Who: Brennan Gallagher & Hannah Ryan What: She may have failed to break his curse, but she's not giving up that easily. Where: The Troll Queen's Castle, East of the Sun and West of the Moon When: Dusk Warnings: TBD, probably mild.
The drink was sitting, in its golden goblet, on the table by Bren's bedside. His fiancée had brought it for him, like she had the last two nights, bidding him to drink it so that he could rest peacefully. It wasn't that Bren trusted her. He had no reason to trust her, or her mother. His stepmother, and hadn't that been a great choice on his father's part? Sure, he got that his father had been lonely after his mother died, but there was lonely, and then there was marrying a troll. Fine, so she could shapeshift, and she and her daughter had looked fine when they'd met, but he had to have had some idea that something was wrong before he'd actually married her, right? Or at some point before he'd died and Bren had been left alone with her, at least, it should have occurred to him that there was something weird about his wife.
No, he didn't trust her, but he hadn't been sleeping well, since he'd had to return to the palace East of the Sun and West of the Moon, so he'd figured... what did he have to lose? If she was poisoning him, at least it might mean that he'd die before he had to go through with the wedding. He didn't want to marry her, had never wanted to marry her. That was why he'd ended up cursed in the first place. If he had to choose between marrying her and being a bear whenever the sun was out, damn right Bren had chosen to be a bear. Of course, if he could not be a bear, and still not have to marry her, that would be the better choice. And he could have. There'd been a way, and he'd thought...
It was kind of wrong for him to ask Hannah's father for her, without just asking her instead, but he'd watched her. Not in a creepy way... okay, probably in a creepy way, but Bren had watched her from the woods, seen how clever she was, how brave. She was so beautifully, wonderfully human, from her stubborn head to her bossy mouth, all the way down (not that it was that far) to the soles of her feet. Sure, he could have just asked her if she'd come with him, if she'd be willing to live with him for a year, while they were handfasted, and then marry him. But... he was a bear. Why would she say yes to him? Her father had already sold away one of his children, though, and while Bren hadn't had as much to offer as a demon, in exchange, he'd managed to persuade him easily enough. And... he'd thought that, after she'd gotten to know him, Hannah had liked him. That maybe she'd wanted to be there, after all. That maybe this could work, that she'd stay with him for a year while he was a bear by day, a man by night, and then at the end of it the curse would be broken and they could get married, the way he wanted to. The way she deserved.
He'd known how curious she was, too. He should have expected that she couldn't wait for a whole year to know what he looked like when the sun was down and he came to her in the dark, laid beside her and talked to her for hours until they fell asleep. He hadn't, though, and it had been a cruel, painful surprise when those three drops of tallow had dripped on him and woken him up. That was it, then. That was the end, that was his chance to break the curse his way and it had failed. It was broken, alright, but it was broken because his stepmother couldn't marry him off to her daughter while he was running around as a bear, so she'd reversed it herself. Bren wished he was still a bear, waiting for the sun to set so that he could creep into bed with Hannah, lay his head on her shoulder, and feel like maybe everything was going to work out, after all.
One of the castle servants had told him, that morning, that he'd heard a girl calling out Bren's name in his room that night, while he'd been deeply asleep. That she'd been trying to wake him. He didn't know who the girl was, but Bren knew. Bren knew, because Bren knew that Hannah was just as stubborn as she was curious. He shouldn't hope. There shouldn't have been any hope left. He'd lost. He'd tried a gamble, he'd tried to beat his stepmother at her own game, and he'd lost... but he couldn't help it. Tonight, he left the cup full of whatever potion his fiancée had brought him. Tonight, he was going to see Hannah again, and maybe she couldn't save him, but part of Bren was satisfied knowing that she cared enough to have tried.