsh and hard and rough.  Her eyes drilled into his own, daring him to look at her and lie about it.

He did look at her, then, and his eyes were oddly soft.

“Just let me finish this.  Call it a courtesy.”  His lips were pressed into a thin line, but his eyes were still soft; it seemed he was more concentrating than irritated with her.  When she didn’t object, instead jerking her shoulder just a little bit, he took the thinner paintbrush back out of the mixture and began to draw again.  Marianne wrinkled her nose, sighing, but said nothing, opting to watch instead.

The goblin’s brush was quick, yet steady, and soon he was leaving little marks all down her arm.  Every once in a while, he would pause, juggle the objects in his hands into one of them, and then reach down for something that appeared to rest at his feet.  Whatever he was reaching for or into, when he withdrew his hand, his fingertips were coated with a fine layer of dust which seemed to shift under the light.  She saw white, and purple, and a slight blush of pink, all mixed together on his fingertips before he began, slowly, to spread the mixture over Marianne’s arm, where it stuck immediately to the paste he’d applied.

It sort of tingled, and Marianne wasn’t sure if that was the paste, the powder, or both.

She opened her mouth to ask him what it was, but when she looked up once more, it was to see him watching her, quiet and inscrutable, and she quite forgot her question as it died on her lips.  Feeling shy, she looked away instead, and she thought she heard him do the same along with the clearing of his throat. 

“What is this supposed to do?  The…dust, and the paste,” she said after a moment, peeking back at him; she was strangely gratified to see that he looked embarrassed to have been caught looking at her like that, and saw the way he glanced at her, as if trying to build up the courage to say something.  He cleared his throat again.

“Jus’ general healing properties,” he muttered.  “Be better for you to get them on your back, too, but…you wouldn’t wake, when I came in, and I didn’t want to force it.  Thought I’d better start with an arm and see where that got me.”

Swallowing around the lump in her throat, oddly touched at his strange thoughtfulness, Marianne slowly shook her head.

“I still don’t understand,” she said, her voice low and dull.  “I can’t, I told you before, it’s not going to work.  Whatever you’re doing is a waste of time.  They’re ruined.”

A flash of irritation, then, and her captor flashed a glare in her direction, ire springing up out of nowhere.  “You’re so sure you know better,” he sneered, shaking his head and scoffing.  “Typical Fairy nonsense.”  He leaned forward, twisting slightly where he sat, and for the first time Marianne caught sight of his wings.

That he had them at all was the first surprise.  She’d never heard of a goblin with the power of flight before, not without using tamed mounts of some kind.  And yet, not only did her jailer have a set of his own wings…the wings that he had were beautiful.  They were quite unlike Marianne’s own wings, soft and large and richly colored; his instead were thinner, symmetrical to themselves and to each other, and instead of carrying one or two or three colors, they took the light of the cell and refracted it, seeming almost to glow by virtue of the low lighting.  When he turned, looking at her again, something subtle about his wings moved, too; squinting, Marianne stared for a few moments more, trying to puzzle out what it was.

Nervously, the goblin shifted his weight on his stool, and Marianne had to catch her breath.  There, she’d seen it, the subtle change in his wings that she hadn’t been able to parce out.  His wings were iridescent, filled with rippling, quiet rainbows from base to tip.

And the tips…well, the edges, all the edges…were ragged and tattered, not as perfect as she’d initially thought, not rounded and smooth like her own were. 

Well, like they had been.

Some of the tears even seemed to crackle their way inward, toward the centers of his wings, and Marianne found herself wondering what sort of a person he was.  Did he get in a lot of accidents?  Had he been attacked by a wild animal of some kind?  The more she looked, the more she saw, and there were just so many lines where his wings had once been injured… “D’ya like what you see?”

Surprised and caught out, Marianne met the goblin’s eyes again, her cheeks burning. 

He wasn’t angry, or at least, he didn’t seem to be.  The hunch of his shoulders indicated his embarrassment, and his lips were thinned into a mere line across his face, but his eyebrows were raised, and something in his eyes was…not quite warm, perhaps, but…amused.  Here he’d let her natter on and on about her own wings, and now that she’d seen his, the realization of how firmly she’d lodged her foot into her mouth was written all over her face. 

