Dappled sunlight flickered across Knut's already blotchy skin as we walked leisurely back towards the village, enjoying the momentary peace before the storm. The light made his skin look even worse, but it also made the silver in his hair sparkle prettily.
"Stop staring. You're making me blush." He snickered, smirking as his black irises shifted to look my way. "Or is there something you'd like to tell me?"
"Forgive me. I was just struck by how disgusting you look in daylight." I playfully snapped, painting on my best sneer. "Were you always so ugly? I swear you're better looking back h-." The word died before its completion.
I'd spent but a day away from the Underground and already, despite my curiosity about the rest of the fae's world, my bones ached for my own bed and more familiar surroundings, much of which now were reduced to rubble. The very thought of my bakery made my eyes sting.
"Homesick already?" He teased. He put his arm around my shoulders, pressing me tight to his side. The tempos of our steps synced at once.
Homesick? Yes, I suppose I was. Such a strange feeling it was to miss a place. I hadn't really missed my old shack at all, only the people that once huddled within it for warmth. London...well, I'd sooner burn it to the ground or send it crashing into the sea than ever go back. When I thought of home, oddly enough, it was our bedroom balcony overlooking the goblin city that came to my mind.
"There's hardly a home left to miss," I answered, my mouth filling with a bitter taste. As bitter as a dead man's ashes. "There's nothing but rubble waiting for us in the Underground."
"We'll rebuild." He shrugged dismissively as if it were a trivial concern. "It will take me a little while to remake our workforce, but once that's done, we'll have the kingdom back to proper order in the blink of an eye. Goblins are very fast workers. And this time, we can build a city of our own. You can help me design it." He sounded...excited at that idea.
My face warmed. I could see us already, drawing up plans, bouncing ideas back and forth. Knut being overly positive about my every suggestion. The image made me smile. "Be careful, leave it to me and there'll be a bakery on every corner."
"If they all sell sugared almonds, I don't see the issue."
"Maybe statues in our stunning likenesses would be a better idea. Your waistline would certainly appreciate it." I teased him, patting his belly or lack thereof.
"Naked statues? Like the ones in Greece?" Knut snorted. "I can see it now. Our grandchildren wandering through the city we built, trying not to look directly at grandma and grandpa's nasty bits." He cackled to himself gleefully, practically dancing.
It was an effort not to join in. The wine was still very much in my blood, and I still ached to dance.
"I was thinking we could wear our armor. You could hide your ugly mug behind your war mask and brandish a spear like the brutish warmonger you are, and I could be the mysterious beauty clad in a draping cloak." I chuckled, fluffing out my skirts and imagining a long cloak made of night itself flowing around me. "A cloak of midnight blue," I said, painting him a pretty picture with my words.
"With a knife gripped in one hand and Mab's severed head hanging from the other." Knut sighed happily as he completed my painting. "I must say, you have an artistic eye, Mouse." He tapped my nose with a long finger. "Once this is over and we rule the Unseelie court, we'll throw lavish parties just so we can watch the faeries squirm in fright as they walk through our city and are reminded of how we lowly goblins and our human queen ruined them. I can hardly wait!"
"Why am I the one holding Mab's head? You're king."
"Because this is your war. You picked the fight."
"That's not how I remember it," I said. I may have been the one to proclaim war, but he'd been the first to call Mab out on her lies at the solstice.
"That's how I remember it." His smirk grew. "This began the moment you stabbed Mab to save me and proved that you could make her bleed."
Our steps slowed even more as we entered a more shadowed part of the forest. His face was cast in the shade of the limbs overhead. The darkness made his eyes seem darker and made the shadows in the hollows of his face deepen in color. It suited him well, brought out his more goblin features. The darkness seemed to welcome him, embracing him like the arms of a loved one.
"We have nothing to fear from the darkness," The Hollow had said in the bowels of Mab's prison. "The darkness is our friend."
"I long ago came to the sad conclusion that had I not married you, I'd have never gotten this far." Knut chuckled to himself, "I'd be dead." He tilted his head a bit nearer to mine.
"You don't think this is all foolish?" I asked, down casting my eyes. "I know that I can kill her. I know our plan can work, but I confess, seeing the damage that just one of her monsters has caused has shaken my confidence...sometimes I wonder if I've made a huge mistake."
