In Which Sunny Is Caught and Canon Diverges
"I am on a very – serious – mission! I really need to find the Sugar Plum Fairy, the maker of the all-powerful love potion, and you're holding me back!"
Well, that didn't sound suspicious at all, Beakboy thought sarcastically, charging in the direction of the shouting.
There! An elf in the Dark Forest, just like the mushrooms told the king – and holding a primrose petal!
Beakboy lunged and caught him. Unsurprisingly, the elf screamed. Beakboy winced but held on. The other guards came running.
"We got him! Tell the king we caught the intruder!"
No one needed to go and tell the Bog King, because with a rattle of wings, His Majesty was there, towering over Beakboy and the elf Beakboy was restraining.
"A primrose," he rumbled. He took it from the elf, who seemed torn between clinging to the flower petal and flinching back from the long claws. The king tilted his sceptre so that the amber caught the sunlight and a golden spot appeared on the petal … which then burst into flames.
"NOOO!" the elf howled. "I needed that!"
"Lock him up," the king ordered. "I suppose I should tell the Fairy Kingdom he's here."
Gus, one of the largest goblins, picked the elf up and tucked him under one arm, since none of them were carrying rope to bind him. The prisoner was just whimpering now.
"You needn't believe me, elf," said the Bog King, "but I'm doing you a favour. Love is dangerous … and the potion doesn't always work."
The guards exchanged looks but didn't question him.
When they got back to the castle, Griselda was waiting in the door of the throne room with an expectant expression.
"Oh, no." The Bog King quickly herded them all to the dungeons before his mother could see them.
"Oh, son!" Too late. He gave Beakboy, the last goblin in the group, a little push towards the stairs and went to face the former queen's latest attempt to find a new queen.
"What's going to happen to me?" the elf asked after the cage was locked.
"Execution, life in prison … don't know." Beakboy shrugged. "Nobody's been dumb enough to steal a primrose petal before."
The goblins would agree, later, that it had been foolish to leave the dungeons unguarded, even if the prisoners were all securely locked up.
(The movie's end credits include the name 'Beakboy'. I believe this is the goblin who appears to have both fangs and a beak. He nearly catches Sunny in the movie, getting to the spot where Sunny met the imp just after Sunny and the imp are out of sight. A goblin of similar appearance, possibly the same one, later describes Sunny to Bog as 'a slippery little devil'.
These chapter will be a lot shorter than the chapters in Taking the Feisty One - the average word count per chapter of this fic is 375, and two chapters are only about 150 words each - but there shouldn't be any delays, either, since the entire story is pre-written.)