"Sire! Sire!"
"Your Majesty!"
Beside Marianne, Bog groans under his breath, but he stops walking and drops her arm so that he can turn in the direction of the frantically calling voices. Marianne stops, too, and turns with him.
Stuff and Thang race towards them, a pile of fabric bunched up in Thang's arms.
"What is it?" Bog says.
"You forgot your robes, Sire!" Thang says happily, cheerfulness unaffected by the way Bog is already glaring at them.
Bog growls under his breath and takes the piece of cloth from Thang.
"Ask him!" Stuff hisses to Thang. "He'll appreciate it!"
"You ask him!" Thang whispers back.
"He likes you!"
"Really?" Thang says, sounding inordinately pleased.
Marianne looks sidelong at Bog, who is holding up the robes with an expression of extreme distaste.
"Need any help?" Thang asks Bog.
"No," Bog growls. "Go away."
Stuff and Thang scamper off again.
"—Marianne?" Dawn calls.
Marianne glances over her shoulder at her sister and her father, waiting a little way down the corridor.
"You go on ahead," Marianne calls. "We'll only be a moment."
"Don't take too long!" Dawn says, and then she and their father begin to walk again, turning a bend in the corridor and disappearing from view.
Marianne turns back to Bog. He's still looking at the robe as though he's never before seen such a thing, and deeply regrets that he's seeing it now. Her heart gives a painful and perfectly ridiculous little twist of affection at his expression.
"…do you need any help?" she asks.
"No," Bog says, and then looks at her and sighs, and makes a face. "—yes, most likely."
Marianne takes the robe from him and he leans his staff against the corridor wall. He takes the ugly little corsage that she made him off of his chest and holds it delicately, as though it's something worth being careful with.
(she feels tears wanting to rise in her eyes at that and savagely represses them)
The robe in her hands is made of five panels of muted violet damask. The bottom edge of each panel is—well, Marianne thinks the rents and tears and tattered edges are artistic, but then, she's not really well-versed in goblin fashion. The panels hang down from a kind of leather collar, clearly designed to rest on his shoulders. Bog leans down and ducks his head—oh, he wants her to—
Marianne lifts the collar over his head, settles it into place. He's leaning down for her and she still has to stand on tiptoe to do it.
Bog straightens up—goodness, but he's tall; it always surprises her, somehow, how very tall he is—and the collar makes his shoulders look even wider.
Marianne swallows.
—her hand is still on his collar, her fingers hooked beneath the leather at the base of his throat. He's looking down at her, eyes very blue and much closer than she really feels able to handle. She lets go of him quickly, feeling herself flush as she takes a step back from him.
"Ah—here—" she says, covering her reaction as best she can by ducking her head and moving around Bog, sorting the panels of the robe out.
Two panels drape in front of his shoulders, two more behind his shoulders, and then one panel—
Marianne swallows again.
One panel is designed to hang between his wings. She drapes that one into place quickly, careful not to touch him.
There is decorative stitching down the center of that panel, a line of green embroidery like twisting vines, resting between his wings, and Marianne wants, very, very badly, to trace the edges of each vine with her fingertips, wants—
"Thank you," Bog says, voice quiet. Marianne still starts at the sound of it.
"It's—it's no trouble," she manages to say, grateful that she's standing behind him, still, that he can't see her face.
The panels lace together, a short line of laces beneath each arm, and then beneath each wing.
"—could you just—?" Marianne says, touching his left elbow as lightly and quickly as she can.
"Oh—" Bog pulls his arm up out of her way as she bends down to lace the panels beneath his arm together.
(she is very resolutely not looking at him, so she doesn't see the way he swallows, looking down at her, the way he's only able to tear his gaze away from her with a visible effort)
Marianne glances up at him. He's looking over at the wall, his face turned away from her.
She moves around him to the other side, and he lifts his arm for her again. Marianne quickly laces the panels together, concentrating on not letting her hands shake.
"I hate these things," Bog mutters.
