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saoirsha-blog1 · 6 years

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The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction.

She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural ingenuity, instinct for what is elegant, a supple mind are their sole hierarchy, and often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.

Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.

When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth in use three days, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with a delighted air, "Ah, the good soup! I don't know anything better than that," she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry that peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvellous plates and of the whispered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinxlike smile while you are eating the pink meat of a trout or the wings of a quail.

She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made for that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.

She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home.

But one evening her husband reached home with a triumphant air and holding a large envelope in his hand.

"There," said he, "there is something for you."

She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card which bore these words:

The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Madame Loisel's company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.

Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on the table crossly, muttering:

"What do you wish me to do with that?"

"Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had great trouble to get it. Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there."

She looked at him with an irritated glance and said impatiently:

"And what do you wish me to put on my back?"

He had not thought of that. He stammered:

"Why, the gown you go to the theatre in. It looks very well to me."

He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he answered.

By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I have no gown, and, therefore, I can't go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I am."

He was in despair. He resumed:

"Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you could use on other occasions--something very simple?"

She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the economical clerk.

Finally she replied hesitating:

"I don't know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs."

He grew a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks there of a Sunday.

But he said:

"Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty gown."

The day of the ball drew near and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her frock was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:

"What is the matter? Come, you have seemed very queer these last three days."

And she answered:

"It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single ornament, nothing to put on. I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not go at all."

"You might wear natural flowers," said her husband. "They're very stylish at this time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses."

She was not convinced.

"No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich."

"How stupid you are!" her husband cried. "Go look up your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You're intimate enough with her to do that."

She uttered a cry of joy:

"True! I never thought of it."

The next day she went to her friend and told her of her distress.

Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box, brought it back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:

"Choose, my dear."

She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian gold cross set with precious stones, of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the mirror, hesitated and could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking:

"Haven't you any more?"

"Why, yes. Look further; I don't know what you like."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at her reflection in the mirror.

Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt:

"Will you lend me this, only this?"

"Why, yes, certainly."

She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.

The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.

She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness comprised of all this homage, admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of triumph which is so sweet to woman's heart.

She left the ball about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball.

He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, the modest wraps of common life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wished to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs.

Loisel held her back, saying: "Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a cab."

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When they reached the street they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen passing at a distance.

They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient night cabs which, as though they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day, are never seen round Paris until after dark.

It took them to their dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they mounted the stairs to their flat. All was ended for her. As to him, he reflected that he must be at the ministry at ten o'clock that morning.

She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her neck!

"What is the matter with you?" demanded her husband, already half undressed.

She turned distractedly toward him.

"I have--I have--I've lost Madame Forestier's necklace," she cried.

He stood up, bewildered.

"What!--how? Impossible!"

They looked among the folds of her skirt, of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere, but did not find it.

"You're sure you had it on when you left the ball?" he asked.

"Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the minister's house."

"But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab."

"Yes, probably. Did you take his number?"

"No. And you--didn't you notice it?"

"No."

They looked, thunderstruck, at each other. At last Loisel put on his clothes.

"I shall go back on foot," said he, "over the whole route, to see whether I can find it."

He went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without any fire, without a thought.

Her husband returned about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.

He went to police headquarters, to the newspaper offices to offer a reward; he went to the cab companies--everywhere, in fact, whither he was urged by the least spark of hope.

She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this terrible calamity.

Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face. He had discovered nothing.

"You must write to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn round."

She wrote at his dictation.

At the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must consider how to replace that ornament."

The next day they took the box that had contained it and went to the jeweler whose name was found within. He consulted his books.

"It was not I, madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have furnished the case."

Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like the other, trying to recall it, both sick with chagrin and grief.

They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds that seemed to them exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days yet. And they made a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs, in case they should find the lost necklace before the end of February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.

He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers and all the race of lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked signing a note without even knowing whether he could meet it; and, frightened by the trouble yet to come, by the black misery that was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and moral tortures that he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, laying upon the jeweler's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace Madame Forestier said to her with a chilly manner:

"You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken Madame Loisel for a thief?

Thereafter Madame Loisel knew the horrible existence of the needy. She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.

She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her dainty fingers and rosy nails on greasy pots and pans. She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning and carried up the water, stopping for breath at every landing. And dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining, meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, sou by sou.

Every month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.

Her husband worked evenings, making up a tradesman's accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.

This life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury and the accumulations of the compound interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households--strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so admired.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? who knows? How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

But one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees to refresh herself after the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.

Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not?

She went up.

"Good-day, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all and stammered:

"But--madame!--I do not know---- You must have mistaken."

"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"

"Yes, I have had a pretty hard life, since I last saw you, and great poverty--and that because of you!"

"Of me! How so?"

"Do you remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"What do you mean? You brought it back."

"I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it. You can understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad."

Madame Forestier had stopped.

"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very similar."

And she smiled with a joy that was at once proud and ingenuous.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste! It was worth at most only five hundred francs!"

#story time #source: Americanliterature.com

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skeletonsgrim · 7 years

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Grim stood within the woods deep in the mountainous park that surrounded his primary town in this reality, one hand clutching his phone and the other hand holding his scythe. Exhaustion already weighed on his bones from rapidly taking care of the Void creatures that had threatened reality since he had pulled away after that message, making sure things would be safe when he left.

He took a quiet breath, then - unnecessary, but habitual.

With a deadly true swing of his scythe, Grim tore open reality and gathered the only magic he had left to him, magic that weighed and flowed of a will of its own, the same magic that bound him to this half-life.

At his call, the magic of the Void swirled around him, and he thrust himself through the already healing rip in reality. The moment he was through, it closed behind him, and he quickly placed his scythe back in his inventory -

And nearly fell to his knees as his soul nearly tore from his chest.

Unneeded breath dragged from his jaws as his hand gripped over his sternum, the cloth of his hoodie bunching surreally under his touch as his vision adjusted to the world comprised of nothingness so pure it weighed heavier than the multiverse itself.

In front of him, in an abstract landscape perfectly mirroring the roll of the land in the universe he had just dragged himself from, laid the ethereal city of shaped Void that housed the entirety of monsterkind from his original world. The city’s appearance was defined with lines and distinctions of a white that was just beyond the technical realm of white as it was normally comprehended, beyond a white any normal vision could comprehend.

Thankfully, when the Void had even just begun to claim a soul, it also changed your own abilities to perceive such things.

Sharp corners did not exist in the formed architecture of the Void - it had taken them so long to even form buildings, to create houses and public structures, only those relatively few who were seriously adept with Void magic managing it well in a way that kept the Void matter from returning to it’s placid state of weighted nothing pooled below, conforming in waves to the landscape of the reality it overlaid.

It took time to adjust to seeing the ghosts of buildings and structures that existed in reality, here - none of them had presence in this realm, outside of that of visual perception, so they stood as strange mirages, shimmering at the edge of vision like the perception of distant water in the desert, or a flicker of something at the edge of your vision that could not be brought to center, no matter how you tried to turn to focus on it. The buildings of the Void city his people had been able to construct instead flowed from the ground like water made solid, arching bridge-like structures hung with teardrop-dwellings with smooth paths twisting around them to grant access within; bubble-like structures that held the building of new libraries of knowledge - a slow and agonizing but crucial and honorable pursuit many monsters were involved in; countless domes of gathering places and markets arranged in artistic and accessible patterns, parks of Void-built mazes and puzzlegrounds aplenty, larger spiraling structures providing further spaces for cultural pursuits and schools and research buildings alike joined among all these things.

But he didn’t have time to linger, to admire the progress they had made in the six months since he had last visited, only five minutes allowed by himself and his brothers to put to risk that time-

Ten minutes was the point of no return, in actuality, but he would begin to deteriorate well before then, the reality-laden half of his soul unable to persist in the Void, thus rapidly destabilizing towards a point of turning to dust.

He didn’t even deserve that much time, though.

Beneath his hand at his chest, Grim’s soul shuddered, the Void of him wanting the entropic joining with the Void all around him - and what remained untainted of the Void by him already starting to cave under the force of the nothingness around him, soul traits even of a monster too strong and true to remain together in this world.

… But he forced his mind from that sensation. After all, he could go see them, now.

Paps, Dings...

He didn’t deserve it, but… one last time.

Just one last time.

He stumbled forward, knowing that at this time interval in the Void, they’d both be home. Grim for once didn’t stick out from his surroundings for his singular palette of Voided black and white - here, he blended in…

… Or he would, if it weren’t for the fact that every monster damned to the Void knew his face - the face of the one who had gotten them stuck here. If he ran into anyone, even as close as he had been sure to aim his landing to his brothers’ house, they would stop him - some for better, knowing he shouldn’t be here, some for worse, caring perhaps more about what he had done - but… he couldn’t waste what little time he had left.

If he used a shortcut, bent the Void, as it was so easy to do for him once within it proper - he’d be on their doorstep in a blink. But it would only accelerate his deteriorating condition, by as much as half.

His eyelights, stuttering like a fire caught in a wind, dropped to the phone in his hands. With a bare few swipes of his thumb, he brought up his list of interdimensional boxes - more than any other monster had access to so singularly. In the top one, the one he reserved for personal use, unshared with anyone else, were two items - the Recipe Book and the Lost Theorems. The former was a thick volume of handwritten recipes, complete with polaroid pictures of the key steps and the finished product, alongside a picture of the place the recipe was found - the latter, a thick leather journal, filled with painstakingly translated notes of critical quantum theorists and their lesser known research for a third of it, and the other two thirds are notes of monster scientists - gathered from dangerous leaps and excursions over the years to other realities, different versions of themselves and other key figures around them finding more and more expansive theories regarding the nature of the Void and interdimensional magic, pieced together as best as Grim could manage.

He closed his eyesockets, and his hand clenched at his sternum.

The Void folded around him, leaving nothingness proper behind as he vanished.

Grim nearly collapsed against the front of his brothers’ house as the Void fell away once more, leaving him alone, his weight falling to the side to rest against the curving outer wall of the central dome that comprised their shared living area and their kitchen. Sprouting in almost organic fluid bubbles on either side of the dome were their personal bedrooms and studies, but that wasn’t of Grim’s concern right now.

His body shuddered as his soul twisted unpleasantly, but he managed to roll his weight to look into the Void-tinted window of their door to see his brothers standing in the kitchen, their backs to him. Their voices carried easily to Grim’s hearing, even as he slid towards the ground.

“I am not sure that the recipe means to call for as much garlic as there is tomato, Pap.”

“WHERE IS THE HARM IN TRYING, THOUGH? PERHAPS WE SIMPLY HAVE NOT HAD OUR MINDS OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITIES!!”

“Unless the human that wrote it was trying to stave off vampires, I feel fairly confident that the doubtless results are a possibility that they would also prefer to avoid.”

“VAMPIRES AREN’T REAL, DINGS.”

“Ah, but the lingering curse of hellish garlic breath is, brother.”

Grim’s soul hadn’t stopped trembling under the effects of the Void, but a very different kind of ache pierced him now too. His brothers continued their back and forth, Dings dryly and teasingly refusing to ‘test’ such a unique recipe, and Pap trying to outwit him into giving it a shot.

Eyesockets nearly shut with how fiercely he was concentrating on holding himself together, Grim’s mouth twitched upwards to a grin with an aching curve to it. He focused his gaze on his phone once more, and with too much effort managed to lift his other hand and pluck the two items at the top of his personal interdimensional storage box out. They immediately fell heavy into his grip, the two bound books too much for him now, and they and his hand alike fell into his lap.

