Briallen didn’t remember her fairy godmother very well. She knew that she had one, most noble-born girls in a kingdom where witches had covenized did; it was like having princess insurance. Even some of the less fortunate ones got one eventually. Witches tended to be very charitable that way. If ever Briallen found herself in a situation so desperate that only magic could fix it, then she at least had her fairy godmother to fall back on.

Somewhere in the back of her head, during her totally deserved fit of melodrama, Briallen had known that there was a chance all her threats of showing them what a real curse breaking looked like and how she wished she was actually cursed, because then they’d all see and be sorry had a chance of being heard and listened to. It was something about wishes, or maybe the idea of princesses and curses in the same sentence; fairy godmothers were supposed to keep an ear out for those sorts of things.

So when a woman with silvery hair, dressed in black brocade, riding on a broomstick touched down onto Briallen’s balcony the evening after yet another miserable first and last date, Briallen had two first thoughts:

One, Oh! That had actually worked. And two, Oh. Her situation was that kind of desperate. Like, for real.

Gran Milly looked about how Briallen had expected and a little how she remembered too. Matronly; witches called one another that, but Briallen wasn’t sure if she should; she’d always been told to use Gran Milly. But not so much so that Briallen felt her unapproachable. There were strays amongst the gray hair and snags in her brocade. She leaned on the gnarled handle of her broom, despite her mode of transportation not appearing all that physically taxing, but she was old.

“Wow.” Briallen couldn’t help letting out her astonishment and a little fear. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I kind of hoped—Am I really that bad?”

“Of course not.” Gran Milly’s brow furrowed, and she sounded stern. Not the sickly sweet Briallen had feared when she considered purposefully calling on her fairy godmother. There was no offer of hugs, no cluck of pity.

“What- What seems to be the problem?” Gran Milly sounded even less sure of herself, asking that, but Briallen decided she liked that, too. It was endearing. If her fairy godmother had shown up, declaring that she really could fix everything with a wave of her wand or some magic potion, Briallen wouldn’t have trusted it. It was one thing to want that; it was a whole other thing if Gran Milly truly believed it.

Briallen took a deep breath before launching into her explanation, “Everyone’s always like, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Briallen! No pressure! You don’t even have to get married if you don’t want to, but here’s a bunch of reasons why you should! But we totally believe in your ability to govern a country by yourself, if that’s what you want, but we also don’t trust you to do anything by yourself ever. And nobody wants to be alone forever. Why would I want to be alone forever? I don’t. And like, of course, the first few weren’t going to work out; that’s just statistics! That’s not my fault. How is that my fault? Apparently, it is my fault! It’s my fault! And everyone’s lying, because I can’t just be myself. Being myself just gets taken as a challenge, and who wants to be that? I don’t. I’m not. But you know what?”

She hadn’t expected to feel so upset again. It had been hours since Briallen had finished crying. And she’d felt stupid about it the whole time, crying over some man she didn’t even care about. Two men, technically, she guessed, but that just made it twice as stupid.

Maybe even three times as stupid, given the way she felt Gran Milly was looking at her.

The old woman frowned, perplexed. “I’m afraid I still don’t know what, dear.”

Briallen squeaked, not even sure what she would say if she could. Leave it to her to be the first case where not even a fairy godmother could help. Her throat tightened, and her lip threatened to begin quivering again at the idea.

“I’m sorry, Gran Milly.” Briallen sniffled and blinked back what threatened to become tears. Just because this was her fairy godmother didn’t mean she was allowed to forget herself like that. Even if she had been caught off guard, “I think I should have invited you in first.”

Gran Milly nodded. Maybe she didn’t look bewildered; maybe that was just Briallen’s own perceptions playing tricks on her. And she didn’t look bothered either. That was good. Her own actual grandmother would have taken the opportunity to chide her for being impolite.

✨

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Gran Milly clapped her hands together after seating herself in the armchair beside the fireplace. It was too warm to have it lit, though Briallen did offer; in her experience, older people always seemed to be cold when nobody else was.

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Briallen sat across from her on the ottoman. Despite only being in her dressing gown, she did remember to cross her ankles and fold her hands in her lap. Even if Gran Milly sounded interested, if not downright enthusiastic now, Briallen’s gaze remained on the rug beneath them. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no. No sorries.” Gran Milly should have sounded cloying. Anyone else would have. Except Cal and Argan de Rais, and whoever else they talked about her with. Gran Milly still sounded stern, though. She really meant it and wasn’t just saying things to make Briallen feel better in the moment. “Maybe I should be apologizing to you. I haven’t been the most present in your life.”

“No.” Briallen didn’t want Gran Milly to feel bad for all this either. This was Briallen’s problem, and clearly no amount of mothering or grandmothering had been able to fix it, so she didn’t know what the addition of a godmother—fairy or not—would do for her now. “I mean, I didn’t think I was ever going to need you.”

