#a sword named cruel dancer should be slightly curved

[loremastering]

Sigileth won a poll I made recently, and I was excited to get an excuse to draw one of my favs at last.

[setepenre-set]

Love and War (chapter 16)

Strange Magic

Bog/Marianne, M rating

This is a story about two kingdoms, side by side, but worlds apart. And at war.

When the Bog King finally wins his war against the Fairy Kingdom, he decides that a political marriage with the eldest daughter of the deposed Fairy King will help to promote peace.

Obviously, he’s never met Marianne.

AO3 | FFN

Marianne stands in front of her bedroom window, looking out. She twists her signet ring with the royal seal on her finger. Roland, evidently, hadn’t actually stolen it; the ring had been in the drawer of her dressing table when she looked there. She’ll have to start wearing it from now on, she supposes. And tomorrow, she’ll need to make some sort of official proclamation about Roland. And start the process of overhauling the royal guard. And—

It’s stopped raining, Marianne notes dully. The moon is bright overhead, bright as it shines through her window, bright as it filters through the curtains and pools on the floor.

The two scrolls that Bog brought to her room are still on the top of her dressing table. She could not bring herself to read them.

Bog had been—

Marianne draws her wings in a little closer.

Kind.

He���d been kind to her, giving her that last dance. He had to have known how badly she wanted it.

She’d almost been able to forget, while they were dancing, that it was an ending. She had forgotten that the two of them were not alone, hadn’t been performing for their audience at all, had been dancing only for him. The sword dance was intricate—dangerous, if done incorrectly, requiring the full focus of both dancers. Having his entire attention had been intoxicating.

She’d thrown everything she had into that dance, half convinced that if she just managed to do it perfectly for him, if she just made him see her, really see her, then she might have a chance of making him want to stay with her after all.

And then the dance had ended and reality had intruded, the sound of their audience clapping, of Bog’s mother saying that the two of them looked well together and—

Marianne really had felt seen, then, terribly so, had felt stripped naked, her heart raw and wounded and then he had been kind to her again and she’d found she could not bear it.

The night is warm again, after the rain, but Marianne feels cold, a cold that seems to radiate out from her heart through her entire body.

She is nearly certain that he’ll come to her room tonight. He’ll be wanting to get this over with.

Marianne looks down at the moonlight on her bedroom floor. It would have been easier to bear, she thinks, if she had hated him, the way she had been so sure she would, on their wedding day. Being married to a man she hated would have been easier to bear than being married to a man she loves who does not love her back.

A knock on her bedroom door makes Marianne’s heart leap to her throat.

“Come in,” she says without turning.

The sound of the door opening—of it closing once more.

“—Marianne?” Bog says, his voice low.

Marianne swallows the tears that want to rise.

She should turn now, she knows. Should turn around and be sensible and practical and reasonable. Should give in gracefully.

Oh, but she will never be able to forgive herself if she does not try, one last time, will never be able to live with herself unless she knows that she did everything she could to make him want her.

Marianne takes a shaky breath, and then, slowly, deliberately, she raises her head—

And unfurls her wings.

Bog, standing just inside Marianne’s room, watches her wings unfurl, sees the light of the moon through the window catch them, making them almost seem to glow.

She’s still in her violet dress, and the pearl necklace that hangs between her wings looks as if it is made of a moonbeam, white and cool and luminous against the deep purple petals of her gown.

She is too beautiful, he thinks despairingly. Too beautiful for something like him to ever touch. Does she know how beautiful she is, holding herself like that? Does she know how much he wants her?

Surely, she must not. Marianne would never tease him deliberately, if she knew. She would never be that needlessly cruel to him.

“It’s—me,” he manages to say. “I—I came to talk to you.”

Marianne stays poised like that for a moment longer, her head up, her wings unfurled in the moonlight, and then she turns, folding her wings in slowly.

“—of—of course,” she says. “Of course.”

