“PUCK!”

If anything gave the merry trickster of the night a clue-in as to how angry his lord was, it was the fact that, not only did he call for him in such a loud, enraged way, but the mere sound sent the very ground that he had been trying to stand on quaking such that he nearly fell over in his hurry to arrive in his master’s chambers. The great look of loathing he was given did not dampen the skip that was in his step as he made his way across the marble floor and over to the king of the fairies, plopping down onto his knees before him so that he could place his arms upon the other’s legs, crossing them so he could set his head down to peer up at him like an innocent puppy. “Yes, my lord?” he asked- as though he didn’t know already.

Perhaps it was simply the fact that he was used to it, but Oberon did not push his servant off of his person, instead merely continued to glare down at him. “You try my mercy far too much for my liking, Puck,” he said in his usual, cold voice, watching the other for some sort of shame in what he had done; when the other only blinked up at him with that damned smile on his face, however, he continued. “What is the task I asked you to do?”

Puck once more blinked up at the other, drumming the fingers of his one hand on his master’s knee; much to his amusement, he could feel the muscles in his lord’s leg tighten before finally relaxing. “Were you not satisfied with my work, my lord?” he asked in his innocent tone once more, causing the king of the fairies to lean back in his seat with a sigh.

Raising his one hand to rub hard at the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes, not quite able to handle too much of that sickening look on his face. “You braided Queen Titania’s hair, whilst she slept,” he said, stilling his hand as it came to rest on his temple to look down his nose at the other as he concluded, “braided it to the ground.”

At the mere memory Puck let out a small giggle, his shoulders hiking slightly as he drew back his head, a mischievous smile upon his flawless little face at the mere memory. “Was that not what you instructed me to do, my lord?” was all he sent to the other in return, taking quite an amount of pleasure in watching his master squirm so.

Removing his hand from his face, Oberon peered down at his servant, the soft skin on his thumb running across that of his index and middle finger to try and distract from the great anger he felt. “I instructed you to help my queen to remove her head from the clouds…” he trailed off there, a realization coming to him as he finished, a smile slowly creeping onto his face, “…and put it down on the ground where it belonged.” Realizing now the clever twist to his words the trickster with his arms on his knees had taken, he began to chuckle, a sound that twittered through the room before it finally ebbed off, his hand falling to stroke the silver-blond hair of the merry wanderer of the night below him. “Oh, you do jest well, my servant,” he said, his chuckle still present in the undertone his voice took to speak such words.

Puck perked up at such a laughter; it was his task to make his master smile so, to amuse him with his trickery. Taking his head from his arms, he raised himself up, propping the upper half of his body up using his arms, which had yet to move from his lord’s knees. “Then I have pleased you, my lord?” he asked, growing giddy at the smile that graced the king’s lips as his one hand continued to pet his head in such a rewarding fashion.

“You have, Robin Goodfellow,” he replied in the same tone as his previous words, causing the hobgoblin to bob happily on his knees, pressing his head up into his long-fingered hand much like, in comparison, a cat might. “And here I had thought you had finally disobeyed me,” he said and, while the chuckle still framed his voice, the other was able to pick up the warning in his words as well, and even the trickster knew not to get on the king's bad side.

All the same, he merely stopped his bobbing, his toes curling and uncurling so as to hide his merriment, lest he displease the one before him. “You are my king; your whim is my command,” he said obediently, relaxing- though he’d never shown he was tense in the first place, such was simply not his character- as the one he knelt before smiled his own malicious smile; it was such a smile that set his mind working on his next prank to amuse his lord after all- and the one thing for certain about it was that it would be better than his last, that much never failed to be true.