The Faerie Wedding

The kobold king was 70, and the faerie princess was nine. She never wanted to marry him, so she planned her escape.

At the ball, she spun her new husband around relentlessly. Disoriented, he reached for her hand but grabbed the hand of a marsh-nymph duke instead. The duke, though puzzled, didn’t object. And because the old kobold was nearly blind, he didn’t notice that the figure waltzing with him wasn’t his bride.

Later, from the trees, the grinning princess watched the happy couple leave together. Marsh-nymphs were hermaphrodites, so the kobold would never know she was gone.