#linden the fairy

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #44 + #45

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

Welp, a little more violence. Tags have been added appropriately, and bear in mind from here on out it’s probably going to stay violent for a while. Edit: It’s complete! The queue runs until February 22, at which point it will be done! At a little over 103K words, so much for a speed-writing exercise XD

He lived, of course.

He went through his classes and his studies and his practices like one of the clever clockworks that were brought to entertain the Court. He went through the motions, and presumably pretended to them well enough, as no one complained of his inattention. Dane and Beli tried to get him to go out on the grounds, to at least visit the Royal Gardens, but Adam refused to go that far, refused to so much as look at the woods. He wouldn't climb so much as a tree. Rumors began to go around that he'd been elf-touched and rejected, that he would soon wither away and die, pining after a fairy-maid that had enthralled him for a lark and abandoned him directly after. As rumors went, it didn't go very far; the visit of the priests ensured that.

Adam didn't cry, he hardly spoke, he ate only because Culli-maid and Trout would harass him into it. Spring rushed headlong toward summer and he didn't even notice. Master Leminy assigned him nearly permanently to clean the stables and the training rooms if only to get him to leave his rooms. Adam suspected the teachers there had been instructed to keep him busy, with whatever kind of sparring they could think of if nothing else presented itself. Yet again, they could only report that the prince did his duties with admirable skill. This time they could also add that he did them with little heart.

The first true days of summer found him sweeping one of the long, narrow storage rooms that abutted the elegant hall where the princes were trained in fencing and dagger-work, sweating. His coat had been hung on one of the pegs and Trout dozed lazily in a pocket, wings twitching occasionally; the pixie could fly short bursts, but could not yet maintain altitude.

A class had just ended, and it occurred to Adam as the princes came and went that they were all younger than him. Camlen had given up his claim to the crown at some point, when his family had shown up to beg him to do so. That left only Sean and himself of the Dowager's first attempt at a King. The thought came and went, impossible to hold onto through the fog of his grief. Dimly he was aware that some of the princes had remained behind, likely the older boys sparring with one another. He was aware of the low give-and-take of their voices, of the clash of their swords. Knowledge, rising from unknown depths, told him they were using true blades, and laughing about it. He had to wonder if Rickard's first lesson would linger on with this new set of princes.

He opened a door and the words hit him when he'd thought he could never be wounded again.

" - would just burn down the woods."

He went so still he forgot to breath.

"You can't just burn down the woods, Liam. The people need those for eating and for firewood and whatnot."

"I'm supposed to put their lives above mine?" Liam's voice was both angry and elegantly disbelieving. "There's the river, right there, let them eat fish. They grow grain, they can eat that. Haven't you heard a thing we've been taught? The Folk in the Woods, they're called."

Adam shuddered violently. Trout suddenly snapped from its drowse when it heard the wood of the broom's handle creak. The prince's hands were closed so tightly on it that his knuckles were the color of ash.

"No one's going to let you burn down the woods, Liam," the second boy's voice scoffed.

"When I'm King, who will stop me?"

"They're the Folk In The Woods, Herringmere. I'm pretty certain they would, if no one else."

I think they wouldn’t, Adam thought. I think they very much wouldn’t, because they aren't really in the Woods, are they.

"I wouldn't give them a choice. Arm a few dozen men with blessed rowan-wood shields and iron-tipped spears, and what are they going to do then?" Liam snorted. "They picked this fight. They started this curse. Do you expect I'd negotiate with them? No, burn it all, I say. No more fairies, no more curse."

No more gracious linden tree. No more wild irises nodding against the still waters of the kelpie's old pond. No more elegant willow, fronds always ready to lift someone to their branches. No more generous cherry trees, sharing their bounty of tart little red fruits. No more songbirds bringing gossip, no more nesting pixies, no more stalking bees back to their hollows to steal a single bite from their hard-earned combs, no more, no more, no more...

Adam had thrown the two halves of the broom aside and was stalking across the exquisite marble floor before he knew what he was doing. He felt so cold that everything, skin and flesh and bone, burned him. He made a beeline for the princes. There were four of them, the three he'd heard and one that had yet to speak. They were all young reeds, grown into their lanky teenage years and quickly becoming refined by their education in the Dowager Queen's court.

"No one," he said, startled to find his voice scratching as if he hadn't used it in days, "is burning down the woods."

They stared at him as if he'd grown two heads, until the second boy spoke. "You're Lestrelle, aren't you?"

Adam turned to stare at him. "I'm sorry I don't know you," he said politely, his manners an instinct that refused to die. "But no one is burning down the woods."

"Oh, come off it, Lestrelle." Prince Liam was a rapier of a young man, lean, as elegant as his voice, blond and pale and sharing the deep blue eyes that said his bloodline was as true as Adam's. He was wearing simple training armor and was swinging lightly an elegant rapier. "Look at you. One would think if anyone, you'd be glad to see that place and the Folk inside it gone."

"I would not," Adam said plainly.

Liam's brows went up. "Well, alright," he replied with a lopsided smile. "I'm afraid only the people interested in the crown get a say on this one, Lestrelle." He moved forward.

So did Adam. His hand shot forward and his palm came to rest on Liam's chest. "No one," he repeated tonelessly, "is burning down the woods."

Liam looked down. He was of a height with Adam, not quite two years younger. "You want to take your hands from me, Lestrelle."

"Liam, don't," the boy who'd warned about the commonfolk needing the woods said nervously.

"Herringmere, leave it. You know he's not well." The other boy was solid, wrought of darker colors; perhaps if the future allowed him to live he'd grow to be somewhat a match to Dane, but on that day he barely managed to be the tallest of those there by a wisp of brown hair.

"I wasn't speaking to you, Macallan," Liam snapped.

"You should listen to your friends." Adam said very calmly. "No one's worth spit on hot cobbles without them, least of all a king."

"What would you know of either friends or kingship, Lestrelle? Last I checked, you're only waiting for your birthday so you can go to the woods and forswear the crown." Liam gave him a mocking, indulgent smile. "They won't burn before then, you don't have to worry."

"Herringmere -"

"No one is burning down the woods," Adam repeated.

"You're not the one to stop me, Lestrelle. Look at you. You're a ghost. Have you even bathed recently? Eaten? Changed clothes? You walk the palace like a shadow. Some fairy-maid bespelled you and sucked you dry and you think -"

Liam didn't get to finish that very dangerous accusation. Adam punched him and sent him crashing to the ground with both the suddenness of the attack and the sheer force behind it. For nearly all his time in the palace he'd been sparring with larger, heavier partners. He'd hardened his hands on a troll. He'd taught a boy twice his size to be fast or regret it. Liam was lucky to still have all his teeth when he hit the marble floor.

The two younger boys scrabbled back. The older prince stepped forward. "Mother-Night, Lestrelle, don't -"

"Give him your steel, Macallan."

"Herringmere -"

"Give him your bloody sword, Connor!" Liam scrabbled to his feet and spat blood to one side, his mouth a crimson bruise, his eyes a storm. "Or I swear to all of you I'll run him through unarmed!"

Prince Connor Macallan swallowed visibly, his hand going to the rapier on his belt.

Adam stared at Liam in distant, absent disbelief. He wasn't asking for anything outlandish. He wasn't asking for the impossible. Everything the other boys had said was true; the woods were needed and more, the woods were not the real problem. But in Liam's eyes Adam saw that this was someone who would never tolerate being told 'no', and everything he'd felt against the Prince Beyond The Woods rose in him like a black, deadly tide. "Prince Macallan," he said mildly. "Not your sword, but I thank you for the thought. May I have your dagger?"

"Against a sword?" The prince sounded aghast.

"It's a rapier," Adam told him simply. "I'm sure you're all very good with yours. They're worthless in a real fight. If I may?"

"You can have mine," the last of the boys, who'd said nothing until that point, stepped forward and drew his dagger, offering it to Adam hilt-first. It was very simple, but a faltering hand had stitched leaping fish on the hilt, a tiny gesture of such love that Adam had to forcibly tear his eyes from the sight of it. It wasn't hard; all he had to do was stare at Liam.

Almost before they squared off, Liam came at him in a classic fencing surge. Adam, apparently the only one who remembered this wasn't a fencing match, merely stepped aside, swatted the rapier aside with the dagger, and punched Liam again, sending him staggering into the ground a second time. Against all his fury, all the immensity of his loss turning into fire inside him, he still didn't want to be cornered into a choice that would be far too costly. If Liam could show any sense, any at all -

The young prince yelled in wordless fury and launched himself at Adam.

Adam ducked and twisted around the rapier. A rapier is a fine weapon, but one of precision and elegance. The blade dances nearly as much as the hand that holds it, and not always in the same direction. Liam was exceptional with it, but Adam, once again, had learned speed from two someones who moved like the boughs of a willow in the breeze, like the branches of a linden tree in the wind, like blood spilling from an unexpected wound or the flood of shadow and death that overtakes a fortress with a blood-hungry howl. To him, Liam was moving as slowly as molasses.

To the other princes Adam was a blur.

Liam fought him first with fury, and then with desperation, but he wouldn't yield. He was the sort, Adam realized, that couldn't give up, that had to be always right, that wouldn't abide defeat or challenge or shame. The older prince slashed the laces open on one side of the younger prince's armor, accepted a long, shallow gash to one arm, latched his fingers on the other set of laces and kicked Liam. The prince went down a third time, too winded at that point to do more than grunt in pain, and found himself hopelessly tangled up in his leather armor.

Adam stood before him, breathing a little hard, and patiently waited for his opponent to disentangle himself and get up. "No one is burning down the woods."

Liam cast aside his rapier, drew his dagger and lunged at him.

Adam caught that wild lunge, twisted the young prince's dagger arm away, and sank his borrowed blade all the way to the hilt past Liam's ribs. Those blue eyes, his own for all intents and purposes, widened in shock and disbelief, pain not yet having caught up with their owner. The younger prince shoved himself away, staggering; Adam hung onto the dagger, which came away bloody, and Liam lifted a hand to catch his side, staring without understanding at the blood that filled his palm. His dagger clattered from a grip gone nerveless.

He crashed to the ground, staring at Adam, unable to understand what had just happened.

At some point the training hall had filled with people, teachers and students both; they'd closed in a circle around the princes, but no one had intervened. The Dowager Queen had made it very clear what sort of life, and death, her princes were to expect.

Adam drew a deep breath. He didn't think Liam would understand, not even at that moment, but there were many around them that might take heed of the younger prince's death. "No one," he said very calmly to those deep blue eyes quickly glazing over in death, "is burning down the woods."

***

Dane found Adam sitting on the stands of the jousting yard, his coat on his lap. He sat quietly by his prince, his hands laced in his lap, and they were silent for a very long time in the golden summer afternoon. "He died quick," the young man said at last. "But then I think that's what you meant."

"I meant for him to listen," Adam explained, feeling weary to his bones. He wanted to regret what he'd done, he wanted to mourn the dead prince, but the cold and black rage that had come over him, that had wanted him to see Canemore in Liam, pulsed like a heart inside him, and he almost couldn't feel his grief anymore past it. It was too sweet a relief and he wouldn't be pried from it. "He had... a dangerous idea."

"Was it a bad one?"

Adam closed his eyes. "No. And yes. Everyone calls them the Folk In The Woods, Dane, but they aren't. They never were. They come through the woods, they come from beyond them. The woods were -" His breath ran out abruptly at the very thought of saying the name and he ducked his head, willingly calling up his rage, allowing himself to wallow in it. "Linden's. The woods were Linden's."

Dane popped his mouth thoughtfully. He was the source from which Adam had picked up the habit. "That's not the sort of thing that's easy to explain to people."

"I know. I tried. But it's like he didn't see me, like I didn't matter. Only what he wanted and what he'd chosen did."

Dane sighed. "It's new to you," he explained slowly, "because you don't do that. You've always seen us, Adam. Me, Culli, Beli, we aren't there like your coat and your bed. We're people to you, we're friends." He shook his head. "That's not how it is for nearly anyone else in the staff of the palace. And you've been saying for nigh on nine years that you don't want the crown, so what's that make you? Not a prince, for sure. Just sort of... staff-in-waiting."

Adam thought on that. It would have been foolish of him to pretend that Dane wasn't speaking the truth. Even so recently as Liam's callous disregard of the immense difficulties the commonfolk would face if the woods were burned, he'd always been aware of a deep divide. He'd just never worried about it because he'd grown used to fording it effortlessly.

He buried his face in his hands and groaned low. "They're only going to listen to me one way, aren't they. They're only ever going to listen to me the one way."

Dane blew out a low breath. "Or you could... leave. Go elsewhere. Forget. It might take years and years, but you're bound to find some peace somewhere. You deserve that much."

Adam smiled wearily at the desperate little wish Dane was making for him. "Dane, that girl better snatch you up, there's not a better man than you in this place, and I'm glad you're my friend," he said, even though he knew that not all the years in his life, nor ten times as many, would ever let him forget what he'd lost. "I can't. Today it was Liam. Tomorrow it'll be someone else." He stared at the beautiful summer world without seeing at all. "This is not what I wanted, Dane."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"So am I." Adam rattled out a sigh. "And it might get bloody."

Dane shrugged. "It's been a relief that it wasn't until now, I won't say it hasn't," he admitted. "But a fight is what we signed up for, back when we got hired on to be your friends."

Adam nodded. Together they went back to the palace. He washed up, dressed neatly, and sent word to the Dowager for a brief inquiry. She received him with tea being cleared away, an oddity from all their meetings before, when the cups and saucers were just being set down as a maid showed him into the elegant sun-room. "Adam."

"Majesty." Adam bowed and sat when given leave. "How does one go about cutting off someone from his sphere of power and influence?"

Her delicate brows rose up. "Not even Eleanor?" she asked mildly.

"I would, if I didn't think my father would take advantage of even that slender thread."

"True," she agreed. "Unfortunately so. And you're certain?"

"That I mean to be King?" he asked, consciously misinterpreting her question. "Yes. I think you've done a good thing, stalling them, the Folk Beyond The Woods. I think you did it at a terrible price, a price that you know no one will ever forgive, least of all you. And I think," he looked at her directly, "I think it's not enough anymore. Not for me."

"Didn't you just kill a boy today for threatening them?"

"No. I killed Liam because he wanted to burn down the woods. No one is burning down the woods. My enemies aren't there. That's what I tried to tell you once before. They are the Folk Beyond The Woods. The Folk In The Woods -" For all that he'd planned so carefully every step of this conversation, Adam found himself faltering, strangled by sorrow that kept on trying to rise above the black flood of his rage. He smothered it savagely. "They wanted to be free of them just as much as we do."