His phone fell to the ground as his head tipped back, thunking against the door as his strength waned.

Streaks of black, indistinguishable from pure Void matter, fell from his sockets.

At the sound at the door, the voices of the two inside immediately cut off. There was a short pause, one that Grim only distantly registered - just so much as to wish they would keep going. His mind drifted, forgetting the weight on his lap, the empty grasp of his fingers without his phone… Footsteps quickly approached him, muffled from within the house’s rounded walls, before the door burst open at his side.

“BROTHER!! I NEARLY CAUGHT HIM THIS YEAR-!”

“nearly caught who, bro?”

“THE GYFTMAS RUNNER!! THE PUZZLES I LAID OUT AROUND THE HOUSE WOKE ME UP, AND I COULD SEE THAT WHOEVER IT WAS, THEY NEARLY DIDN’T MAKE IT OUT OF THE LAST ONE WITH THE SECRET RING OF FIRE!”

“I told you that one might be a bit too much, Pap-”

“NYEHEHEH. WHOEVER THE RUNNER IS, THEY’VE DONE THIS FOR THREE YEARS! CLEARLY THEY NEEDED A BETTER CHALLENGE, DINGS!”

“well, who knows, maybe ‘Dyne’ll accept your application to the guard this year if you include photos of it. i can picture her face now - she’ll suplex half of Waterfall just for not thinkin’ of it herself.”

“YOU THINK SO, SANS??”

“i’d say she’d be hardpressed to not be impressed by how much boulder you’ve been gettin’ with that clever mind of yours, bro.”

“But what if your challenge had caught the presents being delivered on fire, Pap…?”

“... THERE… MIGHT HAVE BEEN A SLIGHT TACTICAL MISCALCULATION, THERE.”

“That does seem to run in the family, heh doesn’t it-... wait, Sans... what’s that burnt smell…?”

“... uh, just burned an earlier batch ‘a pancakes, that’s all. got a fresh set here though, no worries - ‘n hey, i even got a hold of some pecans this year - aaaand Dings, you’re drooling.”

“WOWIE - THAT AND MAPLE SYRUP?!”

“Stars, Sans - this must have cost a fortune, the last time I saw some in the Capital they were-”

“heh, don’t worry ‘bout it. merry Gyftmas, Pap, Dings.

“MERRY GYFTMAS, BROTHER!!”

“Merry Gyftmas, Sans. Thank you-!”

Grim’s mind caught up to the fact that there was… someone at his side. At each of his sides.

“-HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN HERE?!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know-! But - gods, it’s too long already, he can’t have much more than 90 seconds left before he completely destabilizes-”

“BROTHER, WAKE UP! PLEASE! PLEASE, GET YOUR SCYTHE - WHY ARE YOU HERE?? YOU NEED TO GET BACK-”

“Sans, please, he’s right - if you can hear us-”

Their voices cut off as Grim’s eyesockets opened, his eyelights hazed out - Void-laden tears still falling from them.

For some reason, the only thing he could think to do for a moment was smile at the faces of his two brothers leaning over him. It was a little hard to remember how to do so, but his hand managed to lift, and his loose grip came over Pap’s hand on his chest.

“... ‘s’good to see you…” Grim murmured.

Pap’s sockets screwed up, black tears streaking down his face.

“YOU BONEHEAD - OF COURSE IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU, BUT - BUT NOT LIKE THIS! YOU NEED TO LEAVE, PLEASE-”

Grim’s body sagged a little further into Pap’s hold, the boundaries between his bones starting to blur together as he shook his head.

“... no good. ‘m no good, Pap. but… you are.” His blurred eyelights shifted to Dings, who seemed to be desperately gripping Grim’s phone, his digits flying over the surface, Void tears lining his furious sockets. “Dings… both of you… best thing that ever happened t’me was havin’ you as brothers…”

“You - don’t you dare talk like that, Sans, we’re getting you out of here - whatever happened, just… just hang on, please don’t let your soul Fall-”

“I- D-DAMN IT, WHERE IS YOUR SCYTHE, SANS?”

Grim’s eyesockets started to close, his body feeling heavier and heavier - as heavy as the weight of the nothingness surrounding them, as heavy as the nothingness of the Void half of his soul overcoming the rest of his soul, tearing it apart in a desperate search for entropic return-

“Shit, I think he’s got it in his personal inventory, it’s not in any of his boxes-”

“HOW CAN HE EVEN MAINTAIN THAT RIGHT NOW-”

“His magic’s always been too damn powerful - but the Void’s tearing the non-Void half of him apart, he’s- he’s got 45 seconds now, at most-”

Their voices were blurring together in Grim’s mind now. He could hear the clack of Dings’ fingers searching through his phone, and distantly feel Pap’s arm keeping him from completely sinking to the ground - he was holding onto his last string of conscious sanity, though, knowing that whatever was left of his soul upon the ‘real’ half shattering would be a husk that would eventually morph into a Void creature. He had to teleport himself away, as far away as possible, deep within the nothingness that bridged between realities, where he’d never be able to hurt his friends, his family - anyone, ever again.

“W-what - what is this-”

“IS THAT… ARE THOSE MESSAGES? FROM A REALITY INTERNET BLOG?

40 seconds.

“I… I think they’re all addressed to him- wait, is this that blog he was telling us about…?”

“THEY DON’T APPEAR READ - IT’S FROZEN, HE CAN’T RESPOND HERE, I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW THEY’RE ABLE TO SHOW-”

35 seconds.

“Stars, look at all of them- Sans, you idiot, didn’t you see these-?!”

“SANS, PLEASE! YOU SEE?? WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO WANT YOU TO KEEP GOING-”

30 seconds.

Grim’s tears fell heavier.

“don’t… deserve it.”

“OF COURSE YOU DO - SANS, BROTHER - REMEMBER WHAT YOU TOLD ME, WHEN I WAS A BABYBONES, AND I HAD MADE THAT PUZZLE THAT BACKFIRED AND HURT MY TEACHER-”

25 seconds.

Grim choked back a sob. Pap’s voice was tight, strained, focused, desperate - Dings was gripping him too, now, though he couldn’t quite focus on either of their faces.

“-YOU TOLD ME THAT MISTAKES DON’T DEFINE US! INTENT - INTENT MATTERS, SO MUCH, AND EVEN IF THE IMPACT OF YOUR ACTIONS IS SOMETHING TERRIBLE, YOU CAN LEARN AND GROW, AND MAKE IT BETTER BY BEING BETTER, AND BY NOT GIVING UP, EVEN WHEN THINGS ARE DARK-”

“Sans, I- I was stuck alone in here, for five, six, seven years - I thought I’d never see you, or Pap, or our people ever again-” Dings’ voice cracked, and Grim felt something squeeze his hand to the point of pain. “-I know you feel guilty that we’re all here now, but - but we’re not Underground, and we’re together - brother, you saved me-”

12 seconds.

Why did it hurt so much? Falling into the Void - it was supposed to be like drifting into a heavy sleep, but his soul felt like it was being stabbed with red hot static, protest in this fate rising in too much of him. But… he couldn’t, though, he had made his choices - he…

At that moment, something filled his vision and came into sharp focus for how close it was thrust towards him - his phone, displaying an inbox full of messages, messages he hadn’t let himself check after leaving earlier-

“You’re not alone, Sans!”

For a single moment, time hung too long, as souls from a universe that wasn’t even his origin reached out to him in defiance of reality, in defiance of every worst thing he thought of himself, in defiance of his attempt for his own soul to not call out on his behalf.

5 seconds.

With a sound in his chest like a mountain cracking in two under his will, Grim’s hand swung out, his scythe materializing and in the same motion tearing a rift into the air in front of him and his brothers. Without a moment of hesitation, Pap and Dings lifted him and shoved him into it. The books fell out of Grim’s lap in the process, but Dings managed to thrust Grim’s phone back into his free hand as he pushed through the rift stabilized just long enough with the last of his hold on his magic.

Their hands dragged over one another for a lingering moment, the three brothers’ arms outstretched as Grim’s hazed, pained eyelights met theirs’.

The next moment, the blackness of the Void folded around him, and they were cut off from view.

...

When his vision returned, he was staring at the night sky stretching overhead, not a cloud in sight and the tips of leaf-stripped trees and wintergreen spruces framing his view.

He laid sprawled on his back in a different section of the mountainous park he had been in originally, his form solid once more, every inch of him aching and throbbing with the wild of the Void’s magic gripping him still, fighting to not be contained in half of him.

His hand gripped over his sternum, his eyelights set on the distant stars as the cold breeze of late fall ran over his splayed form. Some of the plethora was obscured in the ambient light of the nearby city at the base of the mountain, but that didn’t make the scene above him any less breathtaking.

… He didn’t think he could deserve any of this.

He rolled over, his bones protesting with marrow-deep ache. The heels of his palms pressed up over his cheekbones as a shudder wracked through him. Tears, void magic in essence, fell renewed from his sockets, thick and slow and hot as his soul throbbed within his ribcage.

“... i’ll try to be worth it,” he finally said into the quiet mountain air, his low voice almost hoarse.

Once the ache in his bones dulled enough to feel his magic again, he opened his phone, his thumb lingering over the unloadable page bearing so many messages of support. After a few moments, he switched apps, bringing up his list of interdimensional boxes and simultaneously taking a notebook and pen out of his personal inventory. His hand was unsteady, but he forced himself through it before tearing out the page and placing it in the interdimensional box that was linked to his brothers.

The icon displayed was like a pixel art thumbnail of the object itself, and the writing was large enough to be captured as well-

i’m sorry... and thank you.

Grim locked his phone then, sliding it into his pocket as he tiredly pushed himself to his feet, brushing off his void-black jeans in the process. Wary of using his Void magic to teleport after so close a call, Grim began walking down the mountain, the quiet rustle of the forest in the night breeze and the dry shift of leaves fallen underfoot the only sounds breaking the isolated quiet.

#grim sans #skeletons grim #OTL #(and thus we sort of meet pap and dings...)#(... grim's heading towards q or wifi - whatever he hits first)#(gotta apologize for worrying him and thank him for having his back... annnd probably pass out. hopefully AFTER finding him #)#you HAD asked when the last time he cried was... well as of now here we are #cw for implied suicide attempt #persevering is not as easy as it sounds #but he won't forget that you all... well you saved him really #(and also made me tear up at all these supportive and sweet messages for him)#(... he's going to be staring at them for a long time)#long post

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abutterflyscribbles · 7 years

Text

Those Chains That Bind You: Kidnapping AU Part 7

Anon prompted me:

[Strange Magic] au where kidnapping is a thing before courting. Marianne kidnaps Bog. Spiraled into an Political Marriage AU with lots of pining and extensive worldbuilding.

Prologue/Chapter One/Chapter Two/Chapter Three/ChapterFour/Five and Ao3

(please please please feel free to do a liveblog commentary, whether in a post, in my inbox, in chat, I would be thrilled by getting a blow-by-blow commentary of your feelings. And shoutout to @deluxetrashqueen and @jaegereska for beta’ing this)

“Boggy!”

It was not with the most receptive frame of mind that Bog greeted his sister-in-law. Dawn took no notice of his mood, barreling into him with a small shriek of delight.

“Hello, fluffy,” Bog said, resigned to the inevitable manhandling that came with the princess's affection, “I'm surprised Dagda let you come.”

