"I want to be queen of this nation," she told me. The privacy of her thoughts was a delicacy. Who could have known this side of her, the one who erred, faulted, and feared like every other mortal creature? The shame of royals and their station always added a touch more to it. "I wish to rule it well. and I do not wish the king invading in my affairs."

"The only affairs he wishes to invade are yours." Bemusedly, I continued to pet the puppy in my lap. Even now, it had not accepted me completely, but it was a good child. After a while, I got bored of it enough and sent it back into my realm; I had to keep it in suspended sleep to play with it or else it would have kept barking and growling, but even this was not as interesting as a conversation with my Queen. "You are quiet to my statement, but I assume you know."

"Yes," she said softly, fingers tightening around the handle of her teacup. I liked her as I'm sure she liked me--we were threatless to one another. I am neither human nor ambitious; I cannot betray nor lie. There was no benefit I derived from merely offering a listening ear, and yet all my advantages was hers by the king's pact simply bringing me to this plane.

"I called it companionship, but I realize now it is even simpler than that. You need me to be your friend, I see."

She flustered. "How dare you! I am queen. I am--"

I liked her, this queen, as I pitied the king. Even with so many years gone by, he would never obtain her love--at least, not in the way he desired it. She liked him at a distance and so she kept him a distance. She was like me: we understand only obsession, making use of others, and achieving our own means whenever possible. She was unlike him; she did not love so fully her heart might've broken, and duty came before personal happiness.

And yet, she still was human. Like him, in the end.

She stretched her hand out. "Can you be touched?" It was an abrupt question, but she had quickly realized that my directness was in part a gift to her. She received and reciprocated gladly.

"If I will it. You may proceed."

And, so boldly, she slid her fingers in between my own. I found it amusing. My form rippled, and she laughed too. "I have seen other spirits," she told me, still holding on, "but you are the most beautiful. I am glad I allowed him to summon you again."

There was an answer to a question I had been wondering all along. "You allowed him recreate a pact with me--"

"--so that my position in court would grow stronger." Her lips, ruby red, paused. "I am glad to have seen you again," she said, more quietly. "I have not friends in this place. I have..." It was difficult to admit. "They all have it out for me."

"It is said that the king loves a woman but she does not love back."

"The queen does not love a man," she replied, warning. “Not any man, nor woman. Not in any way and never in any way."

My phrasing bothered her. "oh?"

"I do not..." she thought about it. "I am not incapable of it, I think. It is no lack-- it does not drive me. I am not like him. I prefer not to at all."

"There is a queen like you," I said. "In a kingdom far, far away. It will be centuries from now, in a time still when woman are deemed inferior to men."

"Yes?"

"They all wondered why she never took even a lover. Why she ruled her country alone. But they said it was because she refused to relinquish power and preferred to remain alone in order to protect her kingdom. History always wonders, but I am sure you know this story."

"Yes...I know that story. It is likely she is like me." Her tears came unbidden, so I allowed myself a more corporeal form throughout, and sat on the edge of her gilded chair. Without a sound, she embraced me with wet eyes.

"What do you require?" I asked of her.

"Hold me," she whispered. "Let me remain here. Kiss my brow and pet my hair."

She found comfort in the cold touch of my embrace. She lay her head against my bare collarbone. My body was near identical to hers in the way a sculptor may study the human form and create a replica, for I deemed it would have been preferrable to a man's larger form. I was right; she held tighter, and she wept with abandon.

What she wept for, how she wept, and why, I cannot tell you exactly. She never did tell me, even if long after her death, I had a great many deal of guesses.

It was this scene that my King saw when he entered. Her back was to me, and her emotions were overpowering, so of course she did not notice. But I saw it all: the shock, the confusion, the realization, the horror and the anger.

He threw the door open all the way. "Well done!"

She straightened, but I held her close.

His chest was heaving in rage. I thought it was so funny.

"Good evening," I purred at him, and then I turned my face. He saw what I was. We spirits are not human, but we may mimic human form if we so choose. So I gave my spiritual form a maw--the kind of rip you would have jagged on a piece of paper--and from that maw I gave myself teeth and tongue. I grinned brilliantly and licked my Queen's cheek dry of the tears, before I slid away.

I spirited closer to him, not human in form, but not spirit completely, to wrap my arms around his shoulders.

He lunged at me, but I held him back by the sudden heaviness of my weight alone. My Queen turned her head slowly, controlled now in the time I had given her, and watched as I swung myself around so that he was forced to embrace me. He held me in his arms the way he had tried on his wedding night with her, and I giggled.

