Once upon a time, there was a woman who died.
This woman had been a magical creature in life, a fairy to be specific. But she was no creature of whimsy or wonder, but one of fire and fury. Her life was forged in hatred and cruelty, and it was these that she turned out onto her victims. Her casting staff was feared across the realms. She could turn a heart black, an angel wretched, even render the most beautiful flower naught but thorns.
But this woman also knew the power of the written word. And it was in these that before her death, she conscripted a story. One which would afford her everlasting life.
Because she was unable to undo the wicked wish, but only to soften it, she said, "It shall not be her death. The princess will only fall into a hundred-year deep sleep."
"Yes Mother, I'll stop to see you later this week...class went fine...I'm eating again, I promise...tell Father I love him too...goodbye".
Rose Morning hung up the pay phone, and lifted her dance bag over her shoulder and left the studio.
It was partly true, what she had told her mother. The first class at Storybrooke Town's ballet school had gone well. The teacher had praised Rose's control, and offered her the opportunity to audition for the studio's Christmas production of Sleeping Beauty, which she had commented, that in such a small company could always use some fresh blood.
She walked out into the cool fall air. Cool, almost cold. No snow in sight yet. Storybrooke Town was a town built for winter and the buildings and streets seemed almost naked without even a dusting of it.
Rose has been so happy to dance again. It had been too long. But even as she put on her faded pink leotard and tied back her copper colored hair, it hadn't been the same. Her muscles had resisted the stretches, the movements now feeling foreign. After just the single lesson, her feet had ached.
Even the thing she had loved the most from before had made her seem bloodless, pale and weak. "Good control", a synonym for precise, technically perfect, but not beautiful.
Even while just walking, Rose winced. Her shoulders still ached. She was out of shape.
The wind begins to blow when Rose reaches her street, and she wraps her long gray coat tighter around herself.
She reached the front door of the tiny apartment that her parents had paid for when her and her therapist had both agreed it would be best at this point in her recovery.
The audition next week scared her. It had been at the audition for the Nutcracker last year in Bangor that she had passed out, and the hospitals and tests and referrals had started. One moment, she had been under the light, on full pointe, certain and giddy that she would make it as the Ballerina Doll, maybe even the Sugar Plum Fairy, the next, she woke up in a hospital bed, cold and gray surrounded by cold gray walls, with tubes coming from her arm and the standard beeping the only noise.
Her therapist had been standardly helpful. It had surprised Rose when she had told her that "disordered eating habits" as she called them, were not uncommon among dancers, but that it was Rose's reports of sadness and ambiguous reactions to therapy that concerned her most.
The drugs had helped some, the therapy some too, but Rose's life didn't really seem that different. She felt like she was an observer, on the outside of her own life, sleepwalking through the motions. She never let on, not to Dr K, not to anyone, how much coming had made her feel like a failure.
She had told Dr K, that she only felt alive, truly alive while dancing. But she had cautioned that the environment of dance might well encourage some of the more self destructive symptoms she had displayed, and suggested that she take a year off to relax and reflect.
Relax and reflect. More like lie around, mope and take up space.
And so here she was, back in the town where she had grown up, living not with her parents in their beautiful, comfortable house, but in a tiny studio apartment with just a refrigerator, a microwave, a table and a futon to her name.
It was true that she had found her family's home a little suffocating, but that wasn't to say that she still didn't feel a little alone.
And it was here, alone, that Rose opened the fridge, pulled out the carefully measured and prepared dish of rice and black beans that would be her dinner. She heated them up, and ate at the table in silence.
After her meal, Rose takes her meds and debates going straight to bed. It was what she did most nights. But auditions were a week away, and it would not do to audition with herself as out of shape as she had been today.
The week she had moved into this place, she had gone down to the store and bought a cheap towel rack. She then proceeded to ensure she was never going to get her security deposit back by screwing it into the living room wall at exactly the right height.
The short piece of metal screwed into her apartment wall is a far cry from the smooth, polished wood and floor to ceiling mirrors of a proper practice studio. But it would do.
