(Spot the reference to the movie 'Enchanted' for an imaginary bowl of pudding!)

Chapter Thirteen

Dawn picked out a fairly casual dress for the day, by her standards. The tiger lily petals were golden orange that complemented her wings. Its black speckles were unadorned at the high collar and long sleeves, but tiny beads were sewn over them on the loose bodice and knee-length skirt to make Dawn sparkle a bit when she moved. The matching leggings – made with every dress, for modesty in flight – were closer to pink than orange, almost perfectly matching the shade of Dawn's wings. The pink part of her wings, obviously, not the yellow near the root or the violet tinge on her hindwings or the black veins and margins.

She couldn't find the shoes that went with this outfit, so she checked her other wardrobe. Dawn had two wardrobes – one for extra-fancy, court formal clothing, and the other for day-to-day wear; yes, she was aware that what she considered casual clothing would be considered exceptionally fancy by most of her kingdom. An extensive selection of clothing was one of the many privileges that came with being royalty. Dawn made most of her clothes herself nowadays, as a hobby. She loved creating things.

Hanging on the door of the formal wardrobe was the blue dress she'd worn yesterday. Distracted from her shoe search, Dawn ran her hand lightly over the gold skeleton-leaf embroidery on the skirt. There was a tear where her knee had scrapped a tooth escaping the falling castle. It would be a simple fix.

She wasn't sure she wanted to fix it, though.

"Are you cursed, or lucky?" she asked the garment.

The first time she'd worn it had been – well, was supposed to have been – her sister's wedding day. After Marianne called the wedding off, the dress had hung in the back of Dawn's wardrobe for a year. If Marianne had told Dawn what happened, then she might have tossed the blue dress into the fire with Marianne's dirt-streaked white wedding gown, as an act of solidarity … though, she might not have. Dawn had a weakness for beautiful things. Every possession of hers was a testament to that.

Dawn had hesitated to wear the blue dress, in case it upset Marianne, but after a lot of internal debate she'd decided to wear it again on the day of the Spring Ball and Festival. Marianne had seen her at breakfast and hadn't commented or looked unhappy, so Dawn figured her big sister was okay with it or just didn't remember when she'd seen the dress last. There had been so many other things to think about on the would-be wedding day, after all.

But then she and Sunny had nearly been eaten by a lizard. And the Ball had started so uncomfortably, with Roland's public spectacle and Marianne's retaliation. And the Festival had been attacked by goblins and Marianne had been kidnapped.

Yet, arguably, every bad thing that had happened while wearing the blue dress had worked out for the best. Sunny and Dawn had avoided being eaten and gotten a new pet, and Marianne had escaped marrying Roland and found new love with the king of the goblins. And, like Dawn had admitted to Marianne last night, no one had actually been hurt at the Festival …

She smoothed a crease and adjusted its shoulders so that it draped more evenly from its hanger. A few pink and gold sparks flowed from her fingertips and healed the torn skirt.

She wished the torn edges of Marianne's wings could heal so easily.

All fairies had some magic besides the ability to radiate musical accompaniment when they sang. That was barely considered magic. Everyone could do that, even goblins. Specific abilities varied from fairy to fairy, but their spells were usually based on plants or glamour.

If Dawn could enchant anything but flowers and leaves and plant-fibre cloth – if she were one of those rare talents that could bring out the magical properties of a plant, or one of the even rarer fairies with healing power – she'd give every spark of her magic to speed her sister's recovery.

"You get one more chance," she told her blue dress. "If something dramatic and dangerous and kingdom-affecting happens next time I wear you, I'm going to have to assume you're cursed."

The dress, being an inanimate object, had nothing to say in response to this.

Her violet slippers were not, it transpired, in either of her wardrobes. They had somehow migrated to under the vanity. Dawn slipped them on and got to work convincing her hair to form curls instead of poofy frizz.

"Need a hand?"

Larkspur, one of her handmaidens, had been hovering discreetly by Dawn's window while she slept. Dawn had told them what happened last night while redecorating the guest wing. The two sprites had subsequently insisted on guarding the princess' room. She'd gone along with it, partly to make them feel better, partly out of guilt for always rejecting Marianne's protectiveness, and partly because it really did make her feel better to know they were there.

"Thanks, Larkspur."

