Technically Griselda was the one who issued the invitation, but unlike … literally every other time she had invited a woman to visit her son, Bog was open to this. Princess Marianne was a good fighter, with potential to be a great fighter, and Bog had enjoyed their first sparring match.

"Sanctuary!" Marianne cried when he escorted her over the border. He raised a leafy eyebrow at her. "Sorry, it's just – my dad wasn't too happy about me cancelling the wedding. He was really looking forward to having Roland as a son-in-law. So Dad's spent the last few days encouraging me to give Roland a second chance, so I really appreciate the love ban we've all heard you have."

Bog managed to smile.

"I'm honestly not sure how well it's enforced through the Dark Forest as a whole," he admitted. "But no one will be speaking of romance in our presence."

"And that's good enough for me!"

The guards' training grounds had various lengths and thicknesses of sticks to use for weapons. Goblins used hatchets as well, sometimes, but usually fought unarmed or with the sort of weapon that was never far out of reach in the woods.

In the interest of fairness, Bog left his staff propped against the fence that bordered the training yard and selected a stick of roughly equal length.

"Do I just grab one at random or is there some sort of method to choosing a good fighting stick?" asked Marianne.

"I'd recommend one that doesn't snap in half when you prop it up and push down at the top," Bog demonstrated the technique, "but it really depends how you plan to attack with it. The more brittle sticks also tend to have more weight to them, if you just need to hit your enemy over the head to distract them before you run."

"I'm going to have a sword. I've always wanted … I've commissioned one, I just don't have it yet."

Bog nodded. His opinion of Marianne's teachers dropped another notch. She had talent, he knew, but he'd also noted her clear inexperience, and now knew she'd never even trained with a 'proper' weapon.

That was actually quite surprising. The Fairy Kingdom always seemed to put more value on fancy equipment than the Dark Forest did. Shouldn't their princess have had a sword already?

And armour, for that matter? She was in a white and purple tunic that looked almost as fancy to his eyes as the muddy wedding gown she'd worn when they first met.

"Here." He tossed her a willow twig. "Willow is flexible. That should be a decent substitute for steel."

Marianne took a few practise swings, trying different grips. Bog did the same, adjusting to the lighter stick instead of his sceptre.

"I'm ready," said Marianne.

"Begin."

Bog took the offensive, swinging hard at her forward leg, intending to force her either back or into the air. Marianne clearly remembered his advice about a deep stance, because instead she lowered her weight and blocked his strike.

CLACK!

Bog tried attacking from the other side, and – CLACK! – Marianne blocked that as well. He swung down from above, not flying, just taking advantage of being twice her height, and Marianne swung up her weapon and held it above her head in both hands.

But that attack had been a feint, and Bog switched like a pendulum so that the lower end of his stick swung forward to catch Marianne in the stomach.

"Oof!"

"Your stance is good, but now you're too rooted to the ground. You need to be heavy enough not to be knocked over but light enough that you can dodge."

And just like that, she was gone. In a flash of violet wings she was behind him, and – "ARGH!" – she struck his back, just below his wings. Bog fell to his knees.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?!"

He groaned. "I'll live. I think first blood is yours." He got unsteadily to his feet. "Resume."

"You're sure you're okay?"

"It was a good strike." He bared his fangs, grinning at her. "See if you can do it again, Tough Girl."

Princess Marianne drove the Bog King back almost to the fence before he dodged around her and pulled her ankle from under her. She compensated with her wings, quickly enough that his next blow, aimed at her wings, didn't catch her.

"Go, BK!" Stuff cheered from the sidelines.

"You can do it!" cried Thang, sitting on a first aid kit just in case one of them needed help.

"Marianne! Marianne! If she can't do it, no one can!" chanted the sprites Marianne had started bringing into the Dark Forest with her.

The Bog King had Princess Marianne nearly pinned to the fence now, until she dropped to the muddy ground and slid under and between his legs.

He turned before she could get back up and pinned her shoulder with his massive foot. She seized his ankle in both hands and, instead of pushing against it, pulled forward, forcing him off-balance. The Bog King tried to steady himself with his wings, as she had done earlier, but was startled enough to overcompensate and take off, giving the fairy princess time to jump back to her feet.

But Princess Marianne was unarmed now. She'd dropped her stick when she ducked under her opponent, and now had only her own limbs to protect herself.

The Bog King lashed out. Suddenly the tip of his stick was at her throat and his hand was behind her neck to keep her from backing away.

"… I yield."

"WOO!" Stuff and Thang cheered again.

