AN: ey guys just poppin this here real quick. no editing which means there's prolly gonna be mistakes. shruGS anyway enjoy
It had been hours. She wasn't usually late – not often, and never this much.
The Bog King rustled his wings, the hard chitin on his fingers clacking against the bone throne he sat upon, eyeing the rising moon through the window. Marianne usually came around sundown, and they'd agreed to meet tonight after her duties were over and done with for the day. And she was often quite prompt about showing up when she meant to.
Which just made her current absence all the more troubling.
Stuff and Thang looked up when he stood and began pacing by the large, arching window, and he could hear them muttering between themselves before the goblins approached.
"Do you need anything, sir?"
"No." His tone was sharp, though he knew they meant only to help. His concern was deepening, though, and it was making him worse company than usual. "Leave me." They did as ordered, and he ignored Stuff's snide comment to Thang. Too much on his mind to worry about their petty squabbling.
What he had with Marianne was... fragile. Delicate as a new-grown sprig. He knew her father didn't approve of him, and he knew most of the citizens of the Light Forest still viewed him and his with fear, no matter what the few who had witnessed his near sacrifice said to the rest. One good deed did not make up for years of terror.
But Marianne was not the sort of person to let that bother her, he knew. She'd come back to him, offered, of her own accord, to meet within his borders so that they didn't upset so many of her realm. And he'd agreed, and it had been... a very happy several months, for the both of them.
Which made it worrisome that she would suddenly choose to not show up.
She could take care of herself, he reasoned. She'd very nearly beaten him the few times they fought, and when they sparred it was almost always to a draw.
And yet.
Hissing through his teeth he turned and grabbed his staff from where it leaned against the thrown before throwing the window open – a consideration he'd made for Marianne when he'd had his castle rebuilt, giving her an easier way in than crashing through another skylight. He would go looking for her. Even if he was jumping at shadows it was preferable to waiting here in the dark of his home.
His wings buzzed and he took off, flying up into the night sky to begin his search for his wayward lover.
Usually what he looked for, at least if he knew she'd be in flight, was the outline of her wings against the moonlight. The bright blues and purples that almost glowed even in the dimmest evenings. He wasn't out here to evaluate his realm, though, so when he came across a huge mass of shifted, freshly upturned earth on a cliffside he was reluctant to pause.
A rockslide, it looked like. They'd had some heavy rains the last few days, so it was only natural that the earth would shift and move in ways even goblins couldn't manage. The Bog King evaluated the damage carefully at the top before moving down the new hillside. Some brush had been destroyed, but it would grow back. And no one lived in this particular patch of ground, that he knew of, so he felt little worry. When he reached the base, however, he nearly missed the brown-haired head poking out from the dirt.
Oh no.
"Marianne!"
–
Something was fluttering around her throat – touching her pulse. Then hands were tugging at her and she groaned softly.
"No lessons today, dad." She'd meant to say. "I feel awful..." But somehow it hadn't come out so clear. The person shaking her said something she couldn't quite understand, and her head felt too heavy to lift. Her whole body, in fact...
"Marianne, wake up. Please-"
Too... heavy... Like she was being crushed or... The landslide.
Consciousness came back in a rush and she opened her eyes, gasping in pain when her body reminded her, quite loudly, that it was hurt. Her vision faded for a moment and she focused on breathing, as much as she could.
"Speak ta me, c'mon. C'mon love..."
"Bog..." The fairy couldn't turn her head to look at him but she would recognize the tenor of his voice anywhere, and she could hear him almost slump with relief, his fingers curling in her hair.
"Oh thank tha dark." He was digging, she realized, as his hand left her hair and returned to its work. Digging her free, and she struggled to move, to help -
Pure agony shot up her back and she choked down a scream. Something was wring, something was very badly damaged – broken, probably, and instantly the Bog King's hand was laying flat against her shoulder.
"Don't move- I dinnae know how bad yer off right know." She complied, nodded a little into the dirt. Normally she would have given him a snappy remark, but she was afraid, and in a great deal of pain.
When he suddenly went still, however, she couldn't bear it any longer
"What is.. it?" Her voice was so weak, but in the silence it rang loudly enough. He didn't reply, much to her aggravation, but he continued digging. It was a good fifteen minutes before he'd safely unearthed most of her – most of that time being spent making sure nearby rocks and piles of dirt wouldn't roll onto her when she couldn't move.
His hands slid delicately under her chest, supporting her shoulders, and turned her around so he could lift her up out of the soil. Her wings screamed at her, and her right ones felt like they were on fire. She whimpered, biting her lip and tasting dirt. When she looked up at his face he looked lost, and that scared her more than when he'd stopped digging.
"Marianne... I..." His gaze flicked past her, back to where she'd been laying, and she turned her head to follow it. Her eyes fell upon a dirty, gossamer blue rag that stuck out of the ground. She didn't remember bringing anything like...
Her heart fell through her feet. She stopped breathing.
"No.." She moaned, curling in on herself. "Oh no, no no no..."
"Marianne, breathe." He remained kneeling, holding her close, and she could feel his exoskeleton hard against her shoulder and side. Felt his hand return to her hair as he fumbled, trying to soothe her. Trying to make it okay. "Breathe, breathe..."
"I'm never going to fly again-"
"I know-"
"I'm never- never gonna-" She choked and hid her face in her hands, shaking, angry, furious, with herself for not flying higher, at the rain for having loosened the dirt, at being at the wrong place at the wrong time. At her wing, for having been torn off. At him.
But then Bog held her closer, and she sucked in a breath when she realized he was trembling as much as she was.
"I'm sorry." He mumbled into her hair. The words shocked her – he never apologized. Kings didn't need to. "I- I should have come t'you. Should've compromised, instead of..." He sighed and pulled back. There was more he wanted to say, she could see it in how he inhaled and looked at her, before turning away. "Let- let my healer take a look at you. Please. I'll... take ye home afterwards."
Because there's no way she could fly there herself, she heard, unspoken, in the air between them. Marianne grit her teeth and just nodded, looking away from him in turn. The Bog King stood up, careful not to jostle her too much, and she felt her remaining wing drag along the ground under her with a soft rasp.
The flight back to his castle was a silent one, and Marianne knew that this was how it was going to have to be if she ever wanted to get into the air again. Being carried, using another's wings in place of her own.
The fairy's hands clenched to fists. And the Bog King pretended not to notice the tears she tried so hard to stifle.