The Kindness Curse

her face in her knees, and waited for the tears to come.
None came. Apparently, she was too wrinkled and dry and shriveled up to even cry in frustration.
So she wasn't allowed to go back, once she had turned her back on rustic hospitality and generosity? What common sense was there in that? Where was the justice in the world?
"Fine, then. Have it your way. I'll find someone to take pity on me and help me, no matter how much you interfere," she whispered.
Such words would have had greater effect if she had leaped to her feet and stomped out of the violets and headed down the road. Merrigan was too tired, and somewhat achy from her landing, so she made herself comfortable and sat and thought for a time. When no wagons came down the road after nearly two hours, she got to her feet and resumed walking.
By nightfall, she found her way to a village small enough that people noticed the elderly stranger among them. They offered her shelter in the little building that served as a general meeting hall and chapel. The bread and butter, mug of milk and bowl of porridge provided weren't up to her standards, but she said nothing. Demanding better because she was a queen would earn her mockery. She curled up on the bench cushion the circuit judges used, wrapped herself in the blankets several people offered for the night, and told herself she was quite comfortable. She was, compared to how she could have spent the night.
She finally fell asleep, trying to persuade herself that she liked the silence and solitude. The porridge reminded her of her nursery days, before Nanny Starling fell from grace and Nanny Tulip took over. Her dreams were full of her long, secret, magical correspondence with Leffisand, and all the advice he had given her, helping her to grow wise and insightful, to become a queen worthy of him. He had taught her the truth behind all the tales of faeries and godmothers and other majjian folk. He claimed they were lies, sweetened to trick people into trusting magically gifted folk. The witless, ignorant and undeserving always expected to be helped, rather than picking themselves up by their own bootstraps and fighting for what they wanted.
As the days and moons passed while she journeyed, Merrigan thought long and hard about the things Leffisand and Nanny Tulip had taught her. The truth behind the tales of majjian folk. While she trudged from village to town, she had many chances to see majjian injustice at work. It galled her to realize some of the too-sweet-for-their-own good twits who helped her with a loaf of bread, a coin, a ride down the road, were often rewarded soon afterward.
If faeries were waiting around every corner to reward every village idiot and simpering twit for performing charity, why did none of them show up just ten minutes earlier and help her? She was Queen Merrigan of Carlion, daughter of King Urson and Queen Daylily of Avylyn. Surely she deserved their help.
By the third moon of her unfair exile on the other side of the world, Merrigan decided the imbeciles and goody-two-shoes of the world had an unfair advantage over the clever girls and boys who wouldn't stand for any nonsense. Granted, the sweet girls and boys were the ones who actually noticed the shriveled old woman in need of food or a place to spend the night. Several times she considered going back to tell them she was a queen under a terrible curse, and ask if they would put in a good word with the faerie or pixie or minor wizard who had just rewarded them.
Each time, she mentally slapped herself. Asking for the help that should have been hers by right galled her.
She chewed so long on the injustice that had been meted out to her, she got past the sharpness of the ache. She learned to examine the whole situation with less emotion, and tried to determine where the mistakes had occurred. Possibly, she had done something wrong. Of course, not anything bad enough to warrant what she now suffered. Perhaps she was being punished for something Leffisand did? Was being stupid a crime? Or perhaps her husband had been a little too clever, a little too lucky? Could he have brought his ignominious demise on himself because he had broken several rules of magic? She had been deprived of her throne, her home, her beauty, because of something he did?
She would be safely at home in Carlion if she had produced the heir to the throne. Could it be the fault hadn't been with her at all? Perhaps Leffisand was denied an heir because of underhanded things he had done? Things she knew nothing about? After all, she had heard the rumors. There was the whole magical apple tree debacle, and the accusations that Leffisand had been involved in the death of his first wife, Fialla. Merrigan didn't believe any of it, otherwise she never would have married him, but ... what if?
If that were the answer, it simply made her whole situation more unbearable. She suffered for the crimes of others. She had been robbed, cheated, when she was innocent of wrongdoing.
In the very next village, she looked at the villagers with new eyes, and watched their interactions, seeking the innocent and cheated among them. Surely there would be a kindred soul here? There had to be, since injustice filled the world.
She decided the blacksmith was dangerous. He had a thin smirk on his thick face, when he settled at the village well and watched the young people dancing that night. He had a way of looking at people that made her skin crawl. Merrigan asked the baker's daughter about the blacksmith the next morning, when the girl gave her fresh bread dripping with butter and honey. The girl looked in all directions before leaning closer to whisper that the blacksmith was new to their village. He