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Once upon a time, there is a Beauty, and there is a Beast. 

This is the tale we know. 

A curse was cast. 

A flower – a rose, perhaps a primrose, fresh with dew and jealously guarded – is plucked. 

A sacrifice is sworn, a vow made. 

A girl walks into darkness, head held high and burning bright. 

Once upon a time, there is a Beauty, and there is a Beast. 

Can one not be both?

Her sister’s fingers, sweetly tracing the petals, softly touching the stems and giving gentle little tugs until the blossom is pulled free from the iron of the earth, the darkness of the damp soil.

Sunny tells Marianne that Dawn’s smile had been guileless as they explored the garden, pure as her namesake as she pressed the petals to the peaches and cream of her cheek. 

Then the roar rent the air. 

And the vines sprang to life. 

And her sister no longer smiled but screamed.

Her sister’s fair throat is scratched with thorns, and she trembles like a leaf. Hers is a light all too easily swallowed by darkness, consumed bit by bit, gnawed on with sharp teeth, as sharp as the fangs the scaly-backed cockroach that calls itself Master of this darkness sports. 

Whispers weave through the mossy, moist air from his minions, slimy and scaly servants that twist and twine in and out of the shadows as they watched them hungrily.  Sweet meat, fresh flesh, it has been so long—

She is Dawn, her Dawn, as sweet and true as her namesake, and the darkness will eat her alive—

Marianne’s words fall from her lips with the weight of stones sinking into a stream, heavy with certainty. “Take me instead.” 

The Sister screams again, the Friend goes pale with shock, and the Father blusters than begs, but the Beast holds out his hand to the Beauty to accept, claws curving and fierce, palm open and offered. “The deal shall be struck.”

Plant the seed, sweep the soil over, and watch if a weed or a beauty blooms. See what chaos comes from this choice.

Marianne takes his hand, claws pricking into her pulse, scaly spots scratching at her skin, and in the midst of signing her life away, her freedom and her hopes and her adventures yet to come, she has the wild thought that this is the first time a man – not a man not a man not a man – a male has offered her their hand as an equal. 

Blood wells in a perfect bead from where his claws caught her, pristine as a drop of dew upon a lush rose. Marianne bows her head. Blood drawn, deal struck, fate sealed. 

Sometimes the only adventure is sacrifice. At least she is now a heroine. 

At least her sister is safe. 

Dawn sobs as Sunny holds her tight, her father bows his gray head heavily, and there’s a cold clink of a gauntlet being pressed to the hilt of a sword.  

Marianne’s head snaps up, her glare a blade that pins Roland to the wall, daring him to try and render her sacrifice senseless. 

Marianne knows – has it seared into her heart, etched across the flesh by his own cold metal hands – how to keep a pledge, even if others don’t. 

She leaves with him, takes the first steps away from Family and Freedom and into Darkness, her spine tingling with a thrill of something that she hopes is fear rather than helplessness. 

Marianne will be sacrificed, but she will not be helpless. 

I can take care of myself.

The vines curl away as they enter under the arch, stepping onto his land. They follow them down the halls, and then curl in front of the chamber he silently shows her to –not the dungeon, then– twisting to form thorny words. 

Welcome Beauty, banish fear, you are Queen and Mistress here. 

He walks away before she can ask him what it means. Once she lays on a bed that resembles a rose with its lush, perfumed blankets, Marianne can’t help but wonder if it means exactly what it says. 

A welcome. A plea. A promise. 

You are Queen and Mistress here. 

She has never been Mistress of anything before, not even her own fate. 

Can one even be a Queen without freedom?

Can one be a Queen with a curse? 

The Castle is dark. 

But it is not cold. And it is certainly not dead. 

Everything grows here, walls hanging with vines, the stones lush with moss. It is more Forest than Castle, a particularly flourishing growth of the woods than something built by human hands, but she finds no fault in it. 

So easy to lose yourself here. 

Can you find yourself…?

“This is my domain,” he tells her, his wings shifting, his claws restless as he wrings his hands. Good God, he is anxious. Her refusal to talk most likely does not help – normally Marianne’s fury rivals that of the storms, but sorrow has sharpened this one into silence. 

His eyes lift to her burning gaze with a flash of blue, and he inclines his head. “But it is also your home.”

My home is my family. You’re my foe.

He hastily amends himself at the sight of her expression, and how strange it is, to watch something as fearsome as he stumble. “Or–it can be. I never trust anybody—”

We have that in common, wretch.  

“—especially those that come beyond my land. But the Forest is…different. It holds things close to its heart. It does not part with them willingly. You saw so with the primrose. But once it accepts you…you shall never be turned away.” 

Acceptance. It weighs on her mind like one of those books Dawn placed upon her head to help her with her poise. 

They had always tumbled off through her own fault. 

Will she stumble here as well?

She does, after days on end exploring the lay of the Forest, adventuring down the vast staircase. Her foot slips fast and she falls—

But his hand catches hers. 

His claws circle her wrist to lift her high, hold her tight. 

They let go of her as soon as she stands, scratching soft over her pulse as they retreat, and Bog ducks his scaly head and clears his throat. 

Bog. 

He calls himself The Bog King, the words carrying the weight of mossy stone and wood.

He has told her – asked her – to call him whatever she wants. “You are Mistress here.” 

She once thought to call him foe, but the harsh lines of the word have faded like ink brushed with water, something softening it. 

She goes with Bog. He appears to tolerate it. 

She wonders what he would call her if the studied formality that tangles his tongue and catches at his fangs where not there to stop him.

She wants him to call her so many things.

There are wolves beyond the Forest, and they pace in front of the vines that shape the gates, gnarled and thorny and gorgeous. 

Marianne’s hands curl around them, and they do not tremble as she holds one out to them, even as her heart thuds hard against her breastbone. Perhaps a bruise will blossom upon her skin, imperfection made visible, for once easily explained away. 

A young female approaches, her coat dark with a redwood gloss, her eyes gleaming gold as the moon. Her nose nudges at Marianne’s hand, her tongue passing over the pulse fluttering in her wrist. 

A thrill sparks along her spine, and Marianne could cry from wonder. 

“Communing with your kin?” 

Marianne looks up, and he is watching her, eyes narrowed but not displeased. He was done so before, out on that sprawling balcony of the west wing, surveying his realm, but…now he stands before her, so close she could cross to him. 

He is constantly moving, even when he has rooted himself still – his scales shifting and his wings twitching and his claws curling likes vines and furling like ferns. Quiet movements, like the rustle of leaves. 

She finds her voice, pushes it past her tongue. “My kin?” 

And then he smiles, and how can it be so soft when he still has those fangs? “Wild things. They have your eyes.” 

Eyes…

Her eyes have always marked her, betraying her wild soul – large and luminous, the feelings and fury she ought not to have flashing clearly across their golden brown depths, a strange luster to their hue, sunlight striking amber. Lovely, everyone agrees, but different.   

His eyes are blue, a blue of an endless summer sky, a blue born of something that pierces her soul. 

His limbs are like trees, his skin like bark, his wings ragged but flashing rainbows, and his eyes do not flash but burn, steady and bright and blue and—

Beautiful. 

So beautiful, her B—this Beast.  

God in heaven, what is this madness?

Marianne ducks her head, face hot. “I…I don’t think I could be a wolf. They have–they need freedom.” 

I wanted freedom and adventure all my life, but now I don’t even know if I was brave enough to take it. 

I blamed Roland for taking my faith. Did I even have it to begin with?

But Bog’s eyes go withdrawn, the thorny line of his jaw tightening. “Of course. Forgive me, my lady, I did not seek to remind you of that loss.” 

He does not stalk away in anger, but his strides are long and claw up the ground as though he’s trying to run away, and Marianne stares after him, confused, until—

I did not seek to remind you of that loss.

Freedom. 

Freedom lost.

She is in his Forest Forever and Forever without Freedom nor Family nor—

When his servants find her, the thorns have ravaged her hands from where she has grasped the gates, the wolves still watching. 

He cares for her hands, the linen passing clean and soft between his claws. 

“I can take care of myself,” she states, cheeks burning but eyes fierce. 

“As I know, my lady,” he returns, a soft growl coloring his voice, and Marianne cannot help the bloom of vindication that blossoms in her breast. He can be gentle, but he doesn’t have the patience of a saint. “You’re a tough one. But I did you a disservice, bringing your mind to such thoughts.” 

Such facts.

Facts and Freedom and Family and Forever, Never Again Ever—

His wings twitch as he tenses at her expression, worry in his eyes, but Marianne surprises both of them. “Do you have family here?” 

Bog stares, then lowers his eyes, the blue of them catching the glow of the fireplace before them, kneeling before her on bended knee as he bandages her, like it is the truth, like she is the Mistress here—

“My mother. Though I don’t know if she’s here or not. She comes and goes when she pleases, and she gets…impatient with me.” The claws tuck the linen carefully, gently. “Says I’m determined to make myself miserable, being alone in the darkness. Says that I curse myself.” 

Marianne passes her fingers over his handiwork and shrugs a shoulder at him. “Nothing wrong with darkness.” 

Bog’s smiles, and it is the saddest thing she has ever seen. “It isn’t the darkness she objects to.” 

Firelight flickers in the silence that follows that, then—

Marianne waves her bandaged hand between them. “I wouldn’t call you alone now.”

And if she didn’t know better, she could have sworn she heard a small chorus of gasps at that from the shadows, but it is the way that Bog’s soul-blue eyes look at her that makes her flush far more than firelight ever could. 

It plays over his features, sharp and prickly and grim—

Beast. 

She hasn’t forgotten what he is. 

Beautiful. 

That hasn’t stopped her from seeing what else he is too. 

 “There is no curse on me. That is the curse.”

Marianne slowly lowers her book, furrowing her brow at him. “What do you mean?” 

Bog’s brow is furrowed as well, and he looks down, away from her. “Ah did nae…Ah would nae have ye…needlessly fret yerself over a burden tha’ does nae exist.” He shrugs, the gesture at once impatient and tense and miserable. “A Beauty to save a Beast.” His voice deepens, guttural with a growl, with disgust. Not at her. “A fair maiden to break the curse of hideousness. The girl steps back and a glass shatters, or a primrose falls, or amber cracks, or a potion spills, and the creature—”

He stops, his claws flexing on his scepter and his jaw tensing. When he speaks, it is controlled. “I was born this way. I shall die this way. As myself and alone. I do not want you to feel as if you failed when I do not change into a Prince from some fable.” 

And as she stares at him with wide eyes, all Marianne can think of is how she had been so delighted over Roland looking just like a Prince from one of her storybooks. 

What a fool she had been. 

Bog continues on, his voice soft. “Your company would have broken any curse by now.” 

Her heart throbs. 

Damn him.  

She stands, her spine tingling, her skirts dragging over the moss as she crosses to him, the flounce of it stained green. “If you had wanted fair, you could have kept Dawn. Bog…I knew there was no curse. Everything here is…alive. Real.” She strokes the moss upon the wall, verdant and velvety. “I can feel it. I don’t know how, but I can. I would have been able to tell if a spell was hiding something from me. You’ve given me nothing but the truth, and I’m so glad.” 

She takes his claws, looks into those blue eyes, fierce and frank and fervent. “Bog, I’m glad this is you. I’ve gotten to know you, and it’s been real. That…that doesn’t happen with me.”

“Do you think Roland loves me, as much as I love him?”

She looks down, breath short, and for some reason the sight of his claws and her fingers entwined doesn’t make it come any easier. “I don’t…I don’t question anything with you.” 

Bog stares, bright blue fastened upon her as though she is a strange bud he has never seen, blossoming before his eyes. 

Marianne bites her lip and looks away. “But…I haven’t been real with you. If there’s anyone who has a curse here, it’s me. I should have told you from the start.” 

Blue eyes look at her, no judgement, just concern. “What do you mean?” 

She breathes deep, trying to measure out the meaning of each word in her mind. “All my life…I’ve been different. I…there’s something about me that just doesn’t fit into the world that Dawn and Father belong to. I need to be where life is, fresh life, fields and flowers. A ballroom feels like a prison to me, all that cold marble. It doesn’t grow.”

“I’ve tried, I have, but…it’s not enough. It’s like…” she shrugs, almost angrily, still holding onto his hands. “Like vines, clinging close to my bones. Cords wrapping around my heart, itching at it. I know something is there that separates me from them, but…I can’t pluck it away. Or I just don’t know how.”

She realizes her fingers are curling tight at him, and lets his hand go, folding her hands into the dark rose of her skirts. “That’s my curse. Knowing that I’m different. Knowing that it would be so much easier for them if I wasn’t, knowing that people don’t want me to be—”

“You?”

Marianne looks up, and Bog’s eyes are so tender, so understanding, that she is weak, swaying to him infinitesimally, wanting to lean into the crook of his neck, the curve of his chest, feel those scales shift beneath her. 

Instead, she smiles whisper soft. “Yes…”

Then she looks down. “And I don’t know how to change it.” 

The room is quiet with unspoken emotion and moss, and Marianne is just about to apologize for the deluge of her heart when Bog speaks. “Perhaps…your curse is not that you do not know how to change. Perhaps it is that you truly believe you ought to. Different is not another word for wrong.”

