Disclaimer: Based on the Russian fairy-tale, the Frog Princess.

Chapter Four: Life's A Stitch

Night was rolling on, and Lissa could see the moon rising beyond the window and the pale curtain of her bedchamber.

Irving had locked himself in his own room, leaving Lissa alone. The wedding night was out of the question, or so he believed.

Lissa knew otherwise.

Bathed in the moonlight from the window, she slipped out of the green frog's skin and stood up in the middle of the room, very much human.

What Lissa had failed to tell Irving was that her father's curse was partially broken, because she was married. However, if he did know this, it would prevent the curse from being broken completely, and that was the last thing she wanted. For now, she would just keep this little secret to herself.

Lissa had very little confidence in herself or her appearance, following the many years she had spent listening to her father's and brother's insults. She had always believed that even if she could meet another man, he would never find her charming enough. She felt bad for Irving, because she felt that nobody should be forced into marriage with somebody like her. She believed herself to be unattractive, not powerful, and certainly not charming. And certainly not compared to Tatiana, her sister. Then again, there were no mirrors in Lissa's house.

If Irving had seen her in that very moment, he would have vehemently denied what her father had said to her.

Lissa had long blonde hair that went to her knees and eyes grey as a storm cloud. She was still very young, and there were freckles sprinkled across her nose and her rosy cheeks. Her lips were full and red. In all, she was very elegant and very beautiful.

Glad to have her own body back, Lissa stretched and slipped into a silk robe that had been intended for Irving's bride. The maids had not bothered to take it away, but had left all of the gowns.

Lissa was a slip of a thing, badly fed, and she practically drowned in the capacious robe. Still, it was better than the coarse brown dress that she usually wore.

She lay back on the warmed feather bed and sighed happily. She was half-free of her father, and soon, she would be completely free. Just three more months. He would never be able to come near her again. This was going to do wonders for her self-image.

She lifted her head from the bed and saw the vanity, beautifully decorated, sitting right across from her bed.

She got up, excited and nervous, and walked over to the little vanity. With rising trepidation, she looked into the mirror and gave a soft gasp.

She had not seen her own reflection since she was six, and her mother had held up a little glass disc for her to look into.

She saw her mother in the mirror now.

Tatiana had taken after their father, just like Matthew. They were both dark-featured, strikingly thin and bony, with cruel eyes and sharp features. They all looked like crows, albeit very handsome crows. Lissa had never liked their appearance, but she had been told so many times of her own defects that she was starting to believe that her family's features were superior to her own.

Now, sitting in this palace room and looking into the large vanity mirror, she knew she would never think that again.

Her mother had been like a short, sweet dream for Lissa. She had been captured and burned for witchcraft by the villagers, and her father had not done a thing to stop the villagers. Her mother could not defend herself, because she was an ordinary human girl. She was the only one in the family who could not work with magic.

Now, with no time to waste, and wiping a tear from her eye as she thought of her mother, Lissa picked up a brush from the vanity and ran it carefully through her hair, whispering a charm so that the brush did not run into any knots or tangles.

She couldn't tear her gaze away from her reflection. Poor Ving. He thought he was just married to a magical frog. She laughed merrily, thinking of what his face would look like when she presented him with the tapestry. The most important thing was that she would be protected from her father. As soon as the spell was lifted, she could go against him, on her own terms, and rid everyone of his curses and enchantments. That would show him. And Matty, too. And even Tati.

So what if Tati was married to the great enchanter Laurentius? Lissa was married to a prince! She laughed again, rocking back in the chair and, losing her balance, she toppled over. A great crash resounded through the large bedroom, and she skittered over to the door to check that it was closed.

The task assigned by the king—the weaving of the most beautiful tapestry—would have been very difficult indeed if Lissa was not a skilled magician. It just so happened that Lissa was horribly clumsy, one of the things her father hated about her. She just didn't have the sort of balance necessary to be good at balancing cauldrons and potions. However, she was very good at spells, and she would definitely need a spell to help her with this.