"Matilda, just by standing up to her, we've changed the very order of this world. In the brief time, we've been married, you've stabbed her, escaped her prison, killed one of her monsters, and stopped a genocide. You've accomplished more than twenty generations of goblin kings have in a millennium. So, what in the absolute hell are you second guessing yourself for?"
"We still had to abandon our kingdom. We retreated, didn't we? Doesn't that feel like a loss?" I asked.
"Not at all. Because she still hasn't gotten what she wants. You are still alive, we're still fighting her. And while she throws her tantrums and unleashes every devil from the depths of the abyss hunting us, you're going to rip her city right from under her."
"You are so utterly confident in me." I shook my head with a little laugh. "I could doom us all and you'd still be cheering for me."
"It may seem that way." He said. As we returned to our walk, I linked our hands together between us. He looked down at our joined hands in surprise for a brief moment, but he made the very wise choice not to question me. "But it's mostly because you come up with some very good plans. You haven't given me a reason to argue yet." He grinned at me. "And how can I argue with results?"
I rested my cheek against his shoulder, sighing as I breathed the calming sap scented air. I felt so much lighter now as if I'd relieved myself of a physical burden. Knut let out a short breath as he laid his cheek against my head. Beneath my ear his heart pounded. I smiled to myself at the sound. Knowing that I had my weaknesses hadn't wiped away his feelings...hadn't destroyed his love for me. I'd been a fool. I wanted to scream at my past self for ever thinking that Knut would react to my weakness any differently. "A market."
"Hmm? What did you say?" He asked. His chest rose and fell at a steady, calm and contented rhythm despite his racing heart.
"A market. We need a market. A proper one with bakeries, shops, and food stalls, places for merchants to sell their wares. You can't have a city without one. It gives it life." I said. The market was one of the few things about London I actually sort of missed. How nice it would be to wander through a market again and not have to hide any ill intentions. To be able to buy things...To walk with him through a city of our own making. I could not think of anything better. "Once we own the Unseelie, we'll have plenty of new subjects looking for work and goods."
"A goblin market." He seemed to weigh the words on his tongue. "I like the sound of that." Bringing us to an abrupt stop, he cupped my face in one hand and amid the elves' forest, he kissed me.
The elves were sluggishly milling about the village when we returned, cleaning up the disaster left behind after the grand celebration. Flowers were strewn everywhere, and the feasting area was still scattered with wooden dishes, gnawed on bones and unconscious revelers.
"There you are." Tova smiled up at us at our approach as her nimble fingers wove her daughter's hair into a braid. She and Dara sat across a limb as if it were a horse. "I was beginning to think you'd both gone home and left poor Llinos." She gestured with her chin towards the goblin man sitting across from her on another limb. His flower crown was still clinging to his scalp, trying its hardest to work its magic. As if to spite it, Llinos yawned.
Stellan ducked out of their hut, carrying Rikard in his branches. "You've returned." He smirked at Knut. "Where did you two run off to? Did the flowers and wine get to you?"
"The combination is...surprisingly potent, even for me and your wife was foolish enough to let Matilda drink all she pleased," Knut replied evenly. "She was half mad with desire. Poor thing. I had no choice but to relieve her of her torment." He chuckled with pride. Stellan rolled his eyes. Tova tried her best not to burst into laughter. I longed for my knife so I could stab him somewhere especially painful.
"You are nowhere near as funny as you think you are," I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest. My face was burning. I knew it must have been as red as an apple and I hated it. So, I stomped as hard as I could on his left big toe to make myself feel better.
He hollered a curse and hopped around on one foot, holding the offended one in his hands.
"You should choose your comedic timing more wisely, My King." Llinos said, smiling at his hobbling master. His eyes darted towards me and his grin widened. It was impossible to hide anything from him.
"It was just a joke," Knut said. "Why are you suddenly acting shy? Like we've never-"
Stellan swooped in before I could stomp on the other one. He swatted Knut on the back so hard he almost toppled over. "I think now would be a good time to present your wife with a peace offering lest she decides to rid herself of you. Come with me." Holding him up by the shoulders, Stellan led him off towards another hut.
My eyes helplessly followed him. I watched them until they disappeared from view.
"Whatever happened last night must have been good to make you blush like that." Tova laughed.
I jumped as I whipped my head back towards her. My blush deepened and spread. "I-I just got a little too much sun is all." I huffed, trying to will away the redness from my face.
