Enjoy them boys! I am on a bloody roll today!
"Hurry up, Daddy! Let's go! Mommy and Aunt Dawn and Uncle Sunny and Liane and Cyrus are waiting for us!" little Princess Shilo cried her wings fluttering as she tried to drag her father faster through the forest to the clearing.
"I'm coming, my sweetling," the Bog King chortled. "Don't forget your wings, Shilo."
She pulled her bug like lower wings, so like his, under her blue fairy wings that shimmered with an orange iridescence. The two upper wings curled over her shelled head hiding her goblin traits from view.
She was dressed in a full cloaking to hide her goblin traits. They both agreed it was for the best. Until she could make her own choices as children could be crueler than adults and she was such a strange child.
Liane and Cyrus were pixies and not unheard of but a child like Shilo was completely new.
"Cyrus! Liane!" Shilo cried happily. And just like that Daddy was insignificant and all that mattered were her cousins. Bog settled in some nearby rushes so as to not offend or frighten the fairies at the playground that day.
The other fairy parents nodded to the princess as she flitted past, knowing what she looked like but the fairy children always tried to catch a peek. Only Liane and Cyrus knew what Shilo really looked like.
She ran to her cousins, laughing and the playing commenced. Marianne, Dawn, and Sunny joined him in the bush and started talking, kingdoms and kids.
"How is Shilo reacting to hiding now that she's getting old enough to want to be around others? And her power training with Plum. Hehehe that has to make for some messes," Dawn giggled.
"Oh more than you can imagine," Bog shuddered.
Marianne smiled a little sadly. Bog hated seeing that smile. He knew there wasn't anything to be done about it but he wished there was.
"I'm… afraid for her, Dawn." Marianne's admittance of fear was a never heard of thing. The strong Fairy Queen was never afraid.
"Why?"
"She's so different from fairy standards. I love my daughter, and think she is absolutely perfect, don't get me wrong, but the subjects she will one day rule… What must they think of her? The Princess who hides?"
Sunny opened his mouth to answer but never got the chance for Liane's crying and another child's sudden screams of fear.
All four of the parents dashed out to see, Liane on the ground wiping away tears with Cyrus consoling her.
And then there was Shilo. The fairy boy was flying back to his parents crying and Shilo was in a half-crouch growling at him. Her wings were completely raised baring her head and her clawed hand adorned only scraps of the fabric that once encased it all the way up her goblin arm to the flexed shoulder exoskeleton. Sparks were flashing from her fingertips and frost from her breath. She looked every bit the goblin princess in that moment.
"Shilo!" Marianne barked. The child quickly relaxed her pose and her wings like they were, hiding her face again and trying to hide her goblin arm under one of her wings.
"I'm sorry, Momma, I'm sorry! He was being mean to Liane and Cyrus for being Pixies and pushed Liane down. I had to do something, Momma! I had to! I'm sorry, Momma! I didn't hurt him just warned him!" The little princess was in tears. "I didn't think I would scare him that bad. It was just a warning," she hiccuped.
Marianne glanced at Bog who had a look of surprise on his face as well. "How did you warn him, sweetling?" he asked gently, kneeling to her height.
Shilo sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "Like when I play at Gran's with the other kids, and they pull my wings, or take my toys. Daddy, I wanna go home," she cried, reaching for Bog's neck, exposing her goblin arm again.
Bog lifted her gently and turned to Marianne who nodded and said her goodbye's to her sister and Sunny before they flew off.
Shilo's sobs had quieted a bit but her face was still buried in her father's neck clinging tight to his exoskeleton.
"Shilo, who taught you to warn someone like that?" Marianne asked, gently.
"Nobody," Shilo sniffed, "the first time someone pulled my wing I just knew to do it. The boy left me alone after that."
"Its Goblin instinct, Marianne. And the people of the Dark Forest will respect her more as their princess for it. But, Shilo, my sweetling, things are different in the Fairy Kingdom. You can't warn them like you do your goblin friends."
Shilo sniffed again, "I don't have any goblin friends. They listen to me but my only friends are Liane and Cyrus."
Marianne shared a look of concern with Bog. "You don't have friends in either of our kingdoms?"
Shilo shook her head, her fairy hand curling delicately around her father's exoskeleton while her goblin claw was latched tightly on the other side. "Everybody's scared of me."
Her parents looked sadly at her. True she wasn't beautiful by the standards of the Fairies or the Goblins, but she had her own charm, her own beauty. Liane and Cyrus had said so as had other fairies and goblins (course the others may have feared the wrath of their king and queen if they dared insult their daughter). But even then Shilo glowed with an inner beauty that everyone saw.
"What do you mean, scared of you, Shilo?" Marianne asked.
Shilo shrugged. "The fairies all think I am gonna eat em, and the goblins think I'm gonna love dust em. I tried telling them I can't make Love Potion, only Plum can but they don't believe me."
"Oh, my wee sweetling," Bog murmured softly to his daughter.
Marianne stroked her daughter's back between her wings. Shilo turned to her mother. Her blue eyes, so like her father's, red from crying.
"I am so sorry, my Shilo," Marianne said, "You know your family loves you right?"
The little girl nodded. Marianne nodded but the feelings of guilt didn't yield. Her daughter was an outcast and she felt she failed as a mother. Gentleness never was one of her strong suits.
"Mommy…" Shilo's little voice caught her attention.
She looked up at her child clinging to her husband's neck.
"I love you." Marianne's heart surged a little. Maybe she hasn't completely failed after all.
She kissed Shilo softly on her head. "I love you, too, my little princess."
I love this story I love how it came out enjoy and review my lovelies.