And God, she could-would-should fall into his arms for that, but— 

Marianne sighs, carding a hand through her hair. “It’s not…there’s more to it than that. There were rumors – Father never confirmed them– that an Enchantress ran afoul with our family. That she laid a spell upon his firstborn, that their true form would be lost to them as long as they were not truly loved.” She snorts. “I think there was even a prophecy. Not till the shattered petal is mended, not till real love melts away the chains that bind and true beauty unfolds.” She shakes her head in disgust. “Petals don’t even shatter.”

“I wouldn’t give it any credence, but…we used to be well off. Father was one of the wealthiest merchants of the ports. I was engaged, so ready to believe I would be getting a happy ending right out of one of my books. He was so good looking, I thought no spell could withstand him. But…then the curse, my curse, made things happen. Father’s ships were destroyed. We couldn’t pay them off without selling everything. And…my intended showed that his only love had been for my riches.” She ducks her head down. “And other girls. I suppose I’m not so cursed, to be saved from a marriage to him.”    

Bog takes this in relatively well, hearing that his prisoner –companion–is some Fae cursed thing, his claws flexing on his scepter. When he speaks, he sounds…bewildered. “He sought others when he had you?”

Marianne’s cheeks burn, and she can’t help but hug herself, a feeble attempt to keep the pulse of pain from the scars Roland left at bay. “I wasn’t enough.” Her voice threatens to crack, and she fights to keep it light. “Besides, who wants a cursed wife?”

“If the wife was you—”

His wings flare in agitation and his face flushes with mortification and Marianne’s heart—

Oh God, it stutters. 

Bog tries to continue on, his voice now high and tight, stumbling and stuttering. “Ah mean–it’s just…you’re well rid of a fool who would break such a pledge.” He raises his eyes to her, and there is a nervous sort of frankness to them. “Especially to you. Such an idiot does not merit the right to break your heart, make you feel any kind of less.” 

He did anyway.

And Marianne had joyfully given him the power to do so, so ready to believe his attention meant she belonged, that she was wanted in some small way, that her curse hadn’t taken that from her…

Bog continues on, his voice soft as his approach, coming closer to her, claws extending out hesitantly. “And as a King who has seen his share of magic…I don’t see any curse upon you. A strange magic, but no curse.” 

Marianne willingly takes his hand, and his thumb strokes over the pale ridges of her knuckles, so soft…

His voice is almost another caress. “Perhaps even some bewitchment.”

Marianne looks up into his eyes, blue and bright and steady and sincere and soul-piercing, giving himself to her with his gaze and—

Oh. 

She doesn’t know if it is scars or the much maligned cords of ivy wrapping around it that makes her heart ache with such sweet pain, but—

She cannot – will not – let go of his hand. 

Beast. 

Beauty. 

Bewitchment.

Beloved.   

Even disregarding her curse, she is in trouble.

She tries to keep calm, keep cool and collected, pacing back and forth over the moss. She can take care of herself. She has dealt with a curse, her family’s ruin, the shattering of her heart, and the sacrifice of her freedom. 

She has had chains bind her, cords across her heart, but never break her. 

Letting love back into her life, however, her heart still so raw…

It need not happen. Her heartbreak made her stronger. She’s good at forging armor and putting up walls. 

She has always been able to take care of herself. 

She can.  

And then he gives her an armory, an armory, because she just happened to mention she had always wanted to learn fencing and he wanted to do something for her and—

He looks at her, so hopeful, and she looks at him—

And swearing her life away to a Scaly Backed Beast was dangerous to begin with.

But falling in love again—

—Roland had shattered her heart, and she had taken care of herself and hadn’t minded the scars from picking up the pieces, but now he could get hurt, she always stumbles and sends things flying, and if he is stabbed by such a shard, it will be all her doing, her curse—

—is a pain that she can’t even contemplate. 

He couldn’t care for her. Not like that. So many reasons spring to mind – they’re too different, but the even harsher truth is that she’s not enough. 

Roland showed her that. 

Unlovable, unwanted, too different—

Cursed —

Even before the ships were ruined, even before his true character stood revealed—

“I don’t want to play you, Roland. I want you to know who you are marrying…what you are marrying. I understand if the spell is too much, if…if I’m too much—”

“Darling Buttercup, who else could end your little curse but I? Who else could be the hero who pays the price of having a bewitched bride?” 

His real words tucked just behind those gleaming teeth: 

For who could ever learn to love a Beauty who is a Beast?

Roland always made her into a Beauty and nothing more….

And he had never loved her.  

She has found herself in the Forest - dark and wild, bitter and broken, strong and selfless. She’s beginning to love this discovery, this her that was so hidden, the skin she inhabits no longer itching with desperately maintained propriety. 

She is sure she hasn’t imagined the affection and admiration in Bog’s eyes. 

But love? 

He has had his heart broken, though he refuses to speak of how. Marianne lets him have that secret, content to view it as another cord of ivy twisting between them, linking them. She knows all about having your heart broken, the misery only love can beget…

She could not…she will not invite that pain back into his life. 

She has sacrificed before. She can do it again. 

Bog smiles at her as he offers her the most stunning sword she’s ever seen, and she smiles back at him as she takes it, her heart cracking against its cords all over again. 

Then news comes from the Border: the fair one from before has fallen into the Forest once more, starved and struggling, searching for her sister.

Dawn, so delicate and determined in her desire to find Marianne once more—

Her baby sister, so beloved and so brave—

Bog speaks before even the thought of begging him occurs to her. “Go to her. Take her home, keep her safe.” 

He stops, his scales shaking, and the words are torn from his throat, ragged and raw. “Stay with her. I release you from your vow. You are no more a prisoner of mine.” He looks up at her, and his eyes are fierce with feeling. “You have not been that for a while. Gods damn me for keeping up such a pretense.” His voice darkens with desperation. “She needs you, Marianne.” 

It is the first time he uses her name, and her heart aches, crying out from beneath the cords.

I need you too—!

He plucks a primrose and presses it into her palm. “We keep these guarded for a reason – outsiders need something from our soil to breach the Forest. Either a guide, or this. As long as you carry the primrose, the vines will let you pass – you can enter the Forest freely, fearing no attack. It will let you come back to the Castle if you require aid. And…” 

He stops, looks down, his throat working. “And…once she is safe…you can keep it. You are free to visit whenever you like.” 

His body is a silent scream, tortured and taut. For who would willingly return to a Beast?

He so believes that his fate is to be forsaken, in darkness and alone. 

Dawn is her whole world. This is and always will be true. 

But Marianne knows how to keep a pledge, even if others don’t.

Her voice is just as dark, just as fierce with promise. “You might release me, but I’ve made my choice, almighty Bog King. As soon as Dawn is strong enough, I’m coming back.” 

I wouldn’t call you alone then. I won’t start now. 

When she leaves him, his claws fall from her hand like a petal from a flower, and the blue of his eyes burn with misery. 

He does not believe her. 

She sets her jaw, her spine prickling fiercely, and presses the primrose into her palm as she makes a pledge of her own to prove him wrong. 

Dawn smiles up at her, sweet and guileless if sleepy after several days of rest. “I was worried over nothing, wasn’t I?” 

Marianne strokes the soft golden fluff of her curls. “You still tried to save me. I won’t forget that, Dawn.” 

The bed is soft, luxurious with silks and satins. After telling them her tale, showing them the primrose, Father tells her theirs – Sunny exiled himself to sea for penance, and returned with a ship from the supposed wreckage, and now Father’s purse is heavy again. 

Now doctors can attend Dawn, and she is returning to her bloom of health—

Now Father holds Sunny in esteem, the young sailor their savior—

Now Roland looks at her with born again hunger—

Marianne sets her jaw. Damn that gleaming green, it dulls compared to blue. 

Dawn laughs, soft as a kitten’s breath, then looks up at her with a surprising strength to the gentle blue. “You can take care of yourself. So can I. You need to go back to him, Marianne.” Her voice trembles, not from weakness, but from emotion. “You need to love him and let him love you. Be as brave as I know you are.” 

Dawn may not be one for darkness, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t strong,strong in conviction. She knows her heart, and she knows love, and she knows her sister. 

And now Marianne knows herself. 

The night before she goes back, she dreams she has wings, and she takes off, streaking over kingdoms and castles, mountains and meadows, forests and fields—

Her heart is unbound, and her world is a riot of color, a kaleidoscope of verdant, velvet green, iridescent flashes of rainbows, a blue that puts the sky to shame, and a strange, shimmering violet that is all hers. 

They fly together, claws curling around her, fangs catching so sweetly at her lips—

Marianne wakes with her heart racing but her lips smiling, her spine prickling and her eyes wet. 

She had been flying to the Forest. 

She’s going home. 

But now a Monster comes into the story, the most dangerous kind – the one who believes himself to be a Hero.  

“It’s obvious that coexisting with that creature has warped Marianne’s mind. Dare I say it, perhaps even worsened her curse—” 

Her father’s voice, so desperate, so anxious to save her from a threat that does not even exist. “What do you require, Roland?”

“An army.” The cold clink of a gauntlet, pressing upon a sword. “I shall go into the domain of the Beast. Make it so he will never more befoul any more beauties like Marianne. Of course, people shall talk. Her honor may be in question.”

“Oh good heavens—” 

“Never fear, my lord. I shall be the one to wed her, keep her reputation safe. Of course, we shall have to discuss the dowry—”

Marianne is about to run into the room and ravage his face with her claws, maim-murder-massacre that bastard, that fiend, that monster—

But a sharp tug on the sleeve of her gown stops her. 

She turns around and finds Dawn and a…creature – rumpled red hair and a crown of stones and bones across her brow, the broken horns doing nothing to make her determined gaze anything less than impressive and good God, did one of Bog’s servants follow her from the Forest? – looking at her with an intensity that is equal parts fierceness and desperation. 

“If you have any kind of love for my son,” the little creature says, low enough to keep Roland or Father from hearing and investigating the shadows were they are, “we need to leave now.” 

Her name is Griselda, and Marianne cannot stop looking at her and marveling over the fact that this is Bog’s mother. 

“Takes after his father,” Griselda offers, seeing Marianne give her yet another glance. She clutches her candle close, the black flame of it shivering like moonlight on water. “Hold on tight, girlies. Shadow-smoke traveling is iffy at best, never mind if the Candle has some humans to guide instead of Fae Folk. And I ain’t as young as I used to be.”  

Dawn keeps giving little peeps, and Marianne knows that her sister is in the odd place between terror and thrilling excitement, but Marianne’s heart is wild with only concern. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long, I promised I would be heading back—”

“Darling-dear, anyone who heard you make that pledge knew it was heart-born,” Griselda soothes, patting the hand that clutches her bony shoulder with a comfort that is truly saintly, given that Marianne’s fingers have hooked into her flesh like claws. “And that was everyone. The Forest has ears everywhere.” 

“The Forest?” Dawn yells, still under the impression that moving so fast between light and darkness requires her to use every inch of her lungs. 

Marianne closes her eyes, seeing it so clear. “It’s what we–they call his Castle.” 

Griselda snorts, neatly sidestepping what looks like a star as they cross the sky. “The Forest is his Castle and the Castle is his Forest. They’re one and the same, and no human hand made it so. It grew that way, blossoms. Fae blood can’t handle human held things.”

Something prickles across Marianne’s back at that, itches down her spine. A ballroom feels like a prison to me, all that cold marble—

“Will we get there in time?” Dawn asks, and the fact that she makes a scream convey tender concern can only be explained by her being Dawn. “Will he be alright, Queen Mother? Has he hurt himself, pining after Marianne—?” 

Marianne whips her head around, glaring. “He hasn’t been pining after me, Dawn!” 

“Oh, hasn’t he?” Griselda says darkly, then shakes her head with a sigh. “My boy is as tough as root, but I would rather we got there before that golden oaf did. He can’t do too much damage on his own, but an army might, and not all of us are as strong as Bog.” She ducks under a fast-flying cloud, holding her flame higher. “My boy has scars, but none from being bested in a battle. Then again, the worst ones are always on the heart.” 

 She then turns to Marianne, arching a brow. “Though I will say I started to see some healing happen.” 

Marianne never thought she would be thankful for getting a face full of cloud, but it proves a welcome distraction. 

She is still sputtering when she hears Dawn’s question. “Is Marianne healing him? Is she breaking his curse?” 

Griselda scowls, maternal ferocity kindling. “Listen missy, the only curse my boy is under is the belief that he is too hideous to love.” 

“Bog isn’t hideous.” It leaves her mouth before she even realizes the words had scrawled across her mind, and Marianne flushes hot with humiliation. 

But the smile Griselda gives her is equal parts pleased and full of pain. “No, darling-dear, he’s not. But after what happened with that first girl, none of us can convince him otherwise.” 

Marianne almost stumbles over a star. “First girl?!”

Dawn looks worried, but Griselda merely sighs. “He didn’t tell you, did he? My boy keeps things close to his heart now, and all because of that mess. You know, he once had a heart as open and warm as a Summer sky—”

“I knew he had his heart broken.” Marianne tries to wrangle her skirt, but it’s a difficult feat to manage what with needing to keep Griselda’s flame in her line of sight. “I just…I didn’t ask how.”

I didn’t want him to live through the pain of explaining it. 

