Work Text
“OK seriously, can you watch the wings, man? That’s like the third time you’ve whacked me in the last ten minutes!”“Maybe you should stay out of my way, elf. I’ve nearly tripped over you three times in the last five minutes.”“Uh, Sunny, the name is Sunny.”“Whatever.”The spring storms had hit the Fairy Meadows particularly hard this year, and the one last night had taken off several roofs in the elfish village, including the one on Sunny’s cottage. Dawn of course had immediately offered to help with the repairs and had additionally volunteered both her sister and her sister’s boyfriend.Which was all well and good, except for the fact that Sunny and the Bog King’s relationship was still a bit prickly. Which was putting it mildly.The girls were away at the moment, getting more supplies for the patching job, leaving their boyfriends to work on the damaged framework of the structure. Bog was laying down the new reed frame while Sunny used a length of twine to tie the reeds together, making a crosshatch pattern across the hole in Sunny’s roof. The cottage was not large to begin with, and with half the roof gone, it was a tad cramped. Again, putting it mildly.Sunny tried to scoot backwards out of Bog’s way to work on the next crosshatch and accidentally put a knee down on the goblin’s wing. Bog snarled and snapped at him. “Watch it! Can’t you go two seconds without running into me?”Sunny threw his hands up. “Maybe if you weren’t so freakishly tall, I’d have more places to step. I didn’t ask to have a walking tree on my roof!”Bog growled. “Well, at least I’m not the size of an acorn with no wings and the arm’s reach of pill bug. I’d be done already if I didn’t have you dodging around between my feet.”“And I’d have the job done already if I wasn’t having to watch out for your noodle limbs spread out all over the place. And anyway, it’s my house!”“What would you do? Sing at it and hope it magically fixes itself?”“It’s better than what you’d do without my help, which is throw a tantrum at it and hope that scares it into fixing itself!”Bog snapped his crooked teeth in Sunny’s face, causing the elf to cringe. “I can’t even imagine being a tiny, wee, stubby, useless, clawless, wingless little clod like you. I have no idea what Dawn even sees in you!”“Hey, hey, hey,” Sunny shot back. “Not cool, man! And anyway, if I’m so useless, how’d I manage to get all the way through the Dark Forest, into your castle, and back out, twice, without you catching me, huh?”“To steal a love potion that you planned on using on Dawn! A few cheap tricks and some gymnastics don’t make you a hero.”“Well, at least I didn’t kidnap her and lock her up in a dungeon like some slimy villain. Seriously, man, who does that? I’d rather be an elf any day than a bad-tempered, spiky, meanie goblin who locks people up! Maybe, I don’t see what Marianne sees in you!”Marianne and Dawn arrived back at the impromptu construction site to find their boyfriends on the verge of pummeling each other.“Hey, hey, hey, whoa,” Marianne shouted, darting between them. “We leave you two alone for five minutes and you’re trying to rip each other’s heads off. What is going on?”Sunny and Bog glared back at her with equally vitriolic expressions. “He started it!” they both said simultaneously, which prompted them to return to glaring at one another.Marianne held them apart. “I don’t care who started it, but I’m going to finish it if you two don’t cut it out right now.”Dawn gave them both her disappointed doe-eyes. “Come on, this is supposed to be an opportunity for all of us to work together and get to know each other better. It’s more fun working with friends.”“Yeah, who says I’m friends with any two-pint elf?”“That’s right, maybe I don’t want to be friends with a hulking stick bug goblin!”“Boys,” Marianne growled in her don’t-push-my-buttons voice.“Here,” Dawn said, landing next to Sunny. “Why don’t Sunny and I work on finishing the framework? Bog, you can go with Marianne to finish gathering the stuff for the caulking. OK?”“Fine,” both boys muttered sullenly.As Marianne and Bog took off, the fairy gave the goblin a sharp elbow in the ribs. “You’re going to have to learn to be nice to him eventually, you know.”Bog just snorted.Back on the roof, Dawn gave Sunny a pleading look. “I know he’s prickly, but can’t you at least try to work with him. He’s very likely going to be your brother-in-law one day, so you might as well try getting along with him sooner rather than later.”Sunny shook his head. “And what am I supposed to do if he doesn’t want to get along?”Dawn started unwinding a coil of twine. “Then I guess that means you’ll just have to be the bigger man, Sunny.”Sunny snorted and muttered, “Haha, funny. There are a lot of words you could use to compare me to that goblin, but I’m pretty sure “bigger” is never going to one of them.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Bog King grumbled to himself as he groggily became aware of the world. Strange dreams had waltzed around in his mind all night, leaving him in a disoriented fog. Light slanted in through the window above his nest and dust motes floated in the pale yellow beams of early morning. Bog yawned, blinking and trying to adjust his eyes, which were blurry and out of focus. He shook his head, trying to dispel the sleepy haze in his mind and the eerie echoes of the weird dreams that he couldn’t quite remember now.Vaguely, a thought skittered through his mind. I don’t have a window above my nest.He yawned again and began stretching his arms above his head, arching his back to work out the cricks that invariably built up in his spine.
Wait, WHAT?
Bog abruptly snapped into full wakefulness.He looked around. The room he was in was small – ridiculously small – with a slightly domed roof and clay daub walls. It was decorated with a weird assortment of little knick-knacks: a small glass bauble with glitter inside, a row of beetle figurines lined up on a shelf, several boutonnieres stuck to the wall, and a hat stitched from a ladybug shell hanging on a peg. Bog blinked at the inexplicable sight, his mind still working sluggishly. Above him, he could see the reed frame of the roof, a patched reed frame that looked oddly familiar…He was in Sunny’s house.Why in the bloody skies was he in Sunny’s house?For that matter, how had he even fit through the door?He sat up with a groan, still glancing around in bewilderment that was rapidly transforming into irritation. That was when he noticed he’d been lying on a mushroom, one that was really far too small for him to have been comfortably sleeping on. With a growing sense of discomfort, he lifted his hands to rub them across his face, as if to scrub the weirdness away.He froze at the sight of his hands. They were small and stubby, clawless, brown instead of grey-skinned, and four-fingered. They were definitely, definitely, definitely NOT his hands.Frantically, Bog lifted the hands-that-weren’t-his to his face. His nose had shrunk to a soft little blob, his cheeks were full and round, and his eyes were way too big. Further exploration determined that his head was capped with an enormous tuft of unruly, wiry hair.Bog almost fell off the mushroom. His limbs were too short, his body too small. He nearly tripped over his misshapen feet and caught himself on the wall. There was a small mirror hanging in an alcove on the far wall, and Bog stumbled awkwardly towards it and gaped at his reflection.Sunny’s flabbergasted face stared back at him.Bog gave a strangled yell that was too high-pitched, stumbled back a step, tripped, and fell backwards onto his rear end.This had to be a dream. This had to be some horrible continuation of the weird fantasies that had haunted him last night during his sleep. There was no way he was Sunny.He growled and punched himself in the jaw, hoping to startle himself out of the dream. He yelped instead and cradled his now-throbbing cheek as he discovered that elf skin was not nearly as tough as goblin hide. Shaking with a combination of indignation and growing panic, Bog sat down unsteadily on the edge of the mushroom bed once again.“Sunny? Suuuunny, are you awake?”Dawn’s sing-song voice came from the other side of the door, along with knocking.Bog cursed, which again came out in Sunny’s high-pitched squeak, and scrabbled backwards. He couldn’t let anyone see him like this! What was this going to do for his image of the fierce, terrifying, evil king of the Dark Forest?“Sunny, are you there? It’s a looooovely day and I’ve got a picnic lunch!”Bog stared at the door in mounting horror, desperately trying to contrive an escape plan or at the very least a plausible excuse to make Dawn go away, when he realized the front door was not latched. He leapt up, misjudged the length of his legs, and went sprawling face-first into a potted azalea, producing a loud clatter.