"Not at all, sweetie." The blue-purple sprite patted Dawn's cheek on her way to pick up a comb. "Hmm. We might need some water for this."

When she left her room, she literally tripped over a goblin.

"I'm sorry!" Dawn caught herself with her wings and hovered.

"I'm sorry!" The frog-like goblin scrambled out of her path, eyes wide and antennae-eyebrows down close to his head. His thin tail tucked underneath him.

"I wasn't looking where I was going!"

"I didn't mean to get underfoot!"

"Are you okay?"

"I – sorry?"

"I was just giving Thang directions to the infirmary," said Thimble. "Apparently the Fairy King and the Bog King are both visiting Marianne just now. Your father invited you to join him there when you woke up."

Dawn landed. "Okay. Thang, how about I – we – walk you there?"

"… Okay?" He fell into step beside her, and the sprites hovered at either of her shoulders. "I – It's not that your tour earlier wasn't – It's just a lot to remember?" Thang cringed as though expecting her to yell at him.

"No problem. Sunny used to get lost in here all the time when we were kids. We couldn't play hide-and-seek forever because he was scared he'd get stuck somewhere and we'd never find him. Do goblins play hide-and-seek?"

"We have a game called hide-and-seek, but I don't know if it's the same one you have. One player closes their eyes and counts and everyone else hides and when you're done counting you have to find them all."

"That's the one!"

His tail was uncurled and swaying behind him. "Do fairies play tag, too?"

"Of course! But that's a little harder to play with elves and brownies since it's really hard not to fly and they can't so flying is cheating if you play it with them." Dawn twitched her wings.

"They're not good jumpers?"

"What?"

"Jumpers. You know." Thang leapt with his next step and, for a moment, his head and Dawn's were level. "To catch fliers and pull them down."

"Um. That's not really something we do."

"Oh."

Dawn paused at a staircase branching off from the hallway.

"I'm going to get some books from the library, so Marianne has something to do when she doesn't have visitors. Do you mind coming along, or would you rather I just told you how to get to the hospital wing from here? Or Thimble or Larkspur could lead you there."

"I'll follow you. No hurry. No trouble." Thang did look a little nervous, though, shuffling his feet and shooting wary looks at the sprites.

"What do you think he's doing here?"

"He looks like he's sleeping."

"I know that, I meant – Do you think he's okay?"

"He'll be fine. He falls asleep on the throne all the time."

"That can't be comfortable. I'm going to wake him up."

"I don't think that's a good idea –"

Bog growled low in his throat and twitched away from whoever had touched his shoulder spurs. They should listen to Thang and leave him along. Thang could be forgetful and obnoxious, but there was a reason he'd achieved and kept his job as a Royal Aide.

His neck ached. His back ached. Most of him ached. Maybe getting up would be a good idea.

He idly swatted away the hand that was touching his shoulder again. Bog stood, cracked his neck, buzzed his wings, rattled his shoulder spurs, and opened his eyes.

This wasn't his office. That wasn't his desk; the books on it weren't the ever-present pile of documents needing the king's attention.

He jerked sharply when he saw a fairy, of all creatures, standing beside him. She jerked back as well, flaring primrose-coloured wings.

"What –?"

Oh. He remembered now.

"Hi. How did you sleep?" Marianne's sister smiled at him, as though the Bog King hadn't nearly slashed her with his claws a few seconds ago. Two sprites – he thought they were sprites; he'd never actually seen any in person – hovered by her and frowned at him.

"Fine." Bog wasn't sure what else to say, so he shrugged and tried to stall for time by closing the books he'd left open.

The gloves split at the seams.

"I can fix those, don't worry," said Dawn quickly.

She reached for his hands. It took conscious effort not to recoil. Why did these fairy princesses keep grabbing at him? At least this one didn't actually touch him. Magic swirled around her fingers, then around his. Her spell fixed the gloves and even resized them to fit Bog properly.

"The resizing will only last until you take them off, I'd need more material to actually make them bigger instead of loosening the weave to stretch them, but I can make new ones that are actually in your size. And for any of your – entourage – who want to use the library while you're here."

Bog cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, um … thank you."

"Sire?" Thang shuffled forward. "I thought your note said you were visiting Princess Marianne?"