“Course you didn’t, sweet-meat.” Griselda nods at her so approvingly Marianne wonders if there’s a chance that the tiny crone-creature might have heard her thoughts instead. “It’s a sore song, and hard to sing. But the melody goes that once upon a time, another girl fell into the Forest. You and your sister were not the first to do so.” 

Dawn is wide eyed, for once silent with wonder, and Marianne can’t help it, even if it shatters the trust Bog has in her respecting his privacy– she leans forward, ready to hear the story of the fateful day.  

“She was human, like you, and a sweet young thing. Tender flesh.” Dawn gulps, but Griselda merely continues on. “But had her head in the clouds, you know? Believed the world to be a story.” Her voice gets cold. “And she decided to make my boy a part of hers, for better or worse. Believed him to be under a curse, you see? Fancied herself some kind of some heroine whose kiss could turn him into one of your princes.” She snorts, the flame guttering enough to make Dawn and Marianne clutch each other worriedly. “Never mind that my boy’s a King.”

Marianne shakes her head, confused, trying to catch up. “But…Bog isn’t cursed. He told me so.” 

There is no curse on me. That is the curse. 

Griselda exhales gustily. “Exactly. And the girl found that out after she had kissed him. She opened her eyes, still in his arms, and saw him as Goblin as ever. Screamed bloody murder. Called him a monster. Said he played her. Called him a hideous beast.” Griselda’s eyes are grim. “Broke his heart. For her, she had just been living out a story. For him, the love was real. Real enough to hurt him deep.” 

She looks up at the two girls, tiny eyes fierce and full of feeling. “Nothing is wrong with my boy. The world just kept trying to put him in the role of a Monster, and now he thinks he has to play the part.” 

Dawn looks like she’s about to melt from sympathetic sorrow, and Marianne has to close her eyes. Oh God, Bog…

Wait. 

“Bog is a Goblin?”

Griselda quirks a brow at her. “That’s all you got from that?” 

Marianne shakes her head, trying to make sense of it, trying to twist her tongue around it, wrangle some words. “No, but–Bog told me he was the Bog King, but never that he was Goblin. Does that mean—?”

“He rules over them, yes.” The creature-crone – Goblin, she’s a Goblin – looks faintly amused. “Why do you think he has the Forest?” 

The Forest, the Castle that was grown up from the ground— 

Bog a Goblin, Fae blood, no wonder he was not thrown off by her being cursed—

She’s been living with the Fae all this while, and she has never felt so comfortable in her life—

“There’s something about me that just doesn’t fit into the world that Dawn and Father belong to…”

Her spine is prickling, itching, thorns scratching and buds unfolding beneath her skin in two secret spots—

Griselda is speaking again, and Marianne forces herself to pay attention. “Goblins like their darkness, sure, but Boggy’s has entered his heart between all the cracks that girl left. Now he’s locked every chance at happiness away in the dungeon.”

Then she stops, and turns to look at Marianne. “Until you came. Now I see the skies in his eyes again.” 

And Marianne can only imagine curling her hands around those words, the weight of them warm and precious like stones in the sun, because her very breath has been robbed from her. 

The Griselda tenses and looks down. “We’re here. Step lightly, girlies.” 

And then shadows swim and swarm around them, curl around limbs and twist into hair and fog the eyes, but Marianne and Dawn follow the best they can—

The three of them stumble out upon the grass, and Griselda blows out the candle before looking up, only to give a violent curse. Dawn leaps back, sensibilities so tender, but Marianne would be inclined to echo Griselda given the sight that presents itself to her had it not been for her blood turning to icy sludge. 

The army Roland had brought are caught in the trees, the boughs twisted around their suits of armor as if they reached down and plucked these impudent intruders from the path like weeds, crushing the metal merciless and tight. The rest have fled, but—

The vines that make the gate have been hacked apart, great chunks torn and thrown asunder. But it is the corpses of the wolves and the crimson that spatters snow and soil that has her heartsick. The young female is there, her coat still gleaming a burnished redwood even when matted with blood, those gorgeous golden-moon eyes dulled now. 

Roland…

Roland had always been so proud of what his weapon could wrought.    

Marianne sways under the force of her fury. She will honor the fallen and sink her teeth into his throat, the bastard, the fiend, murderer—

Griselda glares up at the trees. “It doesn’t do to wage a war with goblins. The Forest protects its own.” She then looks to the gate, confusion in her beady eyes. “But why did the vines let him cross…?” 

“The primrose.” Marianne’s voice is a rasp of horror. “He heard me talk about it. He must have taken it, used it to cross.” And when he did, he must have slashed the vines from the inside–vines whose only purpose was to protect, meekly parting for the primrose and him, he needn’t have savaged them–making way for—

“Four sets of footprints.” Dawn moves behind her, pale in the night but the fine line of her jaw set, determined. Her pale blue gown is stained pink at the hem. “I think he took the triplets from the tavern, you know how slavishly they follow him.”

“Cowards,” Marianne spits out. “I’ll see each and every one of their heads on a stick.”

Dawn looks at her with wide eyes, but Griselda only chuckles. “Small wonder he fell for you so fast.” Her laughter fades, and the look she gives Marianne is the command of a once Queen. “Now go save him, sweetheart. I’m gonna go rally our own troops.” 

The triplets are easy prey, even more so after she managed to liberate a few things from her armory. Marianne would enjoy a vicious satisfaction in trouncing them so thoroughly and bloodily if it hadn’t been for how voices float down the hall, from where she left Bog all those nights ago. 

Marianne crosses down the hall, quiet as a cat, holding up her torn skirt in one hand and her sword in the other, trying not to pant, concentrates on blinking away the blood dripping into her eye – not hers – as she readies her heart as words become more distinct. 

“—concerned father and all that. We had already been searching the woods to find where Dawn had run off too, but…when we found them…” Roland pauses, and how could she not have known how false he was, imbibing each word with such studied weighty sorrow, such carefully hesitant heartbreak.What is he playing at?

“What happened to them?” 

His voice is a quiet snarl, a guttural growl, and Marianne hasn’t realized how much she has missed it. Oh God, Bog, don’t believe him, no matter what he does, don’t let him play you—

Roland continues on, and God, but it horrifies her how sincere he sounds. “Marianne…she was there, but…I don’t know if it’s different for a…creature like you, but she…sometimes, when our skin is bared to the snow—”

“Ah know what bludy happens!” 

A clattering sound, like a panicked step back. “R-right, yes, you do. I…” another hesitant step, now forwards. “I need you to know…I wouldn’t have come here if it hadn’t been for her. As…as a last request.” 

Roland’s voice stops to let that sink in, playing his part to the hilt. His voice is quiet, consoling. “She wasn’t in pain.” 

Rage the likes of which Marianne had never known swims up her spine. Kill him.

Roland, the bastard, keeps talking, smooth voice aping at sincerity so well it is sickening. “I can…tell she meant something to you—”

“And she means nothing to you.” 

A pause, and then a sputter. “Excuse me—?!”

“Ye expect me ta believe tha’ with her dyin’ breath, Marianne instructed ye ta come ta my domain, spread stupidity an’ slaughter, threaten my people, an’ desecrate these grounds with your presence?” There’s a hard thunk, like a scepter hitting the ground. Does Bog have his weapon with him? “This Forest was her home.”

“This vile Forest was her prison,” Roland sneers, and any false comfort is out of his voice, leaving something ugly and hard exposed. “She wept with relief to be back home, away from all of those fiends. Especially you. You revolted her. Her last nights were spent screaming, caught in nightmares about you—”

“No.”

“I was there to…comfort her, of course. Thank goodness she was able to have that bit of sweetness in her life before she went.” Roland chuckles. “I like to think I’m not too vain, but…well, seeing you, I’m glad she had that to banish memories of your face. Good Lord, but my Buttercup stayed passionate till the end—”

Marianne’s hands tremble as she knots her skirt up, her very lips shaking. Make me into your whore even after you call me dead, will you?  

“—as her intended, I admit it was both a pleasure and a blessing. In the days to come, I shall treasure that memory.” 

There’s a pause, and Marianne is about to make her move, slice out Roland’s lying tongue—

“Her intended…? Gods. You’re him.”

“…What?” Roland sounds truly bewildered. 

“You’re the one. The one who played her. You lied to her. You broke her heart. Marianne—”

Roland’s voice is getting truly angry, the wrath of a man who finds his secrets exposed. “I don’t know what she told you, but—”

“—Marianne would have never sent you.” And now Bog is snarling, full of righteous fury. “How dare ye profane her? The woman ye betrayed? Have ye not wronged her enough in life? You have to spread lies about her in death?”

“Now hold on—!” 

“YE HAD HER LOVE, AND YE SOUGHT OTHERS!” 

“Shut up!” Roland’s yell is petulance edged with something horrifying, and Marianne’s grips her sword, knuckles clenching so tight the skin is beginning to split—

And then Roland laughs, and it is the most horrifying sound she has heard tonight. “My God. Oh, that’s just precious. What were you thinking, a Beast like you falling for a Beauty like Marianne?” 

Marianne almost drops her sword. 

“…Ah don’t believe ye. Ye lied to her, and now ye’re lyin’ ta me. Marianne would have never sent ye.” 

Roland’s voice has never been smugger, crueler. “Believe what you want, creature, but I know Marianne. Hell, I was engaged to her. And I’m telling you that she made me swear to her that I would come back and bleed this horror dry, slit every throat in this land.” There’s the soft slide of a sword being drawn. “She gave me the primrose to destroy you. You thought you had her affection, Beast? You hoped for her love? She played you.”

“No!” 

Marianne kicks the door open so hard it shatters, and she doesn’t care what a mess she’s made, doesn’t care about anything then the storm brewing under skin, snapping along her spine. She brandishes her sword, her snarl as fierce as any wild thing. “You faithless murdering bastard, you have never, ever known me.”

There’s Roland, his sword stained scarlet, and Bog, who is as dark and scaly backed as she remembers and—

“Marianne,” he breathes. 

—and the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. 

Roland gapes, then turns to her, edges his sword to his side as if that can hide the horror of what he has done. “Buttercup, how did you—”

“How dare you,” she spits, holding her sword straight on, advancing on him, and any of Roland’s handsomeness flees as he turns pale as chalk. “How dare you twist my father’s mind with fear? How dare you try and paint me as one willing to endure your touch? How dare you paint me as false? I swear, murder will look a mercy when I am done with you, you swine.” 

Roland is backing away from her, horror in his eyes, his sword forgotten by his side as he retreats under the hellfire of her gaze. “God, I was right after all,” he whispers sickly. “He did warp your mind. My Buttercup, my Beauty, my Marianne, this isn’t you—”

“This is more me than I have ever been,” Marianne snarls, kicking a chair out of the way, baring her teeth at him. “I just believed that I had to change that. And I am not your anything.”

“You were a Beauty, Marianne, and because of that Beast now you’re—”

Her sword swings out, and her voice is a growl that could rival Bog’s. “Who’s the Beast?” 

Me. 

And you’re my kill. 

She lunges, aims for his throat—

Roland howls in horror, leaping back into the wall, and the vines move, snake around him, twist tight to hold him still for her blade—

And she is caught by a scaly arm. “Marianne, no!” 

She snarls, thrashes in his arms. “I can take care of myself!” 

And then blue is staring into amber, so beautiful, so human, so full of feeling and fear. Fear of her or fear for her? 

“A Beast doesn’t need to shed blood.” Bog’s claws scratch down her skin, he clutches her so desperately. His eyes burn so blue with it too. “Don’t let him make you into a monster.” 

Different is not another word for wrong.

Beast is not another word for Monster. 

Roland has taken so much from her –her trust and her innocence and her right to believe that the world is kind and that love doesn’t hurt – but she will not let him take her morality. 

She will not become a Monster like him.

Oh God, she was so close to staining her soul so—

Her sword dropping to the floor with a clatter and she sags in his arms, trembling against his scales. “Oh God, Bog, I—” 

“Ye’re alrigh’,” her Beast murmurs, carding claws through her hair, his arms not holding her with restraint but in comfort. “Ye’re alrigh’, Tough Girl…”

Tough Girl. An endearment that praises her strength while buttercups could be ripped to shreds. 

Marianne holds him tight, pressing her head against his heart. Oh God, I adore him.

There’s a scrapping sound, a mutter of disgust. “C’mon…”

Marianne whirls around, takes the dagger she had strapped to her leg and throws it at Roland, pinning his arm to the wall in the act of reaching for his fallen sword. He yelps. 

Her command is that of a Queen. “Hold him tight.” 

The vines oblige her, and Roland yelps again. “Buttercup, please—”

“And gag him.” 

If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought the vines move gleefully. 

Once she is satisfied he is suitably muzzled, she turns back to Bog to find him looking between her and the dagger with bewildered awe. 

She blushes, shrugs a shoulder. “I stopped at the armory.” 

He nods, eyes still wide. “So Ah see.” 

The thrill and horror of everything is dulling down, no longer making her heart race so. Instead, it aches as she looks at him, drinks him in. His Forest, his people, everyone in danger because of her. “Bog, I’m…I’m so sorry, I didn’t know he would—”

His eyes blink, and then his gaze softens. “Marianne—”

She takes his hand, presses it to her breast, almost wild with the hope that he can feel the ache of her sincerity. “Bog, believe me, I would never play you—”

“Ah know.” Claws leave her heart to cradle the nape of her neck, tilt her head back so that amber can meet blue, bright and sweet and serious. 