"Dara, go play." Tova shooed her daughter away and invited me into her hut.
At the center of the small, round room was a fire that strangely didn't give off smoke. Sitting atop it was a bubbling pot filled with a beige colored porridge dotted with brightly colored berries.
"Eat. You must me famished after last night's festivities." Tova said as she filled a wooden bowl and gave it to me. To her credit, she did try not to snicker. She sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire and leaned forward a bit with eagerness. "What happened? Details! I need details, woman!" She giggled girlishly.
"No," I grumbled. "I like you, Tova, but I'm drawing the line there. What happens between Knut and I is private. Why would you even want to know about it anyway? Do elves find goblins oddly attractive?"
"I'm simply curious what could make you turn so red." Tova teased. "I've never seen you so flustered."
I tipped my bowl against my lips, filling my mouth with sweet, spicy porridge that made my tongue tingle pleasantly. The warmth of it spread through my skull, easing the effects of too much drink away almost instantly. "This is delicious," I mumbled through a full mouth.
"Thank you. It's our remedy for many aches and illnesses, especially those caused by wine. There's a bit of The Hollow's bark mixed in." She gave me a second helping before I'd finished my first. I didn't complain. She filled her own bowl and laid back on a fur rug to eat at leisure. "It's a wonderful feeling isn't it?" She asked and tipped her bowl against her lips.
"What?" I garbled, pouring porridge down my throat.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled knowingly at me. The cooking fire lit her in warm light while I, in my corner, sat in the comforting coolness of the room's shadows. "Knowing you're in love."
I swallowed with an effort and held the bowl in my lap. I was suddenly no longer hungry, but I clutched it between my palms, my skin soaking in its warmth. I stared into the remaining porridge blankly, remembering the cold broth that had kept me from starving on so many nights. My child self had fantasized about large, rich feasts, tables lined with delicacies. I had experienced such feasts, but it was this small bowl of warm porridge and berries that had tasted the best.
"You aren't breathing fire at me." Tova pointed out, sounding very much surprised. "Was I perhaps, correct?" An infuriating laugh followed.
I began my usual snap, but instead of a growl, a light laugh came out. A smile tugged at my red cheeks. I wasn't exactly certain when it had occurred to me the night before, but I, the girl that secretly wondered if I was incapable and unworthy of love, had awoken to a drastically different feeling. I'd taken one look at him that morning, at his disgusting face surrounded by crushed flower petals, and knew that I had been a hopeless fool for denying and questioning my own feelings for so long. The truth was suddenly clear.
I loved Knut.
I think I'd loved him for quite a while, perhaps since I was searching for him in that prison of nothing or perhaps for even longer. Even so...despite all my happiness, doubt nibbled away at it. "Tova, do you think The Hollow can make us feel things we normally wouldn't?" My mouth formed the question on its own accord, I hurriedly brought my bowl back to my mouth.
"Is it that unbelievable that you might love him?" There was a tinge of sadness to her sigh.
I sat in silence. It wasn't the idea that I didn't really love him that scared me. It was that this feeling might someday disappear, and fear and revulsion would replace it. "To lengthen my life and strengthen my body, I was made to bathe in The Hollow's sap, its blood the goblin's called it. It changed my body. What's to say it didn't...alter other things? My purpose is to produce the next goblin king. Why wouldn't The Hollow manipulate me into doing its bidding?" There was a sharper edge to my voice than I meant to give it. "If I were more willing, it would certainly help things along."
I went sprawling across the floor of the hut as Tova flicked me between the eyes. "You're thinking too much again." She scolded. "Matilda." She said my name with an exasperated breath. "So what if The Hollow is manipulating you? It is our god and so it manipulates us all. Every action, every tragedy and triumph are The Hollow's will."
I sat up, rubbing my offended forehead. I pressed my lips together. My brows furrowed in frustration. The fae had so much faith in The Hollow, so much trust. I could not say the same.
"Don't ruin your own happiness. I beg you." She said sternly. "Remember what I told you before and just enjoy it."
I hoped that I could follow her advice. I wanted to, but I knew it would be difficult for me. Even when people were kind, even when someone told me they loved me, I doubted. "You're probably right," I said, pulling myself out of a pit of thought. An image of Knut's laughing face helped me to smile again. My face reddened more, remembering heated kisses and the soft brush of fingertips across sensitive flesh.
