Chapter Twenty-Five

The difficult thing about dating a friend was coming up with things to do.

Sunny wanted to do something special with Dawn; something different, now that they were dating, to distinguish their time together now from all the time they had spent together before. But other than holding hands more often, he had no ideas.

(Other than kissing her, but after Dawn had said she wanted to take their new relationship slowly, he'd decided it would be better to wait until she kissed him first, to be sure she was comfortable with it.)

As friends, they already danced and sang together, and hugged, and gave each other little presents and surprises, and wandered aimlessly through the kingdom to see where they might end up.

The last of these was what they were doing now, walking in Lizzie's shadow. It was late afternoon and there hadn't been many clouds or breezes that day, so the sun's heat had soaked into the ground. A bit of shade offered the perfect spring temperature. Larkspur and Thimble were 'chaperoning' again, but the sprites were discreet about it.

"So … how was work?" Dawn asked.

Sunny was a performer at heart, but so were many others in the kingdom. His main employment was running packages and messages as a courier.

"To be honest, I think people were avoiding me for messenger jobs today, so there was probably a lot of gossip about – you know. Current events. I did take a set of pans from the smithy to the bakery and then some raisin buns back."

There had been a similar dry spell of messages after Marianne called off her wedding last year. Sunny's friendship with the princesses meant he was rarely asked to carry politically-charged messages, probably because the other elves and brownies were concerned he would forward it all to the royal family.

On the subject of dry spells …

"Tammy," one of the bakers, "was saying the herb patches haven't been getting as much rain as they need. She thinks we need another well. I said, 'isn't it a bit early in the season to be sure?', and she said, 'by the time we are sure, everything'll be dried up'."

"It is odd," Dawn agreed, batting the tip of some drooping grass out of her face. "Usually we've had at least one serious shower by now. Maybe a thunderstorm is building."

"I hope not." Sunny shivered. There had been an enormous thunderstorm near the end of last summer. Several villages were flooded. No one had died, but it took weeks to clear the mud and make repairs – valuable time taken from preparing for the harvest. "My parents are talking about having a new roof put on instead of patching the old one again. They were going to wait for summertime, but if it stays dry, they might do it sooner."

"I'll keep an ear out for pressure changes." The length and curl of a fairy's ear was sensitive to wind currents and air pressure, so they were often the first to know what weather was coming. A few older elves and brownies claimed similar sensitivity in their bones or joints. "Your Grammy used to predict rain with her knee, didn't she?"

"Yeah … I think it was dampness that set her off, though, since sometimes it just got really humid."

Sunny blinked when it suddenly grew brighter. He and Dawn lifted their hands to shade their eyes and looked at each other … and then to Lizzie, who had stopped walking and whom they had walked past without realizing.

"Something the matter, Lizzie?" Dawn put a comforting hand on the giant reptile's shoulder, letting the sun light up her face once more. Sunny took a moment to admire her glow before peering ahead.

A short ways ahead of them, only about twice Lizzie's length from snout to tail-tip, was a forsythia bush, densely flowered with its distinctive yellow four-pointed stars. Under and between the blooms were odd, faint flickers of pale blue light.

"… Plum?" he said softly.

"That's … right, that's where her workshop was … before."

It had been abandoned when Sugar Plum was imprisoned, except for young fays who would dare each other to come here, to take a yellow flower or step inside the building.

Dawn twitched her wings.

"Looks like she moved back in. Let's go say hi."

Her tone and expression was not nearly as cheery as it usually was when she said things like that. Sunny gulped.

Thimble and Larkspur lifted some of the low-hanging branches so Dawn wouldn't have to duck. Sunny wouldn't have needed to, himself, but they held the branches for him as well. Dawn squared her shoulders.

Lizzie actually skittered back from the bush a few steps. He could see her tail lashing. She either couldn't or wouldn't follow them, and wasn't happy about it.

"We'll come back, Liz," he promised her quietly.

Sugar Plum's workshop was built of wood and radiated around the stem (trunk?) of the bush. It had a tall enough roof and doorway for fairies to enter. It was nearly circular, and had filled the space under the forsythia before Plum had been imprisoned and the bush had been left to grow wild.

It was in better shape than Sunny would have expected, for sitting empty so long, but perhaps Sugar Plum had moved back in a few days ago and started repairing it already, or had left some kind of preservation spell on the place.

The doorway didn't actually have a door in it, just a pair of curtains. It was surprisingly wide. The largest goblins Sunny had seen in the forest might have been able to step inside.

Dawn entered boldly, like the royal she was. Sunny ducked in beside her, ready to jump in front if the Sugar Plum Fairy was home and not inclined to entertain visitors.

"My first customers!" Plum trilled, tumbling in the air. "It's so good to be back! What can I do for –? Oh, it's you." Her blue, glittering shoulders slumped for a moment and she pouted at them.

Larkspur folded her arms and made an indignant noise.

Sugar Plum pasted her smile back on. "How kind of you to come and check in on me, after we shared that harrowing ordeal in the Dark Forest!"

Sunny could see almost the entire workshop from the door, except for a curtained off area he guessed might be Plum's private living space.

Between the randomly placed windows, the walls were lined with shelves, mostly full of dried plants and empty bottles, and a few haphazardly-placed boxes and books. A counter or table was built around the trunk in the middle of the room. On it were scissors and gardening tools, for harvesting ingredients, and cooking tools, for brewing potions, and a vase with some forsythia blooms in it.