“What changed?”

“I think—I want—" Briallen picked at one of the ottoman’s buttons as she not so much thought about what she was trying to say, or what she did think, or even what she wanted, but how to express exactly what she was feeling. “I think—I think I should just be a goblin.”

Gran Milly blinked, once. She didn’t smile. She didn’t raise her eyebrows. She didn’t do much reacting at all, which left Briallen reeling.

“You can do that, right? I mean… People get cursed all the time, don’t they? And this is probably even better because I’m asking you to do it, and that means you have to.”

"Oh, it means I have to, does it?”

Everything about Briallen froze. She didn’t mean it that way, though she certainly heard it now. And had she been wrong? What would happen if Gran Milly couldn’t or wouldn’t do it? If she got stuck with some love potion or prophetic ramblings about how she’d really know who was the one or anything to do with being kissed, then Briallen felt very certain she’d regret this entire thing.

"Well, you’re supposed to be my fairy godmother, aren’t you?” Briallen didn’t mean to whine, but she was starting to feel a bit desperate. If she didn’t do it now, then she might lose her nerve. And if she lost her nerve—or Gran Milly told her that it couldn’t be done—then what did she do?

“Of course I am.” Gran Milly frowned, but it softened with some more thought. “You just never needed me before... I had begun to believe you might never.”

“Was I supposed to?” It was Briallen’s turn to scowl, then think. “I thought you were only supposed to bother a fairy godmother for big things.”

“Like becoming a goblin.”

Although her nerves certainly hadn’t been anywhere near settled since earlier that afternoon, Briallen felt her panic rise again. “Can you not? I’ll settle for just a raccoon or a crow. I always figured frogs were more for princes, but maybe that’s wrong of me? I just thought the goblin thing had a bit of dramatic irony to it. Since apparently I act like one.”

“Well, I’m sure I could, but... Aren’t you supposed to be asking me to make you prettier? Or make that what’s his face fall in love with you?”

“I don’t care about what's his face.” Briallen growled first and then wondered just how Gran Milly knew to say that. Easy guess, probably. She did, though, run back through the list of all her suitors, just in case. It wasn’t a terribly long list—she both wasn’t that kind of girl, nor was she, despite current feelings, that bad at first dates—but there really hadn’t been any standouts now that Briallen thought about it. “And I know how to be pretty. I am pretty. It’s just... hard and annoying, and I don’t want to be anymore. Nobody cares about that. I want to be the stupid gremlin freak everyone thinks I am.”

“I’m sure they don’t really.” But Gran Milly didn’t sound sure. She sounded an awful lot like she was only repeating something she knew to say in these kinds of situations.

"Yes, they do.” Briallen growled some more, and she didn’t even feel bad about it; if she had to prove it to her own fairy godmother that she was deserving of being turned into a goblin... She had some work to do and quickly. “What’s his face at least told me to my face.”

Gran Milly heaved a sigh. “You’re asking for a curse, you know? I’m not supposed to do that to you unless you’ve been particularly vain or self-centered.”

“I know.” That’s what Briallen had called it before. That’s what everyone knew to call it, though Briallen had wondered if it still counted as one if the accursed had asked for it in the first place.

The answer took some consideration from Gran Milly. Briallen got the impression that wasn’t the one she had been expecting.

“It isn’t even supposed to be my decision, really; the coven usually has to have a vote about these things.”

"Well, that doesn’t make sense.” Maybe it did. Briallen didn’t know the first thing about how witches and covens worked. “You’re my fairy godmother, not the rest of your coven.”

“I could get in a lot of trouble for that…” Gran Milly didn’t so much seem to be speaking to Briallen as much as she did to herself. “They really should be more concerned with stuff like this; how were they supposed to boot me out to the sticks without knowing I might do something like this?”

Briallen worried her bottom lip. She didn’t want to get Gran Milly in trouble, of course. And if it was a bad idea or something that couldn’t be done, then Gran Milly would have told her, wouldn’t she? Maybe if Gran Milly kept talking, Briallen would change her mind. Like the first time Briallen had nearly called her on purpose. But Briallen didn’t want to change her mind. Not now that Gran Milly had come all the way here, and she still didn’t know what the backup plan was. If there was one. And how embarrassing would that be?

“It might take months to fix, maybe even years.” But Gran Milly didn’t sound terribly put out by that idea. Her attention snapped back to Briallen. “Do you know that?”

“Well…” She chewed her lip a little more. She hadn’t been considering years. Just long enough to prove her point. She certainly hoped it didn’t take everyone else years to get the message. And she definitely didn’t need it dependent on someone actually loving her. “Since I’m asking to be cursed, don’t I get to set the terms of it being broken?”

Gran Milly nodded, but it was the kind that started slow while she thought about it and increased in fervor as a thought solidified. “There are some parameters to be worked between, but something tells me you’ll find us a nice loophole.”