“Sunny, I know you’re in there. I’m coming in!”“NO!” Bog squawked, attempting to untangle himself from the plant, but it was too late. The door flew open.“Sunny Wunny!”He was attacked by a huge creature that wrapped its long arms around him and nearly lifted him off his feet. Gigantic monarch wings flapped gleefully in his face and dandelion fluff hair tickled in his ear. He spluttered and struggled as Dawn gave him a loud “mwah” of a kiss on the cheek.“Auuuurrrgghh, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, STOP! It’s me. STOP!”Dawn released him and gave him an odd look. “Well, of course it’s you,” she said. “I can see that.” She paused, her eyes trailing slowly over the smudge of potting soil smeared across his cheek. “Are you OK? You look, I don’t know, a little rumpled. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”Bog shook himself, trying to get his wits back after being suddenly tackled by a Dawn who was now twice his size. Bloody tree spirits, and he’d thought she was intimidating when she was only half his size!She tried to kiss him again, but he fended her off with a yelp. Dawn frowned, putting her hands on her hips. “What’s the matter with you, Sunny? Are we not going on the picnic now?”Bog’s head was still spinning. “Dawn, you’ve got to listen to me,” he said seriously. “I’m not Sunny. I’m…I’m Bog.”Dawn bit her lip and he could see she was trying to hide a smile. “Oh Sunny, that’s cute, but you know I only thought of Bog that way because I was love dusted.” She poked him in the chest. “The love potion that you tossed in my face. But anyway, I like you being you, my widdle, sweet Sunny Wunny Bunny Boo.”She attempted to rub her nose against his. Bog nearly gagged. OK, he was never, ever, ever going to complain about “Boggy Woggy” again.“No, no, no, Dawn, stop. It’s actually me. I’m Bog. I’m stuck in Sunny’s body, and I don’t know how it happened or how to get out!”The expression on Dawn’s face was half-bewildered, half-concerned now. “You didn’t fall out of your bed onto your head again, did you?”“No!”“Or eat a mushroom that disagreed with you?”“No!”“Of fall out of a bush…?”“Dawn!”“Or-”“Dawn, will you listen to me for one bloody second!”The fairy princess looked taken aback by his tone, but she did stop talking. Bog scrunched up his face, one hand on his forehead. “Look, I…I can prove to you that I really am Bog. Ask me a question that only Bog would know.”Dawn pursed her lips. “Okaaaaaay, what did I ask Bog to help with last summer for Sunny’s surprise birthday party?”Bog rolled his eyes. “Dawn, Sunny would know that. He was there are the party and knows that I helped with the lights for the karaoke stage.”“Shoot, you’re right.” Dawn made an annoyed, scrunchy face that Bog would have found amusing in another circumstance. “Ummm. Oooo! Here’s one!” She gave Bog what she clearly thought was a piercing stare, which involved sticking her lower lip out and squinting her eyes. “In the dungeons when I was love dusted, what did Bog threaten to do if I wouldn’t stop singing?”Bog scratched his chin, grimaced in surprise when his fingers touched tufted fuzz instead of thorny goblin skin, and scowled as he tried to recall the moment. “I…er…threatened to rip your wings off.”Bog would have thought it impossible for Dawn’s eyes to get any bigger, but they certainly did. Her hand flew to her mouth. “You really are Bog,” she gasped dramatically.“I’ve been saying that for the last several minutes,” Bog grumbled.Dawn’s jaw set in a determined line, and for a moment, Bog caught a glint in her eyes that marked her unmistakably as Marianne’s sister. “We’ve got to do something to get you back. Wait!” Her eyes widened again. “Do you think Sunny is stuck in your body?”Bog had been so preoccupied with his own predicament that he hadn’t considered this possibility. He gritted his teeth. “If that elf scratches so much as one scale, I’m gonna-URK!”He yelped as Dawn grabbed him and drug him towards the door. “We’ve got to find Marianne. She’ll know what to do.”All Bog could do was stumble along after her on his stubby legs, hoping very, very much that Marianne would indeed know what to do, because he most certainly didn’t.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What!? No! I didn’t let Lizzie into the strawberry patch,” Sunny mumbled under his breath. “Why would I do that? I like strawberries…”He rolled onto his back. Something pinched sharply, causing him to startle awake with a short yelp of “I didn’t do it!”Groggily, he stared up at the ceiling above him, blinking slowly and still aware that something was jabbing uncomfortably in the middle of his back. He wriggled a little, trying to ease the pinch, and realized his neck was also strangely stiff. He rolled his shoulders and head, still attempting to fix the unpleasant pressure, which was when he jabbed himself in the cheek…with his shoulder. He made a strangled sound and sat bolt upright, clutching his face.Blankly, he stared around the room that he found himself in. Dark, wooden walls decorated only by creeping vines, a tall window looking out over twisted tree branches, the sides of some sort of weird nest thing that he was lying in. He blinked again. Dark Forest vibes, definitely Dark Forest vibes. Sunny shuddered. He still didn’t like the Dark Forest. In fact, despite the new treaty between the Fairy Meadows and the Dark Forest, he hadn’t actually set foot beyond the border since last Spring when the whole love potion thing went down and he’d spent several weeks helping the goblins with their new castle as recompense for the part he’d played in the whole fiasco. After two weeks of dodging clumsy, rough-housing goblins with toothy grins and avoiding the ferocious glares that their king directed at him every time they crossed paths, he’d never been so happy to be back home in the meadows. The Bog King still freaked him out, to be honest. He didn’t care if the goblin ruler was courting Princess Marianne; he still got the feeling that Dawn was the only thing keeping Bog from gleefully feeding him to Brutus anytime they happened across each other.“Dawn? Dawn, is this some sort of joke?” he hissed. His voice came out rough and scratchy. He tried to clear his throat. “Marianne? Dawn? …Dawn?”There was no reply.His cheek was still hurting. Now that he thought about it, how in the world had he jabbed his shoulder into his cheek hard enough to hurt like that. He dabbed his fingers against the sore area and felt sticky dampness. He was bleeding???He jerked his hand away to look for traces of blood and froze. The hand that hovered in front of his face was something out of a nightmare: huge, long, gnarly fingers, cruel, curved claws…“Oh no, nonononononono,” he muttered frantically, wringing the hand as if he could shake it off. He scrabbled backwards across rolls of moss, sending up flurries of the downy feathers that lined the nest. Some part of his body caught on something, sending him sprawling sideways, his arms flailing. His hand knocked into something hard that had been leaning against the side of the nest, causing it to fall with a resounding crash that made Sunny cringe before he peeked over the nest’s edge.The Bog King’s staff lay on the floor beside the nest, still vibrating from its fall.“Dream, dream, dream, this is a bad dream. Not real, not real,” Sunny muttered, trying to keep from hyperventilating. “You are totally not the Bog King. You are totally not stuck in Bog’s body.” He shifted slightly, and the wing that he’d been laying on – the source of the pinch that had woken him – came free with violent pins and needles that caused Sunny to cringe with a little whimper. “…You are totally stuck in Bog’s body. Oh man, this is bad.”“Really?” he yelled at the gloomy, dark, depressing room, then cringed and clapped a hand over his mouth when his voice echoed far more than he’d expected. With a hand still over his mouth, his eyes darted back and forth as if expecting a horde of goblins to charge him out of the darkness any second. When nothing stirred, he slapped his cheeks several times, trying to get a grip on himself, and shuddered when he felt the thorny stubble that now peppered his face.“Come on, come on, think,” he continued to mutter to himself. “There’s gotta be a solution. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”Someone knocked on the door to the chamber, causing Sunny to dive back down into the nest with a squeak. “Sweetie!” a loud, stringent voice called from the other side of the door. “Shouldn’t you be getting up, honey? Your blueberry oatmeal is going cold.”The Bog King ate blueberry oatmeal for breakfast? Sunny felt his lips twitch with amusement for just a second before he remembered the predicament he was in. “Oh uh, yeah, yeah, I’ll be there in a moment,” he called, then squeezed his eyes shut, hoping Griselda wouldn’t notice anything amiss about his voice.“Well, all right. I didn’t raise you to spend half the morning lying around daydreaming and letting your breakfast go cold. I’m coming back in five minutes if you don’t get your kingly butt downstairs by then.”“Right, right, I’ll…I’ll be there,” he called back, still with his eyes squeezed shut, hoping that would be enough to get her to leave.“You better,” the gobliness on the other side of the door retorted. “There’s no way I’m letting my son show up late to a date.” Then, as he heard her trundling away, he let out his breath slowly.Very, very carefully, he climbed out of the nest. The goblin king’s body was like a briar patch: with every move he made, some spike or claw or scale seemed to catch on something. He extricated himself successfully from the nest at last and stood unsteadily on the stilt-like legs that unfolded underneath him. He wobbled awkwardly, feeling his breath catch at how ridiculously far down the floor seemed. When he moved, the scales rubbed together in a way that made him cringe. Even if Bog’s body was covered in his plated armor, Sunny was still painfully and awkwardly aware that he wasn’t wearing any clothes.And Dawn hugged this thing regularly? How had she not shredded herself by now? For that matter, how was Marianne not shredded by now? Actually, nope, that was something Sunny very definitely didn’t want to think about. Nope, nope, nope.Wait… Marianne… What had Griselda said? Something about a date? Bog had a date with Marianne this morning? Marianne! Maybe she would have some idea of how to fix this mess. Well, she certainly couldn’t have less of an idea than he did right now. He looked around furtively – was the real Bog King still lurking around somewhere…or had they, like, switched bodies or something? Sunny shuddered at the thought. He needed to find someone who could help him figure out what the heck was going on, and fast.But first, he needed to get to the Fairy Meadows.Cautiously, he opened the door and peeked out. Outside was a dark passageway that smelled strongly of soil and goblin. There were no windows. Wrinkling his nose, Sunny began to slowly make his way down the hall, which was lit only by the occasional spiked, glowing orb hanging from the ceiling. Stupid goblins and their stupid dark aesthetic. Seriously, why was the Bog King so obsessed with spiky, scary-looking stuff? Did it make him somehow feel better about the fact that he was pretty much a walking, talking pincushion himself?He made it to the end of the hallway without running into any goblins. Stairs spiraled downwards into more dimly-lit darkness. Several times, he nearly tripped over the long, gangly legs now attached to his body and narrowly escaped a loud, awkward, and very likely painful tumble down the stairs by clutching the side rail that was fashioned from woven ivy vines.At the bottom of the stairs, he picked up the scent of oatmeal. Thanking his lucky stars that at the very least Bog seemed to have an excellent sense of smell, he crept forward carefully, trying to keep Bog’s scales from rattling as he inched past the door to what appeared to be a dining hall. Griselda was fussing about with a stack of doilies on the opposite side of the room, her back to him.A bowl of oatmeal sat on the table, smelling good enough that Sunny’s stomach (Bog’s stomach?) growled. Beyond the dining room lay the throne room, and from there, Sunny remembered the way out from the weeks he’d spent helping the goblins with the new castle. Just another inch and he’d be in the clear…The long spur that jutted out from his elbow caught on a vine behind him as he tried to scuttle past the door. The painting hanging from the vine of a tall goblin with Bog’s staff swung wildly and Sunny made a grab for it. Unfortunately, he misjudged the reach of Bog’s arm, whacked the painting instead, and the thing went flying with a loud clatter to the floor.“And what do you think you’re doing skulking around in the hallway?” Three unrelentingly strong fingers seized his arm and dragged him unceremoniously into the dining room and to the seat in front of the oatmeal. “Now, you told me last night that you were going to take a look at that spider nest over by the reception hall.”Sunny stared at the beady-eyed goblin woman standing across the table from him with a hand on her hip, gave a nervous giggle that meant I have no idea what to say, glanced down at the bowl in front of him, and began shoveling oatmeal into his mouth as fast as he could to avoid having to come up with a real answer.Griselda harrumphed and gave him a severe look. “You’ve said you’d deal with it for the last three days now. It’s almost covering the entire entrance. Do you want all our guests to think we’re savages?”Sunny shook his head emphatically and shoved more oatmeal in his mouth.“Well, that powrie chieftain from the nettle groves is going to be here in two days, and he’d better not have to walk through a spider web. Honey, don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted you enjoy the time you spend with Marianne, but if you keep staying over in those meadows so late that you can’t get up in the morning to do your job, I’m going to have to give you a curfew. You may have a girlfriend now but you’re still a king too.”Sunny nodded vigorously, reaching for another spoonful of oatmeal.Griselda reached out and stopped his hand. “You’re not sassing me, are you, young man? And dear jumping frogs, what’s happened to your manners? Shoveling food in your face without saying a word, pssshaw. If I didn’t know better, I-”Griselda cut herself off sharply, leaned forward, and unceremoniously grabbed Sunny’s face, causing him to yelp in surprise. “What did you do to your cheek!?”Sunny raised a hand self-consciously to the wound. “Oh, er, I uhhhh, rolled over…wrong,” he stammered.Griselda sighed the long-suffering sigh of an exasperated mother. “How many times have I told you not to sleep on your side? You always end up with the worst cricks in your neck too. Oh, come here, sweetie. Stop struggling.”She spit on her fingers and proceeded to scrub at the bloody smudge on his cheek, while Sunny gurgled in protest. Every moment that passed, the Bog King’s image was becoming slightly less intimidating.Griselda released him and shook her head. “All right, honey, you better get going or you’ll be late. Here, I made up a parcel of those honey drops that Marianne likes for you to take. Don’t eat ‘em all on the way there.” She shoved a small box in his hands. “Now you go and enjoy yourself, but don’t wear yourself out. You’ve still got that spider nest to take care of when you get back. Now shoo, shoo, shoo.”Moments later, Sunny found himself at the entrance to the throne room, feeling like he’d gone through a whirlwind. “Now say hello to Marianne for me, honey, and fly safe,” Griselda called airily, waving a doily at him before turning and trundling back into the dining hall.Sunny let out a long, wheezing breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding and made an ungainly dash across the throne room, heading for the main entrance, the parcel of honey drops clutched to his chest. Freedom was in sight!“Sire!”Sunny almost ran smack-bang into Bog’s two henchgoblins who seemed to pop out of nowhere right in front of him. He barely caught himself from tumbling forward right on top of them. Both goblins stood at attention.“News from the mushrooms,” the taller of the two announced.“Uhhhhhh,” Sunny said, not sure how he was supposed to react.“You tell him,” the taller goblin muttered to the other.“I always tell him,” the shorter one replied.“Well then, it makes sense that you tell him this time too.”“I guess you’re right.”They both snapped back to attention. The shorter goblin puffed out his chest and announced in a pompous voice, “A shooter and dumb hairy fishes will sneak for you.”Sunny gaped at the two of them, completely nonplussed. Both goblins cringed slightly as if anticipating a wrathful response. “Uhhhhh, that’s greeeeeeat,” Sunny said.The two goblins blinked.“It is?” the shorter one said hesitantly.“Yeeeeeah,” Sunny continued, trying to shimmy his way past them. “Yeah, you tell the…uh…fishes to have a good time sneaking. Good to know. Yeah, so I’ve really got to get going. Guess I’ll see you guys later. Hahaha.”