Little Briars, Rose

NOT SO LONG AGO, but in a different world from ours, a Princess, seventeen years of age, sat indelicately at one end of her four-poster bed. Her two frosty green eyes examined the long-familiar rash- scarlet with feverish yellow undertones, blooming and waxing and waning all the time. Mostly it wrapped itself around her stomach, the soft forms of her forearms and her lower thighs. The rash was interrupted only where the yellow had fought off the red, in little round patches that were, she thought, repulsive to behold.

Our Princess, Roslyn, then strode across the room to meet the window, open opposite. One half of a year ago, this would have overlooked the royal castle gardens, but it was now overrun with an ominous, writhing mass of grey, thorned forms; poison briars. Peering down, and to her horror, Roslyn saw that the one nearest her window was much smaller than it had been the day before. Instantly caught in a frenzy, she pulled her miniature jewellery box from her concealed pocket. Opening it, she found, as always, that red-tipped spindle. Pulling up one side of her emerald dress, she pierced her yellowish skin just above the knee, which instantly colored red again. She just had time to lock her door and hide the box under her pillow before she collapsed into a dream in a heap on the floor.

All of the dreams Roslyn ever had were the most fantastical that anyone could ever wish to see. She dreamt of the most marvellous lands full of beautiful creatures. She dreamt of eternal sunshine and freedom and adventure. But more importantly she dreamt to block the world out, which was a fathomless bliss. She couldn't live without it, and wouldn't for anything.

When Roslyn awoke, she found that the briar nearest the window had grown back, as expected. There was no way for anyone to enter the castle, and certainly no way out.

Famished, the Princess decided to go down to the castle kitchens. On the stairway, she encountered her Mother, The Queen. The Queen asked Roslyn what she had been doing, in her usual, hostile way. Roslyn told her she had been reading, to which the sour Queen replied, 'You're lying'. Roslyn's Mother told her that she had noticed the briars had stopped growing, the other day. Roslyn said this was happy news, and continued down the stairs. The Queen continued to ascend, but didn't stop on the floor on which her bedroom was.

Returning to her room later that evening, Roslyn glanced out to the briars below. She moved swiftly over to her door and pulled the leaden bolt across. Remembering where she had placed it last, she pulled the jewellery box from under her pillow and raised her long, satin dress to the top of her thigh. The spindle, hovering an inch above her skin, clunked to the floor as Roslyn jumped in fright. Two guards and The Queen had burst forth from her cupboard. Heavy hands gripped her upper arms, heaving her down into her Mother's chamber, with her Mother following, the precious box in her hands.

On her knees before the Queen, one side of a thin steel blade held to her throat by her Mother's guard, Kalmin, Roslyn trembled for pure hatred and sorrow. She implored The Queen to let her go, but her Mother only smiled and said: 'I am not to suffer a month longer. If you are the reason we are trapped inside this wretched castle, I would sooner see your head off of your shoulders, than live for another six months as I do now!'
Roslyn's Mother had become suspicious of her daughter's movements. She now insisted that she have the full truth, or, the Princess's throat cut. So, Roslyn began to talk.

In her flawless, faultless life of Princes and ballgowns and substantial chicken dinners, she had decided she had had enough. A hatred for the people in her court and the world around her, had spread to her heart. She knew that the day of her betrothal was to come once she turned seventeen. Above all things, the responsibility and pressures that came with this, were the things she feared the most.

The Princess had heard, in rumours, of an Aunt, learned in dark magic. Desperate to stop her Mother's life becoming her own, Roslyn sought after her Aunt in the months previous to her seventeenth birthday. Aunt Mafalda lived in a cottage in the woods, which was where the Princess found her, after a long walk one day. Roslyn promised to exchange two of her opulent, dark velvet cloaks for a curse.