"Your highness," my Queen said tonelessly. She did not curtsey, she did not smile at him. She stood from her seat. "What is the meaning of this?"

"You invade her private chambers after hours," I told him, singing-song. I was elvish in stature now, long-limbed and almost dainty so I wouldn't kill him by weight alone. It seemed many years ago he had stopped training; his strength was no longer where it had been at the prime of his youth. "You break the contract you signed with her as condition for your wedding union."

He wished to kill me. He wished to fling me away. But I stroked a finger along his jawline and against the underside of his chin, before I hooked it in. I reached in through flesh and bone as if they did not exist in the way, and held him by his tongue. He gagged, eyes watering, and I laughed, releasing him as I transformed into my noncorporeal self again, settling as a shadow by his shoulder.

By instinct, his arm came to swat at me, and he turned away. "What were you doing with this infernal creature?" His voice was shaking as it was wet. As if the mere sight of our getting along well had broken something within him, had betrayed him. He grabbed the near table, and flipped it over. "And you--I treat you so well, and you-! You-!"

But you see, this is the story of a one-sided love. So as much as he angered, he could do nothing to her. She did everything, even if it was not her intention.

"The queen knows I will never want more. She too has never wanted more. Her happiness comes from the being with those she loves. What need has she for those physical responsibilities and intimacies you crave? You call it love, but isn't it just lust?" I smiled an evil smile, because the expressions on his face called out to me. I wished to do more to him, delight spiralling at my very core.

His face was paler now, fury and white and fear and horror. "No. It is not me. If she only returned me a kindness, if she only--"

"You are furious because you feel her lack of interest or desire unnatural, and you cannot understand it, so you fault the blame in her. But you feel it is by some lack inside yourself that repels her, and so you try. But every attempt breeds failure, but you are a man with needs to be fulfilled. And so you are angry, for despite what you do otherwise sate yourself, you feel shame for the truth. You call it love but it is the lust that you wish she could return."

He shriveled as I approached him. "Stay away."

"Surely you do not mean it." I came closer.

He flinched, backing away. "Stay away!" His voice was hoarse now. "You see how I am, then? Then why did you respond to my call? Why did you promise your services and your attention to me?" He grabbed at his clothes right over his heart, where I had taken. "You have my heart, what more do you want?!"

"Oh, shh." I came closer and stroked his face only in the gentlest of my touches, for I felt a fondness for him--because we had spent meaningful time together, and his contract with me meant much. "Do not be angry, my king. Let me soothe you."

He was more restrained than he used to be, but he seemed so much more wounded I could not help but offer.

The King knew what I meant. His lips pressed against themselves. "Soothe?" He sneered at me, trying to protect himself. "I am not so weak as to find indulgence in a spirit I have contracted."

"Did it not go well? It has been so many years since I have last done so, and I am sure no human who has gone to your bed can compare." I trailed a finger from cheek to jawline to neck to throat to collar to necklace. "Strip your outerwear and remove your fineries. Sit with your legs open and I will embrace you as you wish she would let you take her. I will give you pleasure that will cease all those troubling thoughts, and I will comfort you."

For a moment, I watched as he glared red-eyed at me, chest heaving. It didn't matter how long I waited. I knew already he would accept.

Humans are incapable of manifesting the magic energy that belonged to my realm; they could only borrow it filtered, through contracts and familiars. It is addictive. Nothing in the human realm could compare.

What a foolish man. A king loved a queen who would never love him the way he wanted, and would never satiate his body the way he wished to be satiated.

"This conversation is not over." But he gripped at me, and I allowed the touch that made the feelings of stars dance along his skin.

"Of course, kingling," I purred, and I gave myself a body. A mouth, teeth, a form svelte like he may have wished it, and a wicked grin that caused his breath to slacken as I pressed it against his mouth.

Spirits do not kiss unbidden but with him I found it a treasure.

Eventually, his arms came to wrap around my waist. He pulled me closer.

It was not the same human form I had chosen for her; I had grown myself taller, the grip of my fingers was stronger, and the beauty in my face was of my realm, but it was close enough to the form that had accompanied him on his wedding night after she had refused and left him. "Now," I murmured, once we had parted and his eyes saw only me, "let me give you what you wish."

I had never intended it to be her, but somehow he saw her in me like this in the afterlife. He did then, dead and full of grief. And he did here too I think, submitting gladly, a man eager to drown to a being that he knew was not human and neither male nor female.

I do not know if who is pitiful or if these circumstances were, but it was what it was.