“Dad thinks I can convince Marianne to come home,” Dawn laughed, finally releasing Bog.

Considering Bog's last conversation with his wife, he couldn't imagine that Dawn had been set a very hard task. Dawn and her party thrust their way into the castle like sunlight through the trees, sending the creatures of dark and dreams back into the shadows. The people of light were here to rescue their princess and she would gladly be reclaimed. Bog had no intention of trying to persuade Marianne to stay.

This resolution was tested when Bog caught sight of the blonde fairy guard strutting his way to the head of the gaggle of fairies to make an elaborate bow. Bog stepped forward, making sure the light of the lamps was behind him so that his sight was clear and that his shadow fell over the fairy.

Roland rose from his bow with less grace than when he had swept into it, eyes squinting at the king's obscured silhouette.

“What,” Bog asked the princess, “is this doing here?”

“Your majesty--” Roland began, infusing his words and manner with sickening charm and confidence.

“I was talking to the princess,” Bog snapped, sweeping his scepter to the side and cutting the guard off mid-sentence. The ingratiating smile on the guard's face became a little fixed and unnatural when his eyes uneasily followed the scepter's path.

“Forgive me, your--”

A sharp look from Bog cut Roland off again.

“If you'll come this way, princess,” Bog gave her a small bow, “we can talk privately.”

“Your majesty, I must insist--”

Bog had little enough patience to start with, even before the last few days had exhausted it. He turned on Roland, cloak sweeping behind him. He shoved his face in front of the guard's. Roland cringed, charm gone and replaced by open disgust at such a close view of Bog's face.

“What,” Bog asked, dragging the end of his scepter along the floor until it rested firmly by his feet, “is it that you must insist?”

The grating noise of the scepter across the floor had made the fairy cringe again, but he made an effort to recover himself when Bog finally stepped back.

“It was only . . .” he cast a look behind him at the other fairies that had accompanied the princess Dawn on the journey. Most of them looked nervous, some even frightened, but all of them looked scandalized at the goblin king's behavior. Roland seemed to gather encouragement from this, throwing back his shoulders and producing another gleaming smile.

“Bog King, I have been charged by King Dagda of the fields to deliver a message to you concerning the princess Marianne, after which I would see the princess immediately.”

The goblins in the throne room raised a soft growl of protest at the wording. Bog raised a hand and all fell silent.

“You forget where you are, messenger,” Bog swept a hand at the crumbling glory of the castle, “while you are here you are speaking of the queen.”

“You must forgive me, sire,” Roland waved a hand as he sketched a bow so slight that it was insulting, “for we who love Marianne have always, and always will, look upon her as our princess, above all else.”

“You should adjust yourselves to the change, for she will be queen of both kingdoms one day. The respect you show her should reflect that.”

“Sire, it is our respect and love--”

Bog was certain Roland was using that word as much as possible.

“--that bring us here to see for ourselves that our beloved princess is not suffering from the harsh winter, away from her home and her people.”

This jab backfired, making the goblins bristle at the insult.

“Not that we assume you, sire, are lacking in hospitality,” Roland hurried on, “or your castle in comfort.”

Several of the fairies sniggered.

“King Dagda, has every confidence in the safety and comfort of the princess in her visit to your kingdom, and his only concern is that of a father missing his daughter and wishing to see her again. His majesty wishes to inquire if his daughter would be ready to travel and return home with our party. And so I request an immediate audience with the princess, so that she can begin the arrangements for her departure.”

Bog did not let himself think about how eagerly Marianne would leave, even if she had to travel with Roland. Now was not the time for those sort of thoughts, not when half the castle was gathered around to watch their king deal with the fairies.

The primping creature did love an audience, Bog noted, not for the first time. Roland knew how to work a crowd. But only if the crowd were comprised entirely of fairies. In the few encounters Bog had endured, he had always been at the disadvantage of being in enemy territory and outnumbered.

Not this time.

And under the right circumstances Bog too loved an audience.

“The queen,” Bog's emphasis prompted a general murmuring of approval from his people, “will be told of your message.”

“Excellent!” Roland stepped forward, obviously with the expectation of being shown to Marianne's rooms immediately.

Bog blocked the way with his scepter.

“The queen will be told of the message,” Bog repeated, “and will send a reply to you at a time of her own choosing. You will wait here until she sends word indicating how she wants you disposed of.”

There was no doubt that Marianne would want to leave. There was also no doubt that she would be enraged to be at Roland's beck and call. Bog might have hurt her beyond forgiveness, but her could still do her the small service of keeping the yellow slug in his place.

“You'll have to forgive me,” Roland pushed the staff away with one finger, “I was told to deliver the message to the princess personally to make sure there is no miscommunication and to appraise her condition so that I may make a full report to the king.”

Bog planted the staff back into place with a bang.

The fairies flinched.

The goblins chuckled.

“Your insolence will only be suffered for so long, messenger. The Queen of the Dark Forest is not subject to your command, or even the command of her father, if she choses. Your message will be delivered. I cannot speak for the queen, I cannot tell you when, or if, she will see you. Know your place.”

“My place is fulfilling the king's commands, sire! If I am turned away at the door, how can I reassure him that the princess is well and happy, or staying here through her own choice--”

The snarls of the watching goblins drowned out the last few words of Roland's protest. The fairies were reaching for their swords, the goblins clawed at the floor.

Bog waited for the noise to die down enough so he could be heard when he spoke again. He leaned over Roland, knowing how he was a ragged shadow while the would-be hero was smooth and shining. The shadow was not the hero, the shadow was the villain and villains had no need for niceties.

“Messenger,” Bog rumbled, tapping a claw on Roland's chest, “if you once more use your clever little tongue to imply slanderous falsehood I will do you the favor of cutting it off at the root.”

There was a sharp screech. Bog's claw had cut a silver line through the green of Roland's armor.

The look on the gaudy little fool's face was unspeakably satisfying.

“Enough!”

Dawn swept between the two of them, cloak pushed back and hands on her hips. She jabbed a finger at Roland's scarred chest.

Bog jolted back, as if he had been dreaming. He remembered that his audience included a fairy envoy and that he shouldn't have indulged himself by terrorizing Roland. Yes, the primping fool was in need of being put in his place, but not at the cost of alienating the rest of the court. He could only imagine the horrified reports that would be taken back to the fields.

Still. That had been most enjoyable.

Dawn was in fine form, looking so displeased that the fairies grew visibly uncomfortable.

“That is absolutely enough. I can give Marianne the message and I can tell dad what's what. You just need to wait here for me and stop being so rude and insinuating. We are guests here, please remember, and we are not going to abuse the hospitality given to us by the king and queen.”

“Sweetheart,” Roland shook his head, as if laughing over the hopeless simplicity of a child. He seemed recovered from his fright now that he was on familiar ground again. “You don't understand--”

“That,” Dawn jabbed her finger again, “is not the point. The point is that this is the Bog King's land and his castle, which he shares with his wife and queen. Yo u have no right to interfere in how they do things. And even if I were a hopeless idiot I am still princess and you are still just a guard! What I say goes. Now, Boggy?”

Bog didn't even bother to correct her. The goblins were hooting with delight over this turn of events while the fairies looked uncomfortable and guilty.

“Yes, your highness?”

“I'd like to see my sister now, if she will receive me.”

“I have been assured she will.”

“Thank you.”

Dawn accepted the arm Bog offered to her and he led her out of the throne room.

It was easy to forget most of the time, he thought, that Dawn and Marianne were sisters, but when family resemblance did arise it is was striking.

Dawn breezed through Marianne's rooms, opening all the doors so the closeness of the castle was alleviated to some small degree. Over the fire in the little private sitting room Dawn brewed some of the tea she had brought with her which spread the warm scent of home.

The night had been long and uncomfortable for Marianne. She was still dragged down by her fading cold, but restless with inactivity and anxiety. When she did sleep it was a heavy, unrestful sleep. Throughout the night she would regularly wake up with a gasp and a jerk, startled by dreams she couldn't remember.

Morning found Marianne with dark circles stamped under her eyes and a fretful edge on her mood. She knew that the visiting fairies—Roland included—could only be ignored so long without taking offense, or starting rumors that Marianne was kept under lock and key by her goblin husband and forbidden to communicate with her own people.

Nor could she put off figuring out a plausible reason for leaving that would not cause offense to the Dark Forest. Because she was leaving. Bog didn't want her here and, more importantly, Marianne didn't want to be here.

“So,” Dawn sat down on the foot of Marianne's bed and bounced up and down to test the mattress, “You're a total mess.”

Marianne could not disagree with this assessment.

“I'm allowed to be. I'm sick.”

“It's not just that. From what Griselda tells me . . .”

Marianne found the thought of Dawn and Griselda conspiring to be unsettling. And they had had plenty of time to do it, Dawn roaming the castle throughout the day, making herself acquainted with her brother-in-law's domain.

Several of the winter sprouts had popped in to visit Marianne and show off the flower crowns that Dawn had made for them. Dawn had seen fit to bring a whole trunk of flowers and set about decorating Marianne's room with them, showering the excess on any goblins she came across in her tour of the castle.

Bee and Flo were decked out in flowers while they built a blanket fort out of covers stolen from Marianne's bed. They had both come down with the sniffles too and Griselda had asked to put them in Marianne's rooms. “So that I don't have to trudge from one end of the castle to the other to check up on all of you.” The number of sick sprouts invading Marianne's rooms was slowly growing and while Dawn bounced up and down on the bed, Marianne had a roly poly little sprout snuggled at her side and a prickly little fellow wedged behind her pillows.

“What exactly does Griselda tell you?” Marianne delicately removed the edge of her wing from the winter sprout's claws as he kicked in his sleep.

“Lots of things. That you and Bog made a complete spectacle of yourselves by trying to kill each other in the snow. Which I did not expect to happen, but I don't find at all surprising.”

“Hmph,” Marianne slid down on the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin. The sprout behind the pillows squeaked.

“And apparently violence helps you work through your problems because you two started being all friendly and flirty again.”

“We don't—we have never--”

“Um, yes you did? Like, all the time before you broke up.”

“We didn't 'break up'. We were never together! Not like that!”

“But you want to be. You want to smooch and hold hands and raise adorable adopted goblin babies together. You were, like, halfway there last year. Then you weren't. And, as is the new norm for Warrior Princess Marianne, you won't tell me what happened.”

“I--”

“Can't? Just like with the Roland thing. You always refuse to talk about the important things! How am I supposed to be a good sister and help you figure things out if you won't communicate?”

Dawn flopped dramatically across the bed.

“There isn't anything important to talk about,” Marianne insisted, pulling her hand away from the sprout that was trying to chew her fingers, giving him a mouthful of blanket instead.

“You have obviously experienced emotional trauma and that is important,” Dawn sat up and took Marianne's face in her hands, “your feelings are very important and you deserve happiness and if you disagree with me I will have your sword melted down and made into silverware.”

“You wouldn't dare. Besides there really isn't--”

Dawn smushed her forehead into Marianne's, “Foul, filthy lies.”

Disgusted by all the noise and movement, the sprout finally pulled himself out of the bed and dropped onto the floor with a squeak before pattering away to where Bee and Flo were playing in the outer room. The sprout behind the pillows snored loudly.

“You are a captive, trapped in your bed, forced to talk about your feelings.”

“Get off!” Marianne pushed Dawn away, “I'm sick, don't bully me! I'm getting up!”

“Nope!” Dawn dropped herself across Marianne's stomach, her wing covering Marianne's face, “Time for feelings.”