It’s difficult to Bog to walk to her dressing table, to pick up the scrolls; each movement feels jerky and unnatural to him, as if his body is a marionette and he’s hovering above it, yanking unskillfully at the strings to get it to move.

“—I told you” he says, and his tongue feels thick and clumsy in his mouth, “that the laws of the Dark Forest don’t require any—legal documents—for a—for a divorce. But I thought that—havin’ the contracts might—make it seem more—official.”

“—of course,” Marianne says again.

She crosses slowly to the dressing table, to Bog. There’s a strange kind of inevitability to the movement, Marianne thinks, as if she’s caught in a nightmare, forced to play out the dream no matter how badly she wishes to escape.

“There’s ink and a pen in the top left drawer,” she hears herself say.

Bog looks at her for a moment, and then he looks away and he places the scrolls down on the top of the dressing table again. He opens the cabinet door and pulls out the drawer, takes out the ink and the pen. Everything seems to be happening terribly slowly and yet too fast at the same time.

He puts the pen and the ink down on the dressing table, doesn’t look at Marianne again.

“There are—there are two scrolls,” he says, and Marianne, hearing the strain in his voice, realizes how badly he must feel about doing this, how uncomfortable he feels having to hurt her in this way. “Two scrolls,” he says again, “two—different contracts. For you to choose from.”

Marianne feels herself nod her head.

“I see,” she says. “What’s—what’s the difference between them?”

“Ah—this—this one,” Bog says, unrolling the first piece of parchment, “this one—divides the land into two kingdoms again—yours and mine. Separate—separate governments. And this—” He unrolls the second piece of parchment, “—this one keeps the kingdom united, keeps—the two of us as joint rulers. King and queen, just as we are, now. Just not—just not married to each other anymore.”

Bog stares down at the parchment, knowing he won’t be able to get through this if he’s looking at Marianne.

“Like I said,” he manages to force the words out, “it’s your choice which one you want.”

“The second one, of course,” he hears Marianne say, and he does look up at her, then.

She looks paler than ever in the moonlight as she reaches for the pen. Her fingers close on it and she picks it up, dips the sharp point of it into the inkwell.

Looking down at the parchment instead of at him, she places the tip of the pen to the paper and signs her name on the bottom of the second contract.

Marianne looks up at Bog and holds the pen out to him. He reaches out to take it from her and their fingers brush. She freezes when he touches her, and Bog finds that he has frozen as well, that he cannot look away from her, cannot force himself to pull the pen from her hand.

“You—you didn’t read it,” he says blankly.

“I—” Marianne swallows.

(she should take her hand away, now, she thinks. she should take her hand off the pen. she does not.)

“I—trust you,” she says.

And then she does let go of the pen, quickly, as if it has burned her fingers. She steps back and turns half away from him, fingertips of one hand placed on the top of the dressing table as if for balance, her face averted from his.

Bog still holds the pen in midair, his eyes on the curve of her cheek and the sweep of her lashes—the only parts of her face that he can see.

I trust you.

Coming from Marianne, that’s—

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

Marianne’s breath hisses through clenched teeth.

She cannot do this. She cannot do this.

Marianne presses her lips together, curls her free hand into a fist, tight enough that her nails bite into her palm.

She will do this. She has to.

“The details—” Bog swallows, “the details of this one—the two of us remain co-rulers, with equal power. And—the eventual heir to the throne will—be your eldest child.”

Marianne crosses to the window again without looking at him, stands at it, looking out.

“That part will have to be changed,” she says.

Bog blinks.

“Changed?”

“I don’t intend to have children,” Marianne says, still with her back towards him.

Bog frowns. She doesn’t—? Does the man she’s in love with not want children?

Or—perhaps it’s a woman that Marianne is in love with?

“It wouldna’ need to be a biological child,” he says, “If you and—your spouse should wish to adopt instead—“

“I don’t intend to marry,” Marianne says.

Bog stares at her, at the tense line of her shoulders and closely furled wings, at the moonlight in her hair. What—

What can she mean; she doesn’t intend to marry?

