sleeping beauty
i.
"It's my favorite story," Shiori says, and Juri has to bite back a smile because Shiori likes people to be serious when she is talking.
"Why?" Juri asks.
The best part isn't what Shiori says. It's that she talks, and that her voice is so pleasantly pitched, a lilting cadence that marks out rules only to break them when, excited, she stumbles over her words, suffering dissonance in order to make Juri understand. But the question subdues her, and Juri wishes she could take it back, could keep listening to that melody while she watches raindrops paint pictures on the windowpane. "I mean it's my favorite fairy tale," she says at last. "But I'm getting too old for fairy tales, anyway." (Shiori thinks that, at ten, they are too old for almost everything they've liked until now, but Juri isn't so sure.)
"What's the best part?" Juri asks instead, reshaping the question into something softer.
Her friend laughs. "The prince, of course."
Juri knows better than to ask why again, so she repeats, dumbly, "The prince?"
"The prince is everyone's favorite part, Juri. He saves the princess, and then she never has to be sad again." She cocks her head to one side, peering curiously at Juri. "If you could have any kind of prince you wanted, what would he be like?"
"I don't want a prince," Juri says without thinking. But then it's true, and what can she do?
Shiori curls her fingers into her shirt, fiddling with the hem. "Don't be silly. Every girl wants a prince, right? How are you going to have anyone for yourself otherwise?"
"I don't understand." Suddenly she doesn't like where this conversation is going, and she isn't sure why.
"Other people can only just be friends, Juri. But your prince is the one person who'll be yours forever. You belong to each other. That's how it works."
We don't belong to each other? Juri thinks. But she doesn't say that, because it has occurred to her that, if Shiori ever finds her own prince, he will take her away. They will go off somewhere by themselves, somewhere they can enjoy each other without stares or whispers. He will get to listen to Shiori's beautiful voice, and Juri will be alone.
"But not every girl has to have a prince, right?" she asks hopefully.
Shiori frowns. "Well, that's the trouble. That's why you have to try your best, so you can be one of the lucky ones." She bites her lip. "Juri, if you were a prince, would you want me to be your princess?"
Finally, an easy question. "Yes."
"No, that's not what I mean." She fidgets in her chair, leaning forward in agitation. "I mean, would you pick me over everyone else?"
"Haven't I already?"
Shiori waves the question away in something that borders on irritation. "It's not the same."
"Oh." Then: "Yes."
"Over everyone?"
"Over everyone."
Shiori beams with delight at her words. "You're my best friend, Juri," she says, but somehow that doesn't make Juri as happy as it usually does. And just when Juri thinks she's going to get away clean, Shiori asks, "Do you hope I'll find my prince, someday?"
"If that's what you want," Juri says. But the real answer is the first thing she's ever hidden from her friend, and the first time she has ever felt guilty.
ii.
What would have happened, Juri wonders, if someone else had gotten there first? Would the briars have opened for another, someone just as brave, just as true, but lacking the credentials? A farmer's son, perhaps, or a traveling bard? A noble thief, a merchant with his retinue, or… or…
Never mind precisely who, for the moment. The point is this: did the princess fall in love with him because he was a prince, or just because he got there first? Did some magic lie in his lips, or could anyone touch her like that, if that person were good enough?
Shiori's lips are small and soft and perfectly formed, and Juri thinks about them more than she wants to, more than she'll ever admit, and dreams about them even more than that.
She thinks of the imprints her fingers could leave on Shiori's skin, and suddenly she's dizzy, flushed hot, and she stumbles lightly, clutching the wall for support. Everything seems so shapeless and unreal; her knees won't stop shaking, and if I kissed you instead, would you mind?
It's a question she'll never ask, because then she'll have to hear the answer.
And she is keeping him waiting now; he is peering at her with concern in his eyes, wondering why she seems exhausted before they've even picked up their foils (thankfully, thankfully, Shiori is late today). He has his own questions, too, she knows.
She likes him better than the others. He's pleasant, and he's considerate, and he carries himself well, even if he does put a little too much gel in his hair. But he smells wrong, all grease and hard edges, grass stains, the tang of metal. She likes different smells: fresh linen, raindrops, sliced apples strung up to dry.
Shiori smells like that.
"Are you all right, Juri?" he asks, and for a moment she cannot answer him.
You're supposed to wait, eyes closed and lips parted, for someone to make you real. You shouldn't want to reach out on your own, to be the holder instead of the held, to take just one soft and lovely thing and make it yours… You shouldn't want that.
But she does want, wants it so much, and it's all twisting and disorderly and loud inside her—
Help me, she begs him silently, eyes locked on his. Please help me.
He does not repeat the question, just keeps staring at her. His teeth drift toward his lower lip, but he does not quite bite down, and Juri is about to open her mouth. But then Shiori rushes in, all flippant smiles and breezy apologies, and the slithering thing inside Juri seizes up, squeezes her lungs once, hard, and then flows outward, burning through to the very edges of her limbs and making her fingertips tingle. And what can she do but pick up the foil and level it at him nonchalantly, pretending to have forgotten the question she still hasn't answered?
