Dead Heat, Part 12

The fairies all took the flying equivalent of a very big step away from the white-stoned bridge, brushing past Rose with an odd sensation like minnows darting in a brook.

Rose stepped forward, terror pounding in her throat. “Wait, please!”

Against all odds, the troll’s meaty fist stopped just shy of disappearing into the utter blackness beneath the bridge.

Fairies and Trolls froze for just long enough that Rose realized she’d moved into troll-grabbing distance, standing on the edge of sunlight and shadow cast by the bridge. She swallowed the very rational desire to take a step (or seven) back. Showing fear was almost never a good idea when dealing with the fey.

Still. She swallowed once, hard. That troll’s hand could probably wrap around her skull.

“Why?” asked a gravelled voice in what Rose had to admit was actually a pretty reasonable tone.

“Want to squish bug!” shouted a different troll in a voice that might have wilted flowers, had any been nearby.

“Bad bug,” agreed the shorter troll.

“You’re right, he has been very bad, indeed.” Rose said, mind spinning frantically to think of a plan as she dusted off her oil-stained skirt in a gesture she hoped seemed more businesslike than nervous.

The surrounding fairies gasped at her.

“Troll-friend!”

“She’s taking their side?”

“Unseelie!”

“I thought she was Fairy-friend!”

“Traitor!”

Even Orchid flew back a bit, the look on her tiny face shocked.

Rose couldn’t separate all the voices, but she got the gist of it. She tried not to wince at the obvious horror wafting off the fairy cloud, but her answer to the trolls had its intended effect.

They were curious.

The shadows around the troll-eyes dimmed. Almost exactly as if someone had used a dimming switch on a room, except the darkness didn’t go away, it just … faded back a little so that she could see the pair of them. One stood so tall that the tops of their mossy green hair brushed the uppermost arc of the bridge. The other was almost as short as they were wide, with long red hair like ocean kelp.

“What are your names?” she asked politely.

The fairies sent up another cloud of dark mutterings, but the trolls blinked at her as if she’d said something completely novel.

“Reginald,” offered the taller troll, first.

“Mossbucket, spewer of filth and friend of toads,” the shorter one said breathlessly, as if not wanting to seem more afraid to answer than the first.

“My name is Rose. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Rose lied.

It was only a small lie. It wasn’t often one got the chance to speak civilly to Bridge Trolls, but on the other hand they did smell absolutely revolting. And they were in the process of murdering someone.

So all in all, probably not very pleasurable.

The trolls didn’t seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm.

“Rose,” repeated the first troll, as if memorizing her name.

“Rose,” whispered the second.

A chill went down her spine and she felt oddly comforted that there didn’t seem to be three of them. A name spoken in threes might well have power in the realm of faery.

Rose clapped her hands together, as much to bring warmth back to them as to seem cheerful. “Right then! Reggie — ” she paused. “May I call you Reggie?”

A smile spread across the larger troll’s face, ending with a serpentine grimace that nearly split his head in half. Rose tried not to think about what that might mean about their feeding habits.

He nodded. “Reggie. Is good nickname. Is friend name.” He paused, scratching the top of his mossy head with one long fingernail. “Why friend want not squish bug?”

The smaller troll, not to be outdone on the conversational department, piped up. “Naughty bug!” Just to be certain they hadn’t forgotten the entirety of the situation.

Rose nodded agreement to the trolls, then bowed courteously to the Queen. “Queen Orchid, I myself have witnessed your fairies knowingly using a troll bridge without paying a toll.”

Orchid drew herself up to Rose’s full height, wings buzzing imperiously. “I am a Queen! These are my people.” She gestured to the others, who rose and gathered around her in a protective formation.

Reggie’s knuckles whitened, but Rose answered before they could fully squeeze the life out of the little fairy.

“You are Queen out here, Orchid. That bridge belongs to the trolls. You were a visiting monarch and you did not pay them even a minimal toll for the safe passage of your people. You took it without permission and without regret.”

“We are monarchy,” whispered Mossbucket, tugging at Reggie’s arm.

“I am bridge Queen?” asked Reggie in a slow voice.

“No! I am bridge Queen!” Mossbucket growled.

“NO! I AM BRIDGE QUEEN!” shouted Reggie, and suddenly the darkness came alive.

As if a light switch had been thrown, no light at all pierced the deeper darkness beneath the bridge. Things curled around the legs of each troll, where the late afternoon light tried and failed to fully illuminate their bukly bodies at the edge of their territory. A smell arose, like burned candy and mud, billowing around the trolls.

Poxy red pixies, this is not what I meant! A flush of fear spilled down the back of Rose’s neck and made her hands clammy.

“Wait!” Rose lifted her voice. “You are clearly BOTH Royal Bridge Trolls.”

Both trolls paused, shadows spilling over their lower bodies in liquid motions that shadows should never make. “VERY Royal,” Rose added.

“Am Royal,” stated Mossbucket vehemently.

“Am ROYAL,” boomed Reggie.

