"What's it like..." The princess hesitated. "being the prince of the goblins" 

Froglip blinked his bright yellow eyes before his pupil went to the corner of his vision where the princess sat.

"Boring, really," he said after a seconds-worth of reflection. "Goblins alway'th challenging you for the throne. Nothing intereth'ting happens in the goblin kingdom."

Well, not before Princess Irenie.

She laughed, catching him off guard. "That isn't interesting enough?" Irenie asked. "How does it work? Do all goblins try to rule the kingdom?"

"They wouldn't dare!" Froglip said defiantly, his chest puffed out as he flexed his arms on either side of them as if he were facing an opponent right there. "I am much th'tronger than any of those th'impering whelps," he said proudly. 

"So you fight? Physically?" Irenie asked. "Wouldn't that be frightening? I couldn't ever imagine doing that myself."

It would be unheard of for a princess to even demand the right to rule. It was her father who chose Irenie as his successor. He could have just as easily picked one of his many male nephews.

"Of cour'the not!" Froglip laughed loudly and it echoed in their little secluded section of the stairwell. "You're a thun-woman, you have a right to the throne. Goblin Prin'thes are expected to prove them'thelveth worthy by beating all other goblin challengers. Printhes aren't ath true born."

Irenie winced with a painful smile. "I have to marry. Humans don't believe a queen is strong enough on her own to rule."

Froglip's ears perked up, but besides that he managed to keep his interest in the princess' marriage a secret. "Well, queens are much th'tronger rulers than the kings."

"If only I'd been born a goblin," Irenie laughed absentmindedly to herself.

Becoming more confident, Froglip smirked across at Irenie and crossed his arms in front of him.

"If you had been, your hair would match your cloth, printh'eth. My mother hath hair like that." He combed his fingernails through the long braid that fell over the prince's shoulders.

Irenie paused in embarrassment and threaded her fingers together. "Pink is my favourite colour," she said with a laugh.

"No," he gasped dramatically at the princess who was always dressed from head to toe in the colour. "I had no idea."

Irenie stared back with an open-mouthed smile, her brow sitting crookedly as if she was trying to figure him out.

"You aren't anything like I remember," Irenie whispered and she slid sideways along the step, her skirts scraping on the stone as she took a second to stare at him from a better vantage point. "You do remember that night... don't you?"

Froglip's long batty ears drooped and the earrings attached to his lobes glimmered in the near darkness. The prince squared his shoulders with the rest of him so that he was looking down the spiral stairwell again.

"That was mo'tht th'ertainly my one regret."

How embarrassing! He hated that night with every fiber of his princely body.

However, perhaps not for the same reasons Irenie thought he meant.

Still, the princess felt a wave of relief crash over her, she almost felt like crying. Even though she knew she had gone to his room and demanded the nefarious goblin prince to follow her, she had been shaking almost the entire time. The princess was so relieved by his answer that Irenie didn't even ask to what the prince was referring, and believed she knew what he meant. That he was sorry for what he had done by coming into her room, overthrowing the castle and frightening her by trying to capture her.

From the bottom of her heart, she wanted to believe that.

Suddenly, Irenie opened up her palms and exposed the thing that she had been holding this entire time. The gift Prince Froglip had given her. She hadn't really had any plans for it.

"You haven't even opened it–" Froglip said in a blatantly disapproving way with his bottom lip stuck out. He pointed at the rock.

She couldn't help the laugh that came from her lips. "You didn't exactly hand me a string wrapped parcel, Prince Froglip. What on earth was I supposed to do with a rock?" She had set it on her nightstand, hadn't she? That was better than all the other presents she had received that night, now strewn about the castle.

"Pffthaha– You thun-people are tho thimple," the goblin laughed as he swiped it from her. "It reminded me of you."

"I remind you of a rock?" Irenie snorted in the un-princessly way that would have made her tutors cringe.

"It'th not juth't a rock–" Prince Froglip mimicked her snort as he was palming the thing from one hand to the other. "Moth't goblins think they're ugly." With just one hand, the prince crushed her gift in his fist.

The princess breathed in sharply, but when he opened up his fingers the two shimmering halves rolled back in his empty palms. It glittered a beautiful pale pink in the centre, like a secret jewel hidden by stone.

Irenie let a laugh escape her as she took one of them. "You think I'm ugly?"