"Who will help me weave?" she wondered aloud. "Who is best at weaving?"

Then she grinned broadly.

"Come out, come out!" she sang softly. "Guardians, attendants, come to my aid! I need your help, I need something made."

At that moment, they came from all over: the most talented weavers from all over the world. They appeared before her, puzzled, but they knew their task and so they set to work. As soon as the night was over, the tapestry would be completed and they would forget about their nighttime work—it would seem like nothing more than a dream to them.

Lissa made a small offering of flowers to Athene to watch over their work and set about dancing around the weavers, telling them what to depict in their work and every once in a while, walking directly into a delicate piece of tapestry and forcing them to restart their work.

"Sorry, sorry!"

Meanwhile, half of the household had gathered outside of her bedroom door. Even though she had stoppered up the peephole and the keyhole to the room, the staff sat listening, perplexed, outside, wondering how one little frog could be making so much noise.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The sun was coming up and Lissa quickly waved her hands over the room. The weavers were gone, but their work remained, beautiful as anything, showing a fairly familiar story.

In the tapestry, woven from the finest silk threads, was a scene depicting a king doling out his kingdom between his three sons and their wives. The eldest son received the king's fields and he and his wife became farmers. The middle son received the charge of the purses and he and his wife became merchants, traveling to other kingdoms.

As for the youngest son, he receives, the crown, throne, and scepter. He and his wife rule the kingdom together, and are loved by the people.

Just as she was walking around the tapestry, admiring "her" work, Lissa saw the sun's rays first appearing at the horizon. Hurriedly, she folded the tapestry into a small package and left it on the vanity. Then, she seized the frog's skin that had been discarded all night long and covered herself in it, shrinking back into a frog and hopping into the large bed.

Suddenly, the door opened and Irving walked into the room.

"Don't you knock?" Lissa complained irritably, grateful that she had managed to 'get dressed' just before he came into the room.

"Well, I'd didn't figure I'd have to," Ving responded with a dirty look in her direction.

"My, my, someone's feeling unhappy," Lissa commented drily.

"Oh, shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up! I'm your wife. And what is your problem, anyway?" she demanded. She didn't think that he could have been this rude.

"Well, for starters, I'm married to a frog," Ving snapped.

"So, how is that my fault? You married me, remember?" Lissa complained.

"Well, why didn't you just hop away or something when you saw my brothers coming? Or not talk? Couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut?" He was getting hysterical now, and she knew why. He'd had the night to sleep and reflect on what had happened. The poor boy thought he'd be stuck with a frog-wife for the rest of his life. Still, she couldn't tell him just yet.

"Look, just say thank you and get out, ok?" she hissed, now equally irritated that he was treating her like this.

"Ok, fine, I will. What am I thanking you for? Ruining my life?"

"Oh, you were doing quite well ruining your own life, you moron. Can't you see you have to make some effort to gain your father's favor?"

She hopped out of the bed and onto the bedside table, on which she sat glaring up at Ving. She reflected on his appearance and decided that, maybe, with a little bit of cleaning up, he could be quite attractive in his own right.

"I don't want to gain my father's favor!" Ving shouted.

"Well, fine, then, just throw the tapestry into the fire!" Lissa shouted back.

"Well, maybe I w—Tapestry?" he stopped, suddenly curious. "What tapestry?"

"The one your father asked his daughters-in-law to make," Lissa huffed. She was getting tired of this interrogation and would just as soon be left alone.

"Wait, where is it?"

"Over there," she gestured with a webbed hand towards the vanity.

Ving went over to unfold the piece of cloth that didn't look like much. However, as he let the folds fall out and saw the entire work, which was well over two metres in height and length, he gasped at the beauty of the thing.

"How did you do this?" he gasped.

"What do you care?" Lissa answered sarcastically. "You're married to a frog."

"No… I think I'm married to a magical frog," Ving said in a daze, still struck by the tapestry's intricacies and colours.

Lissa rolled her eyes. No wonder his father thought he was slow.