“That’s her,” said Bottom. “And if past is prologue, I am to be most grievously and jauntily used—used like a—like a—”

Bottom snuffled his muzzle against my shoulder and his long ears batted about the tentacles of my coxcomb as if trying to make friends.

“Like a beast of burden?” I suggested.

“Aye,” said the ass-man. “Like a beast.” He hid his eyes against me and let loose a wheezing whinny.

With that, the diaphanous curtain of the litter was swept aside and Titania, queen of the night, stepped out onto the green. She was no taller nor rounder than the other fairies, and, but for garlands of flowers draped across her hips and breasts, quite naked. Her skin was as pale as the moon, so pale it seemed that she might be composed of moonlight herself. Her cape of curls was woven with flowers and fragrants so numerous that a moment passed before I could discern that her hair was the same light brown as Peaseblossom’s. Her eyes were emerald green and so wide it seemed she was in a perpetual state of surprise, or perhaps excitement, but definitely—as they darted around like minnows in a bucket—undeniably, as mad as a fucking bedbug.

“Oh, sing again, my glorious mortal, thy song is as beautiful as thy shape.” She danced, tiny steps, across the forest floor until she stood by Bottom, where she stroked his long ears with delicate fingers. “Oh, sing again, my love. Sing again.”

The fairies around the green bowed or averted their eyes. Those who had been working in the ribs of the growing dome clung close to their branches as if trying to become unseen, and while all attention was upon the fairy queen, all pretended to attend to other quiet occupations to create a privacy in the midst of a crowd. I had seen such behavior before, in the mobs about the pagan henges, when the Druids searched for the suitable sacrifice. Fear. Even cheeky Cobweb had folded herself into a stand of tall ferns and grabbed only furtive glances at her fairy queen through the parted fronds.

“Help,” Bottom whispered, but alas, no plan of action came to mind. I was here to see the queen and it appeared that I was doing quite well at it.

Titania moaned softly as she stroked Bottom’s ears, her eyes closed, head thrown back as if in an ecstatic trance, running one hand up his ear, the other down the leg of his trousers, her cheek to his bristly muzzle, even as he nuzzled tighter against my shoulder to escape her. The queen pressed her breasts against Bottom’s arm as he pulled closer to me. She took a long ear in each hand and pulled herself hard against Bottom’s leg; he turned to keep the great growing donkey dong snaking down his trousers away from her, me trying to escape both, which resulted in the three of us doing a rather slow turn in the middle of the forest, until Titania, in renewing her grip upon Bottom’s ear, caught one of the tentacles of my hat, yanking it off my head, at which time she ceased moaning, opened her eyes, and looked at the black and silver hat in her hand, half expecting, I suppose, to find a severed donkey ear, but alas, no. She slid down Bottom’s leg to her feet and peeked around the cringing ass-man’s head to look me in the eye.

“Hello,” said I.

“Who are you?”

“Pocket of Dog Snogging,” I said. “Royal fool, onetime king, and current emissary of Theseus of Athens.” As Cobweb had suggested, I pulled Theseus’s passport from my belt and held it out so she could see the seal. “I have been sent,” said I. I bowed, as much as I could with Bottom clinging to me.

She looked at the seal, looked at me, looked at the seal, looked at Bottom, cowering against my shoulder, shook her head in what appeared to be disgust, looked at me again, then turned and walked through one of the arches into the makeshift palace. Over her shoulder, she called, “Wash the cheese stink off of him and bring him to me.”

A rather small boy of perhaps eight, naked, brown, and scrawny, peeked out of Titania’s litter, then, seeing that the path was clear, padded after her into the green palace.

*

The fairy queen reclined in a raised nest under the domed chamber lit by lamps full of fireflies and a portal in the ceiling open to the moon. I stood before her, naked but for my puppet stick and a vine-belted loincloth the fairies had wrapped me in, and, except for my face and hands, nearly as pale as the fairy queen herself (no one wins the war of the wan against a sun-starved son of England), if a bit pink from the sand scrubbing the fairies had given me at the stream to remove the odor of cheese. (And I had shared my sack of victuals with them to boot, ungrateful, dog-eared vermin.) Cobweb and Moth attended Titania in her nest, weaving fresh blossoms into her hair. Bottom cowered in the far side of the nest, where Peaseblossom scratched his ears with a forked green stick. The other fairies I knew had blended back into the multitude. Some busied themselves with trussing up the last few branches on the dome, others slowly crept away into the forest. It had been no different in the stone castles and palaces where I’d lived and attended; one served as quickly as possible and left the court to their own dirty dealings, except Titania had no court, no clerks or guards. When the scene settled, there were only the servants who waited on her, fewer than a dozen, none armed. Somewhere out of sight, someone played softly on a pan flute.

“So, fool,” said Titania, “what is the message you have brought me from Theseus?”

“Not so much a message as questions, ma’am. First, when was the last you saw the Puck?”

Titania sat up and waved Cobweb and Moth away. Cobweb was shaking her head furiously at me as she retreated to the back of the nest with Bottom, Peaseblossom, and the small brown boy, who was curled into a ball as if trying to disappear up his own bum. “Just that?” said the queen. “Theseus wants to know when I last saw the Puck? Just that?”