"You should have seen his face!" Marianne laughed loudly over the sound of her flapping wings. "When we got home he just went straight to his room without getting dinner. I have never seen him so shocked!" She did a twirl mid-air and laughed again.

Hovering besides her, Bog watched closely as the fairy did loops and graceful twirls like they were nothing, her enormous wings giving her the strength to do so. They were so beautiful, he had thought the first time he saw them when she crashed into his forest a week ago (it felt like eons ago), and he had been reminded of it when she proposed a quick flight around the Dark Forest to stretch their wings.

It was the following day to the meeting with the Fairy King and they had decided that sword training could wait. The princess was vibrating with emotion and the grin on her face wouldn't go away for nothing.

And while it was refreshing to be next to her, she was starting to get on his nerves in the castle. Hence, the trip outside.

"I think this is the beginning to a better future, Bog," she continued, ignoring the fact that he wasn't responding to her, "I think we are making history with this. Imagine it! A future where we don't have to be afraid…!"

Bog sighed.

"It's not that easy, Tough Girl," the nickname came easily to him. She seemed to like it, so he kept calling her that.

"I know, I know. But dreaming is free, right?" she smiled as she did another loop around him. "Besides, if no one has the will to change then nothing is going to change. Someone has to push things forward or it was going to stay the same."

"That someone had to be you?" he asked as he flew to his favorite tree near the border. It wasn't too close to be spotted from the Fields, and you could see almost the whole Forest from there.

"Of course!" Marianne laughed and landed on the branch, next to the goblin. "It had to be me. I am the weird one, remember?"

Both snorted at her choice of words.

"I've always dreamed of the day I would walk into the Dark Forest without fear. I imagined what I would say when I met you, what I would do to stop this cold war between us…," she murmured after a brief pause, her eyes fixed on the horizon and the enormous Forest at their feet. Bog thought that she had never looked so regal and Queen-like in the time they had spent together. But then again, they didn't usually talk about such a serious matter.

"Is this like what you thought it would be?" he gestured to his kingdom with a clawed hand, looking at the fairy in the eyes.

She smiled.

"Nope," her smile grew bigger as she turned her eyes back to the beautiful afternoon from their branch. "It's better."

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Bog swore he could almost see a pink patch on her cheeks.