She stared keenly at him for a long moment before reaching for a bell and instructing the maid who answered her to fetch the Court Genealogist.

#the fairy and the prince #linden and adam #linden the fairy #adam the prince #original writing #fantasy #fantasy writing #boul #boul the troll #boulders-for-brains #needlemaw #needlemaw the redcap #trout the pixie #fantasy violence #injury and death

[romancemedia]

True Anime Love - Watching Beloveds Sleeping in the Night

#Sugar Apple Fairy Tale #My Happy Marriage #Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion #7th Time Loop #Doctor Elise #Anime #Moments #Anne x Shall #Miyo x Kiyoka #Noah x Raeliana #Rishe x Arnold #Elise x Linden

[lindenmori]

redraw of this pic by the_phaneron_fae / changelingyokai / seabrookbowyerimagery , but as my lovely eastre and merriann!

#mushrooms #mushroom art #cottagecore #goblincore #mushroom fairy #elves #elf #dark elf #amanita muscaria #shaggy ink cap #c:ea #c:m #(who cares these tags anymore anyway...) #linden creations #linden draws

[gnomeniche]

the weaver twins cried when they watched frozen as kids

#hello followers i've gained over the past year who are unaware of my complex feelings and joking obsession toward disney's frozen(tm) #as someone who is very into the snow queen fairy tale i am the world's biggest frozen tsundere #most important trivia for an oc by me: how would they feel about frozen the disney movie #am.txt #hellmouth ocs #hathm lucas #hathm linden #hathm lavender #'who related more to elsa' they BOTH related more to elsa #anyway they watched it exactly once and it made them too sad so they never watched it again #they watch it again as adults once they reconcile and guess what. they cry AGAIN #and then they fight over who gets to relate to elsa

[serialreblogger]

can you share all the results you wrote for the batfam uquiz? I'm curious about what the others are. also thank you for making it

ah! for sure :) here they are!

i just have a lot of feelings about Them

#id in alt text #my neurodivergent is showing <3 #also if u are the person who gave the name ''fairy'': i loved ur freewrite u have 100% good & correct jason opinions #batman #batfam #dc #dc comics #linden's originals #uquiz #uquiz meme #not 100% satisfied with how i structured this quiz i tried to balance the answers so u couldn't tie for who u got but alas #i got that dyscalculia & am p sure i instead ensured almost everyone will test like divergent #u could be nightwing or signal fate is urs to choose (& also however uquiz deals with tied results) #well well. still am proud of all the parts that didn't have to do with numbers #can u tell i have a lot of feelings about duke #also sorry for the blatant oracle favouritism i just love her. wheelchair users represent 🙏 #linden writes #ask linden

[michelangelinden]

Hehe I want to know about all of your WIPs, but more info on Snow Willie(I am in pain) please? <3333

I'm sure you know about most of my wips actually lol

But this one would have been another installment of my JATP as fairy tales series (currently including a Sleeping Beauty Juke AU and a Princess and the Pea Willex AU) and would have been a Snow White AU (you get exactly one guess who Snow White would have been)

So in this one Willie is Snow White (big surprise now) and Caleb his evil step-uncle you could say (I refuse to make evil!Caleb be directly related to Willie if avoidable). Classic story, Willie runs away, drama drama.

Now you're probably thinking, huh, the other boys as "dwarves". Wrong. Willie lands in a tiny tiny village in the woods and breaks into a house, where Julie and Flynn live, who are good witches. Alex, Luke, Reggie, and Bobby are there too, but they live in a different house in the village and are also not dwarves, just just some guys.

There's gonna be willex and a little boggie and juke potentially and a little Caleb drama, but with a pretty fairy tale ending.

I'm honestly not sure if and when I'm gonna write it, because I have other fics much higher on my priority list, but it's a nice AU to think about.

There's also and AU to the AU where Reggie is the sleeping beauty, Willie lives with Julie and Flynn, with a little less willex and a little more boggie. Both versions are pretty cute.

Take a look at my wips and send me a title that intrigues you 👀

#I did really enjoy turning fairy tales into jatp fics #some closer to the source material than others #this would probably have been the closest of the ones I have so far #linden writes stuff #linden talks #legolas tag

[acesandfairydust]

#ts3 #sims 3 #jaceic's game #cider random legacy #gen 8: morganite button cider #beryl button #bonsai moyogi cider #morganite button cider #linden maize #styx cider #neda cider #dione cider #bristol fairy cider

[outofmanna]

~ trans magic, pt 1: moth girl 🦋~

a series of photos of trans & non-binary people as magical creatures 🧚‍♂️🦄😈✨ The first in this series is my transfeminine friend Tammy (she/her) as Mothgirl, our femme take on the Mothman cryptid :) Mothgirl holds the chalice 🍵🌊🌿, associated with water, our ever shifting currents of emotions, and our spiritual connections. For me, the mysterious nature of the mothgirl, a cryptid, fits well with the mystery and illogical nature of our emotions. I also associated green with water instead of blue- partly just because blue was too obvious and boring LOL, but also because I wanted to associate water and our connections with mystery and our emotional and spiritual sides as a source of life 🌿🌱🌲… notice that the moth drinks from the chalice. 🦋💧✨

Each of the rest of the shoots will have a prop associated with a tarot suit. The creatures are guiding the aesthetics of the shoot, not the tarot prop, so see them as additional lore rather than rigid rules. I intentionally went with non-traditional/non-obvious imagery to represent each suit.

#idk if moths drink water like that and idc … it’s a fantasy shoot ok LOOL #fantasy photoshoot #fantasy photography #fairy #fairycore #fairyphotoshoot #fantasy costume #lindenreid #fashion photography #linden reid photography #mothman #cryptid

[lilianasgrimoire]

Herbs & Correspondences G-L

Galangal Root - Also called Lo John the Conqueror or Lo John. Carry into legal proceedings to help win. Money, gambling and hex breaking.  Also aids luck and psychic development. Element Fire. 

Garlic - Magical uses include speed, health and endurance, also protection, exorcism and purification. Use also to promote your inner strength.  Element Fire. 

Gentian - Increases spell power. Good luck and works well in love & romance spells. Element Fire. 

Ginger - Increases magic power. Success, love, money and power.  Element Fire. 

Ginseng - Promotes love, beauty, healing and lust.  Element Fire. 

Hawthorn Wood- Associated with Beltane. Magical uses include chastity, fertility, fairy magic, fishing magic, and rebirth.  Success in career, work, and employment. Use it to work with the fae. Used in weddings and handfasting's to increase fertility. Element Water.  Hawthorne Berries aid chastity. Hope, protection and happiness. Element Fire.  

Hearts Ease - Also called Violet.  It helps to mend a broken heart. Aids rebirth, peace, wishes and luck.  Calms the nerves and promotes peace and tranquility. Element Water.  

Hemlock - Use to paralyze a situation and a funeral herb. Highly Toxic.  Element Water.   

Henbane - Dried leaves are used in the consecration of ceremonial vessels. Used in love sachets and charms to gain the love of the person desired. Highly Toxic. Element Water.  

Hibiscus - Attracting love and lust.  Use in divination. Associated with lunar magic.  Element Water. 

High John - (The Conqueror) An "all purpose" herb.  Use it for strength, confidence, conquering any situation.  Good luck, prosperity and protection. Element Fire.   

Holly Hock - Protecting, all Fairy magic, abundance, personal growth and aids passing. Related to Lammas. Element Earth. 

Horehound - Protective against evil doings. Helps with mental clarity during ritual; stimulates creativity/inspiration; balances personal energies and healing.  Element Earth.  

Horsetail - Use for strength and resolve. Protection, cleansing and clearing unwanted emotions.  Element Earth. 

Hyssop - Used for purification.  Banishing, protection and healing.  Element Fire. 

Irish Moss - Used for luck. Ideal for gamblers!  Attracts money and customers for self-employed. Offers protection. Element Water 

Ivy - Protection, healing and fertility.  Use for love and hang at handfasting's.  Element Fire. 

Jasmine - The herb of attraction.  Helps prophetic dreaming, money and love. Element Water. 

Juniper - See Cedar berries.  

Lady's Mantle - Aphrodisiac and transmutation. Use in love spells and those of fertility.  Increases magic power in spells and connects with fairy lore. Element Water. 

Laurel- See Bay leaf. 

Lavender - Magical uses include healing, sleep and peace. It also promotes chastity and love. Increases longevity of life, tranquility and happiness.  Element Air. 

Lemon Balm - Also called Melissa. Love, success and healing.  Aids psychic/spiritual development. Supports mental health disorders and compassion. Element Water.     

Lemon Grass - Psychic cleansing and opening.  Use in lust potions and when using Dragon Magic.  Element Air.  

Licorice Root - Love, lust, and fidelity. Also attracts passion. Element Water. 

Lilac - Wisdom, memory, good luck and spiritual aid.  Element Water. 

Linden Flower - Wisdom, justice, love and protection. Element Air. 

Lime Tree Leaf - Healing, calm and love.  Aids strength and tranquility.  Element Air. 

Little John - See Galangal root. 

Lungwort - Use in air magic or as an offering to the Gods of air.  Offers safe travel when flying. Element Air.  

#witch #witchcraft #witchblr #pagan #wicca #witches #pagan witch #paganism #pagan wicca #polytheism #herbsforspells #herbalism #herbs #herb correspondences

[landwriter]

honestly would love to hear more about twinflower if you felt like sharing? :)

I have been drafting this ask response on and off for over a week because I want everyone to love twinflower as much as I do thank you for your patience uh I mean yes! I do feel like sharing! thank you for enabling me! make yourself a cuppa and get comfy. it's Gloam's Natural History Hour, and here is everything you should love about the twinflower

Let us begin with the Latin name: Linnaea borealis. But first, it was Campanula serpyllifolia. Let me explain.

Twinflower is a small and unremarkable evergreen plant that nonetheless captured the heart of one of the world's most influential scientists in the eighteenth century. Species Plantarum is best-known for containing the first consistent use of binomial nomenclature (genus and species), but it was also there that Carl Linnaeus described twinflower for the first time.

It is a creeping subshrub that grows along the ground, with green and glossy shallow-toothed oval leaves about the size of dimes. Blooms come from delicate hairy stems that have unfolded themselves to the comparatively towering height of two or so inches above the ground. They are pinkish-white, nodding, and look like the sort of thing you'd imagine a fairy lives in. As you might suspect from the name, they grow in pairs. Some three centuries after Linnaeus first described it, one Mark C. in the comments of a 2013 blog post described the fragrance as "a delight to the most jaded sniffer".

In portraits, he is often found holding it. (Linnaeus, not Mark C.) He dearly loved it. But he could not name twinflower after himself: at first, it was classified in a different genus, and besides, it was poor taste. What's a guy to do?

Become acquainted with a wealthy Dutch botanist, Gronovius, son not of preachers and peasants but classical scholars, who would name it for him in his honour. Naturally. In gratitude, and advocacy for such acts of commemorative botanical naming, Linnaeus wrote in Critica Botanica:

It is commonly believed that the name of a plant which is derived from that of a botanist shows no connection between the two...[but]...Linnaea was named by the celebrated Gronovius and is a plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space — after Linnaeus who resembles it.

He would go on, of course, to receive fanmail from Rousseau. Contemporary Goethe would later write: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly."

Lowly Linnaeus himself chose borealis, for Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind; and indeed it grows where the north wind blows, in a great circumboreal ring around the globe, from semi-shaded woodlands in southern British Columbia (hello), to tundra and taiga in Sweden and Siberia. You can find the same blooms in China and Poland and Minnesota. It's as old as glaciers. In Poland and other European countries it is in fact protected as glacial relict, and you can find it isolated at high elevations far south of its range, where it was left behind in the Pleistocene.

And now it is Linnaea borealis.

When Linnaeus was ennobled twenty years later for his services to botany, zoology, and medicine, he put the twinflower on his coat of arms. Some references use hedging (pun intended) language to describe their relationship: he was 'reported to be fond'. It was 'rumoured to be a favourite.' Bullshit, I say. He was in love. Anyone can see it.

One final etymological point of interest: his surname is itself borrowed from nature. After enrolling in university, his father had to abandon his patronymic last name and create family name. A priest, he created the Latinate Linnæus after linden - the great tree that grew on the family homestead.

And so from Latin and nature sprung the name, and not a generation later, unto Latin and nature it had returned. A name crafted of whole cloth in homage an enormous tree now describes the genus of a plant that tops out at three inches tall and has flowers smaller than your thumbnail.

In spite of this, its uses are myriad. A common name of twinflower in Norwegian, nårislegras, translates to corpse rash grass, for its use in treating skin conditions. It can be made into a tea to take in pregnancy or provide relief of menstrual cramps. Scandinavian folk medicines use it for rheumatism. Humans have made it into teas, tinctures, decoctions, poultices, and even administered its therapeutic properties via smoke inhalation. And then there is its persistent and widespread use in filling our hearts: lending itself century over century and season over season to mankind, to a coat of arms, a poem, a photo, a fond memory—

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Woodnotes I, says this of twinflower and the man it's named for:

He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads, And blessed the monument of the man of flowers, Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.

Art is subjective, but I will happily admit I prefer this passage, from Robert of Isle Royale, on the website Minnesota Wildflowers:

My wife and I encountered Linnaea borealis in the last week of June 38 years ago on Isle Royale. We now live in Vilas County in northern Wisconsin and were happy to find a large patch of Twinflowers growing under the sugar maples, balsam fir and hemlock on our property there. This is now very special to us and we await their flowering each June around our anniversary.

A final note. Twinflower requires genetically different individuals to set seed and reproduce sexually. This is known as self-incompatibility. Thus the plants in those isolated spots - old glacial hideouts, or places with fragmented plant populations like Scotland - only reproduce clonally. Let us end with imagining a plant that has not reproduced with another for millennia, but instead carries its line on its own back, and survives by creating itself over and over again, in a genetically identical colony that grows with wet summers and shrinks with dry ones; that briefly blooms every June, lifting its flowers high above itself, a hundred tiny beacons that will be answered only by its own voice; and there, too far for pollination, but a distance you or I could travel in minutes, is its nearest partner, doing the same thing, across an impossible void that looks to us as nothing more than a gap between one part of the woods and the next. Yet it is L. borealis, named for a man named for a tree, that is capable of looking out across generations of humankind walking fragmented pine woodlands and the ghostly southern border of the Laurentide ice sheet, and seeing nothing more than the gap between one seed-set and the next.