She’d been an idiot.

“They’re not as pretty as yours,” he muttered, “but they serve me well enough.”  He looked away, packing some of his stuff into a roughly-woven satchel with one hand, before reaching out to delicately dust the powder in his hand over Marianne’s arm.  It shimmered as it fell, and he was meticulous in his work; when he was done, there was a soft halo of shine on her arm, but most of the dust itself was stuck to the paste-like goo he’d applied to her arm.

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Marianne said, her voice similarly low.  “I…they’re nice.  Really.”  Sky-blue eyes glanced up at her, sharp and uncertain, and his movements faltered.

He stared at her for a second or two, and then he was looking down again, returning to his work.

“Nice,” he scoffed under his breath, shaking his head in a jerking motion.  “Don’t be ridiculous, you wee Fairy fool.”  Bending, he reached down to scoop more dust out of his satchel.

“Stop calling me that.”  Marianne frowned at him.  “I have a name, you know.”

“As do I.” 

The silence stretched out for a minute or more before Marianne huffed, the sound loud and irate.

“Well, what is it?”  She wrinkled her nose at the way some of the paste-like goo seemed to be hardening already. 

Taken aback, he frowned, his wings rustling uneasily, but he didn’t look away from his work.

“What is what?”

“Your name,” Marianne said, exasperation thick in her voice.  “What do I call you?”

The goblin stared at her once more, much more openly than the last time, frozen either in disbelief or just in plain surprise.  He was a man unused to making casual conversation, Marianne thought with a soft sigh, but the thought did make the line of her shoulders soften once more.  Perhaps he didn’t talk to anyone at all, with how awkward he acted at times?  Certainly not Fairies, she thought, relations between their kingdoms being what they were.  Deep inside of her, a spark reignited.  The possibility of friendship with the Dark Forest had long been a dream of hers, and though it had been buried for quite some time now, it seemed that the dream had not died just yet.

“Boggarch is my name,” he said after another moment’s pause.  He cleared his throat and looked away.

Marianne, despite laying prone, felt a surge of electricity through her body.  Frozen, sitting utterly still, she stared up at him, at the sharp features of the goblin sitting beside her.  Her mouth was dry; her palms, suddenly, were sweating.  It was a coincidence too impossible to believe; Boggarch, he’d said, as in…the King of the Dark Forest?  But how—why—could this be true?  Why should he be sitting here, tending to her?

“And what about you?” he asked, seeming to be totally oblivious to her shock and awe. 

“I’m sorry,” Marianne said, shaking her head just a little, feeling dazed.  “Boggarch, you said?”

“Eugh.”  He wrinkled his nose.  “Nobody calls me that, lass.  It’s Bog, really, or…well, Your Majesty, I suppose, is what most call me.”  He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. 

“Your Majesty,” Marianne repeated dutifully, a new tone of respect in her voice. 

Sighing, the King of the Dark Forest—the goblin king!—bent forward to re-focus on his task, muttering something she couldn’t quite hear.  She’d opened her mouth to ask about it, but he glanced up at her, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly in irritation. 

“Do you have a name?” he asked her again, and she was so taken aback by the revelation of who he was that she answered truthfully.

“Marianne,” she said.

The word had left her mouth a split second before she realized that she shouldn’t have said it.  She should have given him a different answer, pretended to be someone else, anyone else. 

Too late.

It was the King’s turn to sit there, utterly still. 

“Marianne?” he said, brows knitting together.  When he looked her in the eyes, his brows were knit together, a scowl tugging his mouth into an ugly grimace.  “That’s the name of the Queen of the Light Meadows, lass.  Try again.”  His eyes searched her face, questioning, but the confusion in his eyes was mingling now with anger, proper anger.

