Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You're kidding me.”

The silence in the kitchen had spanned seconds, creeping up to half a minute, before Marianne managed to scrape together enough words to form a sentence, barely paying attention to the arrangement of them, her attention still dominated by the unlikely object dangling in her open window.

A yellow strip of fly paper hung in a sticky spiral from the top of the window frame, sprinkled with the black remains of a few persistent fruit flies and mosquitoes that defied the cooling weather and continued to plague the area. This was all in order, exactly as Marianne had left it. But the spiral was pulling taut under the weight of a new victim that was buzzing and flailing so violently that the strip was bouncing up and down, the coil of it compressing and stretching at the fluctuating weight of the defiant insect.

Marianne squinted her eyes at the way light hit the creature's buzzing wings, fracturing and scattering in reflected rainbow sparkles over the sill, then glanced around the room for a makeshift weapon to dispatch the oversized insect with. The flyswatter seemed to have hidden itself again and she wasn't sure it was up to the task of the specimen thrashing and buzzing like some sort of postmodern wind chime. Maybe a quick whack with her shoe to stun it? Except she was bare foot and that thing looked big enough to make a horrible crunch and leave a gory smear. Her eyes fell on the mostly empty mayo jar upended in the drainer. Maybe catch and release, then. But releasing was going to happen a long way from the house to make sure the crunchy little intruder didn't get any ideas about a return trip.

Marianne slipped the jar under the fly strip, reaching up and detaching the other end from the window frame. The strip swayed back and forth above the jar and Marianne held her breath, trying to time the drop just right. The moment the indignant bug hovered over the jar's mouth she let go of the fly strip, letting the whole thing drop. One quick movement turned the jar over and slammed it top down onto to the sill, the end of the strip sticking out like a tail but it's prisoner secured inside.

“Gotcha! And it's your lucky day. Usually I'm a take no prisoners kind of girl.”

The trailing fly strip was trimmed off and Marianne shoved a piece of junk mail underneath the jar, flipping it back upright and holding the jar up so she could inspect her captive. She had gotten the impression that the thing was a grasshopper or some relative, three or four inches long.

“Grasshoppers have wings, right?” She asked nobody in particular, tilting the jar and trying to peer through the streaks of dried mayo and past the yellow tape trapped in the jar with the bug. “Or is that locust? Huh. If you're a locust maybe I should perform the happy dispatch after all. Can't have you swarming around and eating our crops. Not my crops personally, mind you, just crops in general.”

The swift and sudden capture seemed to have stunned the possible locust into stillness, and it rolled passively with the tilting of its prison. A small metallic clink sounded against the glass and Marianne squinted harder, trying to see if the thing's exoskeleton was hitting the glass and making the noise. With another firm shake she got the bug to flip over. The fly strip was sticking to the jar and the insect dangled long, skinny legs in the air. Her nose almost smashed against the jar, Marianne puzzled out transparent wings, four of them, two stuck to the fly strip and the other two hanging limp. Ouch. She hoped that wouldn't tear if she tried to pull them out of the glue.

The thing didn't look like a grasshopper. Or locust. It looked a bit . . . person shaped. She counted four limbs and looking carefully she might have hazarded that two were arms and two were legs. It wasn't until her prisoner lifted it's head, revealing a tiny face, that she was at all sure she wasn't just imagining things.

A tiny, distinctively humanish face blinked up at her, eyes light in a shadowed face, disappearing and reappearing with each dazed blink.

Marianne tried to say six different things at once, but all that came out was an inarticulate noise of surprise, and the jar and envelop dropped from her hands and bounced off the kitchen linoleum. She instinctively made a grab for it as it rolled across the floor, but smacked her head against the handle of a skillet that was sticking off the edge of the counter. Marianne went down, clutching her head, the skillet descending with her, the jar hit the bottom of the fridge and came to a wobbly stop, rocking back and forth.

“Oooow!” Marianne groaned, “Locust is a crunchy cockroach fairy and I think I need stitches!”

A faint, hollow groan echoed hers and a distant but distinct voice said, “I'm not a fairy, you blundering oaf!”

“I must've hit my head harder than I thought . . .” Marianne kept her eye on the mayo jar while she prodded her hairline, feeling for skull fractures or gapping wounds.

“Sire?” A wavering voice squeaked from somewhere above Marianne and she banged the back of her head on the dishwasher in shock. Groaning redoubled, she looked up and saw a tiny yellow shape perched on the edge of the counter. Through watering eyes she thought she could make out goggling eyes and tiny hands being nervously wrung.

“Sire?” The new concussion-induced hallucination asked again, “Need any help?”

“No!” The voice from the jar shouted, “Get out of here! Run!”

“Told you!” A third hallucination, this one merely auditory, chimed in. The nervous yellow hallucination darted out of sight and Marianne vaguely heard something like what tiny claws scrabbling across a tiled counter top might sound like.

Silence fell over the kitchen.

“So,” Marianne drew out the word, watching the mayo jar warily, “If you're not a fairy, what are you?”

Seconds ticked away in heavy silence. Somehow Marianne knew that the lack of response was not because she was talking to thin air. It was a deliberate silence, the silence of someone very loudly not speaking. It was the kind of silence that went with murderous glares and the irritated grinding of teeth.

“Because if you're just a bug I'm going to stomp you and then go get myself checked out for head trauma.”

A murmur came from the jar, sounding almost sulky, “. . . goblin.”

“Goblin?”

“That's what I said.”

“I guess we're not talking Tolkien goblins.”

There was more deliberate silence.

“Alright. So. To recap. You're a goblin who was caught in my fly strip and indirectly gave me a severe concussion. Right.”

“Oh, poor wee baby,” The alleged goblin sneered, “Bumped your tender head.”

“Okay, okay, dude,” Marianne said, wincing at the sarcasm, “I get it. You're not having the best day either.”

There was a noise that might have been a snort.

“Do you need help?”

The silence stretched on even longer this time. Marianne finished checking her head for damage and found no serious dents or gouges.

“If you would be so kind,” The goblin said, grudging every word spoken, “that would be . . . lovely.”

Chapter Text

“Let me out.”

“Not a chance.”

The jar had been set on the kitchen counter next to the sink after Marianne had shoved a scattering of disposable plates and dirty coffee mugs into the sink. This had raised up a clatter that had the goblin covering his ears and growling until it died away and he was able to make his demands heard.

“Let me out!” He tugged at the glue strip that was tangled around him, kicking out at the side of the jar, his feet scratching lines through the film of dried mayo.

“Look, I have a very natural distrust of tiny, spiky men who show up in my fly traps looking like grasshoppers.”

“Cicada!”

“Whatever. Some disgusting winged insect.”

There was a very small noise that Marianne thought might be the goblin grinding his teeth.

Marianne pried the cap off a beer with the bottle opener attachment of her pocket knife. Sticking the knife back into the baggy pocket of her denim jacket, she held the cool bottle to her abused head, letting the moist chill seep through her skin.

“Is this yours?” Marianne leaned back on the counter next to the jar, holding up the object she had found by the fridge, near where the jar had fallen. One clawed hand darted past the lip of the jar, grabbing uselessly at the object held out of reach. Claws grated on the glass in frustration when Marianne pulled the object out of sight.

“Guess it is.”

She thought at first it might be a length of copper wire. It was about length of a pencil, but thinner, textured with a pattern like tree bark. One end split in two and curled into a sort of horseshoe shape, a small chunk of yellowish rock caught in a net of tiny metal wires. She twirled it back and forth between her fingers, feeling the way it didn't quite seem to be metal and watching the light reflect off the rock. Amber? It looked like amber.

“What is it?”

“It's mine.”

“I think we established that.”

“Then give it back.”

“Hm.” Marianne twirled the doodad thoughtfully. It looked like a staff. It was about the right size for the goblin. The goblin who looked larger in the jar than he had when he was dangling in the window. She had estimated him to be about three inches tall, but now she was pretty sure he reached at least half a foot in height. Good thing it had been a big jar of mayo.

Swallowing a soothing mouthful of beer, Marianne turned her attention back to the goblin, “What were you doing in my fly trap?”

“Trying to get out of it.”

“Well, good job on that.”

“Hmph.”

“What I want to know is how long this all has been going on. How long have tiny little people been flying around in here while I wasn't looking? Do I need to call an exterminator and have the place fumigated?”

“Human dwellings are off limits. Let me go and you'll never have to be bothered by me or mine again.”

“So we're not talking about a Borrowers setup here, I guess. No brownies in the basement? Hobgoblins in the bathroom? No miniature dudes spying on me while I'm dancing in the kitchen?”

“No.”

“Hm.” Marianne considered this, putting down her beer and bracing her hands on the counter so she could push herself up and sit on the cleared space. She opened a cupboard and moved the goblin's jar to sit on the shelf at eye level. There were some growls of complaint at the sudden relocation, despite Marianne trying hard to keep the jar steady.

“If my house is off limits,” Marianne scooted into a more comfortable position, sitting cross legged on the counter top, “then why the invasion today?”

“There are . . . unusual circumstances,” The goblin said, scowling darkly.

Marianne leaned forward to study the miniature features of her prisoner. They were human, in so much as he had eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, all located in the usual places on his head. But everything about them was much too sharp, his ears ending in points, his cheekbones so prominent that they looked like they might be able to scratch glass just as well as the black claws on his hands. Then there was his nose, which was remarkably long and unnaturally pointed, stretching past even his long chin.

Everything about the goblin was dark, in the colorless way of dead leaves. If he stepped out into the grass she would probably lose sight of him in a moment as he blended into the background. Instead of hair the goblin seemed to have actual dead leaves. Or they looked like dead leaves. They began where his eyebrows out to have been, growing back in layers across the whole of his head. Currently the leafy brows were drawn down, casting shadows over the goblin's eyes so it looked like he was wearing a domino mask.

“What sort of circumstances?” Marianne asked vaguely, occupied in studying the goblin's exoskeleton armor. She was pretty sure it was actually part of him, unless it had been carefully crafted to exactly match his color scheme. There was something wholly organic about the overlapping plates covering his chest.

“Nothing to concern you.”

“Mmhm? Really? You're in my home, that concerns me.”

“Let me leave and you'll no longer have a reason to be concerned!”

“Listen, crunchy--”

“Crunchy?”

“--unless you want me to go put my bug stomping shoes on you'd better answer my questions.”

The goblin did not condescend to give a verbal response, merely twisting his face up in a sneer, revealing crooked gray teeth, the brightness of his eyes almost disappearing. His eyes really were vivid, an almost unnatural blue. Perhaps it was the contrast to his muted color scheme that made those eyes stand out, even in such a diminutive face.

Marianne had always like blue eyes, in an aesthetic sort of way. Blue eyes always seemed to remind her of something. Something just on the tip of her brain, something she could never quite realize into a coherent thought. Something that gave her a strange, uneasy feeling, like anxiety over forgetting something important. Something good. Something happy.

As always, she couldn't find the source of these feelings and the wisp of memory blew away again like dandelion fluff. The trace of empty sadness left in the wake of these feelings took the wind out of her sails and she didn't have the heart to keep playing bad cop with her prisoner.

Leaning over, Marianne pulled open a drawer full of odds and ends, picking through a mess of corks and rubber bands until she found the lid off a wine bottle.

“Look, this isn't exactly a stiff drink,” She poured a few drops of her beer into the cap, “But I guess you could use it.”

The goblin drew back from the makeshift glass of beer, hunching up his shoulders suspiciously. He obviously did not trust this sudden change in tactics and from the way his fingers flexed Marianne guessed he was weighing the pros and cons of attacking her vulnerable finger and thumb.

“It's beer. Stout. You look like a stout beer kind of guy, so you'll probably like it.”

Claws tickled Marianne's fingertips as the goblin awkwardly took the offering, most of his left arm stuck to the fly paper. He sniffed the liquid, glancing up at Marianne with distrust. She took a sip of her share of the beer and shrugged at him. He shrugged back and finally tasted the beer. It evidentially met with his approval because he tipped the cap back and drained the whole thing in several long swallows.

“I know you're supposed to leave milk out on the porch for fairies. Does it work the same with goblins and beer?”

The goblin let out a startled breath of laughter, “You certainly wouldn't hear any complaining about it!”

He offered up the cap and she refilled it for him.

“Fairies are a thing, then?”

“Yes,” the goblin said, his tone implying that the existence of fairies was an extremely unfortunate fact of life, “Blasted butterflies.”

“And you're all living . . .” Marianne gestured out the window at the acres of untended property that surrounded the cottage.

The only response this this inquiry was a sullen expression.

“Ah. I guess you don't exactly encourage tourists. Except, I'm not a tourist. I own this property. That is, my family owns it. So from my point of view you're all squatters on my property who've been getting away without paying rent.”

The goblin's glare was so potent Marianne was somewhat surprised it didn't crack the jar, “These lands have been ours for untold generations. Long before humans brought their smelly machines to tear up the world.”

“Tone down the attitude, crunchy, I wasn't serious.”

“Stop calling me crunchy!”

“You're right. 'Prickly' would be a better nickname.”

“What about you? Aren't you a tough girl, trying to bully someone not even the size of her hand! Does that make you feel brave?”

“I'm not bullying you! I just want to know what's what before I get you out of that tape and let you go on your merry way.”

“My business is none of yours, that's what!” The empty cap flew out of the jar and fell onto Marianne's knee, “I've come to retrieve a trespassing thief and once I have him we'll have no more reason to intrude on your hospitality.”

“Are you telling me there's another goblin running around in my house?”

“Not a goblin. An elf.”

“Elf? Elves are a thing too? And again, I'm assuming not Tolkien. More like Keebler? What else do you have running around out in the tall grass? Unicorns? Dragons?”

“. . . what is a tolkien?”

“Skip it. Expand on this elf thief. Is he in my house?”

“I believe so. I was chasing him through the window when . . . when . . .”

“You ran into a sticky situation.”

“I didn't run into it! The wind blew it up at me!”

“Okay, if that makes you feel better.”

Hopping off the counter, Marianne dug around in the sink until she came up with an empty pickle jar. She gave it a quick rinse and set it upside down in the drainer. If she had another mini-invader in the house she'd better have a holding cell prepared.

A thought occurred to her.

“Hey, prickly? Are you friends gonna be coming back?”

“Why?”

Marianne fished another jar out of the sink, “I need to know how many jars I might need.”

“I doubt you have enough--”

Marianne opened the cabinet under the sink and began to pull out old canning jars.

“--jars. Why do you have so many jars?!”

“Maybe I just really like preserves. Don't judge me. And I don't want to keep a collection of goblins under glass, I just want to know that my house is my own and that I'm going going to have fairies and goblins sneaking my beer and throwing parties,” She pulled another jar out from under the sink and glanced around inside to see if there were any more.

There were no more jars under the sink. Only a few spray bottles of cleaner, half a box of scrubby pads, and a very small, very terrified elf suddenly exposed after she had taken the last jar out off the cupboard.

It had to be an elf. It had no wings, so she guessed that ruled out fairy, and it looked pretty much human except for its long pointed ears that were currently drooped in fear. In the gloom under the sink it was hard to make any any particulars, but she could see the elf was clutching a bottle that was casting a faint pink glow.

“Hey, there.” Marianne said slowly, “You the trespassing thief?”

“Um . . . kind of?” The elf squeaked, trying to shrink its minuscule frame to even smaller dimensions. He wasn't even half the size of the goblin. She didn't need a whole pickle jar for this guy. Maybe a shot glass.

“I see.” Marianne set a jar on its side by the elf, “Get in the jar.”

Chapter Text

“Let me out!”

“Sorry, crunchy, you're still in time out for another five minutes.”

The elf contained, Marianne had set the jar on the shelf next to the goblin.

This, in hindsight, was a mistake.

The goblin had thrown himself at the side of his jar, pulling against the fly strip, clawing the glass and shouting some rather creative threats about what he would do to the elf. Marianne moved the elf's jar to the other end of the shelf, but the goblin just threw himself around in the jar with increased ferocity, attempting to scoot closer to the elf. If Marianne hadn't been right there to catch him when the jar rocked right out of the cupboard the goblin would have pitched himself right onto the floor. Now she had put his jar in a bowl to prevent further flight attempts and had moved the elf to a higher shelf.

While the goblin frothed uselessly in the confines of increased security, Marianne turned her attention to the elf.

“Hey. I'm Marianne and this is my house. What are you doing in it?”

“Trying not to die?” The elf offered.

“Legit reason,” She nodded, glancing at the snarling goblin.

“Yeah?” The elf said hopefully.

“But I'm not going to let you out.”

“Aw.”

“It looks like you brought this on yourself. Is that bottle what you stole? Because it reeks of plot device to me. The glowing is a dead giveaway.”

“Ah, well, you see . . .”

“It's a yes or no question.”

“. . . y-yes?”

“Alright then. Give me the bottle.”

“What?!” Both the goblin and elf exclaimed.

“I'm a neutral third-party. I'll hang onto it until we get this all sorted.”

The elf offered up the bottle and Marianne unscrewed the top of the pickle jar. She took the tiny bottle and held it up to the light. It had a gold cap shaped like a flower and had art nouveau sort of designs patterned out the outside. It was mostly transparent, though, and she could see the glowing pink liquid swirling around inside.

“I wouldn't have guessed pink was your color,” Marianne remarked to the goblin.

The goblin hunched over and ground his teeth together.

Marianne pulled a tupperware container out of the cupboard and lined it with the mostly clean dishrag that was hanging from the handle of the cupboard. She laid the bottle in the impromptu nest and snapped the plastic lid shut. This she placed in the refrigerator crisper drawer.

“There. Safe and sound from tiny thieving hands.”

“I'm sorry!” The elf suddenly blurted out, “I'm sorry, mister Bog King, sir! I didn't think you would mind! I mean, I didn't think you would find out and—and--”

“Mind?” The goblin roared, “Didn't think I would mind? What part of 'no love in the Dark Forest' is unclear to you?”

“I—I wasn't going to use it in the forest--”

“You think that once you unleashed chaos on your kingdom it would stay neatly within the borders? That it's weakening rot wouldn't spread and destroy all order?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Marianne waved her hands to gain their attention, “What exactly is in this bottle? Should I be calling a bomb squad? Is it going to destroy my fridge? Because that thing is on it's last legs as it is and there's no way I can get a new one any time soon.”

“Don't say a word, elf!” The goblin commanded.

Marianne just folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at Sunny.

“It's a love potion, ma'am,” He said, sitting in the bottom of his jar and looking dejected. The goblin let loose a harsh snarl and slammed himself at the side of the jar again.

Marianne burst out laughing.

The goblin stopped snarling and stared at her with his jaw slack.

“What.”

Marianne coughed the stop her laughter, but it transformed into a hoarse giggle, “That's just . . . that's the last thing I expected a . . . a goblin to own. You don't really look like the pink potion type. Wait, if you've got a ban on love, why do you have a love potion in the first place? Is this a ploy to create artificial scarcity and monopolize the love potion market?”

Both the captives looked at her blankly.

“I guess not. Look, uh, Bog, was it?”

“Bog King.” The goblin pulled himself as straight as he could and made a valiant attempt to look down her nose at her.

Half a dozen Labyrinth references rushed to the tip of Marianne's tongue but she decided against voicing any of them. The joke would be lost on this crowd.

“Huh. You prefer that to 'prickly'?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Is that 'king' as in thrones and crown and all that ruling jazz?”

“Yes. I'm the Bog King of the Dark Forest.”

“Huh. Wow.”

Of course goblins would have a monarchy and of course it would be their actual king that ended up in her kitchen. You never got just some random citizen in these sort of situations. Never a farmer or a mailman or anything mundane. Not even lesser nobility. It skipped straight to princes and kings.

“What about you?” Marianne asked the elf, “What are you? King of the elves?”

“No, ma'am. I'm just Sunny.”

Scratch the royalty theory, then.

“Sunny, are you wearing a ladybug shell on your head?”

“Yeah?”

“Neat. Nice hair, by the way.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

The Bog King's growling was growing audible and Marianne pulled things back to the matter at hand.

“If you get your love potion back will that make you happy, Bog?”

“Bog King. The elf still needs to be brought back to the Dark Forest for trial.”

Sunny cowered lower in his jar.

“What's the penalty for stealing a love potion?”

“Death,” The goblin king said flatly.

The elf was hugging his knees and looking so thoroughly frightened that Marianne couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

“Okay, time out is extended by five minutes while I take a bathroom break,” Marianne took Sunny's jar out of the cupboard and shut the door on the Bog King's angry objections. She set Sunny on the counter away from the window, “Don't go anywhere, little dude.”

“Ha ha,” Sunny said dismally.

Marianne padded barefoot into the cottage living room and dropped herself onto the couch. The dust cover was still on it. Almost everything in the house was still under dust covers and tarps. She's been at the cottage for four days and she was still sleeping on a bare mattress because she hadn't unpacked any sheets.

She hadn't eaten anything except for frozen pizza and instant coffee for four days. Until last night, when after several beers—the exact number she was unable to recall—she had seen that the fridge was stocked with everything to make potato salad. A brief recollection of a decision to triple the recipe teased at the edge of Marianne's mind, but all she knew for sure was that the refrigerator was stuffed with an unholy amount of potato salad even after she had eaten like half a pound of it. It was likely she would have attempted more, but her stomach rebelled at her mixing mayo and beer and she had spent the rest of the night huddled over the toilet, regretting the life choices that had led her to this sad state.

It had been past three in the afternoon when she had woken, miserable and woozy, to wash down some painkillers with gritty instant coffee. The painkillers had just hit her system and brought some much needed relief when she had walked into the kitchen and discovered the goblin king hung up in her window like the world's most disgruntled Christmas tree ornament.

It had all been a much needed distraction from reality.

But now she was wondering if it wasn't all some part of an emotional breakdown and the elf and goblin in her kitchen weren't some sort of representations of parts of her psyche. Because, come on, a ban on love? Isn't that exactly what she had going on right now? And wasn't she hiding out here in the cottage just like Sunny had hidden under the sink? And whole books could probably be written about how the goblin with the ban on love wanted to kill the elf who had stolen what seemed to be a very potent symbol of that very thing.

She was going to wait five minutes and then go back to the kitchen and see whether or not Sunny and Bog disappeared like the figments of her imagination they might be. If they did disappear she would make a run into town for more beer and pizza and have another one woman party again tonight.

If they didn't disappear . . . maybe she'd invite them to her pity party. Did goblins and elves like potato salad? Did they even know what potato salad was?

Upon reentering the kitchen Marianne heard a girlish voice coming from behind Sunny's jar.

“. . . still mad at you! I'm furious with you, Sunny! But I'm not just going to let you get eaten by goblins or kidnapped by humans! Help me figure out how to get this lid off before she comes back!”

“I'm back.”

There was a shriek and flash of peach colored butterfly wings.

Marianne snatched up a paper plate and swatted at the butterfly fluttering toward the open window, knocking it into the sink. In a matter of moments Marianne had scooped up the newcomer in one of the canning jars. Once captured the butterfly was no longer a butterfly at all, but suddenly a girl with butterfly wings.

“How many of you are there?” Marianne huffed, holding her hand over the top of the jar while the pink-winged fairy beat at the glass. She didn't want to close the lid. That was an airtight seal and the fairy would smother.

“Dawn! Dawn!” Sunny was pounding his fist on the glass and straining to see the fairy as Marianne moved around the kitchen, “Let her go! She didn't do anything!”

“And pass up on the complete set?” Marianne snorted, awkwardly pulling saran wrap out of a drawer and trying to cover the canning jar one-handed. She managed it and quickly punched a few holes in the plastic with the blade of her knife, finally able to set down the jar and inspect the fairy.

It was definitely a fairy. Beautiful butterfly wings of pink and peach coloring hanging down the back of a slender figure in a blue dress. Smaller than the goblin, and skinnier too, the fairy had her hands pressed against the glass, displaying inhumanly long fingers as she peered up at Marianne with light blue eyes that seemed to take up half her face. A tufty halo of golden hair stood out around the fairy's head like stylized sun rays.

Marianne's stomach twisted at the sight of those blue eyes and she really wasn't sure why. Well, maybe it was the glistening tears pooling at the corners, threatening to fall at any moment. But Marianne wasn't going to let a pretty face trick her. She hardened her heart and began her interrogation of the latest arrival at her emotional meltdown party.

“And who are you, Dawn? Sunny's partner in crime?”

Dawn sat down with a thump and started to cry.

Marianne felt like a monster.

“Um, look, I just wanted to, um . . .”

“What? Pin me to a board like you do with butterflies?”

“What? No!”

“Because you might as well after this awful day! And if it's a choice of being stuck to a board or getting love dusted by Sunny then—then you'd better go get the pins!”

“Dawn,” Sunny began.

“I'm stuck in a jar because of you, Sunny! And, worse, I'm gonna miss the festival!”

A sarcastic remark about the fairy girl's priorities clamored to be spoken, but Marianne bit it back and she focused on the comment about the love potion. How did a love potion work, even? Because if it worked anything like Marianne suspected it did she was about to lose all pity for Sunny's predicament.

“You—he was going to make you love him?” Marianne picked up Dawn and moved her away from Sunny. The elf shriveled under the furious look Marianne shot at him.

“I didn't even know he liked me like that!' Dawn sobbed, mopping her eyes with the hem of her blue dress, “He's my best friend and he never even told me how he felt. He's been lying to me forever and now he—he—”

White hot rage boiled up inside Marianne. She had been smothering it for the last few days but now it all rose up inside her and washed away the haze of apathy she had carefully cultivating. To be tricked, to be manipulated, was bad enough. But at least that left the hope of coming to your senses, to shake off the rosy mist of infatuation and see your supposed love for who they really were. But to be . . . to be drugged? To believe forever in a lie? Would you ever know that nothing was real or would you just wandering happily with your head in the clouds, ignorant of the truth?

“You—you little monster!” Marianne choked the words out through clenched teeth. She wasn't seeing the elf's round face and improbable tuft of black hair. She was seeing chiseled movie-start features and artfully arranged blonde curls, “You think you're just entitled to Dawn's love? She says your her best friend but I know your type. The 'nice guy'. Hanging around and pretending to be a girl's friend, trying to earn brownie points so that she sees you're boyfriend material, never having the guts to be upfront! Then when she rejects you you can't take it like a man, you've got to force the issue! No means no, you despicable little weasel!”

“I didn't—it wasn't like that!” Sunny said, “I wanted it—I wanted it to be real. I just wanted Dawn to notice me . . .”

“Wish granted!” Marianne threw up her hands.

“Why didn't you just tell me?” Dawn asked tearfully, “You didn't even give me a chance to think about it! Now I don't even know if I like you at all anymore!”

“Dawn, I'm sorry! I didn't mean--” Sunny was pressed flat against the glass, vainly trying to bridge the distance between him and Dawn, “I didn't think--!”

“I don't want to talk to you anymore!” Dawn shouted, clapping her hands over her ears and turning away from Sunny with a swirl of of her wings, “I don't want to talk to you ever again!”

“Please, just let me explain!” Sunny said, raising his voice to be heard.

Now, just give me a chance to clear this all up, buttercup, it's not what you think . . .

Marianne whisked Sunny's jar under the sink and slammed the cupboard shut before she was even aware what she was doing.

“Hey, prickly?” She called, trembling hands curled into fists at her sides, eyes fixed on the sobbing fairy curled into a ball in the canning jar.

“Bog. King.” The goblin snapped, managing to be clearly heard despite the layers of wood and glass muffling his voice.

“What do you want to use the love potion for?”

“I don't want to use it. I want to eradicate it!”

“Prickly, that is the best news I've heard all day.”

Chapter Text

“If you would just hold still this wouldn't be so difficult!”

“You'll have to excuse me if I don't exactly trust your skills with a blade!”

Marianne was tilting the jar, trying to get a pair of scissors in at a good angle to cut Bog out of the jar without snipping pieces off his wings or arms. This operation was both uncomfortable and undignified for the Bog King and he was not shy about pointing this out in the most sarcastic way possible.

“Huh,” Marianne pushed Bog's head aside as she tried to readjust the blade. Dry leaves rustled across her finger until the goblin jerked back, looking at her finger like it had tried to bite him, “Chill. Depends on the blade. I didn't take first in fencing three years running just because of my good looks. Okay, this isn't working.”

“I believe I said something to that effect once or twice.”

Marianne flicked the side of the jar, the ringing of her fingernail on glass silencing the goblin for a moment. She pulled open all the drawers within reach and began rummaging through them for better options.

“Why,” She muttered to the heaps of grimy odds and ends, “do we keep a bag of novelty cuff links in the same drawer as the potholders? Though, to be entirely fair, I can't say that it's weirder than the elf under my sink, the goblin on my kitchen table, or the fairy taking a nap in one of my socks.”

The soft sounds of Bog scratching at the fly strip paused, “Is the princess . . . well?”

“Princess,” Marianne sighed, pulling a dogeared romance novel out of a drawer of silverware. She wrinkled her nose at the couple gazing ardently at each other on the cupboard. The book was tossed onto the floor, “A goblin king and a fairy princess. I don't get a house invaded by just any common tiny people, no! I get royalty! I get a diplomatic nightmare! Political chaos!”