Let us end with imagining a tiny plant, and ourselves beside it, loving it for hundreds of years, even smaller.

#asks #botany #plants #twinflower #Linnaea borealis #an essay #that i have put my whole heart into #read it? #or don't but go sit in nature for a bit #and marvel at it all til ur chest hurts with love #that's the takeaway i'm going for here anyway #about me #outside the cabin #my writing

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

In the spirit of "Reblog Your Own Work," here's a story I wrote almost two years ago, that I'm really proud of. I originally posted it in 5 parts, so to shake things up a bit, here it is all in 1 part. It's a retelling of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale "The Frog King," this time with aroace and disability representation, and the squicky elements of child marriage taken out.

Under the Linden Tree

Once upon a time, there lived a king who was widowed, and remarried. His first wife had been a true princess of a wealthy kingdom, and the daughters they had together, Zephyra and Aurora, were as lovely as a summer breeze and the dawn. His living wife had only became queen through marriage to him. But she was exceedingly lovely, and gracious, and kind. And because she was the only daughter in a house full of sons, the king thought surely she would deliver him a son of her own. Instead, he got a third daughter, whom they named Galantha.

As she grew, Galantha became even more beautiful and gracious, until, as she approached womanhood, she began to outshine even her mother. Her elder sisters, once happy playmates, now teased her, and reminded her, whenever they had the chance, that her lineage would never be as great as theirs, and that she was last in line to be married, and most likely to a baron, if not a common paddler.

Galantha would sigh, and say she knew this. She would also turn away and hide her smile. She had little interest in being wooed. And being the mother of a future king just seemed like an extra weight upon her head that she would rather do without.

But Fate and Nature had little care for her secret desires. Every day, she could feel the eyes of the courtiers watching her. Their murmurs of praise for her beauty and grace seemed like the constant drone of crickets in her ears. On festival days and market days, minstrels could be heard singing songs about how the sun, itself, was jealous of her beauty.

Whenever she could, Galantha escaped to her favorite place in the royal forest, where the Tree of Oaths stood: a linden tree with a trunk wider than the span of her arms, with leaves broader than her palm, and a well between the fork of its roots, formed from a thousand years of rain and dew dripping from the leaves above. According to the law, it was forbidden to tell a lie within its shade; according to legend, it was impossible. Its crown had spread wide enough to preside over murderers' trials, and lovers' weddings, since this kingdom had been the size of a village. And these were recorded with carvings in its bark, some so old that even the alphabets they were written in had been forgotten.

She would spend whole days here, tossing and juggling her golden ball (her favorite plaything), entranced by how it glinted in the dim light.

But the king started grumbling that she was neglecting her royal duties, that she was growing too old to spend her days amusing herself with a mere child's plaything.

Her mother would lay her fingertips on his arm, smile in that way she had, and, almost imperceptibly, shake her head.

Then, the king would sigh, and say that he would permit her private walks, for now. But soon, she'd have to grow up, and perform her duties for the court.

It was after one such scolding, when Galantha distracted by worries, that the ball slipped from her fingers. It sank into the well before her cry of dismay had escaped her lips.

She sat mourning her loss, and wondering if her father would ever let her go out into the forest alone again, when the biggest frog she'd ever seen popped its head out of the water.

"What would you grant me," the frog asked, in a perfectly clear human voice, "if I returned your golden ball?"

Galantha stammered a few syllables before she regained her composure. "Forgive me," she said, practicing her diplomacy as her father never imagined, "but you must understand how it would me unwise of me to negotiate with a complete stranger."

The frog blinked in the slow, deliberate, way that frogs had, and the princess took that as acknowledgment.

"Three questions, then," she said, "I think is fair."

The frog blinked again.

"First question: Are you a frog enchanted with the gift of human speech," she asked, "or are you a man trapped in the form of a frog?"

The frog responded with a long, rolling, croak. And then, as if startled by the sound of his own voice, disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

The princess sighed. Maybe it was true that the frog could not lie to her, here, but neither the legends nor the law said anything about answering her in her own language. When the surface of the water stilled, and the frog had not yet returned, she thought the interview over, and started for home.

She had not gone three steps, however, when she heard a small croak from behind her, sounding, for all the world, like an embarrassed cough.

So—a man, she thought.

She smoothed the smile off her expression and returned to the well's edge.

"Second question: is this form one of your own choosing?"

"No."

"Final question: Was this form imposed upon you as punishment for a crime, or the breaking of an oath?"

The frog (or rather, man) was silent. She was nearly ready to take that as a refusal to answer, and to walk away, without his help.

But then, the frog took a deep breath, and let out an uncertain "No." Then sighed wearily, in a way that was unmistakably human.

She smiled. "All right, then," she said, "I accept your offer. I will grant you anything you wish that's mine to give, short of my body, or my will."

"Then my wish is to pass between the walls where you have tread," he said.

She was taken aback. "That's all?"

"That is all I ask from you, Your Highness," the frog replied.

She nodded. "That price is certainly a fair one," she answered. "And I'll grant it freely, once you return with my treasure."

The frog disappeared below the water.

The surface grew still.

There was no sign that any living thing moved beneath. Her gold ball was heavy, she thought, and even very large frogs must have limited strength. So, with a sigh, she started the long walk home.

But soon, there was a "plip, plop, plip" on the path behind her. She turned around. The frog hopped after her, carrying her treasure in his mouth.

She gasped, and managed to not to laugh.

The frog dropped the ball at her feet. "You promised."

Galantha admitted that she had, and thanked him. As she lowered herself to pick him up, she was nearly overcome by a horrid feeling, as if her body, itself, were recoiling in disgust.

It took all her strength to resist hurling the frog to the ground. Still, Galantha strode home with the frog under her arm and the golden ball in her hand. She passed through the gate of her palace courtyard with her chin held high, barely acknowledging the guards.

And at that moment, the strange sensation of disgust faded so much, she hardly noticed it. She made her way to the throne room with a light and playful step.

Her sisters squealed in harmony at the sight of the frog, and hid behind their thrones. Her mother gasped, and looked a bit ill (and for that, Galantha was sorry). Her father was the angriest, rising from his throne, red in the face, and signaling for his guards. He had just opened his mouth to give his orders, when the frog addressed him in the most courteous and proper royal etiquette.

Galantha then broke her family's astonished silence by recalling, in the most flowery language she could imagine, how this wondrous frog had swum to the bottom of that unfathomed well, and retrieved her precious family heirloom, the golden ball.

"All he asked, in return," she concluded, "was to pass between the walls where I have tread. It seemed a small price to pay."

Upon hearing that, the king agreed. He insisted on leading a tour of the palace himself, with his wife and daughters behind in a small parade. He repeated the story the princess had told to each courtier they met, saying that, as a courteous and generous monarch, it was his duty to ensure that the just payment was given to even the lowliest of his subjects, even those as lowly as an ugly frog.

The frog-man under her arm, if he were able to show expression, was very good at keeping his opinion to himself. For her own part, Galantha struggled to hide her embarrassment.

The tour ended in the kitchen, and the king was making a show of his magnanimity toward the servants, sniffing all the dishes as they roasted and bubbled away.

As if struck by a sudden thought, he turned to the frog tucked under the princess's arm, and said, with a grand sweep of his arm: "It would be a great honor to me, Sir Frog, if you would stay, and be my daughter's special guest at dinner, tonight."

Her two elder sisters, bringing up the rear of their little parade, giggled behind their hands.

The frog shifted his weight under her arm and opened his mouth as if to speak. But in the end, said nothing.

Galantha was ready to object on his behalf, and her own. But her father looked her in the eye with a frown, daring her to disobey his wishes a second time that day.

She dropped her gaze to the floor. "Yes. Of course it would be my honor. Please, be my guest."

No sooner were those words out of her mouth than the strange, horrid, feeling strengthened once more, spreading from the frog like ink from a tipped bottle. She fought to keep from hurling him to the floor that very instant.

At dinner, an extra golden chair was put to Galantha's right, and on it was placed a fine silk cushion. The princess set the frog on the cushion as graciously as she could, and then she took a portion of each food on her plate, put it in a fine china saucer, and set the saucer on the cushion beside her guest.

But the frog objected: "That well was very deep and cold," he said, "and that golden ball was so heavy. If it weren't for me, your treasure would be lost forever. I should sit beside you, and eat from your own plate."

The princess was about to object that this was more than she had promised him.

But before she could say anything, her father the king replied: "Quite right. Quite right. A princess must always be a generous hostess."

So Galantha lifted the frog from the chair to the table, while Zephyra and Aurora squirmed and made faces.

In between bites, the frog and the king discussed political matters, and the state of diplomacy between the various neighboring kingdoms.

Galantha's mind raced, trying to figure out who this might be. She tried to change the subject, but her father was thoroughly charmed. The queen, when she caught her daughter's eye, smiled and shook her head in the same disapproving manner that she had with the king, and Galantha found that, she, too, could not resist her mother's wishes.

As the evening's chatter melted into yawns, the king said that since it was now dark, and it was a long way to the forest, their guest should spend the night.

Galantha agreed. and picked the frog up into the crook of her arm, preparing to carry her guest to the fountain the center of the royal courtyard, where he would be comfortable in the cool and damp.

But instead, the king said: "Of course, as my daughter's honored guest, you are welcome to sleep in her chambers."

So she was obligated to carry the frog up to her rooms. With every step, the strange feeling in her body intensified. Still, she walked to her rooms with as much courtesy as she could muster, filled the basin on the washstand with fresh water for the frog, and set him down.

"Please look away," she said, "as I change for bed."

The frog dipped his head, and quietly crawled behind the mirror.

Just as she about to slip under her covers, the frog came out from behind the mirror, and called out to her. "Is this any way to treat an honored guest?" he demanded. "To give your guest a cold, hard place to sleep, and keep the feather bed for yourself? I should like to lie in your bed, and be as warm as you are."

And with that, the princess's last bit of patience finally snapped. "If you want my bed, Sir Frog," she said, "you shall have it!" She picked him up in both hands, and, giving in to every shiver of revulsion, hurled him against the wall.

What happened next was such a shock, she spun on her heel as though pulling her hand from a fire: a full-grown man in her bed, alive, perfect as an artist's ideal, and naked as a frog.

"You're a prince?"

"I was a king, once."

She hugged herself, willing her heart to slow. "And the spell is broken now?"

He did not answer 'Yes.'

"I must," he said at last, "receive recompense for service rendered to a human, pass between walls where a human has trod, share a meal off a human's dish, and--" he took a breath, "share a human's bed from midnight 'til first cock's crow."

As if to punctuate his point, the hall clock chimed the eleventh hour's last quarter.

"You were afraid I'd say no, I suppose," she said, "if you'd told me this, when first I asked."

"I asked for everything I wanted from you."

"And I must only 'share' the bed?"

"Only that."

"Even so, you understand: Because of my station, this will count as a betrothal between us?"

The bed creaked as he shifted his weight. "Yes," he said, finally.

"And if I gave you the bed outright, and slept on the floor?"

She heard a catch in his breath that sent a shiver down her spine. "Please," he said.

"All right, then. Keep your face to the wall and your hands to yourself, or we will find out what happens."

When she was certain that he was faced toward the wall, under the covers, she lay down over them. She could feel him at her back, that strange, horrid feeling still there, though fainter, now, like the heat from a single candle. At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because she had the distinct sensation of waking up before the sun.

When, at last, she was released by the sound of the cock's crow, she rose quietly, careful not to wake the man sleeping behind her, and washed her face and hands.

The cock crowed a second time.

There was a silent flash of light in the corner of her eye. Glancing up, she saw a full set of clothes laid out across the dowry chest at the foot of her bed. The coat was of red velvet, with gold buttons, and there was a broad purple sash, embroidered with heraldric designs she did not recognize.

The princess stepped into the foyer of her bedchamber to dress in private.

At least it looked like a king's outfit, she thought, even though the stranger in her bed seemed far too young. But some, she reminded herself, inherit their throne before they're old enough to pull up their own stockings.

The cock crowed a third time.

She heard him yawn, the bed creak as he rose, and the unfamiliar rhythm of his bare feet on the floor.

She brushed and braided her hair as she listened to the rustling of cloth as he dressed himself.

When she heard that his boots were on, she took a deep breath, counted slowly to five, and stepped back into the main apartment of her chambers.

She'd prepared herself, but seeing him was still a shock. She looked away almost as quickly as she had the night before, and dropped into a curtsy. "Good morning, Your Majesty," she said, feeling the blush spread across her cheeks. "Please forgive me, for--"

His chuckle cut her off, and she glanced up. A smile spread from the corner of his eye to his lips.

"Forgive thee?" The smile faded, but his expression remained soft. "I should thank thee, instead." He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. "Thou saved my life."

"I-- what?"

"Though it feels odd, having so much bone, again," he said, instead of answering her directly, running one hand down his side, over his ribs. "Did I hear correctly, last night," he asked, changing the subject, "that thy name is 'Galantha?'"

"Indeed, Your Majesty," she said.

His brows knitted for a split second. "'Milk Flower?' 'Snowdrop?' Princess Snowdrop?" He seemed on the verge of laughing, but managed to swallow it down.

"That would have been Sire's choice," she answered, "but my mother overruled him, Your Majesty."

He cocked his head to one side. "Please. Don't let me have the advantage of thee. I am named 'Cinnabar'."

She studied his face. There was nothing about him that suggested the fiery hues of that dangerous stone. His complexion was as pale as someone who had spent years in the shadows. His eyes were the dark brown of late summer honey. And his hair was so black, like a raven's feathers, that it glinted blue.

"Cinnabar?" she repeated.

He chuckled, and seemed to be about to say something more, when there was a light, familiar, rap on her chamber door.

"Come in, Margarete," she said, without thinking.

Her lady-in-waiting opened the door and poked her head around. "Good morning, Your Highness--" Her eyebrows rose barely a hair, and she (almost invisibly) mouthed: "frog?"

The princess bit her lip to keep from laughing at the absurdity. "Good morning, Margarete. Is breakfast ready?"

"Yes, Your Highness. His Majesty waits on you." She curtsied quickly and backed out the door.

The young king tugged at his sash, smoothing wrinkles that weren't there. "Well," he said, "they're expecting us, though probably not like this." He offered her his arm.

After a moment's hesitation, she took it.

She could sense the servants watching them, in the well-practiced way of not seeming to watch them at all. Halfway to the stairs, Lady Caroline, who had once been her nursery maid, caught Galantha's eye as she passed in the hallway, and smiled softly.

He ended up leaning more on her, on the way down the stairs, than she on him, testing his weight with each step, but managed to hide his uncertainty as they entered the banquet hall.

