Once There Was
A kiss, and perhaps the princess woke up and maybe she had a happily ever after. Sleeping Beauty.
Once upon a time, there was a princess cursed at birth.
You wake up and almost wish you didn't. If not for the sake of your children you would not have been able to find the will to live. Not by yourself, in a castle surrounded by a sea of red and thorns.
One of your children is crying.
Once upon a time a princess went to sleep and never woke for a hundred years.
You hurry to your children's side, ready to offer any and all comfort that they needed. The crying child is in the bed, staring at you. The other is gone. You think to yourself that perhaps he had wandered off to explore the castle and gotten lost.
You hold the younger child to you, murmuring in his ears. He does not stop crying. Instead, he points to his bedroom door. You smile and heft him up to take him outside.
Once upon a time, a prince arrived.
The smell of pie comes to your attention. Your child gestures in the direction of the smell, his crying softer now, placated by the feel of your arms around him.
You come to the kitchen and notice a freshly baked meat pie cooling on the windowsill. Your child points at it and tries to speak although it comes out nonsensical. You shush him, thinking that he was hungry and had smelled the pie from his room.
The prince watched the princess sleep, and thought nothing of raping her.
It does not surprise you that there is a fresh pie in your kitchen. Somebody comes to your castle every so often to check that you and the king's crowned heirs are still breathing. Sometimes they bring offerings.
The pie smells delicious and you immediately cut a piece for your son. He turns his head away and his cries increase in volume again. You take a bite of the pie instead. It is delicious - more delicious than any other pie you have eaten before. You rock your son to try and calm him while helping yourself to another slice.
The princess slept on, unaware of the prince's visits as anything more than bad dreams.
You finish the pie, your son now extremely agitated. You try to keep a hold of him as he squirms in your arms, but fail. He runs away. You hurry after him, into the corridors unused for more than a hundred years. You remember the corridors but find that they've changed. You don't quite remember all the twists and turns in the castle but your son is still running and you can't leave him alone.
His legs finally tire and you catch him and hug him. You know that you are lost in the castle but it does not matter. You see a flicker of movement from the corner of your eye as you stroke your son's hair and look up into a mirror.
You see black.
The princess gave birth to two children.
You wake up. You hear crying and you try to come to your senses.
You are in a floating glass cube in your children's bedroom. It is night. Both the boys lay in their beds, asleep. You breathe a sigh of relief but wonder who was crying.
You turn to the doorway as you hear soft footsteps approaching the room. When the king's mother enters the room you become confused. Then the light glints on the butcher's knife in her hand and you scream. You bang your fists on the glass, tears running down your face as she walks towards your older son. She does not hear you.
She slept on until one of her children sucked on her finger by mistake and drew the cursed splinter out.
Your son wakes as the woman takes hold of his hair and brings the knife down on his neck. Your other son wakes as well and starts to cry. The woman ignores him and drags your dead son's body from the room.
You weep helplessly and watch as the king's mother cleans the blood and washes the bed sheets. Then everything blurs and you find yourself in the kitchen. You renew your crying as you watch her sawing your son's limbs from his torso. When you cannot take it anymore you turn away and block your ears.
Once upon a time a prince arrived at the castle of a sleeping princess and raped her. She bore him two children and one of those children sucked on her finger. She woke up.
You smell pie. You turn to look and you see the same pie that you saw this morning. The pie that you ate this morning. The pie made from your son's flesh.
She cleans the kitchen as well and leaves. You hear your son's crying. After a short while he is carried out to the kitchen in your arms. You stare from inside the glass cube at your self outside the cube. You let out a strangled yell but they don't hear you. You yell louder, screaming at the top of your lungs, but still they do not answer. You watch as you first try to feed your dead son to the only one you have left and you keep watching as you eat your own son instead.
Once upon a time a prince arrived at a sleeping castle, raped the sleeping princess and she woke up.
You still scream and yell and cry, but no sound reaches them. You watch as your son runs away and you chase him. You scream until you can no more. You cry until no tears flow. You yell until you have no breath left. You feel your world blurring.
You see in flashes. You see; roses outside your castle painted red with blood from its thorns, the black void that watched and kept out those of white and let in those of gold, an old woman with ears flowing blood and eyes sown shut and a gaping mouth with no tongue, a spindle spinning darkness into silver and silver into darkness, stone passages that never end but twist round and round, a reflection crying tears of blood, snow that fell as fire, a crown hanging from a sword stuck in a giant oak.
You see black.
Once upon a time a prince arrived at a sleeping castle, kissed the sleeping princess and she woke up.
Your eyes flutter open and you stare at the kindest gray eyes you've ever seen. You feel a connection to him immediately and you smile. He smiles and tells you that you'd been having a bad dream and that it was all over now, and you believe him. His voice is like honey, his hair like spun sunlight. You know he's right; you were having a long nightmare before he came to kiss you awake. Now that you and the rest of the castle were free of the fairy's curse, you will be able to live happily ever after.
The prince is everything.
He is so gentle, so caring, as he guides you through the castle which had come alive. The servants were dancing with joy and the king and queen laughed merrily. In your dream you had woken and found the castle to be silent and cold, full of skeletons with fine gowns of cobwebs, their eyeless sockets staring at death. Now jaunty music is playing and you dance with the prince who had braved the wall of roses to rescue you from the nightmare.
The prince is nothing.
Your father calls you to feast with him. You think that the servants have outdone themselves as they place fine, exotic foods you've never seen before on the table. Your smile falters as they position a large pie directly in front of you but you remind yourself that it was nothing more than a nightmare. You were never raped, never had children, nobody you love died. Determined to face your fears, you help yourself to a piece of pie, to your father's approval. You bite into it cautiously at first but your face glows as the succulent taste hits your tongue. The pie tastes better than even the pie you had dreamed of, though you remind yourself that this is probably due to the fact that you haven't eaten for over a century.
Happily, you help yourself to more pie and laugh at a joke that your Prince tells. Everything is perfect, exactly as it should be.
Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after.
You never see the woman behind you, caged in a glass prism and pounding her fists on the glass until she leaves streaks of blood on the surface. You never hear the desperate cries, the wracking sobs for you to stop. You never notice anything but continue to eat and marvel at the texture and richness of the food you are sampling.
Not once did the king or queen or prince stop smiling although their eyes were blank as sockets.
Once upon a time the princess fell asleep and never woke up.
A/N: I did not write this story. I posted it on behalf of my friend who was too lazy to make her own account. :) Credit goes to M. and her style. Read and Rage... (and Review, of course)