His voice is the softest confession. “Ah trust ye, Marianne.”

I never trust anybody—

And instead of an ache, her once shattered heart seems to glow with warmth, with wonder.

With love.

His claw moves to her face, the rough warmth of her palm cradling her cheek, and the same wonder makes the beauty of Bog’s eyes even brighter, a Summer sky all for her. “Ye came back…”

She smiles at him, so breathless with joy, so sweet in her certainty. I don’t question anything with you. “I told you…I made my choice, almighty Bog King.”

And now his heart stutters, and Marianne could cry from wonder as she feels it, as she holds him tight—

And then his palm is pressing her closer, his head bending to hers—

Marianne does her part to close the distance between them, standing on her toes and pressing her palms into the thorns of his jaw and tilting her face up to his, a rose reaching for the beloved warmth only his sweet darkness can give—

His breath is so warm on her lips, so soft, a Spring sigh of wind over primrose petals—

Then Bog roars, rearing back, his fierce face contorted in primal agony—

And Roland smiles as he steps back, her dagger dripping with dark blood, sliced vines trailing from him, he used her own weapon to cut himself free—

Bog falls to the floor, his scepter clattering away from him, his scaly back bathed in his blood, his wings jerking in spasms of misery, his spine, he struck him straight on his spine—

Bog crumples and Roland steps forward, holding the dagger high, his face hideous with his victorious grin, his green eyes gleaming—

Damn them. 

Marianne flies at him with a roar, her hands hooking into claws as they swipe, slice at his face—

Scratch  them.

Roland wails, clutching at the socket, blood gushing through his fingers and he drops the dagger, wheeling away from Bog before he falls, thrashing upon the floor—

Make him feel every inch of the misery he’s given—

She yanks him up by his golden locks, her wrath giving her a strength she’s never known, and drives his face into her knee, shattering his nose, and Roland bawls, two shining teeth skittering across the floor—

Make him as hideous as he is on the inside—

She throws him from her, his body hitting the wall with a splintering crunch, and the vines lash at him, thorny whips—

Roland whimpers as he scrambles away on all fours, blood dripping across his face as he retreats on his knees, seeking the balcony as refuge as she advances on him, the moonlight bathing her rage and his horror in silvery-brightness. 

He stands, and his back hits the balustrade of vines, and they part—

They part for the primrose—

Roland staggers back—

The Forest protects its own—

And falls with a scream.

It does not last long.  

In the silence that follows, a wolf howls. 

The Forest protects its own. Slaying their shared enemy, keeping her soul safe. 

More wolves join in, a song of wild things, but it is the ragged, rasping gasps of pain that drive a blade of ice through Marianne’s heart. Bog, oh God no—

She runs to him, tripping in her haste and horror, her feet slipping fast and skidding in blood that is pooling underneath him, no no NO—!

The vines have left the walls to curl around their King gently, pushing him up to her, to the balcony. She takes him in her arms, heedless of the way his scales scratch her skin, how her hands are stained as they try to staunch the flow of his blood. His face is so pale, his skin so cold. “Bog, please—!”

His eyes flutter open, the blue hazy. “Marianne…” 

She bites her lip so fiercely she tastes blood. “I’m here, Bog. I’m not leaving you.” I won’t let you die alone.  

Amazingly, a smile fights across his mouth. “Ye…ye came back…” 

She sobs as she tears at her skirt, pressing the bunched up fabric to his back, tears burning her eyes. “I made my choice. But I thought – I’m so sorry – this is all my fault – my curse—!” 

“It’s nae curse…ta see ye…o-one last time…”

There’s a patter of feet, and Marianne hears gasps from Bog’s servants, Dawn’s horrorstricken “Marianne!” and Griselda’s broken “My son…” and her heart rends even more—

But Bog is dying, dying in her arms, and she can’t let that happen, can’t let her curse take this happiness from her. 

Take him from her—

She strokes his sharp cheek, prickles catching at her palm. “Don’t say that,” she commands, her voice thick. “You made me Queen and Mistress here, didn’t you? I commanding you to not say that. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to take care of you, Bog.”

His eyes are slits of blue, his voice a tender rasp. “’Course ye will…Tough Girl…ye can…take care o’ yerself…”

Her fingers clutch him tight, a fist of agonized determination. “And you. Bog, I was so scared to open my heart again. I was so scared of getting hurt, of being myself. Being different. But you—” Marianne sobs. “That’s what you liked.”

His hand reaches up to her, claws threading through her hair, thumb passing gently over her lower lip, catching the blood there. His voice is weak, but his eyes, dim as they are, are filled with feeling, fathomless and fierce. “No. Tha’s what Ah love.”

The moonlight has faded, and the scent of rain is in the air, but Marianne knows that they are not the drops falling onto his face. Her voice is as shivery and wispy thin as a storm soaked moth. “You wanted me to be me. You loved me. You made me love who I am. Don’t leave me alone.” She presses her lips to his brow, his scales scratching softly against them, and tastes her tears, salty and bittersweet. “I love you, Bog.” 

His only response is a soft, rattling sigh, his eyes flickering closed, and his claws fall from her hair like a petal from a flower…

Behind her, his servants sniffle, clutch at each other, and Dawn gives a muffled sob.

Would that Marianne could give her sorrow the same song. 

Instead, trembles twining down her spine, she presses her head against his heart, holding him tight, her hands still on his back, her heart aching with the truth it holds. I love you, Bog. I love you, I love you, I love you—

Her hands, so warm against his spine, covering his wound—

I love you, my King, my dark darling—

The trembles now tendrils of heat, sunlight and moonlight weaving as one.

I love you, my beautiful Beast—

The sniffling and snuffling stops, gasps are given.

I love you like you loved me—

Dawn gasps. “Marianne…?” 

I love—

Bog arches, giving a sudden shuddering gasp of an inhale, and Marianne almost falls back—

And then she arches back as well, crying out, her spine snapping in a curve as power, raw and electric as lightning, crackles and blooms under her skin, fire pulsing and curling through her like vines, a strange and magical blossom opening within her—

Her hands, her hands are—glowing—?  

Her fingers, they’re lengthening—

Her ears twitch and tremble, like they’re—

And her back, oh God, her back—!

Marianne claws at the back of her bodice, fingers desperate to get to the itch that seems to be practically bursting out of her skin like buds. “Dawn, help me—!”

But her dress is tearing, ripping like a husk, cloth and binding falling away from her spine, back bared to the wind and the rain and the wild—

Her hands glow like moonlight and she takes Bog’s hand, holding him tight, and—

Bog—

It’s getting warm—

Bog, come back to me—

And the cords and chains that bind her loosen, melt—

Bog, I love you—

Bog’s eyes open, bright and blue and beautiful, and he sits up with a start, healed and whole, still holding her hand. “Marianne!”

And her heart breathes. 

And the buds beneath her skin do not itch but bloom.

Marianne arches and gasps with the force of it as violet, strange and shimmering, unfolds and fans out behind her, filling her vision with its radiance, the storm chased away from the sky as swiftly as if the dawn that comes were a spell cast to clear it.

Bog stares at her, his blood dried across his scales and his jaw gaping. “What…?”

But Marianne can’t care about herself, not when Bog is in front of her, alive, Bog beastly and beautiful and bewildered and once bleeding but now alive. “Bog, are you alright—?” 

“Ah’m…” Bog gulps, lean throat bobbing with the effort, still shocked eyes taking her in. “Ah’m fine. Are ye…Marianne…?” 

Oh God, did the blood loss disorient him? She reaches out to him, concerned. “Bog, it’s me.” 

Bog still looks at her as if she is a strange bud he has never seen, blossoming before his eyes, and Marianne’s heart aches at the look. Bog, you know me.

When he speaks, though, there no rejection, but pure confusion. “Then…why do you have wings?” 

…what? 

She looks behind her, at the tattered and torn open back of her bodice, and—

Countless shimmering, silken scales glimmer and glow up at her, iridescent and violet, edged with velvety black. She feels the weight of them, spreading from her spine like silken swaths, resplendent in their glory, and when—

When she staggers to her feet, Bog reaching out a concerned hand as he struggles to his as well, she concentrates and—

They flex, fan out behind her, catching the morning light in a mad and glorious glow as they unfold. 

She tentatively flutters them, and the act is as simple as breathing. They’re hers.

Wings. I have wings.

Bog is staring at her, a distinctly spell bound look in his eyes, and Marianne blushes before letting them drop, and they settle and drape behind her like a cape. She reaches up a hand to push through her hair, the gesture deft with repetition but dazed. “I…” 

Her fingers brush along her ear, and its long, curling, twitching slightly against her touch—

She gasps and then gasps again as she realizes that the fingers feeling it are long, longer than any humans and almost spindly, and strong, she can feel the strength in them—

She doesn’t know whether to grasp at her ears or hold out her hands or fan her wings and Bog is still staring at her and now she truly can’t blame him, what happened to her—

Oh God, is her body still hers? 

Marianne breathes deep, trying to measure out her breaths, control her heart. That’s still hers, she is sure of it—she recognizes its racing, but…something is…

Different.

Freer.

The cords…the chains that bind her…

Gone?

And her skin, it no longer feels covered up with the powder of propriety, but…fresh, fresh as a newly bloomed bud, petal pliant and—

Marianne breathes, and breathes free. Her body – her heart her bones her hands her fingers her ears her wings – is hers. Hers in a way that she’s never felt. Utterly and entirely and completely. 

This is more me than I have ever been. 

She feels wild, she feels wonderful, she feels free, she feels…Marianne, a storm and a Summer sun combined—

She feels—

You made me love who I am. 

She feels real.

She slides her hands through her hair, getting used to it all, and looks back at Bog. He still looks staggered, and Marianne licks her lips. Only one word can do all of what’s raging in her heart justice. “I feel…different.” 

“Ye look it,” Bog returns, and thank heavens, if he can still be dry then he can’t be too bruised from his battle, can’t be too lost to her. 

“But I’m still me.” Marianne offers her hand to him as gently as she can, the words both a promise and a plea. 

After a pause, Bog willingly takes it, and his thumb strokes over the pale ridges of her knuckles, so soft…

Their hands…they fit better like this, her long fingers twining with his gnarled claws with greater ease, their palms pressing together, so warm…

Bog studies her face, his free claw tentatively touching at her locks, the beautiful bright blue of his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. 

Marianne tilts her head up to see them better, take him in. Bog, please—

His eyes lock with hers and widen. 

Then, incredibly, he smiles, surprise and happiness and relief and love – oh, so much love – blooming across his sharp face. “It is you.”

Marianne’s face aches with her joy, and Bog’s exhale, though shocked, is almost a laugh, wondering and soft. “But…how…what…?” 

“A Fairy.” 

They turn as one to Griselda as she moves to the entrance to the balcony with certainty in her steps, a smile across her wide mouth. “The first Fairy the Forest has seen in ages. I should have known as soon as I saw those eyes of hers. Windows to the soul. The one thing glamour can’t hide.” 

Marianne is only just beginning to wrap her head around what Griselda is saying – glamour? – when Bog makes a noise that is somewhere between a gasp and a choke. “A Fairy?!” 

Marianne turns back to him, feeling the weight of the word on her flesh, like petals drifting over her skin, the brush of a butterfly wing. Ticklish and gentle, like a warm breeze teasing over a meadow—

—flying over flowers, their faces turning up to her, greeting her as a friend, she’s dreamed of this—

And yet also powerful, like roots anchoring into earth, a Spring storm on the horizon of her soul. 

Human…the word is a corset, tugging her tight and breathless, forever fretting over her inability to meet and match the fashion, embody the ideal, belong. 

Fairy…

—flowers and freshness and feeling growth, feeling life, feeling with every inch of her newly freed heart, feeling home—

Fairy fits her. 

Marianne breathes, her heart unbound and her wings rising with the motion, their strange, shimmering violet all hers. Fairy. I’m a Fairy. 

“A Fairy…”

Bog’s voice is soft, stunned, his eyes wide and unblinking as they go to her wings, then to their hands, the sight of his claws and her fingers entwined apparently still something that staggers him. 

Marianne’s heart, now free from cords and chains, starts to tremble like a traitorous leaf. Oh God, please don’t think it’s too—

Bog exhales, soft and ragged, shaking his head wonderingly. “Ah bludy fell in love with a Fairy.”

They both freeze like a frost snap as they realize what he’s said. 

And then Marianne’s heart soars.

And nothing, not Bog’s mortified blush or stutters, can stop her smile blooming from her sheer rapture nor her voice quaking with her joy. “And I fell in love with a Goblin.”

Bog stops stuttering as his breath gusts from him, and Marianne doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, she settles for stepping close to him, and yes, he still is as tall as ever but now—

Her wings take her to him, and Bog starts as he finds himself in her arms, twining around him like vines, anchoring him with adoration. His hands spread, holding back from embracing her, still so shy and unsure. And yet his eyes never leave hers, bright and blue and breathless. 

Marianne drinks him in, and in that moment, she is able to see herself as he sees her: glowing wings and golden eyes, a strange and magical wild thing with love making her all the brighter. 

Her glory could bring a Kingdom to bend its knee, but her whisper is all for him, soft and sure. “I love you, Bog.” 