"It's been weeks. Shouldn't your sword be done?" Bog deflected Marianne's strikes to the rhythmic clacking noise of wood against wood.

"It is. I just … I mean, it is a real weapon. I don't want to actually skewer you."

"Sticks are real weapons. You're not going to get better with your sword unless you practice with it. Bring it next time."

She blew her hair out of her eyes. "And you'll use your staff, so I'm not just slicing the sticks apart?"

"You'd want a battle axe if you planned to do that, but yes."

"Is that a pun or are battle axes actually better than other blades against wooden weapons?"

"Mostly a pun, but the weight of the axe does give it an advantage over a sword for that."

Marianne's hair was a mess of sweat and leaf litter. She was wearing those dark, casual clothes she'd been favouring lately, and carrying a sword.

"What happened to you?" Dagda wondered out loud when she sat down to dinner.

"Bog and I had our best spar yet. He says I'm really improving." Was that the flush of exertion or was she blushing? "I mean, I'd better be after four months, but it's nice that he says so."

"Bog? … The Bog King?" Marianne had been disappearing ever since her cancelled wedding. Dagda had assumed it was to sulk or to avoid Roland. Had she been going into the Dark Forest?

"Yeah," she said, like this wasn't enormously important and potentially disastrous, "and his mom invited me again to stay for snacks after, but I haven't worked up the nerve yet to try goblin food. Maybe I'm not as adventurous as I thought." She laughed.

"Since when have you been sparring with the Bog King?"

The goblin royal family had been invited to Marianne's wedding as a matter of protocol, but left immediately when it was cancelled, and Dagda had assumed that Marianne hadn't had the chance to meet them.

"About four months now. Didn't I just say that? Bog saw me attacking a training dummy and offered to teach me properly."

"Is …" The fairy king looked for a way to ask his daughter this delicately. "Is that why you haven't reconsidered, about Roland?"

Marianne gave him a dark look, darkened further by her grim, streaked makeup.

"I have not and will never 'reconsider Roland' because he doesn't love me and I no longer love him. Sparring with Bog is irrelevant to all of that."

Bog was panting. Marianne was panting, too, but very proud of herself for wearing out her teacher and sparring partner.

"Had enough?" She raised her sword again, not as quickly as usual.

"I could do this all day." Bog raised his staff into a matching position.

Marianne aimed a stab at his belly. He knocked it aside and she stumbled, but that put her in a position to swing at his back. He had to dodge to keep her from slicing into him, and ended up falling on his side with a grunt.

"I yield. Your other teachers haven't corrupted you with bad habits," he said. "Ye're … very impressive."

"Other teachers?" Of course she had other teachers, but how would, say, history or economics affect her fighting style? Maybe her dancing lessons …

"I wasn't pleased when we met," Bog got back up, slowly, "with your obvious talent being held back by lack of skills. I didn't think your first fighting teachers had taught ye well, since your techniques were … But you've improved so much since then."

"Bog … you're my only fighting teacher. Before we met, I was self-taught."

"What?"

She shrugged. "I'm the Crown Princess."

"Exactly – royalty has to be able to fight, in case an assassin gets past the guards. Or is a guard."

"Okay, maybe here that's true, but I was always told that, as a princess and eventual Queen, I wouldn't have to fight physically, ever. I wanted to learn anyway, so I watched the guards and worked out some drills on my own, but, like I said, I'm self-taught."

"That's just irresponsible!" Bog's tone shifted from baffled to indignant. "Or it's a conspiracy, with a guard wanting the Royal Family helpless for when they lead a coup against you."

"I …" Marianne had never considered that possibility for why Roland, in particular, had always discouraged her from swordplay, when she'd suggested he teach her during their courtship. "I think it might just be mostly sexism? Dad was a knight before he married Mom and became a prince, and if I'd been a prince it would probably have been different."

"That still doesn't make sense to me." Bog made a dissatisfied noise. "Well, at least you know how to fight now."

"When you come next week, instead of sparring, I should give you a tour," said Bog. "The leaves are starting to shift for autumn. It's not as perfect as the forest under the moon, but the days are at their most colourful right now." He gave her a sideways glance and a small smile. "Fairies love colour, right?"

"That's a stereotype, but I'll give you a pass because it's true. And because I've always wanted to explore the Dark Forest."

"What?" His smile grew almost as wide as his mother's. "Really?"

"Yeah. To see new things, to have adventures …" Marianne's voice became small and wistful. "It's … all I've ever wanted."

"I'll show you everything," Bog promised.