Her father was standing at the head of the table, red-faced, with clenched fists. He glared at the richly dressed stranger, then at her.

"So, it's true!?" he said, "I wasn't imagining the whispering of servants!"

"Your Majesty," the queen said, laying her fingers on his arm, her voice light, and clear, and cold, as a silver bell, "remember your royal duty to invited guests."

"Invited? Invite-- guests?!"

Cinnabar bowed. "Good morning, Your Majesty," he said. "I hope you had a restful sleep."

Her father sputtered. "I know that voice!"

"I am honored you remember it. And may I say what a pleasure it was to be a guest on your table, last night."

"On? 'On my table'? That thing? Thou!?"

"Yes. That was I."

The king huffed, and, with a sweep of his arm, gestured at the sash that the young king wore. "This bunting and glitter-- are they true emblems of royal office, or are they some player's costume?"

"This sash, along with my scepter, and crown," Cinnabar said, his voice quiet but tense, "is, indeed, an emblem of royal duty and privilege, bestowed upon me according to the laws of my homeland."

The king turned his gaze on Galantha. "And am I to take it, then, that there must now be a wedding?"

She bowed her head. "Yes, Sire."

It wasn't until then that he seemed to notice all his guests waiting for him. He nodded and sat, and signaled for others to join him, adding: "I suppose we'll need another chair."

The young king smiled and nodded at the servant who brought it, as if he had been welcomed to the table with the same generosity as the night before.

Zephyra leaned over and murmured in her ear: "I wish thee the best, truly," she said, with a catch in her voice. "We had some happy times, didn't we?"

Galantha nodded and smiled as best she could through the flurry of quiet congratulations.

She was just beginning to relax when a servant set a large, sweetened, bread between herself and her betrothed, with the knife placed on his side of the platter. It was gilded with a glaze of egg wash and saffron, decorated with a pattern of sliced, toasted almonds, and perfectly sculpted into the shape of a frog, bulbous eyes and all.

He coughed and looked around at the faces of those seated near him.

"Oh, dear!" Aurora said, giggling, and then quickly added: "It's nothing personal, Your Majesty. This is a custom in our country, for good luck, and a fruitful marriage. Even the common people do this, though not so richly."

Galantha wanted to bury her face in her hands. Instead, she nodded. "I didn't think there was time to make one for us."

He laughed. "Oh. All's well, then," he said. He picked up the knife and studied the frog a moment, before slicing it down the middle, from nose to rump, revealing the stuffing of dried fruit, nuts, and candied citron.

Turning the platter so that both halves were equally within her reach, he waited for Galantha to make her choice.

She tried not to think how things might have gone differently, last night, as she put her half on the plate before her.

The young king smiled. He popped the eye from his half of the frog into his mouth, and chuckled.

The elder king was silent and frowning throughout the meal, which was consumed and cleared away with all the haste of a picnic interrupted by rolls of thunder.

Galantha was only granted enough time to change into the gown that had been set aside for her marriage ceremony. And her only wedding gift was a wallet of sewing and spinning tools, along with her mother's blessing bound up in it.

The phrase "Husband and wife" was barely out of the priest's mouth when they heard the rattle and clatter of a carriage outside.

Her new husband nearly sprinted through the chapel door as the carriage slowed to a stop.

It was one of the finest Galantha had ever seen, with gilded eagles on the finials of the top, and scroll work of inlaid gems in twisting, vine-like patterns along the side. The six horses pulling the carriage had silver bells in their bridles, though they, themselves, were the sturdy, piebald, sort that Galantha had seen pulling farmers' plows, rather than the parade horses in whom elegant coat color was prized.

And it was also odd, she thought, that with a carriage so richly appointed, that there was only the coachman as servant-- that there were no footmen attending, to help keep the carriage steady on the highway, to watch out for ruts, or remove obstacles in the road ahead. And she also noted that the gold braiding on the coachman's livery was just a bit frayed, and there were spots in the sleeves of his coat that had been expertly darned, with evident care. But what sort of kingdom was she marrying into, if so much wealth was put into things, but not people?

The coachman alighted, and was in the act of dropping to one knee to honor his master when the young king interrupted him, and pulled him up into an embrace.

"Heinrich? Heinrich!" he exclaimed. "My good man-- it- it's been too long."

Heinrich pulled away-- a little too quickly, Galantha thought. But he was still smiling, and there were tears on his ruddy, weathered, cheeks, dampening the neat white beard on his chin.

He sniffled, still smiling, and squaring his shoulders, turned and bowed to her. "Your Majesty," he said. And he offered his hand to help her up into the carriage.

"Please, Sir," she said, "before we go, there's someone--some place--I need to say 'goodbye' to."

The coachman's mouth tightened into a thin line, and his brow furrowed.

Galantha feared he would refuse.

But her husband spoke up. "I know the place," he said. "It's not far. I'll go with her, and make sure she won't get lost."

The coachman hesitated for just a moment, but then, with a quick bow of his head, said: "Very well, Your Majesty. As you wish."

And with that, her new husband laced his fingers firmly with hers, and strode off toward the path leading to the linden tree. Galantha had to walk in double step to keep up.

As soon as they turned a corner, and his golden carriage was no longer in sight, however, he let go of her hand. He leaned close. "This way, he won't leave without thee," he said.

"Would he do that?" Galantha asked. For a fleeting moment, she imagined running away, but just as quickly dismissed the idea.

"Heinrich's… Something's…" He sighed. "I'm sure he's just eager to get me home."

The path narrowed. He stepped back to walk a few strides behind her, giving her some privacy, but also driving her forward, not giving her a chance to tarry.

He stopped at the edge of the linden tree's canopy, while she walked up to its trunk alone, patting it as though it were a dear friend's shoulder. Then, on an impulse, she took a penknife from her pocket, and carved a 'G' and 'C', back-to-back, into the its bark, along with the date, to join all the ancient inscriptions recorded there.

Then, she cut one of the slender, leafy, branches to take with her. She just could not bear to leave this old friend behind entirely. She dipped her kerchief into the well, and wrapped the wet cloth around the cut end of the branch. Then she hurried back to meet her new husband.

He fairly pulled he along the whole way back, only slowing down as the path widened, to allow her to come up beside him, before quickening his stride again.

No sooner were they back in the carriage than the coachman cracked his whip, and they sped off at an almost unnatural speed, the horses in full gallop before they even had taken three strides at a trot. The landscape outside the windows was nothing but a blur.

"Heinrich!" the young king called, "Must thou drive with such haste?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," his servant called back. "But if we do not pass through the Capital's gate by sunset, all is lost."

Galantha looked down at the linden branch and bit her lip. How much had she risked, she wondered, for a mere sentimental token that wouldn't even last the week?

"We did not tarry long," her husband said, above the noises of the carriage. "All's well. All will be well." He put his fingers lightly on her arm to draw her attention, and managed a weak smile. "Heinrich is one of the most sensible men I've known. If he really thought our errand would waste too much time, he wouldn't have let us go."

Still, he seemed as full of worry as she.

"The spell?"

"It's broken. But not all trouble is magic."

Nothing more was said between them. After a while, Galantha realized he'd fallen asleep.

Suddenly weary, she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Memories slipped into nightmare. She was both juggling her golden ball, and trapped inside it: up and down, and back and forth, until she was falling without end, into an icy darkness.

Galantha woke with a start, and for a moment, she feared they'd missed the sunset, before realizing they were driving through a forest, trees on either side blocking out the sun.

He was awake, too, staring out the window.

"May I ask you something, Your Majesty?"

"Please, don't let rank stand between us; call me 'Cinnabar'. Interview, or conversation?" he asked.

"Both, I think."

He gestured toward the linden branch and opened his hand. When she passed it to him, he nodded for her to continue.

"Who cursed you?" she asked.

He sighed. "I don't know if anyone did. Thou asked if it were a punishment for a crime, or broken oath. Until I heard 'no' in my own voice, I'd long wondered the same thing." He seemed about to say more, but just grimaced, as if the thought smelled of something noxious.

"How long?" she asked, after a moment.

"I see no change in my own face. But Heinrich's--. We were—he was my assigned playmate, as a boy."

Galantha pushed down the thought that this made him nearly as old as her father, along with wondering if that mattered. "If no one told you," she asked, instead, "how did you know what would break the spell?"

He shrugged, winced, and rolled his shoulders. "The same way I know to scratch an itch, perhaps. I never thought it could be broken, until thou came to the well. I truly thought passing between the walls where you had walked would be enough."

"But then it wasn't."

"Then it wasn't, nor was the meal."

"And if Father hadn't invited you to dinner?"

"Well, there were so many others I could have asked, once I was inside."

"Whom?"

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Enough!" Annoyance rang through his voice. "We're puzzling over troubles that never came to pass."

"I'm sorry, Your M--"

"Eh?"

"Cinnabar. Forgive me."

"For this? Easily."

Galantha turned and watched the landscape roll past. The sun was high, now, and there were almost no shadows on the ground. The forest was already thinning, unfamiliar mountains visible through the trees. They'd left her homeland while she was sleeping.

Perhaps it was better this way, she thought.

"May I ask thee something?" he asked.

"Certainly, Y-yes." She waited for him to hand back the linden branch before the questions began. But he seemed to forget that it was even in his hand.

"Didst thou mean to kill me, last night?"

"Yes."

"Ha-ha! That was quick."

"Well," Galantha counted off on her fingers. "You wouldn't-- couldn't," she corrected herself, "even tell me if you were man or beast. Father was boasting about things Mother, my sisters, and I aren't allowed to whisper, and your demands were exceeding what I'd promised. For all I knew, you were a wizard, or an assassin in league with one."

"Hm," he acknowledged, nodding.

"And--" she stopped herself.

"'And'? What?"

"It's of no matter."

"It seems to be of a little matter, at least." He swallowed hard. "Dost thou fear me?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Y-Cinnabar," she said. "But touching you-- being near you-- was horrid. It lent strength to my arm. Like, like…"

"A tunic woven from wool and stinging nettles? Only, so tight, that it's under thy skin?"

"Yes!" A chuckle escaped her. "Very!"

"The magic," he said. "I suppose, as the strands loosened their hold on me, they entangled thee."

He was so quiet, Galantha thought he'd fallen back asleep. Then he spoke: "Still, thou tookst pity on me."

She glanced at him before looking back out the window. The forest was behind them completely, now. The midday light made her squint. "You said 'Please.'"

He chuckled. "The magic word."

"You didn't have to. It was in your power, then, to, well--" she cut herself off.

He started to speak, then stopped himself, once, then again, before asking: "Wouldst thou have asked my forgiveness, if I'd been dressed as a common shepherd?"

"Maybe," she said. "But not so quick."

"What?! Wh-?"

"You were fluent in courtly idiom," she explained. "You were at ease dining with a king. That cannot be learned through tutoring. A shepherd's garb would have seemed a bigger deceit than a frog's skin."

He threw back his head and laughed. "If our laws did not forbid it," he said,"I'd appoint thee High Judge."

Galantha almost let herself laugh along with him, when she felt the carriage slow. She noticed hedgerows along road, and other signs that they were entering an inhabited place.

"Heinrich?" her husband called, sitting straighter, and scanning the view, "are we reaching the Capital? I don't recognize--".

"We are only half-way, Your Majesty," the coachman called back. "But our own royal horses have boarded at the inn's stables, so they will be refreshed for the homeward journey."

Soon, they were driving through the city proper. People in the streets stopped what they were doing to stare at the spectacle, as Heinrich navigated through the ever-narrowing streets to the ally at the inn-yard.

Heinrich, taking on the role of footman, alighted from his seat, and hurried into the inn.

A moment or two later, he emerged, leading someone Galantha thought must be the innkeeper.

It was only when Heinrich had come back to the carriage door that her husband looked down at the linden branch in his hand, seemingly aware of it for the first time since Galantha had handed it too him.

"It would be terrible if this were trod upon, or if someone mistook it for kindling," he said. "Would it be well with the if I gave it to Heinrich to look after?"

She managed a smile: "If you think it best, Y-Cinnabar," she said. She turned her face partly away from him, and lowered her veil, as her mother had first taught her, years ago, when she first realized how extraordinarily beautiful her daughter was becoming.

After Heinrich helped them down from the carriage, the young king handed the branch to his coachman, and murmured something in his servant's ear.

Heinrich frowned and shook his head, but he still accepted the linden branch with care. slipping it into the buttonhole on his lapel, to free up his hands, before turning his attention to the horses.

She could see the whites of the poor beasts' eyes, and their coats were twitching as though they were being swarmed by biting flies from head to foot, or as if they were draped in blankets of wool and stinging nettles. It must have been magic, after all, that allowed them to pull the carriage so swiftly, and so safely, over wilderness roads that were little more than ruts in the ground.

She turn to follow her husband and the innkeeper, who led them to a private corner, behind a curtain, where his wife served them a meal of soup and bread, with a smile and a few words of congratulations, before courtseying, and leaving to attend her other patrons.

They ate their meal in silence, not quite comfortably. With each bite, she was aware of the time passing. Should it really be taking this long to hitch up a fresh team of horses to the carriage? Or was it only anxiety that made the time seem to pass so slowly?

Galantha tried to think of pleasantries for conversation, but it was like fumbling for objects in the dark. Several times, she thought he would speak, but in the end, he said nothing, either.

And though he smiled at her whenever their eyes chanced to meet, there was a tension behind his features. Was it regret, or anger, or simple weariness? She couldn't guess, nor keep from wondering.

When Heinrich came, at last, to say that it was time to go, the linden branch was no longer in his buttonhole. And the slightest of smiles passed between master and servant.

Their silence continued in the carriage as they sped over the ground. When they had left her home, early that morning, the shadows were long and blue on the ground, stretching far out behind them. Now the shadows were long and blue again, and stretching out in front of them.

The land was hillier, now, and they rolled up and down like a ship at sea. They were driving ever closer to the mountains that she'd glimpsed through the forest trees. Towns, and farmland, and patches of wilderness sped past her window as if they were fence posts along the road.

Despite it all, it seemed to Galantha that they were standing still. The sun was so low in the sky, now, that whenever the carriage rolled down the slope of a hill, they were cast into shadow. She gripped the edge of the seat, and willed the carriage ever faster.

Her husband patted the back of her hand. "All's well," he said, barely audible above the screeching and rattling of the carriage, "all will be well." He pointed to the view ahead. "Almost home," he assured her.

And there, she noticed, growing ever clearer with each moment, were the walls of a city atop the mountain they were climbing, with flags flying from the watchtowers.