“Sire, are you OK,” the taller goblin asked, peering suspiciously at him. “You don’t seem quite like yourself.”Sunny attempted a bright smile, which only made the two goblins look even more baffled. “I’m GREAT! I mean, I’m…yeaaahhh, I’m just going to go now.” And with that he bolted for the entrance.Once he was past the gate and far enough into the forest that he wasn’t visible from the castle, he stopped to huff for a moment and get a sense of direction. The new castle wasn’t far from the border, but the undergrowth was thick and there were the briar walls to get past. Also, the fewer goblins he ran into on his way out, the better. “Great, this is just great,” he muttered. “If this is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s not funny. Usually, I don’t mind a joke or two, but this is just ridiculous.”He took a few steps forward and almost instantly his wings tangled on a vine, jerking him backwards.Wait, he had wings!He could fly to the Fairy Meadows!He spread the wings cautiously, the one still twinging from when he’d pinched it that morning when he’d rolled on top of it. He gave all four appendages an experimental buzz.OK, this couldn’t be too hard. Dawn and Marianne flew all the time. You just flapped them and they lifted you off the ground. Right?He buzzed the wings a little harder, experimenting with how they pivoted. Almost instantly, he began to lift off the ground.“WOAH!” He panicked as he felt his feet left the ground and fell back to the forest floor, stumbling as he landed. He shook his head, trying to steel himself. “OK, it’s not hard. You’ve flown on dragonflies since you were little. This isn’t different at all. Not any different at all. Now, you’re gonna flap the wings and go…NOW!”He rose up in the air suddenly and slammed his head into a branch. Back on the ground once again and rubbing his head ruefully, Sunny groaned. “Except dragonflies actually know what they’re doing. Man, I hope the Bog King doesn’t mind a few bruises when he gets his body back.”~o~o~o~Sunny gave a massive sigh of relief when he finally caught a glimpse of green grass between the dark trees. Renewing his efforts one last time, he buzzed unsteadily towards the archway that connected the two kingdoms, managing somehow not to bump into any of the twisting roots. Huffing a little, he landed awkwardly, still feeling shaken but also rather proud of his accomplishment. Now that he was out of the Dark Forest, he should be able to find someone who could help him.Rubbing the arm that he’d accidentally whacked against a stump on the way there, he stared out over the Fairy Meadows, absently wondering where he should head from here.Something touched his back between his wings. White hot electricity shot through his body all the way to his fingertips and toes, causing him to leap into the air with a yowl, nearly twisting an ankle in the process. He heard a devious giggle from behind him. “Hmmm, looks like someone’s ready to see me.”Sunny whirled around. Marianne was perched on the rock behind him, swinging her legs nonchalantly, wings half-flared and catching the light. For a moment, Sunny sagged with relief that he’d found help without having to fly further, but then he caught the gleam in the fairy princess’s eyes. Sunny felt the grateful greeting freeze in his throat and he instinctively stumbled back a step.Marianne in turn slid down from the rock and began to sashay after him, that truly terrifying glitter in her eyes making Sunny swallow nervously. “M…Marianne…?” he started before he felt himself bump into a tree stump, bringing his retreat to an abrupt halt.Marianne continued to saunter lazily towards him, as he pressed himself frantically back against the wooden barrier behind him. The elder princess reached out and slid her fingers down the front of his chest, still devouring him with her eyes. “Just where do you think you’re trying to go, almighty king,” she asked in a voice that was nothing short of a purr.Sunny was frozen with absolute horror. He so totally did not need to know that this was the way Marianne acted when she was alone with Bog.“Marianne,” he attempted to squeak again, but Marianne chose that moment to run her hands back up his chest to hook her arms over his shoulders, pulling herself close.“Somebody feeling a little shy today, hmm,” she teased, her fingers tickling up the back of his neck.“M…Marianne, you…you really don’t want to do this,” he stuttered. “I promise, you do not want to do this.”Marianne’s purple lips twisted into a truly wicked smirk. “Oh, I think I do.”Without further ado, she pulled his head down and pressed a very passionate kiss to his lips.Sunny flailed, but Marianne had a grip like iron. A thousand panicked thoughts raced through his head. Oh skies, oh skies, oh skies, when Marianne finds out the truth, she’s gonna kill me. And then the Bog King’s gonna kill me. And then Dawn’s gonna kill whatever’s left of me. I’m dead, I’m so dead!”As if right on cue, there was an outraged howl from behind them. “MARIANNE!”Marianne gave a startled jerk and pulled away, nearly dropping Sunny. They both whirled around. Hovering several feet away was a confused and embarrassed-looking Dawn. Beside her, on the ground, Sunny found himself staring at a perfect copy of himself, a copy that looked like it was about to tear him limb from limb.Sunny slumped in utter defeat. Yup, he was so totally dead.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What do you think you’re doing, kissing my girlfriend? Back off!” an uncharacteristically aggressive Sunny snarled, eyes flashing ferociously.“Hey, hey, hey, she kissed me!” an uncharacteristically defensive Bog shot back, cringing slightly and putting up his hands in a show of innocence.“Well, you weren’t trying very hard to tell her the truth, were you, you sneaking elf?”“I tried, I did try, and it didn’t work! And I am scarred for life now, thank you very much!”“SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU!” Marianne bellowed.Both Bog and Sunny fell silent.Marianne glared back and forth between the goblin and the elf, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed. “Now, what is going on? And it had better be good.”Dawn, Bog, and Sunny all started talking at once.“I went to Sunny’s house for our picnic and Sunny was there, but he wasn’t Sunny…”“I was minding my own business and now I am STUCK in this ridiculous, tiny body…”“Man, do you know how terrifying Bog’s mom is? Like seriously…”Marianne cut them all off once again. She pointed at her sister. “Dawn, what the heck is all this about?”Dawn took a deep breath. “Well, Sunny and I were supposed to go on a picnic this morning, but Sunny says he’s Bog, not Sunny, which I thought was pretty weird. But, like, he can answer questions that only Bog should be able to answer, so I think he really is Bog, and they’ve, like, switched bodies or something.”Marianne raised an eyebrow. “OK, is this a joke, because it is way too early for jokes.”“NO!” all three shouted emphatically.Marianne raised her hands. “OK, OK.” She pointed at the elf. “So, you’re telling me that he’s actually Bog?”“Yep, I asked him about him threatening to rip my wings off in the dungeon and he totally knew the answer!”“You threatened to rip her wings off!?!” Bog (Sunny?) yelled in outraged horror.“Well, I had to find some way of getting her to shut up, seeing as someone tossed a love potion in her face!”“That’s still a mean thing to say to a poor, innocent princess!”“Hey, I can take care of myself!” Dawn huffed, putting her hands on her waist, orange wings flaring.Marianne still didn’t look entirely convinced that the three of them weren’t attempting to pull her leg, a highly skeptical slant to her eyebrows. She cut the trio off again and pointed at the one that looked like Sunny. “Uh OK, Bog, what did I find out that you like on our last date?”The elf’s eyes narrowed then widened with a look of indignant horror. “MARIANNE, you can’t ask that. That’s private!”“Well then, if you know the answer, I’ll know it’s really you.”Grumbling, the elf drug a hand down his face in a very Bog-like gesture before muttering, “I…I like it when you nibble on my ears.”“Ooo, Sunny likes that too,” Dawn said brightly.“DAWN!” the one that looked like Bog cried in a mortified voice.“Oh oops, sorry Sunny Wunny.”“OK, OK, I believe everyone,” Marianne said, waving her hands to get their attention once again. She pinched the bridge of her nose in a summons for patience. “OK, so do either of you know how it happened?”“No clue, last night I went to bed like I always do, and the next thing I know I’m in the Dark Forest stuck inside this spiky monstrosity. Like, how do you actually live in this thing, man?”