Sleepy Knight's Cradle
Finally, something to break nonproductive period. A miniseries that suddenly popped out while watching the classic Sleeping Beauty with such nostalgia and playing Dark Souls (lolwhut). Expect a filthy lot of purple prose and weird style of writing here.
Now you know the drill. Enjoy, or kindly leave.
Act I
Panorama (Andantino Affetuoso)
"It is your fault, Jacques, for breaching the trust of the Winter Hexe."
Anyone who would dare to address the King so casually with his name would result their head being put under guillotine's mercy. Yet, the King knew beheading Lord Ironwood would do nothing to ease his predicament.
"My invasion to Mistral was eons ago, and shortly ended up with our loss anyways. Should she feel the need to toll more loss upon us by condemning the only heir of this kingdom to death?"
"Sins of youth aren't forgettable for many, let alone for a long-living magical fae. You already know Winter Hexe only allow the true Schnee blood to take the throne and declare a war." The gloved hand of the knight-lord reached for the wine. Sweet liquor soothed his parched throat before he resumed his ominous banter with the King. "But your greedy youth self, as the 'outsider king' she despises, waged needless bloodshed. You were too prideful to make amends all these years, and only when she declared her curse you finally admit your folly."
That was the blow that brought his lion-like arrogance succumbing and his arsenal of words empty of rebuttals.
All left in King Jacques were only shame over a rotten folly and despair upon a fresh curse.
"I have a proposition. I'd like to take her under my wing and train her as a knight."
Silvery-white whiskers twitched, following the frowning facial muscles underneath. "And how will it resolve the curse latching on her?" inquired the royal highness.
"Simple. Us knights have nothing to do with spindles. My keep is deep in the woods, with keen-eyed knights will filter and pulverize any spinning wheels and spindles in sights. The princess will be kept within my keep, busied by grueling training until her sixteenth birthday passes. Moreover, with her being a knight, what would prick her to death are spears, not some measly needles."
"You want my only child dies in more gruesome way than a witch's curse?!"
And the old knight only laughed and brushed off the King's outburst. Morbid jokes weren't for everyone, for sure.
"By her sixteenth birthday, she'll be too busy with sword sparring that she'll slumber in exhaustion. And the moment she wakes up, she'll be sixteen-year and a day old, and still breathing. Never forget, Your Royal Highness, Winter Hexe indeed wields magic unsurpassed by many, but not that she is invulnerable."
Unable to adhere the knight-lord's proposition, yet unable to rebuke with any alternatives, the King held to his silence.
"She is condemned by cold steel, just like faerie of legends. Pray and tell, Your Royal Highness," Lord Ironwood gruffly hummed with his hand perched on his sword's pommel. "With what, do you think us knights are armed and armored?
xxxxx
Summer's sun was impartial. To them who brushed brusque stallions, scrubbing stubborn soot from armors, or rampaged on raucous sparring—It gave equal intensity of scorch to everyone.
For one snowy-haired youth, however, the vernal heat had no fury like the scorn and condescending look given by her opponent.
Him with brawny tall build and bright russet hair, and the vertically challenged lithe female with ruffled white ponytail. Stark contrast they were, but they suffered the same agony—bruised from blunt practice sword strikes, breaths raced and sweats profusely lathered their skin.
She hated that look. That one which spelled mockery to her skills and contempt to her lineage—
"White royal cunt! Just give up!"
That was the last call.
Screeching shrill battle cry that could be mistaken for shriek of banshees, she swung the metal blunt edge furiously smashing his face.
His sharp cry of pain broke out with the breaking of his nose and the sudden spike of pain squandered him to the dusty ground with bleeding nostrils. Wrong as it may, she relished the sight of him whimpering-growling like a beaten beast and the attention she garnered for smashing his smug face bloody—
"Weiss! I told you no hitting neck up for sparring with no helmets!"
The whole training grounds went silent as Lord Ironwood marched to the scene. His chiseled visage was stone cold, but it made his fury stood out more than enough to rattle bones with fear.
"C-Curse you, princess! Go back and play with dolls before some sagging old prince wed and bed you!"
"You heard it, my lord! Cardin won't stop insulting me! I can't stand being humiliated-"
"Go to the forge and oil the polearms with Neptune, your practice is over for today. Consider yourself on a probation, young lady," spoke the knight-lord with voice firmer than steel. "Cardin, I cared less if you're the son of Duke Winchester when your mouth and manners are as foul as cesspit. You insult anyone once more, you'll sleep in the kennel with the hounds."
Weiss flashed a triumphant look as the boy was hauled away and the crowd dispersed. This should serve well as a warning to not just Cardin but any dunce aristocrat boys and child-minded knights of Lord Ironwood's court who looked down on her.
Fifteen-year-old, she was no longer a simple page who run hitherto fetching wine or food. She was adult and apt enough to be a squire and fight for her own honor, just like knights do. For hellfire's sake, she even could try her luck unseating full-fledged knights in a joust and shove her glory up to those boorish boys and knights' nostrils.