Marianne readied her sword. "I'll consider it my prize when I win this match."

Bog laughed. "Or a consolation after I win, Tough Girl!"

"It is ON!"

She lunged. Marianne usually took the offensive during their spars.

They'd been sparring every week for almost half a year now. Over the past month or so, Bog had been giving Marianne fewer instructions and suggestions, and now she felt like they were on almost even footing. He had an advantage since he had been training longer, but Marianne thought she genuinely challenged him now.

She would earn this victory!

Bog nearly bent over backwards to stop Marianne from stabbing him in the heart. This was turning out better than Griselda had hoped.

Bog swung at Marianne, who hopped over his staff and took to the air, laughing. He took off to follow her.

A crowd of goblins had gathered to watch. The fighters seemed oblivious to the cheering and the betting. Marianne's cheerleaders – handmaidens, but Griselda usually saw them while they were screaming for the princess' victory from the sidelines of the training yard – were waving their tiny arms and occasionally coordinating themselves to spell out her name in mid-air with their floating bodies.

Marianne led Bog in a circuit around the training ring and then dropped to strike at his legs from below. He could attack her from above, but she was keeping him from landing, letting him wear himself out trying to get around her and back onto the ground to conserve his energy.

When Griselda asked Marianne to come to the Dark Forest, she had expected that the future Fairy Queen and the Bog King would at least develop a friendship and forge diplomatic ties, and thought that maybe meeting someone he could commiserate with over the heartbreak he still wouldn't talk to Griselda about would help her son to recover emotionally and open him up to loving again …

And of course part of her had hoped the two would fall in love with each other, but she honestly hadn't been expecting that to work! Griselda refused to give up, but part of her was starting to despair of ever finding the right person for her precious boy.

Then suddenly, there was Marianne, fierce and angry and on the cusp of turning bitter, just like Bog himself right before he first banned love – but a person Griselda could push towards him whom he wouldn't automatically push away, because it hadn't occurred to Bog at the time to see Marianne as a potential suitor!

But seeing the fire in each of their eyes as they looked at each other now – "Don't give up on me, almighty Bog King, you can do this!" Marianne taunted – Griselda was sure that Bog now saw Marianne in a different light.

She just had to get her stubborn son to admit it and start wooing the lady outside of the sparring ring.

"Well, well, well, now, what's all this?"

Marianne's face twisted in a snarl when she heard that drawl, but she didn't turn from Bog to acknowledge their new audience member. Since her father found out she was sparring with Bog, a few fairies, elves, and brownies had occasionally joined the goblins in watching them.

But never this one.

"You fairies don't have training yards?" snorted one of the goblins dismissively. Marianne thought it might be Stuff, who was now officially her favourite of Bog's employees.

"Oh, we do. Ours just aren't so … rustic."

Marianne ducked the sceptre's head and thrust at Bog's shoulder, nearly catching his spurs.

"That sounds impractical," said another goblin. Had that been Brutus? Marianne was starting to get good at identifying her and Bog's usual crowd of admirers by voice alone, even if part of her training was to ignore them. "You've got to train in the kind of terrain you're going to fight in. Unless you never do fight outside."

More goblins laughed, clearly at Roland. Maybe Brutus was Marianne's favourite.

"I must admit, I never knew goblins had a sweet side, but it is sweet of your king to let Marianne pretend she's winning."

"The Bog King is evil and he obviously has the upper hand right now." Portia was right, at least about the way the match was going, which was Marianne's own fault for getting distracted by ringside chatter. "The Princess is nearly his equal in skill, and when she wins, she does so by that skill."

"Do you need a break?" Bog asked it in a whisper, disguised as a hiss when Marianne nearly knocked his sceptre out of his hands. Normally he would taunt her loudly, so he must have noticed Roland as well.

"Not in front of him," Marianne hissed back.

"Now, I don't mean to offend y'all," said Roland, "but if Marianne's a real challenge for your leader to fight, then … well, that says something, you know?"

"How would it be offensive to say our greatest fighter is challenged by a prodigy?" Aw, Thang …

"I just meant she isn't, ah, properly trained, compared to a real fairy knight. You know, like me."

"You and I could spar once they're done," offered Brutus. "In the interests of comparing fairy and goblin fight training."

Bog disarmed Marianne. She flew after her sword and caught it before it could hit the ground, but at a cost. Bog was on Marianne's heels, and when she swung to block his sceptre, the blade clanged against the metal at an angle that sent awful shudders up Marianne's arm.