“I have no bloody idea. One moment I was my normal self, and the next I’m the size of a wingless acorn.”“Well, that’s…not helpful at all,” Marianne muttered. She sighed heavily. “If we have no idea what made it happen in the first place, then we have no way of figuring out how to get you both back in the right bodies again.”Everyone fell grimly silent as the stark reality of Marianne’s words sunk in.“Oh, oh, I have an idea!” Dawn interjected suddenly, her wings fluttering with excitement. “What about the Sugar Plum Fairy?”“What about her?”“Well, she knows all sorts of stuff about potions and magic, so maybe she’d have idea about what happened and how to fix it.”Marianne brightened. “Hey, that’s actually not a bad idea.”“Sugar Plum, Sugar Plum Fairy.” Sunny wrinkled his (Bog’s?) brow, tapping a finger on his chin. “That reminds me of something, but what was it? Sugar Plum, Sugar Plum, Sugar Plum.” He straightened suddenly, jabbing his hand in the air. “Aha, that’s it! Shooter dumb hairy!”Marianne glanced sideways at Dawn. “Are you sure they really have switched bodies and they’re not just, you know, drunk?”“No, no, no,” Sunny said. “Shooter and dumb hairy fishes. It was the message from the mushrooms. ‘A shooter and dumb hairy fishes will sneak for you.’ That was the message.”“Geesh, you still haven’t fixed the mushroom line, I see?” Marianne said with a raised eyebrow and a glance at Bog.A very goblinish scowl crossed the elf face. “I’ve…had other things on my mind lately.”“ANYWAY,” Sunny said, shooting a reprimanding glare at the two of them, “before I was so rudely interrupted… I thought it sounded like something that might make sense if you changed it around a bit. And when Dawn mentioned the Sugar Plum Fairy it clicked. I think it might have meant ‘The Sugar Plum Fairy wishes to speak with you.’ What do you think?”“Oo, I think you’re right,” Dawn said.“It could be,” Marianne mused. “Anyway, I think Plum is probably our best bet.”“If that meddlesome, magic-fingered trouble-brewer is behind me having to stumble around in this stumpy body all morning, I’m going to stick her in a cage so dark and deep she’ll never see the light of day again,” Bog growled.Dawn patted the top of his head. “Aw, don’t be mean. We don’t even know that she had anything to do with it, but she might have answers that could help us. And there are a lot worse things that could have happened to you, you know, Boggy.”“Bog,” the goblin-in-elf-form grumbled.Marianne raised an amused eyebrow and jerked her head towards the elf. “OK, well that one’s definitely Bog. There’s no doubt about that now.”She squared her shoulders and turned to face the Dark Forest. “Well, to find the Sugar Plum Fairy it is then. Come on.”And with that, the four of them headed into the forest in search of the illusive fairy.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ever since she had been released from her magical prison last Spring, the Sugar Plum Fairy had taken up residence inside a large rosebush that straddled the border between the Dark Forest and the Fairy Kingdom. She had of course been made to swear that she would never again dabble with love potions or anything of the sort, or else she would end up on a fast track back to Bog's dungeons, and so far she had kept her word. For the time being, she had stuck with a variety of healing concoctions, the occasional (mild) truth serum, or potions to get a particularly stubborn stain out of a flower petal dress. And so, both the Bog King and the royal fairy family had allowed her to do as she wished, as long as she stayed out of trouble.At that moment however, trouble was headed her way, in the form of two fairy princesses, a very flustered elf tripping along on lanky goblin legs, and an extremely sullen goblin king trying desperately to keep up with the others on his own stubby elf legs.Several ferns obscured the entrance to a tunnel at the base of the rosebush. Dawn exchanged a look with Marianne, then brushed the ferns aside and tapped loudly on the side of one of the rose stems. "Hello? Hello, Plum? It's me, Princess Dawn."There was silence for a moment, then a giggle floated to them from the depths of the rosebush. "Come in, do come in!"Marianne tilted her head to one side in a little gesture that said well, here we go and led the way into the rosebush.After several twists, the tunnel opened up into a spacious room formed naturally by the twisted rose stems, padded with moss and down feathers and decorated with all manner of trinkets from moth wings to acorn caps. The Sugar Plum Fairy's eerie blue glow filled the space as the sprite rose to hover in the middle of the room, her arms spread. "Welcome! Though I must say, you took your time getting here. I was almost beginning to think you hadn't gotten my message!"Bog pushed forward, snarling. "You had better start explaining right now. No, better yet, you can put the both of us back in our right bodies and maybe I'll be gracious and not lock you up forever!"Plum was completely unfazed, both by Bog's threats and the fact that he was in the wrong body. She tut-tutted. "Still haven't learned any patience, I see. I thought you were working on that, Bog darling."As Bog spluttered angrily, Marianne pushed him out of the way and took his place, hands on her hips. "All right, Plum, what in blazes is going on?"Plum giggled and did a back loop through the air. "You tell me, what is going on?"Marianne frowned. "You wouldn't have called us here if you didn't know, would you?""Hmm, an interesting question, but not the right one," Plum responded, bobbing up and down with a finger on her chin.Marianne took another step forward, her face darkening. "Listen, we are not in the mood for games-"Dawn stepped forward, stopping her impulsive sister with a hand on her shoulder. "Excuse me, Plum, your message said that you wanted to speak with us. What exactly was it that you wanted to speak about, if you don't mind me asking?"Plum giggled delightedly. "Oooh, now I like this one: polite, patient, and asking the right questions."The sprite did another nonchalant loop in the air. "And to answer your question, I sensed a great magic at work last night – not mine," she added with a pointed look in Bog's direction. "And I had a sneaking suspicion it would involve the four of you somehow. And it seems I was right! As usual."She hovered in front of Bog, then Sunny, a slight, pensive frown on her face. "Hmm, I haven't seen magic like this in a long time, a long, long time. Interesting, very interesting.""You said it wasn't your magic. Do you know who could have done this?" Marianne asked, trying her best not to sound impatient."Oh, I doubt it was anybody's magic," Plum replied airily. "Not in the way you're thinking anyway. This Forest itself has its own magic, very old, even older than me, and much less well-behaved and charming, let me tell you. Oh, you think my love potions were able to wreak havoc? Ha, you should have seen some of the enchantments this Forest used to weave when it was in the mood. Now that was a very long time ago, before there were any fairies or elves in the meadows, even before there were goblins in the Forest. But it seems like some of that old magic might still be around and still working its mischief. Ooo, how I've missed those times!""All right, all right, enough with storytime," Bog groused. "Now are you going to tell us how to fix the bloody enchantment or are you going to be completely useless?"Plum tapped a finger on her chin. "Hmm, sorry, I'm afraid I don't speak Rude. Anyone else?"Sunny held his hands out imploringly. "Please, Plum, if you're able to help us, we'd really, really, really appreciate it.""Hmm, now that's better," Plum said, while Bog gave Sunny a dirty look. "There might be something I'm able to do after all." She whisked away towards the opposite side of the room, leaving a glittering blue trail behind her. "I will warn all of you though," she called back towards them, "transformation is an awfully complicated magic, much much worse than love potions, and so the solution will be just as complicated. No easy 'real love' solution to this one. Aha!"She came drifting back, holding a collection of items in her arms, and stopped in front of Bog and Sunny. "Now, you two were the ones who made all of this happen, I suspect, so the two of you will have to be the ones to fix it."Bog started to complain, which turned into a yelp as Marianne elbowed him sharply in the shoulder. Plum continued smoothly as if she hadn't noticed."Bring me everything I need on this list-" She twirled her fingers through the air, leaving a pattern of blue sparkles that glistened in the room and made Sunny sneeze, and a shimmery, blue parchment appeared in the air beside Plum. "-and I can make a potion that will fix your little problem. But you have to follow the instructions on the list exactly. Otherwise, you'd best get very, very cozy in one another's bodies, because that's where you'll be staying unless the Forest decides it's had its fun and changes you back. Which I doubt it will."She waved her fingers once again and the items she'd been carrying floated over to Bog and Sunny. "Remember to follow the instructions exactly!" She hovered on her side and wiggled her fingers at them. "And don't forget to have fun! Toodleloo and all that!"