“I don't have feelings!”

Dawn burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she had difficulty breathing and gave an explosive snort. It was so abrupt and ridiculous that Marianne started laughing too. It hurt, because she did not want to laugh. She had been taking care to hold herself together in front of Dawn and had not dared to risk the paper-thin facade with any extreme emotions. Because Marianne knew that if she felt anything she would feel everything.

From one breath to the next Marianne's laughter turned into a choking sob.

“Marianne? Oh, Marianne!” Dawn rolled over and tangled her sister in a hug, “What has Bog been doing?”

An overpowering need to be comforted kept Marianne from rejecting Dawn's hug and turning away to hide her tears. It was weakness to break down like this, especially in front of Dawn. Marianne was supposed to be the one who protected Dawn. Right now, though, so tired and sick, Marianne just wanted to be held.

It such such a relief to let go. Even if she hated being weak in front of Dawn, Marianne still knew she was safe. Her tears wouldn't be used against her, no one would say she was overreacting, hysterical. No one was watching.

In the fairy court everyone was watching. Casting disapproving looks at their wild princess that Marianne did her best to ignore, and when she couldn't she could at least make sure they didn't see that she felt the sting. She could not let her guard down, otherwise she would be tripped up by Roland and his kind.

In the Dark Forest Marianne was a representative of her people and had to strive to make a good impression. She had to be strong, decisive, willing to work hard without complaint so no one could call her a frail fairy.

Dawn . . . Dawn expected none of that. Dawn expected a big sister that hovered and worried and did her best to protect her, who went off on wild adventures and got married to a goblin king. She expected madness, chaos, and accepted the fact that this was how Marianne lived her life.

There was no princess, no queen, no warrior, there was only Marianne.

“It isn't Bog's fault,” Marianne said between sharp, painful breaths, “It's me . . . it's everything . . . it isn't his fault that I love him . . .”

She had said it. Finally said it. Somehow it felt like the world should have paused to take notice of this. It didn't. The sprout behind her pillows continued to snore, Flo was buzzing out giggles in the other room. The world was indifferent to Marianne's feelings. It was her own shortcomings that kept her from being indifferent too. Instead it hurt.

A fragmented account of the disastrous kiss was cried out onto Dawn's shoulder, interspersed with snippets of how afraid they had all been about the family trapped in the snow, Sugar Plum in the dungeon and how for a moment Marianne was scared of Bog, even a brief sketch of the almost kiss in the garden. And how Marianne tried and tried, but she was never going to be everything a queen of two kingdoms needed to be. Everything she had been holding inside and keeping secret came out of her in one sob after another.

“I am going to flatten Bog's nose,” Dawn vowed, having understood only about half of what Marianne told her, but enough to get an idea of what had been going on between her sister and brother-in-law.

“It's not his fault,” Marianne shook her head, “It's me. I make all the wrong choices, I've let him down, I'm letting everyone down. Peace and cooperation between the two kingdoms, it's so important, but I can't even keep peace with Bog--”

“I don't care! Bog made you cry and he needs to pay! I need a stick so I can pound a few facts into his dumb salad head! He's your husband and he needs to start treating you right.”

“It . . . it doesn't work like that. It's not a marriage, it's an alliance of two kingdoms. He married me for my crown and I married him for his. There's no other reason he—or anyone else—would even consider looking at me twice.”

Dawn gasped.

“You take that back, Marianne!”

“It's true! Everyone needs me to be things I'm not, because they don't like me. They like my crown, that I'm a princess, nobody cares what I am beyond that. So I'm stronger alone, because the only way I can be myself is if I'm alone!” Marianne leaned her head back and blinked away tears, “I don't need anyone. I'm not weak.”

Dawn administered another hug to her sister, “There is so much stupid in what you just said that I don't even know where to start. Anyone who doesn't think you're absolutely fantastic needs their nose tweaked. Like I'm gonna do to Bog.”

The thought of Dawn pinching Bog's long nose and the disconcerted look that would no doubt be on his face made Marianne cough out a brief laugh.

“You have the worst luck with guys,” Dawn sighed, rocking Marianne back and forth.

“No. It's not Bog's fault that he doesn't love me. My feelings are my problem.”

“Please, if he doesn't love you then he's been leading you on. And I'm not so sure he doesn't. I've seen him look at you—before you broke up. He looked at you like he can't believe someone so incredible exists.”

Marianne could only shake her head. Maybe Bog had liked her, but that was before he knew her very well. On further acquaintance he had changed his opinion, and not for the better.

“You need cookies,” Dawn decided, lifting up Marianne's face and wiping away tears with a rose petal handkerchief one of the handmaidens dropped into her hand, “And tea. You'll see sense once you've got something warm in your stomach.”

“I'm drowning in tea,” Marianne said thickly, “Everyone wants to pour tea and soup into me until I'm sloshing with it.”

“Well,” Dawn hopped off the bed, “if you insist on dueling in the cold and then running off to heroically dig a hole in the snow, you could at least fit in a few cups of tea and and a couple of minutes quiet here and there in your schedule. Now you have to catch up all at once. This is the price you pay for a disgraceful lack of moderation.”

A cup of tea and five minutes peace. Marianne and Bog hadn't even managed to fit that into their schedules, and now Marianne was plagued by an endless parade of tea mugs and more empty time than she could fill. It had been shaping up to be such a nice winter. Lots to do. Lots of useful things to do. No one expected her to don finery and sit around looking regally ornamental, speaking in modulated tones and keeping her temper in check. Now that was all ruined and Marianne was reduced to a useless lump that everyone poured tea into. At least she didn't have to be regal, Marianne thought, running a hand through the tangle of her hair, which she had not allowed the handmaidens to comb.

Dawn took the kettle to the fire in the reception area, tiptoeing around Bee, who was laying on her back and basking in the warmth.

“We are going to have a nice long talk,” Dawn said, “and I am going to tell you how lovable you are, even when you look dreadful.”

“You have a way with words.”

“Oh, let's put on your makeup! That'll make you feel better, once you've got your face on. And I brought you some books to read while you get better. I thought you might need some entertainment.”

Dawn left the kettle over the fire and opened on of the boxes she had brought with her. She gathered up an armload of books and dumped them on the bed.

“Well, where the entertainment?” Marianne asked, seeing the flashy covers of the books and realizing they had all been taken from Dawn's personal collection of sentimental garbage.

“Oh, ha ha.”

“You might as well have left them at home, we'll both be there soon enough.”

“Aw, don't be like that!

Marianne knew they were going home. She would remove her unwelcome presence from Bog's castle and hopefully maintain the chilly cooperation they had established in the past year. It meant having to travel back with Roland, which was an extremely distasteful idea, but at least it was an annoyance and not a sorrow.

“Why don't you read one while I get tea,” Dawn picked a book out of the pile, “this one has lots of sword fights.”

“Do any women sword fight?”

“Um, no, actually.”

“Then no thanks.”

Marianne turned over the books, her head full of unhappy thoughts about the sound of Bog's voice weaving into her dreams while he read from a tattered, old, very precious book. She couldn't remember how that particular story ended. No doubt it was with the hero and heroine embracing and swearing grand promises of love and eternal devotion. They always did. Still, she wouldn't have minded specifics.

“Wait,” Marianne wiped the back of her hand across her sore eyes, clearing her vision a little, “Wait . . .”

She rifled through the jumble of books, a half-formed thought compelling her to look for something that probably wasn't there.

But it was.

An almost pristine copy of Windswept.

It's world-worn sister lay in a drawer, the loose pages slipped carefully back into place while it waited for Bog to come back and fetch it. The forlorn book would have to wait until after Marianne left, because it was certain that Bog would not be visiting her rooms while she was still in them.

“Oh, that's a pretty good one,” Dawn looked at Marianne's chosen book when she returned with tea and a plate of cookies, “I cried at the ending.”

“You cry at all the endings.”

“True.”

“Did you . . . would it be okay if I took this, to keep? There's somebody who would like it, I think, unless you don't want to give it away?”

“Oh, sure! I can always get another copy.”

“Yes, I guess you could.”

So easy. Get another copy, just like that. They truly did live in a wealthy kingdom.

Marianne leaned over and put the book in the drawer with Bog's copy. She would give them to Griselda before she left, to spare Bog the trouble of having to see his unwanted fairy wife again.

She wished she could see his face when he saw the silly book, watch him flip to the pages where his copy had ended, his eyes taking in the white pages and empty margins. Maybe he would skim the pages then and there, answering the trivial little mystery of his youth. Maybe, if things had been different, he would pick up where he left off reading to her and she would listen to the fierce, terrifying Bog King read the sappy romance to her in that soft, accented voice.

Anyway, Marianne put down the book and that train of thought, it was nice to think that Bog would finally get to read the end of the story.

Dawn always cried over the end of stories, happy or sad, because the story was over and that little world was closed. Marianne was rather beginning to see Dawn's point of view about endings.

“Look,” Dawn said, pulling a shawl around Marianne's shoulders, “I can't speak for Bog's feelings. I mean, my record for noticing how people feel has been kind of atrocious.”

“Poor Sunny.”

“Yeah, exactly. Anyway, in my opinion Bog's besotted. And if he's not then he's an idiot. You're brave and strong and smart and you love really hard. You deserve someone who appreciates that.”

“I didn't—I don't want anybody. I didn't mean . . . for any of this . . .”

“But it happened. Warrior Princess Marianne fell in love and fell hard. And I think you two are a good match, if you can just get yourselves sorted out. You two have gotta sit down and talk.”

“We don't need to talk, I already know--”

“Oh, do you?” Dawn poked her sister's nose, “What has Bog said about all this, then?”

“He—he didn't exactly . . . he made it clear enough--”

“Nope! Not good enough! You gotta talk to Bog before we leave.”

Marianne saw the primroses crawling with shadows of unknown horrors. She had faced that fear, she had conquered it. She had to conquer this one too. Find out once and for all what was beyond the primroses. Good or bad, she needed to hear Bog say it out loud. And she had her own share of things that needed saying. She took a deep breath, preparing for the plunge into the unknown.

“I do,” she agreed, “I will.”

“Good!” Dawn squished Marianne in another hug, “I'm betting on an outcome that involves a lot of canoodling.”

Marianne smacked her with one of the romance novels.

The Winter Sprouts romped in the throne room, petals drifting free of the flowers given to him by the younger fairy princess. The sight of flowers in winter made Bog uneasy. It was unnatural. It also reminded him of confronting Marianne in the dungeons when she had so nearly found out everything he wanted to keep from her.

Yet, he did want her to know. She would finally see him as he was and stop being hurt when she tried to care about him. It would be best if she knew, let it be over with one blow instead of a thousand tiny needles drawing one drop of blood at a time over an agonizingly long period. It gave false hope, for the wounds were minor, the pain little, recovery possible. Until the next jab, the next drop, never time to heal.

But he didn't want her to know.

All day he waited for Dawn or one of her entourage to visit him to discuss the details of Marianne's return home.

No one came.

He spent some time prowling the corridors near Marianne's rooms to discourage any of the ingratiating slug's attempts to go where he was not invited. Perhaps Bog could finally find a legitimate reason to throw Roland out into the snow.

Roland must have anticipated something of the sort and remained in the room he had been shown to. Perhaps he had decided against alienating royalty of both kingdoms through any foolish tricks. Or perhaps he was merely preparing himself for a renewed attack on the next day. Either way, Bog had no one to take his anger out on except a few hapless goblin guards who got in his way while he stalked his way through the castle.