She glances up at him, and he is looking at her this time, which is—
(he could let his hand settle on her back; she imagines the weight of it there, resting between her wings. his hands are so big that his thumb and last finger would overlap her wings themselves, and the phantom sensation of that nearly makes her shiver and—)
—and Bog definitely just said something, didn't he? After a moment of frantic mental scrambling, Marianne manages to remember what it was.
"The robes?" she asks, pulling the laces tight and tying them together, hoping that if she does it quickly enough he won't notice the way her hands definitely are shaking, now.
Bog makes a noise of affirmation as she moves behind him again.
Marianne takes a very shaky breath. The next laces are—
"Um," she says. "Could you, ah—could you unfurl your wings for me? I need to—um—the laces…"
"—ah, right; yes—" Bog says, sounding a little uncomfortable, too.
He unfurls his wings for her, though, fanning them out slowly, the iridescence of them catching the light, making Marianne catch her breath. Heat curls in the pit of her stomach at the apparent sensuality of the gesture, never mind that it's entirely unintentional and definitely not intended as flirtation, not intended to draw her eyes to the luster of his wings, not intended as an invitation to run her palm over the gorgeous space between them, to feel the ridges of his spine beneath the cloth of the robes.
Marianne gulps and reaches carefully beneath one of his wings to do up the laces.
"Why—why do you hate the robes?" she asks, her voice a little higher than she would like.
He's silent for a moment longer than she expects. She glances up and sees that he's looking at her over his shoulder, his face in profile. Her fingers fumble as she tries to tie the laces.
"There are some things tha' all the brocade in the world cannae fix," he says.
Marianne tips her head, frowning.
"It's—I mean," she says, "it's really not meant to—to fix anything. It's supposed, to, you know, complement—"
"—the hideousness?" Bog says dryly. "I think perhaps the word you're lookin' for here is contrast."
Marianne's hands go still on the last of the laces.
He thinks—?
"…you are really not hideous," she says, voice low.
He turns his head away and makes a sound clearly indicative of disbelief.
"Have you finished with it?" he asks.
"Ah—" Marianne knots the last lace quickly. "Yes, that's—all done."
She steps back and Bog furls his wings once more, reaching for his staff, taking it up from its place leaning against the wall. Marianne closes her eyes briefly and takes a steadying breath, the steels herself and moves around so that she's beside him again.
"Thank you," he says abruptly, looking at her with an expression. He's trying to smile, she thinks, but his mouth twists as if he's tasted something bitter. "I do not mean to be ungrateful."
He holds her corsage out to her.
"You don't need to be grateful," Marianne says, trying to make her voice light, not really succeeding. She takes the corsage out of his hand. "I mean, 'you're not hideous' isn't much of a compliment, as far as compliments go."
The resin on the back of the corsage was enough to hold it to his carapace, but not to the cloth of his robes. Marianne improvises, removing one of the pins that hold the leaves, rearranging the remaining pins so that the leaves stay in place, using the pin she removed to secure the bark to his robes.
Bog gives a snort of amusement.
"I meant for the help," he says. "Not for the compliment about the supposed complementing of the robes."
Marianne, sliding the pin into place, smiles—and then she makes the mistake of glancing up at him.
He's looking down at her, half smiling, and he is—he is really very close, her hands still on his chest from pinning the corsage, his head tilted down to look at her.
Could she reach his lips to kiss him, if she stood on tiptoe? Marianne wonders.
He'd probably have to lean down a little more to meet her. Or catch her around the waist and pick her up; she knows he could do it, especially if she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He could pick her up and spin the two of them around and press her back against the wall and—
Marianne feels a hysterical laugh rising in her throat, threatening to bubble out.
She's standing here vividly fantasizing about Bog pinning her against the wall and having her right here in the corridor where anybody could see, and he thinks that he's hideous?
Marianne can feel how hard her heart is beating, feels in in her chest and in all of her pulse points and in the low throb of desire in the pit of her stomach.
She's going to kiss him, Marianne realizes, and it is very much a realization and not a decision because she knows all of the reasons why this is a terrible thing to do but she's not going to be able to stop herself and—
"Your sister will be waitin'."
