to one attempting to get free and the other pulling him down. They weren't even trading blows. And there was a lot of shouting from both of them. The blond seemed desperately to be trying to make a bargain of some kind. The other was having none of this, yelling 'Bugger off! I saw her first!'
Lily was not going to allow any of this to distract her, and she had three hundred years in spell-casting behind her to give her every ounce of the discipline she needed. She sketched sigils in the air with her wand and punctuated each with a twirl that sent a swirl of dustlike sparkles soaring through the air. This was something of a signature touch for her; it was a characteristic of the magic that most with Fae blood had, for Fae magic was visible even to ordinary folk. This was why stories were full of references to 'fairy dust.' As the men wallowed and shouted at each other, she concentrated on her magic, as drift after drift of sparkling power wafted over Rosa, and the scent of roses, violets and lilies intensified.
She finished the spell with a final arc of power that hung over Rosa like a rainbow dissolving into mist; she knew that it had worked when she saw Rosa's chest move. A few seconds later, the sleep spell wore off by itself.
For one moment, the men were silent, and in that silence, Rosa coughed.
Both men froze at the sound. Their heads turned as if they had been pulled by the same string, and they stared at Rosa, who was just raising her hand, slowly to her head. Her eyes weren't open yet, but her eyelids fluttered. Lily sighed in relief. Whatever happened now, the men were both too late for The Tradition to make a hash of this.
Evidently however, they didn't know this, or else they thought they were still in time to work the Traditional awakening. Both scrambled for purchase on the slippery grass. The dark one was just a bit faster than the blond. He squirmed away and leapt desperately for the groggy Princess, leaving the other grasping at where his heels had been.
Rosa did not so much fall asleep as...well, drop into oblivion. Her last thought, as she felt something very strange start to happen after drinking the potion, was to wonder,was I tricked by Queen Sable into believing she was Godmother Lily, who was impersonating Queen Sable, who —
Then, there was nothing.
Next, like a very heavy wagon being pulled by straining horses finally starting to move, hair by hair, she was aware the way a plant was aware, then her thoughts slowly formed again, floating up out of the dark pool of nothingness, following the path they'd been on when she stopped thinking altogether.
— was pretending to be Old Maggie, who was really —
She coughed, and her spinning thoughts came to a dead stop. So she hadn't been tricked? She realized she was awake again, and lying on something hard and flat, laid out neatly with her hands folded on her chest. She felt warmth on her skin that felt like sunlight, smelled flowers, heard someone running — And then, out of nowhere, felt a mouth mashed against hers and a pair of hands on her breasts.
There was a single moment of feeling strangely tingly and an unfamiliar pleasure that warmed her in a way the sun did not.
But only a moment. Then she was galvanized with outrage. Her eyes flew open; all she saw was the cheek and brown hair of someone she certainly did not know, who was taking liberties that no one other than a husband had any right to take. Rage added to outrage. She did the only thing possible for a spirited young woman under such circumstances.
All in an instant, she made sure of where his groin was, which wasn't at all difficult considering how he was sprawled all over her. And she brought her knee up into it with all her strength. She was someone who had spent all of her life dancing, riding, walking, not a weak little thing that spent her days reclining on a couch, embroidering or listening to gossip. Her legs were strong, very strong.
The person taking the liberties was actually propelled over her head and off to the side by the force of the blow. As soon as his weight was gone, Rosa scrambled off the place where she had been lying. She tumbled from what turned out to be a stone slab and leapt to her feet, looking around herself for a weapon of any sort. She didn't see one, but she did see the Godmother, whose right eye was twitching, and who had both her hands over her mouth, her wand sticking out at a comical angle.
Rosa staggered over to her side, and turned toward her attacker, but it was obvious that he was in no shape to take any further liberties, and probably would not be for a good while. He was alternating between gasping and groaning and was curled up in a fetal position with both hands tucked between his legs. She felt a moment of intense satisfaction, seeing him like that. Served him right, taking liberties with a girl he thought couldn't defend herself.
Stifled laughter was leaking between Godmother Lily's fingers.
Surprisingly, Rosa felt a laugh bubbling up inside her, too, and she had to fight to suppress it. There was a heavy, sorrow-filled sigh to her right; she glanced over, and realized there was a fourth person in this forest clearing.
A very blond, very large man picked himself up out of the grass and flung himself at her feet, babbling at her. She tried to sort out what he wanted, but his accent was so thick she couldn't understand a word he was saying. For a moment, Rosa wondered if she had gone mad, and this was all some delusion or other. Or maybe Coward had hit her over the head and this was some sort of brainstorm. Why else would she be standing in the middle of the forest with the Kingdom's Fairy Godmother and two men she had never seen before, one of whom didn't seem to be able to speak reasonable Eltarian, the other of whom was a libertine?
But his words definitely had an effect on the Godmother. She stopped trying to stifle her laughter and sobered, but as the blond man tried to grasp her hand she stepped back and snapped,'Silence!' Rosa's eyes widened. Granted, she had not seen Godmother Lily all that often, but she didn't ever recall the Godmother using that commanding tone of voice before. Nor one so overflowing with irritation.
The blond shut up abruptly, his guileless blue eyes going very wide indeed, and Lily strode over to Rosa's victim. She made a perfunctory gesture with her wand, one that didn't produce any of the usual fairy dust; and the man stopped groaning and slowly began to sit up.
'I — ' he began.
'Shut up,' snapped Lily. 'Here is an order. I do not, ever, want to hear a sentence from you beginning with 'I' again. You very nearly ruined everything. So did you,' she added to the blond, who dropped his chin and looked up at them both with a hang-dog gaze. She contemplated them both; her expression softened just a little, looking at the
