“I have already said so,” the princess replied.
“ARGH!” the Goblin King cried in frustration, tearing at his green hair. “Then this is True Love—a terrible thing!—for I can have no truck with so powerful a force as True Love.” He bent to pick up the sword but hissed as the mere touch of the metal burned his evil flesh. “Bah! Even the sword is tainted by love! This is a most dissatisfactory turn of events!”
And the Goblin King, provoked beyond endurance, vanished back into the crack in the earth from whence he came.
Princess Serenity came and sank to her knees before her husband, who still knelt in the dust.
She took his hands and said, “I do not understand. You hated the Goblin Kingdom; you told me so. Why, then, did you seek to prevent my sacrifice?”
Longsword raised his wife’s hands to his lips and kissed them one at a time. “Life without you would be worse than an eternity in the Goblin Kingdom.”
“Then you do love me?” she whispered.
“With all my heart,” he replied.
Princess Serenity shivered and glanced at the spot where the Goblin King had stood. “Do you think he’ll return for us?”
Longsword smiled. “Did you not hear, my sweet? We have a magic so powerful it can defeat the Goblin King himself. It is our love for each other.”
And he kissed her.