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Protect child
Save humanity?
Cons
No divorce
Might be a trap
Giving up personal agency/happiness
Different species
Rogue can annoy the hell out of me
When I looked at the list, the possibility of protecting the child and hopefully saving all of humankind from Titania outweighed the rest. Especially since the cons mostly consisted of variations on my uncertainty and lack of future happiness. And it didn’t escape my notice that the pro list was longer.
As Rogue had so coldly pointed out, I didn’t have to be happy about it. And, as Puck had noted, however obliquely—being happy would be up to me, regardless.
I’d been in this place before, at a dead end, trapped. Then I’d had the opportunity—however impulsive and badly handled—to walk off and I had. A decision that ultimately had led me to this place. As tempting as it might be to run away from this, I would not.
The decision firm in my mind that I’d wed Rogue at the moment of solstice the next day, I retired to bed alone and gazed up at the impossible firmament of Faerie. So starkly beautiful. The skies of Earth doubled over and intensified.
I tumbled into tangled, hallucinogenic dreams—the first like them I’d had since rescuing Rogue. In them I wore silver chains and I’d been trapped in a cell. No, inside an egg. Though I pounded to break through the leathery substance, it only flexed under my fists. I dug my nails in, the platinum claws springing from my fingers, and I sliced at it. The shell seamlessly resealed. Then I couldn’t slash anymore, the chains held me back. The air grew thick, lacking oxygen and I choked on it.
It wasn’t an egg after all. No, it was a cocoon and I was wrapped up in it, with Titania embracing me, inserting her proboscis. To feed. Or to lay eggs, like a wasp.
I screamed.
“Gwynn. Wake up.” For the second time I came back to myself with Rogue’s gaze filling my vision. He had my wrists pinned to the bed, his face bleeding a little from a trio of scratches. With an effort of will, I retracted the claws and he released my wrists. “You cried out in your sleep,” he offered, as if in defense.
“Sorry. I’m surprised you heard me.”
“I always hear you, my Gwynn.”
“I’m sorry for that too.”
“Don’t be. There’s enough room for regret between us without adding that on.”
True enough. An awkward pause fell between us. I didn’t know what to say except that I wanted to apologize and I didn’t know what for. Then the moment was over and Rogue stood, moonlight glinting white off his loose hair.
“Go back to sleep, Gwynn. I’ll keep watch over you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to?”
“No. I’m just sure you must have better things to do.”
He sat down again. Seemed like he might touch my cheek, but stopped himself. “Nothing is more important than you are.”
“Except for your Grand Plan, whatever it may be.”
“Youare the plan. There is nothing else. If I behave in ways you don’t like, it’s because of that. This is the only type I revert to.”
Even in my blackest moments, it always amused me, his eidetic memory, how he recalled my least remark. Somehow, in the dark with my mind befuddled with the nightmare, I couldn’t muster the same self-righteous anger I clung to in the light of day. I could make a list of his personality flaws, yes—and then make at least an equal column of my own.
“I’m sorry you dread marrying me so much,” he said. “If I could change your heart on that I would.”