"—wh-what?" Marianne says, reeling back from him as though a tether holding her to him has just snapped.
For a moment, his words don't even make sense because—
(she almost kissed him she almost kissed him she almost kissed him)
A hot flush goes through all of her body, followed so quickly by a wave of horrified shame that it makes her head spin.
"Your sister," Bog says again, and he's not looking at her now; he's looking down the corridor. "They'll be wantin' to start the ceremony soon."
"Oh," Marianne says. Her lips feel oddly numb. "Oh—yes. Of course."
Bog holds out his arm for her.
"Yes, of course," she says again, and her voice sounds tinny and far off to her own ears.
(she feels almost feverish, hot and cold at the same time, her thoughts blurring together, the world around her over-bright and somehow unreal)
She takes Bog's arm.
Bella is really beginning to regret coming to Princess Dawn's wedding.
The entire royal wedding thing just brings back—really awful memories, humiliation and guilt and shame and Roland is standing with the army commanders, close enough that she can see the smile on his handsome, awful face, and that just really makes the humiliation and the shame even worse.
It isn't fair that he apparently feels entirely blameless and unconcerned at being at another royal wedding while Bella is over here writhing and wishing she was back home alone.
The Queen, standing with the King in front of the crowd, slightly to the left of the altar for the betrothed couple, looks terribly pale in her violet gown, her dark eyes wide and tragic in her face—or perhaps that's just Bella's guilty imagination again.
The girl standing beside Bella, the one with blonde hair and freckles, doesn't seem to be enjoying the ceremony any more than Bella or the Queen. She looks faintly dazed, almost swaying on her feet. The girl's friend, the one with dark hair and skin, keeps darting worried looks at her.
"Celeste?" the friend whispers, under cover of the music. "Celeste are you all right?"
"I'm fine," the girl named Celeste says, who is clearly lying. "It's—it's nothing."
"Perhaps it's the sun," Bella says to the girl's friend, who looks more worried than ever. "It is rather hot. Here—"
The friend gives Bella a look of thanks as Bella begins to fan the girl named Celeste with the fan she brought from home.
"I'm fine," Celeste whispers again, but she closes her eyes, pale beneath her freckles.
"Hush, now," the friend tells her, still looking worried, arranging the two of them so that Celeste is leaning on her now.
The friend glances over at Bella, catching her looking at them. Bella, not knowing what else to do, gives her a comforting smile. The friend gives her a tight, concerned smile in return.
"It'll be over soon enough," Bella says, surprising herself by speaking. It's been ages since she talked to anyone new on purpose.
"I suppose so," the friend says, but she doesn't look especially reassured.
"There'll be drinks inside," Bella says, "and we can get her something to eat—"
She doesn't quite mean to offer her help; she's been intending to slip away as soon as the actual ceremony was over, and avoid the banquet and the ball entirely.
But sympathy makes the offer slip out anyway, and the look of sheer relief on the face of the girl's worried friend makes it more than worth it.
"Thank you," the worried girl says quietly.
"Bella," Bella whispers. "My name's Bella."
"Angelique," the other girl says. "And this is Celeste."
The girl with the blonde hair opens her eyes and gives Bella a weak attempt at a smile. Bella continues to fan her.
"Really, thank you again—" Angelique begins.
"It's no trouble," Bella says. "Don't worry. We'll just wait for the ceremony to get over, and then we'll all go straight inside. She'll feel much better once she sits down and gets something cool to drink."
Dawn and Sunny's wedding ceremony is beautiful; Marianne recalls almost none of it, later.
She remembers it like a fever dream: vivid, fragmented moments blurred together—the first three notes of the third song and her father's beaming smile—a glance at Bog out of the corner of her eyes during a pause in the music, the sharp edge of his cheekbone and the curling leaves of the corsage she'd made him—a swell of music and Sunny's expression changing from nervous happiness to sheer, joyful adoration as he sees Dawn—seeing that expression reflected in Dawn's face and feeling a sudden fierce rush of love for her sister like a spike through her heart and loving Dawn and loving her father and loving Sunny and loving Bog and wanting to be happy and wanting to die and always, always, all over everything, the sunlight and the smell of violets and her despair.