“That’s my name!” Marianne insisted.  In for a breeze, in for a gale.  She scowled back at him.  The last few days had pushed her to the breaking point and past it, and she should have let the King’s surprise and his upset go, but she couldn’t.  Marianne should have chosen a different name, but now the deed was done, and Bog’s reaction had her on the defensive.  She thought no more about trying to hide her identity; she just wanted to push back against him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” The King said, taking a deep breath and blowing it out the way one did when they were asking some higher power for patience.  He closed his eyes, clearly wrestling with himself.  “Even if you’re just some little pixie from a farmhouse somewhere, lass, nobody is going to do anything—”

“I’m not a farmer!”  She glared, inching away from the side of the bed, tugging her arm in close.  “My name is Marianne—”

“—Don’t you say another word,” he growled, glaring right back at her.  He shook his head, the set of his mouth souring into a grin that was less of a grin and more of a wild grimace.  He bent forward over her arm once more, obviously aiming to finish his work in a hurry.  “Not once more—”

“—and I am the Queen of the Light Meadows—”  The words barreled over themselves in their mad bid to escape her chest, and it was foolish but she was far past caring about such things. 

“—shut up,” he snapped, snatching up his staff, shoving his vials and satchel and brushes into his bag one-handed, haphazard and wild and without a care for what spilt or stained or upended inside, clearly just looking to leave.  “Not another word, I said—”

“My name is Marianne!” she shouted, ignoring how her back spasmed, ignoring how it set her throat aching.  “My name is Marianne, no matter what you say or do!”

Boggarch was on his feet by now, swinging away from her.  He stalked toward the gate, shaking his head and visibly grinding his teeth.  The sight took her aback, for some reason; his shoulders and back were long lines of tension, of anger, and Marianne scowled as he retreated, watching him go.

“I’ll leave you be for a while,” the King snapped, shooting an irritated glance over his shoulder at her before he wrenched the gate up to the ceiling without effort, stepping through and then letting it slam closed under its own weight.  “And next time I’m here…” Facing her properly, he glowered through the bars, his normally bright blue eyes dark and turbulent.  “Don’t lie to me.”

Marianne’s mouth dropped open in shock, in protest, but before she could say a word, Bog spun on his heel and disappeared from the doorway.  He was gone before she’d recovered her senses.

What did he have to be so angry about?

Chapter Text

Fuming, Bog stalked down the corridor of the castle.  He couldn’t believe the little fairy sitting in his jail cell had gotten the better of him and his temper.  She was certainly annoying, but that wasn’t enough to explain his reaction, and he knew it.  Not only was she laying there, hurt and defenseless and mostly unable to move, but she wasn’t even the true cause of his upset; he’d been in bad spirits before he’d ever gone down to see her.  It was no secret to him why he’d lashed out, of course.

Marianne.

It might be a common enough Fairy name, he supposed; he didn’t know.  But she’d called herself Queen of the Light Meadows, and that wasn’t something he could ignore.  Her face, so angry, flashed in front of his eyes, and he didn’t notice his surroundings at all as he walked down the corridor, his face so thunderous that the goblins who crossed his path jerked out of his way with a special fervor, avoiding his gaze.  One or two even turned about immediately upon seeing him, scurrying down the way they’d just come, but he paid them no mind.  He couldn’t.

He was fixated on Marianne, on the fierceness of her gaze, a warm oak brown shot through with shards of honey.  Indeed, he hardly noticed his feet taking him exactly where he needed to go; he shoved the door to the throne room open automatically, not because he’d noticed its approach.  As soon as he did, though, he was reminded of what he was to do, and his features pulled into a grim stare as his gaze landed on the scout there.

“Tolg,” he said, striding past the waiting goblin.  

“Your Majesty.”  The goblin, a large, round man with a voice deep, deep like a bass, bowed low.  

“What have you found?”  Bog dumped himself into his throne, settling his staff onto the floor near him so it leaned up against his seat.  Tolg, straightening, looked grim.

“Stayed on boarder,” he rumbled.  “Watched.  Climbed.”  The be-speckled goblin shook his head.  “Fairies, many.  Smoke.”