No, she couldn't lose, not in front of Roland, there was no shame in losing to Bog but Marianne couldn't lose in front of Roland …

"Ah, I would –" Roland suddenly sounded nervous, "but I – really – ought to – uh, go. Now. Bye."

Okay, that settled it; Brutus was Marianne's new favourite.

"Are you alright?" Bog asked her a few minutes later. He had won and Marianne was now trying to massage the lingering aches out of her arm. "You seemed … upset, when that other fairy showed up. You've never minded them before."

"That was … He was … the guy. The one I was going to marry the day you and I met."

"Ah." Bog asked no follow-up questions.

Dawn and Sunny were much more welcome additions to the audience than Roland had been. Dawn was especially welcomed by the goblins, because she had brought muffins.

The song Dawn and Sunny performed in Marianne's honour was not so well-received. The spar had to be cancelled for Bog to reign in the resulting chaos.

"We're sorry!" Sunny cried, hiding behind Marianne in the face of the goblin king's potential wrath.

"So very sorry!" said Dawn earnestly.

"But in our defence, how were we supposed to know goblins are scared of sopranos?"

"Is that what ye call it?" Bog demanded, attempting to pry a terrified Thang off his leg. "It sounded like the shrieking cry of death itself. Which I suppose is appropriate to a song of battle-glory."

"I should give you a tour of my kingdom," Marianne said. She caught Bog's staff with her sword and pushed it to one side, nearly tripping him with his own weapon. "I'm always coming over to yours."

"Is winter the best time for that?" Bog teased. "What about all your beautiful flowers?"

"Sure, there's that, but in winter it's like –" she jumped over his attempt to trip her up, her cloak flaring "– once it's true winter, with snow and ice instead of cold slush and gray dead plants everywhere, the whole Fairy Kingdom is transformed."

Bog tried to lunge in for another strike. She swiped at his leg, forcing him to step back quickly.

"Everything looks made of clouds or crystals. It's as beautiful as summertime, just in a different way. Like how you said the daytime fall Forest is different from the Forest by moonlight."

Her sword caught the sunlight reflected off the snow and shone like the moon as she raised it high. Bog took the same stance, the amber in his staff spraying golden glimmers all around them.

"I suppose it would be … an adventure."

"Sire! Sire!" Thang huffed for breath. "Terrible news!"

The Bog King and Princess Marianne both redirected their attacks to miss, too invested in the momentum to pull them entirely.

"What do the mushrooms say this time?"

"Not the mushrooms, I saw this myself! A fairy with a primrose petal got into the castle! We caught him in the dungeons!"

"What?!"

"We burned the petal and locked him in a cage, but what should we do now?" The goblin looked between his towering king and the foreign princess whose subject Thang had just helped imprison.

"I hate spring," His Majesty growled. "I suppose we'd better deal with this together."

The look on the fairy princess' face was scarier than the look on the Bog King's when they saw the caged fairy.

"ROLAND!"

"Buttercup, I can explain!"

Thang had gotten the impression that most fairies didn't actually respect Princess Marianne's fighting skills, so it was nice to see one reacting with the proper terror. And the toxic flower nickname was flattering, even if she didn't actually look flattered.

"Oh, I think I can guess," she snarled. "Bog King, I have no objection to this criminal remaining here to face whatever punishment is deemed fit by the kingdom in which he committed his crime, but I suppose I ought to discuss the matter with my father to see if we'll want him back alive when you're done."

"You know that I know," Marianne panted, "that love potions are dangerous." Her sword clashed against Bog's staff and raised sparks. "But if she'd swear an oath not to brew them anymore, would you release the Sugar Plum Fairy? Or at least turn her over to my Kingdom's custody?"

Bog scowled at her. "I trust you. I don't trust her."

They didn't have an audience, which was rare, and was why Marianne had chosen today to ask about Plum. She decided to push the issue a little harder.

"If the primroses keep being destroyed, then she can't brew the potion anymore, and then it won't matter that she never does a background check on whoever requests one."

"It doesn't even always work, you know."

"… What do you mean?"

His scowl deepened and he looked away. Marianne slowed her attacks so that she wouldn't accidentally hurt him.

"I used it once."

She nearly dropped her sword. "What?"

"She was the sweetest, most beautiful person I ever knew. I … was reckless, and foolish, and never should've done it, and I know that now, but at the time I was … I thought I was so in love; that I would never meet anyone like her again and couldn't live if she didn't feel the same. So I thought the potion would help." He shook his head sharply. "Instead it just opened her eyes, and mine, to what a monster I am."