“Hmf,” Bog snorted, “So long as the princess is returned unharmed—and untouched by love potion—there won't be much of a ruckus. The fairies will be glad to hand over the problem of the elf to the Dark Forest court. If he had been a fairy it might have been tricky, but since he's an elf they'll be glad to wash their pretty little hands of the whole matter.”

“Dawn didn't seem too keen on the idea of dooming her ex-best friend to a gristly end.”

Marianne had spent considerable time comforting Dawn. The fairy had been completely distraught over the whole thing and had continued crying long after Marianne had taken her into the living room and released her from the jar. Snipping a sheet of kleenex into confetti had provided some appropriately scaled tissues for Dawn to mop up her tears and blow her nose on. And even the more severe heartache could be soothed when the sufferer is presented with a chocolate pieces big as baseballs. Dawn sat in the middle of one cushion on the couch, barely making a dent in the dust cover, while Marianne sat on the cushion next to her, a bag of chocolate chips between them.

Marianne helped herself to a couple handfuls of milk chocolate chips while she patiently endured hearing an overwrought account of the events that led to the current circumstances. While she had never been good at listening to other people's relationship problems Marianne did have an overwhelming amount of empathy for the betrayal Dawn had suffered. As well, there was just something about the itty-bitty girl that woke up all of Marianne's protective instincts and set them to maximum.

“. . . flew all the way here because I overheard the guards telling dad that they saw Sunny go into your house, being chased by goblins. I didn't think he would really have stolen a love potion, no matter what Roland said--”

“Roland?” Marianne asked thickly through a mouthful of chocolate, the sound of the name making her want to gag.

“He's captain of the guards. He's sooo good looking but I was sooo angry when he accused Sunny of being a thief. I thought he was horrible. He is horrible. He said that if Sunny was going to break Dark Forest laws then we should hand him over to the goblins as soon as he was captured. I said they would kill him and he told me it couldn't be helped and little girls didn't understand politics and should stay out of it!”

“Does it come with the name?” Marianne mused, “Being an arrogant, condescending compost heat with really good hair?”

“How did you know about his hair?”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

“Uh, never mind about that. Anyway. You decided to mount a one-woman rescue mission to save Sunny?”

“Yeah. No. I just wanted to find Sunny and show everybody that he hadn't done anything wrong. Except that he really had and . . . and . . .”

Marianne saw the tears coming but was helpless to stop them. She ended up with Dawn hugging her hand and crying into the cuff of her jacket. This latest bout of tears appeared to exhaust Dawn entirely and somehow Marianne had put her down for a nap. The clean socks she had thrown into her duffel had not been unpacked and still smelled of the rose soap she tucked into her drawers at home to keep things fresh. This seemed to please Dawn, who snuggled down in the sock, giving the most adorable little yawn Marianne had ever witnessed.

In the kitchen Marianne continued her search, talking over her shoulder to Bog, “As much as I want to strike a blow for all the women in the world who have had their hearts broken by some two-faced jerk I can't just hand Sunny over to you, Bog, knowing that means he'll be killed.”

“You don't have the right to interfere with this.”

“Mm, maybe. But I am like a million times bigger than you and I'd like to see you make me do anything I decide not to do.”

“You really enjoy lording it over people smaller than you, don't you?”

“This is the first time in my life I have been taller than everyone else in the room. Yeah, I get a kick out of it. All three of my brothers—all younger than me, mind you—have half a foot of height on me. All my life I've been overshadowed by giants.”

“They bullied you and now you get your chance to bully some other unfortunate?”

A cackle of laughter escaped Marianne, “Hardly, crunchy. Growing up with that bunch shaped me into a pillar of strength, yeah. Because Harry had asthma, Jack cried over poetry, and Josh loved doing fancy baking. I had to beat up all the kids who tried to pick on them.”

A shard of reality cut through the unreality of her week when she remembered that all three of her brothers had been coming back home for the wedding.Their education and careers had taken from far afield from their birthplace and seeing them all together in the same place was a rarity. She had looked forward to seeing them. Probably more than actually getting married. But in the end she had run away from it all. Run away to the cottage her family hadn't stayed in since she was a toddler. A place that held no memories of her brothers, and only the dimmest recollections of her parents.

Bog's scratching had resumed and Marianne kept her back to him, closing her eyes and trying to push the recent past back down underneath older memories. She clung to her memories of the cottage, of her memory of the feeling of her mother carrying her through the fields.

There were very few images that lingered from that long ago summer. At least, few images of people. Of her mother and father during that time she recalled more of feelings, of how they picked her up when she tripped, and held her when was crying over the butterfly she had been chasing and failed to catch.

Mostly, she remembered the fields.

The intense hum of insects in the summer, the fragrance of grass and flowers warmed in the sunlight. Dragonflies glinting and dancing. The way the tiny wood on the edge of the fields loomed, dark, terrible, and forbidding.

“Ah hah!”

Marianne's search for exacto knives led her to uncover a can of olive oil cooking spray. She popped the cap off and flourished it at Bog's jar.

“What is that?” Bog asked suspiciously.

“Your deliverance, my crunchy friend.”

“My name is--”

“Not crunchy and we aren't friends. Got it. Hold still, you probably don't want to get this in your eyes.”

“I would appreciate more of an explanation than that!” Bog said, watching the nozzle of the can loom closer with a look of a man facing some unknown doom.

Marianne withdrew the can, “Cooking oil can get you out of the glue. Neutralizing the stickiness.”

“And you know this . . . how?”

“Previous experience with a pet cat accidentally getting stuck in a neighbor's glue trap. And then, sort of, kind of, getting my hands stuck in the trap trying to get Humperdinck out. My mom got us both out intact in the end.”

“. . . that does absolutely nothing to reassure me.”

“I'm just going to spritz a little bit of oil at the edge of the paper and you try to work it between your skin—uh, exoskeleton—and the glue. Trust me, this will be messy but a lot less painful than trying to peel the glue off. And I'm worried about your wings if we leave them stuck too much longer. They look all crumpled.”

Bog took his time thinking this over, giving a few more experimental tugs on the glue strip before sighing and admitting defeat, “Do what you must.”

They hit a hitch right away when Marianne misjudged the force of the spray and coated most of Bog's upper torso when she had been aiming for the side of the jar to loosen the strip stuck to the glass.

“Would it help if I apologized?” She asked, seeing Bog's livid expression.

“I very much doubt it.”

“Well, sorry all the same. Moving on . . .”

Eventually Bog was freed from the jar, if not the fly strip, and slipping on the table thanks to being off balance and a surplus of cooking oil coating his feet. Seeing him out of the jar Marianne noted that he looked nothing like a cicada or grasshopper, really. Possibly she might mistake his lanky form for a dragonfly, if he were in flight, but that was as far as she could stretch her imagination.

“Two questions,” Marianne laid out a couple of paper towels for Bog to stand on so he stopped slipping on the slick finish of the table, “One, how could I ever have mistook you for a bug? Two, you're tiny so why don't you sound like Mickey Mouse?”

“Glamour,” Bog said shortly, scratching at the paper clinging to his arm, “And why would I sound like a mouse?”

“I mean, small things are squeakier. Teeny-tiny lungs and all that. You should be high-pitched, not rumbling bass. You sound a little faint, but just like you're far away.”

“Glamour,” Bog repeated, tearing a strip of paper free and baring his teeth at it before he flicked it aside.

“Far be it from me to deny that you are entirely glamorous, but, I have no idea what you mean.”

“Innate magic.”

“Ah. A wizard did it. Convenient. Here, hang on, let me cut off the big pieces with scissors. If you're magic why don't you just magick out of this mess?”

“That's not how glamour works.”

“Enlighten an ignorant mortal,” Marianne prompted, carefully trimming around Bog's legs, noticing how his feet each had a toe offset like thumb, making her wonder if they were prehensile. While he was generally human-shaped all his specifics were definitely inhuman.

“Glamour is an instinctive disguise, for the most part. My voice is not distorted because I don't think it should be.”

“Then why did you look like a cicada?”

“Because, like me, it is a disgusting winged insect. The main difference is that you would not have taken a deep interest in its presence on your windowsill.”

“Wouldn't a dragonfly fit better, though? You look much more like a dragonfly than a cicada. Whoa, careful!”

Bog had tripped and fallen over, Marianne catching him before he face-planted again. He shoved himself away from her hand, almost overbalancing and falling the other way, but this time he kept his feet.

“Idiotic glue!” Bog growled, tearing a piece off his arm, then hissing in pain, because it looked like the undersides of his arms were not armored and he had ripped the glue strip off bare skin.

Marianne winced, but when she opened her mouth to ask if he was okay Bog gave her such an intense look of 'never speak of this again' that she cut herself off.

“Why didn't you look like a bug when I put you in the jar? You didn't exactly look like a cicada when you were swinging around in my window either. You didn't look like you, but you didn't look like anything I could identify either.”

“Glamour takes some concentration to maintain,” Bog picked at the edges of the strip over his shoulders, “I was distracted. And then a bit . . . off-balance.”

“Off-balance?”

“You hit me with a jar.”

“Oh. Fair enough.”

Dawn had looked like a butterfly until Marianne had smacked her with a paper plate. That must have broken Dawn's concentration and therefore dispelled the glamour. So that seemed to be consistent.

“Do it now.”

“No. Do what?”

“Put on the glamour.”

“Really?” Bog yanked the strip off his shoulder, “That is your priority right now?”

“As soon as you're unglued you're going to start arguing with me about what to do with Sunny, so as I see it now is the best time.”

With a sigh, Bog rolled his shoulder, testing its range of motion. Marianne almost lost of train of thought, staring at the odd way his armor layered on his shoulders. It was like the part of a suit of plate armor that capped the shoulders of its wearer—pauldron?--except that these seemed to be actually growing out of Bog's shoulders. They were the same muted brown-gray color as the rest of him, rising to points, and layered in leaves, looking something like the outside of a pine cone. As Bog rolled his shoulders the plates splayed out, then settled back into place.

“The elf comes with me.”

“Hm,” Marianne folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on them, “So your majesty demands. Are you going to show me or not?”

“If it'll help us move past the subject . . .” Bog sat down on the paper towels, “It's harder to do it when there's no need to.”

He bent his head and closed his eyes. As Marianne watched Bog started to . . . blur. It was like looking through a camera when you zoomed too fast and it took a moment to readjust. He had gone out of focus and no matter how much Marianne blinked and squinted she couldn't see him clearly.

Then there was a bug.

A cicada, sitting on the paper towels, its wings tangled with ragged bits of yellow paper.

Marianne sat up straight and almost jumped out of her chair. The bug was gross. She didn't want to look at it, it was so repulsive. She couldn't have said what exactly it was that made the bug so unpleasant to look at. She had never had a problem with insects, but this one . . . this one unsettled her stomach and made her want to look away.

So she looked at it harder.

She knew it wasn't really a bug at all. Leaning in again she fought to focus her eyes in some way that wasn't exactly physical. The harder she stared the more she could tell it wasn't a cicada at all. It wasn't that she could see Bog, but she wasn't quite seeing a cicada either . . .

Then it was Bog again, opening his eyes and looking up at her with a sarcastic arch of his brow, “Happy?”

“That is . . . mind-bending. Are you actually cicada-shaped when you do that?”

He rolled his eyes at being asked more questions, “No, not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

But Bog was twisting around to work on freeing his wings and only snorted at her.

Some time later Marianne deposited a beer bottle cap filled with a dollop of blue dish soap into the sink, remarking, “Olive oil is good for the skin, you know.”

“Oh, I'm sure it will make all the difference in my complexion,” The Bog King rumbled from inside the sink, trying to scrub oil and the gummy remnants of glue off his arms underneath the drip of the tap. His wings, finally free, flopped on his back, still heavy with glue.

He was at last free of the fly trap but his reclaimed liberty had done nothing to improve his mood. Marianne suspected it was something to do with the rips in his wings. It looked like he had managed to tear the delicate membrane when he was struggling inside the jar. Marianne tried to ask if he was okay but he just snapped at her again. She shrugged and changed the subject.

“If I had any wine you could marinate properly. Or garlic and lemon.”

There was indistinct muttering from inside the sink.

“Once you destroy the love potion can't you just let Sunny's people deal with him?” Marianne leaned on the counter, her back to Bog.

“He needs to be made an example of.”

Marianne let the argument drop for the moment, “How do you destroy a love potion? I'm guessing you can't just pour it down the sink and call it a day.”

“If only. The magic has to be neutralized and the potion reduced back to primrose petals once more.”

“Primroses, huh?” She remembered that they grew all along the wood at the edge of the fields. She supposed that wood was probably this 'Dark Forest' Bog was king of. She could see it through the window. It had seemed much farther away when she was a kid.

“Don't get any ideas.”

“Hah! You're hilarious, prickly. The last thing I need in my life is love. 'Cause I've been there and I'm glad I'm out, out of those chains, those chains that bind you.”

Marianne expected her brief burst of song to fall as flat as her pop culture references had, but from the sink an amazing deep voice floated up to continue the song:

“That is why I'm here to remind you, what do you get when you fall in love? You only get a life of pain and sorrow, so for at least until tomorrow--”

Marianne joined in the last lines:

“I'll never fall in love again! No, no, I'll never fall in love again!”

“Bog King! How does a goblin know pop music? Do you have tiny boomboxes in the Dark Forest or what?”

“We like music. We go out and gather it when we can. It's not like humans have been keeping it secret. In fact, you can be rather loud about it.”

“Just . . . fair folk and music that involves electric guitars . . . they don't seem to mix.”

“You're thinking of fairies. They don't care so much for anything with an actual beat.”

“Goblins are music snobs. Who knew?”

“Hmf.”

“It's okay, I'm kind of one, too. I should get some of my playlists to show you later. If you're not too busy trying to drag Sunny off to an untimely demise.”

“Why do you even care about the elf?”

“Look, I think he's a grade-A loser for what he tried to do, but that doesn't mean I want him dead. Death is too good for him. He needs to live and suffer for his misdeeds. I mean, learn his lesson.”

“You guys do know I can hear you, right?” Sunny's shaky voice floated timidly up from beneath the sink.

“I stand by what I say, Mr. Nice Guy. Now hush, I'm trying to save your life. And speaking of saving lives, don't you owe me for saving yours, Bog King?”

“What.”

“I'm kind of doubting you would have gotten out of that trap by yourself. I'm thinking I saved your life. I also spared you life by not smacking you with a shoe or finding a can of bug spray to douse you with. That's kind of a big deal, isn't it?”

Except for the sound of the tap dripping there was silence.

“You owe me, crunchy.” Marianne persisted.

“And you'd have me pay this supposed debt by sparing the elf?”

“I'm thinking about it. I have to talk with Dawn about it, first, but probably yes. Don't say no--”

“No.”

“--right away. Think about it. Because I'll be thinking of other ways I could have you pay me back. I have a pretty good imagination and internet access so I can probably think of something pretty unpleasant. Tell me, Sunny, am I right? Does he owe me?”

“Y-yeah,” She could hear the elf cringing, “I think both the fairies and elves would agree that he does. Lawfully. You—you should ask Dawn. She knows more about this sort of thing.”

“I'll do that.” Marianne flashed a smug smile at Bog.

He glowered.

Marianne was about to push the issue, but was cut off by a knock on the front door.

The unexceptional sound of knuckles tapping on wood made Marianne's stomach drop and her mouth go dry. Nobody knew she was here. There was no way anyone could have even guessed where she was going. The visitor knocked again and it was deafening compared to her afternoon of straining to hear what tiny people were saying.

“What is that?” Bog asked from the sink, peering up curiously at her face. He looked concerned and she wondered if she looked as sick as she felt.

“Someone at the door,” Her voice cracked when she spoke and she swallowed hard, shaking her head to settle her thoughts, “It must just be a neighbor. Or an encyclopedia salesman. Must be. I'll . . . go get rid of them. Stay here.”

Walking through the living room Marianne tried to keep her breathing even. It couldn't be any of her family or friends. She was being paranoid to think any of them had found her. It was just somebody looking to borrow her phone or ask if she wanted her lawn mowed.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror hanging in the entryway and paused to claw at the tangled nest of her hair. Had it looked like that all day? True, she hadn't combed it in days, but she didn't feel she had really worked up to that level of crazy cat lady hair. There was a smear of chocolate on her chin, greasy spots of oil on her sleeves, and dust and grime from the kitchen junk drawers were streaked all over her clothing. She looked as if she were a homeless person who had wandered in out of the heat. At least she didn't look as if she'd been crying recently. The dark rings under her eyes weren't exactly attractive, though.

Another knock startled her out of her thoughts and she automatically grabbed the doorknob and wrenched the front door open, forgetting to peek out the window first to check who it was.

At the sight of the figure on her doorstep she stopped breathing.

“Well, darling,” the visitor said, sounding startled but deeply pleased, “fancy running into you here!”

Marianne's voice sounded faint and far away to her own ears and she almost thought it wasn't actually her speaking at all, but maybe another tiny person that had been hiding in her doorway. The world was tilting and she could only manage a single word:

“Roland.”

Chapter Text

Marianne slammed the door shut.

At least, she tried to.

Roland stuck his foot in the door and kept her from closing it. He winced, but it was probably at the scuffs the door left on his immaculate leather shoes and not from any actual physical discomfort.

She pulled the door back for another try, but Roland slapped his hand flat on it and slammed the door all the way open.

“Hey, there, buttercup! What're you doing all the way out in the middle of nowhere? You're gonna be late for your own wedding if we don't get you on a plane home soon!”

Marianne gave him a sharp kick to the knee.

This was a successful move, in so far as he staggered back enough for her to have gotten the door closed, but he recovered enough to grab her by the arm and swing her further into the house. She tripped over the threshold of the living room, which was raised slightly to prevent dirt and mud from getting past the tiles and into the carpet. She managed to catch herself and scuttle to the other side of the room, putting the couch between her and Roland while she looked around for the baseball bat she had been keeping around in case of emergencies.

“Sweetheart,” Roland stepped into the living room, favoring his left leg, “you're not being fair. You haven't even given me a chance to clear up this whole . . . misunderstanding. Because that's all it is, just a silly misunderstanding. You sit yourself down and hear me out, honey. In no time you'll be ready to head on home in time for the wedding!”

“My name is Marianne!” For lack of a better weapon she stripped the dust cover off the couch and snatched up a cushion and threw it at Roland as hard as she could, “Marianne Gallagher! Not buttercup!”

She picked up another cushion and threw it after the first.

“Not sweetheart!”

Like the others the third cushion were aimed true and smacked Roland in the face.

“Not babycakes!”

Out of cushions, Marianne darted toward the bedrooms to try and locate the bat. She almost tripped over it in the hallway and snatched it up, whirling around and taking a swing just in time to make Roland jump back.

“Look, baby, everybody is worried about you. Your mom--”

Marianne shoved the end of the bat toward his throat and he had to back up or get jabbed in the Adam's apple. But he persisted.

“Your mom is in a complete state. Your brothers all flew in early and are waiting at home for you. Your dad has been calling everybody asking about you.”

“Shut up!” She refused to let him make her feel guilty, make her feel that she was in the wrong. Not this time. Not again. “You need to leave, Roland! I don't want to talk to you. Ever.”

“I love you, honey, why are you being like this?”

“Why am I being like this? Why are you . . . you?! You cheated on me! That makes it fairly obvious that you don't love me! All you love is my family's money and your hair!”

“You're going to just leave me at the altar without even a chance to make it up to you?”

“You're a loser and a creep!” Marianne jabbed the bat again, trying to push him back toward the door, “Just admit that your get-rich-quick scheme is a flop and move on. All your research is wasted, start over somewhere else. I don't know why you were digging into my background but it's weird and straight up stalking! How did you even find me here?”

“I was, uh, in the neighborhood. You been keeping yourself busy out here all by your lonesome?” The coaxing smile on Roland's face slipped for a moment and he watched her face intently for reactions to the question. Marianne just swung the bat so that it whispered past his perfect nose.

“It was gloriously peaceful until you came into my house uninvited.”

“Honey,” Roland seemed satisfied with her response and returned to his sugary coaxing, “I know you're mad, but I also know you're not really going to hit me.”

“Keep pushing and you'll find out you're dead wrong.”

“What you saw, Marianne—what you thought you saw—wasn't like you thought. That girl, that little tramp, she practically threw herself at me--”

Hot tears were filling Marianne's eyes and blurring Roland's face. She blinked furiously, trying to keep them from slipping free. She wouldn't show weakness in front of him. She'd give him nothing to exploit.

The afternoon had begun in the fog of a hangover, somehow slipping easily into the incredible events of dealing with a political incident among three different fantasy races in her kitchen. She had the unprecedented pleasure of being completely disagreeable with someone and having a good time while doing it. Bog didn't seem to mind either, more grouchy about the circumstances then the company. It hadn't been real, so it didn't matter if she was ungracious and contradicted everything he said.

Now reality, ugly reality, was taking control again. All the unpleasantness of the past few weeks, her increasing doubts, growing suspicions, and horrible confirmation of them, all came rushing back, represented by her ex-finacee's movie-star features and toothpaste ad smile. She wanted to smash his smug face, smash the reality of his betrayal, how he had used her, had never seen her as anything more than a means to wealth and success.

He had pretended to love her. And now that she looked back she realized he hadn't even pretended very well. She had been willing to be duped, to be blind, as if she had been dosed with love potion.

Well, her eyes were open now.

“Get out of my house, Roland.”

“C'mon, Marianne, why don't we go to the kitchen, have a drink, and talk this over?” He took and step toward the kitchen and Marianne rushed to block his way. Roland looked at her in a calculating way and tried to see past her and into the kitchen, “Maybe you should go get yourself prettied up while I wait. You look like you haven't been feeling well.”

“Like I would waste good beer on you,” Marianne poked him in the ribs with the bat, “Get out or I'll break your knees.”

He laughed, managing to almost entirely hide the nervous edge to it. “Marianne, you've never so much as hurt a fly in your whole life!”

“Actually, I'm very accomplished at pest control.”

Marianne could have sworn she heard a chuckle from the kitchen. Somehow, that encouraged Marianne enough that her tears started to abate and she pressed forward, determined to evict Roland without further ado.

“Visiting hours are over, dirt bag, let me show you to the door.”

“Now, Marianne, be reasonable--”

She slammed the bat into his arm.

To her surprise there was a dull crunch of metal. Roland staggered, but he did not seem to have suffered any broken bones. Marianne was surprised enough that she was too slow to stop Roland from seizing her wrist.

“Be a good little girl,” He said, slightly out of breath, “and put your toy away.”

The hand twisting Marianne's arm felt cold and segmented. Looking down at it she saw that his hand was covered in green armor. She could hear the metal segments of it scraping against each other when he tightened his grip and pushed her toward the kitchen. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she could feel her hold on the bat weakening.

“We'll just see what you're hiding in here, princess.”

“Get out!” She tried to shout at him but she wasn't sure the words came out at all.

He gave Marianne another shove toward the kitchen, but when she stumbled backwards she ran into something that stopped her before she pitched right onto the linoleum.

Hands came around from behind her and settled onto her shoulders, steadying her. She felt the back of her head brushing against the lapels of a jacket.

“I believe you were asked to leave.”

The voice came from above her head, sounding familiar, but also wrong.

Roland stepped back and Marianne was seeing a strange double vision, where his hand was completely bare with his usual impeccable manicure, and at the same time covered in intricate green armor. She tilted her head up to get a look at who was behind her, considering shaking him off, but not feeling steady enough on her feet to risk trying to stand unaided.

She located a jaw covered in prickly stubble and speckled with the pitting of acne scarring, and above that there were lips pulled down in a sneer of displeasure to show crooked yellow teeth that had been chipped and broken until they almost looked like fangs. Looking a little higher revealed a very long nose that should have been longer and more pointed but wasn't. Finally she found a pair of blue eyes blazing out from the shadows cast by an impressive pair of eyebrows that were drawn down in a deep frown.

The dizziness was getting worse and Marianne could have sworn she saw leaves instead of the greasy, black hair swept back from the man's face. The bat slipped out of her hand and she had to look away and shut her eyes, trying to make the room stop spinning.

One hand left her shoulder and reached down, scooping up the bat and pressing it back into Marianne's hand, taking care to curve her numb fingers around the handle and waiting to make sure she held on. She did, because some part of her scrambled brain still retained some shred of self-preservation instinct.

“This isn't any of your business, sir,” Roland said, pulling himself up and flourishing his hand in a gesture of dismissal, all the time his eyes flickering around them, still trying to see into the kitchen.

“But I'm curious. What is behind me that you're so eager to find?”

“I don't—”

“Because I very much doubt you're here on behalf of the elf.”

“I'm afraid,” Roland put on a smile that was stretched a little too wide, “I don't know what you mean. Sir.”

“If you're after the love potion you're too late. I've already retrieved it.”

Marianne looked over at Roland in time to see his reaction to the mention of the love potion. His careful mask of charm slipped, his well-shaped eyebrows lowering into a frown, lines of anger marring his smooth skin.

Still clutching the baseball bat, Marianne dug the fingers of her free hand into the jacket sleeve behind her. She was staring at Roland and his face smoothed out to a more usual expression of arrogant disdain as he tilted his chin up.

“Ah? I don't quite follow you.”

“It is you, Roland!” Dawn had floated out of the hallway and into the room, her springy yellow curls slightly crushed from her nap, “What are you doing here?”

“Princess!” Roland blurted out. His eyes widened and he fought to erase the shock and recognition from his face.

“Do you two . . .” Marianne had to fight her way out of a spinning, blurring world to speak up, “Do you two know each other?”

“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about, darling,” Roland slid in before Dawn could speak, “You're not looking so good. Maybe you should go lie down while I sort this all out.”

Roland gave her such a dazzling smile that she actually squinted her eyes against the brightness of it. She tightened her grip on the jacket sleeve, trying to anchor herself. The arm obligingly bent itself so she could more easily lean on it, though the hand was balled into such a tight fist that she could feel the tension cording through the entire arm.

“You'd better worry your pretty little head,” Marianne said, “because if you don't explain what's going on I'm going to knock out all your pretty teeth with my toy.”

“Roland, I know it's you!” Dawn flitted around his head, “How do you know . . . Marianne? Why does she look like she wants to kill you? Why does the Bog King look like he wants to kill you?”

“A—a talking butterfly . . .” Roland pretended to stammer, his acting flat and unconvincing.

“Roland--!” Marianne stepped forward, taking the bat in both hands.

Another dazzling smile was hastily directed at her and she could almost feel the wave of insincere charm crash into her, trying to push her attention away from her questions. When she pushed into it, taking another step toward Roland, her foot missed the carpet as the room tilted sharply.

The floor was rising to meet her face, but it halted, an arm hooked around her waist and suspending her above the floor. For a moment she stared at the gray carpet, watching black spots appear above it. The black spots grew, starting to reach the edges of her vision and send the world black.

“I'm . . . I'm not fainting,” She told the voices that chattered at her, small and tinny like they were on the other end of a bad phone connection, “I've never . . . in my life . . .”

Everything went weightless and she only realized she had been picked up when she was deposited in a chair and a glass of water pressed into her hand. When it became clear that her hands were shaking too much to hold it someone wrapped their hand around hers and guided the glass to her lips.

“I'd prefer another beer,” She said after a few sips.

“Wouldn't we all.”

“Where's Roland?” Marianne gave an experimental blink and found that it cleared her vision a little.

“Scampered.”

“Darn it, I wasn't finished with him.”

The world swung back into focus and Marianne saw she was in the kitchen sitting with her back to the open window. Dawn was hovering anxiously over Marianne's shoulder, kicking her feet and wringing her long hands. When she saw Marianne was coming around she smiled and gave her cheek a pat. Reluctantly, Marianne made her eyes move over to the human-sized face in front of her at eye level.

“Crunchy?” She ventured to ask the lanky man folded up in front of her chair, a glass half full of water still in his hand.

He did not dignify this with a reply, merely rolling his eyes and rising to his feet, grunting and pressing a hand to his back as he walked over to the sink to put away the glass. Marianne watched him unfold and rise . . . and continue to rise to such an absurd height that she was sure he ought to have been scraping his head on the ceiling.

“Oh, how the turns have tabled,” She said faintly, “Is it too late to apologize for all the size jokes I've made today?”

Bog leaned his hands on the edge of the sink, shoulders hunched and head bowed, “What kind of fairy trick is this?”

“Huh?”

“What kind of trick is this?” Bog whirled around and thrust his face up to hers.

Dawn squeaked and hid behind Marianne's head. Marianne herself had to admit that Bog's expression was pretty fearsome. However, she was still feeling a little unreal and detached and couldn't stop herself from saying, “Wow, your eyes are even prettier up close.”

“. . . what?” Bog drew back as if she were crazy and he was afraid it might be contagious.

“Is this part of an extended emotional breakdown? Have you been a really tall, cute guy all day and all that stuff about goblins and fairies and jars was just in my head?”

“What?”

“He is kind of cute when he looks confused,” Dawn whispered agreement from somewhere near Marianne's left ear, “And I'm totally with you about his eyes. Gorgeous.”

“Mmm,” Marianne nodded gently, trying not to set the world spinning again.

