Neighborhood Noxie

Winsome Werewolf (Part 3.3)

Roderick grit his teeth. He would rather not comment on the lady in question at all. It wasn't proper.

But he needed a cure. Even if it chapped his pride, he needed a cure.

"According to her father, the spell she requested was to make me obscenely hideous to all but her at night, such that no other woman would wish to see me in her bed. She told the witch that 'she loved me the most, so no one else should have me.'"

Sionann groaned and rolled her eyes so emphatically he feared they would get lost in the back of her head. With a belligerent grunt, she slouched back in her chair and pinched at the painful row between her brows.

"That twit certainly did a troublesome thing."

"I'm inclined to agree."

"Have you heard the tale of the knight who offered to marry a hideous woman for the honor of his lord?" she asked, words beleaguered with distaste. "On their first night, the woman transformed into a beauty under moonlight, and asked the knight which he would prefer: that she be ugly during the day to all his comrades and beautiful at night in his arms, or should she be a beauty he could boast of in the day, and a terrifying hag in his chambers. What do you think the knight answered?"

Roderick considered it, but said, "I cannot claim to understand another man's thoughts."

"What would you have chosen?"

"The only way to honor my wife would be to honor her wishes, so I would allow her to choose for herself."

Sionann peeked at him from beneath her massaging hand. "Surprisingly, that's exactly what that knight said. And honoring his bride, no matter her form, broke the curse."

"...Are you saying this case is the same?"

"Like as not. That witless git gave the conditions herself—she loved you the most, such that she could prove no one else should have you. The spell was a curse to would make you hideous, but supposedly her love meant that hideousness would not deter her. Therefore, her love would conquer your curse, and you would indeed be bound together by one means or another."

Roderick was sorely tempted to hold his head, not unlike how Sionann continued to pinch and massage the great canyon dug above her nose. Feeling foolish and confused, he reached for the first question that made sense.

"Isn't that...incredibly round-about?"

"Rather, it seems your empty-headed skelpie-limmer met one of the fair folk after all. They are incredibly literal. So very literal and straight-forward that humans, in all their sanctimonious tact, fail to comprehend them."

"How can you call it sanctimonious—?"

"Humans think a great lot of themselves. They also think coating their words in honey and dewdrops will make them a superior human even amongst their own." Sionann sat up and looked him straight in the eye. "The fae are honest to a fault, and often so very literal that humans find them baffling. That is why things go wrong. Where humans live life as a metaphor, the fae live it exactly as it is and appears."

"No trickery?" he asked. She grimaced.

"We also have our tricksters, but they are still honest in their way. If it weren't so, I wouldn't be here."