Author's note: still typing from my phone, please forgive spelling or grammatical errors.

Aid me!

Sarah paced her room, highly agitated with herself for both her inaction as well as for her actions which utterly confused her. Iain had come by early that morning, far too early and wearing a gaudy dressing robe. Sarah found that she was disgusted to have realised he'd been wearing nothing else beneath it and extremely thankful that he'd never taken it off though she'd known he'd planned to. All of which confused her. She didn't understand her warring emotions. Iain had explained time and again that it was the persisting spells of the Goblin King, and yet Sarah was not so sure.

On the one hand she loved Iain, would love to do all he asked of her and yet her body revolted anytime he started to get too touchy or display acts of wishing more of her than they should do before their wedding. Like this morning. He'd come to see her and found that he couldn't cross the threshold of her bedroom and that his robe had sealed itself shut and to his person so that he could not remove it in any way. After several attempts to get into her bedroom and getting shocked every time he tried to force his way through the doorway, he'd left in a rage. He'd accused her of being a willing supplicant of the Goblin King and that she'd no right to refuse him, Iain, the Seelie High King who surpassed the Goblin King in all things. Sarah had burst out laughing before she could stop herself and without quite knowing why she was laughing in the first place.

Shortly after one of Iain's key advisers came to her parlor to speak with her. He apologize profusely, begged her to forgive those that had wanted no part in this. She been confused and had asked what he'd meant. The elf had sighed and smiled at her rather mournfully. He'd changed topics on her and told her that he was glad her power had manifested itself so swiftly and so strongly as to be able to fight for her subconsciously with the spells over her memories. She'd smiled sadly back at him, not bothering to correct him as it had never worked with the others that had said such things to her. She was a mortal, she knew she had no power, Iain said so.

Another advisor had come into her sitting room shortly after, without so much as a knock to announce his arrival and begin to rip into her for refusing his King. Sarah had sat there silently, saddened at the truth of what this adviser was screaming at her and yet in slight awe of the rage building within her. They had left once the angered counselor had run out of steam, the first one to enter her quarters had not said another word after the arrival of the second. Sarah had started to pace as soon as her door had slammed shut behind them. The more she contemplated her dueling emotions the more angry she became. Things began to rattle as she stalked past them and one or two of the smaller ornaments about the room had exploded as her agitation built but she didn't notice.

The opposing words of the advisers also had given her much to think on. It brought to mind the comments of many members of the court. She often heard them speaking of how she was the cause of this war with the Goblin King and yet very few actually blamed her for it. Sarah had a puzzling mystery going on around her that she knew she was missing several key pieces to and so had no way to solve it. She hated puzzles.

Yet Sarah felt as if she were on the brink of discovery. The angrier she became the more she felt something build within her. She didn't have all the facts. She knew things were being deliberately withheld because Iain believed her incapable of dealing with such things because it was not a female's place to do sort alone a human woman's place to do so. Which in raged her that much further. She was strong, of mind and will, who was he to say otherwise!

Sarah paused mid-pace then began to laugh like a megalomaniac on crack. She danced a little at the discovery that her rage had broken through the spell that had made her love the fool and believe he could do know wrong. She started to pace again mulling over all that she could remember of the past two weeks. Sarah was going to kill him or in the very least insure someone else did. She paused at that thought, examining it a little more closely. Someone else was involved in this but she couldn't think of who that might be. Thoughts fluttered at the back off her mind but she couldn't grasp at them. Stupid memory loss!

Sarah pulled that thought up short to examine it as well. She could feel that she'd never loved Iain now though he'd made it out as if they'd been in love for some time and that others had been jealous of the depth if that love. She was going to carved that lying prat's heart out with the first blunt instrument she could find that would get the job done. He'd lied about everything and that being said, what was her role in this war? Sarah had no doubts anymore that she was the cause of this war that Iain was in with the Goblin King.

Sarah jumped near out of her skin at the knock on her door. She called for whoever it was to enter and prayed that it wasn't Iain. He was going to die but she didn't have all she needed to do it yet. Blinking rapidly at the seamstresses that entered Sarah was amazed at how quickly time had flown since Iain had had come to her rooms at two in the morning. Here was another thing she was going to kill him for, who honestly wanted to do a dress fitting at seven in the morning and before breakfast! Sarah sighed as she followed the females to where her wedding dress fitting was to take place. She obediently put on the gown and stepped up on to the stool that would help the seamstresses with getting at every line and hem of the stupid thing.

Sarah fought her tears as best she could as she stared at herself in the mirror. Today was the final fitting. A tear slipped through but not because she was upset about it all or anything like that. No, it was merely that the colors of the gown made her eyes water. Iain had chosen the colors himself of course. His death would be a slow and painful one. Sarah caught sight of her own eyes in the mirror and was horrified to see them so devoid of emotion. She could feel it all within her but nothing was showing on her face, she looked like some gaudy, glass-eyed doll.

"Lady Sarah?"

Sarah jumped at the sound of her name, "Neasa, you know you're not to use my commoner name. What if Iain or his men heard you-"

"Hang Iain!" Neasa, the head seamstress, hissed, "Lady, we will aid you. Fittings take hours, we could be long gone and in the Goblin camp before anyone noticed we had-"

"Neasa, why Above and Below would I do such a thing!" Sarah hissed back. If the wrong people over heard, Iain would behead all seven of the seamstresses. Sarah started to pant a little as her heart sped up at the thought of leaving and going to the Goblin camp. She wondered at that a little. Sure she was currently plotting Iain's demise but she'd never risk the lives of others in that endeavor.

"It's no good, Neasa! She doesn't-" one of the other seamstresses whispered worriedly but Neasa cut her off.

Sarah noticed a fevered light had filled Neasa's eyes as Neasa smiled up at her from where she was kneeling and fingering the hem of Sarah's horrendous dress, "Lady Sarah, you must be brave... You must go to him- Lady he's- You- Only you could stop this war! Please Lady, you must go."

Sarah stared down at the elven maid, something about bravery had struck a chord with her. Memories rose only to fall back into the fog of the spells on her memories before she could catch hold of them.

"I'll need a less conspicuous dress…"