“Enough!” Bog growled. Marianne was almost positive his razor-sharp cheekbones were dusted with a blush as pink as the glow of the love potion. “What kind of trick are you trying to pull, pretending to be human?”

“Come again?”

“Drop the act! I saw your glamour flicker when that buffoon tried to charm you. I knew there was something off about you, but I wasn't able to put my finger on it until then. You're not as careful as you think. You've been slipping all day.”

The feeling of floating was dissipating and a headache was beginning to nibble on the edges of Marianne's tired eyes. She was starting to get angry with Bog for being so unreasonably tall and angry when she just wanted a nap, a beer, and to smash Roland's nose in. Not necessarily in that order.

“I am human!”

“Um,” Dawn said, walking out onto Marianne's shoulder, “I don't think you are.”

“What are you talking about? I'm the token human of this summer comedy.”

“Bog is right, you've been sort of flickering.”

“If you mean 'fainting' then, no, I have not. I just . . . lost my balance for a minute. I guess my diet hasn't exactly been nourishing lately. Get a medium-rare steak and a salad in me and I'll stop flickering. Not that I was flickering in the first place.”

“Your face changes, a little bit,” Dawn explained, “Mostly your eyes. Right now they're light brown, but when you were shouting at Roland they were sort of golden. Really pretty.”

“Is that true, Bog? That my eyes change?” She tried to make her voice light and wasn't sure if she succeeded. She was feeling more than a little unsettled and she hoped it wasn't obvious how much she needed some reassurance that things were normal.

Bog looked over at her, his eyes having been strictly directed out the window until then. She leaned forward, watching his eyes, waiting for him to say he had been mistaken, that she was Marianne Gallagher and nothing else. Her heart rose when he tipped his head to one side, sharp features relaxing into softer lines, lips parting as he was about to speak--

“Stop trying to charm me!”

Marianne jerked in her chair at Bog's sudden shout. He was standing as far away as the small kitchen would allow, slouched over in a defensive stance, like he was ready for a fight. His face had gone tight again and he pointed a long, knobbly finger at her, “I won't be fooled! I don't know what your plan is, but it won't work!”

“I'm not . . . charming you?” Marianne faltered, her heart sinking again, “My only plan is to get so drunk I don't remember anything that happened today.”

Unfortunately, saying this reminded Marianne of what had happened right before she had not fainted. She craned her head to look at Dawn.

“How do you know Roland? He's not—he isn't the Roland you were talking about earlier, right? Because that Roland would be a fairy and there is no way I dated a fairy for six months without noticing. Right? That would just be impossible. Like this whole day.”

Dawn looked apologetic, “That was definitely him. There's no way there's anybody else that has that exact same hair.”

Marianne slumped in her chair and groaned, “Just when I think I've gotten to the bottom of all his lies. This one might beat all the rest, on the scale of unexpected weirdness. I'm not sure where this falls compared to finding him wrapped around that wedding caterer.”

“Roland was here?” Sunny asked, still banished underneath the sink, “Was he here for the love potion?”

Bog tore the cupboard open and grabbed the jar. Ignoring Dawn and Marianne's protests to be careful he gave the jar a shake, making Sunny rattle around inside and knock his head against the glass.

“Was that yellow-headed idiot part of your conspiracy?”

“Huuh,” Sunny moaned, holding his head, “Yeah, he—he suggested the idea. He told me he was in love with a girl who just wouldn't notice him and that if he just had a love potion it would solve all his—all our problems.”

Marianne heard herself make a strange little noise of pain, the implications of Sunny's revelation turning her stomach sour and making bile rise up in her throat.

Roland had planned to use the love potion on her.

“Please, stop shaking him, Boggy!” Dawn shrieked, launching off Marianne's shoulder to flap uselessly around the jar, too small to intervene.

“I wouldn't think you would mind seeing him get a bit of reward for his recent deeds,” Bog huffed, setting the jar down on the counter with only slightly excessive force.

“Well I do mind!” Dawn said, hands on her hips and expression stern, “So stop that right now! You're not allowed to shake his jar or feed him to the other goblins! That's an order from a princess!”

“King outranks princess, princess.”

Marianne slithered off her chair and onto the floor, the back of her jacket caught on the seat as she sat there, drawing up her legs and wrapping her arms around herself, “He was going to use it on me. That cheating, chattering pig was going to love dust me! I would have—he would have--!”

Marianne clapped her hands over her mouth, afraid of what might happen if she kept talking. It was a toss up whether she would throw up or burst into tears. The thought of being essentially emotionally enslaved to Roland for the rest of her life was downright horrifying.

The room felt too big, too open. She used to feel like that a lot as a little kid. She would hide under tables and behind shelves, trying to make the world smaller and safer. There was a knothole in the headboard of her bed when she was small and she would imagine being little enough to curl up inside it, cozy and safe where no one could find her and nothing could hurt her.

The kitchen flickered, like a cloud had passed over the sun and blocked out the light for a moment. Everything blurred and Marianne wondered if she had started crying, but the cabinets that stretched above her seemed to be stretching even higher, and the sound of Bog's footsteps on the floor grew louder, practically shaking the room.

Then, once again, Marianne did not faint.

Chapter Text

For the fifth day in a row Marianne woke up and wasn't sure where she was.

She went through the short list of possible locations she might have passed out in and found that nothing about her current situation matched any of them. It certainly wasn't her apartment, with her memory foam mattress and overabundance of pillows. And it wasn't her old room at her parent's house, with sheets that smelled like lavender. It wasn't even any of the cottage bedrooms with a few blankets tossed over a bare mattress and a pillow that had gone flat in storage.

Everything smelled of roses and her cheek rested on the loose weave of a knit afghan. Something sounded odd. She swallowed, trying to pop her ears and banish the hollow underwater noise that lulled around her.

She cracked one eye open, anticipating the light sensitivity of a hangover. Shockingly, the yellow sunlight of late afternoon did not unduly irritate her eyes. There was no stabbing, no burning, no instinctive desire to burrow under the covers and seek out the bliss of unconsciousness once more. There was nothing much to see in her immediate surroundings except the purple afghan, but she could hear people talking—arguing—nearby.

“It isn't funny!”

“It's hilarious.”

“It's mean, Boggy.”

“Merely turnabout.”

“You're absolutely beastly, Boggy!”

There was a small sound that was possibly something small bouncing off of Bog's head. He made a noise of irritation in the back of his throat, remarking, “If I thought you were capable of deception I'd take more pains to get you down from there.”

“Hey! What makes you think I'm not?”

“I've met you.”

Again, something smacked Bog's head, bouncing off and dropping onto the table. The impact was thunderous and the vibrations of it carried right through Marianne's bed. With great reluctance she conceded to the reality that she was indeed awake and would not be able to alter that state any time soon.

“Why aren't I allowed to have my emotional meltdown in peace?” She demanded of the world, struggling to sit up under the clinging bedding. She was tangled in blankets and couldn't figure out how to slip free, all her tugging just seemed to make it all even more impossible.

“Marianne, you're awake!”

“Brilliant deduction, Holmes,” Marianne sniffed, feeling grumpy at being recalled to the waking world. She had a feeling she had been in the middle of an argument with Bog that hadn't been resolved and was loath to return to it. She glanced around for him, finding there was a transparent wall between her and the rest of the room. Wiggling closer to it she touched it, feeling slick glass, trying to place what room in the cottage had a a glass partition.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long,” Dawn assured her.

“Mmph,” Marianne couldn't make sense of what she was seeing through the glass. It looked like there was a wide expanse of shiny wood floor with a handful of plastic buttons laying here and there. Very large buttons. There was some sort of wooden structure in the distance that could possibly be said to resemble the back of a chair, and past that a distant mountainous landscape that could have been mistaken for stacks of dirty dishes.

“Sorry about the jar. I tried to stop Boggy but he's determined to be mean. I made him put in the sock so at least you'd be comfy.”

“I swear, I haven't had enough beer to be so flaky about consciousness—wait. Did you say jar? Am I in a jar?”

Still hopelessly imprisoned by her bedding, Marianne had managed to half sit up, her back bent under the weight of her traitorous purple blankets. There was a distinct roundness to the space she occupied, the world distorted through the wall of glass. It was stuffy, the smell of roses almost overwhelming.

Rubbing her eyes until spangles of light bloomed like fireworks beneath her eyelids, Marianne took a deep breath and took a second look around, cricking her neck so she could look straight up. Yes, that was definitely how she would imagine the underside of a lid. There were irregular holes punched through the metal, letting in a little air.

She remembered, just before she had totally not fainted, feeling like the world was stretching up, growing huge while she dwindled down, smaller and smaller. She rubbed her eyes again, whispering, “Holy Alice Through the Looking Glass, Batman.”

“Now, then,” Marianne grabbed the afghan to steady herself when the jar spun around, bringing her face-to-face with Bog's smug countenance, “Time to answer some questions, tough girl.”

“Okay, but, I have some questions,” Marianne blinked at the huge hand resting on the table by her jar. The fingernails were not black, but a discolored gray and far too short, even though they grew past the ends of the fingers in a slight curve. The fingernails tapped a brief rhythm on the table, the vibrations setting Marianne's teeth on edge.

“What exactly--” Bog began, jabbing a finger at the side of her jar.

“I'm not really in a jar, right?” Marianne spoke over him, “This is just the next stage of my break with reality. What—what is wrong with my hands?”

Marianne held up her hands, flipping them around to look at the palms, then the backs. Her fingers were too long. She had always had delicate looking lady-hands, slender and non-threatening until she arranged her fingers into a fist. But now they were so long that they were unsettling to look at. The pinky finger of her right hand was slightly crooked, as it had been since she had caught it in the spokes of her brother's bicycle and broken it when she was eleven, indicating that these were indeed her very own hands she was looking at.

“Look, fairy,” Bog began again.

“I'm not a fairy! You—you stole my height! You made me small so you could be big!”

“Oh? Where'd I get all the extra height, then?”

“Shut up, you tree! Let me out! Put me back! This isn't funny!”

“No, it isn't.”

Bog fumbled in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the love potion, the tiny bottle pinched between his finger and thumb, and set it on the table by the jar. Next to that he placed his staff. Marianne reached to check the pocket she had been keeping it in, only to find she wasn't wearing her jacket anymore. In the vast distances of the kitchen she could see it slung haphazardly over the back of a chair. Finally, Bog set the jar containing Sunny next to the potion and staff, arranging the items as if he were the prosecuting attorney displaying incriminating evidence against the defendant.

Even though two layers of glass Marianne could now see Sunny clearly enough to spot that he had freckles dotted across his warm brown skin. He gave a nervous little wave.

“Hi, kid,” Marianne waved back, “What're you in for?”

“Uh, excessive stupidity?” He offered with an awkward half smile, “And being too easily led?”

“There's hope for you yet, kid.”

Bog struck the tabletop with one fingernail, the sharp noise regaining Marianne's attention before he spoke again, “I want to know how you were involved in all of this and why you were pretending to be human.”

“Why are my clothes the right size?” Marianne wondered out loud, “If I got small why did my clothes come with me? And why not my jacket? Where did you get clothing?”

“Boggy grabbed your jacket,” Dawn called from somewhere out of sight, “We thought you were just fainting again, but your glamour broke.”

“I do not faint.”

“You certainly do a good imitation of it,” Bog snickered, pulling another object over to join the assembled evidence.

“Is that—that is my last beer!”

“Is it?”

Bog popped the cap off with a twist of his fingers, a feat that Marianne had to admit to herself was sort of cool. Strangely, it was only just now that she realized he was wearing a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders. The jacket, combined with the beer in his hand, made him look like he had just walked out of a motorcycle bar.

“That is my last beer and now I've been shrunk so who knows when I'll be able to drive into town for more! You know, this means war!”

“Hm,” Bog said in a reflecting way after a swallow of beer, “it might be, in the end. Elves and fairies conspiring to breach my border and knowingly violate the ban.”

“Don't declare war because of my Loony Toons reference, please.”

“I'll be doing that because of your kingdom's conspiracy against mine.”

“There is no conspiracy! Except maybe one to drive me beyond the edge of sanity!”

Marianne kicked viciously at the blankets, ripping herself free and standing up. Even then one persistent blanket clung to her shoulders, and she tried to shake if off while she adjusted her shirt, which was hitched up above her hips. Moving her feet around she realized that she had been passed out in one of her own socks.

“Listen, you insufferable, overgrown pine cone—oof!”

The blanket on her back pulled her back and she fell, slamming her shoulder blades into the side of the glass. All the air was knocked out of her and she could only gasp silently at the pain twisting through her muscles, so strong that it felt like it was somehow extending past her shoulders to hang down her back in a heavy sheet of discomfort.

“Marianne?” One of Bog's eyes floated just outside the jar, his expression of concern noticeable even through the smudges of dust and fingerprints that fogged the world around her.

“Just—just hang on a minute. Let me get my breath and I'll get back to punching your nose down to size.”

“Marianne!” Dawn smacked against the outside of the jar, her nose pressed flat, “Stop stepping on your wings! Boggy, let her out before she gets hurt!”

“We'll discuss that later, princess,” Bog's hand pushed Dawn out of the way.

“No!” Dawn shoved on his hand, flying up and over it, “We're discussing it now! She's not trying to trick you, Bog and she obviously isn't working with Roland. I mean, duh! And I think—I think she's a changeling.”

“Why the devil would you think that?” Bog sounded skeptical, but his hands had paused and Marianne could see old scars slashed across his palms. She wonder why those stayed when he could chose to look however he liked. She had to assume that the grooves etched down his chin had been present when he was tiny and couldn't make them out.

“Bog, do you remember the name of my older sister?” Dawn persisted, wings flicking in preparation to dodge again if necessary.

“Why would I know that?” Bog laid his hands back down on the table, “I didn't even know you had an older sister. I thought there was only one princess in the fairy kingdom.”

“I am the only princess. Now, anyway. I wasn't always. Didn't you ever hear about the lost princess? Everybody knows that story! I get a recap of it from dad every time I want to leave the castle.”

“There were fairies searching the borders, I remember. My mother said they had lost their princess. That must have been over twenty years ago. What does it have to do with anything?”

“My sister's name was Marianne.”

Everything went quiet enough for Marianne to hear the hollow silence of her jar. Her head was too full of Roland's visit, Bog's sudden tallness, her own sudden smallness, and the pain in her back to keep up with the conversation. She glanced longingly at the beer that Bog had left abandoned on the edge of the table.

Bog waved his hand, “That doesn't mean anything, princes, it's not an uncommon name--”

“My sister's name was Marianne and she had golden-brown eyes--”

“And the last time you saw her you were, what, an infant?”

Dawn had risen up, forgetting the threat of jars, and was floating in front of Bog's face, her pointing finger coming up just short of tapping him on the nose when she gestured, “There are paintings of her! And do you know what color our mother's wings were?”

“I'm sure you're about to enlighten me,” Bog muttered, pulling back from the tiny princess just the smallest distance, his eyes almost crossing to watch her accusing finger.

“They were purple,” Dawn declared, folding her arms and nodding as if she had won a victory.

“That's nice, Dawn,” gritting her teeth against the pain, Marianne stood up again, aware that whatever was weighing down her back was probably not a blanket, “And as narratively amusing it is for me to be in a jar, I would like to get out and be put back to my right size now, please.”

“You're not getting out of the jar until I figure out what's going on.”

“What's going on is that my ex is actually a butterfly, a cicada caught in my fly strip is actually a goblin king—minus the glitter—and I have been involuntarily shrunk and bottled! I just want to be my right size again so I can hit up the town for more booze and continue on with my ongoing project of getting too smashed to remember my own name! Now let me out of the jar!”

“You don't get to make demands!”

“And yet here I am demanding that you open this jar!”

“Um,” Sunny spoke up. Marianne had completely forgotten he was there, “if it helps at all, Mr. Bog King, sir, I never saw Marianne before in my life until she put me in this jar. Not as a human or a fairy. I got the love potion all by myself. Nobody helped me, nobody made me do it. This wasn't the fairy kingdom attacking you, this was just . . . me.”

“That so, elf? What about your fellow conspirator? The fairy in green armor?”

“Roland, he just gave me the idea. I don't think he even knew I existed until he saw I could be useful to him. And I didn't know he could be—like he was just now. I could feel the glamour from in here! I never even thought about the girl he wanted to use the potion on, I didn't think—I just didn't think.”

“Didn't think,” Bog rolled the words off with scorn, “Is that your excuse? I should let you go because you 'didn't think'?”

“. . . no. I should have thought. I'm really sorry, Mr. Bog King. I'm sorry, Dawn. And I'm sorry, Marianne, for almost getting you love dusted.”

Dawn ignored the apology and Sunny deflated, sitting down and picking at the strips of cloth wrapped around his hands. Marianne noticed that he had only three fingers and a thumb and found herself quickly counting Dawn's and Bog's fingers to see if she had missed anything else. But they both had the expected number of fingers, Bogs tapping impatiently on the sleeve of his jacket.

“I guess it was lucky someone got caught in my fly strip, otherwise you might have gotten away with the love potion, Sunny,” Marianne gave Bog a weak grin.

“Stop trying to charm me,” The king muttered.

“What does that even mean?” A tear crept out of the corner of her eye and she rubbed it away, hoping Bog hadn't been able to see the tiny drop of moisture. From the way he was not looking at her, chin cupped in his hand and eyes considering the view through the kitchen window, she suspected he had.

“He thinks you're using your glamour on him,” Dawn said, pressed up on the jar again, “To make him like you. Like Roland was trying to do to you.”

Marianne remembered the pressure that had accompanied Roland's dazzling smiles and several puzzle pieces slipped into place. Her knees went weak and her legs folded underneath her, “That . . . that really explains a lot about my relationship with Roland.”

Her back really hurt.

That was why tears were leaking down her face.

That was the only reason.

“You probably need to stretch your wings,” Bog said suddenly. The world dimmed when Bog's hand wrapped around the jar, holding it still while he unscrewed the lid, “I'm tipping the jar sideways, tough girl.”

She slid out of the jar feet first, losing her balance and sitting down hard the moment she was free, taking in a breath of air that was not choked with rose scent. One of Bog's hands was hovering nearby, indecisive about touching her. She solved his dilemma by snatching at his fingers, using them as support. He twitched but didn't pull away.

“Hold still,” Dawn said, setting down next to her and laying a comforting hand on her arm, “I'm just going to check your wings.”

Marianne hugged Bog's thumb, flinching at the touch of Dawn's hand on her shoulders. Dawn had pulled the back of Marianne's shirt up and was running her hand gently down something that wasn't Marianne's back. It was something . . . something attached to her back. The pain had been hanging on her like a cloak and she had been trying very hard to ignore the idea that it was anything other than a trick of her imagination.

“Bog?”

“Yeah?” He asked, his voice sounding a little dry.

“If you're going to keep on being all tall would you do me a favor and take me over to the mirror by the door? I need to check something and then we can get back to your conspiracy theories.”

She could practically hear Dawn and Bog exchanging looks, but she ignored it, because, after quickly pocketing the potion and his staff, Bog slid his other hand underneath her, picking her up and starting toward the living room.

Bog's careful footsteps rocked Marianne gently in his cupped hands. She was clinging to his thumb, her cheek resting on the hard skin of a callous. She concentrated on her breathing, trying to ignore how the air rushed past as the world swung up and down, how it tickled over her wings—her wings!—and aching shoulders.

There was a sideboard underneath the mirror in the entryway, to put hats and gloves on. Bog set her down there, letting her hold onto his thumb so that she wouldn't tip over again. Dawn floated gracefully down and stood a little distance away, watching Marianne carefully.

Marianne looked at their reflections in the mirror. There was Bog, dark and looming, his eyes hidden as he deliberately kept his gaze away from the glass, instead focusing it somewhere just to the right of Marianne.

There was Dawn, all blue and pink and fretful, vivid against the shadowy backdrop Bog provided.

Then there was Marianne.

By process of elimination it had to be Marianne.

But it wasn't right.

There was a tangle of short brown hair, but it was set above an unfamiliar face. Marianne's face was heart-shaped, with a strong pointed chin, brown eyes just like her dad. The reflection showed someone with a face that was subtly inhuman, the proportions not quite right. The jaw was wide, the face delicate, the eyes cartoonishly large. The eyes were still brown, only more the color of amber, brighter then before.

But she wore the right clothing: a ratty t-shirt and ripped jeans. The t-shirt didn't fit right, crumpled strangely over her shoulders. That was likely due to the limp folds of purple and black draped down her back like a cape, sweeping the surface of the sideboard.

“This is,” Marianne felt the curling point of her ear, “This is definitely . . . something.”

“You really had no idea.”

Marianne found Bog's blue eyes in the mirror. The shadows around them had lightened a little.

“That I was going to be shrunk by a goblin king? Nope, didn't see that coming. What do I have to do for you to make me big again?”

“I didn't make you small in the first place.”

“Then how did it happen?” Marianne was not pleased by the way her voice edged into a wail. She sounded a little like Dawn crying over Sunny's betrayal. It was embarrassing.

“This has never—you've never reverted before?”

“I haven't been this small ever and I have never had wings! I would remember because they hurt.”

“If you've been under glamour since you were four, then you wouldn't have noticed them growing in,” Dawn picked up the lacy black edge of Marianne's wing and pulled it out, “And you wouldn't have used them. They're stiff and weak, I think. But they look okay, I bet you can build them up okay once you start exercising them.”

In a flash of anger, Marianne snatched herself free from Dawn's helping hands, ignoring the guilt she felt at the sight of Dawn's hurt expression. Marianne would have fallen over if Bog's hand hadn't been keeping her up and she leaned heavily against him, wishing he would stop twitching like he was about to pull away.

“I wasn't under a glamour or anything else! I'm human, with human parents and everything! I don't know what did this—though my favorite theory is that prickles here stole my height—but this is not me. Not. It's not . . . not . . .”

“Are you going to not faint again, tough girl?”

“No!”

“Just checking.”

“Does anybody here know how to get me big again?”

“I've never done human glamour,” Dawn sniffled.

“What about you, prickles?”

“At this point,” Bog's hand did pull away now and Marianne teetered unsteadily in its absence, “it's none of my business. I believe that you weren't involved in the theft of the potion—neither of you. I'll just take the potion and the elf and go. I have things to do.”

“You can't take Sunny!”

“You can't just leave!”

“I've neglected my kingdom for the better part of a day. In the middle of a crisis, no less. It's far past time for me to get back. I'm sure the fairies can help you figure this out.”

Bog turned his broad shoulders to them and Marianne felt herself folding up again. The wings were a dead weight on her back, pins and needles prickling where they seemed to attach to her shoulders. Dawn rushed over and caught her in a hug, keeping her from collapsing.

“Boggy, she can't make it back to the castle on foot! And you can't take Sunny because you owe Marianne for saving your life and she—you're going to use that to save Sunny, right Marianne?”

“Yes!”

“And she wants Sunny to live in exchange for helping you!”

“Come formally to the castle and we can discuss it in the proper setting,” Bog waved a hand, having crossed the living room in a few long strides and about to enter the kitchen. The back of his leather jacket was scarred and there were a couple of puckered rips to show where his wings had taken damage.

“But we're stuck here!” Dawn shrieked in outrage.

“Go for help,” Bog called from in the kitchen. Marianne could hear him pick up Sunny's jar.

“And leave Marianne here all alone?” Dawn was vibrating in rage and Marianne was surprised by the ferocity in the princess's face.

“She can take care of herself.”

The back door creaked open.

“But what if when I'm gone—what if something happens? Boggy, what if Roland comes back?!”

The back door creaked to a halt.

Marianne held her breath in anticipation that maybe Bog would turn around and come back . . .

The whole house shook when the door slammed shut.

Chapter Text

“Oh, no,” Dawn said, squeezing Marianne a little tighter as both of them stared at the way Bog had gone. The house was settling back to stillness, the shaking from the back door slamming shut fading away. The chorus of crickets could be heard now, their music slipping in through the kitchen window and fill the silence left by Bog's departure.

The sun was slipping down behind the trees, but the heat only slightly lessened, the warmth of the departing sun lingering where it had soaked into the ground throughout the day. Dawn, still trying to catch her breath from shouting, had her arms wrapped around Marianne in a rib-crushing hug. This should have been the last straw in the heat overwhelming Marianne.

Marianne felt cold anyway.

She couldn't even get off the sideboard without Bog's help. Supposedly the fairies might be able to help her but that help was hours away and at this size everything was a danger. She couldn't even run away if something happened. She could barely stand. If Roland did show up again there was nothing stopping him from popping her right back into a jar and keeping her on his mantelpiece as the centerpiece of a decorative snow globe collection.

Dawn looked devastated. Marianne could feel the princess's heart beating at speeds she would have previously only thought possible in caffeinated squirrels.

“Sunny . . .” Dawn said in a broken little whisper that made Marianne's heart twist. Marianne was going to crack the Bog King like a shellfish for making Dawn's bright little face so pinched and bleak.

“How far to—to wherever you live? Palace? Castle?”

“It's a really long way, especially in the dark. There are owls. And bats.”

Of course there would be owls and bats.

“The elves are closer,” Dawn continued, “There's a village right on the closest edge of the field—oh. Oh, they're probably all across the field for the festival. The other village is hosting this time . . .”

Okay.

It was time to not panic.

Not time to feel hopelessness well up inside her chest, the chill of it closing up her throat. She might only be like five inches tall and abandoned to the mercies of owls, bats, and an ex-boyfriend of dubious morals, but that was no reason to want to curl up in a ball and cry. It was time to think of more practical things. Like finding a safe nook to hole up in until morning. Or having Dawn help her figure out how to access the remains of Bog's beer that was sitting out on the kitchen table so she could get smashed.

Or just how to get off this stupid sideboard.

Just to do something constructive.

Just anything except crying.

“I won't leave!” Dawn said suddenly, “I can't leave you here alone with Roland around! Someone will come looking for me in the morning and help us. I'm sure that Bog won't . . . well, do anything with Sunny before then.”

Marianne watched Dawn's face crumple and the tears start to flow and felt her own eyes start to leak in sympathy.

The house shook again, so suddenly and unexpected that the two of them fell over. Fresh pain burst over her back when Marianne's wings tried to bend the wrong way, some instinct pulling on sluggish muscles in an attempt to spread them for flight. All she could think was that if Roland was coming she was going to risk jumping off the sideboard and making a run for it if she didn't break her legs. It couldn't hurt much worse at this point. Probably.

The house kept shaking, footsteps booming on the floor, sending shock waves through the wall and sideboard, the mirror bouncing on the wall. The footsteps covered the distance to the sideboard in moments, barely giving Marianne time to force herself up to a sitting position. Dawn, quick little creature that she was, had regained her footing and darted into the air in front of Marianne, arms and wings thrown out like a shield.

There was a crash and Sunny's jar was on the end of the sideboard, set down with no particular gentleness. Bog's staff skittered across the wood, the amber at its head catching the glow of the love potion.

The love potion rolled around on its side while Dawn and Marianne gaped up at Bog as he towered above them in the growing dim of evening.

“Let's make this quick,” He said, gruff with embarrassment, “I haven't got all night.”

“Boggy, you're the best!” Dawn shrieked, throwing her arms up in celebration.

Trying not to let her relief show, Marianne glared up at Bog, “Did you have to slam the door? Twice? Do you have no consideration for other tiny people?”

“Just sit on the edge,” He snapped.

“I see your heart has grown three sizes in your absence.”

“Your mouth certainly hasn't shrunk in the meanwhile.”

“Well played, Bog King, well played.”

By the time Marianne was dangling her legs over the edge of the sideboard—trying not to think about the vast amount of empty space between her and the floor—Bog had dropped his human glamour and was standing next to her, clawed feet scratching the wood finish.

“Wow, you're almost reasonably sized,” Marianne commented, kicking her legs, then wincing when she jarred her sore back.

“Thank you, Boggy!” Dawn slammed into Bog and wrapped her arms around his narrow armored waist in a hug, “I knew you would help and I know you won't kill Sunny! I knew you were nice!”

“Don't get carried away,” Bog mumbled, hands fluttering in the air, trying to find a good place to take hold of Dawn and pull her off without causing damage. She detached herself before he had to take any drastic measures to remove her and she danced into the air in excitement.

“Yay, you're gonna be okay, Sunny!” Dawn hugged Sunny's jar, “I'm still mad at you but I'm really glad Bog didn't take you to the Dark Forest!”

“I'm glad too!” Sunny said, still swaying from the dizzying trip across the house and back, “What's been going on out here?”

“Quiet!” Bog snapped, “I'm not done with you yet, elf! Just . . . one thing at a time.”

Dawn nodded and slid down to sit next to Sunny's jar.

Bog crouched down next to Marianne, rasping as the plates of his armor settled. She studied his face, comparing it to his human glamour, noticing how the features had translated. It was a relief to look at him like this, without the double-vision of the glamour.

“Much better,” She said.

“What?”

“Oh, your face.”

Being on the same size scale and without the glamour to interfere Marianne could easily see the blush flushing Bog's cheeks even as she felt her own face heat up.

“Glamour,” Bog said, too loud and fast, “When I was taught glamour I—you see, your world and mine--”

“I appreciate you making that distinction.”

