Magic was a strange, wily thing. Even those cradled in it since birth found it unpredictable, and so the king and queen of the land monitored it very carefully. Rumors that the queen's mother was a good fairy, or one of the huldrefolk, perpetuated because the queen was the one most frequently in contact with their nonhuman neighbors. She was the one to request communication or spearhead treaties with nonhuman neighbors or inhabitants, however clumsily she accomplished these tasks.
The king, however, preferred to discuss human treaties and human economics. He was much more comfortable with things he could understand and touch. Between the two of them, their reign was balanced and peaceful.
The peace was a relief to their people; the time that led up to the king's ascension was marred by a bloody war of succession. The king and queen promised stability, and for many happy years, that promise was kept. Their subjects prospered. One very important miller moved into their land with his young wife. This is not to say that that the king or the queen knew about the miller or his wife; they were not, of course, omniscient. If they were, they might have known of the terrible war in the Goblin Kingdom. Goblins were not, by nature, very good at governing themselves.
Magic was also unpredictable, and goblins were mostly made of magic, after all. This meant that very few of them would be relied upon to lead their people. There were exceptions, of course. Those exceptions died in the war, cut down in bloody skirmishes. For a short time, the goblins remained quiet.
It wasn't long before they spilled over into lands that were not theirs. The goblins got bored, and with no leader, they raided and threw raucous parties. Those living on the border of the goblins' lands found their milk soured overnight or their chickens stolen. Magic leaked out and turned prized petunias plaid or gave the occasional dog the ability to speak. The human inhabitants often retaliated against their goblin counterparts, and sorrow struck both of the peoples. Both applied to the king and queen; the king, as he was wont to do, left the issue up to his wife.
The queen was known for her kindness and beauty, but perhaps not for her cleverness. She agreed to care for the goblins as her own people, and to appoint a leader as soon as a suitable one could be found. The raids and retaliations stopped, and every person the queen asked to lead the goblins refused. She was also frequently called to settle petty squabbles and soothe the tempers of her new goblin populace.
But the queen and her king had another problem. The war of succession was still fresh in everybody's minds. Although most things were peaceful and beautiful for the moment, the specter of the past loomed over all of them. And the most damning thing of all promised trouble in the future: the king and queen had no heir.
This was not for any lack of love or effort. They both loved each other and their country very much, but no royal babe was born in the ten long years of their reign. The queen especially was hit very hard by this; she loved children and would have given almost anything for one of her own. Perhaps that is why she was better equipped to handle the goblins than other people. They had a childlike nature, but could not make up for the real thing, no matter how much she coddled them.
The queen frequently retreated into the palace's chapel so that she might pray for a blessing, but it was not a blessing that found her. Not if a goblin witch could be considered a blessing, which the queen did not.
"My lady," said the witch, curtsying as low as her bowed legs would let her. "Both kingdoms know of your plight. Please, allow me to soothe your pain."
The queen gazed upon her goblin subject from over her clasped hands. The goblin witch stood just in front of the candles and idol positioned just under the oculus, where the queen frequently imagined her god so that she might better converse with them.
"Can you?" the queen asked, wiping a tear away. She knew that the people mourned with her; she had not imagined that the goblins were necessarily included. "Would you, truly? I thought no one in the whole world could help me."
"I can, my lady, and I would, and I will," the goblin answered, extending a paw. "Take this gift, and protect your kingdoms with it." Within her paw was a silken drawstring bag, the smallest one the queen had ever seen. With trembling fingers, she reached out for it and loosened the strings.
"I know that one of my beloved subjects would not mock me," the queen said, "but I must admit that I am confused. Please, explain to me what I am meant to do with two seeds." She pulled the strings on the bag to shut it tightly, not noticing how the bag felt warm in her hand.
"My queen, if you plant these seeds in a place where they might taste the first dew of the morning and feel the last rays of the sun in the evening, in three days' time you will have two roses: one red and one white. If you eat the red rose, a little boy will be born to you; if you eat the white rose, then a little girl will be delivered. However, pretty queen, you mustn't eat both of the roses, or you will face terrible consequences."
The queen looked down at the tiny bag in her hand, new hope blooming in her chest. If what the goblin witch said was true, she might have a child—an heir to the kingdom! And the goblins were the ones to know about magic, and the queen could not think that one of her subjects might tell her an untruth.
"Truly, I might have a child?" The queen gasped, now holding the bag over her heart.
"But you must only eat one of the roses, my queen. Remember: only one."
The queen nodded and dabbed tears away from her eyes, but these were happy tears. The goblin witch permitted herself to be hugged and patted the queen on her head, waiting for the tears to end.
"Please, take this ring as a token of my gratitude," the queen said, twisting a golden ring inset with one single ruby off her right hand. She held it out to the goblin witch, tears welling in her eyes when the witch made no move to take it.
"I could not, my queen; that was meant for your finger." The witch was not used to finery and would not know what to do with the ring. She also did not feel she required payment for a service she offered freely; after all, the queen had saved her home from ruin and promised to deliver a suitable leader. Why should she not offer her something that she desired as well?
"If it was meant for my finger, then it is mine for me to do with as I wish. I wish for you to take it!" The queen pushed it into the goblin witch's paw and closed her fingers around it. "Take it, please."
The witch lowered her head and licked her lips.
"I will consider this a loan, and will make sure that I return it to you one day."
