The nearly black sky cried out with each clash of lightning. As it was not yet dusk, there was a strange hue to the clouds that fought with all their might to keep the sun at bay.

Gray cloud after gray cloud rolled in, colliding in on one another. Each attempt of the sun to make itself known, failed, its rays swallowed up by concrete colored sky.

Pest, lying on his back, focused there rather than the crime so close to his proximity.

The next strike came with the lightning.

As he lay recovering, he fought back the feeling of nausea rising up inside him.

"This! Now you do this much! You were out with this?" The shrill cries came from Fanli's mother.

And while Pest struggled to recover from his injury, he tried to make sense of families and what they'd come to symbolize to him...and Fanli.

Lightning came again, as did a backhand. This was the first time Fanli made a sound.

Pest wasn't sure where he found the strength; suddenly he was simply standing. And then another flash of lightning and he stepped in the path of the readied club.

Fanli tucked at his back, Pest stood before the enraged ogress. She refused to back down at first—in fact, she attempted to step around Pest to reach her distraught daughter once more, but Pest matched her step.

His body still pulsed from the pain but the moment Fanli, at first very determined to come to her father's rescue, now cowered at Pest's back, Pest in turn puffed out his chest.

The aged ogress still seethed. "Fairy, move—"

"Yes. I'm a fairy. So I'd like to see you boss me about."

Eyes dimmed, Fanli's mother stared up at him. Pest felt confident until she said, "Get out from behind him. Now."

For a long minute, nothing happened. Finally, Fanli abandoned the safety of Pest's broad body. Her mother caught her by the top of her head and yanked her the rest of the way.

How she crumbled to the ground spoke of suffering.

Everything in Pest pushed him to attack, but who? Fanli's mother? And how?

"What is supposed to happen to you now! No wonder Lowgli doesn't want you."

Pest looked from Fanli's crumpled frame to the one still yanking her by the hair. He was at a loss until one voice broke through the violence.

"Let her up."

Lowgli's face was one Pest refused to focus on. He simply stared through the bastard as he demanded Fanli's release yet again.

"Doesn't matter what he was born, he's still an ogre now. And an ogre who won her."

Perhaps it was the shock of Lowgli's words more than the authority in his voice why Fanli's mother let go.

Both her and her husband stood defeated. Fanli's father hadn't said a word since his battle with Pest.

From Fanli shivering silently on the ground, to her mother who stood with her head hung and her father who cradled his disgraced club like some tattered dolly, Pest could see it. The ruin. He'd single-handedly wrecked this family.

And he hated himself for it.

He should have kept on his original path; he should never have deviated, at least not for the likes of Lowgli.

Pest struggled with something to say but lost the chance when yet another ogre looked past him.

"Night Fae," someone said.

The fairies. While all eyes stayed focused on what was coming, Pest instead looked down at what he'd caused.

He was slow to crouch, mostly from the pain it aggravated. His one attempt at reaching for Fanli had her flinching.

"You're about to lose your bait," Lowgli's father muttered.

No answer came for some time before Lowgli grumbled, "Doesn't matter. Getting the bait was already an achievement. It's as good as a dragon." He turned his attention to Pest. "Stand up."

But Pest couldn't move. He feared what he'd do if he met the bastard at eye level.

"Don't be foolish," Lowgli said. "Her father losing to an ogre with no tusks is far worse than him losing to a fairy." Still ignored, Lowgli searched the crowd for agreement. "Right?"

It came as a grumble at first, then a nod from another.

Pest wished he understood what was so terrible about fighting a fairy.

"So that's forgiven," Lowgli shouted. "Right?"

It was a slower echoing of his words, but nods and muttering came.

"He's an ogre now, but not a real one. Otherwise we'd be facing a conflict with the Fae." With those words, Lowgli's father looked down at Pest and explained, "Something we can't survive. So don't be mad that my son gave you up, fairy."

"Ogre treasure turned him into an ogre," Lowgli said.

His father nodded then called out, "We'll strip the treasure off and turn him over." Impressed, he said to Fanli's father, "This will appease the humans. It'll stop the mobs. And it'll stop the dragon."

"I didn't give him up for that," Lowgli said. All eyes focused on him, Pest included. "He's become an ogre. Whatever he'd wished for was so corrupt that the treasure transformed him into an ogre after the fact. That only happens for one reason. And you all know it."

This had Pest rising to his feet. Because he didn't know it.

"Whenever you feel like informing me...."

"Your wish was to injure me," Fanli muttered.

Her words propelled Pest back.