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"Well, it seems like the two of you are the ones who have to collect all these items for Plum," Marianne said, glancing over the list with an eyebrow raised. "Looks like you have a fun day ahead of you.""Couldn't you two at least, I don't know, come along and watch?" Sunny asked with a nervous glance at Bog, despite the fact that Bog was currently a fourth of his size and not the one with claws and fangs. The scowl that the goblin king was still wearing however was quite ferocious, which was pretty impressive Marianne had to admit, given that Sunny's face was not particularly ferocious to begin with."Oh, I'm sure you both will do fine," Dawn said, patting Sunny's hand. "Besides, you wouldn't want us to accidentally help out in some way that messes up the potion and for you both to get stuck this way forever.""No, 'spose not," Sunny muttered, still not looking at all pleased with the thought of spending the day alone with Bog."We'll see both of you later," Marianne said, opening her wings. "Hopefully when you're back in your right bodies again." She gave them both a pointed glare as she pushed Plum's list into Sunny's hands. "Just don't kill each other, OK.""But-" Sunny started to say, but the princesses had already spread their wings and were flying back towards the fairy palace. The elf glanced nervously at the goblin. "Well, haha, guess we're on our own now…""And you had better not screw this up, elf," Bog growled. "And I'm the king, so I give the orders and I keep the instructions. Got it?""S…Sure, man," Sunny gulped as Bog snatched Plum's list from his nervously twitching claws.Bog ignored the elf as he inspected the list. He snorted. "Well, at least the first one's easy enough. Any goblin worth his salt can find a scarlet tuber.""Scarlet tuber?" Sunny asked.Bog rolled his eyes. "You know, small red fungi that grows in holes at the base of trees under the roots. Go perfectly with roasted chipmunk and beetle feet with parsley."Sunny did a poor job of disguising his distaste. "Uhh, that sounds, uh, totally appetizing…"Bog lifted his head and drew in a deep breath through his nose, then paused. He sniffed again. And again. Then he rounded on Sunny. "You didn't tell me you have a terrible sense of smell!""Hey, I do not!" Sunny said indignantly.Bog growled. "I can't even smell the lilacs that grow all over the meadows. I can usually smell those bloody things from a mile away. How do you even survive being this useless?""I survive just fine, thank you," Sunny sniffed. Then he took in a deeper, deliberate breath. "Woah, your sense of smell is way better than mine!"Bog huffed. "I guess you're going to have to find the scarlet tubers then.""Wait, what? How do I do that?""You listen for them singing," Bog said sarcastically. "You smell for them, of course!""And, uh, what do they smell like?"Bog tossed up his hands. "They smell like scarlet tubers! How am I supposed to describe a smell to you?"Sunny dragged a hand across his face and shuddered at the claws. He was definitely still not used to having veritable knives attached to the end of his fingers. "Maybe you could describe something similar. Or, I don't know, tell me if it's a sweet smell or stinky smell or whatever it is. We can't get stumped on the very first item on the list!"Bog grumbled something that Sunny couldn't make out and probably didn't want to know anyway. Finally, he said, "They smell earthy, like loam after a rain, except a lot stronger, and a little like blood that's several hours old."Sunny blanched. "I'm just going to ignore the second part of that. So, uh, wet loam."They set out, deeper into the Forest, Sunny sniffing frequently and Bog rooting around looking for the holes where the tubers usually grew. After fifteen minutes or so, Sunny held up a hand. "Wait a minute, wait." He sniffed again and his face crinkled. "Uh, I think I smell something."Following the pungent scent, Sunny led them over to the base of a large oak tree where there were several holes formed by the roots. He wrinkled Bog's long, pointy nose. "Uh, yeah, there's definitely something in there. Pee-yoo."Bog leaned over one of the holes and sniffed. "Yeah, that's definitely a scarlet tuber."They both stared at one another for a moment. Then Sunny said in an apologetic voice, "I, uh, think you're going to have to go down there. I'm pretty sure I won't fit."Bog opened his mouth, clearly about to argue, then scowled. "Yeah, you're probably right." Still scowling, he shimmied into the small hole until Sunny could no longer see him. A few curses drifted out of the hole – apparently Sunny's ability to see in the dark was also sub-par in Bog's opinion from what Sunny could gather – but then Bog came wriggling back out with a round, bright red fungi the size of his fist in his hands. They wrapped it up in a cloth that Plum had given them and tied it into a bundle, just as the instructions said to do."OK, that wasn't so hard," Sunny said. "Hey, we don't make a bad team."He wilted immediately under Bog's glare. "We are not a team, elf. Just because I'm stuck with you for today does not mean we are a team.""All right, all right, we're not a team. That's cool," Sunny said, holding up his hands in surrender. "Could you at least stop calling me 'elf' though? I've got a name.""I'll call you whatever I want…elf.""OK, fine." Sunny scrubbed at his face again. "What's the next item on the list?"Bog looked at their instructions and scowled even more deeply. "Fill the blue jar with fresh honey collected in the full sun of noon. Ugh, honey. Disgusting, saccharine stuff.""Yeah, because eating fungus that smells like loam and blood is totally appetizing.""Are you insulting Dark Forest cuisine?""You started it by insulting our cuisine first!" As Bog opened his mouth to shoot back a rejoinder, Sunny held up his hands. "OK, just forget it, all right. It's gonna take us forever to get through these tasks if we keep arguing. The quicker we collect all this stuff, the sooner we're back in our own bodies, and that's something we both want, right? OK? Now, honey."The elf thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. "There's a good-sized hive just north of the elf village. Pare and I have gone up there before to get some honey, no problem. This way." And without waiting, he started off towards the border.He barely got a few feet before he heard growling curses from behind him and turned to find Bog struggling his way through the thick undergrowth. He watched for a few moments before sighing. "You know, if you just grabbed that vine right above your head and used it to swing around the ferns, that'd be a lot easier than trying to push through, right?"Bog paused to glare daggers at Sunny. "Did I ask for your advice, elf?""Uh no, but you clearly need it."As Bog continued to struggle, Sunny sighed again. "Look, I know what it's like being short. You might be used to just shoving everything out of your way, but when you're an elf, you have to get used to getting around obstacles, not just beating down everything in your path. Just jump, grab the vine, and use the momentum to swing yourself around the ferns."Bog looked at Sunny, clearly deciding whether to continue being difficult, then shook his head with a sigh of his own. Bunching his short legs, he jumped, caught the vine, and swung forward to land beside Sunny. It wasn't exactly graceful, but Sunny figured that wasn't the point."OK, so, just look for vines, branches, sturdy flower stems, anything you can use to propel yourself and get around obstacles," Sunny said, trying to sound optimistic. "It's easy when you get the hang of it.""So that's how you evaded all my goblins when I had them after you," Bog said, and for a moment, a tiny, little moment, Sunny thought the goblin king almost sounded impressed.It took them about an hour to get to the spot Sunny had mentioned: a rocky outcrop in the meadows, under which was a large beehive dripping with honey. Sunny squinted up at the sky. "I'd say we're just about right on time for collecting