"How are you settling in?" Dawn asked. One of her hands was clenched around her other wrist.

"Oh, it's a bit dusty, nothing unexpected, everything that didn't rot or dry up while I was away is right where I left it – but unfortunately, one of the dried up things is my customer base! It looks like I'm going to have to completely rebuild my client roster."

Plum pouted again, and made a sweeping gesture to a shelf where a few yellow-green bottles emitted the faintest glow.

"I've been working on garden fertilizers, always steady sellers; that's how I got my start. But nobody's come to shop even though I'm sure everyone knows I'm free by now, so I might have to go into market to remind them that I'm here. And maybe trim a gateway into the forsythia again, like I had before, but after that dreary dungeon with only my own glow for colour, I've really missed the rest of the spectrum, so I'm going to wait until the yellow flowers are done for the season."

Plum circled around them and put one hand on Sunny's shoulder and the other on Dawn's.

"And how are you two setting in to your new relationship? I thought I saw something between you!"

"We're taking it slow," said Sunny quickly.

Plum turned into Dawn and booped his nose. "Just because love is new doesn't mean it isn't real." She booped the real Dawn's nose in turn and changed back into herself. "Right, Princess?"

Dawn's smile definitely showed more teeth than usual. Her teeth barely parted when she spoke.

"Our relationship is progressing at the pace of our choosing. But there is a complication we ought to discuss with you."

Sunny looked at his feet. Did Dawn want to know Sugar Plum's perspective of what Sunny had said and done to convince Plum to make him the love potion he had tried to use on Dawn? It had actually been disturbingly easy … both for how quickly she acquiesced and for how pleased he'd been about it.

"The night we met you, a lizard got love-dusted and she's in love with both of us," said Dawn flatly. "The imp saved our lives by dusting her before she could eat us, but it's still not right to keep someone … emotionally stuck like that. Is there any other cure besides real love?"

"Sorry." Sugar Plum shrugged, not looking sorry at all. "The magic was set up to have just the one counterpoint, so it can't be undone by anything else. It's my most powerful working."

If you think making the potion's dangerous, wait till you use it! Believe you me, there can be unforeseen consequences. Oh, I'm so good! It scares me so!

"I see. Well, best of luck … rebuilding your client base. You should know before anyone else asks you to brew one that love potions have been banned in this kingdom as well as the Dark Forest."

"I suppose that's only to be expected," said Sugar Plum philosophically. "Don't you worry about me. The goblins probably destroyed all the primrose petals we'll get this spring, so I'll have a year to wean everyone off that idea."

"And the Royal Family is willing to fund research into finding an alternative antidote." Dawn winked. Her toothy grin became a cheeky one. "In case you want a new special project. I'm sure you'd outdo yourself."

"You flatter me, your highness. But I won't keep you. Go on, back to your date! Shoo-shoo!"

Dawn and Sunny let themselves be chivvied out the doorway.

"Toodles! Come back any time you want relationship advice!"

"So …" said Sunny, once Plum had gone back inside to wait for customers, "I … guess we've got Lizzie forever, then."

Dawn heaved a sigh. "Guess so."

Lizzie was excited to see them back. She nuzzled both of Sunny and Dawn, and used her massive head to herd them away from Plum's workshop.

"Do you think," Sunny asked Dawn quietly, "she understood about Plum being in there? And us wanting an antidote? And the potion's making her not want an antidote?"

"Animals of all sorts tend to avoid that place," Thimble volunteered. "I think Plum set a barrier spell that makes them nervous. That sort of thing isn't sustainable over a large area like a village or even a farm, but around a single building it can work."

"And Marianne said," said Dawn, "that when she was dusted, if there'd been an antidote, she would've taken it if Bog was the one to ask her, to 'prove' her love was real." She gasped. Her eyes went wide. "I am so stupid!"

"No, you're not!" said Sunny, shocked. "What could even make you think that?"

"We could have used Marianne's obsession with Bog to get her away from him! Then Dad would have called back the army and no one would have gotten hurt!"

"… You lost me. How would that have worked?"

"'Oh, Marianne, this is so great, we should go tell Dad you have a new boyfriend!'" Dawn stamped her foot. "But no, I had to try and reason with her and just got her mad."

Sunny patted Dawn's arm.

"You know," he said slowly, "It's okay if you're still mad. At your dad or your sister or the goblins or Sugar Plum, or, well, me. It was a pretty wild night and it's only been a few days."

Dawn didn't say anything but she did look a little less tense. They walked in silence for a full minute.

"I feel like I forgave you too quickly," she admitted. "I know you weren't doing it to hurt me and I trust you not to do it again – and if you do try something like that again, I won't forgive you – and I don't feel mad at you anymore, but I do feel … almost, mad at myself? Like, does it make me weak that I can forgive someone for trying to control me, and give you another chance?"

Sunny really wasn't the best person to answer that and figured Dawn knew that too, so he didn't answer.

"Trust can be misplaced," said Thimble, "but being able to trust isn't a sign of weakness, in and of itself."

"Mm."

"Do you, ah, want me to walk you home now?" Sunny asked.

"… Not yet. Let's go look at the daffodils."

(Welcome back! It's only been, let's see; the last update was October and now it's July ... eight months! Hopefully there will be fewer than six months until the next update.)