“Nearby?”  Bog leaned forward in his seat, frowning heavily, hanging on every word.  Was perhaps part of the Meadows burning?  That would explain the movement, but…to his knowledge, or at least the knowledge he had from several generations ago, there was a large and winding river through the Meadow.  Surely no fire could burn too long with so much access to water?  

Tolg shook his head.

“Far,” he said.  He gestured as if at or over some horizon.  “Away.”

“Do you think the palace is in trouble?”

Jumping at the unexpected noise, Bog groaned when he realized who it was.  Griselda, former Queen Consort and current Adviser to the Throne, stood at his side.  How long had she been there?  He caught Tolg’s shrug.

“Did you draw a map?” Bog asked, sighing heavily.  He was gratified to see Tolg nod.  “Good.  Leave it here, I’ll look over it.  Go back to the boarder and stay alert.  Come back in two days.”  

Again, Tolg bowed, digging in his pouch and leaving a scrap of paper on the steps of the dais before turning and lumbering toward the door.

Griselda had the map in her hands before he could stand up.

“Eh,” she said, squinting at the inked lines.  “What’s this, then?”

“Code,” said Bog, snatching it away.  “Really, mother, did you have to—”

“Have to what?”  Griselda put her hands on her hips and glared up at him.  “Have to come in here and see what’s got my son so upset that he doesn’t even have time for his old ma anymore?”

“Nevermind,” Bog muttered.  It was his turn to peer down at the map, blue eyes taking in every line.  Try as he might, what he saw didn’t make sense to him.  “Hrm…”

“What is it?  What do you see?”

“Well…”  Sighing, Bog plopped down into the throne, leaning forward with his elbows braced on his legs so he could show her the map.  “This is our castle, and here’s the old primrose line…”

“Could be the current primrose line,” Griselda prompted, eyeing him meaningfully.  “If someone would just—”

“Absolutely not.”  Bog’s voice was low and growling, and for once, Griselda didn’t push him.  Satisfied she was quiet for a moment, he continued..  “But look.  This here…”  He pointed to the sign for smoke.  “What’s it over?  I don’t know what this is.”

“Oh?”  Griselda leaned closer, looking at it intently.  “You didn’t give him a code for that?  That’s just what it looks like?”  Bog shook his head.

“No, I didn’t.”  He frowned and looked to his mother, awaiting her reply.  She seemed puzzled, but not, he thought, about what he was puzzled about.

“Well,” she said, “that’s the Fairy castle.”  

The jolt of shock was sudden and powerful.  Frozen in place, Bog gaped at her.

“The—the Fairy castle?”  He frowned, shaking his head.  “It’s too far to see, though, isn’t it?”  Griselda grinned in what should have been a sheepish manner, but wasn’t.

“Not if you go above the trees,” she said, sounding wistful.  Bog’s jaw dropped, but she ignored him.  “Your father took me a few times, you know, up and up…”

“You could have died!” Bog said, aghast, but he was certainly impressed.  His mother had always been (rightfully) cautionary about the dangers that the Dark Forest posed to flying creatures—and they were warnings that Bog could now confirm carried truth, now that he was older—but even with all the rules he’d ever broken, he’d never flown beyond the canopy.

“Of course we were careful,” she said, flapping her hands.  “And fast, well, usually.  You have to go a ways up to see the Meadows, but once you do, it’s so open you can see for ages.  Ah, Firroth…”  She lifted her head and stared off at nothing, her eyes gone misty and vacant.

“So it’s over the castle,” Bog said, his voice soft, mindfully gentle.  He looked back at the map, frowning.

“Who knows what the Meadows are doing,” Girselda said, shaking her head as she returned more properly to the present.  She heaved a sigh.  “Aren’t they supposed to have one of their big to-dos in a few days, anyway?  The fluttery Fairies and all of them love to throw a good party.  Something someone else could stand to take after,” she said, shooting him a meaningful glance.  He grit his teeth and flapped his hand at her.

“That was last week,” he said, struggling to remain patient.  “A week before Solstice.  So whatever they’re doing, it has nothing to do with their festivals and parties.”