Once he had exhausted every excuse to be up and about, Bog reluctantly returned to his rooms for the night. The family that had been dug out from under the snow had been squeezed in with another family for the winter and were making the best of things. The fairies were safely tucked away for the moment, and the winter sprouts had been been put to bed. How long either the fairies or sprouts would stay where they had been put, that was up for debate.

Resigned to facing his empty rooms and being alone with his thoughts, Bog at least looked forward to the quiet dark where he could rest his tired eyes and ears.

Which made him tense up when he saw the glow of lamplight seeping through the crack under his door, and smelled the scent of flowers in the air.

Fairies.

Come to garner favor or pick a fight?

Bog felt more than a little foolish when he flung open the door, expecting to confront Roland or his cronies, but instead found the princess Dawn examining the bits and pieces on the shelf over his desk.

“There you are,” Dawn said, not at all bothered that she had been caught snooping, “I was wondering if you'd come back at all tonight. If I had known you were going to keep the boutonnières I would have made sure they were treated to last.”

She waved her hand at the dried flowers lined up in an orderly row on the shelf.

It was embarrassing to have been caught being sentimental, but any blushes Bog might have suffered were supplanted by dread.

The fluffy little princess was here to say Marianne was ready to leave.

To go home.

Because Marianne's home was not here. Not in the castle, not in the forest, and certainly not with Bog. She had looked so lost and alone among her own people, he had thought that if he could just bring her into the forest she would find the same solace he did.

“Hello, princess,” Bog said, leaning his staff at the desk and hanging his cloak by the door.

“Sit down, please, Boggy,” Dawn had brought a stool with her so she could sit by his desk while still leaving Bog's own chair for him.

“All the arrangements for your return to the fields can begin first thing in the morning, there will be no problem. We can discuss it all then.”

“Bog,” Dawn said, folding her arms, “sit down.”

He sat.

Dawn sat down herself, smoothing her skirt and wings, “I want to talk to you about your behavior toward my sister.”

“I--”

Dawn held up a finger, silencing him.

“Now, this seems a silly question to ask at this point, but what are your intentions toward Marianne?”

Bog was thrown by the question. That was happening a lot, as of late. Nobody wanted to react as Bog expected them to, so all the answers he composed anxiously in his head never got to be used and all his efforts were wasted.

“I don't . . . understand the question?”

“Where do you want your relationship with my sister to go? Because I can't figure out what you're at, with all this back and forth.”

Bog's stomach sank.

Marianne had told her about the kiss that shouldn't have happened. How much hurt and disgust there must have been in her story.

“I did not intend--”

“I don't care about what you didn't intend. I want to know what you do intend. Where are you going from here? Are you just going to ignore what happened and make both of you miserable again?”

“Haven't I don't enough already? I don't intend to annoy her again.”

“You're annoying her right now! Look, answer me this,” Dawn stood up, grasped the edge of the armrests of Bog's chair and leaned so close that Bog slid down a few inches in his seat, “When Marianne kissed you, did you kiss her back?”

The heat of embarrassment still refused to warm Bog's face. There was only the cold of dread and a sharp twist of anxiety in his stomach when Dawn put forth the question. The whole wretched business was being dragged into the open now. Soon both kingdoms would be buzzing with outrage at the Bog King's disgraceful actions. Marianne would never return to the Dark Forest.

“Yes,” Bog said, making himself look into Dawn's eyes and face the disgust that would fill them.

“Then what is the problem?” Dawn straightened up and threw out her hands, “She kissed you, you kissed her, it was an enjoyable exchange for all involved. So what is the deal? Listen, I'm here to find out whether or not you want to put your face on Marianne's face and kiss each other stupid again. Because Marianne is open to discussion on that point but doesn't think you are.”

Bog shot upright in his chair, blood rushing to his face, “What? But—but she was sick! She didn't know what she was doing—I shouldn't have—”

“Uh, yes? Yes, you should have! Like, a year ago! And Marianne kissed you first! That's a pretty clear signal that she kinda likes you. A lot.”

Bog was at a loss at how to respond or even what to think. He had done something unforgivable, acted just as that wretched blonde slug would have, and yet Dawn was here telling him that Marianne . . . didn't hate him? That wasn't possible. Somehow Dawn had misunderstood, or Marianne hadn't told her the whole story.

Bog wrapped his hands around the arms of the chair, his claws fitting into the grooves already etched into it, digging them a little deeper.

“Do you,” Dawn pointed a finger at Bog, “Like my sister? Like like. Romantically. I know you have the whole ban on love thing going on, but that's really besides the point at this point. Unless there's a clause about flirting being allowed, just as long as you don't mean it. Because if you've just been toying with her for fun I will tear the leaves off your head.”

Dawn's threat was so surprisingly fierce that Bog involuntarily put his hand up to his head. If anyone else had spoken to him like that he would have snapped back at them. Somehow it wasn't possible to do that to the living embodiment of sunshine and clear blue skies.

“I wasn't—I haven't been flirting.”

“Ugh!” Dawn threw her hands up, “how can you two flirt so outrageously and not even know you're doing it? Now answer the question! Do you like my sister?”

Yes. Excessively.

“I . . .”

I can't.

Bog stood up, building up the resolve to send Dawn away and end this uncomfortable conversation.

Dawn stood up and shoved him back into his chair. Bog was startled enough to let her.

“This is like pulling teeth! Marianne cares about you, do you care about her?”

“Your sister . . . if she cares about me then it's a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why. Your fearsome evil king act is impressive, I'll admit, but you're really very sweet. I mean, if you really want to be thought of as evil then you shouldn't cuddle the baby winter sprouts. It ruins your whole image.”

Bog ground his teeth together and looked away.

“Look, Bog,” Dawn poked the tip of his nose, “Marianne likes you. You like her. And you'd better not be avoiding admitting it just to keep up your No Love policy, because if you're that stupid I'll—I'll scream! No! I'll stand outside your window all night and sing love songs at you!”

“That isn't it!”

“Then tell me why!”

It really shouldn't have been so terrifying to have Dawn's round, pink face so close to his, their noses almost touching. It was like being threatened by a dandelion, yet Bog found himself unnerved.

“I'm waiting,” the killer dandelion said sternly.

Bog wanted her to go away, for this conversation to be over. He felt cornered and panicked and upset. Marianne was leaving, she wanted to, because of what he had done, because--

“There's nothing in me worth loving!”

He was on his feet, Dawn was across the room. He thought he might have shoved her, sent her stumbling that far. He wasn't sure, his head hurt and his eyes blurred, and nothing mattered except that Marianne was leaving forever. He had to let her go.

“Boggy!”

Dawn sounded shocked and maybe a little tearful. Bog bowed his head and waited for her to burst into tears, run away, call her guards. But like all of Bog's expectations in the past week they were doomed to disappointment.

For the second time since she arrived at the castle, Dawn crashed into him for a hug, knocking the breath right out of him.

“Dummy! You and Marianne, you're idiots! Absolute idiots! How can two such amazing people be so stupid.”

The impact of Dawn's collision knocked a few tears loose from Bog's eyes. His hands hovered uselessly, undecided between reaching up to wipe away the evidence of his distress, or to unwind Dawn from around his torso.

“There's so much to love about you!”

“You . . . you don't even know me!” Bog broke away with a growl, “You think because I put up with you and kept a few flowers that I'm some soft fool?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Isn't it?” Bog snatched up one of the dried boutonnières off the shelf and crushed the brittle petals in his hand. The crackling pieces dropped to the floor, fragile and dead.

“Well,” Dawn said, hands on her hips, “that wasn't very nice.”

“Listen, princess, I don't need you sticking your nose into my business--”

Dawn pinched his nose and forced his head down so she could look him in the eye.

“I have had it up to my eyeballs with this nonsense! You don't get to be the big scary king of the Dark Forest with me! They day we met you smashed yourself into a tree to save me from that lizard! At my engagement party you let me cry all over you! I don't think any of that qualifies as evil. In fact, you're very sweet,” she gave Bog's nose a twist, “when you're not being a moron and making my sister cry!”

“Let go!”

“What're you gonna do? Snarl at me? Punt me into the hall?”

“I . . . I might!”

Dawn's fierce expression broke and she giggled, giving Bog's nose another gentle tweak before releasing it. He straightened up immediately to remove his nose from Dawn's reach. He didn't dare to take up a predatory crouch again and risk further indignity.

“You're not putting your heart into your act, Boggy. Probably because your heart is otherwise occupied.”

“I . . . I wish you would go away.”

“Not yet,” Dawn's hair fluffed gently as she shook her head, “First I have to tell you that you are a very lovely person with a crusty crunchy outside and a squishy middle. Why do you pretend to be all . . .” Dawn clawed up her hands and waved them around.

“It isn't a pretense. It's simply who I am.”

“I mean, that must be exhausting.”

Bog wished that Dawn had not said that. He was tired. The winter was wearing on him already, the usual cares hanging heavy on his shoulders. The banter he shared with Marianne had lightened it, her presence at his side evidence that things were changing. The coming winters would not be so hard as they had been, the Dark Forest was not alone anymore.

Bog was not alone anymore.

That would last very little longer. Though he knew it was for the best, it hurt. There had been so many moments this winter that he had thought that maybe, somehow, Marianne . . . cared for him. But she couldn't. She shouldn't. She deserved so much better and if he hadn't agreed to this marriage she would be free to find it.

Yet the thought of her finding love elsewhere wrapped around Bog's chest like a cord being pulled tight. The only comfort was that he knew Marianne would never break her marriage vows. He hated himself for finding comfort in Marianne being trapped, chained to him in this way.

He was so tired.

“Your sister . . . deserves better.”

“She deserved the best,” Dawn agreed, “But that's relative. Listen, Bog, I just need you to tell me: do you love Marianne?”

Bog sank into his chair, the weight of this request too heavy for him to keep standing. Dawn reached out to take his hands but he pulled them away before her fingers could touch the scar across his palm. Right now that wound felt as fresh as the moment it had been cut.

A tear made a shining dot on the scar.

“Please, go away, Dawn.”

“Answer me and I will.”

“I can't.”

“You can and you will!”

“I can't . . . love her.”

“Why not?”

“It's . . . . it isn't allowed.”

“I don't speak cryptic, Boggy!”

Bog scratched his fingers anxiously on the armrests and kept his eyes lowered. He couldn't tell her, he couldn't tell her the truth.

Dawn sighed and gave his arm a pat, “Boggy, love her, can't love her, you have to talk to Marianne. Tell her why you supposedly can't love her and live happily ever after with sword fights twice a day. Just tell her. Dancing around the subject is making you both miserable. I expect you to come to see Marianne first thing in the morning or I'll drag you there by the nose.”

“Go away, Dawn.”

“First thing. Unless you want me wailing love ballads outside your door.”

Dawn bounced lightly out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Bog slumped in his chair and sighed deeply.

The door slammed open.

“I'm making you a new boutonnière!” Dawn said severely, “I'm making you two.”

The door slammed shut again.

“You look horrible.”

It mystified Bog how his mother managed to get into his room even when he was positive he had locked the door. Not for the first time he contemplated the possibility of shoving a shelf in front of the door before he went to sleep.

“I'm awake,” he rasped, shoving away the lamp his mother was holding up to his face.

“Good, then you can do something about those fairies. We keep catching them wandering around the castle by themselves. And you can go visit your wife and apologize before she decides to take herself back to the fields.”

“That's her choice,” Bog said dismally, shoving himself upright.