Both nodded, and just like that, the shadows slithered back into the darkness. The weight of impending violence receded enough to allow Rose to take full breaths again.

Worried, Rose shot a glance to the Reggie’s fist. Pansy’s feet still kicked and his wings still fluttered, but any more theatrics like that and the trolls might kill him by accident.

Or on purpose.

Neither of those options worked for her.

“They are Unseelie Court. We owe them no tribute.” Orchid stated, as though the outburst had never happened.

“That can’t be true, Orchid.” Rose motioned towards the bridge. “Because if that’s true, then you have nothing with which to bargain for Pansy’s life.”

“If they kill him, we shall kill them. We are warriors, not cowards!” This from Poppy, who hovered near Orchid protectively.

Rose never let her eyes leave Orchid’s. “You would start a war to avoid an apology?”

“We have done nothing wrong!” shouted Poppy, wings fluttering madly as he gained altitude.

Rose made her voice as flat and emotionless as possible. “Is that the truth, Queen Orchid?”

The tableau paused, only the fluttering buzz of dozens of fairy wings breaking the silence.

Finally, Orchid dipped her head. “The human is right.”

The fairies nearby gasped, but the wine-colored Queen fluttered elegantly above them all and held out her hands for silence. She turned to face the trolls. “I wish to make reparations for our transgressions. Please release my knight, and we can discuss how best to do this.”

“Not squish bug?” asked Mossbucket.

“WANT squish bug,” replied Reggie, as if this was the sort of logic that rarely lost an argument..

“Aren’t there other things you want more?” asked Rose desperately. What sorts of things did bridge trolls even like, aside from the occasional human child. “Money? Clothing?”

Two pairs of luminous troll eyes stared at her from the darkness, and Rose felt a cold dread in the pit of her stomach before finally Reggie spoke.

“Troll-Friend Rose.”

Mossbucket sighed mournfully, but apparently that was that.

Rose’s stomach settled back down into its proper location.

“What about food? Trolls like food, don’t you?” Rose offered.

Mossbucket perked up at that. “Pizza?”

Reginald’s face-splitting smile was back, this time showing teeth of various sizes and positions, all of them pointy. “Yes. Pizza! Many pizza! And Dr. Pepper.”

“No, Mountain Dew!”

“DR. PEPPER!”

“You shall have both,” said Orchid, interrupting what seemed to be an ongoing feud. “Please release my knight and we can discuss toppings.”

A trollish grunt, and suddenly Pansy shot from the enclosing fist like a purple firecracker, his light fizzing and spitting erratically.

“My Queen!” he cried out, zooming in to hover a foot below her, kneeling in mid-air. “I have brought you dishonor. My shame knows no limits. Please, tell me how I might redeem myself, that I can give myself a clean death.”

Orchid looked down upon him, eyes flinty. “I am so very disappointed in you, Lord Pansy.”

As though the words themselves landed as blows, Pansy dipped even lower, his purple light browning as the scent of molasses rose from him.

“Is there nothing I could do? No way to return to your good graces? I will do anything! Any task, just name it and it shall be done in your name, my Queen!”

The sheer anguish in his voice tightened Rose’s heart.

“I cannot simply forgive you. You know this. I am a Queen and my people deserve to follow a just and fair ruler. There can be no favoritism.”

Briefly, Orchid’s gaze met Rose’s. Her own wine-colored aura darkened just as Pansy’s had, and deep sadness filled her eyes.

Rose bit her lip. All of this just because Pansy had mouthed off at her?

She didn’t know the first thing about fairy politics. She did know about people, though, and Orchid hadn’t saved him from those trolls simply to sentence him to death afterwards.

No, she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. “It was me he was insulting, right? Just before he got grabbed.”

Hope lit up Orchid’s face. “Indeed. He needs to address that insult, and mere death would offer you no absolution. Have you a worthy task to assign him?”

Pansy’s tiny shoulders tightened and Rose knew without asking that he would probably have preferred being put to death, but it was too late to back out now.

“I am here on a mission. Let him assist me with it.”

Orchid considered this. “Is this task very dangerous?”

Rose gave an involuntary tired sigh. “Honestly Orchid? The way my day is going, I’m pretty sure just finding the bathroom is going to be a death-defying act.”

The little Queen nodded, hiding the very ghost of a smile. “Very well. Lord Pansy shall accompany you and serve you as he would serve me. At the end of your task, we shall meet again and discuss further punishment.”

“Have you any disagreement with this arrangement, Lord Pansy?”

“No, my Queen,” he said in a voice that very much indicated that yes, he had a very large disagreement with this arrangement.

“Good.” Orchid smiled. “Now leave my sight. It makes me sad to look upon you.”

She turned to face a familiar red fairy. “Poppy, you shall assume Pansy’s old position for now.”

The little red fairy zipped upward, his crimson glow brightening with jubilation. “Yes, my Queen.”

With that, she turned away and began to discuss pizza toppings with the two trolls. Every other fairy followed suit, turning their back on the still-kneeling Pansy in a very obvious shunning.