The road was growing steeper, now, and more winding, back and forth. Sometimes, the Capital City was in front of them; sometimes, out her side window, as the road they were traveling snaked its way up the side of the mountain. Miraculously, the sun seemed to slow in its descent toward the horizon, as if it knew that it had to wait for them.

And then, at last, the road leveled out, and the walls of the Capital City was directly before them-- so high that Galantha couldn't see the flags flying from the towers.

Heinrich finally slowed the horses' gallop to a canter, and then to a trot, as the great iron gate in the City's walls rose to admit them.

Trumpets blared a fanfare, welcoming them home, as the last sliver of the sun finally disappeared below the horizon.

And then, all of a sudden, came three, loud, metallic, bangs, louder than the blaring of the trumpets, louder than any of the complaints that the carriage joints and springs had made during their entire journey: a noise like giant watch springs breaking, or three swords being broken over stones, that left her ears ringing.

"Heinrich!" the young king called, "is the carriage-- are we--?"

"The carriage is fine, Your Majesty," he said. "Those were-- those were three iron bands I'd put around my heart."

"Heinrich, why?! Wert thou injured?"

"To keep it from breaking in two for grief, Your Majesty," he answered, "when you were lost to us."

Her husband slumped back in his seat, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, Heinrich." There was a catch in his voice, and Galantha noticed there were tears in his eyes.

Soon though, he sat upright, alert and tense, and, with a touch, drew her attention out the window.

The street was brighter than twilight, lit with torches mounted to balcony railings. A multitude of banners, of several different heraldric designs, were draped from nearly all the windows. Crowds had gathered, as if everyone in the city had left their suppers and come out of doors. Many were carrying weapons. Some had bows, a few of those more richly dressed had muskets on their shoulders, and a few looked to be carrying swords they didn't really know how to use, taken down from the attic, perhaps, or from the wall, where they had been hung in honor of an ancestor. But there was no chatter: no calling back and forth between friends, no traders calling out their wares, no children.

"Heinrich," he called, "is it a tournament, or--?"

"These are no games, Your Majesty," his servant answered, his voice grim.

The young king scanned the scene, his eyes flicking from person to person, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. He took her hand. A look of determination spread across his face, and he squared his shoulders.

As they wound through the streets, they continued to see people of all classes and trades, from beggars, to cobblers, carpenters to councilmen, all lined up and ready to fight each other, with whatever weapons or tools of their trade they had to hand. As the carriage passed by, the crowds shifted around them. Some slipped into alleys, or back behind the doors of their houses. But others walked up alongside the carriage, and behind, until they lead a massive parade all the way to the gate in the wall of the young king's palace garden.

Heinrich stopped the carriage, alighted from his seat, and came down to open the carriage door. "Your country rejoices in your return, Your Majesties," he said.

Her husband took her hand as he helped her down from the carriage. "Welcome home, my wife, my queen, Your Majesty," he said.

These words acted on the crowd like pebbles dropped dropped into water, and the people moved back, to give her room, though Galantha could sense their eyes on her, as they turned to see this stranger their king was bringing home. She was glad they could not see her blushing beneath her veil.

King Cinnabar bowed and smiled to those who bowed and curtsied to him, as he led her through the courtyard garden toward the palace. But he stepped over those who prostrated themselves, as if they were mere impediments in the road.

As her husband walked with her up the steps to the palace's doors, Heinrich followed a step behind his left shoulder, while others in the crowd tended to the horses and carriage.

It wasn't quite as still, inside the palace, as those in fairy tales she'd learned, where everything is frozen in time. She could hear distant footsteps, and distant voices. But compared to her own home, the air felt chill, and stagnant, as if there hadn't been enough people here, moving about, and carrying on with life.

Her husband put his hand on her shoulder. "Galantha, I have a wedding present for you."

She put out her hands, and felt the weight of it, first.

It was a flowerpot of white stoneware, with a decoration painted in a terracotta slip around the edge, of roses and grapevines. And planted there was her linden branch.

"I wanted to pick it out myself," he said, his voice sounding like it was far away-- like it was on the other side of a window, "but Heinrich thought it unwise for me to go through the market dressed like this. So he sent one of the stable boys instead."

Everything felt far away. The stone floor under her feet felt as unsteady as a stack of feather beds. She was so tired.

He guided her to a bench along one of the walls and sat down beside her. "Galantha? Your Majesty?"

She wanted to tell him she heard him. She wanted to say 'Thank you.' But the words disappeared in her throat.

"Your Highness?" he persisted, "Princess?" He brushed aside her veil and whispered in her ear. "Snowdrop?"

She meant to laugh at that, but it came out as a sob, first one, then another, and another, as unbidden, uncontrolled, and absurd, as a case of the hiccoughs. "I tho- I thought you'd- you'd thro--"

"Thrown it away?"

She gulped and nodded, holding her breath, to be sure she heard him.

"Why would I ever? I would never!" he said, as though it were one long word. "This is thy connection to home (mine, too, for a while). And it's a far stronger reminder of our promises than any ring-maker's trinket, or ink spilled on parchment. Hm? When it's our anniversary, we'll plant--"

Something invisible, as fine as spider silk, and sharp as a knife, snapped from around her own heart, then. And she wept. She couldn't stop. It felt like she would never stop.

But at last, the flood eased, and her breath came without catching in her chest. However long it had been, the light had shifted; it was truly night, now. Cinnabar was still there, his arm around her shoulder.

He was humming something in her ear. It sounded like it might be a children's rhyme, or a lullaby. It wasn't any she had heard before, though she could tell it was out of tune.

"Thou'rt a terrible singer," she told him, smiling.

He laughed, touching his forehead to her temple. "Always have been," he said, "every day of my life." He stood. "Come," he said. "Thou gavest me a tour of thy home. Shall I return the favor?"

She took his hand. "Yes," she said. "Thank thee, Cinnabar."

As they passed by a window, Galantha could see that her cheeks were stained with dust from the roads, her eyes were red from crying, and her braids were all askew. She was still a beautiful woman, perhaps, but no longer one that would make the sun jealous.

She sighed, and smiled.

#fairy tale retelling #The Frog King or Iron Heinrich #Grimm 001 #long post #> 7500 words #aroace representation #disability representation #my own writing #reblog yourself

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy And The Prince #66 + #67 + #68 + #69 + #70 + #71 + #72

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

THIS IS IT. 103K words and I don’t even know how many months later, and it’s done. If you stuck it out with me, THANK YOU. Thank you from the bottom of my soul. If you enjoyed it, just a little, and would like to let me know, I’d appreciate it. If you hated it, I would like to know as well. When I first started writing this, I meant to go back and forth between it and Ser Lyrian’s story. I also thought it’d be a short story, a speed writing. It... is not. The size of it boggles my mind somewhat, and I’m the one who wrote it. If you came this far with me, and would like to do me a kindness, there are five questions I always ask of people who read my writing and express a willingness to go the extra mile.

1. Favorite Character? 2. Least Favorite Character? I’m interested in the character you love to hate, but if you have a character that’s just boring, I want to know about that, too. 3. Favorite Scene? 4. Least Favorite Scene? Meaning a scene that plodded on or was poorly written. 5. Anything else you liked/hated?

Adam managed. He even found the time and the energy, somehow, to scrub at his battered clothing, and to replace his missing sword with the traveling blade kept with his saddle. The peeping, chirping sparrows that made their homes in the vastness of the stables came to greet him; to them he'd always been Adam, and he always would be. They didn't care about crowns or Compacts or trials, lucky them.

He didn't meet any of the stable-hands he heard working in other parts of the vast building. He did meet some few people on the worn path going down to the stables, but sleepy and elderly and blind his horse was still a very large creature, and they scrabbled out of his way, staring in disbelief. Someone ran back up to the palace, and Adam kicked the charger into a light trot; even the jarring gait of its arthritic limbs felt good, felt real and solid against the Prince's own aches. "Trout, would you go tell them I'm coming?"

The pixie took off like a bird. He could hear the ruckus slowly growing somewhere in the depths of the castle as he rode up to the gate, frowning minutely when he realized the closer he drew, the more exhausted he felt, as if he were dragging miles of chains all unseen behind him. Had they snuck up another test on him? Were they truly cheating at the very last possible moment? He'd ride the horse to his bed if he had to, the charger seemed to have no problem carrying him.

His concerns scattered when he reached the palace gates, and a smile as sunny as the dawn broke over his face when he saw Dane standing there, tall and broad and wrapped in priest-blessed armor.

Trout flew back to Adam's shoulder and perched there. Dane caught the reins of the gelding and looked up.

"Dane," Adam greeted.

"Highness," Dane replied.

With a muffled groan Adam slid off the saddle. His ankle tried to give out on him; Dane's hand snapped out to steady him, and Adam caught onto his shoulder. They traded a very small smile, and Adam felt suddenly lighter, as if he were young again, at a time where such things as crown and loss hadn't mattered.

No one stopped them as they made their way through the palace, coming back much as they'd gone the day before, even if Adam was a little poorer in fairy gifts in his pockets, and infinitely wealthier in grime. Somewhere behind him a ruckus was growing where the impromptu messenger who'd caught sight of him on the path to the stables delivered his news.

Adam didn't care. He opened the door to his rooms.

He paused, and after a moment he had to laugh.

The same breakfast on the table, laid out exactly the same to the last plate and spoon. The same books on the desk, quill trimmings on a small bowl. A fire in the hearth. The wash basin ready, steaming faintly. Even Culli-maid's and Beli's clothing were the same, a miracle he would have never believed after seeing the state of Culli's house slippers the night before. He had the feeling that his bed would be rumpled down the same to the last wrinkle on the sheets.

Beli had been pacing restlessly, and Culli had been sitting by the fire, her basket of mending on her lap. It went flying when she sprang up to her feet. That, at least, they didn't have to change; they'd been just as anxious the day before.

"Hello, Culli," Adam greeted her.

Tears spilled down her round cheeks, and she couldn't speak for a moment. "Good morning, Highness," she managed at last.

He swept her into a hug that dislodged Trout off his shoulder, and she sobbed. "Has it killed you, not to make the bed?"

"Oh, it needs changing anyways, Highness," she protested, laughing through her tears.

Adam held her a moment longer before stalking up to Beli. "Look at me," he demanded.

"I can," Beli told him.

"Look at me!"

"I can!" Beli's smile was the brightest Adam had ever seen in the solemn young man. The pale brown of his eyes was bright through tears he refused to cry until Adam caught his face and stared at him; he caught his Prince's shoulders. "I can. I can see you. I can see you just fine."

"Beli." Adam dragged him into a hug as well.

"Don't think this will save you from doing the books with me," Beli warned him in a choked whisper. "Welcome back, Highness."

Adam stared all around them, at this tiny Court of his, his friends, half his world that he'd come so close to losing. He still felt exhausted, crushed, as if he were carrying a millstone on his back, but even that couldn't crush the simple joy of being home, being among friends, being safe.

"Adam," Dane called in warning, and the young Prince turned. There, on the doorway to his rooms, stood the Queen Dowager. She was wearing an exquisite quilted robe over her sleeping clothes, and a long, elegant shawl over it all. Her silver hair hung in a long braid at her back. Without the pomp of her rank she looked tiny and fragile, like a porcelain figurine. There was a single maid with her, likely the only one who'd been dressed and present at that early hour.

Adam left Beli and nodded to Culli, who moved over to further push the door open. The Dowager and the young Prince met by the hearth, and Adam bowed very low before her. "Majesty, good morning."

There were tears caught in the deep blue of her eyes, Adam suddenly realized, but she drew herself up proudly. "Good morning, my Heir."

Something immense snapped so loudly that Adam flinched, instinctively whirling around to cover the Queen, hand going for his sword. The Dowager cried out and staggered, and both Culli and her maid rushed over to catch her. Dane and Beli were instantly by Adam. "What's wrong, what's happened?!"

Adam tried to step back and nearly fell into the hearth. He felt light as air, light as a feather in a stiff breeze. The world, beautiful though it was, shone to his eyes with nearly blinding new colors, with light and life he'd never seen before. "Didn't you hear that, can't you see that?"

"He can't. They can't." It was the Dowager who replied, leaning on the young maid and drawing herself up carefully straight. "The Compact is fulfilled, and the seal in our bloodline's magic is broken. Now, now we are as we were always meant to be." She gestured lightly, and power gathered and spiraled around her fingertips; the smile she gave Adam was radiant. "Thank you, my Heir."

***

Life turned into a whirlwind after that.

Adam insisted on making one last visit alone. He hadn't known what to expect, but after seeing how hard it had been for everyone he'd left behind, he'd wanted to give his oldest nemesis the grace of discretion. Everidge Leminy had wept like a child at the news.

The priests of the Night-Mother and the Tree-Father had come, and before two vast audiences of worried, hand-wringing nobility, Adam had gone through all the tests. He'd been pulled this way and that, brought to far too many meetings, asked a deluge of questions though no one seemed to be listening to his answers, introduced to endless rows of people. Adam smiled and nodded and did as he was told.

He bid his time.

He still found the chance, on the early morning of the first true day of summer, to sneak out of his room and the palace altogether. He ran into the woods and to the clearing where the green pixies nested. Barefoot, in nothing but pants and a light shirt, he climbed up the linden tree and nestled in the familiar crook of a strong branch, watching the vast green sea of the woods ripple in the morning breeze. "I heard you," he murmured. "When I was lost, and I had nothing else, and I called out, I heard you. What a nanny you've been," he teased wryly. "There's not a time I can name when danger came looking for me in these woods that you weren't there to ward it off."

The tree swayed lightly in the breeze, a green, sweetly scented cloud all around him.

"Thank you," he said simply.

Stay, the tree begged in the song of the breeze.

"I can't," he replied, caught off-guard and strangled breathless by the endless well of the tree's heart, that even then would ask him to forgive. To heal.

He stayed there as long as he could, but in the end he had to go back. He was dressed in rich royal finery, fussed over, fawned over.

On that first true day of summer, Prince Adam of the Realm was named Crown Prince and Heir before the worthies of the realm. A great celebration was thrown. He smiled and greeted people and let them fuss over him and make much conversation about their daughters and nieces and sisters and cousins.

He bid his time still.

The next day, for the first time, he made his way to the Chamber of Council. During those two months between his birthday and his coronation, Adam had spent every moment he could spare with the Queen Dowager, with Master Leminy, with the Genealogist and with teachers who'd seen very little of him before. Nine years of education had taught him the theory of the laws and politics of the realm, but in truth none of the princes had any actual practice with the ruling bit of, well, ruling. None of them were firstborns, none of them were heirs to their own family holdings; Adam, himself, was the youngest of several children.