And for the night, Rose runs through her stretches and the opening positions, one at a time.
It would have to do.
"Is this seat taken?"
Rose looks up from her spot in the auditorium. The speaker is a tall woman with long black hair wearing jeans and a dark green jacket. Her skin is the color of coffee with milk and her face is somehow both angular and soft at once. She isn't smiling, and it doesn't seem likely she smiles much at all.
"Or are you waiting for someone?" she continues, gesturing at Rose's bag in the aforementioned seat.
"No, no, I'm sorry, go ahead" Rose blushes and sputters, realizing that she'd been staring, and picks up her bag and sets it on the ground.
The auditorium at the school is small, but actually quite nice. The high school performed all of their plays here, and the community theater staged their spring and fall productions too. The seats were a deep plush red, and the curtain was velvet to match.
The woman speaks again "So do you have a friend or a...kid auditioning?"
"No, I'm auditioning, but later on, we're in groups. They're doing Aurora and the Prince now because they're the big roles and have to test in pairs too. They're what everyone wants to see."
She's met with silence, so she follows up with "I'm sorry, you're probably not interested in my babbling about dance. Are you here to watch someone?"
"It's fine" the woman says, smiling now. She extends her hand "I'm Leah Fa, and an old friend invited me to watch him audition".
"It's nice to meet you Leah, I'm Rose". she takes her hand and shakes it. Leah's hand is warm, if rough. Warm and vital and alive.
The two sit in companionable silence before Rose asks again,
"Are you from Storybrooke Town? I don't think I've seen you before"
Leah winces and Rose wonders if she should have left well enough alone.
"I was born here and my parents lived here before they died, but I spent the last eight years in the military. I just got out and came back. Wait, that's him, on stage now".
Rose notes that sudden change in topic, but chooses not to push. And the thought soon leaves her mind when the man Leah gestures at comes on stage.
He is not especially tall, well built, with short red-brown curls stuck close to his scalp. He is wearing a simple black shirt and tights, and the lines of his body stretch longer than it seemed possible. He's beautiful.
And this is before he begins to dance.
There is a difficult line, Rose understands, that male ballet dancers have to walk. Most of the archetypal beauty of ballet is associated with the feminine. But male dancers must be able to access that beauty too, but maintain the strength and power necessary for the traditionally defined male roles present in most productions.
This man, has it all tied up in a bow made of grace.
Rose is still entranced by the time he finishes and the next dancer has taken the stage. She tries to hide the color in her cheeks by asking Leah,
"So what's his name?"
"Edwin Prince"
Rose makes a face "Edwin?"
"We always called him Eddie. And Prince too? He'll probably get a big head if he does get the role. He played sports in school and the other guys always made a million jokes about it."
"He get the role. After seeing him dance, I'd be shocked if he didn't".
And it's the truth. Filling male roles is hard enough in a small company. They see dancers like him, very rarely.
The Aurora auditions come next. This is a big role, a dream one for a young ballerina, both the central role in the story, and a very challenging role technically. All the women who come across the stage are beautiful, strong, graceful and charming. The are all what Rose thought she was so close to being just a year ago.
"What's after this group?" Leah asks out of the blue. Rose had been surprised at how much attention the other woman had been paying the auditions.
"The children's auditions. Lots of parents come to see these, so they give them the middle spot. Gives the staff time to mull over the leads more, and makes it easier for the parents to leave after and not sit for another hour and a half".
"I never made it to one of these" Leah speaks, almost as an afterthought.
"You danced?" Rose is definitely surprised now. In her green army jacket, jeans and heavy boots, Leah didn't exactly seem the type to have a big interest in classical art.
"Eddie and I tried a lot of the same things when we were in school together. And...he was far better at fencing than I was at dancing".
"It's not for everyone", Rose muses, watching the tiny dancers on stage, auditioning in small groups.