“Maybe they’ve made up a new one!” she said, throwing her hands up.  “They have all the fun and my son won’t even throw one party…”

“It’s out of the question!”  His tone was snappish, and he felt a little guilty, but why did it have to return to this every time?

“Alright, alright.”  Griselda sighed at him.  “Do what you want, I just thought a little party would be nice!  A little color in here, a little music…”

“Mother,” Bog said, looking up at the ceiling as if hoping to find his strength of will there.  “For the last time, I—”

“Your Majesty?”

The pair of them paused, looking up, to see a thin, skittery-looking goblin poking its head in the door.

“Sorry to interrupt, your Majesty,” she said, sounding truly apologetic, “but the wife is here…”

“Ah.”  Bog closed his eyes.  Of course.  He looked to his mother.  “It’s about the missing person’s report,” he said, and she patted his arm.

“Say no more.  I’ll get lost.”  She smiled sadly, shaking her head as she waddled down the dais.  “I hope you find him soon.”

“Me too,” murmured Bog.  He waited until his mother had slipped out the side door before sighing and straightening up.  He looked to his servant then, nodding once.

“Send her in.”

Chapter Text

Sunny wound his way through the camp, trying his best not to get in the way.  Orders were shouted back and forth, dust was kicked up only to settle on everything just before being kicked up again, and everywhere around, there were people.  People packing or unpacking, talking, bidding each other farewell, husbands and wives and lovers holding each other tight, children crying as they clung to parents.  Here and there, people were simply holding still, caught up in what could be a final embrace.

Sunny thought of Dawn.

He’d loved her for a very long time.  At first, he’d loved her as a friend loves another friend, as companions in mischief and adventures.  Lately, though—really, since a Spring Ball two or three years ago—it was something much more than that.  He’d seen her in her dress, under the light of the moon and the stars, and something just…bloomed, inside of his chest, like the most beautiful, most intoxicating flower.

He wanted to tell her.

He didn’t have long before they left, he knew that, and there were certainly better ways and circumstances in which to confess your deepest feelings for someone, ways he’d dreamed of but never quite managed to put into action, but…well, as it turned out, he’d waited too long.  He wasn’t even sure anymore if he was waiting for Dawn to notice, or for his courage to arrive, or for his feelings to dissipate, but none of those things had happened, and now he needed to tell her, because to not even try to tell her and then leave was something he couldn’t do. 

He'd left the mustering ground and was partway to Dawn’s chambers when he heard someone calling for him.

“Sunny?  Sunny!”

Pausing where he was and turning to look for the source of the call, Sunny frowned.  One of the triplets was hurrying toward him down the corridor, a hand raised as if to draw Sunny’s attention better.  Which was it? Sunny wondered guiltily.  Twee, Dandin maybe?  He couldn’t ever really tell them apart, a fact which never failed to make him feel ashamed, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as the Fairy came close.

“Crown Prince Roland wants a word,” said the triplet, nodding back the way he’d come.  “He’s down there, in his chambers.”

“Can it wait?”  Sunny frowned up at him, putting his hands on his hips.  “I need to go and—”

“He’s kind of impatient,” said the triplet, leaning down to half-lead, half-push Sunny in the direction he’d indicated.  “He said it’s super urgent stuff about…”  Glancing around as if to make sure they were alone, the brown-winged Fairy leaned in closer, lowering his voice.  “Marianne.”

Sunny straightened up immediately, forgetting for the moment why he’d come inside in the first place.  “Why didn’t you say so!” he exclaimed.  Breaking into a run, Sunny raced toward the royal chambers, covering ground as fast as he could.  He turned and threw up a hand just before his feet carried him around the corner.  “Thanks Dandin!”

“It’s Kell!” called the Fairy, sounding very unhappy with him.  Even running, Sunny winced. 

Oops.

Sure enough, when Sunny reached the chamber door and knocked, he was greeted with a “Come on in!”  He pushed open the door, peeking through the crack.