“I think you underestimate your influence, son.”

This struck Bog on the raw. He still couldn't imagine that Marianne would even speak to him, much less favorably consider his suggestions as to how she would spend the rest of the season. By now she must completely revile by every aspect of him.

Dawn insisted otherwise. Dawn insisted that Marianne . . . cared.

This thought, among others, had kept him up half the night, spinning around and around in his head. Everyone seemed so keen to tell him that his convictions were misplaced. How could so many people be wrong, all in the same way? And he felt the truth, knew it was rock solid, that there was nothing good in him.

It was indisputable.

Or should have been, anyway.

Thinking of asking Marianne to stay was like standing on the edge of the castle's bridge, looking down into the mist, unable to see the bog below. If he flew down he didn't know where he would land. He might slam himself right into the side of the cliff. Everyone kept telling him he would be fine, told him that the mist had cleared away and the path was visible, while he peered into an blank white expanse. He wanted to see what they saw, but to his eyes there was nothing.

And it wasn't allowed. Not for him.

Not allowed, not allowed, not allowed

The words pounded in his brain with relentless rhythm and would not be silenced. He was glad, for all his grumbling, that his mother had woken him. It broke him out of the cycle of worry and frustration. The cobwebs of the night were brushed away with a bright light and a sensible manner.

“Sweetheart?” Griselda put the lamp next to his bed and looked into his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed, “Have you been crying?”

“Didn't sleep well,” Bog evaded the question, rubbing his gritty eyes so that his mother couldn't see his face. It was time to get up and face the day. He had to shove the anxieties of the night back into the darkest corner he could find so that there would be room for the day's tasks. The flaw in this plan was that the dark corner was growing. It was running out of space and all the hidden things were spilling out into the open.

Bog took a deep breath, hearing a rattle in his throat, and tried to push everything back. His throat was tight and his head felt like it was stuffed with moss, making his thoughts slow. It was time to stand up, but that order was getting lost somewhere between his head and his legs.

“You're a liar, son,” Griselda said affectionately, “And it sounds like you caught Marianne's cold. That's what happens when you go kissing her when she's sick.”

This jab was too much for Bog to take. He dropped backwards onto the bed and covered his face with his hands. He was too tired to deal with this knotted mess of feelings and politics. He was expected to present himself to Marianne soon, then deal with the fairies with some measure of tact and politeness. If Marianne stayed he would have to deal with the fairies' objections to their princess's rash decision. If she went Bog had to work out a reason for the departure that would not offend either kingdom.

Whether Marianne would stay or go would be decided after Bog had talked with her.

“Silly boy,” Griselda sat on the edge of the bed and knocked Bog with her elbow, “It's not as complicated as you make it.”

Still laying down, Bog took his hands away from his face and looked up at his mother. It had been so many years since he was still small enough to have to look up at her. When he was a tiny, soft-shelled sprout he thought her tall and fantastically strong. She raised him through terrible days, keeping him alive even with death threatening from all sides. Running and hiding, scratching the bare bones of a life in the dense thickets of thorns that Argos did not bother himself with, somehow they survived. Them and a handful of his father's people.

Even now his mother's presence brought a sense of safety. Irritating as she might be, it made Bog glad to have her in his life.

At least, until she opened her mouth.

“While pining away because of unrequited love is romantic, sweetie, pining away when your wife is ready to fall into your arms is just plain stupid.”

Bog just coughed.

“Poor boy,” Griselda gave his shoulder a pat, “You've had too much going on at once, haven't you? I wanted you to be sensible about this, I didn't want you to worry yourself sick.”

“I'm fine.”

Bog stood up, giving his stiff neck a crack. He felt sore all over. And heavy. He wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't even be able to lift himself off the ground. Not that he relished the thought of flying. Just standing up quickly had made him dizzy.

“Another one lost,” Griselda shook her head, “is there anyone in this stump that isn't sick? Go talk to Marianne and when you're done you two can tuck yourselves up all cozy together and sleep this cold off.”

Bog walked into the corner of a shelf.

“You're too easy,” Griselda grinned. “C'mon, let's get some breakfast into you. Never do important things on an empty stomach if you can help it.”

Bog pulled his cloak on and let his mother lead him toward the kitchens. He knew if he ate a single bite it would all come right back up again. But going through the motions of obedience at least delayed talking to Marianne.

But only for so long.

Finally Bog had to go to Marianne's room. His shoulders heavy, his feet dragging.

He had to tell her to go. They would part and she would be disgusted, but at least she wouldn't know what kind of monster he truly was. Even if she was offering him love he had to reject it. Her feelings were misinformed. Better for him to reject it now than to have it ripped back out of his hands in shreds.

Bog was shocked, somewhere under the fog covering his thoughts, that he was actually thinking that Marianne really did . . . love him. He could not imagine how he had been so fortunate to be offered something like that. He wanted to deny the possibility, as he had always done before. This time, however, it was as if the thought had snagged on the spikes of his armor and could not be dislodged.

Bog's feet would only carry him to the point where the corridor branched off. He paced up and down, out of sight of the guards at Marianne's door. He could hear them playing cards with Thang for flower petals.

Soon enough Bog knew how many paces long the corridor was, and he still couldn't make himself turn the corner. There was heavy clouds of mist around that corner, and if he stepped into it he would plunge down into a muffled white that was more terrifying than any shade of darkness.

What if he asked her to stay and she wanted to go? It would be best to simply let her leave without asking at all. If she wanted to stay she would say something . . . no, no she wouldn't. He taken away that option, rebuffing her one too many times.

What if, for all the reassurances to the contrary, Marianne was indeed disgusted by that kiss? His behavior had been vile, almost as vile as it had been years ago when . . .

Bog shook his head, attempting to banish a memory of glittering pink and horrified screaming. It would not go. Bog sighed in defeat and leaned against the wall, wishing he had not gotten out of bed that morning.

The soft padding of feet, and their abrupt silence, had Bog standing up and turning around.

It was that elf with impossible hair. Dawn's elf. He was standing still as a rock, staring at Bog with huge, terrified eyes. Bog scraped around in his memory for the elf's name so he could offer a few words to get the elf moving again so he could pass by and leave Bog in peace.

Sammy? No, Sunny.

“When did you get here . . . Sunny?”

“H-hi, Mr. Bog—King—Bog King, sir. I came with Dawn.”

Bog couldn't remember seeing the elf among the gaggle of fairies, but that didn't mean anything. The elf could have easily been hidden from sight by the fairies, who were easily twice his height.

The sight of the elf made Bog prickle with annoyance. It made him think of primroses and love potions and things he would rather not ever recall. It irritated Bog and he decided that if he was so plagued the elf might as well suffer a bit too before he moved on.

“What are you doing, wandering around by yourself?” Bog asked the question with a subtle baring of his teeth, “Looking for more love potions?”

Sunny somehow made himself look smaller.

“No! No, I would never--!”

“Oh? Never?”

“I—I never actually made it into the forest! Dawn told me she told you, so you know that I--”

“Didn't manage to get past conspiring with your charming friend?”

“I-I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean . . . I wasn't going to . . . please don't shout at me, sir, Marianne already did it once!”

That made Bog cough out a harsh laugh, “She would.”

Sunny looked up, daring to hope a little that the ordeal he faced was not too awful.

“I'm not going to clap you in irons and toss you in the dungeons. I'd have Dawn after me, and something tells me I would be worse for the experience.”

Sunny risked a smile.

Bog didn't have the energy to try and crush it. The round-faced little elf hardly looked the part of a conniving thief. His face was so easily read that it might have been printed words on a page and all Bog could see was earnest regret. The elf looked like he had been slapped down too many times and now feared to put himself forward.

“And Dawn is too sensible to let herself be duped,” Bog admitted.

Sunny's smile grew a little brighter. Obviously Dawn was a favorite subject.

“People always think she's a little clueless,” Sunny said, “but she's not, really, sir, she just decides not to worry about things in front of people.”

“She's like her sister in that,” Bog observed. He could have ended the conversation there. He glanced at the branching corridor. Another minute or two would hurt no one.

“Oh, Dawn and Marianne are a lot alike, sir. I've known them since we were all little.”

There was a pause where Bog very carefully did not make any of the remarks that sprang to his mind.

Sunny coughed and went on, “They just sort of branched off in different directions in the past couple of years. But Dawn's tougher than people think, and Marianne, well, she's sort of . . . not soft, exactly, but nicer, I guess. She just doesn't like people to see it, because some of the people at court, they think that means she's weak.”

That was the way of it. There were always people looking to pick at weak points to bring you down. If no weaknesses were found then the rules were changed and virtue turned to vice. Resolution would be called stubbornness. Caution scorned as hesitation. A princess with a cheery disposition would be considered flighty and a princess who played their game of politics would be told she was reckless and did not understand the rules.

How did an elf fare in all this? A nobody with no presence or distinguishing skills. The only thing distinguishing about the elf was his hair.

“The fairy court loves elves almost as little as goblins. It is a singular thing you've been allowed a place at all.”

“Hah, well, sir,” Sunny fidgeted with the end of his scarf. Bog noticed the scarf was much newer than the rest of the elf's ragged outfit. He had a feeling it had been a gift from Dawn, “They sort of put up with me I guess. They think that Dawn will . . . get over me.”

“I see. The real difficulty begins when they see that it is otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sunny was an elf and he was not even an important elf. The marriage between Bog and Marianne had been tolerated because it was a useful alliance and because the fairies feared that so openly slighting the Bog King by rejecting the idea would bring war to their doorstep. Sunny had no such leverage. The road would be long and hard for Sunny and Dawn, and it seemed they were fully aware of this.

“She would do this, even after you intended to use a love potion on her?”

The question wiped the smile from Sunny's face, but he did not try to avoid the question, simply saying, “Because I was stupid.”

Bog raised and eyebrow. He had expected more elaborate justification.

“I thought that if Dawn didn't notice my feelings then she never would and she would never feel the same. I should have just told her and let her decide,” Sunny tugged on the scarf and looked ashamed, “I was afraid she would tell me she didn't feel the same and I was a coward. A love potion would have made sure she wouldn't say no.”

Oh, Bog understood that all too well.

“I know now it was stupid and cowardly. I wish I had never even tried, that I had stopped and just thought for a second . . . but I would never do it again, sir, I swear.”

“You don't need to,” Bog said sourly, wondering how the elf had gotten so lucky. Maybe it was because he hadn't managed to actually get his hands on the potion and throw the dust in Dawn's eyes. Marianne had stopped him in time. Oh, but it must have been nice to have someone to stop you from doing stupid things.

“Yeah,” Sunny agreed, “I wish I could take it all back.”

“She forgave you, didn't she. She's going to marry you.”

“I—I still almost did it. I still feel guilty.”

“Then . . .” Bog tried to puzzle it all out, “Why let her marry you?”

“I told her I would go away if she wanted,” Sunny sighed, “I tried to. But Dawn forgave me and-and she told me I didn't need to keep beating myself about it. Marianne just told me it was dumb to keep punishing myself for something I was really sorry for.”

Yes, Bog thought, it made all the different that Sunny had not managed to actually use the potion. Intentions were far more easily forgiven than actions.

“I really am sorry, sir--”

“Stop groveling, it's does nothing but annoy me.”

“That's really all I can do, usually, sir.”

That was a valid point. And despite all the groveling, Bog had to give the elf credit for standing his ground and confessing to something he could have easily tried to deny. Sunny was brave enough when it really mattered, it appeared. Perhaps that was one of the things Dawn saw in him.