Dawn bends and kisses Sunny and everyone cheers. Marianne smiles, and if there are tears in her eyes, now, well, no one will think less of her for crying at her sister's wedding.
A rumble of thunder in the distance makes Dawn and Sunny break their kiss as they look up, startled. Everyone laughs as the musicians begin again to play and the wedding party leads the way from the field before the palace and up the palace steps. The sun slips behind a cloud as they reach the doors of the palace, and Marianne, her hand on Bog's arm again, looks up and shivers.
Everyone knows how sudden summer rains come on, and there is more laughter as the first of the rain begins to fall and the crowd dashes up the palace steps and into the entrance hall, and from thence to the dining hall.
Bog reflects with grim self-recrimination that he should not have wasted so much time outside of Marianne's bedroom door this morning, should have made sure he had time enough to actually show her the divorce contracts and put her mind at ease.
For she is not easy in her mind; he can tell. Marianne looks almost feverish all through the wedding ceremony and she eats little during the banquet. She drinks only water and eats only berries and fruit, pushing aside everything else, even the acorn and honey cakes that he knows to be her favorite.
He wants, so very badly, to tell her that it's all right, that everything will be all right, but there are people all around them, talking and laughing, and so there is little he can do but place his goblet of water at her elbow when she finishes her own and turn his plate so that the fruit on it is near to her, a silent offer. Bog is careful not to look at her while he does this; Marianne hates to show weakness in public, would not appreciate his drawing attention to her lack of appetite.
She understands the invitation, at least, for she does take several pieces of fruit from his plate, and eats them, also without looking at him.
Dawn, on Marianne's other side, has her attention too taken up by all the congratulations and teasing and toasts that the other diners at the high table direct at her, and Bog's mother, on his other side, is mercifully too absorbed in flirting outrageously with every fairy lord and dignitary seated on her side of the high table to notice how little Marianne is eating.
During the final course, Bog is startled to feel a pressure on his hand, where it lies atop the table. He glances down and sees, to his surprise, that Marianne has taken it, her fingers curled around his hand. Bog glances up at her; she's still not looking at him, is looking out over the rest of the hall, but she must notice him looking at her, because she squeezes his hand.
He shifts his hand slightly, so that his fingers curl beneath hers, and he sees her close her eyes briefly.
(if she loved him, Bog would lift her hand to his lips and kiss her knuckles, and he would not give a damn who was watching)
He pats the back of her hand with his free hand instead.
Marianne must find his inept attempts at comfort at least a little reassuring, for she keeps her hand in his until the meal is over and they rise from the table to lead the way to the great hall.
"You know," Bog says to Marianne as the two of them take up their places for the first dance, "it's possible that I should have been practicin' this instead of showin' you the sword dance."
He gives her a slightly exaggerated grimace, and she must be feeling at least a little better, because she makes a sound that's nearly a laugh.
"Is this your way of warning me that you're going to step on my toes?" she asks.
"It's a definite possibility," Bog says, face and voice melodramatically grim. "This is your last chance t' save yourself."
A smile trembles around the edges of Marianne's lips as she lifts her hands and presses them to his, the opening pose of the dance.
"I'll take my chances," she says.
The music begins.
Marianne had felt during the wedding ceremony as if she was burning up with fever, but now she just feels as if she's burning up, as if there will be nothing left of her after this night but ashes.
She dances the first few figures with Bog, as she and Dawn agreed.
After the first few figures, she should, of course, according to every rule of etiquette, part from Bog and make a circuit around the room, giving the guests the opportunity to request dances with her, giving Bog the opportunity to ask dances of the other ladies.
Marianne catches at his hand instead as he turns away from her.
"Dance with me again," she says, more a plea than a command.
He looks taken aback, and frowns, and for a moment she thinks that he'll refuse, but as the music strikes up, he steps forward into the dance with her.