"I – reprioritized," he informed his aide haughtily. The Bog King gestured to the law books he'd been reading. Thang stood on tiptoe to see what he was pointing at. Bog swept the top book off the pile and held it at Thang's eye level. "If I intend the Dark Forest to have relations with the Fairy Kingdom, I should have some idea in advance of what the fay will expect of us."

"Just being able to read will catch some of them by surprise." Dawn's hand jumped to her mouth. "I mean – just because we have the same spoken language, doesn't mean we'd use the same writing, you know?"

"What's gone wrong now?" Bog asked Thang.

"Nothing!" Thang held his hands up, then hunched in on himself, curling his hands in front of him. "Nothing I know of."

Obviously Griselda hadn't sent Thang. If she knew he was supposed to be visiting a girl, Bog wouldn't put it past his mother to try and set up some kind of barricade to ensure no one could possibly interrupt them.

If Stuff thought Bog needed to know something, she would have come herself.

The other three goblins joining the 'diplomatic party' didn't have the authority to use Thang as a messenger, though given how skittish and eager to please Thang could be, it wouldn't be difficult for them to convince him to volunteer. But if there had been a message, even if Thang couldn't remember what it was, he would at least be trying to deliver it.

"Then why are you here?" Bog snarled.

Thang jumped and stammered incoherently, antennae down, tail tucked in, his whole body hunched – and, to Bog's surprise, inched closer to his ill-tempered king.

There had to be some sort of limit for how many times one person could be hit with minor epiphanies in one day.

Thang was afraid of the Fairy Kingdom. He wanted to stay close to Bog for protection.

"If your room's too bright to sleep in, you can rest under the table here." Bog gestured. The library was brightly lit, but that just made the shadows darker. "Once I finish my research, we're going back to the Dark Forest. I need to organize scouting parties to find a new castle."

"You're leaving?" Dawn's eyes were wide and her lower lip was pushing out. "But you haven't even been here a full day! You haven't – What about Marianne?"

"We'll return in the morning." Bog unstacked and reordered his pile of books. "I have responsibilities to my kingdom, your highness."

Thang scurried under the desk. Dawn sighed.

"Before I go, there's something I have to ask you. Have you kissed Marianne yet?"

Bog nearly jumped out of his exoskeleton.

"What?"

"So, you haven't?" Dawn asked.

"First she was love-dusted and then your father was right there. When exactly do you think we could have kissed?"

"You went on a romantic moonlit flight."

"While she was love-dusted. It wouldn't have been right."

He'd almost done it anyway, right or wrong.

He'd picked the flower on impulse. She'd seemed so enchanted by everything he'd shown her, and he'd wanted to give her something she could keep, something more substantial than a memory. After Bog had tucked the flower behind Marianne's ear, she'd been looking at him with such an adoring smile that he'd started to lean in before catching himself, and pulling away.

It's the potion smiling at you, not her; this isn't right; this isn't real; it's just the potion.

"She's not under a spell anymore," Dawn reminded Bog. Her almost sing-song voice had him ready to dive for cover. Then she became serious. "Do you want to kiss Marianne?"

That question was more terrifying than any song she could have sung.

"We barely know each other."

"You don't have to tell me. But if you want to kiss her, you should ask her."

"We've only had two real conversations while she was in her right mind, and one of those was mostly her shouting at me for trying to kill your boyfriend yesterday."

"Sunny's not my boyfriend yet, and all relationships have to start somewhere." The look she was giving him was probably supposed to be encouraging rather than intimidating. "You ought to rush to her side, and pull her in your arms, and pour your heart out in beautiful ballad!"

Bog tried to edge discreetly away from Dawn. He looked around, hoping to spot someone who might take pity on a poor goblin king and rescue him from the fairy princess. Shouldn't the librarians be there, at least, to shush them?

"Or, I could … not do that?" he suggested.

"You're right; Marianne's not really a ballad kind of girl. It's amazing how well you two have gotten to know each other in such a short time."

"Speaking of Marianne …" One of the sprites, the silvery-green one, tugged at Dawn's flared collar. "Are you going to go visit your sister today or not?"

Dawn nodded, first to the sprite, then to Bog. "I … guess I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Bog inclined his head stiffly. "Good day, Princess."

Dawn left him to his books.