It occurred to Bog that this under-sized elf had shown more courage in the whole business than Bog would have. The thought made his mood darken again and he started to grind his teeth.

“Get along,” Bog slashed his hand through the air, “try not to wander around alone.”

“Yessir!” Sunny scurried off, glad of the dismissal.

Bog indulged in a few minutes more of pacing, scraping his teeth back and forth while he resumed wrestling his thoughts into order. Out of the corner of his eye Bog thought he saw a flash of white. When he turned his head there was nothing, and having other things to worry about, he disregarded it.

Tell her everything.

Let her decide.

Some things were just impossible.

Bog turned and walked away from Marianne's rooms.

First thing in the morning Marianne was out of bed and letting the handmaidens fuss over her. They gleefully smoothed her hair and applied her makeup, glad to at last be given a chance to make their princess look presentable.

Marianne tipped her head back and forth to examine the coloring around her eyes. War paint, Bog had called it. It was like that, in its way. She was fighting the world every time she put it on, showing everyone she wasn't afraid to defy them and their rules. Today it was more of a mask to hide her nervousness and still sickly pallor. The handmaidens smoothed milky lotion under her eyes to hide the dark circles and they brushed a bit of powdered rose petals on her cheeks to give her skin some color.

“I didn't mean this early,” Dawn said, still heavy-eyed from sleep, “You look spectacular. No, don't you put on those boots. It's slippers for you, your majesty. And a blanket for your lap.”

“I don't—”

“Blanket or back to bed.”

Marianne sat and pulled the blanket over her lap.

The handmaidens began to brush Marianne's wings clean of the bits of fur and dust that had collected during her illness.

Speaking of illness, she felt like she was going to throw up. Bog would arrive soon and they would talk. Dawn would probably guard the door and keep them both from escaping until they did. Chances of escape were very low. Marianne considered making the attempt anyway. Maybe a feigned relapse. That would put off both the conversation and the idea of going back to the fields.

“I'll tie you to the chair if you keep fidgeting,” Dawn said, “Sit still. He'll be here any minute.”

But he wasn't. Hours passed and the morning was giving way to afternoon. Dawn was in a foul temper. She fumed underneath the pile of sprouts who had decided to nap on top of her. “I'm going to rip his stupid pine cone shoulders off.”

“Please stop making boutonnières.”

Dawn tossed another flower arrangement on a steadily growing hill by her seat. “I'm going to cover him with so many he'll look like a tree in full bloom and he'll be so pretty that he'll lose the respect of the entire Dark Forest.”

“He has things to do, Dawn.”

“I think the relationship between our kingdoms is kind of super important!”

“That's putting it too strongly.”

“He's trifled with your affections! He's trifled! I can't put anything strong enough!”

“You're going to wake the sprouts.”

“You are too calm!”

Marianne was not calm at all. Tingling waves of anxiety washed up and down her body. It wasn't as if she was waiting for something of vital importance, she reminded herself. The feelings of a queen were of little concern when compared to her duties. She knew that Bog would be in agreement that the alliance should remain, whatever happened. Marianne was acting like a silly little girl waiting to hear if her crush liked her back. It shouldn't feel so important, as if the whole world had rearranged itself to take up a slow revolution around these moments leading up to Bog's arrival.

A knock at the door made Marianne jump so sharply that the sprout abandoned her lap. Her heart had given such a leap it felt like it had bruised itself slamming into her ribcage. She wasn't so sure there wasn't a crack in her breast bone too.

Reen stuck her head in. “The Bog King awaits her majesty's convenience.”

“Let him in!” Dawn bounced to her feel, scattering sprouts, “In, in, in! And all you kids get out! Out!”

“Alrighty.” Reen gave a jaunty little salute and withdrew.

The sprouts were herded from the room in a growing, giggling mass. The handmaidens darted around the room putting things in order. Dawn gathered up her box of flowers and shoved it behind a chair.

Marianne would have preferred them not to make such an event of it. It set a weight of formality on the whole business. Her stomach tickled like it did before grand events in the fields where she had to make sure to present a dignified, composed manner at all times.

She wasn't ready.

Bog walked into the room anyway.

“You are late,” Dawn rebuked him. She followed that by dumping the collection of boutonnières into his arms. “Now get on with it. You'd better have a spectacular excuse to give Marianne. Now, excuse me.”

Dawn kissed Marianne on the cheek before she left and murmured, “Your sword is behind your chair, I fully approve of you using as necessary. Love you!”

After the door snapped shut there was silence.

Marianne sat in her chair, hands twisted in her blanket.

Bog stood there with his arms full of flowers, looking completely bewildered.

#strange magic #spread the lofe #butterfly bog #potionless #kidnapping au #strange magic kidnapping au #those chains that bind you #the bog king #sparkle princess #hip hop parkour prince #chapter #my fanfic

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soph-goat-stories · 4 years

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Zelda and the Land of Zorax

There was once a girl named Zelda. She was a very special girl. Not only chosen, but chosen as the next legend of Zeldax from the land of Zorax. Zelda was always a little calmer than most young people her age. She dressed casually and avoided making trouble. She usually thought to herself and was not outspoken about her opinions, though she did have them. The Elders in school would often encourage her to be open about her thoughts on the curriculum, even half-heartedly, though some of them didn’t believe the New Generation would have the opportunity to flourish in the future.

The Little Man (his real name was Zeld) came down to the blue and green planet to speak to her of her tasks. Well, both up and down and through his own long journey. After lunch on her back porch, he appeared from the side of the house and confronted her. There was no way she could have known he was from another planet besides his mildly spiky facial features and odd smell.

She responded to The Little Man with only questions and some staring, but after he committed to some probing, she agreed to follow him downstairs, underneath her home where the raccoons lived, and into a hidden door and further down dark, damp steps that creeked and buckled, nearly giving way to her. She felt her heart beat faster in anticipation and noticed how moist her face felt, but all-things-considered was alright. Being a rather athletic girl for those in her class, she could handle the unexpected climb about 100 feet down, and utilized the physical challenge to ease her mind, though Zelda never intentionally prepared for this journey. She was a little regretful not to ask how long it would take before they were already well on their way. The stairs seemed a lot easier to descend than climb.

She and the Little Man finally finished. He told her her final goal was to find a mirror that she could reflect into and understand herself better. It was completely unique and she would be fully aware she found it, and it would tell her the secret to the land of Zorax. The least she could do was look. After all, she was the lucky chosen girl of the legend of Zeldax, and must maintain some strength to pass onto future legacies down the road. Again, this mirror would be plainly obvious, and it would be entirely possible to discover, though only after a long and winding journey.

However for some reason Zelda was confused. Why would this Little Man leave me here, all alone, to find my way underneath the porch to god-knows-where, only to disappear again above my home? Why am I the chosen one? What types of terrain she was unaware of would she encounter? Was there anything underneath her home that would not be known from the green and blue planet? What was the purpose of this long, deep journey she must take, and what else unexpected will she encounter? Did she bring enough bottled water? Well, she had many more questions spinning through her head, but she luckily did not forget bottled water. It came in the canister dropped off from the morning by U.E.A-24. Zelda meddled at some of these questions and spurted out concerns for a few minutes in front of the patient Little Man. He was naive of the fact that she would be so concerned of all of this, not that any blame could be left on either of them.

But rest your head. “Everything will be alright, just follow me through the second tunnel underneath the porch, the one with the green moss growing on the ceiling” said the Little Man. However little did they know this small journey, the one before Zelda would take herself, would take over three times longer than expected. They entered into a new sandy and dry cavity filled with bright yellow light as if inside a lightbulb. Wind whipped past their ears drowning them in noise, but they could see a dark pit about 50 feet ahead of them that must contain vegetation and thus water. They made their way over there, stopping once for some rest against the blizzard of sand and dust. Zelda had to squint to keep the dust out of her eyes. She sighed. Is this what I can expect this entire journey? It’s already greuling. But the Little Man must have heard her, and gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. They continued.

And so it began. The Little Man gave her a hug goodbye, a water bottle, a packet of lighters, and directions to the nearest green tree plot ahead where she could find a nice big trunk to rest onto. Zelda admitted the Little Man was at least somewhat trustworthy, and kind. Holding her breath, she stepped out into the desert space that she was recently unaware was just underneath her home. She mildly regretted the trip, but never felt a strong attachment to the blue and green planet to begin with, especially after hearing those concerns from some of The Elders. Zelda could at least get some alone time to grow as a person and forget about all the problems at home.

…

Last time we left off Zelda was left alone by the Little Man resting upon a tree trunk in a desert-type arid space. Opening her eyes once again, she still couldn’t resist breaking a sweat. Among her was probably about 500 feet of windy and yellow sand and beyond that was unintelligible. It was an extremely sparse with barely any trees or vegetation, and mostly sand whipping up in small dumes with every gust of wind. She sneezed, and stood up. Now was an opportunity to actually think about the task given to her by the Little Man, telling her that she was the current Legend of Zeldax, and that she needed to find a unique mirror and stare into it to discover her place for her legacy, hinting that well that was just about everything she needed to know to understand herself. Zelda thought about Zeldax, and what that really was. She had no idea. With every minute passing she felt more alone and incredibly warm and itchy. Though the journey to this place with the little man was on the brink of being fun, and certainly enchanting, she was starting to feel nauseatingly uncomfortable with what was happening. She had enough sense to know she shouldn’t over-think any of this before reaching a place with more natural resources and hopefully an easy pathway to that dang mirror.

Zelda took another walk for a couple of hours to enter into another dark and damper cavity which had a similar appearance to one of those large fibercrystal sewage pipes under her home city that dated back about 100 years. The other end of this tunnel was more narrow than the end she entered into, and about the size of a loaf of bread. A good size however to safely peer into, she dared look. In front of her about an arms length was another separated space that was indeed comprised of more trees and green herbs of sorts, and from what she could tell supported more advanced life. An animal with a shape similar to a cow but about the size of a cat was walking a little ways to the right, and though dainty and cute it was somewhat terrifying. From what she could tell there was a shiny substance covering its top half, and on the bottom half was a pattern of a few warm tones meeting to it’s head.

It reminded her of the aging cat her family still owned a few hundred feet above her head. They kept it in just a few rooms, a small and stealthy creature with brown fur and dark eyes, and an animal that she swore was keener than her. Her family was actually breaking the law in keeping such an animal. Her parents said before she was born that the government banned keeping any domesticated animals and encouraged hunting them in order to bring down their population. After The Great Fall about 50 years ago domesticated animal populations skyrocketed, but because their meat contained traces of permethyol they couldn’t be hunted. Being a girl of about 13, Zelda felt a certain awe and inspiration from cats, knowing they were both illegal to keep and unconditionally opportunistic, incredible survivalists among all odds. She couldn't quite explain the rare but pleasant feeling of connecting with a non-human animal.

This creature she saw was the only visible living thing there besides herself, excluding the audible chirping erupting all of a sudden. She thought to herself it was best not to lose sight of it. Meanwhile Zelda couldn’t even get through the small hole at this end of the tunnel without harming herself in the process, but she didn’t have a choice. She decided to step back and kick the hole numerous times to dent it, wearing down her thin shoes, but eventually thanks to the rust and bacteria already eating at it, she broke the hole into a bigger gap and thus could fit through it. Zelda then carefully slipped into this new forested section of this strange land underneath her home, and squatted next of the tunnel again, resting there and staring at her new companion for about 30 minutes, which was lazily eating herbs the entire time underneath some shade from a tropical-type of plant. Some forgotten cluster of trees swayed in the wind and helped her relax.