Marianne felt sick, knowing Bog – Bog, her friend, who called himself evil but had shown her nothing but kindness – had done something so twisted and selfish.

On the other hand …

"If you were really a monster, I don't think you'd regret it." A thought occurred to her. "Wait, is that why you banned love? 'If I can't have it, nobody else can either'? That's so … petty."

The sparring match quickly fell by the wayside of the ensuing debate. Marianne had no plans to fall in love again herself, and had – as she'd confessed to Bog in the past – enjoyed being in a place where no one pestered her about that, but banning an emotion from an entire kingdom in response to a single rejection was, upon reflection, somewhat extreme.

"And it's not like it's stopped your mother from trying to set you up with someone anyway," was one of the points Marianne would later be particularly smug about making.

By the next week's sparring match, the Bog King had amended the Dark Forest's ban on romance and love potions to only a ban on love potions. The Sugar Plum Fairy remained imprisoned, but negotiations were underway to turn her over to the Fairy Kingdom.

"Do you realize we've been doing this for over a year?" asked Marianne while she and Bog did warm-up stretches.

"Your skills have gone from acceptable to amazing," said Bog.

"Actually, I meant … being friends. I feel like we've made headway into actually creating a sustainable, positive relationship between the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest instead of the strain we had before."

"… Aye, that too. Which is a credit to your skills as a diplomat."

"Flatterer. You've totally been involved, too. Hey, I should give you another tour – now that all our beautiful flowers are back."

"And you should stay for an evening sometime. The Dark Forest really does look its best on full moon nights."

Marianne stabbed and sliced at Bog, every attack missing as he twisted and wove and parried, but none of his strikes came near her skin either.

They whirled around each other, moving faster and faster.

Bog nearly caught Marianne's hair in the elaborate metalwork around the amber of his sceptre.

Marianne nearly clipped off one of Bog's shoulder spurs, or possibly his entire arm.

Every clang of metal against metal set off a shower of sparks, adding burns as an extra element of danger to an already intense battle.

They had started training in the Fairy Kingdom occasionally, and the knights' training yard was empty of even an audience tonight due to the late hour. Bog had escorted Marianne home from the long-promised moonlit tour of his lands and she had suggested a spar before he went back, "so you'll stay awake from the rush instead of dozing off in mid-air."

Marianne used her wings to great advantage, flashing light off their reflective scales so that Bog could not always predict which way she was about to move.

But Bog's eyes were better in the dark than hers, and he hit her hand with the undecorated end of his staff – less visible in the night, without any amber bound to it – and knocked her weapon away.

When Bog disarmed Marianne this time, he caught her with his staff across her back, his arms on either side of her, so she couldn't just fly after her airborne sword as she so often did.

Her wings were pinned. Her arms were not.

Bog expected her to punch him.

Marianne expected herself to punch him.

Instead, she grabbed his shoulders at the juncture where his spurs emerged – they rattled in his surprise – and pulled his head down and her body up, and kissed him.

Bog dropped his staff. Some part of his mind suspected that might have been Marianne's goal, but most of him didn't care because she was kissing him and he was preoccupied with kissing her back.

It was not a perfect kiss. Bog's nose was squished awkwardly into Marianne's cheek. Her hands, putting so much of her weight on his shoulders, created uncomfortable pressure at the base of his spurs, and her wrists started to ache quickly.

Then they both broke contact to breathe, and Bog picked Marianne up, and they both turned their heads so that their faces met at a different angle, and Marianne wrapped her hands around the back of Bog's head, and the second kiss was exponentially better.

Blue eyes – so perfectly blue – and brown eyes – such a pretty shade of brown – met gazes and held, luminous in the surrounding dark.

Their heartbeats were loud, deafeningly loud, and perfectly synchronized, but not so loud that they drowned out what Bog and Marianne both said to one another in that moment of perfect unity.

"Marry me."

Being a large and diverse kingdom, the Dark Forest actually had a number of different wedding rituals. One of them was a choreographed battle between those getting married. It was to symbolise how they were powerful enough to protect each other in hard times.

Marianne agreed right away when Bog insisted that this goblin tradition be included, in meetings with their parents and the various officials appointed to merge Fairy Kingdom and Dark Forest customs for the ceremony.

Officially, it was to honour the nature of their courtship. Unofficially, it was so they could vent some of their stress after enduring the inevitable pomp and formality of a Royal Wedding.

After their fight, panting in one another's arms, Marianne walked her fingers teasingly up her husband's back and whispered in his ear, "I am so glad you came to my wedding."