“Besides,” she says, turning her head just slightly over one shoulder, so that he sees her face in profile, “I’m sure—she’ll—wish for your child to eventually inherit.”

“Have you—I mean, I really think that’s something you two should have a conversation about, Marianne,” Bog says.

Marianne turns her head to look out the window again, twists her fingers together tightly, hands pressed hard to her body just below her breastbone, feeling as if she’s trying to hold herself together with the pressure of her hands.

Of course. Of course Bog wants her and his new wife to talk, to be cordial; he probably wants them to be friends.

Marianne presses her hands to her chest a little harder, resisting the urge to claw at it instead, to try to tear her out her heart.

Friends.

“Yes,” she forces herself to say. “Yes, of course I’ll talk to her. And naturally you’ll want to speak to her about it as well.”

Bog clutches the pen in his hand, closes his eyes for a moment.

Marianne wants him to speak to the woman she’s in love with. And he’ll need to, won’t he? He and Marianne are going to be ruling together for the rest of their lives; he’s going to have to know this woman Marianne loves.

“I can do that, yes,” he says, opening his eyes, looking at Marianne again. “But—Marianne, why do you say you don’t—does—?”

Does this woman not want to marry Marianne? That thought seems absolutely impossible to Bog. Unless—

“You do remember,” he says, “that we abolished that—law of the Fairy Kingdom sayin’ that a woman cannae’ marry a woman and a man cannae’ marry a man…?”

Marianne frowns, half turns towards Bog. What would that law have to do with anything?

Bog is standing at her dressing table, still, pen in hand, looking deeply uncomfortable. Why—

—oh.

Marianne does a quick mental review of their conversation. No, Bog hadn’t ever actually said “she” when talking about the person he intended to marry; that had only been Marianne who said that, who assumed that.

“Oh,” Marianne says, “I—yes. Of—well, as you say, the child wouldn’t have to be biological.”

“…right,” Bog says. “So, we’ll—ah—leave that part of the contract as it is, then?”

Marianne frowns.

“What? No. I told you, I don’t intend to adopt.”

Bog, frowning, too, looks about as frustratedly confused as Marianne feels, now.

“Don’t they want children?” he asks, with a sharp gesture of the hand holding the pen.

“What? Who?” Marianne says, truly baffled now.

Bog gives her a look like he fears she may have lost her senses.

“…whoever it is you’re going to be marryin’, Marianne,” he says slowly.

“I’m not going to marry again,” Marianne says forcefully, with a slashing gesture of her hand. “Why do you keep insisting that I’m going to be getting married again?”

“Because you’re in—” Bog gestures with two hands, his wings giving a suppressed agitated flutter, “—the potion—tonight—the potion didn’t work on you!”

“No, of course not,” Marianne snaps.

“What do you mean, of course not?” Bog says, sounding bewildered.

“Of course not, because—” Marianne cuts herself off abruptly and gestures angrily at him.

Bog looks at her blankly and Marianne growls under her breath in frustration.

“You,” she spits out, “The potion didn’t work because of you.”

Bog feels his heart drop horribly. Of course. Of course the potion didn’t work on her, not when she was looking at him; he’s far too—

He shakes his head.

“No,” he says, “no, that’s not—you heard the Sugar Plum Fairy tonight. Before, when I tried to use the potion and it didn’t work for me, it wasna’ because—”  he swallows, steels himself. “—it wasna’ because I’m—too hideous to love, it was because—”

“Who the hell told you that you’re too hideous to love?” Marianne demands, her wings snapping out, her hands curled into fists and her eyes blazing

Bog blinks at her, unable to fathom why she looks so angry.

“…no one told me,” he says, “I did not need to be told. I’ve got eyes, Marianne. But that’s not why the potion didn’t work for me. And—and, besides, you said Roland tried dusting you before, and the potion didn’t work on you that time either, so I don’t understand what—”

“It didn’t work because of you, Bog,” Marianne snarls. “Both times. The potion didn’t work on me because I’m in love with you.”

...to be continued.

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