She then heard a sound of a large bird, and breaking out of this spell for a minute she dared look behind her. She saw a good sized group of about 40 beautiful blue-black birds spinning around a fat corpse, pecking at it, and calling to their group of her presence. Zelda got a peak at what they were eating at, it looked like a striped lump of glittery material with a bloody feline face. Her heart skipped a beat and somehow subconsciously she knew she had to get out of this place as soon as possible. But the tunnel was gone!

…

Zelda looked behind her again in search of the tunnel, or maybe even the mirror the Little Man told her about, but nothing was there. She immediately started running away from the pack of aggressive birds still flying in circles and screaming in angst. She was still located in this forested area but luckily contained open patches of space. This space was actually more of a void with gradient white flooring and kind of a foggy atmosphere. Though Zelda thought she knew enough about the physical properties of the world before this journey, nothing could possibly prepare her enough for her encounter with this space from the green and blue planet. At this point Zelda was running on her own adrenaline and not thinking very thoughtfully about where she was going, but stepped into this space that was about 100 feet in diameter intermixed between forest. The birds were no longer visible or heard, but something about this new place was easing her mind in a way, some kind of grey misty void, but turning into more of a sandy area without much of anything until the horizon. What was going through her head at this time would be difficult for anyone to comprehend without direct experience, but now Zelda again began to break a sweat. She was obviously terrified, but comically alone in such an inhumane area underneath her home. She began to think that her familiar Blue and Green planet made a lot more sense than she once thought. Running for a few minutes further towards the brightening horizon, she realized that something about this new region was serene and it actually began to calm her. Zelda always had an affinity for the desert and open space. She remembered taking trips to the desert to visit family friends at a Leftover Friends’ Camp out in Arizona a few times, in part to deliver water, and in part to reconvene and chat with familiar faces. Zelda took a moment to think about the mirror the Little Man explained, picturing it in her mind as essentially the oldest mirror that could have ever existed, with some kind of dull pearls lining the outside, smaller than a typical full-length mirror, and oval-shaped with a handle. The actual glass of this mirror would have to be worn and dull, dusty and scraped. Maybe there was some chance that that was what it really looked like and she would recognise it. Maybe the Little Man was right, that this mirror was somehow tied with herself and her prophecy. Somehow if this was true it would change everything she knew about the Blue and Green planet as well, or what some people still called Earth.

Suddenly a person appeared near her, an upright shadowy figure breathing just as heavy as her. Night was falling in this region at this time, and as they approached her the face of this individual looked rough and old. They carried a luminous thin box on their belt beaming light on it’s corner. Zelda would never know that this person was alive before The Great Fall, even with the casual hints. She knew that before The Great Fall cell phones were still in use and on the market. She read something about that in school that around the time of the Great Fall there was one group of people called the Hacking Company (headed by two individuals Robot Mass and Tower Street) that broke into the cellphone networks and essentially hacked every individual cellphone user. They chose the perfect time for it, right at the end of Water Bill Season when most folks were scrambling to conserve their water rations. Mobile companies obstructed the production of these boxes for a few years while they struggled to figure out how to recalibrate their systems, but by this time cell phones were no longer popular, and especially at the time of the Great Fall more often than not people where dealing with problems closer at hand and came across near-death experiences more than before, so families and friends kept their companions close and formed new groupings without much focus on what was happening out of their communities. Once a good 30 or 40 years passed after the hack happened, few even remembered cellphone at all.

Though Zelda would normally have been grateful for some company at this time, something about this person frightened her, maybe in the way in which their age and clothing style didn’t fit together, or maybe their look of determination and seriousness. They produced an aura unfamiliar in the least. Finally she approached this person and came to grips with her current situation. He opened his mouth and started to speak, but it was painfully difficult for Zelda to determine what he was saying.

…

Zelda looked up again at this strange man. Who was he? He was uttering words familiar to her, but not exactly what she was used to. After about a minute of intense uttering from him, and only blank stares from her, she finally asked his name and why he was there. He responded in similar gibberish, and held up his phone with a code. Entering in the code of four digits, he wrote a note on the screen. It wrote “Lacey”. She was lucky to understand the writing. At least she could acknowledge him now. Zelda knew names were especially important in her community back home. Someone’s name indicated a personal strength of character, mind, or spirit. Zelda in Old English may have been a fictional adventure character. Zelda remembered that old conversation, not that it really meant much to her. Lacey sounded like lace. Maybe he was soft and intricate too. But he also seemed tough and trustworthy. So you are Lacey? Finally I know your name, my name is Zelda. I am here on some kind of journey, but it’s hard to explain.

“Huh?”

Zelda. She went on again to explain her purpose, but stopped when he finally turned away from her. There were a few uncomfortable moments of silence, and Zelda learned how to better empathize with his confusion, though still wanted his backstory. They uttered phrases to each other back and forth like this for a few minutes, until Zelda had enough, getting tired of nuances, and eager to hop into yet a new place. She sat down on the sand next to a rock where she rested her sack that held not unpleasantly warm water. She sat there near this man for a while, watching the edge of his tattered jacket sway in the wind, revealing the glowing phone on his hip where he entered the code, and a few beeps emerging from it. After about an hour of rest from pure exhaustion from both, Lacey decided to show her a new path. He led her through the great desert where they were into a brown valley with leaves scattered alongside the ground, and grey tree trunks everywhere under a billowing grey sky. It became a bit dark and chilly. Zelda shuttered, expecting something evil of sorts to happen to her along this path, but to her surprise nothing really happened besides the walk. They kept going into this valley and woods, where they heard hoots from owls and chirps from birds, meowing and barking of other creatures, and the like. Zelda always loved the company of animals, and the presence of familiar living things underneath the porch gave her hope for her future. The man took her through this wooded area for another hour or so, just on a slow but steady walk, brushing back some branches and vines in their way and stumbling here and there on rocks or thorn bushes. Some of the woods reminded her of recreational spaces at home where local children played games, and older individuals went for walks. She wondered if where this man came from people did the same. Of course communication was limited to only utterances of familiar words.

Finally they came across a pathway into a greener and sunnier place, which opened up into remarkable rolling hills lined with a red-picket fence and a rugged soil pathway stamped out by years of pressure from feet and vehicles, though few recognizable markings. Lacey took her to this open and sunny space and guided her down the path and in and out of patches of woods for a little while. They saw a fork in the road and decided to turn left. They crossed a stream. Crouched under bunched of amber and orange leaves on low-hanging branches. They saw a cotton-tailed rabbit scatter out of their way, and packs of birds flying upwards and away. Zelda because a little less restless in this area, where she felt the comfort of the soft breeze and sunny beams of light shine on her in the open space, and the crunchy leaves under her thin soles in the woods. Lacey was kind enough to show her around the easiest paths, and she trusted him in his decisions to take them both somewhere safe and productive for her task. Though all of this was pretty random, Zelda couldn’t imagine that this man wasn’t somehow tied to all of this. She breathed a sigh of relief when he finally took her to a wooden cabin with a warm fire pit and bed to rest. Zelda drank some water. Something rang a smooth melody on his phone as soon as she shut her eyes to sleep. Lacy took the call and spent the rest of the night chatting away with familiar voices.

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unsettlingshortstories · 5 years

Text

The Diamond Necklace

Guy de Maupassant (1884)

Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.

When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth in use three days, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with a delighted air, “Ah, the good soup! I don’t know anything better than that,” she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry that peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates and of the whispered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinxlike smile while you are eating the pink meat of a trout or the wings of a quail.

She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made for that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.

She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home.

But one evening her husband reached home with a triumphant air and holding a large envelope in his hand.

“There,” said he, “there is something for you.”

She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card which bore these words:

The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponneau

request the honor of M. and Madame Loisel’s company at the palace of

the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.

Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on the table crossly, muttering:

“What do you wish me to do with that?”

“Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had great trouble to get it. Everyone wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there.”

She looked at him with an irritated glance and said impatiently:

“And what do you wish me to put on my back?”

He had not thought of that. He stammered:

“Why, the gown you go to the theatre in. It looks very well to me.”

He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” he answered.

By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks:

“Nothing. Only I have no gown, and, therefore, I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I am.”

He was in despair. He resumed:

“Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you could use on other occasions—something very simple?”

Finally she replied hesitating:

“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”

But he said:

“Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty gown.”

The day of the ball drew near and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her frock was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:

“What is the matter? Come, you have seemed very queer these last three days.”

And she answered:

“It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single ornament, nothing to put on. I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not go at all.”

“You might wear natural flowers,” said her husband. “They’re very stylish at this time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”

She was not convinced.

“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”

“How stupid you are!” her husband cried. “Go look up your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You’re intimate enough with her to do that.”

She uttered a cry of joy:

“True! I never thought of it.”

The next day she went to her friend and told her of her distress.

Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box, brought it back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:

“Choose, my dear.”

“Haven’t you any more?”

“Why, yes. Look further; I don’t know what you like.”

Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt:

“Will you lend me this, only this?”

“Why, yes, certainly.”

She threw her arms round her friend’s neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.

She left the ball about four o’clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball.

Loisel held her back, saying: “Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a cab.”

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When they reached the street they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen passing at a distance.

She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her neck!

“What is the matter with you?” demanded her husband, already half undressed.

She turned distractedly toward him.

“I have—I have—I’ve lost Madame Forestier’s necklace,” she cried.

He stood up, bewildered.

“What!—how? Impossible!”

They looked among the folds of her skirt, of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere, but did not find it.

“You’re sure you had it on when you left the ball?” he asked.

“Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the minister’s house.”

“But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab.”

“Yes, probably. Did you take his number?”

“No. And you—didn’t you notice it?”

“No.”

They looked, thunderstruck, at each other. At last Loisel put on his clothes.

“I shall go back on foot,” said he, “over the whole route, to see whether I can find it.”

He went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without any fire, without a thought.

Her husband returned about seven o’clock. He had found nothing.

He went to police headquarters, to the newspaper offices to offer a reward; he went to the cab companies—everywhere, in fact, whither he was urged by the least spark of hope.

She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this terrible calamity.

Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face. He had discovered nothing.

“You must write to your friend,” said he, “that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn round.”

She wrote at his dictation.

At the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

“We must consider how to replace that ornament.”

The next day they took the box that had contained it and went to the jeweler whose name was found within. He consulted his books.

“It was not I, Madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have furnished the case.”

Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like the other, trying to recall it, both sick with chagrin and grief.

They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds that seemed to them exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace Madame Forestier said to her with a chilly manner:

“You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it.”

Every month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.

Her husband worked evenings, making up a tradesman’s accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.

This life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury and the accumulations of the compound interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households—strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so admired.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not?

She went up.

“Good-day, Jeanne.”

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all and stammered:

“But—Madame!—I do not know—you must have mistaken.”

“No. I am Mathilde Loisel.”

Her friend uttered a cry.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!”

“Yes, I have had a pretty hard life, since I last saw you, and great poverty—and that because of you!”

“Of me! How so?”

“Do you remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?”

“Yes. Well?”

“Well, I lost it.”

“What do you mean? You brought it back.”

“I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it. You can understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad.”

Madame Forestier had stopped.

“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”

“Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very similar.”

And she smiled with a joy that was at once proud and ingenuous.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste! It was worth at most only five hundred francs!”

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