He is clean and simple and good. He will help her, if she lets him. But in return he will want to be her prince. It's not an unreasonable request—after all, no one, not even the good, is foolish enough to offer something without a price. She can read the terms of the exchange in his eyes. Nothing could be more straightforward.
But she cannot give him what he wants.
It already belongs to the delicate princess, who crushes it under her heel each day and never notices.
iii.
Juri likes to lie with her head in Shiori's lap, and Shiori obliges her in this, running her fingers through the thick curls with great dutifulness and precision. Sometimes she wants to hold them tight, tear them away and leave blood in her wake, but when that happens she just strokes them more lovingly, feverish with covetousness.
Shiori likes to lie more and more often, lately; it's just so convenient, and it can do so much for you. Now when they sprawl in the usual way, she has to resist the urge to move her fingers to Juri's face, the face that is more hers than her own, for she controls every emotion that possesses it. Every twist of the lips, every crease in the brow, each atom of pain that lurks in the eyes—it is all so beautiful, and it is all her doing. That's what lying does for you: puts strength where before there was weakness.
Even a spindle can strike true if you know how to use it.
Shiori knows all about princes. They don't care if the inside is ugly and rotten, so long as you smile in all the right places, keep house and keep out of the way. You can take the parts you hate and hide them, and they will let you do it. That's what it means to be rescued.
She could not hide those things from Juri. It wouldn't matter how deep she buried them; Juri knows where all the hiding places are. And how could any prince choose her with Juri around? No matter how hard she tries, Juri's best things are always better than hers. That's why she needs to prove herself: what if one day Juri changes her mind, decides she does want a prince after all?
But princes never know what they're in for. They think it's all fun and games, all adventure, and then they give up one little kiss and you eat them alive. You drag them home (to your cottage or castle, it doesn't matter) and put them to work, hide their swords and give them brooms instead, get jealous when they talk of other maidens they should be saving.
It's the only way to make sure they stay. Even real princesses wilt, in the end. Dimmed lights and cosmetics—that's all that's left of magic in this world.
But that's how you know you're a success, right? If you can win a prince, it doesn't matter what spells you had to employ, what twisted webs you had to weave around those you maybe loved, or could have. As long as you can pose for pictures together—smile at the camera, his arm across your shoulders—no one, no one, can doubt your worth.
Is there another ending? She's never heard of one. There's just a thought, just one, when she sees Juri's arms toned and lean from fencing and thinks that they're strong enough to hold her. It would be like pieces of a puzzle, her head nestled in the curve of Juri's neck—but what use is it to think like that? Juri is no prince, nor ever can be. Juri can only ever be a competitor for her crown, and that's why all this manipulation is necessary.
She understands why the bad fairy became a witch, why she wouldn't bless the princess. Why should she? Why was it fair for one girl to get all the gifts? Why should she be just another trophy thrown carelessly onto the hoard? If she could take something away instead, catch the princess with her magic and keep her cloistered in a marble tower, then she'd have a chance. After enough time had passed, it would be easy to mistake a witch for a princess.
But marble is mercilessly cold, and she pictures those pretty curls blanched white from hoarfrost and neglect, and hesitates. She herself has never been cold; Juri has made sure of that. And the princess would be left all alone if everyone forgot her.
But the witch would remember. Trapped in her prison of silk and satin, sometimes she'd ache to see true beauty. And then she'd pull the lever, climb the hidden stair, touch the lips no one would ever kiss.
Shiori thinks she'll make one modification to the story. Instead of peaceful sleep, she'll seal her princess's eyes in that exquisite look of hurt and make it last for all eternity.
It won't be so bad, Juri. I won't let you be lonely. At night I'll brush your hair out for you, and I'll burn the roses to keep you warm. You just have to promise not to let anyone else look at you. Only my eyes can touch you; you have to turn the others' away.
Do you understand, Juri?
No eyes but mine.
iv.
"Do you like fairy tales?" Ruka asks suddenly.
She quirks an eyebrow, not quite amused, but not quite disdainful, either. "You're joking, right?"
"I mean did you like them. When you were a child." He really hadn't meant anything at all, had just been searching for something, anything, to say to her.
"Not really," she says, fiddling with her fencing jacket (he's always so disappointed when she doesn't look directly at him). "Why, did you?"
"Sure. Noble princes, fair princesses—that world appealed to me. I wanted to be part of it."
She laughs, and it's hard and brittle where it should flow sweet and thick—honey left outside to freeze. He wonders, idly and then seriously, who made her this way. He can see the dreamy, wistful girl with the expressive eyes, she's right there in front of him, but she's covered by glass and cobwebs, cynicism turning her to rust.
"What would I be in a world like that?" she asks, waving the foil self-deprecatingly. "I've got the sword, and I know how to use it well enough, but that'll only get me so far. An almost-prince, is that it? I'll pass."
"Of course not," he says, trying to warm her with the light in his eyes. "You'd be the fairest princess of all. Princes from every land would come to your castle, daring the briars and the enchantments, all just for the chance to be the one to kiss you—" He stops. Juri is trembling.
"I hate that story," she says.