Too bad, standard jousting rules weren't too friendly to left-handed fighters like herself.
She was a royal princess and heiress apparent of the kingdom. And with that, inevitably came the stigma of her being a pompous spoiled girl with privilege, or a frail damsel in need for a savior knight/prince like those measly fairy tales always foretold. Seems really few would entertain the idea of the damsel and the knight was one same individual, or else she wouldn't have been looked down on by her knight-in-training peers.
The stale grey and drab sight inside the keep did her no good. And she always wondered what lush scene the forest out there might hide.
Lord Ironwood wouldn't be happy to find her snubbed her duty and sneaked out beyond the keep's ramparts. But with the blue-haired squire being head-over-heels for her, convincing him to cover her up wouldn't be hard. Using his infatuation for her disposal was wrong, but he had to learn not to woo a princess when he was low enough to flirt with every maid in the keep.
With her needed defense belted on her hips, she scuttled discreetly as possible to the woods.
Freedom was an alien concept for her. Her childhood was filled with her wondering the vast yonder told by books, heard from servants and guards, but herself never tasted. And her seven-year-old self thought she'd soon be free from the cloistered hold of Castle White, delighted by the premise of her first chance of breathing the world within her knight training.
Then it turned out she was still the same sheltered snowflake, just braised and tempered with harsh martial training. She still peered towards the distance beyond the parapet, and never did her own feet kissed the mud and grass just outside the portcullis.
But not today, she laughed inwardly. Now the sole of her boots trampled the forest's undergrowth as her legs straddle the distance and took leaps over nook and cranny. Her galloped breathing stuffed her lungs with unfamiliar air of open world, greedily wolfing down her first taste of freedom.
All of it was just so good. Oh, why she never tried this sooner, she asked herself.
Her run abated to light walks and she took a rest under a thick tree. She was too excited that she forgot the bruise that gnawed her tired body, or the turns and distances her feet had taken her. It'd be fine, she'd easily find way back; just look for the fortress stood out among the trees…
Oh no.
Looking back, all she could see was thick foliage and tight uneven rows of tree trunks. Maybe she could see the keep by climbing over the trees, but alas, the brutal sparring with Cardin left her body unable to climb without falling and hurting herself.
Good grief, she already lost her way.
Oh well, she couldn't have been that far from the keep. Lord Ironwood would easily found her once he was alerted by her disappearance, and a dire punishment would be waiting for her. She hoped she wouldn't have to share the kennel with Cardin—as much as she hated dogs' dungs, they were far more tolerable than that reeking imbecile—
She leaped to her feet as she heard wolf's cry. Her hand blindly reached for either her rapier or longsword—which one, it mattered not for her—and warily eyed her surroundings.
Another cry, a girl's cry, sent her bolting through the thick bush. The sight that met her eyes nailed in sudden halt.
Blood. Blood upon the growling grey beast and the ground. In front of the scraggly monstrosity was a maiden in red hood cradling a scythe with her dear life.
Before she even knew it, her blade had sunk deep to the beast's spine.
xxxxx
Perhaps she was people would call as 'bastard-born'?
It had to be. Bastards were born with bad luck and contempt branded on them—befitting unwanted byproducts of fornication.
Being a 'bad luck' was subjective. Being born as a child of vague parentage, a bastard, was a fact.
She knew nothing about her mother aside from vague description of 'lovely blooming summer' or 'red she-wolf of a wench'—depends from person to person she heard it from. A funny thing is, she never ever heard any single words describing her mother from her own father. Her father rarely talked to her, to begin with.
One thing she was sure was her mother was dead and wrecked the heart of the man she called 'Dad'.
He was wrecked so much that he looked at the last living remembrance of his lover with…
…Hatred—
No, not that. Definitely not that word. 'Dad' loved her, just like he loved her mother, right?
Or so she convinced herself for years. A young child surely would have her heart filled with hope and yearning for love, naturally rejecting projections of her wishes' antithesis. As years moved on, and the hopeful gleam of her eyes matured to realistic reflection, slowly but sure she begun to let her desperate hopes go and accept the bitterness sprawled on her life.
Like the lack of love and abundance of bad luck surrounding her.
Once, a whole flock of fat sheep herded by her was maimed by rabid dogs and had to be put down. In a particularly harsh winter, she almost starved the whole village to death by accidentally knocked down a lantern and started a fire that burned some of village's emergency wheat supplies. Many more unfortunate occurrences might or might not be related to her happened, but most are satisfied enough to made her the cause to blame.
The red hood she loved to wear was more of her cover from shame, no longer her last source of comfort like it used to.
Of all people, the only one who cared for her was her blonde half-sister. The one who had all rights to hate her—for destroying what was left between heartbroken blonde daughter and father—showed her more love than the paternal figure whose blood tied thicker to her. Her sister loved her more than anyone could.
Thirteen-year-old, she was good at nothing but making scythe dance reluctantly to reap stalks of wheat. Villagers wasn't too fond of 'the bad luck charm in red hood', but they could always use some extra labor for sowing, tilling and harvest months—and how they love how she could work without moaning about high workload or low pay. The wheat fields were the only space not touched by her bad luck.
