Her wings were darkly vibrant in the daylight, but luminous under the moon. Marianne reclined on the bed, shining purple wings fanned out behind her, wearing night clothes made from dark blue flower petals. Spider silk stitching caught the moonlight from the window as her wing scales did, outlining the petals in silver and making them scale-like as well.
"Bog? Are you okay?"
He cleared his throat and finally blinked. His wings made a rainbow blur as he flew to land on the bed beside her, rather than climbing into it.
"You look like how I've imagined you might look on our wedding night."
They kissed. Marianne furled her wings over them and rested her cheek on Bog's plastron, which pressed her ear backwards. Bog tucked his arm around her.
"You think about us getting married?" she asked after a while.
"Sometimes. I'm not sure how, you know, practical the idea is. Usually a marriage between monarchs involves merging the kingdoms, and neither of our people feels ready for that yet, but keeping the kingdoms separated would be a massive legal headache."
"I guess, since my kingdom has a 'backup heir' and yours doesn't, I could abdicate and Dawn could be the next Fairy Queen."
"I would never ask you to give up your crown for me," Bog vowed. "Even so I could give you a new one."
"I know. That's why I would be willing to consider it." Marianne yawned. "Whichever of us takes the crown is going to be shaking things up, anyway, since it looks like Dawn's going to marry Sunny. I promise the higher ranking members of Fairy Court would be just as scandalized by an elf king as a goblin one."
"Goblins keep coming up to me and telling me to marry you." Bog yawned as well. "I thought my mother was putting them up to it at first but most of them were just impressed because they'd seen you fight. They're not all so open about the rest of your kingdom, though."
"What a shock."
"I think they're afraid of your sister."
"So Dawn being Queen might be bad for diplomacy? Good to know."
"That's not what I meant, it's just –"
"The singing?"
"Aye, the singing."
"But trade relations are going well," said Marianne, optimistically and drowsily. "So maybe we could set up some … cultural exchanges. You know. Help the average citizens get used to each other. Maybe open it with a big party on the border. Goblins like parties, too, right?"
"There's a loaded question."
"It'd be a party, not a ball."
"Probably safe, then."
"So long as no one gets kidnapped," she teased. Bog chuckled and kissed the top of her head.
"We could make border parties a yearly thing. Get everyone accustomed to seeing each other and being happy about it. Then," he paused to yawn again, "in a few years, we could start talking seriously about merging nations."
Marianne kissed the scale over his heart. "Definitely an idea worth exploring."