“--aren't exactly the same. They overlap and interact with each other, but they aren't the same. If you went out into the fields you might never find any trace of us. We're behind the veil. Some places are thinner, like around this building. It lies more heavily over the field and forest. Glamour is—is using the veil. Pulling it over yourself, around yourself. When I'm wearing a human glamour I have a fold of the veil pulled over myself, increasing the overlap of our worlds and—and I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right.”

“Um, okay, so, reality got warped around me and now I'm tiny? Now we have to iron on the wrinkles to get me back to being big?”

“Ah, something like that,” Bog scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully, “It is a change in reality, yes. It's a matter of making yourself fit with the reality you want to interact with. Either to hide or disguise. It's easier to show you, the first time. Just—just close your eyes and watch. I'll need you hands.”

Marianne held out her hands.

Bog stared at them as if he hadn't expected this step to be so easy.

“Yes. Right,” he coughed and took her hands slowly, glancing up at her face to see if she was going to pull back. Both of them tried hard to ignore Dawn, who was listening and watching with great attention.

Marianne grabbed Bog's wrists to speed the process up, “Okay, hands, you've got them. What next?”

“Ah, close your eyes. Close your eyes and just follow my lead.”

Frowning over these vague instructions, Marianne closed her eyes and awaited developments. She could feel the edge of Bog's armor, where it transitioned to skin, and she wondered if she would feel it smooth out and stretch as he took on human shape again. Right now he was a few inches tall, a tiny dull shape on the great stretch of dusty sideboard, inhabiting an entirely different environment from a human thanks to a simple difference in scale.

His hands never moved away from hers but she could feel him moving. Not changing, moving. Moving from one space to another, from his world to hers. Reality shifted around him as he moved out of the space he inhabited, reshaping around him to make everything fit. Holding tight to his hands Marianne followed without moving from her seat, stumbling where he tread slow but sure. But she knew where she was going, she knew the shape she was supposed to be, knew how she fit into the world, and she managed to keep up. It was like she was following him in a dance she didn't know, having to trust his lead to carry her through her trips and stumbles. Bog slid one hand under her arm, resting his fingers lightly underneath the base of her wings, the gentle pressure guiding her on. He did move now. She could hear the buzz of his wings as he hovered in front of her.

Wings didn't fit into the space he was leading her into, and Marianne felt hers turn weightless. They didn't disappear, they just stayed behind. Still part of her, but not part of the human world. She decided to ignore them since they had almost stopped hurting. The sound of Bog's wings faded, as if his wings had stilled, but he was still in front of her and if he had stopped flying he ought to have dropped right to the floor.

Everything sounded different. Softer. Felt softer. She fit the space she was in. With a jolt she realized she was feeling the sleeves of Bog's leather jacket under her fingers instead of his armor. She tightened her grip on him, holding onto this reality—her reality—for dear life. The dance had ended and somehow she had stuck the finish.

“If I open my eyes too quickly will I deflate?”

A soft chuckle answered her along with the sound of Dawn and Sunny cheering, and she took this as permission to open her eyes.

There was Bog's human face, bent close enough to hers that they were almost touching foreheads. She took a quick peek to the side and found that the room was once again the right size, that her feet were only about a foot off the floor, instead of hanging over an infinite void. Bog was standing in front of her, his hands dangling loose, awkwardly trapped by the hold she had on his sleeves.

Her back was itching and tingling in a way that she knew scratching wouldn't help, even if she could spare a hand to try it. There was a tugging there, too, like a weak point in reality that was trying to pull her back to being a fairy. The thought sent a wave of anxiety washing over her. The idea that she might just suddenly shrink again, without Bog there to help her fix it . . . Her knuckles were white, she was hanging on to Bog so tightly.

“You can let go now,” Bog coughed, leaning away as best he could without ripping himself free, “You should stay as you are, so long as you don't strain your glamour.”

“I'm dizzy,” Marianne tilted and Bog leaned forward again, his hand returning to rest on her back, almost like he was putting her in a dancing hold. Marianne let herself lean forward, sliding one hand up Bog's sleeve and over his shoulder so she could hook it around his neck and pull him down to her height. Even with the sideboard acting as a booster seat Marianne was still miles shorter than Bog, which was really just unfair. The spikes on Bog's jacket bit into her arm, but she didn't loosen her hold, inexorably pulling Bog into a hug.

With her nose comfortably smashed into Bog's collar, Marianne closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the dizziness pass over her as she settled back into her proper world.

“Just give me a second,” She told Bog, “and then I can find something more comfortable to use as a prop. Like pineapple. Or a porcupine. You're a bundle of bones wrapped in a leather jacket.”

“Hmf.”

“Thanks,” She said, inhaling his smell of rain-damp leaves, dish detergent, and a distinct whiff of olive oil still in his hair.

“Hm?”

“Thanks for coming back.”

“That—I should have—it was . . .” Bog coughed and started again, “No problem. Do you want to try standing?”

Marianne didn't want to try standing. She wanted to stay where she was. But Bog practically lifted her off the sideboard and so she stretched her legs out, her toes just touching the floor until Bog bent over almost double, her arm still around his neck. Slowly, she pulled away and let him straighten up, letting her hand slide back down his arm, feeling the sharp knob of his shoulder joint poking through his jacket, bringing her hand to rest in the bend of his elbow where the leather gathered in wrinkles.

She gave her head a little shake to settle the world into place.

“I'm not flickering, am I?”

“No . . .”

“But?”

“Your eyes . . . haven't changed back. The color.”

“Oh. I guess as far as side-effects go that isn't the worst thing to happen.”

“No . . .”

Bog was looking at her. Staring at her. His face had gone all soft and thoughtful. When he relaxed his eyebrows, when the lines weren't pulled tight around his eyes, the light could reflect off those ridiculously blue eyes of his.

A goblin king pretending to be a biker dude should not have such amazing eyes. Eyes that novels would probably compare to the sky, ocean, and sapphires. And she had to wonder if he was doing the eyeliner effect around his eyes on purpose, because if it was on purpose that brought up the question of how a tiny dragonfly man knew about eyeliner and how to absolutely rock it.

He was still staring.

Gazing, really.

She realized she was technically gazing too. She couldn't help it. The idea that he might be using glamour on her popped into her head, but she barely glanced over the notion before brushing it away. Bog wasn't that type. Not like Roland. Roland would have demanded a heavy price to help her get big again. Bog had come back and helped her, no down payment required. He wasn't going to start getting tricky now. There was something endearing about how he hid sincere kindness under his prickly exterior and got so flustered when it was revealed.

She wondered how much redder his face would get it she pushed up onto her tip-toes and—

“You smell like a Greek salad.”

The words tumbled out of her mouth, trying to take to the air before the blood rushed to her cheeks and dyed her skin a mortifying shade of red.

Bog's hand dropped from her back and he stepped back, picking nervously at the ragged cuticles of his fingernails. Marianne pressed herself back, the sideboard preventing her from increasing the distance between them.

“. . . I don't understand anything you say,” Bog's words were rendered indistinct as he ran a hand over his flushed face.

“Scientists are baffled,” Marianne said, glancing back to make sure Dawn and Sunny were out of the way before she hefted herself back up onto the sideboard.

Dawn had her hands pressed to her face, partially obscuring the huge grin on her face. With the tip of one finger Marianne reached over and ruffled Dawn's fluffy head.

“One word and I squish you.”

“Does singing count?” Dawn giggled, swatting at Marianne's finger.

“If anyone starts singing I'm having everyone here charged and executed as conspirators!” Bog snapped, avoiding eye contact with all three of them.

“What do you plan to do with Sunny?” Marianne asked Bog.

“I need him to testify against the fairy. Then face his punishment.”

“We're still on that?”

“Yes.”

“Boggy!” Dawn wailed.

“He needs to be made an example of!”

“Use Roland if you need an example! Do you think for even a second that Sunny would dare try to pull this stunt for a second time? I've known the kid less than a day and I can already tell he's not that stupid.”

“As I said before: come to the Dark Forest to present your case.”

Bog reached past Marianne to reclaim Sunny and the potion. He jerked away when Marianne leaned her face in his way, so that if he continued reaching forward his face would have smacked into hers. When he backed up to figure out a different approach Marianne held up the tiny pink bottle and gave it a little shake.

“Oh, you wanted this?”

“This is how you repay me for helping you with your human glamour?”

“It was your fault in the first place. If you hadn't gotten yourself strung up in my window I would never have been shrunk,” She closed her fist around the bottle, leaning out of the way when Bog made a snatch for it, “I just want to sit down and talk about this like sensible people! I think both of us can at least fake that pretty well!”

“Give it back!” He grabbed again and the potion slipped out of Marianne's fingers as she ducked. Bog scrabbled for it while Marianne hopped off the sideboard, snatching up Sunny's jar and dashing for the living room. Her baseball bat was still on the floor where she had dropped it, and she scooped it up, pointing it at Bog like a fencing foil.

The potion retrieved, Bog double-checked that the cap was still secure before turning his attention back to Marianne, “Give the elf back, changeling! You might think you're human, but you're a fairy and subject to the laws of the field and forest. You continue to aid the elf then you are complicit in his crimes. I give you fair warning.”

“Thanks for the heads up. Now, don't you need my testimony against Roland? Tell the fairies that he's been skeeving around in the human world and planned to spread some love potion around there? If you plan on capital punishment for Sunny then there is no way I'll back you up against Roland.”

This was mostly guesswork on Marianne's part, but from the way Bog bared his teeth in an enraged snarl it looked like she'd guessed right. He swiped his staff off the sideboard and the world around him blurred a little, and the miniature staff was now a walking stick topped with a chunk of amber.

“Listen, changeling,” He pointed the cane at Marianne, “this is—”

“Sire!”

The new voice made everyone jump. Dawn squeaked from her perch on Marianne's shoulder, Sunny yelped from his jar, and Bog almost fell over backwards in a flailing tangle of long limbs when he instinctively shied away from the voice. He retained his grip on the cane, but the tiny bottle fell from his other hand, sparkling when it hit the floor and bounced from the entryway and toward the carpet.

Bog grabbed for it, but a tiny white shape bounded out from the shadows and plucked the bottle out of the air. Marianne had the impression of a white mouse with floppy ears, but the creature scampered off into the gloom before she could get a clear look at it.

Another figure was standing on the sideboard. This one was a goblin, Marianne guessed, and the one who had startled Bog by shouting. It had its hands clapped over its beak and looked nervously up at Bog.

“Uh, Griselda wants to know if you're going to be in very late tonight and if she should wait dinner or--”

“Follow that creature!” Bog slammed his hand on the sideboard and the goblin ran for the edge, “Get the potion! Take everyone you brought with you! Go!”

The goblin jumped off the sideboard, landed on its head in the living room carpet, jumped back to its feet and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

“Did a tiny rabbit just steal the potion?” Dawn asked.

“That imp!” Sunny cried, “It must have followed me!”

“How many teeny tiny fantasy creatures are infesting my house right now?” Marianne lowered the bat and addressed this question to the ceiling, “This was supposed to be a quiet getaway. No stress, just quiet.”

Bog blurred and Marianne saw that he was removing his glamour so he could chase the little thieving creature. The leather jacket's shoulders looked more like bark when Marianne saw them out of the corner of her eyes, but the moment she detected the shift she felt a familiar wave of vertigo washing over her--

--she woke up on the carpet, laying on her side with her head cradled in Dawn's lap. The ache of her wings was back, worse than ever. Sunny's jar was next to them and the knob of the baseball bat's handle was visible in the background. Bog was there, up to his knees in the ply of the carpet, looking concerned and embarrassed as he shifted his staff back and forth in his hands.

“This is not cool, crunchy. Very not cool. I know this is your fault. I don't know how, but it is.”

Bog ducked his head, an attempt at a smile coming out more of a grimace of pain, “You're . . . not wrong.”

“I knew it.” Marianne struggled to get up. Bog offered his hand and pulled her up easily.

“It was not my intention!” Bog said hastily, “I didn't realize that when I led you through the veil that . . . we were both covered by the same fold of it, that your glamour was dependent on mine. When I cast it off again you were uncovered as well.”

“Isn't that just nifty. Am I going to shrink and grow whenever you do now?”

“No. The shared glamour is dispelled now. But if I were to lead you through the process again it would end up the same.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Look, you can learn to do it by yourself but there's no time to teach you now. If anyone gets dusted with that potion the forest will be plunged into chaos! I need to supervise the--”

“You're not leaving me like this again!”

“I wasn't going to suggest--”

“I want to be back to my rightful height with a beer in my hand, stat!”

“If I could offer a--”

“I'm just surprised you didn't take off again while I was out of it! Just take Sunny and leave me--”

“I was thinking you could come with us!”

Marianne blinked.

Bog took a breath and continued in a more moderated tone of voice, “I think that this business could be more easily sorted out at my castle where we can be sure of no further intrusions or unexpected dangers. It will also be a simple matter to find someone to teach you how to use glamour correctly.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Quite.”

“That sounds fairly reasonable. And we can plead Sunny's case?”

“Yes. Now, might we leave?”

“I'm still thinking.”

“There is also an acceptable range of elf and fairy brews in the castle cellar that you would likely find palatable and be welcome to sample.”

It wasn't the offer so much as the teasing smirk on Bog's face that decided Marianne. She folded her arms and gave him an insulted look, but he just held out his hand.

She slapped her hand into his.

“Fine, take me to never-never land.”

Chapter Text

It would have been well and truly dark by the time Marianne reached the goblin castle if the moon had not been full and the sky clear of clouds. The moon and stars were bright, exceptionally bright even for a property that was somewhat removed from the lights of heavily populated areas. What Bog had said about inhabiting a different worlds made more sense when she stepped out into the night as a fairy and found herself in a slightly altered reality where light pollution and smog did not obscure the brilliance of the night sky.

The field was tinted with the silver of moonlight and was truly expansive to her fairy-sized eyes. It really did look as if it could fit an entire kingdom into it. Somehow, she was sure that it wasn't just her new perspective, but that the field was somehow bigger.

The wood, too. It no longer looked like a clump of trees, but like a true forest. Huge, in a prehistoric sort of way, full of shadows and secrets. Passing across the border of gnarled tree roots and budding primroses, Marianne felt a chill of unease creep over her, the canopy of the forest slipping overhead like the lid on a jar, blocking out the moonlight except for a few stray moonbeams that served to only make the darkness thicker and more impenetrable by contrast.

Dawn gave a little whimper of fear. Marianne gave her a reassuring squeeze.

They were sharing a dragonfly, riding it as if it were the insect world's answer to horses. Dawn in front, Marianne behind her, stiff wings being tugged and twitched as they flew. Bog flew next to them. Sometimes, anyway. He flew beneath them, above them, darting through the air as quick as any dragonfly.

“Should you really be flying?” Marianne asked, trying not to think what would happen if she fell from the saddle, or about how her wings were entirely covered in the prickle of pins and needles now, and how strange it was to feel them brush against things.

In response to her question Bog had huffed and started flying a little faster, his body straight and rigid with irritation.

“I just—your wings. Mine hurt just by existing. I can't imagine what it's like to have yours torn full of holes.”

Some of the stiffness left Bog and his flying fell back into more fluid movements. It was like he was swimming through the air.

“Not the first rips in them,” Bog said, more amiable, “They'll hurt, but it won't kill me.”

“I get that philosophy: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but . . . did you really have to put Sunny in a bag? No, it won't kill him, but it isn't exactly comfortable for him.”

A couple of dragonflies were carrying a burlap bag between them, Sunny making a sad potato shaped lump inside. There was another sad whimper from Dawn.

Marianne had debated with herself over whether or not to ask Bog to drop Dawn off at home, but decided not to. Dawn wasn't budging. And, honestly, Marianne was afraid to let the princess out of her sight. What if Roland got the potion and decided that a crown princess was a better price than just some rich human girl?

Really, Marianne had to wonder why Roland hadn't done that in the first place. Maybe he preferred the human world. Then again, Marianne wouldn't put it past Roland to try and literally have the best of both worlds. If he never expected his two worlds to overlap then he just might have planned on getting around to dusting Dawn with a love potion eventually.

An unwelcome thought nagged at the back of Marianne's mind, reminding her of the changeling nonsense Bog and Dawn had been talking about earlier. If Marianne was supposed to be this long lost princess, first born, with a claim to the throne that overruled Dawn's . . . That would mean that Roland had known and targeted Marianne, viewing her as the heir to a throne. He had never even seen her as human, always as an ignorant changeling to be exploited.

No. Nonsense was all it was. If a six inch tall stick insect could turn into a six foot tall rock star slash biker dude then it wasn't so crazy to think that Marianne could be turned into a fairy. She was here to make sure Dawn and Sunny got home safe, see Roland got what was coming, learn how to get big again, and then shake the dust of this fantasy realm from her metaphorical sandals.

Wiggling her toes, Marianne wished she had been wearing shoes when she had been shrunk. A jacket would have been nice too. The air rushing past them chilled her and a ripped t-shirt didn't provide much protection against it. Dawn had helped her rip the back of the shirt and tie the ragged ends around her wings so they didn't feel so crumpled, but this left her feeling very drafty and exposed.

“He's lucky,” Bog said, referring to the bundled elf, “That I don't carry him back by his ears.”

“You're all heart, Bog.”

Dawn just sighed.

The castle was a hollow tree trunk set above a small swampy looking area that Marianne had never been aware existed. Mist rose off it, wisps and shreds floating over the bridge spanned the chasm between the castle and the rest of the forest.

“You commit to your aesthetic,” Marianne remarked when she saw the skull mounted over the entrance of the castle. It looked like it had belonged to a deer, but deer didn't usually have fangs. It's jaws were propped open and the assembly of goblins on dragonfly-back all zipped straight down the skull's maw

“Yeah, really committed to your aesthetic,” Marianne murmured to herself when the dragonflies set down in what could only be Bog's throne room. The throne was kind of a hint. The throne that looked to be made out of the pelvis bone of some unfortunate animal. It sat on a raised dais of uneven stone steps, backed by small tree. The space was lit by spiky black lanterns hanging from the ceiling by chains, casting an orange glow on the scene.

The bustle of arrival began to die down, goblins leading the dragonflies off—presumably to the stables. Bog helped Marianne and Dawn off the dragonfly. Marianne would have risked scorning assistance and jumping off under her own power, but the drag of wings on her back would surely have caused her to plant herself face-first on the floor.

“Ugh,” She said, stumbling over her own feet, “Can I steal your arm? Whoops!” Bog caught her before she smashed into anything important, hand under her elbow. Was he even taller as a stick insect, “Thanks. You'd never know how many years of ballet I have under my belt, to see me pitching around like a headless chicken.”

“A change in balance throws even the most poised fighter off,” Bog walked her over to the steps of the dais and sat her down, “When my wings came in I was weaving around like a drunk for weeks.”

There were a few minutes of organized chaos while Bog dispatched goblins on various missions around the forests and fields. Sunny stood between two massive goblins and looked like he would love to disappear. Dawn sat beside Marianne on the steps and watched the proceedings with some interest.

“I've never been to the Dark Forest at all,” She told Marianne, “It's . . . different.”

“You mean it's dark and gloomy and dirty.”

“Yes, well, I guess those aren't exactly bad things . . . exactly.”

“Don't force yourself to be open-minded, you'll strain something.”

Dawn exhaled a delicate sigh, “I'm supposed to be queen someday. I've got to learn to be diplomatic. It's not good manners to see other royalty's castles and say 'oh, gross,'.”

“I don't know if I would call it gross. A little dusty, maybe—”

A spider, disturbed by the commotion, scuttled by the two fairies, coming very close to brushing right against their legs. Dawn grabbed Marianne's arm and squeaked. Marianne pursed her lips and watched the departing spider with some wariness.

“That was . . . very large.”

The breeze picked up and the castle creaked, the dust of dry rot sprinkling down from the ceiling, catching the moonlight that filtered through the skylight patterned with cracks like a spider's web.

“Oh, gross,” Marianne remarked, wondering if this tree stump was up to code.

A stifled giggle was the only reply Dawn dared give.

“Now,” A harsh female voice cut through the chatter and hum of departing dragonflies, “what is all this racket about?”

Dawn and Marianne whipped their heads around in unison to search out the source of this question. They found a small goblin pattering across the throne room, taking in the scene like she was a mother who just caught her child making mischief. She stopped in front of the dais, hands on her hips, tilting her head at the sight of two fairies.

“Huh. Why didn't I think of fairies? Or elves?”

The goblin grinned. It was a deeply disconcerting expression, seeing as it not only showed a great many teeth but also stretched far wider than Marianne thought a grin ought to. The goblin was all mouth, her nose irrelevant, ears hidden under short, wiry hair, and eyes small and beady. The grin was also one that indicated the grinner had decided you would be useful and is about to descend on you with a shady business proposition.

“Son!” The goblin turned around and barked at the dwindling chaos, “introduce me to your guests!”

Marianne saw Bog's wings flicker as he gave a sort of full-body twitch before turning around to face them. His face was set in the expression of someone about to endure unspeakable torment and knew there was no escape.

“Hostages,” He growled.

“Hey!” Marianne protested.

Bog shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I have to have some kind of ransom to get the potion back. No offense, but nobody is going to tear the fields and forest for it in exchange for an elf. And, I mean, you're already here . . .”

Marianne stood up and went over to Bog, concentrating on walking in a straight line. Once in front of him she smacked his arm, “You're not funny. Not even a little.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Nope. Do I look amused? No, I am not amused.”

But the slight grin on Bog's face was making her own lips curl up. She smacked his arm again.

“They're guests,” Bog corrected himself, addressing the goblin woman who barely came up to his waist, “Today has been . . . eventful. This is Princess Dawn of the fairy kingdom and this is Marianne. She's--”

“Human, despite appearances to the contrary.”

Bog cleared his throat, “This is my mother--”

“Griselda!” The goblin interrupted, coming at Marianne for a hug.

Unable to flee, Marianne tried not to look completely panic-stricken by this uninvited affection while shooting a silent plea for help and explanations at Bog. He raised his empty hand up in a gesture of helplessness. Fortunately Griselda's hug was brisk and she quickly backed up to get a better overall view of Marianne.

“Dear, dear,” She shook her head, “You look like you got dragged backwards through the briers.”

“Like Bog said: today's been eventful. Nice to meet you . . . your majesty?”

“Oh, just call me Griselda, sweetie! Lovely to meet you! Are you going to be staying with us long?”

“No.” Bog and Marianne said at the same time.

“Uh,” Marianne continued, “Just trying to sort out some things.”

“Yes,” Dawn broke in, “there's been a regrettable incident and I hope we can all come to an agreement on handling the situation to everyone's benefit. Trying to get Boggy—uh, Bog—the Bog King's property back to him. Ah, hello, Griselda, glad to finally meet you.”

“Princess, huh?” Griselda said, “Now isn't that something. You finally decide to start getting along with our neighbors, son?”

“Unusual circumstances, mother, that's all.”

“Yes, yes, no love in the Dark Forest, yes. Now, why don't we go somewhere a little more cozy and have a chat? Tell me about yourself—Marianne, right?”

“Uh,” Marianne found himself being pulled forward, a three-fingered hand holding hers in a friendly but unbreakable grip. Griselda snagged Dawn with her other hand and marched the two of them toward a door.

“A nice girl like you probably has a nice boy all lined up?”

“Um, no, actually, I--”

“Oh, isn't that too bad!” Griselda said, sounding like she had just gotten the best news of her life, “I'm sure you'll find someone just perfect for you! Sooner than you might think!”

“Mother,” Bog called after them.

Griselda walked on, dragging Marianne and Dawn along for the ride, “Let's get some tea--”

“Mother.”

“--you can tell me how a human ends up in the Dark Forest looking like a fairy and I can tell you all about my boy. He's shy you know, but once you get to know him he's such a sweetheart--”

“Mom!”

“What?” Griselda halted and turned back to Bog.

“The princess and—and Marianne need to stay here. Where we can discuss how to resolve this mess.”

“Okay!” Griselda said, releasing her captives, “I'll just bring you all some snacks out here! Should I bring enough for the elf and his guards or will they be down in the dungeons?”

Sunny shriveled a little more.

“The elf stays here for the moment,” Bog said.

Dawn was visibly relieved.

Griselda scurried off to fetch snacks and a brief silence fell over the small assembly until Bog dared meet Marianne's eye again and found her trying to repress a smirk.

“What?” Bog asked.

“Mm? Nothing,” Marianne said, her hand over her mouth, “Just . . . you must look like your dad. That's all.”

“Hmf.”

“And you have the most embarrassing mother in the entire world. What was that all about?”

“I'm . . . not really sure.”

“Okay,” Dawn said, “Moving on. What about Sunny?”

“We'll deal with the elf as soon as the love potion is recovered and the fairy king has been informed of what his subjects have been getting up to. Right now I have some questions for him.”

“Y-yes?” Sunny asked.

“Whatever took the potion, it looked very much like a mouse, didn't it?”

“A b-bit? Sir?”

“The usual glamour for elves, correct?”

“It wasn't an elf! It was an imp! Sugar Plum warned me about it and I thought I had ditched the little guy in the forest, but I guess he followed me.”

“That's right,” Bog tapped his staff in his hand, “I almost forgot. You helped Sugar Plum try and escape from the dungeons.”

“Really?” Dawn gasped, looking impressed, “You got all the way into the dungeons on your own? And tried to help her?”

“It was the deal,” Sunny said, wincing at the approval on Dawn's face, “I would help her get out of here in exchange for the love potion.”

“Oh, Sunny, that—that . . . that could have been really bad!”

“Could have been?” Bog asked with heavy sarcasm.

“Wait, wait,” Marianne said, “Did you say Sugar Plum Fairy? Like, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker? Which, incidentally, I danced in high school?”

Bog's method of dealing with Marianne's references was apparently to ignore them and pick out what he could actually understand.

“She's a thorn in my side, is what she is.”

“She might be able to back up Sunny's story and prove that the elves aren't conspiring against you,” Dawn said, “So leave them out of this, please, Boggy.”

“You seem sure of that.”

“Please. We don't have elves on our council, they don't get to participate in making any decisions about their own land and well being, why would you think they would be allowed in on a conspiracy? The only way they would be involved is like Sunny is—manipulated and used as a scapegoat.”

“The elf--”

“Sunny is guilty, but he was also used by Roland! Sunny did something stupid without thinking out the repercussions, but Roland went into this with perfect knowledge of what he was doing. Just take that into consideration.”

“I believe I said we would deal with this after the love potion is retrieved.”

“Who knows when that will be? Might as well get a head start.”

“Thank you,” Sunny called.

Dawn stuck her nose in the air, “Anyway, Boggy—Bog. Anyway, you'll want to talk to Sugar Plum about neutralizing the love potion and while you're there you might ask her about the imp. Please.”

“Oh, well, since you said please,” Bog turned away with a flick of his wings. Marianne saw his shoulders go rigid when pain reminded him of the new rips. The plates of his shoulders shifted uneasily and Marianne could hear his teeth scraping together.

“Yeah, she asked nicely,” Marianne put her fists on her hips and tried to look like she wasn't about to tip over, “She asked you nicely to do a reasonable thing which you would probably end up doing sooner or later anyway. And I just have one thing to say--”

“Delightful.”

“Where is the booze you promised me?”

The laugh this non sequitur startled out of Bog was a soft, breathy noise, very much in contrast to his carrying growls and booming roars. It was as if he didn't want anyone to hear the small sound of amusement. He passed his hand over the lower half of his face, wiping away the hint of a grin that had slipped past his guard.

“I'll see to my end of that bargain once I get back.”

“Back from where?”

“Talking to Plum.”

Dawn's face lit up and she clasped her hands together in delight, “Thank you, Boggy!”

Bog growled and left on his errand.

Marianne had no idea what time it was.

She had turned off her phone and stuck it in a drawer days ago so it hadn't been in her pocket when she got hit by the shrink ray. It was a shame, because she was pretty sure Bog would appreciate some of her rock playlists. And it was a wasted opportunity not to test out the acoustics of the throne room, which so far seemed to be excellent.

She leaned on the arm of the throne and hummed a few bars of “So What”, trying to drown out the sound of the latest victims of the love potion as they were dragged off to the dungeons.

Shortly after Bog had left, the goblins dragged in what appeared to be a mushroom hugging some small, fuzzy creature. It was a classic type mushroom, red cap with white spots, and it had a pair of roots wrapped around a fuzzy thing that might have been some sort of very small rodent.

“Oh, no, that's a brownie. A brownie got love dusted,” Dawn wrung her hands and flitted up and down the steps a few times before turning to Marianne, looking lost, “I should do something?”

“Was that a question or statement?” Marianne asked, “And what is a brownie?”

“They live in the field, they're citizens of my kingdom so I ought to . . . I don't know! Check and make sure they're being nice to them? Or would that be rude to the goblins? Maybe I should wait for Boggy to come back . . .”

The brownie and mushroom were making noises of distress, the goblins having dragged the two of them apart. The goblins weren't being rough, exactly, but they took no pains to be considerate of their captives' comfort, picking the brownie up by the scruff of the neck so it hung far above the floor, squeaking with fear.

“Oh, no,” Dawn muttered, long fingers digging into the puffs of her hair, “That isn't nice at all. But it isn't my place to tell Bog's people what to do . . .”

