The Odd Queen

"My Queen!"

Clover looked up at the sound of Faron, the King's advisor. She sat up from her position among the pea plants, brushing soil and loose leaves from her hands and apron.

"Yes, Faron, what is it?" she asked, noticing his concerned look.

Faron peered over the garden fence at the pile of fat pea pods spilling from her lap. "Your Majesty, whatever are you doing?"

She pushed a stray lock of platinum-blonde hair behind her ear. "Gardening. What does it look like?"

Faron looked around as if hoping nobody was watching. "My Queen, shouldn't you leave the gardening to the servants?"

"The King doesn't mind."

He sighed. "That's hardly the issue. The King is far too permissive with you. It simply isn't proper for the Queen to be kneeling in the dirt like a common farmer."

Clover studied his face. Faron, as the King's childhood friend and the youngest Chief Advisor to ever serve the King, had more influence with the King than most advisors usually did. But when it came to her, the King's foreign bride, even Faron hadn't been able to convince the King to be more strict with her. Which was likely why he was confronting her directly.

Clover gathered up her apron to keep the peas from falling and stood up. She stepped over the pea plants, then the zucchini, and finally the carrots to stand next to Faron. She dumped the pea pods from her apron into the woven basket resting on the lawn next to the garden. 

She dusted off her apron. "It's not the gardening that bothers you, is it?" 

Faron furrowed his brow, then sighed. "People are talking. Many have said that they have seen you using Folk Magic."

"Folk Magic?" Clover had never heard it called that before. In her homeland it was known simply as "The Gift" or "The Touch." "If you are referring to what I think you are, then yes, I've used it," she said with a shrug. "Why?" 

Faron's eyes grew wide. "You can't!" he exclaimed. 

"Why not?" Clover asked, genuinely puzzled. 

Faron squeezed his temples with one hand. "Because Folk Magic is uncivilized! Impure! Unholy!" He rubbed his forehead, shaking his head. "For a queen to practice it is unthinkable!" 

Clover took a step back. "It is?" she asked, shaken by his intensity. "Why??" 

"Has the King not explained it to you?" Faron shook his head. "It's because Folk Magic defies the very laws of nature. It's a perversion of true magic."

Clover frowned. "How can a magic that exists within all nature defy the laws of nature?"

Faron blinked, taken aback. "What?"

"What exactly did you think Folk Magic was?" she asked, bending down and picking up a pea pod that hadn't made it into the basket. "Besides uncivilized and unholy, I mean."

His mouth gaped open. "I--" He paused, as if unsure how to answer. 

She pressed on. "Tell me, then, what true magic is."

Faron waved his hands in an all-encompassing gesture. "You know. Spells. Incantations. For every result, there must be a price. It's common knowledge."

She tipped her head to the side. "So Folk Magic is a perversion because it doesn't use spells?"

He shook his head. "No, because it bends the laws of nature. Unnatural growth and such. And no price is ever paid."

She fingered the pod, rolling it around in her palm. "And that's where you're wrong."

Faron stared. "Pardon, Your Majesty?"

"Folk Magic, as you call it, doesn't pervert the laws of nature," she explained. She held the pod out on the flat of her palm. "Rather, Folk Magic is  the law of nature. It's tapping into the life force that permeates all of nature and redirects it, like irrigating a garden by diverting a river." Clover focused her energy on the pod within her hand, calling upon the Stream of Life and channeling it into the fat, green pea pod. The pod quivered in her palm, rolled, and then burst, shoots spiraling out of the peas and curling up into a small plant.

Faron took a step back, clearly unnerved by her display of magic. Ignoring his reaction, Clover kneeled at the edge of the garden. Digging into the soft, damp soil with one hand, she placed the plant into the hole with the other. She scooped soil into the hole and patted it into place. 

Placing her hands on either side of the pea plant, Clover channeled her energy once more. The plant grew, then blossomed. She diverted more energy into the plant until the blossoms developed pods, which grew until they were fat with peas, much like the pea pod had been at the start. 

It was there that she stopped. She sat back and let out a deep breath, wiping the sweat from her brow. "You see?" she said to Faron, who was looking on with an expression that was a mixture of horror and fascination. "All I did was expedite its natural growth." She stood once more, brushing clumps of soil from her hands. 

Faron backed away, shaking his head. "It's not right," he murmured. 

"Oh, really?" Clover asked, placing her hands on her hips. "And your so-called 'true magic,' which takes energy and uses it to change one thing into something else, rather than in the way it was intended, is natural? You do realize that the reason your spells and incantations demand a price is because it takes energy from nature and needs energy fed back in to keep it from becoming unbalanced, right?" She folded her arms across her chest. "Can you still say that is natural?" 

The poor man looked shaken to his core. Clover softened and relaxed a bit. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was too blunt, wasn't I? It's a lot to take in." 

Faron backed away some more. "Pardon me, my Queen," he mumbled. "I must go." He turned and hurried away, leaving Clover standing next to the garden. 

With a sigh, she knelt down and resumed picking peas, shaking her head.