Roland was there, clearly overseeing some last-minute preparations, judging by the papers on his desk.  The royal chambers had been built to have many windows looking out, and even now, he was encased in his armor; the sunlight streaming in bounced off of it, scattering to the ceiling.  He was standing, his back to Sunny, with his hands braced on the dark wood of the desk, and seemed to hardly recall that he’d called Sunny here at all.

“Roland!” Sunny called, closing the door behind him and hurrying forward.  “Roland, Kell said you wanted to see me…?”

“Oh!”  Roland looked up and flashed a grin as he straightened.  “Soley!”

“It’s…Sunny,” the Elf said, frowning up at him.  “Sunny, you know?  Dawn’s friend?  Sang some songs at your wedding?”

“Sure, sure.”  Roland said, turning and flopping back into a large chair with a sigh.  “Whatever you say, Sunbeam.”

Sighing in aggravation, Sunny stepped up to the desk, casting a furtive glance around.  There’s been a fight here several nights ago, people had been saying, that when the goblins had come for Marianne she’d fought them, but even though Sunny had never seen the inside of the royal chambers before, nothing in here looked too disturbed.  Surely, though, they’d cleaned it all up since then.  It was the royal chambers, after all.

“I’m glad you’re here.”  Roland leaned back, sticking out first one foot, then the other, one heel planted on the floor and the other crossed over it as he leaned back, fingers steepled.  He seemed to examine Sunny then as if he was looking for something, to the point where Sunny squirmed a little in place.  It really was uncomfortable to be looked at with such scrutiny.

“So,” Roland began again, propping his elbows on his arms and leaning forward.  “Soledad.”

“Sunny.”

“Right.”  Roland waved a hand.  “I asked you here because I have a…special mission for you.”

“What kind of special mission?”  Sunny frowned at him and crossed his arms.  It must have been a secret one, he figured, considering that he’d been summoned, and into Roland’s chambers, none the less; it was clear that all these efforts were so the pair of them were not to be heard.  Otherwise, wouldn’t Roland maybe have come and found him himself?

“It’s a stealth mission.”  Roland furrowed his eyebrows.  “I need someone like you.  Someone sneaky, someone nobody notices.  Someone who can slip in and out.”

“To do what?”

“To save Marianne.”

Sunny gaped at him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Roland said.  “But Roland!  Our army is too powerful to fail!  And with you at the head of it and in charge, defeat is unthinkable!”  Roland nodded, placing a hand on his breast and raising the other as if to stem Sunny’s nonexistent protests.  “I know.  But here’s a secret, and you cannot tell another living soul.  Do you swear?”

“Well…yeah,” Sunny said, his eyebrows pinching together.  “Of course I do, Roland.  I’d do anything for Marianne, she’s my friend.”

“That’s Prince Roland,” said the Fairy, breaking from his prior attitude and frowning very suddenly at him.  “Don’t forget it.”

“Yes,” Sunnny agreed hastily.  “Of course, erm, Prince Roland.”

“There you go.”  Just as quickly as his unhappiness had come, it was gone, and Roland was nodding along.  “Anyway, as I was saying.  Marianne wasn’t…exactly kidnapped.  At least, not the way everyone thinks.”

Sunny stared at him blankly.

“Well…yeah she was,” he objected after a moment, spreading his hands helplessly.  “She was taken from the palace, from…right here.  That’s what you said in your speech, right?”  Roland shook his head again.

“She was,” he agreed, his voice dipping down low.  Something simmered in his gaze, unhappy and intense.  “But not by force.  There are no signs of a struggle, are there?”  He gestured at the room around them, and though it was messy, Sunny had to admit that it really didn’t seem like there had been a huge break-in.  “She was taken by…love potion.”

“Love potion?”  Sunny felt like there were cobwebs in his brain.  He was the one shaking his head now.  “No way, the only person who can make it is the Sugar Plum Fairy, and she—”

“She’s been in the dungeons in the Dark Forest for a long time,” Roland finished, looking grim.  “So who would be able to get and use the potion?”  Sunny stared at him, the blood draining from his face as his eyes widened.