He stares at her, and then his hand drop to her waist, span across her back, holding her in his arms like she’s dreamed of for so long, and his eyes put the sky to shame. “An’ Ah love ye, Marianne.”

His voice is the soft brush of moss and yet rough with realness, fierce with feeling, and Marianne wants to feel all of them, all of him, and she tilts her head—

And Bog bends his—

And his sigh of yearning is a Spring wind beneath her wings, lifting her up those last few inches— 

And the kiss –their kiss– that has waited so long makes a veritable kaleidoscope of color explode into magnificent bloom behind her eyes, roses of fire spreading in her core and stars spinning beneath her skin, oh God, the taste of him, the warmth of him, the beauty of him, Bog Bog Bog—

She clings to him and he clutches her, any sweet softness lost to hot hunger, hard and desperate, claws carding through her hair wildly—

Marianne meets and matches him, one wild thing for another, ferocious with feeling and sweet in her savagery as she bites at his lip. When Bog returns the favor with a thickened growl she swoons at the sting of his teeth, fangs catching so sweetly at her lips—

“Ah, Boggy? You have an audience, honey.”  

Oh.

They break apart, blushing and breathless and Marianne is torn between mortification at Griselda’s sly amusement and her earlier, never ending bliss because Bog loves her, he loves her, she loves him and he loves her.

Bog ducks his head, clearing his throat and obviously trying to get his wings under control, what with how they are twitching and thrumming. Marianne belatedly realizes that her own are shivering and rustling and oh dear, apparently that’s something I get to look forward to.  

Bog’s servants seem evenly divided between shock and pleasure, their shadow loving eyes squinting happily in the sun’s glow as they take in their King’s evident happiness. Some are even applauding, and Bog gives a groan that has Marianne biting her cheek to keep herself from laughing. Then—

Dawn finally recovers her voice, giving something that is somewhere between a joyful sob and a happy scream, running to her, the vines scattering from her feet like panicked snakes. “Marianne! Oh my goodness, I can’t believe—!”

She stops, stuttering to a halt as she takes in her sister, the pale blue of her gaze thunderstruck. 

Marianne immediately imagines how she must look – wild and winged, nothing like the Marianne of before – and tenses. Oh God, Dawn, if I lose you—

“Marianne…” Dawn breathes, her eyes wide as they wander over her, “…you’re so beautiful!” She looks closer and screams, clapping her hands to her mouth, positively gleeful. “Your EARS!”

Marianne does not even try to stop her laughter now, and hugs Dawn to her, her arms squeezing her tight and her wings fanning around her. Dawn is Dawn, no matter what spell is lifted or what creature her sister is revealed to be. 

As soon as she steps back from Marianne’s arms, Dawn turns to Bog and, beaming and bright, tackles him in an embrace as well. Despite his startled exclamation and bewildered expression, he handles it quite well, laughing a bit breathlessly as he looks at Marianne questioningly. 

Marianne merely smiles, taking in the sight her Beast, so ready to believe himself unlovable, get lavished with the adoration her sister is so famous for. She only hopes their father will handle this just as well. 

Speaking of Father…

Their father’s face is pale but composed, his gray beard only trembling a little bit as he looks at his eldest daughter, his eyes darting from her ears to her eyes and then to her wings. “So she spoke true after all. I should have known she wasn’t merely spinning false fancies.” 

Marianne leans forward across the table of Bog’s great hall, her ears twitching and her eyes narrowing, wings rustling slightly as they slide over her spine with the movement. “The Enchantress?” 

“She was real?” Dawn looks between them, wide–eyed. Amazingly, between the mossy, sprawling splendor of Bog’s domain and two of his servants – Stuff and Thang, Marianne will need to start learning names – took on the guise of glamour in order to fetch their father and the feast Griselda has insisted on serving to them in honor of everything, this is what surprises her sister in the midst of her eager enthrallment. “The spells and the story, all of it?”

Their father shifts, looking as ill at ease in spirit as his fine clothing looks against furniture of coiling vines, trimmed with moss. “She was all too real. The spell…” he looks at Marianne apologetically. “That we weren’t sure of. When she said our first born would not to know their true form until it knew real love, we weren’t sure what to expect. And when you were born, you looked so normal—”

“So human,” Bog corrects with a growl.  

Father flinches but perseveres. “We…we thought…we thought that maybe our love had broken the spell before it even had a chance to begin. Nothing is purer than a parent’s love, after all. Or perhaps she had been lying from the start.” 

“But you knew.” Marianne stands up from the table, frowning as her wings fan out, spreading wide and glorious so he will not be able to ignore them. “You knew there was a reason why I was different, Father. What was the danger of letting me know?” 

“Yes, what was the danger, dearest Douglas?” 

Marianne nearly trips over her wings as she stumbles back at the sudden appearance of the being now seated at Bog’s table, glimmering a strange and sparkling blue. 

She’s not alone in her shock. Dawn screams, the goblins beat a lightning retreat underneath the table to cower, Griselda lets out a curse that causes several vines to flinch away, and Bog’s wings flare before he seizes his scepter, holding it before him. “Sugar Plum,” he grits out, and while his glare and growl are equally fierce, Marianne can sense the great weariness in him. “Ye know this is my domain.” 

The creature waves a hand dismissively, and once she’s over her shock, Marianne is fascinated to see it looks rather like hers. “Your Forest is quite safe from any of my spells, O Sweet and Snarling King. This is merely a family visit.” 

She then arches a brow at Father, pursing her lips even as galaxies continue to swim beneath whatever skin she has. “On that note, I repeat my first question, dear Douglas – what was the danger in letting your girls know about their heritage? Surely your opinion of me as a grandmother wasn’t so poor.” 

Dawn gasps as the floor seems to tilt beneath Marianne. Grandmother?

The Enchantress was her grandmother?

The being – Sugar Plum? – then gives Marianne and Dawn a merry smile, wiggling her fingers at them. For a being who’s apparently old enough to be their grandmother, she looks young and flighty and free. “Goodness, but aren’t they both beauties! Just like their dear mother!” 

Father, who had been the only one to look merely ill at Plum’s sudden appearance, lowers his brows at that, a bit of heat to his voice when he speaks. “You know I did not love her for her beauty alone—”

“Of course not,” the Sugar Plum sighs, rolling her eyes. “If only you had listened to me from the start! I told you that I was all in favor of your love, of bridging the gap between the Fae and the Human with your union. But then you decided we were too different—!”

“You are!” Father’s defiance quickly turns to hasty apology when he sees how Marianne looks at him. “I mean – darling, that is not to say that you are, now or ever—”

“Different, but surely not enough to divide.” The Sugar Plum sighs, her eyes going melancholy. “Certainly not enough to lose my daughter over. If you had let me treat her with my potions, she would have survived the after effects of the births. Too long in the human world, shut away from growth and realness…any Fairy would wilt. Even the Queen of them.” 

Dawn looks at their father with wide, wet eyes. “Mama was always so frail…” she murmurs, her voice catching a bit. “She only seemed to feel better when she was out in—”

“—her garden.” Marianne closes her eyes, seeing her mother’s lovely face so clearly, bathed in warm, dappling sunshine, her smile soft as she sifted through the soil. 

When she opens them, she meets the Sugar Plum’s gaze, unafraid and even fierce. “So you cursed me? What was to be gained from that?” 

The Sugar Plum’s eyes are full of sympathetic pity. “It was never meant to be a curse, pet. I know humans. They fear what they do not know. Unique, different, strange…” She shuddered dramatically. “In their mouths, those words carry such a sour weight.” The look she gives Marianne is serious, stars spangling beneath her skin. “The glamour kept you hidden from humans, safe from persecution until you found a love worthy of your realself. As soon as the transformation occurred, I would be summoned to explain.” 

She cuts her eyes over to Father, an archness to her voice. “Of course, I did think your father would have told you something about your mother’s side by then. Unfortunately, your darling father was only too relieved that his changeling children ended up looking normal, and so kept that little secret to himself.” She sniffs. “The spell needs someone who accepts the whole self, not the parts picked and chosen to please. So that cut him from that race, no matter how pure his love.”  

The entire table looks over to Father, Bog’s claws scratching over the oak and Griselda giving a disproving scowl. Dawn looks as gently wounded as a bruised bud, and Marianne can feel the shame radiating off Father in a hot glow. He ducks his gray head down, taking a shaky breath. “I…it hurt to talk about her. And…I did not want to lose my girls to the Fae. You made it obvious from the start – what were my riches compared to the wonders of your world? I lost my wife. I wanted to keep my daughters. I…I was selfish, selfish and scared, I know that now, and I…” 

He looks up, his eyes sparkling wetly. ““I…I’m so sorry, my Marianne. My love blinded me. To your pain, to Roland’s treachery. I loved you – love you – so very much, and yet it still didn’t break the spell. It was not enough for you.” His voice breaks. “I wasn’t enough for you—” 

She touches his hand, inhuman fingers curling at his, and when he holds it tight, she knows the depth of his love, no matter what misguided intentions had twined around it. Fairy or not, I’m your daughter, and you’re my father.

Her voice is soft, the gentle opening of a crocus, the promise of sweeter seasons to come. “Your love is everything to me, Father, no matter what any curse says.” 

His smile is a shaky, tearful thing, but now Marianne’s mind swims at what she has said. No matter what the curse says…

She turns to the Sugar Plum. “Not till the shattered petal is mended, not till real love melts away the chains that bind and true beauty unfolds.” Marianne folds her arms, her wings rustling, and arches a brow. “Care to explain?” 

The Sugar Plum smiles beguilingly, spreading her hands wide. “Some words had to be given, no?” Her smile stays, but becomes business-like. “Beings such as myself, we can…sense things. Events to happen in one’s life, seeds that turn to roots. We see them, but only as one sees a lure in a pond, distorted and rippling.” She tilts her head, pressing a fingertip to her lip as she considers Marianne. “In casting your spell, I sensed and wove the spell accordingly, but I still knew not what it meant. Though I was sure you were in for some discomfort. Fairies who spend too long away from freshness and are swamped with falseness often find the glamour more bane than blessing.” 

Falseness. Marianne thinks back to Roland’s golden smile with a wince, and she drops her head wearily. “Discomfort is not the word I would use.” 

The Sugar Plum’s eyes get wary, her voice sharp. “Was there pain?”

Heartbreak. Rejection. Loneliness. Doubts. Differences perceived as Detriments. 

Now, knowing everything, understanding it all…

Marianne twists her fingers together as she walks around the table, sorting her thoughts into each step. “I always knew I was different from everyone else. For too long I thought that made me wrong. Even those who loved me did not always understand me.” Marianne stops by Dawn, who takes her hand in loving apology, and Father lowers his eyes. Marianne takes a deep breath and continues on. “I felt I would never be…free to be who I really was. But I didn’t even know who that was. I wanted to be brave enough to be her, but I did not think I would ever get the chance, take that chance. Instead…I was a prisoner of doubt.” 

“The chains that bind,” the Sugar Plum murmurs, eyes wide. 

“I could feel them.” Marianne begins walking again, clasping her hands to her breast almost angrily. “Here. Binding across my heart. Making it so that it ached all the more…” She stops and holds herself, looking away from everyone, “…after Roland broke it.” 

“The shattered petal,” moans the Sugar Plum. She drops her glittering head into a hand, terribly vexed. “Spinnings and stars, of course. What could be as tender a petal as a Fairy’s heart in the first Spring of love?”  

Marianne comes to Bog’s chair, and when she reaches for him, his hand is already waiting for her. Claws and fingers twine together as soft as burgeoning vines, and Marianne looks into eyes as open and beautiful as the skies, drawing strength from that. Her voice is quiet and even, almost questioning. “Not till the shattered petal is mended, not till real love melts away the chains that bind…” 

“Not till the broken heart heals with love and acceptance melts away doubts and insecurities.” The Sugar Plum gives an almost smug little smile to Bog. “And what better way to find real love than with another different soul who also felt the ache of a shattered heart? Someone who understands you.”  

The smile fades, and she sighs. “I do believe I bit off more than I could chew with you, my dear. Not only was I unable to sense the heartbreak that awaited you, but I would wager that any bindings I placed became far more of a burden then I ever intended. What you went through…such things provoke powerful feelings, and feelings are everything to a Fairy. Given that those feelings blossomed from sour seeds…” 

She sighs once more and then gives Marianne a truly contrite look.  “I am sorry, my dear. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but it still leaves a powerful ache. I would not have thought that your own magic would find a way past the glamour to twist what I spun. Doubts and insecurity are already terrible chains for humans. When strengthened by a Fairy’s magic—”

“—it’s different.” Marianne shakes her head, her heart heavy with understanding. 

The Sugar Plum nods with a solemnness that Marianne can tell she doesn’t wear often. “Indeed, darling. A human wouldn’t have been able to feel the constraints of the spell, but your blood makes you different. I cast it, but your doubts, your fears, your inability to love and accept yourself, theystrengthened it, made it into an armor that wounded y—”

“But what about true beauty unfolds?” Bog asks, his claws clicking across the table with clear impatience. 

Marianne rolls her eyes but smiles as the Sugar Plum huffs, before waving a hand at her. “I should think it quite obvious, O Dark King.”