Before Marianne could sort out a response to Dawn's anxious dilemma Sunny spoke up.

“Dawn!” He called.

“What?” Dawn turned to him, forgetting for the moment to be mad at him.

Sunny pointed a finger at her, “You've got this.”

“I don't—”

“You threw buttons at the Bog King's face, Dawn. You've got this.”

“I did, didn't I?” Dawn thought this over for a few moments, her hand wringing turned into thoughtful tapping of her fingers. She apparently came to a decision, because she flashed a brilliant smile at Sunny before zipping over to the goblins.

“Excuse me,” She called after them as they disappeared in the direction of the dungeon, “I need to speak to you for a moment, please!”

Marianne looked at Sunny, who was looking a little dazed after receiving a smile from Dawn, “I guess you do know how to be a friend.”

Sunny's face turned sad again and he slumped, looking smaller than ever with his goblin guards towering over him. He devoted his attention to picking at a loose thread dangling from his sleeve and avoided Marianne's eye.

Dawn's voice could still be heard faintly in the distance, mixed in with the sounds of bewildered goblins who weren't sure how to handle orders from a fairy. The voices moved further away and grew fainter, but Marianne could pick out the rumble of Bog's voice joining the discussion and the sound of love potion induced singing from the captives.

More victims of the love potion were dragged in. The most memorable, to Marianne, was the fairy and the toad who were completely besotted with each other and kept attempting to steal kisses when the guards weren't looking.

“No smooching!” The goblins ordered, dragging the two apart again.

On wobbly feet Marianne pulled herself up to the throne, a little further away from the discordant singing seeping from the lower levels of the castle. She hummed into the empty space for awhile, fighting against the familiar tunes that tried to get stuck inside her head. Fighting against the memories of making a playlist of sappy love songs to be played at her wedding.

Everyone had participated in helping her chose the songs. Well, everyone except Roland. Marianne had spent several afternoons gathered with her parents and brothers around a computer, discussing possible songs. Mom had dragged out a stack of vinyl records and played some of the songs from her wedding and Marianne had fallen in love with the scratchy old classics all over again. Discussion rapidly turned into off-key karaoke and dancing—Marianne was the only one in her family who could carry a tune.

Everyone had agreed on “Can't Help Falling In Love” as a good choice. Her mom and brother Jack had teared up when Marianne sang it. “I'm just happy you're happy,” Jack had said, wrapping her in a hug. Marianne hugged him back and handed him a tissue without comment, because Jack cried over everything.

Why did those poor, love-dusted creatures have to be singing that song? The lyrics, devoid of musical accompaniment and sung with such quiet desperation made Marianne's skin crawl. It was like every horror movie trailer ever, where a normally harmless children's song was played in minor key and sung in a slow, melancholy way. And, Marianne glanced around the throne room, the setting was definitely supporting the horror movie vibe.

Sitting on the arm of the throne, Marianne tried to arrange her wings to be a little less awkward while she hummed with increased determination to block out the singing.

Bog returned, his arrival announced by a small goblin being punted halfway across the room as the king snarled about something. Bog paused at the sight of a fairy perched on his throne and his frown, against all probability, deepened.

“That's my throne.”

“Really? I had no idea. Where's Dawn?”

Bog sagged at the question and when he spoke it was in a tone of weary resignation, “With my mother. Making sure the prisoners are comfortable.”

Marianne couldn't stop a smile at the disgust he infused into that last sentence.

“Did you talk to Plum?” Sunny asked.

This question elicited a rumbling growl from Bog that made Sunny edge back behind his guards. Bog stalked up to his thrown and leveled a glare at Marianne that was obviously supposed to motivate her to remove herself from his throne. Instead she scooped her wings out of the way and slid down off the armrest and onto the seat. She let her wings hang over the side and propped her legs up on the armrest. From her sideways seat she gave Bog a 'what are you going to do about it?' look.

“Move,” He ordered.

Marianne folded her arms and settled herself more comfortably on the throne, “I'm cold and tired of sitting on the floor.”

There was a sudden increase in the volume of the prisoners' singing that made both Bog and Marianne wince.

“And that singing is driving me crazy!” Marianne scooted lower on the throne and covered her ears, willing the noise to stop. She jumped when Bog slammed his staff on the floor and gave one of Sunny's guards a sharp command to go shut up the “unbearable racket!”

“Thanks,” Marianne said, “But I'm not budging from this seat until I have a drink in my hand.”

Bog rested one hand flat on the back of the throne and leaned over her, his head tipped at an inquiring angle, his shadow cast across her and the throne, “Is it a fairy trait, to be so disrespectful of another's property, or is that just something you've personally cultivated?”

“One hundred percent homegrown, thanks for noticing. Maybe if you had gotten me and my aching wings a chair I might have left your goth punk throne alone.”

Bog stared at her for a disconcertingly long time before he spoke. Marianne started to feel a little self-conscious.

“Someday . . .” He said, “Someday you'll have to explain to me exactly what you're saying. I would swear we're speaking the same language, but sometimes . . .”

“Someday you'll have to explain to me how a goblin living in America has a Scottish accent,” Marianne countered, feeling uncomfortable about how sincerely interested Bog seemed to be about future conversations with her, “So, booze and the Sugar Plum fairy. Which are we dealing with first and no prizes for guessing which order I would prefer.”

Bog ducked his head with a sigh, pushing himself away from the throne, “She backs up the elf's story. So far as I can make out from her ramblings, that is. I'll make no move against the elves.”

“Oh, thank you!” Sunny said, letting out a whooshing breath of relief.

“You aren't off the hook,” Bog reminded him, jabbing a long finger at the elf, “don't celebrate just yet.”

“Yay,” Marianne threw up a hand and waved it around, “let's drink.”

“Plum cleared the elves, but she hasn't given me an antidote for the love potion.”

Marianne dropped her hand, “Boo. Why not?”

“Because she's impossible.”

“From the way you're grinding your teeth I'd say you need a drink more than I do.”

“Wee drunken thing,” Bog said, rolling his eyes, “if you come with me you'll have plenty of opportunity to indulge in your vice.”

Marianne threw her hand out again.

Bog stepped back in slight alarm.

She wiggled her fingers at him, “I have two new--” Marianne paused, “Huh, I guess it's four. I have four new limbs that I don't know how to deal with. I would appreciate a hand.”

“Ah. Of course.”

He helped her off the throne, handling her with a caution that indicated he either thought she was liable to break from rough handling, or that he feared one wrong move would incite her to attack.

Bog escorted Marianne to a smaller room that was furnished with fireplace that was flickering with the welcoming warmth and crackling of a pine wood fire. There was a long table of rough wood and several bone chairs were set around it, keeping the creepy castle vibe intact even away from the impressive throne room. The songs of the love-dusted were faint enough to be nearly inaudible from here and Marianne felt a little weight lift from her shoulders despite the wings dragging her down.

Sunny deftly hopped up onto a chair while Marianne struggled to find a comfortable way to sit without crumpling her wings.

“How,” She asked of no one in particular, “does anyone live their day-to-day lives with curtains hanging down their back?”

“You've got me,” Sunny shrugged, “I've always wondered that too.”

“Sit at an angle,” A bottle tapped on the table near Marianne, soon followed by two glossy black goblets. Bog pulled the cork out of the bottle and poured a measure of the contents into a goblet, “Don't press your shoulders against the back of the chair.”

“Figured that out,” Marianne's wing had gotten folded up underneath her and so far attempts to free it had resulted only in pain. She tried not to sound too pathetic when she looked up at Bog, “Help?”

“Stand up.”

“Ugh. That would be hard.”

“Ridiculous creature,”

“I've had a hard day.”

“Haven't we all,” Bog huffed with impatience, but put down the bottle and walked over to Marianne's chair.

A squeak of surprise was startled out of Marianne when she found herself suddenly lifted into the air. Her wings were brushed aside and she was replaced in her seat in a few brisk movements. Bog restored the distance between them in a moment and busied himself with the bottle and pretending that he hadn't taking pity on her awkward plight.

“Happy?” Was Bog's only gruff acknowledgement of having aided her.

“No. But that's better. They don't hurt . . . as much.”

“The worst thing is stiffness, I would imagine.” Bog pushed the goblet toward her, “here.”

“You beautiful man,” Marianne said, taking the goblet, feeling the cool material of it under her fingers. She raised it up to smell the wine, stopping it for a moment to say, “Well, goblin, I mean.”

“You never talk anything but nonsense,” Bog muttered, turning away to fill a second goblet for himself. He made no move to fetch a third goblet for Sunny, merely taking a seat a little bit away from Marianne and propping his staff against the table.

“Seriously, thanks,” Marianne raised the goblet in a toast, “For the wine and the wing pointers both. I'm glad there's someone around to help me out. Dawn's been a little too distracted to be much use.”

“Don't mention it.”

The wine was very sweet and light. Not the stiff drink she had had in mind, but she didn't really care. She didn't feel so much like drinking herself into oblivion at the moment. Not now that the warmth of the fire was relaxing her shoulders and wings and the sound of singing vanished altogether when she was talking to Bog.

“This is fairy wine?” Marianne held the goblet up and examined the streaks of white and gray marbled through the black shape of it.

“Yes. I don't know how a fairy would react to goblin brews.”

“I'm not--”

“Not a fairy, I know.”

“Not a lightweight,” Marianne corrected, “Don't want me to fly under the influence, hm?”

“Tough girl, you couldn't even get off the floor.”

“Okay, granted. Do you ever have problems with people flying into trees after they've kicked back one shot too many?”

“There aren't enough fliers here to worry about that. Now and again someone falls out of a tree, but goblins tend to bounce.”

“Yeah,” Marianne took another sip of the wine, “I haven't seen any other goblins with wings. I just kind of thought that I hadn't run into any yet.”

“There aren't any. There are winged insects, but no goblins.”

“No goblins?” Marianne put her goblet down, “But you--?”

“I am . . . an exception.”

“An exception? What do you mean?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Hey, now I'm curious! I'm new to this whole magical world of fairies and goblins, you can't just assume I have a clue about what your cryptic comments might mean.”

“It isn't important.”

“I mean, what's the deal? What, are you the last of your kind?”

“Don't be absurd,” Bog rolled his eyes, a smile curling up one corner of his mouth.

“Did you get wings in an unfortunate but hilarious magical accident?” Marianne continued, wracking her brain for outlandish scenarios, trying to see if she could get the other corner of his mouth to lift up in a genuine smile.

“Oh, please.”

Bog managed to cover up any trace of a smile with an annoyed grimace, which Marianne thought was cheating. Encouraged by his front of indifference, Marianne had a handful of increasingly ridiculous suggestions on the tip of her tongue, and a grin starting to stretch her mouth.

“When you were very small you were bitten by a radioactive—uh—bitten by a magical dragonfly.”

“Wouldn't that fall under “hilarious but unfortunate accident”?”

“Huh. Okay, was your mom in a forbidden marriage with a fairy and you're half fairy--”

“Enough.”

The lurking gleam of amusement had disappeared from Bog's eyes, but Marianne had built up too much momentum to stop herself cold and she was sure if she went on she could tease a smile back onto his face.

“--and the dragonfly wings are from weird genetics caused by interspecies crossover--”

“Stop it.”

“--while the crunchiness is something you inherited from your maternal grandparents--”

“Stop.”

“--and your blue eyes are definitely from your dad's side of--”

“Enough nonsense!”

“--because you don't look anything like the other goblins, really. You kind of look like a fairy wearing armor--”

The table scooted several inches when Bog pushed on the edge and rose to his feet. Sunny shrank in his seat, staring at the edge of the table that was on level with his throat and suddenly much closer than it had previously been.

“It's none of your business!” Bog had lost his reluctant good humor and had returned to his apparent default state of tense anger.

“Watch it!” Wine slopped from the goblets and the bottle overturned, Marianne skewing herself around in her seat to try and avoid the droplets of wine, “You almost decapitated Sunny!”

“Small loss!”

“Hey!” The point of Sunny's hair jabbed upright, indignation compelling him to sit up straight, his face popping up over the edge of the table, round and offended.

“And now I have wine all over my knees,” Marianne pulled at her jeans, feeling the wine seeping through and becoming sticky on her skin.

“Maybe if you minded your own business instead of mine!”

“Because flipping tables is such an appropriate response to—to whatever I said that pushed your buttons!”

“I don't understand what you're saying!”

“I'm pretty sure you get the general idea so don't give me that!”

In the complicated process of standing up, Marianne managed to scoot her chair back and get a hold of the table to pull herself upright. Bog made a movement toward her, probably to help, but the angry, primal part of her brain saw the gesture as a threat and the new muscles in her back snapped tight, her wings unfurling halfway before fatigue and gravity pitched in and tried to knock her flat.

The table's uneven edge caught her in the stomach as she descended and it was all she could do to keep from sliding right to the floor, all the breath knocked out of her. The slap of her limp wings falling against her legs would have been enough to keep her down, even without the pain slicing through her back and wings.

She could feel Bog's hands hovering near her, not touching her, ready to pull away at a moment's notice.

“I seem,” She coughed, “to have made something . . . like a mistake.”

“How much damage can you do to yourself in a given day?” Bog voice growled, but his hands were gentle as he helped her back into her chair where she hunched over, hugging herself.

“You haven't seen me on bender. I'm a danger to myself and others. Mostly others.”

“That I can easily believe.”

“Oh, shut up. If I had my feet under met I'd deck you. If I were my right size I'd step on you. Well, after I put on shoes, anyway. You're all covered in prickles and points.”

“If only, if only . . . If wishes were dragonflies then beggars would ride.”

“I'd have a swarm,” Sunny said with a wistful sigh.

Bog simply sneered.

“Look,” Marianne coughed, “if we're going to keep doing this friendly banter thing--”

“Is that what you call it? I would have just said you were mocking me.”

“But in a friendly way. I didn't actually mean to insult you, I just thought this was a thing we were doing.”

“A thing? We were doing?”

“Banter. Back and forth. Friendly teasing. Verbal scrapping. If pushed any of your buttons—I mean, if I said anything insensitive it wasn't on purpose. And I'll stop. Stop bantering. Or try to. I'm too worn out to make absolute promises.”

Wordlessly, Bog shoved the table back into place with one hand. He righted the bottle and goblets and picked his staff up off the floor, laying it across the table and brushing some dirt off it. He studied the fire for a few moments while Marianne tried to get a look at his expression without being too obvious about it.

“I'm sure my mother can find you something clean to wear,” Bog said at last, “When she's done helping the princess.”

“That'd be great.”

“In the meanwhile I'll get a blanket.”

“Great. Good. Thanks. Much appreciated.”

“Fairies are so frail, after all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Or is delicate a better word?” Bog went on, tapping a claw thoughtfully on his chin.

“The words I've got for you right now would probably crack this heap of dry rot you call a castle!”

Marianne's hand was just reaching for the nearest goblet to lob at Bog's head when the king's face broke out in grin that he made only a sketchy effort to hide.

The idiot was teasing her.

“Well,” Marianne picked up the goblet and gave it a little shake, “Better pour me a restorative drink before I waste away from neglect, your majesty.”

“If you think you can handle it.”

“The last person who said that to me had to be taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Just pour the wine and try not to flip over any more tables.” 

By the time Griselda and Dawn returned Marianne was tucked up in a blanket and pillow, savoring another cup of wine and starting to nod off. A small goblin with fishy eyes and a nervous demeanor—who Marianne thought she recognized as having been in her kitchen when she'd first caught Bog in a jar—had fetched the blanket and pillow after several false starts and a smack on the head from Bog.

“Boggy!”

Marianne jolted fully awake, the comfortable weight of sleep ripped away before she'd had a chance to make more than a nodding acquaintance with it. There was a sudden veil of blue light cast over the room, Dawn swooping in with a ball on a stick arrangement in hand. Griselda pattered in after her to offer somewhat of an explanation.

“She says she wants to talk to you, son,” She told Bog, her wide mouth turned down in obvious displeasure.

“Decided to give us the antidote?”

“Not exactly . . .”

Dawn carried her glowing parcel to the table, “I was just telling Sugar Plum what was going on and she said she'd give us the antidote.”

“What?” Bog snatched the stick from Dawn, “Give it to me!”

Blinking at the blue iridescence, Marianne could see that the ball was a hollow sphere of spiderwebs that someone had apparently dumped a jar of blue and silver glitter over.

“Hello!” The ball of spiderwebs greeted her in a sing-song female voice.

“Hello?” Marianne responded cautiously, glancing over to check the level of wine left in the bottle and confirm that she hadn't as yet consumed enough of it to be experiencing such vivid hallucinations.

“Hey,” Sunny said with a sad little wave.

Something flickered inside the spiderwebs, apparently turning its attention to the elf. The light caught on a tiny fairy face complete with large eyes and ears with curling points. The creature—the Sugar Plum Fairy, she assumed—drifted inside the webbing like a goldfish in an aquarium. In fact, she had no legs, but sort of a tail like a mermaids, only minus the fin so it ended in a tapering point.

“I thought she'd be more purple,” Marianne said, watching the light shimmering off Sugar Plum's tiara.

“I know, right?” Sunny nodded.

“Hmph,” Sugar Plum folded her arms, “Judging by the way the dungeons are filling up with love dusted folks . . . somebody didn't listen to me!”

“This one is not on me, actually. For once.”

“No, that was butterfingers here,” Marianne nudged Bog with her elbow. He nudged her back and she made a noise of complaint, “No fair, you have spikes!”

Bog ignored her and snarled, “This whole business is on you, elf!”

“My name is Sunny and I know and I am sorry! Just let me do something about it instead of just standing around feeling bad about it! Let me go look for the love potion, or something, please!”

“Hmph!” Sugar Plum put her nose in the air. She looked at Marianne out of the corner of her eye, “So you're the lost princess, then?”

Marianne shot Dawn a murderous look, “As a matter of fact, I'm not. I'm human. I've just gotten caught in the crossfire of this political drama.”

“Mmhm.”

“Enough!” Bog gave the stick a brief shake, “Give me the antidote!”

“Excuse me!” Sugar Plum said, readjusting her tiara, “I was in the middle of a conversation!”

“You--!”

“They say I'm a changeling,” Marianne cut in before Bog could burst a blood vessel, hoping that if she indulged the tiny sparkling fairy maybe they'd be able to get down to business, “but that's--”

“And so you are!”

“Wait, what?” Marianne stumbled over her train of thought, “What—How would you even know?”

“You smell of salt, metal, and plastic. Like a human,” Sugar Plum pinched her nose with long, delicate fingers, “And you don't fit. You've been in the wrong world too long and you don't quite slot back into this one like you should.”

“I don't fit because I'm not a fairy! Look, I just want to get to my right size again. Can you help me?”

“Oh, yes, I'm sure I can. But you've got to understand that you're putting on a glamour, not taking one off. This--” Plum waved her hands up and down at Marianne, “--is baseline you. The real you, you might say.”

“Look, Sugar Plum, this is not the real me. The real me has brown eyes just like my dad's and my mom's nose. Me and my brother Harry got piano fingers from mom's side of the family. Josh and I both freckle in the summer.”

“That's how it is with changelings, dear. You think you're part of your human family and you make yourself look like them.”

“Shut up!”

Everyone in the room was looking at her. Staring at her. Marianne realized that a sizable audience of goblins had come into the room at some point and all of them were regarding the shouting fairy with considerable interest and a not insignificant amount of caution.

People are watching, sweetheart, don't make a scene

Like a bad dream, Marianne was standing there in a ripped shirt, wine-stained jeans, her feet bare, and her hair arranged into a windswept bush. The wings prevented her from squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine, so all she could do was stand there, slouched, grungy, and upset.

Get a hold of yourself, this isn't the time or place! When you've got yourself under control enough to listen I can explain everything--

“Shut up,” Marianne repeated, addressing the unwelcome memory of Roland's voice replaying in her head.

He original response to Roland telling her to get a hold of herself had been to look around for something to throw at him. She had set her gaze on a hefty lamp but in the end did not pitch it at his head. She wished she had. Maybe smashing the bleached perfection of his smile would have smashed him out of her memory too.

Bog's hand was not touching her shoulder, stopped short of the instinctive gesture of comfort he seemed to have been about to administer. His uncertainty was so oddly endearing that Marianne almost smiled.

“Shut up,” the third time was the charm and Marianne managed to speak in a steady voice, “The love potion you made is being spread all over the place and, if that wasn't bad enough, there's a guy out there looking for it to use on me. He's a grade-A sleeze and I do not want to be magically enslaved to him, thanks very much. So an antidote would be great in case of . . . mishaps. Please.”

“Okay!” Sugar Plum chirped.

“Okay?” Marianne said, surprised.

“Okay?!” Bog said, outraged, “Just like tha--”

“Thank you,” Dawn cut in, laying a hand on Bog's arm. The touch silenced him as he was suddenly fully occupied trying to lean as far away from the princess as possible without falling over, “Thank you, on behalf of the fairy kingdom. After the current situation is dealt with the Bog King and I will be discussing your imprisonment and the possibility of you getting released to given into custody of the fairy kingdom. Won't we, Boggy?”

“No--!”

Marianne glanced up at Bog, silently pleading with him not to snap at Dawn or ruin this chance they had of straightening the situation out. She was tired and sore and knew she must be a pathetic sight, but she didn't have the energy to care.

Bog met her eye, his mouth still forming a denial, but the actual word fading.

“--oookay,” Bog switched to an affirmative response at the last second, his eyes still on Marianne instead of Sugar Plum.

Marianne only had time to begin to wonder why Bog was looking at her like that before she was distracted by the volley of fireworks that were exploding inside Sugar Plum's prison as the tiny, glittery fairy gave a shriek of delight.

“I'm going to need,” Sugar Plum said gleefully, “A lute, a flute--”

At the same time Dawn grabbed Bog in a hug, “Oh, thank you, thank you, Boggy!”

“Don't--” Bog used the very tips of his fingers to push Dawn away, “Don't—uh . . . no problem.”

Dawn obligingly detached herself, flitting over to the crowd of watching goblins and grabbing Thang by the hands. The befuddled goblin was drawn into Dawn's happy dance but didn't look displeased, scampering to try and keep up with Dawn's airborne twirls.

“So,” Marianne said, making Bog look up from his hunch of social discomfort, “Should I scream or hug your or both or what?”

He gave her a tired sneer as he rolled his eyes.

“You gonna pick, or should I flip a coin?”

Now Bog jerked away from her, his defensive posture growing more pronounced.

“Hey, hey,” Marianne held her hands up in a gesture of peace, “completely joking.”

Bog made a weak attempt at a laugh, the sound of it barely rising above the noise in the room. He seemed to realize how frail and effort it was, the smile dropping from his face and his fingers lacing together, flexing uneasily.

Marianne knocked her elbow against his, “Thanks.”

“Ah, you're--”

“Oh, one more thing!” Dawn darted up to Bog, making him stumble and his wings flare out, “About Sunny.”

Sunny shriveled in his seat until even his impressive hair was almost out of sight.

“If he got the love potion back, or was instrumental in getting it back, would you consider that as—as a fair trade?”

“For his freedom?” Bog asked, folding his arms forbiddingly.

“No, but to let my kingdom handle his . . . punishment. And just take his help into consideration.”

“You want me to let him go so he can run off?”

“I wouldn't!” Sunny resurfaced and was only partially re-submerged by the snarl of displeasure Bog aimed at him, “I wouldn't. And I'm wanted in both kingdoms, where would I even go?”

“The elves--”

“I'd never do that to them!” Sunny stood up on his chair and planted his hands on the table, “You'd turn the villages upside-down looking for me and the fairies would probably punish everybody for helping me. No way! Look, if you let me go I could help the goblins find their way around the field and we'll have a better chance of catching the imp before things get, well, even more out of control.”

The idea of letting Sunny do anything except suffer indefinitely did not seem to appeal to Bog, but he turned to Dawn, “You're comfortable with letting the elf do this? What if he did get the potion and tries to dust you again?”

“Then we'd have an antidote and you could do whatever you want with him.”

Dawn managed to deliver this declaration in a firm voice and her tightly clasped hands shaking only slightly. Sunny drooped, but recovered himself quickly, standing as tall as could, bolstered by his chair.

“I'm good with that if you are, mister Bog King.”

“Fine!” Bog snapped, “The guards go with you and if you try to take the potion for yourself or hand it off to your accomplice all deals are off and I deal with you personally.”

“Y-yeah, okay.”

On Bog's command goblins dashed off to find the ingredients Sugar Plum demanded for the antidote, a few breaking off and leaving with Sunny to continue the hunt for the potion itself. The king's bellowing boomed through the castle, knocking dust from the ceiling and disturbing several spiders out of their corners. Griselda finally provided the promised snacks and Marianne and Dawn settled down at the table to help themselves.

Unsurprisingly, Dawn did not having much of an appetite, poking sadly at the comically huge blackberries piled in front of them.

“You're very good at this politician stuff,” Marianne offered, hoping to cheering Dawn up a little. The princess kept looking over at the way Sunny had gone in an anxious way.

“Thanks,” Dawn said, her smile wan, “I should be. It's all dad let's me do.”

“That's dads for you.”

“My dad is in a class all his own, believe me.”

“Is it a king thing?” Marianne asked, steering her thoughts away from what her own dad might be doing right now. Worrying about her, probably.

“I guess. In a way. Ever since . . . well, since I'm the only princess dad has been really over-protective,” She jabbed at the blackberry, “Every time I want to have a little fun and just not be a perfect princess for five minutes he freaks out. He thinks I'm a boy-crazy flirt but what am I supposed to do when I don't get to talk to a guy for more than a minute at a time before dad drags me away? Play hard to get?”

“That is a fair point . . .”

“I know that it's been hard for him since Mari—since my sister was taken, but—oh, I'm tired and I'm mad. I'm mad at Sunny and I'm made at me for not being mad enough at him. And I'm mad because dad is going to be horrible to Sunny after this and I'll probably get locked up for the rest of my life for my own protection.”

“I dunno. Maybe he'll be impressed by your diplomacy. You have been negotiating with the mighty Bog King, after all. I can't imagine that your dad would lock you up for more than, well, a year. Tops. Huh, I guess “grounded” has a more literal meaning for fairies.”

“You assume that dad will actually let me explain what happened,” Dawn folded her arms on the table and dropped her chin on top, “He'll lock me up in the dungeon first, maybe ask questions later.”

“Here's to short-lived freedom, then,” Marianne said, pouring wine out for Dawn. She paused in the act of handing it over to her, “Wait, how old are you?”

“Nineteen, why?” Dawn said with great innocence, reaching for the goblet.

“What's the legal drinking age around here?”

“Umm . . .”

“I thought so. Better stick to kool aid, kid.”

“Aw, Marianne! A little bit isn't going to hurt! Everybody my age drinks wine, it's just that dad—”

“Nope. It'll go right to your head and you'll fly into a door post. Consider me the official mom-friend for the evening, here to make sure you get home in one piece and with your head on straight. Someone has to be designated driver. When I can hand you over to your actual mom then I will wash my hands of you.”

It was immediately obvious that Marianne had said the wrong thing.

“Oh,” Dawn said, “I forgot. You wouldn't know. Mother, she died when I was just six.”

“Oh,” Marianne echoed, “I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry, too. Sorry she didn't get a chance to—well, that she never knew that you--”

Nausea burned in Marianne's throat when she realized what Dawn was trying to say. That Marianne was a lost changeling princess whose mother never knew her daughter had survived.

“I have parents,” The words came out harsh and loud, “I have a mother.”

“But, Marianne!”

“But nothing. Even if I am a changeling--”

“You are! And your wings are just exactly like our mother's! Nothing else makes sense.”

Dawn's blue eyes implored Marianne to believe these outrageous claims.

Blue eyes that tugged on the scrap of faded memory that covered old feelings of sadness that she had never been able to place. A spectral memory of the smell of grass in the summer, of a world that looked so much larger to a little girl than it did to a grown woman. Or was that the only reason?

“No.”

Marianne shoved the thought away as she pushed away from the table and stumbled to her feet. Fighting against the pull and burn on the wings on her back she escaped the room, fumbling around blindly in the dim corridors, trying to find a way out. Out of the pressing dark and back into the open where she could breathe, where she wasn't trapped.

The singing in the dungeons had started up again and it was in front of her, behind her, trickling into her ears from all sides. Marianne pressed her hands over her ears to block it out, but the feeling of the new shape of her ears made her pull her hands away again.

Why did everyone keep trying to tell her who she was supposed to be? Pushing her into the roles they had picked out for her, giving her no choice in the matter. Roland dazzling her into becoming his submissive little wife—and possibly a shortcut to a throne. Dawn trying to cram Marianne into someone else's tragic narrative so there could be a happy ending. Marianne was being pulled every which way except the direction she wanted.

You don't fit.

That was what the nutcracker glitter fairy had said.

You've been in the wrong world too long.

But it was the only world she wanted.

Chapter Text

“Marianne?”

“Don't look at me, I'm gross,” Marianne rubbed her cheek, trying to wipe away the grime and tears and salvage a little of her dignity. Not that there was much left to salvage, seeing as she was crouched on the dirty floor of a dark corridor, wings flopped in the dust, her face sticky from crying.