“The King of the Dark Forest,” he whispered, horrified.  “So...they broke in here and used the love potion on her?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense!” Roland insisted, jerking into a sitting position, the flats of his feet hitting the floor as he gestured at the wall behind Sunny, toward the Forest.  “Which means that even when we get there and beat the daylights out of them, she’s not gonna want to come back.”  Roland shook his head with a bitter sigh. 

“So what am I supposed to do?”  Sunny swallowed, nervous.  The idea of poor Marianne being kidnapped had been bad enough.  But goblins coming here and using love potion to lure her away?  It was a horrible thought!  But how could he help?

“I need you,” Roland said, leaning forward.  “I need you to come with the army just like you planned, but when I give the signal, I need you to sneak into the castle.  They don’t know we’re coming, so it should be easy as pie.  While we’re keepin’ the goblins busy, you get in, find the love potion, and bring it back to me.  Then I can use it on Marianne so she remembers who she really loves, and then we’ll all come home.”  His frown was gone, replaced with a triumphant smile as he flourished his hands, clearly expecting Sunny’s enthusiastic agreement. 

Sunny hesitated.

“I don’t know…” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his gaze dropping to the ground.  Using something like that on Marianne?  It was…uncomfortable to think about.  In fact, he began to shake his head, but Roland held up a hand.

“Besides,” said the Prince.  “If you do that, well…you’d be a hero, Sunny.”

“A hero?”  Sunny’s ears pricked up and he peeked up at Roland.  “Do you think so?”

“For sure!” Roland said loudly, gesturing.  “Of course you will be.  Helping Marianne come back home?  Everyone will know your name!  And then you could marry anyone…even a Princess…”  He cleared his throat, looking pointedly at Sunny, who felt his face get warm.

“A-a princess?” he asked, his voice pitching high and, most embarrassingly, squeaking just a little.  “What do you mean?”  Roland laughed, and Sunny squirmed again.  He felt like Roland was laughing at him.

“Aw,” he said, “you like Dawn, don’tcha?  You look at her with these big googly eyes…Not that she ever notices, of course, because you’re, well, little, and you’re you, but if you do this…”

“W-well,” Sunny said, feeling both very warm and very small indeed.  Roland held up a hand to silence him, and Sunny did indeed quiet.

“If you do this,” Roland said firmly, “you’ll have my full support.  Heck, the whole kingdom will support you!  Dawn will look at you and see the hero who saved her sister and kept a war from starting!  She’ll be seeing you in a whole new light there, pal.  Friend.”  Roland flashed him a smile.  “And hey, even if she doesn’t, if there’s any love potion left over…”  He chuckled good-naturedly.  “Well, seeing Dawn with a hero, that would be so nice, wouldn’t it?  So much better than seeing her with some new guy every ten days, guys who don’t even care about her.  They make me sick.  Anything would be better than that, right?  You’d be nice to her, I bet.”

Feeling numb, Sunny nodded.  Of course he’d be nice to Dawn!  He’d give her everything and anything.  The cobwebs in his brain seemed thicker, stickier, and he was struggling to keep up with what Roland was saying…but that, at least, he could agree to, immediately and utterly. 

“Even if she’s not going to be Queen, well, she’s got to settle down!” Roland added, leaning in again and lowering his voice.  “Why, having her run all over the Meadows with all these different guys, it’s no good.  She’s liable to get her heart broken, right?”  It was a horrible thought; poor Dawn, eyes red-rimmed from crying, pale from hiding away in her room.  Sunny nodded again, helpless.  He hadn’t ever even thought about that!  Sure, Dawn loved to flit and flirt around, but could her heart really get broken like that by one of these guys?  It was enough to make Sunny feel sick to his stomach.  Usually she was the one moving on, or flirting with someone new, but what if she fell in love with someone who didn’t see how amazing she was, and they broke her heart? 

“Okay,” he said, sucking in a breath and blowing it out.  “I’ll…I’ll do it.  For Marianne, and…for Dawn.”  Sunny stood up straight and looked Roland in the eye.  “I’ll do it!”

“That’s a good man,” Roland said, smiling at him.  “I knew I could count on you.”