The shuttering of his voice as he confessed to me that morning, "I thought you were gone from my life." There had been a fathomless despair in those words.
I didn't know if I would really be able to live in the moment and enjoy these wonderful new feelings or if my inability to trust would ruin it all, but I promised myself then and there that I would try.
"Of course, I am." She smirked. "Although, if you're going to keep asking me for advice, I may have to start charging you a fee." The two of us laughed at that, but I think she was partly serious.
She reached across the expanse between us and clasped my hand. Her eyes were so large and eerily pretty I could look at nothing else. "I am overjoyed for you, Matilda. I wish you and Knut endless love and happiness." She gave my hand a squeeze. "I mean that from the bottom of my heart."
When we finished our meal, we cleaned our bowls in a basin of water and we went back outside to do laundry. As much as I hated it, I swallowed my pride and helped her hang the few blankets she'd washed.
"Have you told him yet?" She asked, swinging a sopping wet blanket over a low limb. I made a disgusted noise deep in my throat in response. She smiled brightly and shrugged at me. "Oh, well, baby steps."
"Ladies!" Stellan's cheerful bellow announced the men's return. "We've retuned baring gifts!" They carried between them a hunk of wood that had been finely carved into an unmistakable shape. A cradle. My throat tightened at the mere sight of it.
They sat it at my feet and Knut stood beside it, proudly puffing out his chest. "Does it please you, Mouse?" He asked, waving a hand over his masterpiece. "I designed it myself. Look closely at the little goblin details. I'm quite proud of them. You can hardly believe an elf made it."
The cradle was carved in a shape like a boat and seemed to be made from a singular piece of wood. I bent down to get a better look. Sure enough, where one would expect to see leafy branches scrolling across the wood, there were gnarled roots. Dancing deformed bodies danced within their tangle, grinning joyful goblin grins as they flailed their arms above their heads. The opening of the cradle was shaped much like The Hollow's wound. Around it, green stones were inlaid into the wood. They sparkled in the bright light of The Boughs, giving them a flame-like flicker.
"It must have hurt the carver badly to have to make such a horribly goblin thing." I teased, smirking.
"He'll recover," Stellan replied, tucking his hands behind his back. "With time."
"Well, go ahead. Give it a try." Knut impatiently took my hand and with his hand over mine, guiding it, we pushed and pulled the cradle into a softly rocking motion. Its motion was so fluid, so gentle. Knut's hand left mine and I continued to make it move, transfixed by the comforting beauty of such a simple thing.
Vaguely, I remembered a much simpler, well-worn cradle that once sat in the corner of my old shack. A cradle that had rocked me and my brothers before me into a peaceful slumber. A cradle that had sat so dreadfully empty and silent after my mother and younger sibling died that my father had dragged it outside and set it ablaze. Now, as I rocked my own empty cradle, I willed away those sad thoughts and pictured instead, a squirming bundle wrapped in a warm blanket laying within it and tiny clawed hands reaching for my own golden hair. At the thought, I was surprised to feel, not anxiety or fear, but a yearning.
"Thank you," I said in hushed goblin, so quiet and low I hoped the elves couldn't hear. These words were for Knut and Knut alone. "It could not be more beautiful. I love it."
"Stellan, let's leave them alone for a moment." I heard Tova say. Knowing what I wanted, she took her husband inside and left us to ourselves.
With a smile, his fingers slid across the green stones, feeling the smoothness of them. "Do you really?" He asked, using the same quiet voice even though we were now alone.
"I do." I leaned over and kissed his cheek. The skin warmed beneath my lips. "When the war is over and things are settled, this cradle will be full."
"Careful what you say, love, I made sure this thing could hold four babies at once. Multiples do run in both our families." He joked. "You have seen Dragoslava's portrait, haven't you?"
"Don't ruin the moment. I was being serious." I shoved him playfully.
He rocked back onto his backside and laughed. He smiled teasingly, but his eyes were soft as they looked me. "For the first time, you actually sound eager to have a child."
"I'm...warming to the idea," I said. I tucked my hair behind my ears, almost bashfully, as I revealed this. My hand absently rocked the cradle back and forth. "I still don't care for the name Fritjof though."
Chuckling, he came to stand behind me and toyed with my hair. He bent low to kiss the top of my head. "Perhaps it too will grow on you."