The best child dancers will be the chorus fairies, Temperance and Joy and Patience and the like. The rest will be fairy tale characters to fill out the big wedding scene at the end.
Rose knows that very few of the little ones will still be dancing in ten years. Ballet is taxing, on the body, the time, the wallet and the mind. There will be fewer and fewer every passing year. Most of the girls will be out by adolescence, and the boys well before that.
But for now, they all look giddy in their special audition costumes, and this is all fun for them.
"I have to go backstage and prepare now, it was nice meeting you Leah"
"I'll stay, I'd like to see you dance".
That takes Rose aback for a minute, and she leave the seating area with a flush on her chest.
The dressing area is small, and crowded with the other dancers, a few women Rose's age, and the young teenage girls who have passed through to the advanced classes. She finds a corner to squeeze herself into and change.
The old short sleeved black leotard and new pink tights are as comforting as an old sweater. Her favorite purple leg warmers are too big now, but she wouldn't be able to wear them on stage anyway.
Her shoes are the big disappointment. Discussion with both the teacher and her family physician had confirmed what she feared; it was no longer safe for her to dance en pointe until she regained her full strength and fitness. And while the demi pointe shoes still look very much like the pink satin real things, they still feel to Rose like a lying facade.
She's barely had time to pin up her hair and stretch when one of the assistants comes in and ushers them into line to go on stage.
The stage. Up here, on the hard wood under the bright light, this is where Rose feels she belongs. Even though the audition music is prerecorded, and the audience by this time is mostly empty, Rose feels alive, her heart pumping and her limbs moving lightly and freely. She can make Leah's face out, clearly, even through the stage lighting, and the woman's face invigorates her.
On that stage, Rose is for a moment, the creature she wants to be.
Even when she finishes and leaves, and the sweat begins to dry on her skin, joining the new aches and burns in her muscles, she's smiling and aglow.
After she's changed and ready to leave, she's met at the door by Leah and Eddie. The dancer is just as dazzling in person, with an easy smile and a gentle voice.
Gentle, and enthralling, she's really quite lucky she can hear what he says when he leads off with,
"Wow! You were great, are you new to the school? I can't believe I never seen you dance before?"
She doesn't respond by anything other than smiling, and is relieved when Leah gives her a question she can actually formulate a verbal response to,
"Do you want to come have dinner with us? To celebrate?"
And Rose sputters for a moment, before smiling, and saying yes. Her stomach is still bubbling and full of joy.
They go to Granny's Diner, everyone in the whole town goes to Granny's Diner.
Eddie and Leah do most of the talking. It's clear that they've known each for so long, that they can just pick up on each others cues, and they each are a part of so many of their stories. Rose is almost jealous. She's never had anything like that.
The three of them have ordered when Eddie asks the question Rose has been dreading since she realized they both saw her dance.
"Why didn't you audition for Aurora? You've clearly got the chops for a principle role".
She winces, and tries to send a pleading look to Leah for an exit, but momentarily gives in.
"I was in training when I was..injured last year. I had to take the year off, and I've just gotten back into classes. Didn't you see on stage? I can't even dance pointe yet, and Aurora is such a difficult role...there was no way I would have been able to pull it off, I would have just gotten worse..."
Rose knows she's babbling, but Leah seems to sense her nervousness and changes the subject.
The others have finished their food and are preparing to leave while Rose is still nibbling slowly at her chicken sandwich.
"Sure you don't want a lift home?" Eddie asks, glancing her way.
"No, I'm fine, the walk is good for my head" Rose replies softly.
And so the other two leave her sitting at the booth alone.
This whole day feels unreal.
The unrealest part comes when her quiet reverie is interrupted by a voice.
"Can I sit here?"
Rose looks over her shoulder to see a girl, maybe thirteen, with long blond hair. She's wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, has a backpack on and is carrying a skateboard under one arm and a mug of hot chocolate in the other.
She also doesn't wait for Rose's response before plopping down on the seat opposite her.
"Can I have some of your fries?"
"Uhh...sure" Rose replies confused, pushing the plate in the girl's direction.