The curse cast Roslyn's Aunt back to The Great Feast that celebrated the coming of the newborn Princess. There, Mafalda carried it out, with the whole kingdom as petrified witness. It said that on the eve of the Princess's seventeenth birthday, a spindle would pierce her skin, and she would fall into a sleep like death. The King and Queen saw only this side of the curse's blade. The other half was promised to Roslyn by Mafalda, who said that Roslyn would sleep only for a month. In that month, the energy that Roslyn wasn't using would be transferred to the very earth beneath her, and used to grow miles of poisonous briars so quickly, that there was no hope they might be cut down, and no hope of anyone setting foot into the castle whilst they remained. However, the briars would only last so long without the energy of a living thing to sustain them, so Princess Roslyn would regularly have to fall into these sleeps, the month after she awoke. Her Aunt's gift of the spindle would allow her to do this whenever she wished to.

On hearing fully, her daughter's story, The Queen had no doubts of what she now had to do. Turning her back to the desperate Princess, she hurled the jewellery box into the green-hot grate of the fireplace. Roslyn, screaming, was dragged down into the damp of the castle dungeons on her Mother's orders. 'To the dungeons, Kalmin. The Princess is not to sleep until I say so, and you must make sure of it. Should her story be true, we shall soon be set free.'

Without the support of Roslyn's energy, the briars began to recede. The evening of the seventh night in her cell arrived, and she could hardly stand for exhaustion. Her eyes were an inferno. Kalmin, ever loyal to his Queen, had kept his promise, and had been happy to force a stream of onion, crushed to a puree, into the eyes of the Princess.

Further into the evening, Aunt Mafalda came to Roslyn in a vision. She told Roslyn she must escape, before she faded of life completely. Mafalda told her she would cast a long-distance incantation to her black-hearted guard, that would send him into a 'guided' trance, which Roslyn could control. It wouldn't last long, so she would have to move quickly. Challenge lay in her Aunt's further instructions, and they would have to be acted upon, noiselessly. Mafalda assured that at the last toll of the third hour on the eighth day in her dungeon, Kalmin would be under Roslyn's complete control.
***

Kalmin fell to the stone floor in an unsavoury heap of limbs. That precious third hour was upon Roslyn. Her voice, slurred, ordered him up off the floor and asked her release. Leaving her silver slippers in the cell behind her, to be as quiet as she could be, The Princess hastened through to the Great Hall, and then the staircase leading to the tallest tower in the castle, collapsing thrice in her weak state. On reaching the window of the tower, Roslyn heard, from below, a blood-curdling shriek: Her Mother. 'THERE IS SOMEONE IN THE WEST TOWER! IT'S ROSLYN! IT'S ROSLYN!' Within seconds, a response could be heard as hard, quick, tapping footsteps. Roslyn now stood, a silhouette within the aperture of the tower, ready to jump. A black form swam into her range of vision, close now. The tower door swung and smashed open. Roslyn's feet rolled forward, the guards bolted to cross the room. Green satin was the last thing the guards saw, flitting behind, before the Princess dropped off of the ledge, and onto the strong back of her Aunt's magnificent great black eagle: Aetheres.

Nobody from the castle ever saw Roslyn again, after she rode off into that perfect twilight.

Aetheres flew Roslyn to live with her Aunt Mafalda, in her homely cottage in the woods, miles away from the castle. Her Aunt was the only person that she ever saw whilst living there. (With the exception of the Oulerine folk, who often came over to their side of the river to gather strange mushrooms.) The Princess hadn't a need to sleep as much any more. Briars were not things she had to fret over. The only time anyone ever saw the briars grow back at the castle, was when she slept at night, tired with the events of days in the woods. But Roslyn found that she didn't want to sleep anymore. The Princess's eyes grew wider with the newly found wonder and light she saw in the world around her, and she grew to love it all.

Aunt Mafalda, becoming restless in spirit, left her cottage in the safe hands of her niece once Roslyn reached her fiftieth year on that earth. She set off in search of new magic. As an older woman, Roslyn found her curiosity peaking too, and one day happened upon familiar ground whilst out on a lengthy walk, a habit she had picked up from her Aunt. It was, of course, the grounds of her castle. Peeking from afar, from behind a cedar tree, she watched elegant and gracious people enter the palace walls, now maintained by dozen gardeners to keep the briars at bay. Apart from those now shrunken briars, the castle hadn't changed in appearance at all. Yet Roslyn couldn't help but stand and stare for years to come, at the beauty she now found in it, and all its people.