Fairy Godmother

eat my new peas,' Lily added, in such an aggrieved tone of voice that they all laughed again.

Elena was definitely of two minds about her new situation. On the one hand, she had never been so contented. Not that she and Alexander were of one accord on all matters; that would have been ridiculous, and besides, she would have immediately suspected that The Tradition was about to unleash something awful on the two of them. They were lovers, they were still friends, life was full of wonderful things. Rose was still clearly harboring some reservations, but the other three were as delighted with the new state of things as Elena herself was. Even Randolf approved. Alexander had, overnight, gotten the trick of projecting magical power into his weapons, and now needed only to perfect that skill and hone his fighting abilities to be ready for whatever challenge was put in his path as a Champion.

But on the other hand —

— she kept waiting for the Consequences of her action to occur. No Godmother, so far as she had been able to tell, in all of the Chronicles, had ever broken The Tradition as thoroughly as she had when it came to this. Oh, there had been Champions in the households of Godmothers before this, but they had all been true Fairy Godmothers, of the Great Fae, and so had their Champions been. The Chronicles were very sketchy concerning those Godmothers, which was hardly surprising, since the Fae did not particularly care to be written about. Nowhere had she found any reference to a Godmother with a lover...much less a princely lover.

It did seem terribly unfair, though. Wizards got to take lovers, so why not Godmothers?

'Madame Bella got along perfectly well without Unicorns,' Robin said, gesturing emphatically with his fork. 'There are plenty of other sources of magic, and Elena is very careful about how she uses the power she has.'

'She's that saving, indeed she is,' said Rose, bestowing an unusually benevolent gaze on Elena. 'She never wasted any bit of magic on indulgences or on show. Usually by this time, a young Godmother's been caught a bit short and had to improvise, but our Madame Elena never has.'

'Touch wood,' Elena said, automatically.

'Well, if you're sure you don't mind — ' Alexander said after a moment of silence. 'But I'd thought you were really fond of them.'

'I'm fond of toffee pudding, but that doesn't mean I want to eat it for every meal,' she pointed out logically.

'Yes, but if you couldn't ever have it again — ' he persisted.

'Oh, it isn't that she'll never have Unicorns about,' Rose told him. 'They'll come if she calls on them magically, or if the Great Fae sends them. She just won't be able to touch them.'

He opened his mouth to say something, but no one would ever learn what it was, because at that moment, they all heard the unmistakable sound of something galloping towards the cottage, up the hard-frozen road. And there were missteps in the sound that told them all that whatever was coming was exhausted and on its last legs.

But most of all, there was the unmistakable, yet intangible, sensation of a great 'weight' falling on them, as the looming wave of magic and Tradition collapsed upon them.

It completely staggered Elena.

Hob reacted first, running to the kitchen door, wrenching it open, and hurling himself out into the frozen yard. Alexander was right behind him. As Elena burst from the door behind them, the rider tumbled off into Alexander's arms. Hob had seized the horse's bridle and was doing — something. Something magical; Elena saw the blue-green motes of magic power that has been separated from the mass of undifferentiated magic and given a purpose swirling around the beast. They were no thicker than dust in a sunbeam, but whatever Hob was doing gave the horse enough strength to stumble towards the stable. The magic motes sank into the beast rapidly, as Hob's spell took effect.

She clasped her arms around herself, shivering, as she hurried to Alexander's side. The cold hammered at her, but she ignored it as best she could, for the man Alexander was supporting was trying to gasp out something.

'....Prince Julian captive,' he croaked hoarsely. 'The Princess locked in the East Tower. Trolls everywhere....' and his eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed. Without a word, Alexander hefted the man over his shoulders and hauled him bodily into the kitchen, where Rose and Lily took the stranger from him. He turned on his heel without a word, his face grim and pale, and would have run straight out again had Elena not caught him by the shoulders and forced him to stop.

'What happened?' she asked, urgently. 'What happened to your brother?'

He stared at her wildly. 'Julian — blessed Saints, Elena, Julian! Some wicked magician has taken Fleurberg! King Stancia is dead, Princess Kylia is imprisoned, and my brother — my brother — Julian!'

She shook his shoulders. 'Alexander! Calm down! Make sense! What happened? You have to tell me so I can help you!'

It took a few minutes, and they had to go back into the cottage where Rose and Lily had revived the messenger, but eventually they learned the truth.

A stranger had come striding into King Stancia's Great Hall when the entire court was at dinner. He had not come alone; he had been accompanied by an escort of heavily, baroquely armored men and monsters (the messenger called them 'trolls,' but they didn't correspond to any description of a troll that Elena knew). He had not gotten past the guards on the walls, nor the walls themselves; he had simply appeared in the grounds, his creatures had swarmed the few guards that they encountered within the Palace to clear his path to the Great Hall.

He had announced — nothing. No challenge, no gloating, not a word. He had simply unleashed his escort and his magics. The messenger had been one of the few able to flee the room; he hadn't seen much, but what he had seen was terrible.

He was no knight, only a young squire, and fortunately, he was wise enough to know what he could not do. He had hidden himself and waited.

Within the hour, most of Stancia's court had been slaughtered, Stancia was dead, Julian had been thrown