“I can guarantee I've seen worse, tough girl,” Bog said lightly from somewhere behind her.

“Huh. Let me know how I rate, then.”

“You haven't fallen into the bog so I really can't imagine making comparisons.”

“That does seem to be one thing I haven't done today. I've done just about everything else and have the bruises to prove it.”

“How have you survived so long?”

“Luck and a twenty-some year streak of not having my home invaded by tiny people. Also, wings are a huge handicap if you don't know how to use them.”

“Fair enough.”

A blanket dropped over Marianne's shoulders. It smelled like something from a spice cabinet and despite its soft flexibility she was pretty sure it was a leaf of some kind, her fingers tracing over the ridge of veins as she pulled the it closer. Whatever it was, she was grateful for something to cover the knotted and unraveling tears in the back of her shirt.

Still out of sight behind her, Bog shuffled his feet and Marianne could hear the unsettled movement of his armor and wings, “I . . . it's hard. To not be sure where you belong.”

“You talked to Dawn,” Marianne sighed.

“Hm. She talked at me, anyway.”

“Was she really upset?”

“A bit.”

“Ugh. I'm the worst. There had to be a better way to let the kid down easy . . .”

Marianne heard a sort of crunchy scraping when Bog sat down on the ground next to her. She shuffled around to face him, rubbing the edge of the blanket over her face, glad that the poor lighting probably hid the worst of the mess. Then again, Bog had navigated the dark easily enough that it wouldn't surprise Marianne to find out that goblins had night vision or something.

“Still think you're not a changeling?” Bog asked, folding his arms and leaning them on his bent knees.

“Yes? I don't know?” Marianne felt queasy with doubts, unsettled by facts that didn't line up in the pattern she wanted them to, “Isn't there any other possibility? You grow and shrink, turn from a tiny bug man to a huge stick man. Why can't I just be a human who got shrunk?”

“I've never heard of that happening. And Plum may be an irritation but she knows her business. She recognized you as a changeling at first glance and she has no reason to lie.”

“I see,” these new pieces of information settled like lumps of lead in the pit of her stomach, cold and undeniable. She diverted her energy from the issue of species and tried another tact, “Do you think I'm the princess?”

“Not sure,” Bog said frankly, “It's not impossible. That doesn't make it true, but it is possible. It's hard to see why they would make a changeling out of a princess. Or anyone, for that matter. Changelings are rare nowadays, they usually only happen during hard times.”

Bog's uncertainty was little comfort. It didn't matter if she was supposed to be a fairy queen or a fairy peasant, all that mattered was that she wasn't human. But there was still so much she didn't know about fairies, goblins, changelings . . . maybe there was a detail somewhere that would point her toward a conclusion that she wanted to hear. That she was human, that she belonged with her family, that she had nothing to do with this tiny, crazy world of magic.

“Tell me about changelings?”

Marianne leaned her shoulder on the wall of the corridor and tucked her feet up underneath herself. She trained her eyes and ears fully on Bog, trying to narrow the range of her senses to block out the singing coming from the dungeons. Bog fidgeted nervously under the weight of Marianne's undivided attention, but managed to answer after clearing his throat a few times.

“I don't know a lot. We—goblins—didn't do it very much. It's harder to pass off a goblin changeling as human than a fairy changeling. They're less . . . appealing to human eyes. Mostly the babies ended up being abandoned or killed outright. Mostly changelings were the children of fairies or elves, placed with a human family that could provide for them better than their fae kin. Sometimes they were switched with a human child--”

“Wait, then, you can shrink humans?” Marianne dragged herself up, hope propelling her.

“Ah,” black claws scratched the thorns on Bog's chin that seemed to serve as stubble, “only . . . only in certain cases. And only with the wee ones. It isn't something you could do to a full-grown human. Babies are more malleable and . . . it just doesn't work otherwise.”

“How do you know? I--”

“You've still got your wits,” Bog poked at Marianne's forehead, “Your stubborn beliefs. If you were truly human then bringing you into our world would have broken you. You wouldn't fit so you would have to be broken until you did fit and what would be left wouldn't be a pretty thing.”

“Oh,” Marianne deflated as another avenue of escape was blocked off.

“Princess or not, you are a changeling.”

“But . . . my family.” Marianne said, growing a little desperate, scrabbling around for proof of her humanity, “I—I have a social security number! A birth certificate! You can't just magic those up! I couldn't have just been stuck into my family and they never noticed . . .”

There had been papers.

She'd found them in Roland's things.

When she had found them it had just been creepy. She couldn't think of why Roland had been looking into her life as a newborn. Why he had not only copies of her birth certificate, but copies of letters her parents had written requesting a replacement for lost paperwork.

Paperwork riddled with little discrepancies.

Tiny things she had known about but never paid attention to. Nothing important, nothing that meant anything.

How she had been several years old when her parents had gotten a replacement for her inexplicably missing birth certificate.

The strange mix up with her social security number, that it was somehow the same as her brother's and there had been some difficulty getting it sorted out.

Just . . . little things.

Little things, piling up and slotting together in a way that made sense, puzzle pieces fitting together to form a picture she didn't want to see, forcing her to acknowledge that it was entirely possible that she was not her parent's daughter or her brothers' sister.

Roland's betrayal had been cruel. The possibility that she was not who she was supposed to be, that her parents had been actively lying to her for years, was devastating. Every memory of someone commenting how much she looked like, acted like her brothers, or her mom, or her dad, was like the stab of a knife now.

And Roland had known this. He had known who she wasn't so it was possible that he also knew who she was.

“He knew I wasn't human,” Marianne said, the words a stab at her heart because speaking them was admitting everyone was right, that she was a changeling, “Roland knew. That's why . . . that might be why . . . the only reason he ever looked at me twice.”

“He can't see past shine of his own teeth. That's not your fault,” Bog said, a strange gray anchor in a crumbling world, so certain of the facts and refusing to tiptoe around them.

“My parents. They've been lying to me--”

“No!” Bog said firmly, “As far as they know you are their daughter. It's part of being a changeling. You have to be accepted, thought of as their own.”

“Then they've been magicked into loving me? That's even worse!”

Marianne had barely begun to seriously consider this changeling business and already she wanted to reject it entirely, return to categorically denying every aspect of it. The idea was prying at the cracks in her life, ripping it away and leaving her floating in the darkness of the unknown

“No,” Bog said again, “There may be love potions, but none of them would make a parent love a child or a brother love a sister. It has a narrow range, a shallow effect. If a changeling is loved it is real. Otherwise there would not be so many tragic stories of changelings that are despised and rejected. It would not happen if the human parents could have been made to love their changeling children.”

Bog was being absurdly kind and it made Marianne feel worse. That didn't stop her from moving closer, her knee bumping his leg. She reached over and put her hand in the crook of his arm. She needed something to hang onto while her world was falling apart.

“I wonder where I'd be right now,” Marianne said, ignoring how still Bog had gone, “If I had never met Roland. I'd be home. Blissfully ignorant of all the tiny people living in the fields of our cottage.”

If only she could turn back time, change that one thing, never be caught between worlds, never have people trying to fit her into spaces meant for someone else.

“You'd never have caught a king,” Bog snorted, his ragged wings giving a nervous twitch.

“Oh,” Marianne's lips quivered at the memory of Bog dangling in the fly trap, gladly letting her thoughts veer away from the subject of changelings, “Now that would have been a shame. Never getting to meet you, crunchy.”

She let go of his arm so she could elbow him.

He jabbed back and got her blanket snagged on his spiky elbow.

Marianne laughed, a little wildly, but she did not cry.

“I can't imagine it will be hard for you, when you go back home,” Bog said, after they had separated him and the blanket, “It doesn't change anything. You'll have the same face, the one that they know. The one that fits. You get both worlds.”

Marianne had to credit Bog with hardly flinching when she put her hand back on his arm. Truthfully, she could really use a hug. But she also was repulsed by the idea of it. She wanted a hug from someone she trusted, someone who really cared, who understood. She wasn't sure if there was anyone like that in her life anymore. But just being near Bog was nice. He wasn't telling her she had to be this long lost princess. And he was listening.

“I don't get either world,” Marianne shook her head, “Not if this is all true. It doesn't matter if I still look the part, I would know now that it was never my part to begin with. They were all tricked into caring about me and I can't just go along with that if I'm . . . not even human.”

“Tough girl, you are so lucky to be able to look the part.”

There was a note of wistfulness in Bog's voice. A faint shadow of pain.

Looking at her pale fingers resting on Bog's dark armor Marianne ventured to ask, “Will you flip anymore tables if I ask about . . . whatever it was that made you flip the first table?”

Bog's sigh made his armor rise and settle.

“It isn't much of a story. I just don't . . . I don't look right. I don't look like a goblin. My mother says I look like my father, but . . . he must have looked very strange. I'm an unpleasant sight, to the eyes of fairies and goblins both, and there have always been stories. Stories to explain why I'm not . . . as I should be. For example, the slanderous rumor that my mother was unfaithful to her king and had dealings with a fairy lover.”

“Oooh,” Marianne winced, “Yeah, I put my foot in it. Sorry.”

“I'm sorry for losing my temper. You didn't know. I just . . . I wish you could understand that you have both worlds. You are wanted in both worlds. This is my kingdom, my world, and all my life I've been told that I don't belong in it. But you, you are wanted.”

“The person Dawn wants . . . isn't me. I don't want to be her. I want to be myself—or who I thought I was. But I can't. And even if I get magicked back to the right size of species I don't know if I can go back to my family and lie to them for the rest of my life.”

“Won't you even try? Won't you even fight for what you want? The fairy kingdom is yours by right of birth, the human yours by right of love. You are wanted and all you have to do is accept what is handed to you and protect it. Fight to keep it. I would fight. I have fought. The throne of the Dark Forest came to me from my mother, it's mine by right of blood and, freak or not, I won't give it up so easily as you would discard two worlds.”

Bog's hand had clenched into a fist and Marianne could feel the tension of it in his arm. She followed it with her fingers from the bend of his elbow, down to his wrist, then tentatively to the curl of his fingers. At her touch his fingers uncurled, his surprise distracting him from bad memories.

“It must be nice,” Marianne let her fingers play over the edge of his armor, where it gave way to skin, “to have something you know is yours. Have the right to it. The right to fight for it. I don't feel like I have that.”

“In my weaker moments I'd give it up just so I could look ordinary,” Bog laughed, “Not handsome. Just not wrong.”

“That'd be a shame. I'm kind of getting attached to how you look. Especially when I'm remembering how you looked stuck in a jar. It just wouldn't be the same with a different face glaring at me.”

“You're incorrigible,” Bog rumbled, looking away.

“You're cute.”

Marianne's horror was reflected in Bog's face. That comment had slipped out without her permission. It didn't matter that the Bog King's sharp profile was adorably expressive when he was flustered, she had not meant to actually say anything about it.

“Hardly,” Bog stood up, shaking himself free of Marianne's hand, “I know what I am, I know what I look like. I don't need pretty fairy lies.”

“Aw, do you really think I'm pretty?”

“Incorrigible,” Bog muttered.

The conversation lapsed and the singing of the lovesick prisoners quickly filled the gap, as about as soothing to Marianne's nerves as nails on a chalkboard. She tried to fill her head with something else, maybe speculations about this tiny world and its peoples, but a cloud of gray exhaustion blotted out everything but what was right in front of her.

So she watched Bog as he took a few paces back and forth along the corridor, muttering dark complaints about fairies and love. She supposed Bog did look odd, if you compared him to the other goblins. But she still would never classify him under the heading of hideous. Different, yes. Otherworldly, maybe. Yes, otherworldly. A cranky forest spirit from a fairy tale.

“You know,” Bog stopped pacing, standing far enough down the corridor so that Marianne didn't have to crane her head back to see his face, “You don't have to pick either world. Not right away, that is.”

“Oh?” Marianne prompted, studying the way Bog's pine cone shoulders attached to his torso. She wondered how he kept track of so many limbs, having to not only deal with the addition of wings, but with movable shoulders too.

“If you needed somewhere, neutral ground, to think and sort things out . . .” Bog turned slightly away, running a hand up and down his arm in a gesture of unease, “Officially, you've no ties to the fairy kingdom. There would be no objection—I would have no objection if you would like to . . . visit. Here. For a bit. While you cleared your head.”

“You're not going to let Dawn stick a crown on my head and whisk me off to the fairy kingdom?” Marianne laughed, shrugging the blanket higher.

“I certainly wouldn't let them take you against your choosing,” Bog's face darkened, “Especially not while that yellow-haired ninny is still rattling around. But, as I said, you could stay here if you wished.”

“While I'm getting my feet back under me?”

“Just so. I'm sure that Plum can find some temporary fix for your glamour, though, if you wished to return to the human world immediately.”

Marianne started a little when she realized Bog was waiting for an answer to his offer. She was probably being unforgivably rude by not acknowledging the generosity of the gesture. After all, Bog was a king, and his invitation must carry an impressive amount of weight.

“I . . .” Marianne tried to think of reasons either for or against staying. A conflicting tangle of reasons snarled up in her throat. She wanted to go home. But she didn't know if she could face it, “I think I'll wait. See how this whole love potion business goes over. I want to know where Roland is going to be before I make any plans.”

Bog gave a quick nod, “Probably best. I understand. The offer remains. No offense will be taken if you decline it.”

“Thanks. But aren't you afraid I might get into your wine cellar and go on a binge?”

“I will be sure to take every precaution, should you decide to grace us with your delightful personage for an extended period.”

“No fair, being all regal at me from up there. Give me a hand, I think my legs are asleep.”

Bog obliged.

Marianne wobbled on her feet and leaned against Bog for support, both physical and emotional. It helped that he understood, a little, what it was to be at odds with what was expected of you.

“I really do envy you,” Bog sighed, his hand on her shoulder to keep her balanced, “Though I do not envy the fairy court should you decide to go there. They are not used to disorder.”

“I am a force of chaos,” Marianne smiled, her hands resting in the crooks of Bog's arms. She leaned closer.

“Indeed,” Bog said, “You—you--”

Marianne slid her arms around Bog and hugged him.

He was rigid with surprise and the plates of his armor were unyielding. He was not a comfortable thing to hug, all points and edges. But Marianne hugged him a little tighter because . . . because he was kind. Because he wasn't pushing her into the role he thought she ought to take, but instead opened up space for her to breathe and think.

“Thank you,” she said, the ridge of Bog's chest plate was pressing into the soft flesh of her cheek, “Thank you for the invitation.”

“It . . .” Bog swallowed loudly, but kept his hand on her shoulder, even going so far as to give her a reassuring squeeze, “It's my pleasure, tough girl.”

Chapter Text

“I feel like something Brian Froud would draw.”

Marianne strained her neck, trying to watch Dawn fasten the back of a shirt around the base of the limp purple wings that had so recently taken up residence on Marianne's shoulder blades.

As promised, Griselda and Dawn had gotten some clothing together for Marianne. It was a relief to exchange her ragged jeans and compromised shirt for something clean and whole. Even if the new garments appeared to be made out of leaves.

There must have been some sort of magic involved that kept the leaves fresh and allowed them to be stitched and tailored like cloth. Marianne put on a pair of dark purple leggings that stretched just like knit fabric even though they gave off the faint perfume of flowers. The green tunic sort of thing was something like a belted leaf poncho that hung down to her knees and had some tricky fastenings in the back to allow for wings.

Dawn was doing up the fastenings and was not talking. Very loudly not talking. Which would have been easy enough to ignore if Dawn's silence radiated any amount of anger. But, no, it was a sad silence. The careful silence of someone afraid of offending with a badly placed word. Someone trying very hard to be tactful.

It made Marianne feel guilty and that in turn made her angry. As far as bad days went Marianne's surpassed anyone else's by far. She shouldn't be expected to have the emotional energy to deal with anyone else's woes. Unpleasant truths were clawing at the comfortable veil that had been drawn over her life, ripping apart everything Marianne had thought were rock solid. This left her with no time or inclination to humor the wistful hopes of a teenager.

Then again, a king dealing with a kingdom in chaos wouldn't have been expected to spare the time to offer comfort to a supposed fairy changeling that had stuffed him into a jar earlier on in the day. Bog really was just too awkwardly sweet for his own good. Marianne felt obliged to pass on a little of the niceness she had received and restore cosmic balance.

Mood somewhat lifted by a change of clothing, even if her wings were still trying to drag down her shoulders and her mood, Marianne made an attempt to cheer the princess up.

“Look, kid,” Marianne said, feeling new muscles pulling in her back when she strained to look over her shoulder at Dawn, “I'm not . . . I'm not mad at you or anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Dawn said flatly, finishing with the fastenings and stepping away.

Marianne fumbled for something kind to say that wouldn't bring up the lost princess business. She was sure if she had to hear one more word about that she'd scream. Dawn would look up at her with those big blue eyes full of hope and Marianne would feel like a monster for crushing that hope. Even so, the expectations prickled her temper and she would end up being horrible to the kid again.

“I'm . . . I'm sure Sunny is going to be fine,” Marianne offered, “I mean, he'll get the potion and it will all be . . . fine.”

“Sure,” Dawn agreed, still lacking her characteristic sparkle.

“And—and your dad will be impressed by how you've been handling this whole thing. I mean, getting the goblins to cooperate with you, that's a pretty big deal, right?”

“Yeah. Impressed. Sure.”

“Uh,” Marianne said, trying to provoke the conversation into continuing so that the strains of lovesick singing would remained masked, “Um.

Marianne pulled at the edge of the leaf tunic. It acted almost exactly like fabric. When she pinched it there was no bruising or stickiness of a crushed leaf, just the faint smell, like trees warming under the summer sun. Built-in perfume. Nice.

“I'm sorry if I was kind of abrupt,” Marianne tried again, “It's been a very long, very weird day and I'm six different kinds of scrambled.”

“It's fine.”

The stonewalling tactic had been used on Marianne before and she had an array of methods to deal with it, but most of them involved tackling the taciturn individual and either tickling them or putting them in a headlock until they begged for release and agreed to talk.

These methods had not been devised with a wilting fairy princess in mind.

“Uh, Bog invited me to stay here.”

“Oh?” a spark of life returned to Dawn's face, a gleam of interest in her eyes.

“Yeah, to learn glamour after this love potion is cleaned up. I mean, I would kind of have to stay anyway, really, to learn how to get right-sized again, but it's nice to have a clear invite. Maybe this heap isn't a four star hotel, but maybe it looks better when the sun is up.”

“You're going to stay?”

“Yeah, maybe. Yes. I'll be around for at least a few--”

Dawn sent Marianne staggering with a hug. They both would have tipped over except Dawn spread her wings and hovered with her feet kicked up off the floor.

“--days,” Marianne finished, trying to speak around the shoulder that was crammed into her throat.

“I can show you the fields!” Dawn shoved Marianne to arm's length, “and Sunny's village! You could come to the festival! It was supposed to be tonight, but I bet it was canceled because of everything and--”

“Dawn, I'm going to be staying here. In the forest. If I stay at all.”

“Oh, I know, but you can still socialize! You'll be Boggy's guest, not his prisoner. He likes you.”

“He doesn't like anyone,” Marianne rolled her eyes. Her face felt warm and she really wasn't sure why. It was probably the smirk on Dawn's face, “Especially not people who stick him in badly washed mayo jars.”

“Oh,” Marianne,” Dawn fluttered to the side as she flicked her hands to dismiss the idea, “You do that to everyone. It's just your way, we understand.”

Marianne sputtered out a laugh. “I went my whole life without collecting tiny people in jars, and then in one day I get three. Beginner's luck.”

“Think of how good you'd be if you practiced.”

“I'm trying not to make a habit out of it. With the exception of Roland. I'd like to get him in a pickled onion jar and lob it into a landfill.”

“I only understand half of what you're saying,” Dawn remarked, giggling as she floated around, fussing with Marianne's tangled hair, “but it sounds funny.”

“I'm a riot.”

“Now, don't you look just lovely?” Griselda pattered back into the room, a length of something bundled in her arms, “You could still use a comb, though, mushroom.”

“I've sort of given up on that,” Marianne blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes after she shooed Dawn's hands away, “It doesn't seem to be worth the effort.”

“Your message to your dad was sent off, dear,” Griselda told Dawn, “And it looks like all the love-dusted folks have been gathered up. Patrols are still out but they haven't reported any new cases of love-sickness in awhile.”

“That probably means somebody got the potion away from the imp,” Dawn tapped her fingers together, “the question is: who?”

“And how's the antidote coming along?” Marianne added.

“Plum does things in her own time,” Griselda's wide face dipped into a frown, “Ridiculous little airheaded twinkling maniac and her useless potions. Oh, of course it works now when it'll cause a mess, but . . . hm. Never mind. She's working on it. There was a little bit of a delay because my boy had her make this.”

Griselda shook out the bundle she had been carrying. It was some sort of blanket or cloak made up of layers of flower petals. Dark purple petals overlapping like scales, rimmed with a slightly darker shade of purple.

“Hellebore petals,” Griselda said, “Had some stowed away. Anyway, my boy had Plum make a wrinkle for you. I had to haggle with her for an age. I said you'd give an IOU for it, sunshine, seeing as it's fairy business in its way. Couldn't get her to name a price that we here could pay.”

Griselda address the last note to Dawn who nodded, “That's fine. She probably wants to make sure she has a protector and patron once she's free. Dad will be happy to oblige. Boggy is so thoughtful!”

“A wrinkle?” Marianne asked, feeling uneasy that a favor done for her was going to be paid for by the fairy king. It felt like Griselda and Dawn were working on the assumption that Marianne really was the lost princess and they were humoring her declarations to the contrary. She would rather have been in debt to Bog and Griselda, if she couldn't be responsible for it herself.

Marianne looked at the offered assemblage of petals that was offered to her, reluctant to accept it, “What is it?”

“A wrinkle, dear. A wrinkle? You know, a wrinkle in the veil? Oh, just try it on, sweetheart.”

The “wrinkle” was like a sort of sleeveless shift that was open down the front. It was waistless and fell straight down to Marianne's knees, no openings in the back for the wings, so it just laid over them. It was nice enough, she supposed, but she couldn't figure out why it was apparently so special. Which was a relief, since that meant she could decline the gift and the debt to the fairy king.

“What's it supposed to do?” She turned in place to see the movement of the garment, “prevent wrinkled clothing or cause it?”

Marianne stopped in the middle of her second rotation, the hem of the wrinkle flapping around her legs. Something had changed, something . . . She spun around, trying to see her own back. She reached behind herself and felt shoulder blades, ordinary shoulder blades and nothing else, poking through the back of the wrinkle.

“Oh, that doesn't look right,” Dawn shuddered, her face tinged with green.

“They're gone!” Marianne spun around again, enjoying her reclaimed balance, “The wings are gone! I can move again!”

“You look all wrong.”

“Are you kidding?” Marianne bounced up and down on her heels, “I could do cartwheels. Move over, I'm going to do cartwheels.”

“Don't you dare!” Dawn grabbed her shoulders, “The room is too small!”

“Handstands, then. Something!” Marianne rolled her shoulders, “How don't I have wings?”

“Take off the wrinkle, dear,” Griselda said, flapping her hands to hurry Marianne up.

Marianne did, and the weight settled back on her shoulders, the wings returned.

“Wrinkles are tricky things, changing just a little part of you to be what it isn't in a world where it is. Probably no one could do one except Plum, My boy thought this might help since you were having so much trouble getting around.”

“I'll thank him when I see him,” Marianne put the wrinkle back on and did another twirl, “I will show my gratitude by respecting his personal space and not hugging him.”

Griselda snorted on her way out of the room, “My boy doesn't know what's good for him.”

“Boggy is so sweet,” Dawn said with some of her usual sparkle, though she was still trying not to look at Marianne's wingless back, “I don't understand why we've been so scared of starting up talks with him. Marianne, stand still!”

“I'm going to do cartwheels!”

“You cannot do cartwheels!”

“You sound just like my brothers. 'Marianne, you can't do cartwheels'. 'Marianne, you'll break something'. 'Marianne, this is the third time you've broken that arm'.”

“Third?” Dawn asked, eyes wide, “How many times . . .?”

“My family invested in rubber stamps so they wouldn't have to sign their names by hand every time I was in a cast. In my defense, it didn't look that far from the roof to the ground.”

Marianne ceased her spinning and dropped herself into a chair. She could sit in a chair again, just like a real person who hadn't been dealing with an otherworldly incursion in their kitchen. She was just Marianne  Gallagher who had more stitches than sweethearts to her name.

Except she wasn't.

“I was trying to fly,” Marianne said, remembering how she teetered on the edge of the porch roof, looking down at the smooth carpet of lawn. There had been an expectation in her tiny, baby brain that she would fly. Or that someone would catch her.

Someone with blue eyes.

Blue eyes always made her sad, a little wistful. Bog's eyes reminded her of that, but they were different from the memory that slipped out of her hands. It was like chasing a gauzy scarf in the wind. It shimmered in the air, rippling out of reach. Dawn's eyes . . . they were almost familiar.

“Dawn . . .” Marianne slouched down in the chair until she was almost sliding off of it.

“Sit up straight,” Dawn tapped Marianne's knees as she walked by.

“What, you afraid I'll wrinkle my wrinkle?”

Dawn giggled, swatting Marianne's knees as punishment for the joke, “Does everyone talk like you? Where you've been—where you come from?”

“There's a whole range,” Marianne gestured in an arc, “I fall on the mouthy end of things. My brothers, less so. It's my coping mechanism in times of extreme upheaval and weirdness.”

“It sounds like . . . like you have a lot of fun with your family.”

“Yeah. We did. Do.”

Teetering on the edge of the roof, teetering between two realities, watching a scarf dance in the wind. How long could she teeter before she fell one way or the other?

Marianne pushed herself up in her chair, her new outfit rumpled around her and the wrinkle wrinkled up beneath her. Distracting herself with the details of getting comfortable, letting the fresh smell of the leaf tunic and flower petal cloak surround her in a comfortable, outdoorsy perfume, Marianne asked the question like she would have dropped a pebble into a dark hole to judge by its rattling descent how deep the darkness went.

“What happened to your sister?”

Dawn looked sad over Marianne's phrasing of the question, and still somewhat queasy over Marianne's missing wings. She sat down, her wings falling effortlessly into place as she did.

“We were kidnapped,” Dawn said, starting the story off with a bang, “some of dad's political rivals took us to use as leverage. Well, actually, it was a cousin, a third or fourth cousin a few times removed. He wanted to be king and he was going to use me and you—me and my sister to make dad step down.”

“Intense,” Marianne remarked.

“I guess,” Dawn shrugged a shoulder, “I can't remember, I wasn't even a year old. Mar—my sister was just five. He had us taken and hidden, but his plan fell apart pretty quickly. All the people he was counting on as allies didn't really want to help him be king. He thought they would all rally around him.”

“Failed a perception check.”

“What?”

“Nothing. So, dear old cousin Back-stabber--”

“Luke, actually.”

“--decided that he wanted more than the simple life of moisture farming on Tatooine and decided to try his hand running the empire. Sorry, never mind, ignore me, keep talking.”

Marianne knew she was being unnecessarily snarky and wished she would stop. It was her way of controlling the situation, as was her habit. Sarcasm and quick jibes kept everyone else on their toes and too busy to press on with an attack against her. It was a tactic she had had much success with, most of the time. It was less effective when no one got your pop culture references.

“Then he tried bargaining to get off without being charged. Mom and dad wouldn't negotiate and sent everybody out to look for us.”

“They obviously got you back. What happened to your sister?”

“It was all kind of confused. We'd been kept at two different places and the people guarding us were under orders to do whatever they had to to keep use from being found. I was being kept near one of the elf villages, actually. The elves found the hiding place and sneaked me out. When the soldiers caught up they found me safe and sound, playing with Sunny.”

“Aw, you were baby best friends.”

“I cried when the soldiers tried to take me away. Mom had to come get me herself.”

“Awww.”

“That's part of why dad has always put up with me going down to the village. Not that he's ever going to let me again, not even with ten times the usual number of guards.”

“Wow him with your super diplomat princess skills. If you make a triumphant return, leading the goblin king by the hand, your dad might reconsider some views.”

“Not likely. He's going to chain me to a chair and chain the chair to the floor so that I can't scoot anywhere. And he'll never let me see Sunny again, not ever. Not that I want to ever see Sunny again.”

“Of course not.”

“But dad doesn't get to make that choice for me.”

“Absolutely not. So . . . while you were happily burbling over a borrowed rattle, what happened to your sister?”

It wasn't clear to Marianne what she was hoping to learn from this story. Maybe some detail she could point at and say, “aha! That proves it! It couldn't have possibly been me!”. Maybe find out that the princess had a distinctive birthmark that Marianne didn't. That was the usual method in these sort of melodramas. And Marianne could quite safely claim she had no birthmarks, distinguishing or otherwise. A sizable collection of scars, but none whose origins had not been documented.

Purple wings were all that Dawn had to go on, and Marianne refused to be convinced on such flimsy evidence. There had to be something that would explain everything. Something in the story that would prove . . . well, she was starting to feel a little beyond believing that she could prove she was purely human. But maybe there was something that would just . . . let her be her. That if she was a changeling, she was an anonymous orphan without family or ties that would pull her away from the world she wanted to belong to.