Bog turns to Marianne, puzzled, and she grins at him before letting her wings unfold and fan out behind her. Spread so wide, the light from outside passes through like stained glass, soft and shimmering like a spell made visible, as the glow of it bathes Bog’s face and casts all his sharp angles into soft shadows. 

His eyes, made all the more gorgeous what with how they gleam in her light, soften with both enchantment and understanding. “True beauty unfolds…” 

The Sugar Plum smiles, looking all too pleased with herself, and spreads her hands wide once more. “For what could be more beautiful than being yourself?” 

“Finding someone who reminds you of that,” Marianne says softly, her thumb stroking along Bog’s. 

He brings their clasped hands up to his cheek, his thorny jaw rasping over her skin. Her hand tightens at his as her smile blooms, soft and wet like a rose after a Spring rain. “Someone whose love makes you love yourself again.”

Bog’s eyes look up at her, blue and burning bright. “When fer so long ye thought tha’ ye were meant ta be alone.” He presses a kiss to her pulse, fluttering like her wings against the warmth of his lips. “Someone who proves ye wrong.”

Griselda and Dawn both give soft little rapturous sighs at the scene, Father looks touched despite himself, and even the goblins beneath the table murmur and mutter to each other with pleased looks on their little faces. 

Then the weight of the Sugar Plum’s earlier words settle, and Marianne looks at her with wide eyes. “Wait…I have magic?” 

“Mama was the Fairy Queen?!” Dawn gasps at the same time. 

The Sugar Plum snorts fondly, rolling her eyes at their father. “See? This is what happens when you ask me not to visit!” She turns to them, curling in her chair like a swirl of smoke. “But of course your mother was the Queen, pets. My goodness, but just looking at the two of you gives your blood and birthright away!” She smiles proudly. “Even in human guises, you carry yourselves like princesses.” 

She then passes a saucy look Marianne’s way. “Although I suppose one of you will be a Queen soon enough…”

Griselda cackles, Father blanches, Dawn titters, and Bog makes a noise that sounds speciously like a sputter crossed with a choke. Marianne flushes hot to the very tips of her ears – goodness, but they’re sensitive now – but manages to persevere on. “What makes you think I have magic?” 

The Sugar Plum shakes her head at her, an indulgent smile on her sparkling lips. “It’s only as much as your birthright as your mother’s crown is. Tell me, what precisely triggered the transformation?” 

Marianne mouths a bit, looking between Bog and her. “Bog…Roland stabbed Bog, he was hurt, and I…I couldn’t lose him—”

“Your hands started glowing,” Dawn offers, and Griselda nods in agreement, wide eyed and fervent. “It was mesmerizing. Like moonlight shining through your skin.” 

“Moonlight, is it?” The Sugar Plum looks pleasantly surprised. “That’s rare, most fairies favor sunlight as a way to heal—”

Marianne would laugh if her head wasn’t spinning so much. “So you’re saying that magic moonlight saved Bog?” 

“No, my dear.” The Sugar Plum’s face is serious. “I’m saying you did. Your heart, your feelings…they were strong enough to bring your beloved Bog King back. Your love was so great it made your true form rip through the last bits of glamour. Magic is emotion, born of the soul, of feeling.” She shrugs, impressively nonchalant. “When love is real, no force can withstand it. Especially for the Fae.” 

Bog’s hand twines tighter at Marianne, his expression unreadable, his gaze inward, no doubt going back to that horrible moment when he was so close to slipping away from her. Between that and how Dawn and Father are looking at her – like she’s not their daughter and sister, like she’s some otherworldly thing – Marianne quickly tries to think of something to say, something to make her her. “I…I probably wouldn’t be able to manage it again—”

Bog suddenly stands, grabs her sword from where she has it leaning against the table. “Let’s test that, then,” he says, before drawing the blade across the meat of his palm. 

“BOG!” Marianne tears the blade away from him, torn between fury and fear. “Are you completely mad?!”

Father is ashy, Dawn is desperately trying not to retch, and Griselda looks annoyed but unsurprised. Bog ignores all of them and merely holds his hand out to her, the claws curving and fierce, palm open and offered. His face and voice betray no pain, and his eyes are steady on her. “C’mon, Tough Girl. Ah know ye can.” 

Marianne glares at him and, her heart thundering in her chest and her wings flaring in agitation, takes his hand in both of hers, closing her eyes and focusing her thoughts as best she can. C’mon, c’mon Marianne…

“Do not think with your head, my dear,” the Sugar Plum says soothingly. “Feel with your heart.” 

Marianne exhales harshly and feels right now that there’s a very good chance of her heart doing more than a bit of harm to Bog what with how angry she is at him, pulling such a thing, hurting himself so—

But she focuses on that, sinks into the hard hammering of her heartbeat, lets it close on over her head like soil over a seed, bloom through her blood—

—I’m so angry Bog why would you hurt yourself I don’t want you to hurt yourself never again never again I want you safe once was enough seeing Roland hurt you was torture enough what do you think seeing you harm yourself will do to me please don’t be hurt please I want you safe Bog I need you safe, safe and whole and mine—

Bog clears his throat and Marianne opens her eyes to snap at him before her eyes drop down and her heart skips a wild beat. 

Her hands—!

Her hands look like they are…not dipped in moon glow, no, but containingit, like the moon itself has slipped under her skin to shine through, sidling up to her soul so to share some of its sweet silvery luminescence, helping her heal this beautiful idiot who she’s given her heart to—

Marianne presses her palms against his, holding him tight, concentrating every inch of her heart upon I love you I love you I want you safe and whole and mine, you’re mine and I love you—

Bog holds up his hand and smirks at her, arching a brow. “Not bad for not being able to manage it a second time.” 

It is whole, the mottled scaly skin warm and smooth like sunlight upon tree bark, no blood staining it like sap, gnarled knuckles and clever clawed fingers all accounted for. Marianne looks them over just to be certain. 

When she looks back up at Bog, his smirks spreads into a smile, so clearly proud of her. 

“Not bad at all,” Marianne agrees before swatting at his head. 

Bog yelps and ducks away, looking very much offended. “Wha’ was tha’ bludy for!?”

Marianne stabs her finger at him like her sword, punctuating each growl with a thrust to his scaly chest. “Don’t. You. Ever. Hurt. Yourself. Again.” She goes for his head once more. “Especially not to prove a point to me!” 

Bog catches her hand and gives her a look, his expression an utterly infuriating cross between amusement and grave sincerity. “Ah’ll so promise if ye so swear not to doubt yerself or yer abilities anymore.” His thumb strokes over hers, and damn him, how does he make his eyes do that, the blue so bright and deep? “Especially when ye damn well know ye can take care of bludy well anythin’.”  

Marianne, as Queen and Mistress, feels there is a fair point to that. She relaxes her fist, unfurling it like a fern so to hold his properly. “That still includes you, almighty Bog King. I made my choice.” 

And now she has magic to make sure he’s safe, and won’t that be something—

Griselda sighs happily as she looks between before hopping down from this seat. “The one good thing about waiting so long for this day is that I’ve had time to make plenty of preparations. We’re gonna to be cooking, cleaning, decorating…” she claps her hands, her gleeful grin stretching quite literally from ear to ear. “Decisions need to be made. Parties need to be planned.” 

Dawn jumps to her feet, beaming bright. “I can help! But first I’ll need to send for Sunny, have him fetch me some essentials – Marianne simply cannot be declared a Queen in just any old gown, nor married in one—”

Father is looking ill again, but now the Sugar Plum is there to tuck her arm in his and lead him away from the table as his mother and her sister gabble and gob and order the goblins about. Bog looks sidelong at Marianne, a scaly brow arched, his gaze wary and hesitant. “I can command her to stop—”

“Your mother is right,” Marianne replies, before hastily continuing on when he gapes at her. “I mean, not about parties or, or other things—”

Although wedding or not, she is joined to Bog, two cords of ivy twisting together—

She hopes she doesn’t flush too hotly as she looks up into Bog’s eyes, her own golden and gleaming fierce. “Decisions need to be made. I made my choice, and I think the Forest made one too.” 

“The Forest protects its own,” he murmurs, carding his claws through her locks, talons tickling her ear.

“Exactly. You said that once it accepts you, you would never be turned away. I think it accepted me the moment I accepted myself.”  She looks around, heart full as she takes in the moss, the spread and sprawl of the wildness. “This is my home now, Bog. And I am going to keep it safe.” She takes her sword back from him, Bog readily relinquishing it. She swings it up to hold before her face, the blade bisecting her vision. “I’m going to protect it.”

She studies the blade thoughtfully, tilting it before her almost idly. “The most proficient protection comes through practice. I learned that with fencing.” 

She then drops her blade and favors him with something slow and wicked and only technically a smile, and Bog’s eyes widen with awe and an almost unholy anticipation. “Now I have magic has a means to protect. As Queen and Mistress here, it is my duty to practice it.”

Her teeth bare themselves further. “And I know just where to begin…” 

Her whole body seems to burn with the silvery light that floods through her limbs as the Forest writhes under her feet, her voice at once an echo against rocks and the rustling wind passing over fields, soft and strong as she weaves her words, the triplets’ eyes glazed with the glamour she casts. “You never reached the Forest, and will have no memory of it, nor of any Beasts that dwells there.” 

Marianne chances a look at Bog, but his eyes are rapt on the triplets, wide with wonder at what she is working. She flushes, biting her lip, and then continues on. “In learning about the return of my family’s fortune, Roland’s ambition was lit again, and he wished once more to marry me.” This at least is not a lie. “Knowing how my sister missed me during my time away from the village, he lured Dawn into the woods with the promise that I would be there, ordering you to keep to the shadows. When I came into the clearing, he grabbed her and ordered all of you to hold me. He put his blade to her throat and said if I did not take him back, he would spill my sister’s blood on the snow.” 

Dawn, working at her feet, gives a shiver at her words – knowing all too well they could have been true – but does not pause in her stitches, the silver of her needle flashing in and out of the fabric. 

Marianne grimaces at her apologetically before continuing on. “At that moment a dark stranger came into the clearing – the master who I had been keeping house for in order to fund the travels I had always talked about.” The triplets nod dumbly, still in her sway. Everyone in the village had murmured and muttered about her wild notions of a young woman traveling on her own, having adventures. This detail should satisfy them that the tale is the truth. 

Marianne looks at Bog, a smile curling at her lips, her heart full with feeling. “During our time together, we…healed each other’s hearts.” 

Bog does react at that, eyes flashing up to Marianne’s. His cheeks flush as he drops them, and Marianne continues on. “He fought with Roland as I fought you, rescuing Dawn as one. We rode off when the wolves came, and they attacked Roland, drawn to the scent of his blood. Ashamed of your part in his treachery, you fled as they finished him off.” 

Also not a lie. What remains of Roland is not remotely handsome, and Marianne has already ordered it to be taken as far away from the Forest as possible. They shall not have his blood soiling their land. 

She holds her hand out, her wings fanning wide with her last order, skin silver and eyes glowing gold with her power. “You will not look for his body. You will tell the villagers that his treachery does not warrant him a proper burial. You shall never wish to venture into the woods as long as you live, and will order others in the village to keep away. You will never bother me or mine again.” 

She passes her palm over their eyes, and one by one, they fall to the floor in a stupor. The glow still spreads over her skin as she tucks her hair behind her ears and nods to the goblins awaiting her orders. “Take them to the edge of the woods. Let them wake there.” 

The vines assist them, weaving around limbs so that they can be pulled out of their King’s chambers. Bog touches his hand to hers, his eyes wary. “I should go with them. We cannot run the risk of anything getting mucked up.” 

She arches a brow at him. “There’s a strong chance of that?” 

He arches one back at her. “With this group, always.”

She knows she should laugh, chuckle and trust him, but after everything—

God, must he go, must he leave her—?

Bog raises her hand to his lips, and Marianne’s heart tugs at the all too brief brush of his lips over her knuckles. His eyes burn blue with his promise. “I’m coming back, Tough Girl. I swear it.” 

I wouldn’t call you alone then. I won’t start now. 

When he leaves her, her hand falls from his claws like a petal from a flower, and her heart aches, a pulsing worry that refuses to be dulled with detachment. This is what it will mean to be Queen, trusting her King…

Marianne still sighs, watching them go. “There’s still the army that Roland ordered. They fled already, they aren’t going to forget the Forest fighting back…” 

“Let me worry about them, pet,” the Sugar Plum soothes, drifting around her in a glimmering trail, scrutinizing the silvery stain of her skin, now fading. “Such a spell is simple work.” 

“You could let me do something,” Dawn opinions, snipping a stray thread. Sunny was swift in his journey, and is currently keeping Father company as they are guided through the Forest by Griselda. “I have the same blood as Marianne, after all, I should learn glamour too—”

“Fairies don’t gain full glamour abilities till they pass a certain age, my dear. You’re still young.” 

Dawn heaves a sigh, lips in a rosebud pout. “Marianne isn’t that much older than me.” She sits back on her heels, cocking her head so that her curls wash around her neck in a waterfall of gold, eyes eager. “When will I look like her? When will I become a Fairy? I can’t wait to see my wings—” 

“You are one already, dear,” tuts the Sugar Plum. “Though with a bit more of your father’s blood in you than your sister’s, I wager. But as soon as you reach the right age, your true state will bloom and the glamour will fade, vines retreating fast. The only reason your sisters’ stayed so long was because of the spell.”