(his hands on her waist, lifting her up so effortlessly and spinning her into the steps)
They dance the next dance together as well, and then the next, and the next after that, and Marianne knows that people are staring, that there will be talk about this tomorrow, especially after their divorce is announced, but she cannot bring herself to care.
Tomorrow, Marianne will be nothing but ashes but tonight she is lit up and burning and incandescent, and she will have this.
The girl that Bog loves is no doubt here tonight, and perhaps Marianne should give in gracefully and step aside and let him dance with her instead, but Marianne has never given in gracefully in her life and she will not start now. The other girl will have all of his days and his nights after this. Marianne will have tonight.
Perhaps Bog understands something of her feelings—she'd kissed his hand in her bedroom, pressed his palm to her cheek; he has to understand something of her feelings—because he does not protest, any of the times she catches his wrist at the end of the dance and begs him to stay, and after a few more dances, he stops stepping away from her at all, simply keeps holding her as the music changes, each of their dances blending into the next.
Bog looks down at Marianne worriedly as they dance. Why in the world does she want to keep dancing with him? Doesn't she want to make a circuit of the room and give the man she's in love with a chance to dance with her?
Unless—have she and her love quarreled? Perhaps her current misery isn't entirely Bog's fault. Or is she just trying to avoid someone?
Oh, surely—surely Roland wouldn't dare ask her to dance—
No, Bog decides grimly, Roland definitely would dare ask her to dance; that trumped up little popinjay doesn't have any sense of decency or shame.
Well, regardless of why Marianne wants him to keep dancing with her, Bog is more than willing to do so. Dancing with Marianne is…
Wonderful and terrible at the same time—she's so close, moving with him and touching him, letting him touch her, their hands pressing together and joining, his arm wrapping around her waist and her arm around his shoulders as the two of them spin around each other.
People are staring at the two of them, Bog notes distantly, and then decides that he doesn't actually care. Let them stare. Let them all gossip tomorrow, after the divorce is announced, let them call him grasping and possessive, let them call him a monster unwilling to release his captive, let them say that he did not want to give her up.
He doesn't want to give her up. And she seems content, just for now, to stay with him, and so he does not have to give her up just yet.
They dance until the music falls silent. It takes Bog several long moments to notice that the musicians are not beginning another song. Marianne is looking up at him with wide dark eyes and parted lips, her face tilted up as if for a kiss and it's hard to think of anything but her.
At last, though, he does notice the silence, and he blinks and shifts back slightly from Marianne—only slightly; she doesn't take her hand from his shoulder so he doesn't take his hand from her waist, doesn't let go of her other hand—and looks around.
The fairy orchestra is standing and moving aside; goblins with their own instruments are taking their place, and the dance floor is clearing, the other couples moving to the edges of the floor.
A touch at his elbow makes him turn his head; Marianne turns hers as well. Stuff and Thang are there, holding up a tray with two swords on it; his own and Marianne's.
Bog looks back at Marianne, the lights of the ballroom dancing in her eyes like fireflies across dark water. There's a faint flush on her cheeks; exertion, or possibly excitement, and he wants to kiss her so badly that he can almost taste it.
Violets, he thinks disconnectedly, she'd taste like violets, and her lips would be crushed like petals by the harshness of him.
"Remember what you promised, now, tough girl," he says, voice rough to his own ears. "Try not to kill me."
Marianne must not notice the way he's affected by her, though, because she doesn't step away from him, doesn't look away from him as he reaches out, without looking away from her, and takes up his sword.
"I remember," she says, her hand sliding from his shoulder at last. "And I won't kill you."
Bog lets go of her waist, lets her hand slip out of his grasp. She smiles at him, sharper than the edge of a blade, and reaches for her own sword.
"Seriously maim you at most," Marianne says, smiling up at him, wicked and dangerous and so very herself that it takes his breath away.
She picks up her own sword, raises it, taking up the dance's opening stance.
"GO!" someone in the crowd shouts at the top of their lungs.
And chaos erupts in the ballroom.
...to be continued.
Thank you all very, very much for the reviews! Reading them makes me so happy!