Though neither the Dowager nor the Master of Scions approved of what Adam wished to do, neither would oppose him. They had made very careful plans for that first meeting. Adam walked in to find most of the seats empty, as expected. He'd taken the throne at the vast horseshoe table and been mostly ignored, as expected. The fact he'd ousted the Earl and Duchess sitting at both his sides to allow both the Queen Dowager and Master Leminy to take their places had made them grumble, but there were so many empty seats that it seemed a non-issue.

The first issue, on fisheries and taxation, came up. It was, the Dowager had told him, an old issue. The coastal lords didn't want to pay taxes; they wanted the fisherfolk to pay them instead, leaving their coffers untouched. Adam remembered the kind, warm welcome of the folk who worked the gull-winged ships of the realm. He refused the tax. The lords threatened to override him.

He snapped his fingers and the very long and seal-laden scroll burst into flames.

The chamber went breath-takingly quiet.

"All this time," he said into the silence. "All this time you've known the price the Crown paid to keep the rest of you safe, and still into the grindstone you sent your children, just for a shot at it. And in the meantime, you schemed for power and acted as if the only reason you'd given your loyalty was fear. Fear of magic. Fear of power. If you want to be ruled by fear, I can absolutely do that. I've learned a little about fear from the Court Beyond the Woods. I'm happy to put those lessons to use with you."

"How dare you speak to us so!" One of the nobles shouted, surging to his feet and gesturing sharply at the Dowager. "Do something!"

"The Duke of Cherst misunderstands, perhaps," the Dowager replied mildly, "who answers to whom here."

"Perhaps the Duke is not aware," Adam examined some of the documents before him idly, "that people can burn just as well as parchment, provided the right amount of power is applied." He leveled a hard, dark stare on the man, who didn't need to know it had taken Adam two weeks to be able to pull off that bit of showy magic without setting on fire everything else in the vicinity. "Sit down."

When the ashen-faced Duke obeyed, he threw the list aside. "Fear is a poor way to rule," he said into the silence. "I want to rule with you, but make no mistake, mine is the crown. Mine is the right. I have bled for it, I have faced madness and darkness and death for it. I will hear your voices, and I will take your words into account, as long as you speak sense to me. But you would do well to remember that the power of our armies is meant to be used against our enemies abroad. In here, within our lands, the power is magic and the magic is mine." He stared at them all. "We're not taxing the common folk. If that's your business here today, it's concluded. The answer's 'no'."

"But, Majesty -" A woman protested.

"Your reasons better be exceptional, Duchess, because I have a full day planned ahead for us and you're already costing us lunch. Let's hear them."

She went quiet.

"Hm." Adam gestured. Leminy's secretaries began passing around scrolls. "These are the new taxes and levies; you'll find there's also -" The chamber had gone to chaos at the sound of that dreaded word, and Adam sprang up on his feet with a shout. "Enough!"

Every goblet, pitcher and inkpot shattered. Cracks appeared on several of the glass panes in the windows.

"Levies, yes. You'll find they're generous. There are also exemptions for the provinces that meet the quotas included."

"Majesty," a younger man pointed out hesitantly. "These are quotas for uncured iron and rowan wood army lengths."

"They are." Adam dipped his head politely. "There are thirteen graves behind the palace temples. There are just as many if not more scattered across the realm. That doesn't include the common folk that had the miserable luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The crown is done with the Court Beyond the Woods. We go to war." Before they could get into too much of a fit over those news, Adam pitched his voice to carry. "And because I know first-hand how fragile a matter royal inheritance can be, I will be wed before we march." He gave them all that hard, heartlessly level look. "Consider the choice of my queen a further potential exemption."

"Majesty," a stately woman with far too much make-up smiled graciously at him. "Surely this is a course of action best discussed with all of your ruling lords, not just us measly few?"

Adam popped his lips thoughtfully, as if the meeting weren't going exactly as the Queen Dowager had predicted. Well, barring the glass shattering. At least he hadn't had to escalate to kicking a chair; they were bloody solid and he wasn't sure he wouldn't have broken his foot in the doing, no matter what she said. "Exceptional wisdom, Baroness. On second thought, meeting adjourned. We meet again in one week's time. Enough time for those who wish to travel to do so."

And with that, he swept out of the chamber and left them to their panic.

***

Prince Canemore made one last trip into the hidden keep beneath the Old Place. He made it wearing traveling clothes, his very best; he had very far to go, on a trip he didn't wish to undertake, to a goal he didn't wish to reach.

He found the gateway leading into his secret garden empty, cold and dark. Rubble covered the space beneath it; though he didn't know it, it had been painstakingly carried, one piece at a time, from beneath the empty plinth where the dancing lady had once stood.

Beyond, the frozen summer garden had gone to autumn, against all his power, matched at last to the seasons above. At the center of it, in the perfect clearing, the golden, gilded cage stood, twisted and broken, bars pried apart by the force of the wild growth of the amethyst vine.

Of Linden there was no trace.

He threw the garden into winter and darkness as he left, and stalked away, never to return.

***

His books had been absolutely right, Adam found out: war is not a quick affair. He found his time full from dawn to midnight, accounting for meetings and supplies, oversight of troops and manufacturing. He never faltered when he spoke, and neither did those around him: their enemy was the Court Beyond The Woods, not the woods themselves. The Courts could be powerful allies just as they could be dire enemies; he would point at the winged, golden creature perched on his shoulder whenever the question came up. Trout had already bit someone's fingers off when they'd waggled them too angrily in Adam's face, and no one cared to find out how well it could wield those silver-tipped lacquered hair-pins.

Before he knew what had happened, autumn and winter had come and gone, and spring loomed again. His birthday, the celebration of the Compact being fulfilled, was planned to be a massive celebration, a masquerade to dwarf all others before. The entirety of the realm, it seemed, wanted to attend.

"They're dusting off every relation they can find, as long as they're young and female," Adam protested vaguely as he suffered through one more fitting. "There's girls pouring out of every cellar and cupboard."

"You can't blame them, Adam." The Dowager was directing the seamstresses and examining the Heir's costume with a stern look. "You're the one who opened that door."

"It seemed the thing to do," he admitted.

"Oh." She shooed the seamstresses away so she could speak to him so very, very quietly. "You could try for friendship, Adam. Even a broken heart can have friends."

He managed a wry smile at that. "It can. But it wouldn't be fair to her. She'd expect love. No, it's better like this. She gets a crown, I get iron. Beli, any new contenders on the guest list?"

The Dowager gestured the seamstresses back to work. From his desk in the Prince's rooms, his Seneschal answered. "Not really. It's hard to compete with the fact that Lord Bagley has both the mines and the foundries. There's just one. Their counteroffer is... clever."

He brought a set of papers for Adam to examine, and the Heir looked very surprised. "You're joking!"

"I thought it might be an issue -"

"No, no." Adam found what the letters were telling him, at the very least, amusing in the extreme. There was light and animation to him that had been missing for months. "At least I'll be able to tell her apart from the others. How goes my personal project?"

"The engineers are working the axles and wheels. Water's heavy, Adam, I didn't realize how heavy until they told me. Carrying that much water, and a person to boot? That's hard. They're thinking of sleds at this point."

"As long as they think of something," Adam winced when a pin stabbed him, and looked up swiftly when the door opened, suddenly hopeful.

Dane, just coming in, shook his head as he'd done every morning for nearly a year, and wilted to once again see hope fade from his Prince. Every morning he went into the woods to wait. Every morning he came back having met no one, not even the pixies. They'd abandoned the clearing of the linden tree, and no one could find them.

No Needlemaw.

No Boul.

Adam turned, expression gone to stone. "Well, now I just have to meet the ladies and we'll see what we'll see."

He was eventually allowed to escape the fittings, only to be snared into a few more last-minute meetings. Then it was Culli who rescued him, only to shove him into a bath, though she did manage to sneak in a meal, the first of his day, for all that it came at the price of his dignity, having to subject himself to the ignominy of being scrubbed like a toddler just so he could use his hands to eat.

Clad in his costume, the circlet on his head, an incredibly itchy domino tied to his face, he took his place at the entrance to the palace's grandest ballroom, to greet the mass of people pouring in and be introduced to all their marriageable relations. He wouldn't, couldn't, leave the party without a betrothed; a number of concessions had been granted to the Council of Nobles in exchange for that promise. No one wanted war, and no one could budge the Crown Prince from it, so they were all working as best they could to minimize any potential fallout from it.

Trout, on his shoulder, solved half the itchy part within five minutes, by biting off the domino's feathers and gleefully flailing around with them. Adam couldn't very well be stern at the pixie when the Queen Dowager herself, standing just behind him, could barely keep from laughing aloud at the fierce creature's antics.

He was introduced to the young lady Bagley, grand-daughter of the Earl of Bagley, who stammered through half her greeting and forgot the other half, overwhelmed. She winced openly when Trout spit out a feather. Adam sighed.

Behind her came the first familiar face in that sea of strangers, and the young Heir couldn't help but smile. "Prince Rickard."

Rickard flushed under his elaborate mask, all the more so when the Crown Prince offered his hand, preempting a bow. He took it, and couldn't help a little smile. "Prince Adam."

Adam grinned, the first honest gesture to cross his face since the gala had started.  Rickard was costumed as a bull, in violets and reds, and the silver and gold that his family boasted were stitched on every velvet and satin seam. He'd grown into a young bull, too, though he couldn't match Dane in either height or breadth of shoulder. The hand gripping Adam's was powerful, but the callouses Rickard had earned from his years spent at the palace were fading. Still, it was the sight of the man that gladdened him. "Prince Bully," he murmured.

Rickard's discomfort vanished under a very inelegant snort of laughter. "Prince Twerp," he retaliated. "Where are the others? I know there's a few that... made it."

Adam gave him a disbelieving look. "As far away from the palace as they can be," he replied. When his one-time torturer gave him an uncomprehending look, Adam gestured all around. "Every girl of marriageable age in the realm is here, Rickard, prowling for blood. Until you got here, I was the only available bachelor." He watched understanding, horror, and panic flicker over what he could see of the young man's features and jerked him suddenly close. "No running. We die as men," he whispered, and let him go.

"Oh, gods," Rickard squeaked. In all of the ruthlessness and machinations he'd once wielded and devised, this apparently was a trap he'd not seen coming.

He was none too gently elbowed by his companion, and the Crown Prince's mouth twitched. "Duke Lagrace, won't you introduce me to your companion?"

Rickard cleared his throat and gestured to the elegant white, silver and gold doe next to him. "My sister, the lady Elizabeth Lagrace, Majesty."

Elizabeth Lagrace curtsied with great grace. "Majesty," she murmured. She was, astonishingly, built along the same powerful lines as her brother, softened by the fact she'd not spent her formative years trying to survive in a cutthroat court, or learning to fight with every weapon and tactic created by man. Adam could only see that she had her brother's eyes, but her hair was lighter, a riot of golden curls artfully oiled and pinned over her head with an exquisite silver clip.

Silver, gold and priests. The Lagraces would back the Crown Prince's war without hesitation for a shot at the crown. Adam expected nothing less than the lethal predator that her brother had once been behind the dainty doe's mask. Elizabeth Lagrace was one year older than Adam, but they'd been so sure of their offer that they'd sent none of their younger ladies.

"The lady's costume is radiant as a star." Adam took her hand and kissed the lace of her gloves. "I wager it pales before what it hides."

"The Heir's costume seems to have grown lopsided," she replied evenly. "Shall I make a note to stay only to one side of you if I wish my hair to stay of even lengths, Majesty?"

Adam barked a laugh. "They grow them merciless in Lagrace," he noted in amusement at the siblings. "I should like a dance with the lady, if I can find her in the chaos later?"

"I will be found, Majesty," she assured him, lacing her arm through her brother, who was scowling in an entirely brotherly fashion at the Crown Prince. She all but dragged him off.

"Better than Bagley," the Queen Dowager murmured.

"Perhaps a little too much," Adam agreed.

"Adam, what are you looking for? Bread in milk?"

"A queen that won't resent my absence from her life. That one has her brother's wits. If she also has his drive, she absolutely would."

But then who would be coming up to him but Arditty, and he swept her off her feet and spun her around, her lace butterfly wings fluttering with the wind of his delight. She introduced him to her flustered husband and their son, who was young enough to be shy of the firebird stranger, but old enough to do his bow without aid. Adam made her promise him one dance before the endless cavalcade resumed once again.

The first dance, however, went to the Queen Dowager. It was the one move Adam knew couldn't be ascribed to politics or diplomacy. Likely they thought it was an invitation made out of family love, but love was the one thing they knew would never grow between them; they had both done things too terrible, lost too much, to be willing to offer more than affection and loyalty and friendship. But they could indeed be friends, and hers was the wealth of knowledge and courtly savagery Adam knew he would need in the days to come. He would have asked the same of Master Leminy, but the Master of Scions had begged leave to retire, and he'd looked so worn and fragile when at last he'd known himself free of his terrible duty that Adam hadn't had the heart to refuse him.

They moved sedately to the music, the swan and the firebird, and Adam was surprised to find out he'd put on a few inches on her. When had that happened?

He danced a merry jig with Arditty, bringing her back to her husband breathless and laughing, and taking the time to tell him wicked tales of her besting the higher authorities of the palace when they'd been younger. He left them in each other's arms and went on to dance and dance and dance some more, until he found himself wishing for more conversations on supply trains and iron forging just so he could sit at a table and rest his feet. Trout brought him a handful of grapes and Adam didn't ask where the pixie had got them. A special pocket had been stitched into the costume because Adam would not have worn it without, and Trout dove into it, safely away from the noise and crowds. Adam envied him.

He danced with the lady Bagley, and managed to get a timid smile out of her. Rickard was under siege when he went to request a dance from the lady Lagrace. She took his hand with a little curtsy; the music began, and they danced in silence for a few moments before she spoke. "You really aren't here at all, are you, Majesty?"

"I beg your pardon?" Adam jerked himself sharply back to the present.

"Here, at the party," she specified, then added. "You're as far away as if you'd flown to another land."

"I am here now. The Lady Lagrace has my undivided attention."

She scoffed. "I know better, Majesty. Don't insult my intelligence and I shan't insult yours."

"Noted," Adam replied, his curiosity roused. "Is this how the lady means to draw my interest? Veiled insults?"

"Nothing I said would be new to you, Majesty. I asked Rickard to tell me all he could of your time in the palace. I wrote to any of my friends who had family here during that time. No, I shall simply be honest."

"Honest."

"Yes. And share with you my observations."