She then peers at Marianne, a studious look in her eyes as she glances between her and Bog’s retreating back. “Although I do believe the transformation was hastened by the company she kept. Glamour can only stand so strong when Fae meets Fae, especially with the power those two wield.” 

Marianne remembers how the prickles and warmth that twined down her spine and itched at her back, but otherwise lets their words wash over her, her mind elsewhere, her heart with Bog. Dawn always accused her of hovering, and she trusts Bog, she does, but—

His blood upon her hands, his eyes falling close—

She came so close to losing him—

“He’ll be back,” Dawn murmurs, looking up at her like a flower tilting to the sun. Her pale blue eyes are soft and guileless, sweet and sincere. “No one would blame you for being worried after what happened, Marianne, but he will be back.” She then smiles, a bright blossoming full of happy satisfaction. “Now wait here, I’m going to go see if I can find a mirror. Time for you to see your first gown as Fairy Queen.” 

Marianne smiles back at her and curls the protest that she’s not a Queen, not yet, not officially under her tongue. Queen and Mistress here, yes. Queen of the Fairies, a race that she still has so much to learn about…?

The Sugar Plum chuckles and waves her hands, and plate of silvery glass melts into view before them like a waterfall of ice, the vines curling around it bronze and gold, amber leaves carved and clinging close. “So much needless searching.” She gestures to for Marianne to step forward, her smile fond. “Come see yourself, my dear.”

Marianne steps slowly to the glass, concentrating on the dress Dawn has fashioned. The Forest had given her many gowns, the cut of them close to her curves and the fabric of them soft as petals. Though she did not truly have much to do, Dawn’s needle is deft – despite Father’s protestations that with their fortune returned, she need no longer continue such labor, Dawn became a skilled seamstress in the village and has insisted on her right to create her sister a wardrobe fit for a Queen. “I’ve already been working as a seamstress before, why would being a Fairy Princess mean I have to stop now?”

Marianne smiles at her sister’s blithe words and brushes her hands over the bodice, taking a deep breath. The color of the silk is darker than anything Dawn would have chosen, a rich purple that shifts and shimmers between lavender and mauve and violet with each movement she makes, setting of her wings off splendidly. Marianne is comforted that the Forest knows her tastes so well. Although she would have been happy to wear anything as long could take off that tattered and torn dress so stained with Bog’s blood, soaking into the skirt as she had kneeled beside him…  

Her fingers stroke over the silken flowers stitched across the fabric, the thread of them possessing a sheen so lush Marianne wonders if they are not actual flowers pressed into the cloth, the petals and vines a means for her to carry the Forest always. The skirt is full, draping becomingly, but not unmanageable, and the fabric hugs her slender waist, straight and narrow. 

The back, which demanded the most dedication from Dawn’s deft needle and scissors, has scarcely enough material for it to be called a bodice, the fabric cut deep and daringly low so that her wings are free to flutter and flare as they please, brushing over the skin of her spine with the softest whisper… 

Marianne passes a hand through her hair, considering them. After their fall from fortune and coming to the village, she and Dawn had both cut their locks, long hair too much of a trial to manage what with the work they now had to do. She had mourned losing the long dark sweep of them, so like her mother’s, but now she is thankful. It wouldn’t do to have them brushing over her wings…

Wings…

Mother had wings, once upon a time, in her real form. 

Do I look like her even more so now…?

Marianne finally lifts her eyes to her face, and Dawn and the Sugar Plum both leave to let her contemplate the Fairy reflected in the glass in peace. 

Marianne lifts a hand to her cheek, those long fingers that are now hers passing over the fine line of it. She still has the same heart shaped face, but now more…angular, the cheekbones even more strong and defined. Her neck seems more slender now, longer and leaner, and her shoulders no longer have a gentle slope to them, the line of them straight and strong. With her wings draped down, her ears are the most obvious call to attention, and Marianne touches the tip of one, frowning at the sight of her now long and spindly fingers. She hadn’t noticed it before, but her ears have a slight tinge of green to them, the same faint flush she noticed on other parts of her body when she undressed for Dawn…

So different…

And yet…it’s her. The same dark arch to her brows, the same wrinkle between her eyes when she’s contemplating something. The same strong line of her jaw and soft bump of her chin when she sets it. The same almost mauve rose of her lips. The same point to her nose that she had always been rather self-conscious of and the same ever-so-faint beauty mark on her right cheek.

The same dark, redwood rich hair, now even more mussed.  

The same golden-brown, amber bright eyes…

Eyes of a wild thing. At least now I know I came by them honestly. 

Marianne bites her lip and looks behind her at the spread of things Dawn left upon the table, powders and pastes and stains Marianne itches just to think about. And yet…

Griselda had left them some snacks, a bowl of berries for them to pick over. Marianne places some in the palm of her hand, cradling the weight of them as they roll into the dip of it. Fae blood can’t handle human held things…

Her fingers furl into a fist, the sweetness of the crushed berries sharp and tart in the air. Marianne opens them and contemplates the puddle of purple in her hand. But perhaps something born of the fields, like berries…?

Working quick, she dips her free fingers and paints, arching her brow to angle and stroking soft little dabs and touching just so, careful not to spatter anything into her eye. And soon her gaze is fire and smoke, shadowed with a soft, strange glitter that suits her perfectly, the darkness of the stain spellbinding against the amber, making it burn golden bright, fire and honey combined. 

Marianne looks into the glass and, for the first time in a while, she gives herself a smile. 

Queen and Mistress of Wild Things. 

The sun is setting when Bog finally returns.

In the midst of testing the reach of her magic and the pull of her power, of swinging her sword with the slow grace of a lone dancer, of stealing to his balcony to look over the lands that she now knows to be hers, hers in a way she could have scarcely imagined, Marianne has turned to the mirror once more, studying what she sees there. 

She frowns at the tenseness of her jaw, the pinch of her mouth, the way her eyes narrow, the smokiness of them making them glow like a flame. She sighs, a harsh exhale through the teeth, and immediately tries to soften it, keep her hands unclenched. She cannot let this be her lot, she can take care of herself, even if she is absolutely wretched at waiting…

She sighs again, and though this time it is softer, she would almost rather have roughness what with the heaviness of pensive melancholy in her breast. She twists her fingers together and studies them in the mirror, pale vines twining tight against petal-lush fabric. This isn’t the same as when she would pine away for Roland’s company and courting. She’s no soppy, starry-eyed sweetheart, she’s a Queen waiting for her King—

Waiting to know if he’s safe—

There’s the creak of a door and thrum of wings, and suddenly Bog is walking up behind her, eyeing the glass with a distaste that sharpens his already fierce face. “Ah thought Ah had destroyed all of those wretched things.” 

Her first instinct is to gasp, flare and flutter her wings with her joy, but now seeing him by her – side by side in the mirror, towering and dark, petite and fair, seemingly mismatched and utterly right and real – is enough. She smiles, tilting her head. “I tried glamouring it away. I don’t know if it’s because I simply don’t possess enough power yet, or if it’s because it’s Plum’s work, but I haven’t had any luck.” 

“Glamouring and conjuring and vanishing are all rooted in the same soil, but they’re different blooms. You’ll come to sort the seeds of each.” Bog’s claws come to the curve of her shoulder almost hesitantly, hovering. “Plum conjured this? Why?”

Marianne takes his hand, watching in the mirror as her fingers curl with his claws, lacing lovingly. “Dawn wanted to see how I liked my new dress.” 

Bog looks down, and she doesn’t miss how his eyes widen, the slight bob of his lean throat as his gaze slides along her spine, her back bared to such a scandalous degree, even for a wild thing.

Marianne’s reflection looks on with sly satisfaction, eyes gleaming gold – even dressed in that blood stained, battle torn and tattered gown, she had seen how Bog’s eyes had been drawn to such an open expanse of fair flesh, making a new sort of warmth tease down her spine. 

Having her wings free is not the only advantage her new gowns will possess…  

She smiles at him with ill worn innocence. “Shall I tell Dawn you like it?” 

“My opinion matters?” he retorts, but a smile curls at his mouth before he turns back to the mirror. 

His reflection’s eyes flash at him, and he drops back into a glower, a pain forming in his features that twists her heart as she remembers what Griselda told her.  Of course he would dislike mirrors… 

Marianne turns to him, keeping his hand in hers as she reaches up to touch his cheek, drawing his gaze to hers. “Of course it matters,” she replies, somewhere between fond teasing and sweet sternness. She arches a brow at the glass, standing so grand and gleaming. Honestly, there is a certain arrogance to it. “I’ll even let you shatter this if you want, since I can’t enchant it away.” 

His glower becomes a grin, wicked and almost oddly winsome. “Such kindness, my lady.” He looks upon it once more, the bright blue of his eyes thoughtful as they go to her reflection. “Though if I can keep my gaze on the company it shows, I shan’t mind it too terribly.” 

She playfully knocks her shoulder at him, blushing despite herself. To think she had mooned over the false fawnings of Roland when such unstudied sincerity could send any heart into a swoon…

She turns back to him, pressing her head to his heart, hoping he does not notice how hot her cheek is. Bog tucks his chin over the crown of her head, nuzzling her hair, and she nuzzles him back, his scales scraping softly over her skin. Her words are soft enough to tuck between the segments of his armor. “I was worried.”

His arms tighten at her. “Ah’m sorry. We had ta make sure tha’ no one from yer village would spot us on the edge of the woods. Even glamoured, our work was odd enough to get questions.” 

Marianne leans back from him, eyes wide. “You can glamour yourself?!”

She had seen Plum weave it for Stuff and Thang, but Bog can—?

He blinks at her, bemused. “Aye, all Fae can.” He shrugs, scratching a claw at his neck. “A Goblin would manage it differently than a Fairy, I imagine. Your kind favored the light, we use the shadows.” 

He says it with such simple nonchalance, and Marianne can only shake her head, dropping her arms from him with a sigh and turning back to the mirror. “There’s still so much for me to learn…”

She looks up, and isn’t sure whether to touch the glass or herself. Her reflection is her, this is her, she knows this, but…

She continues on, Bog’s brow furrowing in concern as he takes in her low murmur. “About the Fae. About myself. I feel Fairy, yet I don’t even know what they’re supposed to be like…” She touches her cheek, the new angularity of her features. “I feel me, and yet I’m…” 

Marianne closes her eyes, breathing deep. C’mon, Tough Girl. Be as brave as I know you are. “Bog?”

“Aye, love?” 

The part of her not twisting with nerves thrills at the endearment, and she breathes out slow and steady, her wings rustling as her shoulders drop with the action. She looks up at him, as fearlessly as she can. “Bog, am I…is it easier, me being like this?” 

He stares at her, gaze blue and bewildered. “What?” 

She bites her lip but continues on, ignoring the prickle of heat across her neck, itching down her spine. “Am I…am I more attractive like this to you? Then I was as a human? Am I easier to love—?” 

“Easier to love?” 

Bog looks at her with such undisguised shock, such plain horror, that Marianne truly feels a Beast. 

No, less than a Beast. A Beast is brave; a Beast would not flee. 

Which is what she does, scalp and spine prickling with her shame as she goes to step out onto the balcony, seeking to dull the heat of humiliation with cool evening air. “Never mind, it was – I’m being foolish—”

Bog’s claw catches her, however, and it is fear on his face now. “Marianne, why would ye – did Ah say somethin’? Somethin’ tha’ would make ye—if Ah did, Ah’m so—”

His eyes get desperate, his voice hoarse. “Tough Girl, lovin’ ye is the easiest thing already—”

The nauseating twisting in her gut lessens, but Marianne winces in guilt at making him feel such undeserved recrimination. “Bog, no, I didn’t mean to – that’s not – this isn’t about you. I just…” 

She stops, then sighs as she holds out her hands, spreading them wide, spindly and slender and so very long. Her ears twitch in the cool murmur of the wind, and her wings rustle as well. All of this marks her as her now, wildness free to weave across her wings and span across her skin—

This is me, Fairy and Fae and—

Enough?

I wasn’t enough for Roland. 

And Bog is not Roland, but he is a King. 

Marianne breathes deep. “I look Fae now. I am Fae, and so are you. And I feel—”

“Different?” he hazards, fear thankfully gone but confusion furrowing his brow.

“Yes. No!” Marianne groans, dropping her head to her hands before straightening her spine, meeting his gaze, eyes both fierce and fearful, valor and vulnerability writ across her face. “Bog…I’ve always been different. Because I’ve always been a Fairy. But now…now I look different. I look Fae. But…but I’m still me.”

She bites her lip, and forges on, heartfelt and heedless of the feeling that spills and splashes between her words. “And…I don’t want to play you, have you think that just because I look like I should know about Fae and fairies and goblins that I’m fit to rule them. There’s still so much for me to learn. And—” she squirms wretchedly, “—maybe I’m more appealing this way, but that shouldn’t matter, you need to put the Forest first and be concerned with having a worthy Queen. I look Fae, I am Fae and Fairy, but I’m always going to be just me and I don’t want you to discover that that’s not enough—”

A claw presses to her lips, and a thud goes through her at the burning blueness of his eyes, and his voice nearly a snarl. “Ye never were an’ never are any sort of just.”

Marianne blinks, and Bog’s glower of offended fury abates as he takes her in, tender bewilderment in his touch as he palms her cheek. “Marianne…the Forest chose you. Deemed you as worthy since the very start. ‘You are Queen and Mistress here’. I thought you knew that.” 