“They found where she was being kept, too,” Dawn continued, “Or they were pretty sure. They surrounded the hiding place—it was on the edge of the Dark Forest in the hollow at the base of a tree—and moved in to take Luke's accomplice by surprise.”

“How do you know all this? Seems like your dad wouldn't want your gentle ears dirtied with such sordid details.”

“Sunny's mom told me when I was older. Nobody at court would dare breathe a word about it around me. Lottie thought I should know and when I asked about it she told me everything.”

“Sunny's mom?” Marianne laughed at a sudden thought, “She's going to kill him for all this, isn't she? If she's anything like my mom, she will.”

“Oh, goodness, she will! I kind of hope I'm there . . .”

“Share the front row seats with me. I'll bring popcorn.”

“Why popcorn?”

“Wait, you know what popcorn is?”

“Why wouldn't I know what popcorn is?”

Marianne imagined a fairy eating an individual kernel of popcorn and wondered how they popped corn without getting concussed.

“Anyway, Sunny's mom told you everything?”

“The important things. She didn't give me many details, except that mom tripped over a guard in the dark when they were creeping up the tree. She smashed him behind the ear,” Dawn made a punching motion, “dented his helmet.”

“You're making that up.”

“Busted up her hand, but luckily she was ambidextrous.”

“I'm not left-handed,” Marianne muttered.

“So she could still hold a sword and lead the charge against Luke's men.”

“You are making this up.”

“Mom won, of course. There weren't enough guards to do more than slow her men down  for a few minutes . . . but it was long enough. One of Luke's people ran away and it was dark, but they thought he might have been carrying my sister, but . . .”

“He got away?”

Dawn wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at her knees. She spoke in a lower voice, hushed and serious, “He got snatched by an owl.”

“Oh. Oh.”

Marianne's earlier concerns about owls and other flying creatures of the night were justified and the confirmation sent a shiver down her spine. The shiver even felt like it traveled into the wings, outlining them for a passing moment. A fairy caught in the talons of an owl . . . wings tangled, maybe ripped, a baby in their arms . . .

“Yeah,” Dawn nodded, “Everyone kind of got scattered and they couldn't find the owl's nest afterwards.”

“But . . . why did you guys think she could be alive? Even if she wasn't eaten by the owl she could have fallen and been snatched up by something else.”

“Nobody knew for sure!” Dawn said hotly, “Nobody had actually seen Marianne! They found four more hiding places afterwards and decoy guards all over the place!”

“Okay, okay!” Marianne said, feeling bad that she had upset Dawn again, “So there's a chance she made it. Where did she end up, then?”

Dawn gave Marianne a flat stare.

“Oh. Duh. Right. Changeling.”

“Uh huh.”

“Give me a break, it's been--”

“A long day.”

“Shut up. It's true no matter how many times I say it. Why would they stash your sister with humans? And if her, why not you too?”

“I hadn't thought of that . . .” Dawn drooped a little, “That does stick out.”

A touch of excitement made Marianne's heart skip a beat. The scarf was in the wind, her fingers nearly on it, she was on the verge of finding out something that would put the world back to rights. The changeling princess theory was about to fall apart.

“But then why do you look so much like mom?” Dawn stood up and threw her hands out in a plea for answers, “Your wings? Your—your attitude? Everything I remember, everything people tell me, mom was strong, she was funny, and she was really kind! You're all those things too! You're a changeling! Nothing else makes sense!”

“None of this makes sense!” Marianne shot back, standing up too.

“It does so! It's got to! You've got to come back! You've got to come back and it'll all be okay! We'll have you back! The kingdom will be so happy, dad will be . . .” Dawn choked a little, “dad will be happy.”

He's not my father.

Marianne couldn't say the words out loud. Again she was caught between her need to scream her hopes until they became true and her unwillingness to crush this fragile little girl. Dawn had taken too many hits already that day.

“Kid . . .” Marianne sighed, putting her hands on Dawn's shaking shoulders, “We'll . . . we'll look into all this. Look for some answers. Two kingdoms are involved, I guess I'm not going to be able to just skip town. But, kid, please don't hang all your hopes on me. Please.”

Dawn hung her head.

“Look me in the eye, kiddo.”

Dawn lifted her head and looked into Marianne's eyes. “Okay. That's fair. But if you are my--”

“I'm your friend. I'll be hanging around awhile. That is all I can promise. Okay?”

“Okay.” Dawn offered a bright smile, still looking into Marianne's eyes, her usual brightness quickly eating away the sadness.

The wind changed. The fluttering scarf blew into Marianne's hand. She remembered edging along the gutter on the roof, looking down, looking for something. For someone. A familiar face that glowed with warmth, sparkled with happiness. Someone with eyes that were . . .

Marianne tore her gaze away from Dawn's face. She covered her face with her hands and refused to look at Dawn. She tried to throw the fluttering memory away. She didn't want it. She wanted it to dissolve again, this time forever. But the scarf had turned solid in her hands, wrapped itself in knots around her fingers, and she could not tear it off.

“Marianne? Marianne are you alright?”

The room was too small. There wasn't enough space in it with the memory filling the room from corner to corner.

“Dawn,” the memory squeezed Marianne's chest until the whisper came out, the question was asked, “What color were your mother's eyes?”

“Blue,” Dawn replied, “Dad says I have her eyes.”

The scarf was somehow attached to a heavy weight and Marianne tumbled off the roof, falling and knowing there would be no one there to catch her.

“You've got to stop doing this, tough girl.”

Bog was suddenly there, keeping her from tipping over.

“Doing what?” Marianne asked, blinking away the blur in front of her eyes.

“Not fainting.”

“I was not not fainting. I tripped.”

“While standing still?”

“I'm talented that way. When did you materialize out of the ether?”

“Just now. Just in time. Are you alright?”

“Fine. It's just been a--”

“Long day?”

“Shut up.”

Marianne took a deep breath and looked up to see if the room was stable. It was. It was also notably empty of any sparkling fairy princesses.

“Where did Dawn go?”

“There was some news and I sent her to talk to the messenger. I thought you would . . . you were looking a little . . . I thought you would rather not have her speculating any further about your identity for the time being.”

“Thanks. This identity crisis is knocking me off balance.”

“I noticed.”

“Shut up. You're horrible. You're the worse.”

“I hope you don't think that is a revelation for me.”

“I said shut up. You shut up, everybody shut up. I shut up. Bog . . . Bog is there any possible way I can get out of here? Right now? This minute? Have the tipsy glitter fairy slap some charm on me to get big again and just let me go home?”

“Not that I'm aware,” Bog replied, bewildered at Marianne's babbling and frantic pacing up and down the room. She couldn't stand still. She had to run. She had to run now.

Marianne kicked over a chair.

The chair knocked a piece off the wall. Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling.

Bog stood there, twiddling his fingers uncertainly.

Marianne thought over the benefits of kicking more furniture.

“I hate this place,” She said, teeth clenched.

“Oh?” Bog said, obviously stung by the statement.”

“Not your stupid Dark Forest. I'm sure it's absolutely lovely underneath the cobwebs and rot. This stupid, absurd situation.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing! Nothing.” Marianne scrabbled around for a change of subject. Anything to avoid talking, remembering. She settled on asking about the progress of diplomatic proceedings between fairies and goblins. The sooner that was settled the sooner Marianne could get everyone's full attention on solving the problem on making her big again.

“What was the news for Dawn? Her dad write back already?”

“Not as such.” Bog let out a tired sigh and massaged the back of his neck. His default scowl returned, dark as ever. Marianne was sort of glad that the shadows cast by his eyebrows hid how blue his eyes were. She was also sort of disappointed. Bog kind of had lovely eyes . . .

“An armed force of fairies and elves has crossed the border into the forest.”

“Oh. That stinks. What, they trying to rescue the captive princess? Didn't they get Dawn's note about how she has totally not been kidnapped?”

“Hard to say. The messenger hasn't returned.”

“Well . . . this isn't looking exactly terrific.”

“And the love potion is still unaccounted for. My scouts have lost track of the elf entirely. He's quite slippery, it seems. Plum needs to have that antidote at the ready before the elf or the preening fairy get here.”

Every new bit of news had Marianne's heart sinking lower. At this point it was somewhere in the pit of her stomach but she was sure it would get all the way down to her feet sooner or later.

“I guess I hope Sunny has the potion. The guy has learned his lesson.” Marianne said. But she imagined the pink bottle in Roland's hands and felt her heart slip down to her knees.

Bog just snorted.

“What's happening now, then? To war?”

“Not so long as I have their princess.” Bog's face pulled into a pleased smirk. It was ridiculously adorable how smug he got when he had the upper hand. It was like he was relishing a hard-earned triumph.

“Except you don't really,” Marianne pointed out.

“Technically, I do.”

“I thought the hostage thing was a joke.”

“She's not a hostage. Technically.”

“Don't get yourself twisted up in technicalities there, crunchy.”

“Don't call me--”

“Prickly?”

Bog's face twisted up in an even darker scowl. He even bared his teeth like he was working up a snarl.

It was also completely adorable how easy it was to ruffle Bog. He wasn't used to having people talk back. Except, Marianne supposed, by his mother.

“Look, if I have to I'll hold the princess here and only turn her over on the condition that the love potion is returned and they cease to trample all over my forest.”

“If that doesn't pan out?”

“I thrash the stuffing out of their tin armor and send them scurrying back home.”

“Straightforward. I like it.”

“Why does your approval fill me with unease?”

Marianne laughed. She hadn't expected to laugh so soon. For a towering pillar of spikes and prickles Bog was somehow reassuring to be around.

“You'll have to get Dawn to agree. If she doesn't then we're busting out of this joint.”

“Huh! You and what army?”

“I'm a one-woman army.”

“. . . true.”

“And I'm not handicapped anymore.” Marianne bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, feigning a few boxing-style punches at Bog. “You're hoisted by your own petard, giving me the coat of wrinkles.”

“I do appear to have made an error in judgment.” Bog chuckled, grabbing her fist when it swung by his nose. He held onto her hand and looked down into her eyes, probably disconcerted by the manic sparkle that must have been glittering in them. She felt out of control, running, running, running. She couldn't stop. Couldn't give herself time to think.

“What’s wrong--?” Bog began.

“I haven't thank you for the wrinkle,” Marianne pulled her hand free and spun away, the wrinkle flaring out. She almost stumbled, but managed to turn it into a lurching sidestep, “Sharp outfit, no wings, I feel human again. Kinda.”

Bog made a motion to grab her shoulder. He stopped himself and rubbed his hands together instead. “What happened?”

His voice was soft and kind. His eyes were visible again, a breathtaking shade of blue, lighter than the ones that haunted her, but similar enough to make her physically recoil.

Bog took a sharp step back, hands held up as if he were demonstrating that they were empty and his claws were out of play. It took Marianne a moment to realize he thought he had frightened her.

“No, no!” Marianne hurried to say, “You're fine! You're good. You're great. You're fantastic. It's not you. It's me. I'm a mess. I'm in worse shape than your castle.”

“Pardon?”

“It can't have escaped your notice that it's falling apart.”

Bog's gray teeth bared again as they scraped back and forth.

“Okay, wow, I am on a roll with the offending. Sorry. Please refer to previous statement of me going a disaster and disregard my opinion accordingly. I swear, I am too sober for this. But this castle is falling apart and so am I.”

“If it's falling apart it's because you've been throwing furniture into the walls!”

“Hey, it was only one furniture.”

“May I inquire as to why you are throwing things—singular or plural—and why your falling apart seems to have . . . accelerated?”

“Nothing. No reason. I'm fine.”

“I thought you just said you were falling apart.”

“Did not.”

Bog growled.

“Oh, go tangle yourself in a fly trap.”

“I can't tell if you're upset or just mad.”

“Mad like angry? Or mad like crazy?”

“Either.”

“Shut up. Maybe I am mad! Mad as in angry! My wedding fell apart because my boyfriend is a cheating, opportunistic pixie, I got shrunk when I wanted to be drunk, a fairy princess insists I'm her long-lost sister and she might be--”

Marianne hiccuped. Her throat had seized tight and the volume of her voice dropped dramatically. Tears rushed up into her eyes and started to spill over when she finished her sentence.

“--she might be right.”

There was an awkward pause that Marianne filled with angry sniffles. Bog shuffled and fidgeted. She couldn't blame him. He'd had to deal with her erratic emotions quite enough already tonight.

“Do you . . . do you want to hit something?” Bog asked.

“What?”

“I find it helps.”

Marianne looked over at the overturned chair. She nodded.

Bog opened the door and motioned for her to pass through it with a bow and wave of his hand.

“Dork.” Marianne sniffed.

 For the first time in days Marianne felt sure of her footing.

The weight of the wooden practice sword in her hand was perfectly balanced. Her feet slotted easily into to pattern her muscles had followed so many times before. Gracefulness of movement was not something Marianne counted among her virtues, but she knew she moved well with a sword in her hand. And it felt good.

The throne room was nearly empty save Bog, Marianne, and a couple of squat goblins sitting on the steps in front of the throne. Marianne was fairly sure that one of them, for whatever reason, was licking pebbles. The two goblins were the only audience to witness a fairy changeling and a goblin king square up to fight.

Marianne put herself through a few stances to get the feel of the floor through her new boots and how the wooden sword rested in her hand. It felt ten times better than a baseball bat.

“You look happy. And a wee bit bloodthirsty.” Bog remarked. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, shifting his hands into black on the wooden staff he had taken up instead of his scepter.

“I am going to destroy you, Bog King,” Marianne pointed her sword at him, “and take your gothpunk throne for myself.”

“Oh,” Bog casually spun his staff in the fingers of one hand. Marianne hated that he made it look so easy. “So that was your plan all along. Charm the king and depose him when his back was turned.”

“I've been found out. I totally want to take over a kingdom with no indoor plumbing or twinkies. Now that that's out in the open--” She took up a stance with the sword above her head, parallel with the floor, and her other hand out for balance, “--bring it.”

“I was anticipating something more along the lines of going through a few basic moves.”

“Okay, or that. If you want to be all reasonable and sane.”

“One of us has to be.”

“Says who?”

They went through the slow movements of a mock battle. Marianne had started off wanting to pummel something into a pulp, but the structured exercise leveled out her mood as she because too focused to let her thoughts stray to unwanted memories.

Like of crying. Of being a tiny child in her mother's arms but crying her lungs out. The arms that held her were strange. The wrong arms.

The blow Marianne struck was forceful enough to jolt her all the way up to her shoulders. Even her banished wings asserted their existence enough to give a ghostly flutter. Bog was taken aback, weapon still held up defensively.

Marianne lowered her sword. “Sorry.”

Bog tapped her exposed stomach with the end of his staff. “I suppose the intent of this exercise was to give you an opportunity hit things.”

Marianne knocked the staff aside. “Yeah, but not with, like, killing intent. Unless Roland was around.”

A few more blows were exchanged. Bog's wings flicked up and down with his movements and Marianne could tell he was trying his best not to lift himself off the floor. It made her wonder about the dynamics of a fight between two winged people. It would be a whole new ballgame.

“I went and rattled Plum's cage,” Bog said, parrying her swings with one hand behind his back, “She started to babble about riddles, but only until the princess looked as if she was going to cry. The antidote should be ready soon.”

“Great. You have my permission to dose me with it if any of that potion starts getting thrown around. Please?”

“Of course.”

Marianne held up a hand to signal a time out. The news unwound one of the tight muscles in her back and the release made her sag. She was going to be safe. No matter what, Roland couldn't charm her again. If he got so far as to force the love potion on her, she could count on Bog to administer the antidote.

The muscle in her back snapped tight again. Count on Bog to help her. Save her. How had she ended up in a situation where she needed other people to bail her out? Running away from everything had been an attempt to assert control over her crumbling life. She had lined everyone up in a neat row of jars and presided over them, their fates in her hands.

But, really, she had not been in control of anything since the day she met Roland and he had charmed his way past her defenses and wrapped a chain around her heart, trapping her. She was still trapped. Cut off from the people she had thought were her family. Shoved into a miniature world, shoved into a life that was supposed to be hers. And she hadn't been able to do anything to stop it.

Standing on the edge of the field, crying because she couldn't find the way back home. Wedged into a world where she didn't belong. Ripped out of it and forced into a space that no longer fit.

Marianne struck a series of blows so sudden and forceful that Bog could only say, “Whoa!” while he hurried to block and dodge. She charged. He defended. She blocked. He dodged. The foundation of his fighting style appeared to be strictly defensive. Marianne redoubled her attack, trying to make him fight back. Take her seriously. She was a threat. She was dangerous.

She backed him up the steps to the throne. Bog's wings were rattling, a dry noise. The wrinkle brushed around her legs with the whisper of fresh flower petals. She wished it was the crackle of splintering wood. Shattering glass. Of wood crumpling metal armor. She was not soft. She was not a buttercup or any other flower. She was--

“Tough girl,” Bog leaned back so far to avoid her slashing sword that he could have won a limbo contest. It beat Marianne how someone who wore armor 24/7 could be that flexible. “I thought this was just practice!”

“What? The mighty Bog King afraid of a challenge?”

“Hardly. I just wonder if you can keep up!”

Marianne's reply was a sharp shout. She brought her sword down hard enough that had they been using real weapons sparks would have flown. She was wildly mixing one-handed fencing techniques with two-handed sword moves. And she was making it work. No rules. No points. No holding back. Everything that had been simmering inside her bubbled up and boiled over until her arms screamed and her throat was raw.

No matter how many blows struck true nothing could get rid of those blue eyes of a woman that was buried at the very foundation of Marianne's memories. Blue eyes that were so loving that Marianne hurt. She didn't want the shreds of memory. They were edged with broken teeth and they tore her skin when she fought them.

Bog fought back.

Really, actually fought back.

Marianne was grateful for that. It put a smile on her face, the fact that someone was taking her seriously. Acknowledging that she was not only capable, but dangerous. His lopsided smile showed her that he was enjoying this fight.

Somewhere in the exchange of blows Marianne's anger began to flow out of her, caught in the current of competition. She started to show off. She jumped over the staff that tried to sweep her feet out from under her. She added flourishes, she spun. Bog imitated her footwork and stance and she laughed at it.

It might have taken a complete collapse of her lungs to stop Marianne if the wooden sword had not struck the side of the throne instead of Bog, wrenching the wooden blade out of its hilt. Bog pressed forward to take advantage of the opening. Marianne took a leap back, her wings fizzing with the need to lift her in the air. The staff splintered when it hit the patch of floor Marianne had just vacated.

Gasping for breath, the two of them stared at each other.

“Tie?”

“Tie.”

Bog dropped onto his throne, flicking his wings out of the way. Marianne sat on the arm. The sword's hilt was still in her hand.

“Feel better?” Bog asked, giving his broken staff an absent examination.

“Emotionally? Kind of. Physically? I feel like I have made something not unlike a mistake.”

Bog grumbled something unintelligible that might have meant something like, “Same.”

They wheezed for awhile.

“I remembered something.”

“Hm?”

Marianne fought to make her dry throat swallow so she could go on. “I remembered something about here. I think. I think it was my--” Her throat closed up. She couldn't say it. She couldn't say 'mother'.

There was a soft rasp. Bog had placed his hand on the arm of the throne, next to where her own hand was resting. The sight of those long black claws was comforting. It was hard not to put her hand on top of his.

“Dawn's right.” The words sent a wave of nausea up her throat and she had to swallow hard to push it back but still let the words out. “I think I'm the princess.”

The scarf of memory was wrapped around her throat, tight enough to choke her.

“I'm sorry.” Bog said, in that gentle way of his that he was so reluctant to show. “I know it isn't what you wanted.”

He put her hand on hers after a few false starts, expecting her to draw back.

She moved her hand so she could grab his fingers and squeeze them hard. She kept squeezing as she slid off the arm of the throne and turned to face him, enjoying the novelty of looking down into his eyes. She smoothed her hand over the armor on the back of his hand, following the pattern with her thumb.

Bog looked terrified.

“You've been great,” She told him, bending over his hand. There was some new feeling that warmed her chest and she clung to it, ignoring the mass of other emotions seething inside her. While everything else that day had been weighing her down, this feeling buoyed her up. Made her feel light. It was a nice feeling.

Also terrifying.

She wasn't sure what it was. It was like jumping without knowing how far it was to the ground. It was thrilling and frightening, leaving her in a moment of weightlessness, neither falling nor flying. The ground would rise up sooner later to slam into her unprepared feet, but right now . . . the feeling filled her up, leaving almost no room for breath. It spilled out of her, she couldn't stop it. She didn't really try. She just looked into blue eyes that were still new to her and unfairly gorgeous.

Even as she did it Marianne knew it was something not unlike a mistake. That did absolutely nothing to stop her from bending over and placing a kiss on the back of Bog's shaking hand.

Chapter Text

Marianne was known in her family for giving in to impulse. 'Known' as in 'infamous' and 'notorious'. Her brothers had build up an extensive vocabulary about it over the years. Her mother usually just said something along the lines of: “Please next time think twice about punching a goat for nipping your brother's hand.”

In her own defense Marianne usually spotted the flaw in her plans about halfway through enacting them. Unfortunately momentum would have built up too strongly to stop at that point, but it was the split-second rethinking that counted. Another point of defense was that the outcome of her heedless actions were sometimes not bad at all. For instance, she gave a lot more compliments and hugs than she would have if she gave herself time to think.

But sometimes . . . sometimes there was really no defense for her idiocy.

She had run through the standard list of justifications at least twice that day already. It had been a long day. She was hungover. She had been zapped with a shrink ray. It had really been the absolute worst day of her life up to date and she very much hoped that no day after would come close to beating the record that had been set. Marianne had been having so many feelings and all of them were bad. When a good feeling flitted by she grabbed at it with both hands.

It was a mistake.

A horrible mistake.

Even considering her impulsive nature Marianne couldn't understand why she had done it. How she could have even brought herself to consider it. The warmth buoying up her heavy heart turned to a chill and her skin crawled with it. Her lips had brushed rough, dirty knuckles . . . too close to deadly black claws that could rip valleys into her skin . . . Her head was bent underneath that face . . . that face . . .

Marianne was afraid.

She was disgusted.

She'd kissed his hand.

That she was even touching . . . a goblin! A thing! Some sort of insect that scuttled around in the dark, in the dirt. The king of this whole, horrible kingdom tucked in a mucky little corner of her backyard like the beginning of rot. Everything it touched would decay with it . . . she was touching it . . . she had chosen to come close, wanted to. She couldn't think why.

Marianne's hand was the one shaking now. Shaking too hard to let go of his hand. Its hand. It wasn't a human hand. It wasn't a person's hand. She'd put herself at the mercy of this thing that could lash out at her like a frightened animal. The wings seized up under the wrinkle, urging her to fly away before it struck.

The hand twitched underneath Marianne's.

The tiny movement broke the tight wire of tension holding her still.

Marianne screamed.

She shoved Bog away and he smacked his head on the back of his throne.

The horror and disgust disappeared like the dark when someone snaps on a lamp. Bog ceased to be an inhuman terror and instead looked almost comically bewildered.

“You . . . you charmed me!” Marianne said. She was shaking all over. Her skin was crawling, like it had when Bog dolled himself up as a cicada to demonstrate how glamor worked, but a hundred thousand times worse.

Bog cradled his hand to his chest and looked aghast.

“If you didn't want me to--” Marianne stopped before her voice could crack. More feelings. She was just wallowing in feelings today, she'd like to take a break. Of course Bog wouldn't want her within ten yards of him. She was just a doctor's signature away from being officially certifiable. Being locked up would have been a relief. She couldn't do anything stupid in a nice comfy padded room.

“There are easier ways to let a girl down.” She said with forced cheerfulness, starting to pace up and down the dais. “My bad. Got my signals crossed. Is there a penalty for getting too familiar with the king of the goblins? All offenders tossed in the bog--?”

Bog's face remained a shocked blank. He didn't seem to be hearing a word Marianne was saying. She wished he would just flip a table or kick over a chair, anything but having him keep staring at her in the weird way. Regret and embarrassment circled back into anger.

“I mean . . . what the heck, Bog? I've had enough of people messing around in my head lately I don't need you going all creepy-crawly cicada on me, you dumb stump. Use your words. Say 'no'. Tell me I'm a crazy human that you can't wait to see the back of, just . . . say something!”

“I had no one to teach me glamor.”

Marianne stopped pacing. The hushed, tentative non sequitur paired with Bog's pale, blank face . . . it almost added up to a sort of air of . . . fear. “I'm . . . sorry?” She prompted, squinting at him uncertainly.

Bog made a valiant effort to look smaller. He was so low in his seat Marianne thought he might slip right off it. “I—the rules, the workings, I had to puzzle it out with no instruction. There was no one who had particular skill, just the instinctive use . . . My control is not always . . . perfect . . .”

“Not catching your drift, your creepy-crawly-ness.”

“You . . . startled me.”

“I startled you?”

Bog mustered up a scowl. He looked a little sulky. “You overstep, with your teasing.”

“Teasing?!”

“It was instinct! I wasn't charming you--”

“You can say that again!”

“Truly, I am sorry, but why would you do that?”

Bog had stood up and circled Marianne to descend a step or two so he didn't have to stoop so far to not look her in the eye. She barely kept herself from pinching his stupid, spiky chin and making him look at her. Hot and cold waves of embarrassment flushed her face and made her toes curl up inside her boots. Bog had been the one nice thing in the whole miserable day and she had gone and ruined it.

“Why shouldn't I?” Marianne folded her arms.

Bog fluttered his hand toward his face in a helpless little gesture. “Because . . . because look at me!”

“You've got pretty eyes.” Marianne muttered, knowing she sounded very sulky. She wondered if it was too soon to hiding a corner and cry again. She'd sworn off love, romance, the whole shebang, only to fall for the first set of sympathetic eyes to get stuck in the fly paper. Was this rebounding? She'd never broken off a relationship as dramatically as she had with Roland. Was she flirting now just to prove she didn't care?

Bog went very pink and confused in the face. “Stop—stop playing with me!”

“Look, just say you're not interested, thanks for asking, have a nice day.”

“I--” Bog dragged his hand down his face. He mumbled something that might have been a plea for the sweet release of death.

Bog and Marianne fidgeted in awkward silence for awhile.

“You could have just said you weren't interested.” Marianne muttered again.

“I don't understand you. Not the slightest bit.”

“It's your fault for being stupidly nice and having illegally attractive eyes and profile. I . . . I have no filter left. This day has worn me right down to a nub of manic, uninhibited chaos.”

“Very apt.”

“So lemme just go ahead and say that you have been an absolute rock for me in this insane, world-changing, life-altering day, and how could a girl not fall for that, a little bit?”

Bog hunched his shoulders and twiddled his fingers. He didn't seem to have an immediate response.

Marianne went on, figuring she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. “I like you. As a person. The rest—I don't know. Maybe I'm having so many emotions I'm getting them confused. And we're right in the middle of all this political drama and nobody needs my issues flung over everything any more than they already are. Besides, I got the message: you aren't interested. Understandable. Sorry to have troubled you. End of subject, shake hands and part as friends.”

Bog continued to fidget and looked like he was so awkward he was in pain. Marianne could relate to that. She'd run out of things to say that weren't lamer, less coherent repeats of everything she had said before. It didn't look like Bog would be chipping in any time soon either. It would have been a great time for something to burst in and break the tension with some urgent new subject of conversation. But fate wasn't smiling on either of them right then and the painful awkward gap in the conversation stretched on.

It had come to the point that Marianne was carefully considering the option of laying down on the floor and passing out for the rest of the night to avoid any further inconvenient feelings when, finally, a gaggle of goblins burst into the throne room. They were hooting and squawking in alarm. Bog and Marianne turned to them with great relief.

“The fairy army is at the bridge!” one of them said while the rest shouted variations on the same theme.

“Not the whole army.” Dawn flitted over the goblins, “it doesn't look bigger than a scouting force and most of them are elves.”

“Is Sunny back?” Marianne asked.

“No, I didn't see him.” Dawn landed, drooping. “No one has seen him.”

“So much for diplomacy,” Bog sighed, kicking away the broken practice stick and going to fetch his staff.

“Hold on, hold on!” Dawn flitted around in front of him, “No jumping to conclusions! It's small enough to just be an escort. That's not hostile, that's just royal.”

“Who's leading it?” Bog asked, curving out of the way of Dawn's earnest face.

Dawn twisted her fingers together. “. . . Roland.”

Bog growled.

“Where's a sword?” Marianne asked, “I need one that's not wooden and broken. Stout clubs are also acceptable.”

Dawn persisted. “Daddy doesn't know Roland is a two-timing toadstool! Not many people would want to go into the Dark Forest at night so if Roland volunteered there's really no reason why dad wouldn't let him. Diplomacy first, decapitation later, okay?”

“Fine.” Bog and Marianne said in unison.

“But if I see one pink sparkle--” Marianne said.

“If he's got the love potion--” Bog said.

“Then unless he immediately makes it clear he's returning it to you, Boggy, he's breaking your laws and you're justified to do whatever you see fit.” Dawn reassured him.

“How's the antidote coming?” Marianne asked when Griselda pattered by from a corner of the throne room that Marianne was fairly sure didn't have a door. She had a sudden fear that Griselda had been spying on them from the duel onward.