"Do." The dance spun them momentarily away from one another, then brought her back into his arms.

"You're never going to love your queen."

Adam's jaw tightened until a muscle twitched along his cheek. "The lady Lagrace is correct. 'Correct' and 'bethroted' are quickly becoming mutually exclusive."

She smiled. "Would it help if I admitted I've been mistaken for a while now, and didn't realize it until I met you?"

"Do I truly wear my heart on my sleeve like that?"

"Gods, no. You're one of the hardest men to read I've ever met."

Adam hesitated as he spun her. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome. No, you see, I thought at first you wanted a queen that would love you, even if you don't love her. But I was wrong. You know how cruel that would be -"

"Dangerous."

Her head cocked minutely.

"Cruel and dangerous. I don't need a wife that'll stray. Thrones have fallen for less."

"Ah. Cruel and dangerous, then. And you are many things, Majesty, but you're not cruel. You're simply not here at all. Whatever wife you choose will have to live with that absence. It would break Miriana's heart, you know. Lady Bagley. She might agree to a loveless marriage, but your absence would destroy her. She'd die thinking she failed in some way she can never understand."

"So I should choose you?"

"Lagrace has the best offer to your future military endeavors," she replied coyly.

"You don't strike me as the sort that would abide my not being there."

"Oh, I'm sure it would drive me mad every now and again. But I would have the crown to keep me warm in that empty bed. See, marking your absence and letting you know I do are two different things, Majesty. I'm quite sure you'd never find out how I felt about it. Until I met you I was also fairly certain I could make you happy, but now I know no one can."

The dance ended; Adam held onto her. "And why would that be?"

"Because it's not that you can't love, which is what everyone believes, what I believed until I met you. But that you already love someone, and can never have them." She shrugged gracefully in his grip. "I come into this fight knowing I'm already beat, Majesty. And I'm alright with that. How many girls here can say the same thing?"

She stepped back and Adam let her go. He danced, again and again, but it all came to him in a blur where he didn't register faces or names or music, his feet moving out of training as Elizabeth's words careened through his mind.

You already love someone, and can never have them.

For a while, caught in the whirlwind storm of preparing for war, Adam had forgotten.

Suddenly there was no hiding, and the pain was there, like a fist around his throat, like a dagger through his heart.

Linden.

"Mortal prince?"

"Adam?"

He was sitting, and there was a cup being pressed into his hands. The storm of sound and color of the party came back to him, painfully overwhelming in ways the world hadn't been since he'd learned to master his perceptions of it with his magic unchained. Trout was a warm press against his cheek, and Dane was crouched before him, splendid in the official armor of the Captain-of-the-Guard he was still years from becoming.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely, dragging off the mask and rubbing at his face. He was sitting on the stone bench that ran along the railing of an oval balcony, one curtain drawn, the other open, and he felt cold to his soul.

"You stopped. Like a clockity-clockwork toy," Trout told him. "You said not to bite you so I called Dane."

"Ugh." Adam buried a hand in his gold-dusted hair. "Did anyone notice?"

"Only that you're tired. The Dowager is making your excuses."

Adam buried his face in his hands. "I really thought I could do this, Dane."

"You're doing fine, Adam. What happened? Trout said you were just talking, no one's come at you with a weapon. And Culli's got the kitchen locked tighter than Beli's purse-strings. It can't have been poison."

"It was words, Dane. It was just words, and suddenly I just remembered everything I'll never have anymore, and I couldn't breathe. I remembered that I miss my other friends. That I never said goodbye to Boul, that I never even saw Needle. That Linden..." He swallowed thickly and threw his head back, eyes closed and hands gone to fists.

"I'll get you out if you want, Adam. Just give the word."

"I never wanted this," Adam whispered.

"I know."

"Well, gods help me if Lady Lagrace figures it out." Adam downed the cup in one gulp. "Trout, thank you for not biting me." The pixie's wings buzzed and its slender chest puffed up proudly. "I need a favor from each of you."

"Name it," Dane said simply.

"I need you to find an alcove, close the curtains and douse the candles. Trout -"

"I'll go find them!" The pixie arrowed away.

"Adam, what are you doing?"

"Making sure I've done one thing right since I came out of the damn woods," the Crown Prince replied, rolling to his feet and tying on the domino with a gusting, weary sigh. "Go on. I suppose I can get in one more dance while you get it all set up."

He was halfway through a dance with a young girl who was giggling so hard out of nerves that Adam had yet to get her name out of her, when he caught sight of Dane waiting for him. The dance ended and she curtsied and fled, leaving him free to meet his friend. "I wonder if their parents told them I eat young marriageable girls for breakfast or something. I know I'm not that terrifying to look at."

"You aren't. The crown you're wearing is." Dane led the way.

"Ugh." Adam followed. "You'll want to wait outside, Dane."

"Adam -"

"This is stranger than Needlemaw."

Dane's jaws worked a great deal around words he would have never told Adam, but was seriously considering telling his Prince. In the end he stepped back and closed the curtains, leaving the Heir in nearly perfect darkness.

"Sluagh?" Adam asked quietly of the dark.

"Oh." Several sets of eyes suddenly filled the dark with their pale, blight-haunted light. "You did ask after us. We did not know what to think, when the pixie told us."

Adam had to laugh a little. "I did. I wanted to know... that you're alright. That you're finding the scraps and the bones left for you."

"Yes." The pairs of eyes moved through the dark. One drew close and suddenly stood up, towering over Adam. He could just make out, in the light of Sluagh's eyes, the faint upper outline of its muzzle, neither human nor animal but something more and something else. "Hunger is less now, because of you."

"You can never not be hungry, can you?"

"No," Sluagh admitted. "We are hungry to the marrow of our hollow bones, to the knots in our empty muscles. We can eat until we gorge, and gorge we have, thanks to you. But there will always be hunger to us."

"Then I'll ask something else. Are you content?"

Sluagh stared down at the Crown Prince. "This is important to you, this answer. Not because you will use it against us, not because it brings you power. But because we... matter to you."

"Yes. You've been watching people, Sluagh, you're learning how they think."

"It seemed important. You were... new to us. There have not been many new things in our lives. And you were neither enemy nor food. It is important to learn, when someone is not either of those things."

"How old are you?"

"We don't count time as you do. We have been since before the War. There was no palace. We are not certain there were any of your people on this land. There were more of us then."

"What happened to them?"

"We ate them."

"I don't know why I even asked," Adam admitted sheepishly. "And no one's tried anything against you?"

"No. The Court Beyond the Woods is quiet. Waiting. They will see what you do, first. Perhaps they will leave, and things will be as they were before. Peaceful. Small. Better."

"I would accept that," Adam said. "I would count it a victory if they left and never came back."

"Ah, there is the shadow that follows you," Sluagh breathed. "Your crown of blood and sorrow and black ice. Until now it was hard to see."

"Hatred."

Sluagh nodded. "We do not feel hatred. We see it, know it, but do not feel it. We do not think it would be a good thing, to feel it, for all its power. It wounds you in ways no one can help." They paused. "And we would help, if we could."

"To know that is almost as good as the help itself, Sluagh. Thank you. I'm sorry if I called you away from something important. This is the first time I've had time to think on all that I should have done and didn't."

"It is fine, bones do not run," Sluagh replied blithely, their head cocking. "Here comes your pixie. Let us give you a gift on this, the day of so many of your births, when you are finally many. Truly a first among your kind." The fairy threw out their spindly, long arms, and bowed with unearthly grace. "We are Sluagh. We greet the mortal king, crowned in loss and wit and heart. We pledge him our service." Sluagh straightened up and crossed their arms. "Be he fair to us, we will always be fair to him." And then the dark fairy was no longer there.

The sound of Trout's wings came, muffled, past the curtains, pausing after a moment. Adam opened the curtains to find the pixie perched on Dane's gauntleted fist.

"It's tin and paste," Dane explained at the Heir's look of disbelief. He rapped his knuckles on the shiny, shiny gauntlet.

"It's gross." Trout was rubbing its hummingbird tongue against the tiny tabard Culli had made for it.

"Trout, please don't lick Dane's armor. Words I never thought I'd say, but here we are." Adam went out to dance and converse and occasionally sneak away to scarf down whatever food and drink Trout and Dane managed to sneak him. He found himself dancing with the Dowager once again at some point close to midnight.

"Any luck?" she asked him.

"I think it might have to be Lagrace," he replied. "Bagley is apparently the sort to get attached, and hurt later from it."

"And Lagrace?"

"She's the sort to not give a damn."

"A dangerous game, Adam. If you should grow to love -"

"I won't."

"If you should grow to love Bagley," she persisted, her tone clipped, "she would at least love you back. Lagrace never will."

"If I were capable of it, I would have never survived the trials," Adam said simply, and she could give him no answer to that.

"I will speak to her father," she said resignedly at last.

The dance ended and everyone clapped. The bells of the temple, the heavy brass of the Night-Mother's and the smaller copper ones of the Tree-Father's, called out midnight.

Conversations and music and the general hum of the party petered out under that double onslaught, until there was a rare moment of silence when the bells at last stopped ringing. In it, the thump of the Seneschal's staff on the marble floor seemed as loud as if he'd cracked the stone with it. "Queen of the Courts of Spring and Summer, her Majesty, Titania."

The entire immense ballroom might as well have been a painting. Even the servants ferrying food and drink had frozen in place. No one could believe what they'd just heard.

Adam closed his eyes and felt inexplicable laughter bubbling up inside him. The year's worth of training in remaining unreadable and stone-faced was the only reason he could turn around and look towards the entrance of the ballroom without looking like a madman before the elite of the realm, drawing in a deep breath through gritted teeth. "Well." He laced his hands at his back and waited to see the shape of this new trick against him.

He faltered almost immediately. He could remember, in vivid detail, Queen Conemara. He had drawn her a few times in his journal, and though he knew he was no artist, he was also certain he'd been faithful to the blinding, painful light and brittle, icy beauty of the Queen Beyond the Woods. Conemara would have been like a clay cup before the gilded chalice that was the Sidhe woman moving through the parting crowd.

She was nearly as petite as the Queen Dowager, of a height with her and even more delicate-seeming, as if she were made of the finest gossamer. Her skin was the pale, soft color of a quail's eggshell, her features sharp and inhuman but without any of the painful starkness that made it hard to look at any of the members of the Court Beyond the Woods. There was a subtle, gentle softness to her, detracting nothing from her inhumanity but making her a flawless, enthralling beauty. Her eyes were green and violet behind the merest hint of a domino. She was dressed in a gown that put to shame the richest costumes the wealthiest nobility in the realm had been able to conjure, all the more absurd because she was a humble spring meadow, a hundred shades of green dotted freely with violets and daisies and bluebells, with larkspur and clover, with fluttering butterflies and bumbling bees. Her hair was a rich crown of vivid crimson braided in a stern, motherly fashion. Her crown was gold, and on it winked a gem of every color known to mortals, and a few they had yet to find. Her wings were a summer sky, the finest spun clouds, sunlight dappling through the trees.

She moved with gracious surety through the crowd, never hesitating as she approached Adam. Dimly the Heir noticed that Dane had rushed to his side, that the Dowager was hurrying to him. Trout clambered up on his shoulder and shifted restlessly, wings slicked flat against its body.

There were three more fairies with the Queen - no, four, Adam realized. A tiny blue pixie perched on Titania's shoulder as Trout perched on his, wings flicking idly as it peered with great interest at everything and everyone around them. He tried to look at those escorting the Sidhe Queen, but his head shied away from them; they looked human enough, and that was enough for Adam to know that they weren't, but even his magic couldn't penetrate the Queen's glamour.

"The throne of Faerie greets the Crown Prince, the Heir to the Throne of this mortal Realm," Titania's voice was a song in the stunned silence. She curtsied with grace that made the heart glad to behold.

Adam bowed with as much formality as he knew. "I am beyond honored to welcome the Queen to the palace, to this party. She honors us with her presence, and even more with her greeting. I'm not sure we can do justice to her visit, but we will surely try." She smiled at him, and Adam felt his heart trying to swell with pride, as if she were a doting mother and he a child who'd done well at a difficult task. He gritted his teeth until they ached.

Linden.

"Your welcome is gracious and warm, Prince Adam. More, because we know it's offered under dire circumstances."

"My moods do not affect my manners, Majesty. I'd be a poor excuse of a future king if I allowed them to do so."

"Ah, one could hope to find such poise and sense of station among our own," she murmured. The Dowager reached them then and, astonishingly, a sunny little smile broke across the Sidhe Queen's flawless beauty. "Charlotte."

"Titania," the Dowager replied, trying not to sound breathless.

Adam blinked at her, and all at once he felt like a fool. All those years and it had never occurred to him that 'Dowager' was her title, not her name. He felt color creeping over his face.

"It has been brought to our attention," Titania's voice suddenly rang clear and sure like a silver bell over the gathering, "that the Crowned Heir of the Realm feels Faerie has deeply slighted him." She pinned those green and violet eyes on him. "Deeply enough that he feels war is the only solution."

Adam saw the question in her eyes, felt it in her power as it reached for him, but unlike Conemara, she didn't force her way in. She waited, as courteously as a guest at the gate. Before her he set the broken half of his heart, the other half shattered and gone. "Majesty, I do," he said simply.

Her eyes went soft and bright. "Oh, your heart," she whispered. "Is peace not an option?"

"I sued for peace," he admitted. "I sued for peace twice. Before the Court Beyond the Woods, before Queen Conemara and Prince Canemore I sued for peace. I asked for one thing. They could not, or would not, give it. I will, if need be, sue for peace a third time before the Highest Queen of Faerie. But that would be a third, and I fear it might be... discourteous."

The Faerie Queen smiled wryly. "It would. Particularly when the fault for this terrible situation lies completely with the Court Beyond the Woods."

Adam recoiled minutely. The entire gathering gasped; no one had expected to hear one of the Fair Folk, particularly their Highest Queen, admit to being wrong.

"When we sent the twins here, it was our hope that being alone, forsaking the joys and merriment of the Highest Court, would teach them the... poise and sense of station that they lacked at the time. Instead it would seem their character flaws have grown into unforgivable behaviors and abhorrent mannerisms." Titania pursed her lips. "The Court Beyond the Woods is no more. They are Queen and Prince no more. They are simply Conemara and Canemore." She looked at Adam. "Would that make peace an option?"

Ah, so that was the trick, then. Adam's smile was brief, thin and bereft of humor. "Majesty, it would not."

The nobles caught their breath. Next to Adam, Dane shifted nervously.