Marianne stares at him, eyes wide. “Since the…? That was the Forest? I thought that was you!”

“And so the Forest let you think.” Bog’s smirk is both tender and deprecating. “It’s a wild thing, with a will of its own. I only rule it.” He sighs, looking back into his chambers, at the vines crossing and clustering upon the walls. “Understanding it is something else entirely. But…I chose to have faith in its choice. And you proved yourself worthy of that and of its title.” 

Bog is so serious when he looks at her he’s almost stern, the blue of his eyes piercing and perfect, commanding and clear. “Marianne, ye are so much more than enough. Ye are everythin’. And ye bludy well were born ta be a Queen.” 

Then he smiles, and for a moment his face is almost boyish. “As for all of what you have to learn, try thinking of that as an adventure.” His wings twitch and thrum with the same eagerness that is in his eyes. “One ye needn’t take alone.”  

And whether it’s with the same eagerness he looks upon her with or her sheer love of him, Marianne is flooded with feeling, warm and wonderful, and all she can think as she beholds him is that her heart feels like one of his primroses, spreading petals wide with welcome, flushed with love and tender with promise—

From the very start, the Forest made its choice—

More than enough, everything—

A journey I needn’t take alone—

I love him so much—

Bog then blinks and arches a brow at her. “And what’s this nonsense about you asking if you were more attractive like this to me?” 

Marianne flushes, shame prickling under her skin. “It’s just…well, you are Fae, Bog. And now I look Fae, and I suppose I wondered if maybe…?” 

She tries to find words that won’t paint her as self-conscious as she really is, but everyone – Roland – has only ever seen her as a Beauty and though she knows Bog would never reduce her to just that, the scars still remain and send out pulses of remembered pain, woeful worry—

But when Bog looks at her, a light of realization mixes with the dimness of dusk in his eyes, and then his face sets, serious and strangely understanding. “Marianne, come to the balcony with me.”

Marianne cocks her head at him, confused. “What? Why?”

He holds his hand to her, palm open and offered. “I need to show you something, something best left to moonlight.”

Confusion still furrows her features, but she takes his hand and they step onto the balcony, the dusky sky a velvety violet that is already showing a sprinkle of stars. Soon the moon will rise…

Bog takes her to the edge of the balcony, and Marianne breathes deep at the sight of his lands – their lands – stretching before them so. The iron of Winter no longer holds sway over the woods, and the snow has begun to melt. Spring is already coming, she can taste it in the air, feel it through the Forest…

A sudden glow blooms from the sky and falls upon the balcony, and Marianne lifts her hands before her as the silvery spell of moonlight comes from behind a cloud to spill across her skin, pure and perfect—

“Marianne.”

Marianne turns to Bog, eager to see how the moonlight shines across his wings with new iridescence, washes him silver, and—

—and gasps, falling back against the balustrade of vines. 

The man before her is the same height as Bog, has the same looming width of shoulders and leanness of torso, the same sharp severity to his features, and yet he is…different. 

The sharp cheekbones have stubble instead of prickles and thorns, the scaly brow now heavy with thick, dark eyebrows, the leafy scalp now replaced with a dark thatch of hair, and his nose – well, that isn’t too different, but it’s human, a human nose in a human face and—

The man steps back and spreads his arms wide, his hands gnarled and long fingered, his nails sharp but nowhere near claws. He is dressed like a nobleman, his clothing subtle and dark, and it doesn’t hide his fierce looks but heightens them, the contrast of such civilized clothing making the danger and darkness that shadows him all the more obvious. 

The moonlight makes a pale complexion all the more striking, deepens the shadow his heavy brow casts over his eyes, making them glow all the more brightly as they watch her, take her shock in. When he speaks, she can see that though they’re still crooked, his teeth are now merely ragged, not fangs. “Am I more attractive like this to you?” 

His voice is blessedly and beautifully the same, and Marianne feels her knees go weak. “Bog?”

“Aye.” The man – Bog – steps to her, dropping his hands, and oh goodness, it is him. No one but Bog has ever looked at her like that, concern softening sharpness, tenderness touching those eyes, the blue of them bright with a beauty that is all his. 

Windows to the soul. The one thing glamour can’t hide.

Marianne breathes out and steps to him, holding out her hand, her voice soft lest she disturb the spell of the moment and moonlight. “This is…you’re glamoured?”

“As my human guise, aye.” He smirks, and it is so strange to see that on a human face. “The one I used today when I took care of that your bastard betrothed. The darkness of the woods is deep enough that the illusion would not break during the day.” He looks up to the moon, the light of it playing over his new features. “Fairies favor the light; we use the shadows.”

Marianne takes this in the best she can, her eyes still drinking him in. “And the moonlight…?”

“Is the only light that strengthens it instead of weakening it. It’s perfect right now.” He then takes her hand, laces his fingers with hers, and now it is his that is dwarfed by hers. His eyes go soft as he takes her in, her wings washed in the silver-white purity of the evening. “Though it can’t compare to you, Tough Girl.” 

She should be too shocked to blush, but Bog seems to have a talent to making her blood burn in her cheeks. She ducks her head, determined to keep on track. “So it doesn’t hurt you…?” 

His fingers touch her cheek, so gentle. “No, love. Moonlight needs darkness to be seen.” His hand raises her chin, still so soft, and Marianne looks up into Bog’s glamoured face, his expression steady and serious. “I answered your question, Tough Girl. Now you answer mine. Am I more attractive like this to you?”

This time her gasp is torn from her. “No!” Despite his stoic expression, there’s a fear that positively breaks Marianne’s heart. She immediately steps closer to him, clutching at his arms in her desperate desire to make him see, make him understand. “Oh God, Bog, no – I mean – this is you, I know this is you, but this isn’t really you, and I fell in love with the real you, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re glamoured or not, I know you and I love you, no matter what you look li—”

Bog simply watches her, a slight smile curling at his lips, his eyes bright with both gentle amusement and love. 

Marianne stops, then sags as understanding dawns upon her as surely as the moon rising in the sky. Oh.

Oh.

Her cheeks burn once more, and she sinks her face into her hand, her voice muffled when she speaks. “I’m such a fool.” 

Bog laughs, not at all mocking. “You as much a fool as I am, Tough Girl.” She braves looking up at him, and his eyes are so tender, so understanding, that she is weak, and this time she does let herself lean into the crook of his neck, the curve of his chest, feeling his heart and knowing that unseen scales shift beneath her. 

He holds her close and tucks her tight to him, narrow chin nuzzling her as his murmur curls around her as sweetly as the moonlight does. “Both of us…we carry scars from our first loves. It’s only natural that the ache of them blinds us to the obvious.” 

Roland made her into a Beauty and nothing more, and his had cast him as the hideous Beast in her tale—

Bog pulls back so that Marianne looks up at him, sees the feeling in his fierce face. “Marianne…Ah fell for ye, not how ye look. Face or form, Fairy or human…ye’re Marianne.” His hand curls at hers, and places it upon his chest. His voice is the softness of shadows. “An’ ye have my heart.” 

Marianne’s own heart is so full she can barely manage to speak, but somehow, she perseveres. “Take off the glamour, Bog.” 

He blinks, thrown by the sudden command. “Why?” 

“Because I’ve only ever kissed you as your real self and I want it to stay that way.” 

He blinks again, and then he smiles, and oh, the moonlight may be perfect right now but it has nothing on him—

And then it is Bog, dark and scaly backed and real and hers, who holds her in his arms and who she holds in hers and whose lips meet hers in a kiss that sends her senses swimming and spinning, like she’s drowning in stars, melting into a mist of moonlight…

When they finally part, Bog blinks with the same dazed rapture she feels, before knitting his brow, a startled smile coming to his lips. “Yer eyes are different.” 

She laughs, breathless and blissful, touching the shadows of them bashfully. “I used some berries Griselda brought. Wanted to make them stand out.” 

“I like it.” His claws card through her hair. “Ye wear darkness damn becomingly, Tough Girl.” 

She leans into the curve of his palm, the stroke of it pulling a purr from her, and Bog’s breath catches at the sound of it. Marianne knows her smile is both wicked and winsome, and then a thought comes to her. “Your glamour doesn’t work during the day?”

Bog shrugs, his scales rattling. “More so in the sunlight. Dim days do not damage us.” 

Marianne smiles, snuggling up to his chest. “So we shall simply have to wait for a rainy day to visit the village and see Dawn and Sunny.” 

Bog pulls back, eyes wide. “You would go back?”

Now it is Marianne’s turn to shrug. “This is my home, but they’re still my family.”

“Aye, of course! I knew that, but…” Bog struggles saying something, obviously unsure on how to form his thoughts into words. “I’m simply…surprised you would want to have me come with you.”

Marianne arches a brow at him, sly and sweet. “How else am I going to introduce my intended?” 

Bog stares at her, his very breath seemingly stolen from him. His throat works, and when he speaks, his voice comes out in a strangled gasp. “…What?”

Marianne looks up at him, gaze golden and bright with bravery, luminous with love. “I told you…I made my choice, almighty Bog King.” She strokes his cheek, the slackened line of his jaw. “I know who I am. I know what I want. And I know that my heart is as yours as yours is mine.”

She ducks her head, becoming a bit shy over how he’s still staring at her. “We…we don’t have to, of course. Not right away. I still have so much to learn, after all. And introducing you as my intended is more for the villagers’ sake, as a way to explain it. But…” 

She looks up at him again, fierce with feeling. “Wedding or not, I know who I am and what I want to do.” Her hand takes his. “Who I want with me…”

Bog looks at her as is she is the most beautiful creature he has ever seen, a strange sort of tremor passing through him that makes his voice almost ragged with joy. “An’…what is it ye want to do?” 

Marianne smiles up at him, her voice echoing the beautiful ache of her heart. “To have adventures with the Goblin I love.” 

Something in Bog breaks, and he grabs her almost roughly, pressing her palm to his lips, his words whispered hot and heartfelt into her hand. “With th’ King who would have ye as his Queen.” 

He looks up at her, and his eyes are so beautiful Marianne almost sobs. “Th’ Beast who would have ye as his bride.” 

And to think she had thought her senses to be spinning with the stars before.

Her face aches with her smile, her voice trembling traitorously. “Are you sure? Who wants a cursed wife?”

“If the wife was you…” Bog murmurs, stroking a somewhat shaky claw through her hair. “Ah told ye before, Ah don’t see any curse upon ye.” 

He gives her his gaze, with that look alone she feels like he is holding her heart, his voice an aching murmur of adoration. “A strange magic, but no curse.”

Marianne’s tears spill down her cheeks like dew down a rose, and her heart aches with such joy she almost feels scared. “Perhaps even some bewitchment?”

Bog smiles at her, and his own eyes look wet. “Most definitely some bewitchment.” 

Beasts and Beauties and Bewitchments and oh dear God, this is my life now, this is my life and my love—

She holds him tight, holding her head to his heart, feeling how the thud of it echoes her own, rapture and apprehension making it race so. “It’s going to be so different.” 

Being Queen, being married— 

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, and when she looks up at him, the steady sincerity of his eyes makes the blue of them shine so bright. “But that’s always been ye, Tough Girl. Different. Wild. Real. That’s ye. If yer spell has taught ye anythin’, it’s that ye like who ye are.” He kisses her, sweet and slow, and when he pulls back, Marianne can feel his murmur on her lips. “Different is what ye like.”

She takes his hand with both of hers, bring it to her lips, and her eyes are clear and certain as the sun striking through amber. “No – that’s what I love.” Her hand tightens, her heart clenches. “What we love.” 

I love you. You love me. I love myself and one day no mirror will be a chain to bind or break you, keep you from loving yourself the way you love me—

Bog bends his head to her, and she feels her wings flit and flutter from the sheer feeling that floods her as his lips meet hers—

I’m a Fairy, and you love me. 

She pushes her hand through the scales of his scalp and the other down his spine, scratching down between his wings, and Bog groans thickly into her mouth, almost a growl—

You’re a Goblin, and I love you.

There is no end to him and her as their lips claim each other, their love locking them together—

You’re a Goblin and I’m a Fairy and we’re already one— 

He sighs into the kiss, and she growls for more, and each echo the other—

A beastly beauty, a beautiful beast—

Strangely and magically, they are both and all the more beloved for it.

When the burn to breathe outstrips the hunger for each other and they finally pull back, Marianne takes the time to marvel at how mesmerizing his eyes are, stained so silvery with moonlight. Then she looks to the sky, velvety with darkness and diamond bright with stars. The perfect place to have their first adventure…

Excitement blossoms in her heart, and she grins up at Bog. “Let’s go stretch our wings.” 

He blinks, and then follows her gaze off the balcony, up into the heavens that stretch before them, endless and inviting what with all the stars to dance between…

A smile curls at his lips, but the look he gives her has only sweet amusement and adoring anticipation for everything that is to come. “The moonlight is perfect right now.” 

She smiles and spreads her wings, and Bog gives a heartfelt exhale at the sight before his own thrum, and they take to the air—

And they reach as one and take each other’s hands…

There is a beastly Beauty and there is a beautiful Beast, and they fly off into the moonlit night of the Forest, seeking no happy ending but their next adventure together.