The queen pouted and looked down at the little pouch of seeds in her hand. She wanted only to thank the witch in the best way she knew how, and was very put out that the witch refused.
"As you wish," said the witch, who bowed low and waited for the queen to do something. Her job was done, and she thought it proper that she wait for her queen to give her permission to leave; she hadn't requested an audience to begin with because she hadn't remembered to do that. Goblins were not the best educated in court manners, and witches even less so.
The queen planted the rose seeds as instructed, treating them as the children she was promised. After the first day, she had two small rose bushes; after the second, each sprouted a single rosebud. On the third day, the promised roses arrived, one red, one white.
It was then that the queen was presented with a conundrum; which rose should she eat? The goblin witch promised a little girl if she ate the white one, but that little girl would eventually grow up and marry and move away. If she ate the red rose, then she would have a little boy. But that little boy would also grow up, and although she and her king worked to maintain peace, there was no telling what the future could hold. There might come a time that their son would be called away to war, and then he would be pulled from her. Worse still, he could die in battle and that separation would be far more permanent than a daughter moving away. The queen fretted over her decision and kept to her rooms for the rest of the day, weighing her options.
She didn't dare consult her husband because she did not want to burden him with the same decision, and because she wanted to keep the magic at work a secret. It wasn't that he was strictly opposed to magic, she reasoned with herself, it was just that he preferred not to deal with it. And as soon as she decided upon a rose and bore her son or daughter, he never would have to. More importantly, he'd never have to know.
The queen stared at the two roses outside of her window and sighed, reaching for her pruning blade. She needed to make a decision before the sun slipped below the horizon, for she felt that the magic in the roses would only last that long.
"What could it hurt to eat both of them?" The queen pondered aloud. Magic was unpredictable, after all; who was to say that anything bad would happen? She had only the word of one goblin witch, and goblins were creatures prone to mischief, weren't they? And she was a queen without children, something that she found nigh unbearable. She herself had seven other siblings and thought that life as an only child would be terribly lonely. With that in mind, she plucked both roses from their stems, lifted them to her mouth, and swallowed them whole.
They were sweet. So sweet, in fact, that the queen thought she might have eaten more if she'd had any. But it was not to be; the witch only gave her two seeds, and so she ate two roses. For months she kept her secret even from her closest confidante. Only when she felt her womb quicken four months after she ate the roses did she tell her king that they were to have a child.
He was as exuberant as she, and he immediately called for the best doctors and midwives in the seven kingdoms. Most of them were in attendance to other queens or princesses or even duchesses; in the end, they were able to secure one doctor and two midwives. They were both assured that this was quite enough, and by the time the queen was ready to take to her chambers, everybody was quite satisfied.
In the chaos that securing a midwife had caused, the queen had almost forgotten about eating both of the roses. As the birth drew nearer and her stomach swelled larger than both of the midwives thought appropriate for just one child, she felt a strange sense of trepidation and excitement. She still neglected to mention the roses or the witch to her husband, but secretly hoped that she might have twins after all.
It wasn't until she was so large she could barely move that she started having the dreams.
In them, a great, feathered beast roared and threatened to eat her child alive. She pled and screamed for mercy, but woke every morning just before witnessing the beast's decision. The dreams left her shaken and sweating, although the doctor assured her that vivid dreams were natural in her condition. During her waking hours, the queen grieved for the small child and feared the feathered beast.
She didn't have a word for it either, although the one that came closest was Lindworm. It was an old word, passed down from her mother's mother, and meant to indicate a sort of dragon. The Lindworm in her dreams, however, had no scales. Instead, it was covered with glinting white feathers from snout to tail tip, and had impressively large wings. She felt certain that if it were to fly over the castle, it would block out the sun.
But thoughts of the Lindworm were put from her mind when her husband was called away from the castle to settle a dispute in a neighboring kingdom. It was not a war, and the queen sighed in relief for this, although she was concerned that he was called away so close to the birth. Instead of dwelling on it, she took to sitting in her future child's nursery when she could slip away from her caretakers.
On the third day of her husband's absence, the queen gave birth. In the end, it was a good thing that he was far, far away when it happened. Even the doctor couldn't make it, as it was the middle of the night; he was too far away, and her labor moved too quickly. It was just as well; there was one less person who needed to be sworn to secrecy.
The queen had two children. The second was a beautiful little girl, perfect in every visible way. In her heart, the queen knew that she would grow up to be brave and true. She did not regret eating the white rose.
The first child—if it could be called that—screeched through a deformed mouth that seemed far more like a beak than anything else. As the first midwife tended to the queen's first child, the queen discovered that the regretted eating the red rose.
"I am sure it is just a skin condition, your majesty," the first midwife said nervously, holding the infant as far away from her person as she could. In fact, she was not sure that it was a skin condition and not a terrible curse. The child's skin glinted, still sticky and wet.
The queen sobbed into her hands. "It is no skin condition," she said. "It's a terrible beast and all my fault." She knew that in time, it would grow feathers and turn into the Lindworm she saw in her dream the night before. One day, it might even attempt to harm her daughter.
"Take it away," she ordered. "Tell no one of this. I had only one child, a daughter," she ordered, smiling down at her perfect little girl. "But… please, see that it is cared for." She would not let her misbegotten child die for her mistakes.
When the doctor arrived it was to an exhausted queen and one infant princess.