Lowgli advanced, however. "Ogre treasure can do anything, but it cannot bring harm to the ogre to fashion it. So if you wish for something, even if you didn't know it would harm her, the treasure will punish you."

"By turning me into an ogre...?" The words pounded in Pest's head. The eerie silence of the crowd punctuated the seriousness of it all. Pest scanned their disgusted faces, and he could do only one thing. He laughed. The hurt of his chuckle had him laughing in earnest, so much so that he doubled over to keep upright.

It was no secret fairies took pleasure in the suffering of others. Pest thought perhaps he was experiencing something like that now because he couldn't stop himself from laughing despite the sour expressions on everyone's face.

If not for glancing at Fanli to find her wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, he would have kept on.

That one action stole the next sound of revelry coming up from out of his throat.

"No. Come on." Pest crouched to meet her again. His attempt at holding her shoulder came with a slap of his hand. When he tried to touch her face and met the same resistance, he ignored her strikes and held her face in both hands. "Fan. If you want to know what I wished for, then I'll tell you."

After he whispered, not a sound filled the air. Even the menacing lightning in the distance came without its precious thunder.

Lowgli took a step back. "That was your wish?"

Pest didn't care what anyone thought, he kept his eyes squarely on Fanli.

He'd resolved to take that wish to his grave but now that so many people knew, he wasn't sure what to say—what to think.

The warming of Fanli's cheeks however, seeped into Pest's skin, rushing through him as well.

A tear traveled down Fanli's left cheek. The moment it past Pest's thumb, he reached down for her. He brought their foreheads to meet and guided her hands to his waist.

It took some time, but she held him in return.

Pest wasn't sure what compelled him to reach for the necklace and the seeds wrapped in the leaf by his throat. Instead of the two he'd left, there were more. He ignored that fact and held one seed in his palm. Then he guided Fanli's hand to take it.

"Show me how to make this into treasure," he whispered.

Face still flushed, Fanli shook her head. "You need to figure it out on your own."

Their foreheads still pressed together as he struggled to understand her words. How could he make it on his own?

Everyone watched them, and although no one spoke, Pest knew this attempt was important.

He rubbed the seed between his palms, praying he could manage this. When he opened his hand to find a thin golden needle, far shorter than the one Lowlgi had created, he was still thrilled.

Pest pushed past his worry and flexed the metal that had formed. His first attempt at putting it into Fanli's nose caused his hands to tremble. The moment she held his fists to steady him, all trepidation vanished.

Fanli stifled a shriek when Pest put the ring in. It was small but he found it cute.

It didn't draw too much focus and its small size took away the resemblance to a bull's piercing as well.

"I don't want you to ever take this off. All right?"

The surprise in Fanli's eyes had Pest smiling wide.

"I'll make sure you never have to."

Pest took the chorus of gasps as a positive. That notion faded when he turned to see what interested everyone so.

Dotted against the gray sky, yellow shimmered—the black wings of the night Fae powering up.

And not just one, but an army.

The clouds didn't need to hide the sun, because the colorful bodies of the fairies were so plentiful that their presence consumed the very sky.

"That was a short-lived marriage, fairy."

Lowgli's words drew Pest's focus. Suddenly, the prospect of imminent doom became an afterthought.

"Wait. What? What do you mean marriage?" Pest didn't mean to wail it—especially with how Fanli's hand went to the ring in her nose. She didn't dare touch it, though it looked like she wanted to.

In this very moment, Pest's erratic heart stopped.

He'd married her. He'd...married her. He'd married an ogre. And she'd let him.

Try as he might, he couldn't will his body to respond to his very reasonable pleas to do something.

Instead, he watched Fanli. She didn't look at him, not until he reached for her hand, and she slipped from his grip.

That one action had his heart skipping a beat. Now when he looked at her, focused solely on the nose piercing, he felt full, not terrified, pleased not hesitant, and proud not at all ashamed.

She was his.

Pest dipped lower, using his nose to tap her chin. When she looked up at him, finally, he stole a kiss.

It was a shy smile she gave at first, one that failed to mature.

"The fairies," someone warned.

"We should run."

"We don't have to run. If we run, they'll chase. We've done no wrong."

"We can talk to them."

Apparently, at Pest's back, the end of the world loomed. That was fine.

He didn't care a lick. Not until something shot from the sky and tore through his back and out his left shoulder.

Fanli's horrified scream rang in Pest's ears, but he could do nothing but look down at the tree branch now embedded in his arm.

"Can't I just get one good day?" Pest groaned.

Someone screamed, "Run!"