it in the full sun of noon or whatever. Come on."As Sunny started towards the hive though, several of the large bees humming around the hive blocked his path, buzzing threateningly. Sunny stopped and held up his hands. "Hey guys," he said, trying his best to sound friendly and cheerful with Bog's rough voice, "mind if we just sidle past you for a moment and fill this little jar with some honey?"The bees rumbled in an unfriendly manner and continued to block the path forward."Hey, c'mon, it's me, Sunny. I come up here to get honey all the time."Sunny tried to move forward, but the bees descended even lower, buzzing even louder and less happily. One of the bees seemed to notice Bog hanging in the background however and approached him, its buzzing taking on a more friendly tone."Hey, it recognizes you, or er, me," Sunny called over to Bog, causing his own bee guards to give him several warning buzzes. "You're going to have to pretend to be me.""What!?""Just ask them if you can get some honey."Bog grumbled, then growled at the bees, "Look, we need some honey, so let us pass."The bees buzzed in a decidedly offended way.Sunny face-palmed. "You have to ask them. Y'know, politely? How would you like it if someone barged into your house demanding the food out of your cupboards? Also, that was the worst impression of me that I've ever heard.""And exactly how many impressions of yourself have you heard, eh?""Uhhh, none, but that's not the point." Sunny jerked his head towards the bees that were watching them with a combination of confusion and mistrust. "C'mon, for real this time."Bog rolled his eyes, then plastered on a huge, fake smile and said in a ridiculously upbeat voice, "Hey there, would it be all right if I put some honey in this jar? Please and thank you. Since I'm an elf and apparently you like elves."The bees seemed to exchange some type of comments then they parted, allowing Bog access to the hive. The goblin darted forward and quickly scooped up a large glob of honey that had dripped onto the rock and shut the lid of the jar. Then he hurried back, still being observed by the bees."Thank them for the honey," Sunny whispered to Bog under his breath.Bog rolled his eyes, but obliged. Then the two of them moved off to a safe distance to inspect Plum's instructions for their next item."Oh great," Bog said, looking at the list. "Fill two bags using your bare hands with thistle burrs without speaking a single word."Sunny raised an eyebrow and looked down over Bog's shoulder at the list. "Is it just me or are these tasks getting increasingly weirder…?Bog snorted. "Believe me, you don't want to know how weird Plum can get.""Yeah, I'm sure you get pretty loopy after being locked in a magical prison and stuffed in a goblin dungeon for years."Bog's expression instantly darkened even further. "She deserved it.""Like Dawn deserved being locked up and being threatened with having her wings ripped off?"Bog snarled at Sunny, then seemed to remember that he was not currently nearly as threatening. "No, keeping Dawn locked up was a safety measure because someone threw a love potion in her face and there was no telling what she might have done if she wasn't confined.""Ugh, forget I said anything," Sunny grumbled. "Now where do we find thistles?"The rest of that afternoon, Sunny and Bog worked steadily through the list of increasingly strange and specific tasks on Plum's list. When the night fell and the moon rose, painting the Fairy Meadows and the Dark Forest in pale silver, the goblin and the elf were still at it, but getting down to the last couple of tasks."OK, that's the last 'dew-bathed oak leaf from the highest branch of the tallest tree in the Dark Forest that has never been touched by the hands of fairy, elf, goblin, or sprite'," Sunny announced, descending from said tallest tree with the bag clutched in his claws. He was still wobbling a fair amount in the air and his landing wasn't the most graceful thing in the universe, but he had gotten decidedly better at flying over the course of the day. Bog shimmied down the tree from where he'd been shaking the branches so that Sunny could catch the falling leaves in the open bag, both of them making sure not to touch the leaves and thus contradict their instructions. "This next one is the last one, right?""Thank the tree spirits, yes," Bog said, pulling the list out of his shirt and unfolding it. The two of them read their final task."In the glass vial, collect a single drop of water from the center of a flowing stream at precisely midnight without disturbing the rest of the water."They both looked at each other, tiredness stamped on both their faces."We've got about an hour and a half until midnight," Sunny said wearily. "C'mon, let's do this."It was not long until they found a suitable stream, one of the many brooks that flowed through the Fairy Meadows. Since they still had slightly less than an hour until midnight, they sat down at the water's edge to strategize how to get a drop of water from the middle of the stream without disturbing any of the surrounding water."Well, it's obvious," Bog said. "All you have to do is fly over the water, skim down low, and scoop up a drop in the vial as you fly over.""Oh, and I suppose you think that's easy," Sunny grumbled, his own usual good mood almost completely depleted at this point."Of course, it's easy. For anyone who's half-way competent, that is.""I've only had wings for, like, twenty-four hours, man. It's not easy."Bog scrubbed at his face. "Well, we'd best practice, so that you don't mess it up when the time comes and we have to wait another full twenty-four hours to get back in our own bodies."So, for the next thirty minutes, they practiced. Or rather, Sunny practiced and Bog yelled at him from the bank of the stream."No, pivot the primary wings forward and secondary wings back to hover!""Don't let your legs hang! Hold them out straight behind you so they don't drag in the water!""Bloody skies, elf, I could fly better than that when I was little more a pupa!"After Sunny had yet again lost control as he was attempting to hover long enough to scoop up water into the vial and crashed into the stream for what had to be the eighth or ninth time, he made his way back to shore, dripping, and in almost as foul a mood as the goblin.Bog began to berate him again as he plopped down on a stone, panting. "We've only got ten minutes left, elf! If I have to endure another day of this nonsense because you're so bloody useless-"It was at this precise minute that Sunny exploded. He rounded on Bog, arms raised. "What is your problem, man? I'm usually a good team player, in fact I like to work on teams, and I've been trying to get along with you as best I could this entire day, and you've done nothing but snap and snarl and insult me. And you know what? I'm tired of it! Yeah, I'm tired of it! I'm tired of being called 'elf' and I'm tired of you saying I'm useless, and believe it or not, I'm just as tired of being in your body as you are of being in mine. So will you just cut it out?"Bog froze for a moment, clearly not having expected the elf to talk back to him. But he quickly turned just as unpleasant. "Maybe I would if this whole thing wasn't all your fault!""My fault?" Sunny's voice rose an octave. "How is this remotely my fault? For all we know, it's your fault for snapping and yelling at me all day yesterday!""I wouldn't have been snapping and yelling if you weren't so bloody annoying and useless!""There you go with the 'useless' again! Enough with the useless, OK? I don't care if you're some hoity-toity king or whatever and I'm just a simple elf, but I've got dignity, I've got rights. I am not useless!""If you're not useless, why did you feel the need to sneak into my Forest and steal a love potion and use it on the girl you fancied, eh?""Is that what all of this is about? Me stealing that love potion to use on Dawn? Is that why you dislike me so much?""That, and you risking my entire kingdom with that damned love potion just so you could make a living hell for the girl you supposedly love. I don't know why Dawn gives you the time of day after what you put her through, let alone more. You don't deserve her, elf. And you don't deserve my respect."Sunny's voice went cold. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe Dawn and I have talked about what happened and what I did? Did it occur to you that maybe I feel terrible about that whole love potion thing already and that I've apologized to Dawn, not that it's any of your business? Did it ever occur to you that Dawn is an adult who can make decisions for herself and that she chose to forgive me and that things are good between us?"Bog simply stared at Sunny, not saying anything. Sunny pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice a little softer. "And as for before, yeah, I was desperate. Yeah, I was stupid in love and didn't know how to deal with it. Yeah, I made a huge mistake and I feel bad about it. But I guess, I like to believe that people are more than their mistakes, y'know." He shook his head. "Then again, maybe you don't know. Maybe you don't know what it's like to make a bad decision that you know is going to haunt you the rest of your life, even though you know the people who love you have forgiven you. You're a mighty king after all. I'm sure you never make any mistakes."There was a very long, very awkward silence. Then, in a voice so low and quiet that Sunny barely caught it, Bog said, "I do know.""What?" Sunny said, more out of surprise that Bog had said anything.Bog lifted his head and there was a sadness in his eyes that startled the elf. "I do know what it's like. Making a bad decision."There was silence again, this time more pensive in nature. Then Bog said in a slightly strained voice, "I've…I've been too hard on you. You're right, we are more than our mistakes, and you don't deserve to have me keep bringing the love potion up."Sunny shifted awkwardly, not sure how exactly to respond. "Er, uh, thanks, man. Does, uh, this mean we're cool now?"Bog let out a long sigh. "Aye, I guess it does."Sunny sighed then looked up and jumped to his feet. "It's midnight! I've got to get the drop of water!"He prepared to launch, but Bog stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Just keep steady and try not to think too much about what each of the wings is doing. I…I know you can do this…Sunny."The next moment, Sunny was in the air and flying towards the middle of the stream as the midnight moonlight spilled over the water. Despite his tiredness, despite his aching limbs, his mind felt clearer than it had on any of the practice trips. Steeling himself for the hardest part, he dipped down, making sure to keep his legs held straight behind him and scooped up some water from the center of the stream and popped the cork in the vial. Then the next thing he knew, he was doing a wide, awkward turn, skimming back over the stream, and landing beside Bog. Wearily, he dropped the vial into the bag of all the items they had collected.The two of them looked at each other, but all Bog said was, "Thank the bloody tree spirits that's over. Now let's get all of this back to that blasted blue sprite."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
TWO WEEKS LATERA clearing at the border between the Dark Forest and the Fairy Meadows was a bustle with activity. With the first day of Summer only two days away, the citizens of both kingdoms were busy setting up for what would be the first combined Summer Festival in the history of fairies, elves, brownies, and goblins.Fluttering above the festival grounds, Dawn watched the activity unfolding beneath her. A group of elves and brownies was setting up a stage for music, fairies were stringing lights through the tall, sturdy dandelion stems that surrounded the clearing, and the goblins were staking out a field for some type of traditional Dark Forest game that Dawn couldn't remember any of the rules to but that seemed a little rowdier than necessary. But the goblins deserved their fun too, even if Dawn didn't personally see the appeal of wrestling around in the mud and turning one's hair and dress into a complete disaster zone. Then again, Dawn mused, if one didn't wear clothing and had minimal hair to mess up, maybe it would be fun after all.A familiar, raised voice capable of making every goblin in the vicinity cringe reached Dawn's ears and she glanced down towards the stage with a tiny frown. The Bog King was standing on the ground by the stage, but his towering height put him at the same level as Sunny who was standing on the half-erected stage itself. Dawn couldn't quite hear what was being said, but it seemed there was a disagreement over the music lineup for the festival. Dawn tensed and looked around for Marianne, in case intervention became necessary.But then the goblin and the elf paused and seemed to collect themselves. Bog said something, this time with lowered volume and gestured towards the list that Sunny was holding. Sunny made some response and changed something on the list before gesturing to another place and making what seemed to be another suggestion.Dawn smiled, relaxing again. Sunny and Bog could still be a little, well, short with one another, but it was also clear that their relationship had significantly improved. Dawn wouldn't exactly say that the two of them liked one another, but Marianne hadn't had to drag them apart or threaten either of them in two whole weeks! Which was very definitely an improvement.Thank goodness that potion of Plum's had worked!"Hey Sis, anything to report?"Marianne came to a hovering stop beside Dawn, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the sight below. "Apparently, the brownies are short on milkweed sap for their signature milkweed soufflé, but otherwise everything seems to be going well."Dawn perked up. "Oo, there's several milkweed plants over by the daisy grove. I saw them when I was on the picnic with Sunny last week. It's only about a fifteen-minute flight away. I could totally be over there and back with the sap by the time the brownies needed it. It wouldn't be a Summer Festival without milkweed soufflé after all!"Marianne chuckled at her sister's enthusiasm. "Knock yourself out. I can keep an eye on everything by myself until you get back.""Awesome! I won't be long," Dawn called back cheerfully as she winged her way north-west towards the daisy grove.She collected the milkweed sap in an acorn jar and headed back towards the festival site, when a flash of blue near the edge of the Forest caught her eye and she stopped, waving. "Hello, Plum!"The Sugar Plum Fairy rose up and hovered, bobbing gently up and down, shimmering blue magic glowing brightly around her. "Well, hello, dear," the sprite replied. "Out for your weekly shopping too, I see?""Oh this?" Dawn indicated the acorn jar. "Oh no, this is for the brownies for the Summer Festival tomorrow evening." She thought for a moment, then said brightly, "You're welcome to come too, if you'd like.""Mmmm, maybe I will," Plum mused. "It's been an awfully long time since I attended a party. Oh, believe you me, I used to be able to party with the best of them."Dawn scrunched her nose up, trying to picture Plum partying. She figured it probably involved lots of glitter. "Oh by the way," she said, "I never thanked you properly for making that potion for Boggy and Sunny. It worked perfectly! They both drank down their half and in the morning, they were both right back in their own bodies again, like nothing had ever happened!"To Dawn's surprise, Plum let out a peal of laughter, doing a little corkscrew spin in the air. When she was done, she held her hand up by her mouth as if she didn't want anyone else to hear what she was about to say, despite there being no one else around but Dawn. "Would you like to hear a secret?"Dawn nodded eagerly.Plum leaned in and said in a loud whisper-voice, "There was no potion!" Then she spun away, laughing again.Dawn frowned in bemusement. "But…but I saw the potion. Bog and Sunny drank it and it worked. They were both back to normal in the morning.""Well, I had to give them something to drink," Plum responded, "or else they would have gotten suspicious. But blueberry nutmeg tea isn't exactly magical."Dawn was still confused. "But how did they change back if it wasn't magic?"Plum did another lazy loop. "I told you, it was a very different type of magic than my magic. When that type of magic decides to strike, it's usually because the order of the universe has been disrupted some way or another, so of course to fix it, you have to put everything back the way it was supposed to be. Let me tell you, I didn't think those two would be up to the task of setting things right, but what do you know?" She waved her hand, causing a swirl of blue sparkles. "All's well that ends well and all that, I suppose." Her eyes glittered mischievously when she glanced at Dawn again. "Plus, I had the most delicious oak leaf, thistle, and scarlet tuber salad with my favorite honey drizzle that evening."She rose up with a burst of blue glitter. "Well, it was lovely having this little chat. Don't be a stranger now!"Dawn headed back to the festival grounds, the acorn jar of milkweed sap clutched to her chest and a little, secretive smile on her face.All's well that ends well, indeed.
Tea Blend