She munches on a group, before saying, mouth still full,
"So you've made it through the prologue. Tragic backstory's good but secondary cast could use some definition."
"Who are you?" Rose blurts, becoming more annoyed by the girl every moment.
The blond rolls her eyes, "I'm an precocious, oracular urchin here to provide comic relief and exposition, duh, you're not that genre savvy are you?".
She plucks a book of her backpack and slides it across the table. "You'll be needing this".
The leather bound volume has an illustration of a young maiden asleep among a mass of thorny vines and is titled "Briar Rose".
"What on earth is this", Rose demands, touching the cover gingerly.
"It's the Narrative" the girl replies, with the same 'get with the program' expression. "The original Narrative anyway. It's okay, you can talk freely to me. I'm just an consequence of the Narrative, I'm not truly a part of it. Some of the children are a part. It's basically me, Alexandra. Maybe that weird boy down at the library. I don't know what his deal is. The others. They're all trapped, and their stories will never reach any conclusion."
She stands up, wipes her hands on her shirt and grabs her skateboard.
"My name's Emma," she says offhand, "Thanks for the fries. Go outside tonight. The moon is supposed to be amazing. You can see it perfect from the library roof."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Rose calls after her.
"It's called foreshadowing! It means you should reeeally go there tonight! And now that you've heard me say it, hopefully it will be a self fulfilling prophecy too!" Emma calls back from the diner's door.
Rose slumps back against the leather booth.
Even as she walks back to her apartment, she has only one thought.
What the hell just happened?
And yet, that night after she changes into her pajamas, she can't sleep. She lies on her futon, stiff as a board and cannot get a wink.
And so, with no idea of why, she gets up, puts on her shoes, and walks downtown.
The streets are completely empty even though it's only eleven PM. The clouds are drifting in the sky, so only a few stars are visible.
"So much for the amazing moon".
When she reaches the library, she stares for a moment and says "how am I supposed to get on the roof", when she hears,
"There's a ladder around the side"
Rose whirls around to find a boy with longish brown hair and shabby clothes standing behind her.
"If you want to go up to the roof, there's a ladder around by the trash cans"
"Was I talking out loud..."
"Probably not. Me being here might just be a small deus ex machina" is all he says before scurrying off again.
And when Rose walks around by the trashcans, there is indeed a ladder.
"I can't believe I'm doing this" she whines as she climbs. The rungs are cold and rusty, and once her foot slips and she almost feels her heart jump out of her chest, but she keeps going.
Once she gets to the top, she realizes that on the mostly sloping roof, there is a flat platform easy enough to sit on.
And as soon as she does, the moon peaks out from behind the clouds for the first time that night.
It is indeed beautiful, but it's just a moon.
And as soon as Rose is feeling annoyed with herself for listening to Emma's nonsense, that is the moment when she starts to feel the change.
She stands up abruptly, and feels like she should have lost her balance, but she doesn't.
She is awash in a bright light, and a feeling of intense power overwhelms her.
When this passes, and she looks down, she is taken aback.
Instead of her flowered pajamas and boots, she is wearing a thin, bejeweled lavender colored dress. The skirt is tulle and flares out around her knees over sheer white stockings. But is when she sees her feet, clad in pristine satin pointe shoes that she recognizes the ensemble. It is Princess Aurora's costume from the ballet.
Her costume if it were 100% new and custom made to fit her.
She touches her hair, gone from a roughly brushed ponytail to perfect curls that cascade down her back. And the tiara...
The tiara is no theater prop. It's real.
Rose takes a single step, and it is when she raises herself onto one foot in perfect pointe, and stretches her other back into a jaw dropping arabesque with almost no effort at all that her memory comes to her and she understands.
She is not just inexplicably dressed as Princess Aurora. She IS Princess Aurora.
And here we are, our heroine knows her purpose now. A sad and lonely girl, not a beautiful and noble princess. But what to come, when she realizes that she will never be able to find her prince.