“Pah! Plum is still stalling! I'll wring it out of her, though, don't you worry. I hope my boy hasn't been being too rude to you this evening. He's shy.”

Marianne was then absolutely certain Griselda had been spying on them. It was the raspy whispered aside that confirmed it. It was just short of a nudge and a wink. Marianne bared her teeth in a strained smile. There really wasn't anything she could say without screaming.

Everything got busy at once and the walls were alive with goblins swarming through passages up above that Marianne hadn't been able to see earlier. She leaned on the throne and watched, feeling nervous. She still didn't know if the love potion was in play.

“Hey.”

Marianne started, surprised to find Bog at her elbow. She was sure he had just been across the room shouting at someone. But she hadn't been paying particular attention. She was too caught up in her worries and remains of embarrassment. “Yeah?”

Bog was looking less awkward. Probably because half his mind was on the kingly art of war and couldn't be devoted to being annoyed at manic fairy antics. “If he has the potion he won't get a chance to use it. Okay?”

It was a relief to see that she hadn't annoyed Bog past caring about her. “You're a rock star, Bog. I mean, thanks. I still want a sword, though.”

“I can accommodate that request. As well, I . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I . . . I never said I wasn't interested.”

Bog did a graceful little hop into the air and whizzed off to shout at the goblins some more, leaving Marianne behind to try and pick her jaw up off the floor while she blushed red right to the new tips of her ears.

Chapter Text

“Are you gonna sit on your throne when they come in?”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you're not, I am.”

“Stay off my throne.”

“If I don't sit on the throne I need to figure out a good impressive pose to take when they come in. And it's hard to stand out in here.” She gestured at the high ceiling and skylight.

“Why do you feel the need to pose?”

“Why do you?”

Bog looked startled. “I'm not—I'm not posing!”

“Don't be embarrassed. You're very good at it.”

“I would like you to stop, please.”

“I don't know if I can.”

The fairies and elves were about to enter, bringing with them her lying scumbag of an ex and the king of the fairies who might possibly be her birth father. It would take duct-tape to keep Marianne still and quiet with all that strolling towards her over the horizon.

“Is the sword acceptable?” Bog asked, giving up.

“Yes. Good. Great. Amazing. You really know the way to a girl's heart: well-balanced blades with a lethal edge.” She slid it a few inches out of its sheath and then back in. “It always surprises me that it doesn't sound like it does in the movies. I can't help it. It's embedded in the foundations of my being.”

“I think I understood the first two sentences.”

“Those were probably the only relevant ones anyway.”

“Tough girl, could I make a request?”

“Sure, sure, what's up?”

“Take a moment and breathe.”

Marianne didn't want to breathe. If she let herself take a full breath she would have enough air to fuel a scream. Or maybe she would bolt. Intellectually she knew she wouldn't get anywhere fast but her primal instincts were telling her it was the only sane option.

“This might be an awkward request considering our last conversation, but . . . could you hold my hand?”

Bog looked panicked and bewildered.

“Okay, sorry, that was weird. Weird request. Made things weird. Sorry.”

The goblins were thronging around the throne, coalescing into a semi-organized mob. No defined formations but it looked as if they wouldn't step on each other when a brawl broke out. Almost everyone's eyes were fixed on the throne room entrance, waiting for the fairies to be escorted in.

A smaller goblin wandered onto the steps looking lost. Bog kicked it sharply. “Look after the gaps in the north side!” he snapped as it flew into the crowd. Marianne thought she might have seen it bounce when it hit the floor. She definitely saw it throw a vague salute and scurry away, enthusiastic now that it had purpose. It's life appeared, to Marianne, to be rough but beautifully straightforward.

“Here.” Bog snapped again, this time at Marianne. She looked at his offered hand, confused. Bog made an impatient beckoning motion. She realized he was letting her hold his hand. She took it. He pulled away. Embarrassment at misunderstanding Bog's gesture barely got a chance to heat up Marianne's cheeks before Bog said, “No, your other hand. On my right, or you won't be able to draw your sword.”

“Oh.” Marianne moved to his other side and cautiously raised her hand again. He took it and linked her arm with his like they were acting out parts in some sort of period drama. It did look more official, Marianne supposed. Less like she was clinging to him. “Thanks.”

Bog twitched his shoulders restlessly. “A good enough pose, then?”

“Arm in arm with the Bog King at the back of his goblin hoard? Not bad at all. If only there were discordant bass rifts building up in the background, that'd complete it.”

“I'll make a note for the next occasion.”

“Oh. I forgot that you actually know what electric guitars are. There’s a story there I’d love to hear.”

“I can imagine what you’d say about it. Half-imagine, that is, unless I replace every third sentence if gibberish.”

Marianne made a face at him. She made another face at Dawn who was smirking at Marianne and Bog’s exchange. Marianne didn’t mind the smirk too much. It was better than the tight worried look Dawn had had since they got the announcement of the fairies’ imminent arrival.

Shuffling and growling gave away the moment of arrival before a goblin could scurry up with official word. Bog banged his staff on the floor and the growling was cut off. “Let them in.” he ordered. Marianne thought her grip on Bog’s arm might crack it open like a lobster. She moved to let go and grip the hilt of her sword instead.

“Don’t ruin the pose.” Bog muttered.

Marianne found it very difficult not to giggle and could not suppress a smile at all.

The smile dropped off again with the entrance of a troop of elves. Aside from stalks of grass carried like banners or pendents none of them were visibly armed, which made her frown. A quick glance at Dawn showed Marianne that the princess was frowning too.

The fairies that marched in behind the elves were armed and covered from head to toe in armor like Roland’s, aside from being silver and presence of helmets. Naturally Roland would never have worn a helmet and denied onlookers a chance of beholding his glorious visage.

At the back of the procession sleek yellow curls bounced into view. It was Roland, of course, head and shoulders above the rest of the fairies because he was . . .

Marianne forgot to be nervous, taking an exaggerated double-take. “Is that . . .” Marianne looked up at Bog, but realized he was the wrong person to ask. She turned to Dawn, “Is that—the squirrel steed, um, usual?”

“Chipper? Yes, why?”

“Chipper?!” Marianne’s voice shot up into a squeak. Roland was riding a squirrel of all things and the squirrel’s name was Chipper. Maybe it made sense at the fairy scale of things but Marianne had not expected anything of the sort and it was all the more ridiculous for the unexpectedness. “I can’t believe Roland is a Disney princess.”

“I wish you came with a translation key,” Bog muttered, but the jibe was half-hearted. He was focusing all his murderous intent on Roland.

Equally unexpected, and ten times as impressive in Marianne’s opinion, was the lizard that strolled in behind Disney princess Roland and his woodland creature companion. Maybe it was the saddle, maybe it was the disney vibe, but the squirrel looked as harmless as a squirrel of usual size—or scale. The lizard did not. It was huge, magnificent, and terrifying, probably the relative size of a dragon if dragons where a real thing. It certainly had the teeth for the part.

Sunny and another elf were riding on the lizard it like it was no big thing. The goblins murmured in an appreciative tone at the sight of them. Looked like catching a ride on a lizard, unlike a squirrel, was not usual. Sunny hadn’t just had it stashed somewhere beforehand either, considering Dawn’s open-mouthed astonishment at the sight of her best friend’s sweet ride.

“Okay, the kid gets point for style,” Marianne muttered, tearing her eyes away to locate something far more terrifying than any mere gigantic lizard. The innocuous pink bottle must have been somewhere nearby or Roland wouldn’t have made his entrance. Marianne squinted at the lizard, scanning for horrible pink sparkles and silently begging for Sunny to have the love potion and not Roland. The antidote wasn’t ready, the love potion was still a potent threat.

Finally Marianne spotted the bottle. Roland had it.

Marianne unsheathed her sword.

Bog didn’t stop her.

“Your bog kingness,” Roland unsheathed his smile, sharp as Marianne’s blade, and aimed it at Bog. He almost immediately dropped it. His eyes went huge, taking in the sight of Marianne standing arm-in-arm with the king of the Dark Forest. In fact, Roland gaped most unbecomingly, mouth hanging wordlessly open. The sight brought a pleased smirk to Marianne’s face.

Sadly, Roland recovered, coughing to give himself a moment to collect himself then slapping the smile back on his face and adding some extra shine to make up for the lapse.

Bog dragged his staff into a better fighting stance, sending chipped fragments of the floor flying. He was grinding his teeth again, too, quite audibly. Oh, what a mood, Marianne thought, eyes still on the potion, what an absolute mood the Bog King was. She adjusted the grip on her sword and reluctantly unhooked her arm from Bog’s so she could take a step forward.

Dawn flitted in front of Bog and Marianne and shook her head. Both of them gestured pointedly at Roland and the love potion. Dawn shook her head again and said softly. “Diplomacy first, remember?”

“I can diplomatically return his headless carcass to the fields once I reclaim the potion.” Bog hissed, but following Dawn’s lead and keeping his voice low.

Dawn shoved her hand out, fingers spread, “Five minutes! Please, five minutes!”

“Then I can send him to the choir invisible?” Marianne asked, feeling that she was going to strain something from keeping her voice soft and level when she wanted to scream a battle cry and go for Roland’s throat.

“The what?” Bog asked in a resigned way.

“Shuffle him off the mortal coil, send him underground to push up daisies—oh it’s so hard when nobody gets your references. Look, I wanna--” Marianne drew her thumb across her throat in a slicing motion.

“Er,” Dawn hesitated, “We can . . . discuss that in five minutes? Pretty please?”

“Fine.” Bog snapped, not immune Dawn’s big blue puppy dog eyes.

“Fine.” Marianne said, admitting to herself she wasn’t immune to the eyes either. She lowered her sword to her side but did not sheathe it.

Bog swung his staff around to point at Roland and raised his voice back up to a boom. “Speak.”

“I’ve come for the princesses-esses--,” Roland coughed again, “I’ve come for the princesses.”

“Princesses?” Bog articulated the word with deliberate clarity. “We’ve only been graced by the visit of one princess. One princess who has not declared herself ready to leave. Your highness?” Bog raised an eyebrow at Dawn.

“I’m afraid our business here is not yet complete,” Dawn said, pink in the face but admirably haughty. “I believe I sent word to inform father of this. Has he not received my official royal message?”

Marianne surmised from the twitch of Roland’s eye that tampering with royal mail was a big no-no. Twitch or no, Roland’s smile was rock-solid now and smug with indulgence. “Your highness,” Roland said with all the condescension that could be crammed into two words, “I did run into a goblin carrying a letter but I was unsure of its intentions, wandering around in the fairy kingdom with a message purportedly from yourself. I couldn’t let it stir up trouble with false information.”

“You twit!” Dawn squeaked.

“Yeah!” Sunny said from the back of the lizard, “He stole the message! He didn’t even know what it was until he took it! And we were barely outside the border of the forest there was no reason to pick on the messenger!”

Dawn beamed at Sunny for a moment before putting on a stern face and turning back to Roland. “This is a serious accusation, Roland. It’s up to the king to decide if an official communication is authentic or not. You should have done everything you could to aid in the delivery and accelerate the process of authentication.”

“The elf doesn’t understand these things, finding a goblin on our side of the border in the current circumstances—”

“The current circumstances do not permit any disregard for official proceedings. You admitted yourself you took the message without cause, independent of Sunny’s accusations.”

“Now, now, darlin’—“

“However, this matter is not our priority at the moment. In addition to the message I see you are in possession of property of the Dark Forest: the love potion. Did you come by it in the same manner as you did the message?”

Marianne wanted to applaud. Dawn could really play the dignified royal princess to perfection if she cared to. Not only that, she gave Bog the perfect cue to step back into the conversation.

“The matter of how he obtained the love potion should be discussed after he hands it over, yes?” Bog raised an eyebrow at Dawn. Dawn nodded emphatically.

There was a strained quality to Roland’s smile now. “Not at all—ah, that is, neither were obtained in any way except--”

“He stole it from us!” Sunny piped up, “Kinda. The imp grabbed it from us and Roland grabbed it from the imp. It was Pare and I who got it back.”

“Really?” Dawn asked, delighted.

“Yeah, well, we were lucky,” Sunny rubbed the back of his neck, looking pleased and sheepish under the focus of Dawn’s sparkling delight.

“I don’t care how it was obtained,” Bog said, “not at this very moment anyway. I just want it returned. Now.”

“I feel the same,” Roland said with a poor imitation of sympathy, “I simply want to have the princesses safely returned and escort them home, as per the king’s request.”

“The princess said no.” Marianne snapped.

Dawn nodded, “Until daddy—father—sends a representative to take my place it’s my responsibility to look after the citizens of the fields that have been afflicted by the love potion.”

“And here I am!” Roland flourished his hand. “Present and representing!”

“In possession of stolen goods,” Bog snarled, pointing at the love potion sparkling from Roland’s side-saddle. “Hand it over, representative.”

Roland looked hurt. “Now, I’ve been very polite, considering you kidnapped our princesses--”

“Who’s kidnapped?” Dawn demanded.

“Who’s a princess?” Marianne snapped.

“Oh, Marianne, darlin’, let me handle this and I’ll explain it all after. I’ve got such a surprise for you, now, shhh.”

“Did he just shush me? He just shushed me. Bog, he just shushed me,”

“He did. The fool.”

“Tsk,” Roland shook his head, just enough to make his hair artfully bounce. “You’ve both been ensnared by goblin magic. Never fear, I’ll retrieve you safely soon enough. Your bogness, this is what you want?” Roland held up the bottle of love potion.

Everyone in the room tensed. Marianne’s eyes were fastened to the stopper on the bottle. One flick and it would be off and the glitter would spread unchecked. Bog was gnashing his teeth severely enough to make a dentist cry and was just short of frothing at the mouth. Somehow he still spared the breath to tell Marianne, “He’s too far away to use it.”

“I will gladly trade this troublesome bottle for the princesses—ah, for the two ladies you have in your possession. Let them go and it’s all yours.” He swished the potion around inside the bottle.

The elves had been watching all of this with fascination, swiveling back and forth to follow the conversation, their grass stalk banners fluttering back and forth with them. Most goblins were lurking around Roland’s dangling feet or climbing the soft rotted walls to find a better vantage point to watch or, perhaps, pounce. The few fairies that accompanied Roland just looked uncomfortable. All of them drew back sharply when Roland started gently swirling the potion around. In the breath of quiet the lovesick prisoners made themselves heard again. Roland winked at Marianne. “Don’t worry, buttercup, I’ve got this handled.”

“Is that a threat?” Marianne muttered through gritted teeth.

“A simple exchange,” Roland continued.

“If I needed to be exchanged I would have arranged it myself,” Dawn huffed, “Bog doesn’t need to bargain for his own property!”

“I’m pretty sure it’s been five minutes,” Marianne said, softly enough for only Dawn and Bog to hear. Dawn responded with a ‘yikes!’ expression. Bog sank a little further into his defensive crouch, ready to spring, wings vibrating. The goblins picked up on the silent cue and tension spread across the room like the calm before a storm. The elves seemed to sense something too because they were surreptitiously edging their way to stand near Sunny’s lizard.

“Objections?” Bog asked Dawn.

“Why do I feel like you’re not really asking?” Dawn replied, looking to be on the cusp of accepting Roland’s death as inevitable. Poor kid, Marianne thought. She was standing against both sides of the fight, the only one who actually wanted things to end peacefully even though it was plain to see peace was never an option.

“BK, BK!” a goblin scurried from the entrance, bouncing off Chipper in its rush, “Berries in the fork mores west!” Bog stopped crouching and fell into a slump. He mouthed something that might have been, ‘why me?’. Everyone else forgot to be nervous, foreheads wrinkled as they muttered the goblin’s message, trying to find sense in it, if there was any to find.

“Is that a code?” Marianne asked, unintentionally relaxing. Even her wings, which technically didn’t exist at the moment, drooped from the disappearing tension.

“It’s an aggravation.” he replied.

To the benefit of Bog’s rising blood pressure a second goblin popped up, shouting, “More fairies, sire! More fairies in the dark forest!”

A fanfare cut through the ensuing uproar and more armored fairies flitted in through the entrance followed by a . . . a . . . it was one of those chairs, the sort of thing you saw in movies about decadent ancient times where royalty was schlepped around in them. Paladins. Placards. Something. Anyway one was being flown into the castle. Marianne scrubbed her eyes with her knuckles. She was so tired. When would this ever end? How many more fairies would cram themselves into the castle before it burst at the seams and crumbled into dust?

The chair was set down and the passenger, a round man in armor, was up and out of the chair the second it touched the ground, stumbling a little before regaining their balance. “Sweetheart!” he called, “You’re alright!”

“Daddy?!” Dawn’s feet came off the floor in surprise.

Marianne’s chest did a weird squeezing thing and her stomach clenched itself into knots. Dawn’s dad. The fairy king. The lost princess’s father. Somehow Marianne’s free hand found Bog’s and squeezed it as hard as her chest was squeezing her heart.

“You’re really alright?” the king had waded through elves and goblins to dash up to his daughter and grab her hands.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Dawn said with a touch of sulkiness.

The king didn’t seem to notice. He was a heavy, gray-haired man wearing armor in the same style as Roland’s only rounder to accommodate a wider waistline. Marianne wondered if it was rude to wonder if he couldn’t fly under his own power because he was too heavy. The few fairies she’d seen were all skinny, even the armored ones. She herself was skinnier as well as tiny, she remembered. The harmless thought made her chest constrict again.

“My little girl!” the fairy king caught Dawn in a crushing hug.

“Daddy! I’m a representative.”

“They didn’t hurt you? Do anything to you?” the fairy king demanded.

“Wow.” Marianne said, “Rude.”

“Lacking courtesy, indeed.” Bog agreed. Both he and Marianne were watching Roland out of the corner of their eye. Roland looked displeased at the sudden change in circumstances.

“Why should I be courteous to the one who kidnapped my daughter!” the fairy king pushed Dawn behind him and spread out his wings to shield her.

Bog snorted. “I couldn’t get rid of her if I tried, Dagda. If anyone besides her is to be blamed then blame the love potion that caused her afflicted people to have need of her help.”

“They have other prisoners, sire,” Roland explained helpfully, having followed in the king’s wake to keep himself in the conversation.

Bog snorted. “They are held for their protection while they’re under sway of the potion! I take back what I said about blaming the potion. Blame the instigator, your polished up little would-be hero, Ronald!”

“Roland.” Marianne said without thinking. Bog’s answering smirk told her he knew perfectly well what Roland’s name was. It was extremely difficult not step on Bog’s performance by bursting into laughter. That problem faded when Marianne saw that the fairy king was looking at her with a puzzled expression, completely distracted from whatever defense he had been about to put forth for Roland. The horrible scarf of truth that had slipped from her eyes and pulled tight on her throat was flickering in the wind, attracting the king’s attention. She could see the words forming on his lips: “Have we met?”

“Not that I remember.” Marianne said promptly. Nearly simultaneously, actually. It was absolutely true though. She had no memory of this worried looking man who had a similar expression to Dawn when he was troubled. It was easy to compare, with Dawn peeking around his wing looking very troubled indeed.

“Enough!” with a sweeping gesture Bog redirected everyone’s attention to himself, though he had to let Marianne’s hand go to do so, “I’ve mushrooms in love with fairies and brownies in love with frogs, my kingdom is in chaos, and the source of it all is right here,” he jabbed a claw at Roland, “and here,” he jabbed at Sunny. “Unless we want fields and forest both in utter chaos you will return the potion to me now.”

“Now, now,” Roland waved his hand, “it’s a complicated situation, you can’t just go around pointing fingers and spouting unsubstantiated accusations. The best thing to do would be get the princesses home and sort this all out peacefully.”

“Very true, Roland.” the fairy king nodded. Then frowned.” Princesses?”

“Ah,” Roland beamed, resorting to smiles when caught off script, “There’s some—I have some—there’s this interesting thing—Marianne, darlin’, I’d hoped to break this to you gently--”

“Stop.” Marianne ordered. “Stop!”

“Now, buttercup--”

Marianne knocked his hand aside with the hilt of her sword when he reached out to her. The fairy king was staring at her with a deep frown. “Marianne?” he almost whispered.

“Yes—no! Not--!” Marianne stammered.

“Leave her alone!” Bog growled, “She’s one of mine and not yours to question, Dagda.”

“But, who is she--?”

“It’s done, it’s done!” Griselda pattered into the room, Sugar Plum’s cage in hand, “She says the antidote is ready!”

“Antidote?” Roland looked disconcerted.

“You said her name was Marianne?” the fairy king persisted.

“Dad, leave her alone!” Dawn tugged on his wing, “That’s something for later.”

“Hello, hello!” Plum said within her cage, “Isn’t this a fine audience. Oh, and my, don’t you look nice in your wrinkle, dear! Those are difficult to make, I’ll have you know, but a teensy bit easier for changelings since they’re already a little out of place. Still! I hope you appreciate—“

“The antidote! Hand it over!” Bog cut in.

“Changeling?” the fairy king’s face had a look that Marianne was horribly sure meant that some sort of understanding was forming.

“Antidote?” Roland repeated, slightly louder.

“Yes, antidote! Now hand it over you sparkly trickster or I’ll force it out of you!” Griselda shook the cage as if perhaps the antidote would fall out.

“Heeey!” Plum drifted dizzily around inside her blue globe, “Give a girl a minute, can’t you? Rushing magic is no joke.”

Bog snatched up the cage by its stick. “Antidote,” he growled, “now.”

“Okay, fine! It’s . . . a riddle!” Plum threw her arms wide like she was cheering.

“A—a riddle—but what was all the stuff for?!”

“Oh, you know, in prison it’s kind of hard to shop!”

“A riddle?” Roland was starting to relax and Marianne felt a chill.

“Spit it out, then,” Marianne hissed.

“Hold your squirrels, princess, don’t rush me!”

Marianne was very much in a rush and everything was going far too slow, except the thoughts whirling behind the fairy king’s hopeful eyes and the words that might slip off Roland’s silver tongue any moment. Truth or not she wasn’t ready to handle it here and now. She grabbed the stick herself and shook it twice as hard as Griselda had. “Now! Please!”

“Fine, fine, fine! The antidote is the one thing more powerful than the potion! Geez! You people have no sense of presentation.”

There was silence except a cricket chirping. Marianne saw a goblin nudge the cricket to make it shut up.

“That’s—that’s it?” Bog asked, “All that and you dish out some poor excuse for a riddle? Argh! It doesn’t even matter,” Bog grabbed Plum’s cage and tossed it back to Griselda who caught it and gave it another vicious shake, “Once I have the potion this will be contained and we can pry the answers out of you at our leisure.”

“Stronger than the potion?” Marianne pondered, flexing her arm, “Does that mean I can just punch the love out of it?”

Bog made a noise that might have been a strangled snort of amusement. “Powerful, she said powerful.”

“Now, now,” Roland called their full attention back to himself, “As I was saying, your majesty, on my recent trip I made the most extraordinary discovery—”

Marianne’s sword and Bog’s staff swung toward Roland. “Shut up,” Marianne said, feeling like she was clutching uselessly the crumbling shingles at the edge of a roof, fighting against the fall she knew was coming no matter what she did.

“Dad, don’t listen to him!” Dawn tugged hard on her father’s arm, “I can tell you what’s going on, just listen!”

“I just want to tell everyone how I fell in love with a beautiful girl and that we are the perfect match.” Roland smiled a smile so earnest and loving that Marianne felt physically repulsed. He was trying to charm her. He had been trying to charm everyone since he had arrived, she realized, but the goblins seemed to be resistant to his strain of manipulation. Even Griselda, who was ready to see romance wherever it was or could be, had her generous mouth twisted in displeasure.

The fairy king did not seem to have the same resistance, or at least not as much, because he was listening to Roland intently.

But Marianne’s assumptions were disproved when the fairy king looked coolly at Roland and said, “Oh? And not too long ago you were madly in love with Dawn.”

“Hearts change,” Roland said solemnly, “People change, we grow, we realize what was once our greatest desire no longer suits, we discover true love and everything before that is just washed away. No, my darlin’, I wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

“Talk about true love after you put down the potion,” Marianne scoffed with more bravado than she felt. Her sword was trembling, fatigue was bearing down on her and she wasn’t sure how long she could fight it.

“Aw, my l’il princess—”

“Don’t call me that!”

Marianne screamed and raised her sword, but Roland was quicker, better rested, and parried her blade, knocking it out of her hand and grabbing her shoulder. The metal joints of his armored hand pinch the hellebore and started to the shred the petals. A patch of it tore off when Marianne twisted herself free and dived for her sword. The dive went a little too well and she couldn’t stop it, the floor rising up to meet her face.

There was a clang, the ‘oof’ of someone getting the wind knocked out of them, and the floor stopped with a jerk. Bog had caught her around the waist. She was hauled up and pressed against Bog’s carapace while he looked down at her with a searching, worried look that she hated much less than the fairy king’s. “Are you alright?”

“That is a loaded question, your crunchiness.” Marianne resisted closing her eyes, hugging Bog, and pretending everything else in the world didn’t exist. It was an incredibly appealing thought. “Do you want the physical or mental workup?”

“Ah, you’re fine.”

The wrinkle was ruined. Marianne could tell by the uncomfortable feeling of Bog’s arm crumpling the wings crammed under the wrinkle. Their sudden weight was what had accelerated her dive. She shoved Bog away—not too hard—and stripped the wrinkle off while looking around for Roland. He was being helped up off the floor by two fairies in silver armor, out of play for the moment, to Marianne’s relief. It gave her a little breathing room.

The fairy king gasped.

Oh. Right. Marianne looked down at the ruined wrinkle. Dawn had said her mother had purple wings. Purple wings like the ones that had recently attached themselves to Marianne’s back.

“Marianne?” the king asked softly.

“Dad, don’t!” Dawn said, “it’s a complicated situation, you can’t just—”

The fairy king ignored her. “Marianne? My—my little girl?”

Marianne’s heart crumpled up like tissue paper. The king looked so painfully hopeful that she didn’t want to just slap that hope away. That was what was crumpling her heart, forcing it into the wrong shape, this expectation for her to be someone she didn’t want to be.

Pink exploded in her face.

Marianne coughed, but it was only instinct. Aside from the smell of primroses and a light tickling sensation on her face the splash of love potion was barely a physical presence. A wave of euphoria swept through her, washing away all her fatigue and worries, or glossing over them anyway, with a manic excitement.

“Buttercup,” a familiar and cajoling drawl came from directly in front of her and she felt a thrill of . . . something. The pink sparkles still dazzled her and she couldn’t even make out shapes in the glitter. “Hey, my darlin’ buttercup,”

The voice, yes, just in front of her, maybe even reaching out toward her. She turned in the direction of the sweet cajoling, listened for the sound of metal armor, tickled and thrilled all over in sparkling pink waves and the golden ribbons that the voice looped around her crumpled tissue paper heart.

But the strangling truth that had choked her and wrapped around her heart wouldn’t let the ribbons tighten or the pink stick to her. The terrible strangling truth helped her now, told her how much she loathed that voice, and gave her the chance to draw back her arm and send her fist toward the sticky sweet sound of Roland’s voice.

Jarring pain to her knuckles let her know she had struck true.

With the same hand she grabbed at the air to her side, the side Bog had stood on when they posed together in front of the throne.

Her hand met his.

The pink faded, a warm, somewhat sweaty hand covering most of her face. From the explosion of pink to Bog’s hand shielding her face there had been no more than a few seconds.

“Tough girl?” Bog asked hesitantly.

“Roland is a skunk.” She said, figuring it was the easiest why to declare where her feelings stood. She swore she heard the castle groan, pushed outward by the collective relieved sigh from the room. “Where is he?”

“Being sat on by Brutus,” Bog replied.

“Oh, I want to see that.”

“There’s still no antidote!”

“Calm your carapace, prickles, I’m not brain-dead yet. Soon, maybe, but not yet. Ugh, I know I’m not in love, my hand hurts too much for me to be in love. I think I got his jaw, did I get his jaw?”

“You did.” Bog assured her.

“Nice. I guess . . . I need a blindfold?”

“Give me a second, lovey,” Griselda said, rustling about nearby, “I’ll make something out of this wrinkle. Though I wouldn’t mind if you took a little peek at my boy.”

“Mother.” Unexpectedly Bog sounded much more aghast than embarrassed.

Something whirred inside Marianne’s tired brain. It was a dumb little whir and chunk of fatigued cogs and gears on the edge of busting right out of her head. The truth had saved her from looking in Roland’s eyes. It had stopped her from giving into his golden charm. Yes, she was getting a very dumb idea.

Impulsively Marianne shoved his hand aside and looked straight up and into Bog’s eyes.

He physically recoiled, averting his eyes.

“Too late, baby-blues.” Marianne stood on tip-toe to get closer to his face.

Bog looked at her out of the very corner of his eye, “You—you don’t want to . . .?”

“Sing love songs? Kiss you?”

“K-kiss--?!” Bog choked. Marianne felt tickling in her stomach and a thrill up her spine, seeing the mighty Bog King blush and stutter.

Marianne shook her head. “Nope.”

“That’s . . . good. Good.”

“At least,” Marianne smirked, “No more than before.”