"Hm." Titania looked unsurprised. She tapped long, shimmering nails against the rosebud of her mouth. She had better offers in mind, Adam was sure of it; she hadn't got to them yet, that was all. "Our daughter offered you her brother's life, and you refused it. We will not repeat that mistake. Does the Crowned Heir remember what else she offered? It would help us greatly."

"Knowledge, wealth, power. Majesty, I hardly know what to do with the power I already have. I want no wealth but what keeps my people and their homes safe. I want nothing that she offered."

"Well, we would offer a palace greater than this one by a hundredfold, hidden in the woods," Titania mused, and the Dowager gasped tinily. "But it is not ours to give."

"It does miss its mistress, though," Adam murmured.

"It doesn't!" The Dowager hissed.

"It does," he persisted. "I didn't tell you?"

"I didn't think to ask," she admitted.

"For twenty thousand years we have watched you mortals." The Sidhe Queen's voice filled the immense hall. "We have laughed with you and cried with you. We have raged against you, taught you, learned from you. We have shared so much with you. What we have never done, not once, is win a war against you." Her green and violet eyes passed from spring to summer and back again, spiraling slightly, and for a moment it was nearly impossible for Adam to stare at them, they were so like those many-colored, shattered eyes. His hatred, his sorrow, his rage all rose up inside him until only the force of will that had brought him to that moment kept him from screaming until he lost his voice.

"Adam." Her voice was suddenly very gentle, like rain against the black ice of his hatred. She had reached out to touch his cheek with the tips of three fingers, warm like summer sunlight.

"Please don't do that." He stepped back minutely, his voice strangled. "It hurts too much."

"Ah, it must be a family thing, to give away your heart the once, and never again," she murmured, pulling away her hand and looking knowingly at the Dowager. "Tonight, on this day of celebration for your birthday, you are seeking a consort, I'm told."

"I am." Adam shrugged minutely. "A throne without an heir makes people nervous, and wars have a habit of killing without much care as to who dies, peasant or king. It's better for the realm to have that matter settled."

"And if such a consort asked you for peace?" Titania asked, and stepped gracefully aside.

Adam felt the world tilt out from under his feet. Dimly he was aware that Dane had caught him, was holding him upright, but he couldn't understand anything beyond that.

Behind the Queen of Spring and Summer, shining like the first true kiss of dawn on a night-dark land, was Linden, his friend, his love, his heart, willowy and slender, a willow's grace, an oak's strength, a linden tree's beauty. They were wearing a gown that shimmered through every color of their shattered eyes; Titania was a spring meadow, but Linden was the summer woods, where flowers hid amidst a sea of green, where the sky shone blue and perfect, where sunsets were fire and dawn was golden treasure. They had put on a slender domino made of bark, dotted with bejeweled insects picked out with fantastic accuracy in emeralds, sapphires, rubies, obsidian.

But they were Linden. His Linden, the white fuzz of their hair very short on their head so early in the season, faint green freckles on their sharp brown cheekbones. Adam's Linden, all that was kind and joyous and fierce in the woods, perfect down to the one bark-covered hand. Linden, surrounded by a flock of green pixies, crowned with a circlet of living vines with a single stone blossom nestled between the green leaves, an amethyst heart just peeking through the gray.

"Linden," Adam heard himself say, and the black vastness of icy hatred inside him cracked, his heart struggling in a darkness that had swallowed it for far too long.

"Adam," Linden said, and there were tears ruining the elegant glitter someone had sprinkled so very carefully on their cheekbones.

Titania lifted her hand, and blew lightly, scattering a stirring of dust like golden motes in the air. The Dowager gasped. Adam wheezed for breath.

Needlemaw, the illusion that had hidden her broken, was suddenly on Adam's other side, holding him up when he would have slipped from Dane's grip and fallen. "Come, now," she urged him, "where's that muchness of ye gone that yuir knees go to jelly for naught but a wee bit of glamour!"

"Needle," Adam gasped.

"Aye."

"Needle!" Adam cried out and dragged her close, close enough to bump their foreheads together, so close that he could smell her charnel-and-soil scent, and he felt as if he could not breathe, as if he were drowning in the blackness with which he'd armored himself. He clawed at nothing, trying to escape it -

A gentle, rough hand the size of his chest caught the front of his costume and lifted him effortlessly back onto his feet. "Adam."

Dane, for whom the Queen's glamour still persisted, swore under his breath at the all-too familiar voice, the abrupt pong of a bullfrog's croak, both coarse and gentle. Adam had to laugh. "Hello, Boul," he managed, and realized he was crying. "I'm sorry. I'm being a baby and can't even greet you properly after missing you like someone cut off a limb."

"You always greet me before," the young troll said. "Now, I greet you." He offered his hand in the human fashion. "Like the first time."

Adam, surrounded by his friend both mortal and fae, fought himself to his feet and then collapsed again. "I can't breathe."

"Breathe with me." Suddenly Linden was there, and it really was Linden, kissing their prince, their Adam, sweet and sure and patient, with a love that had known itself so clearly, so certainly, that it had never doubted its time would come. Under the taste of that kiss, lemon and honey, sunlight and summer, wind and laughter, the ice of Adam's hatred didn't stand a chance. It was gone as if it had never existed, and Adam gasped in a huge breath, as if he'd been drowning for the past three years and had only reached the surface there, in that place and moment.

Linden caught Adam's face between their hands, both sun-browned, one smooth, one rough. Adam clung to those hands and brought himself to his feet. Linden laced the fingers of one hand with his, and the young Heir turned to face the Sidhe Queen. There was one more person with her, but Titania had not broken the glamour on them.

"Majesty."

"Crowned Heir," she nodded graciously.

"You asked me a question." Adam found his voice rough, and swallowed to try and keep it from breaking. "I have been asked for peace before. I would not grant it to a friend." He looked at Dane, but his childhood friend looked so profoundly happy for him that Adam knew the prospect of war was not even a thought in Dane's head. "Nor would not I grant it to family." He glanced at the Dowager, who gave him the tiniest nod, her eyes once again filled with tears she refused to shed.

He looked at Linden, who squeezed his hand, and turned to face those green and violet eyes. "But if the right consort asks for peace, I will grant it."

"I ask," Linden whispered.

"It's yours," Adam answered, and they fell in each other's arms.

***

The gala continued. No one had a single solitary clue as to how to handle what had happened, but they also knew that the Queen of the Spring and Summer Court had come expecting a party, not for all the guests to stampede in a panic at her arrival. And so the party carried on.

"Charlotte."

The Queen Dowager had retreated to a seat behind an elegant floral sculpture, where she was nursing a goblet of mulled wine. She looked up into the unchanging face of an old and dear friend, and smiled. "Larkspur," she greeted, offering her hand.

The Sidhe Queen caught that hand in both of hers and crouched before her mortal friend. "Oh, Charlie, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you call for help?"

"I honestly don't know, Larkspur," the Dowager admitted, finally allowing her tears to fall. "Pride? Grief? By the time I realized what he'd done, it was done. I couldn't figure out how to fix it on my own, and then I was too ashamed to admit to it, and you'd gone back home -"

"I would have come back for you. I would have come back for the sister of my heart, you know that."

"I know. Look, I was young, I was in love, I was heartbroken. Common sense was nowhere near my first priority."

They both laughed, sheepish and quiet. "I want to give you something, Charlie, but I won't if it will hurt you."

"What is it?"

"It's something you were promised," Titania said. "Promised, and never given. Your people taught mine the importance of keeping one's word." Without actually reaching into purse or pocket, there was suddenly a small velvet box, black and gilt in gold, in the Sidhe Queen's hand. She opened it.

The Queen Dowager went very still. After a long, long moment she drew in a deep, shaky breath, and reached out to brush her fingertips delicately against the ruby. It was a brooch, without adornment or addition, a single ruby the size and shape of a man's heart. Under her fingers it beat, harried and steady. "It's -"

"Yes," Titania confirmed. "He promised it to you, and lied. And so now he must keep his promise, whether he wants to or not. It is yours. And yours it will remain, until you feel he has earned it back."

"Is it wrong of me," the Dowager asked in a very small voice, "to be a little pleased at the shape of your justice?"

Titania laughed. "Never."

***

They sat, all of them, in an open balcony. Adam debated waking Beli, or trying to pry Culli from the kitchens, but decided against it in the end. Plenty of time in the morrow for them to gather once again and come together, at last, the two halves of his world. They shared their stories, the harrowing trials Adam had faced, the infinite patience of Linden's own escape and race to the High Court, only to be met halfway on the Winding Road by Titania. As Linden had predicted, the Queen had been more than glad to welcome the blue pixie back into her Court. She knew its worth. And its news had spurred her to action at last, to correct the unforgivable infraction her children had tendered against a Danu-child.

Boul and Needle were, in theory, there to escort the Queen, and so they'd had to leave when Titania chose to mingle, disconcerting greatly the massed nobles. But the third person stayed with Linden. She was an older woman with very dark skin and very green eyes, bundled up in simple peasant's clothing that was more cozy than elegant. She allowed them to kiss, but when the kiss lingered she cleared her throat pointedly.

Adam squinted at her. "Do I know you?"

Linden laughed. "Adam, how can you not? She didn't come here for me!"

Adam gave Linden a puzzled look, and then turned to face the stranger once more. The woman gave him a look of such profound and utter affection that the Heir found himself flushing faintly, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He rushed over to hug her, and in those powerful arms he found himself made safe once again, as always he had. "Silly me," he said, feeling near tears once again at that most poignant show of loyalty. "You are wearing a costume, you're disguised as a human!"

The linden tree smiled proudly at him, and brushed back his hair. They hugged again, and when he was at last willing to let go, she turned and walked away through the crowd.

"It's hard for her to be away from her place," Linden explained. "But she really did want to come see you, make sure it was all set to rights. She wanted to know you weren't hurting anymore." When Adam looked down, they bumped him lightly. "She said you heard her."

"I did. She's the only one I hear. But if that's all I ever get, that's more than good enough." Linden beamed at him, then leaned on his shoulder with a grimace. "What, what's wrong?"

"These shoes are very pinchy."

"Kick them off? The skirt's so big, no one's going to notice."

Linden did so, and Adam shoved the delicate green slippers under a bench. "Ah!" Linden sighed in relief. "So much better."

"You still look like your head is full of plans."

"Well, not plans. I've done all the planning I can stomach already. You're the one who's good at planning, I just asked myself 'what would Adam do'. That's how I fixed everything. It's just..."

"What?"

"I don't care for the dress. It's lovely, but it's all over the place. I can't walk without crashing into someone, or something. And do I have to be a Queen? That's what Canemore called me."

"Oh, that!" Adam laughed in relief and stood up. "That's why you see all the women go around with their hands plastered down. Shoves the skirts right back out of your way."

"But what if I need my hands?"

Adam popped his mouth thoughtfully, and Linden swatted him for it, and the sheer familiarity of the gesture made him feel as if his heart might burst with joy. "You don't have to be anything you don't want to be Linden. Consort's just what you call someone who marries a King, so, yes, if we marry, you're a Consort. But that won't take away from you being Linden. It's just a thing people call you."

Linden's expression brightened up like a sunny day. "Oh, it's like having all those princes running around. Prince is just something you call them. Consort... I could be that, I suppose, as long as I can still be Linden."

"You will always be Linden." Adam leaned close, and they rested against each other.

"There's lines on your forehead that weren't there before," Linden brushed the fingers of their smooth hand over those lines. "Can't I fix that?"

"I don't know. The whole point of this mess," Adam waved a hand at the vastness of the hall and the ongoing masquerade, "was to make sure there'd be an heir. A baby, at some point. I guess." He sounded about as sure of the goal as he did the process, and even less thrilled about it.

Linden brightened up. "Oh, I can do that!"

"You can?"

"Yes, of course, it's easy." Linden seemed to think. "Though we're going to need a few cabbages."

8/29/2022 7:55 PM X 1/3/2023 3:48 AM

#the fairy and the prince #linden and adam #linden the fairy #adam the prince #original writing #Fantasy Writing #boul #boul the troll #boulders-for-brains #needlemaw #needlemaw the redcap #trout the pixie

[romancemedia]

Anime Couples - Japanese DVD/Blu-Ray Visuals

#Doctor Elise #Sugar Apple Fairy Tale #Snow White with the Red Hair #The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent #The Demon Prince of Momochi House #Fruits Basket #Moments #Anime #Elise x Linden #Anne x Shall #Sei x Hawke #Hatsuharu x Isuzu #Zen x Shirayuki #DVD #Blu Ray

[lindenmori]

this one was for skimsoya (artfight/insta)!

#moth #fairy art #illustration #artists on tumblr #artfight #artfight 2022 #artfight 2022 attacks #linden creations #linden draws #i dont even know how to tag the little creacher fr #and yayyyyyy i have quick tags again. artposting resumes #somehow i actually had two xkits. riddle me this.

[tokyogruel]

I'm so sorry but when I opened my notes I saw "Shidou lindwurm-hansel and gretel connections" and I am now politely knocking on your door to ask if I can also see...

im gonna get all my screenshots from wikipedia but yes. absolutely. please look at all of this

[i ♡ the wikipedia app]

(im on mobile so this will be done through several reblogs probably)

some shidou themes and symbols also cause i want to start making a list of them 👍

flowers/plants, lies, deception, childhood, regression, motherhood, ovaries, snakes, chimaera, dual imagery (yin yang, age/youth, black/white, good/bad, man/woman, etc.), royalty, riches, purple blue white, medicine, child sacrifice, hades & persephone (kore), german folktales, fairy tales, the cycle of death, birth, and rebirth

THE LINDWYRM

see also, ouroborous

heres the link for linden trees

shidou and haruka both have a "muu ku" line in triage and AKKA. they both also have cannibalism themes

(they both also remind me of cain and abel)

The Lambton Worm

HANSEL AND GRETEL (think of haruka with this too ok? for me)

CHANGELINGS

(i havent slept yet also and i have no idea if ill have steam to finish this tomorrow. all i can do in the meantime is encourage you to do a wikipedia rabbit hole run with this info)

#creature speaks #ask tag #NOTT!!! :DD

[olekciy]

Mirror frame "Water Fairy Tales". Mixed technique. Material: Linden, lilac, stained oak, amaranth, amber, mother-of-pearl, Ural malachite, oil, stains.

#arts and crafts #woodworking #woodcarving #crafts #handmadeartwork #tumblr artist #handmade #artists on tumblr #craft #artisan crafts #decor #dragon #fairy tales #mirror frame #frame #goldfish #octopus #mermaid #mermaid art #mermaid fantasy #woodart #woodwork #woodcraft