A bastard shouldn't wish for more. Her sister, the blustering, bubbly and loving blonde, was more than she could ask for.
Still, it didn't satiate the hollowness that was asking for her father. Maybe she yearned his recognition so much that she agreed to transport a bulky wheat sheaf right from the field to some shady mill across the forest—whilst there was a functioning mill in less than a hundred steps away.
She set down the bundled wheat and her scythe down from her shoulders. If they could talk, the muscles of her shoulder blades would whine from the strain and the destination that seemed out of her reach. She was no stranger to the forest's lay of the land, but why the path she walked felt so long and winding. Her stomach grunted, scolding her for not accepting the extra helping of breakfast from her sister's bowl of muesli, or for foolishly accepting the strange request her father asked.
Her energy was nearly worn out and a wave of hunger rebelled inside. Nothing she had with her beside her scythe and the freshly harvested crop bundle. If only she was a sheep, a cow or a horse, her aching stomach could be quelled by chewing those wheat stalks.
There was a rustle of the bushes she barely registered, but what trotted out from the bushes froze her blood.
A wolf. Huge but scraggly, its eyes shone with the hunger of a pack's beastly outcast. Thick drool oozed past its bared yellowish fangs, ready to fill the starving jaw with raw human blood and flesh.
Calm down. Don't make sudden move… carefully reach for your scythe—
In a sudden surge of reflex, she screamed and swung her scythe just in time when the wolf lunged to her. The thin curved blade hit its legs and the wooden shaft threw the bloody beast to the ground.
She did it. She'd just escaped death, but the fear ruptured her body and rendered her legs to be nothing but limp jelly and feeble sticks. Scythe clutched so tight near her chest, she slid her body backwards against the grass, desperately trying to put up the diminishing distance between her and the hungered beast.
Oh, look at that. Mangled the wolf's feet might be, but its eye burned so bright with determination to eat the red-hooded girl before falling to Death's embrace with full belly.
The color in her face was washed out. Her chest tightened with turbulent air brought by hyperventilation. Is this how a bastard, a bad luck charm dies? Being a meal of a measly animal?
A shriek boomed, but it wasn't from her throat. It was too melodic and laden with courage instead of fear; something that wouldn't come out from a maiden in the face of doom by a wolf.
Lo and behold, the wolf lied dead. But how?
There was another figure on the picture; a young woman with strange white hair in unkempt ponytail, standing on top of the dead wolf, within her grip was a bloodied sword.
"Are you insane? Fighting against a wild wolf alone?"
The thirteen-year-old was too shocked to reply. She cringed when she saw the wolf's blood being flicked away from the white-haired stranger's blade. The contrast of the white, metal shine and the blood gleam was too much.
She jerked softly when the stranger pried her left hand from her scythe. Scruffy cuts and blood marred her backhand and she didn't even realize it—must be from the wolf's claw earlier. The white-haired girl silently poured water from her waterskin to the injured hand and wrapped a bandage in secure comfy bind.
"I don't know if it's from wolf's bite or not, but I won't take chances-"
"It's a cut from my own scythe, don't worry. I'll go to a physician soon."
She felt the need and urge to go soon, lest the stranger would unnecessarily concerned. When she was about to thank her savior, she didn't expect to find the wheat sheaf already hauled on the shoulder by the white-haired female.
"You shouldn't have carried it!" her high-pitched yelp spoke. "It must be heavy!"
"What kind of knight who let injured hands carrying weight of wheat sheaves."
"You're a knight?" She trailed, and the small frown on the white 'knight''s face gave her a mini panic. "Oh my, I'm so so sorry! I don't mean to insult you!"
"I'm not a knight, not yet."
The frown was still there, but the soft voice of the not-yet-a-knight strangely soothed her.
Before the knight-in-training could protest, she quickly grabbed her scythe and walk forth with the other followed beside her.
Along her walk, she didn't spoke a word but stole glances to the knight-in-training—there's a word for it, oh yes, a squire. Someone as beautiful as her as must've been belonged to highest classes of the hierarchy, like a daughter of a noble family, or even a princess. Grime and sweat might cake on her face, no smile graced her lips but her beauty wasn't tarnished at all.
However, at this point she was more concerned about the squire's wellbeing—she looked like about to fall anytime. That lean, almost skinny, but stalwart-looking body (must be from exercises to be a knight, she thought) couldn't hide the subtle sway of tiredness. She swore she even saw a peek of fresh bruise under the collar of her shirt.
It was either this squire trying to impress or just too prideful to admit her fatigue, or both
"Why are you suddenly in the middle of a forest alone, anyway?"
She yelped softly and cast her vision to random direction, hoping the squire didn't catch her staring.
"My father told me to take some wheat to the mill across the forest. Actually my older sister wants to come along but my father really needs her help in the forge, so I went alone."
"Really?" a snowy eyebrow quirked, seemingly taken aback by her explanation. "To me, from the sound of it, you were thrown to the wolves by your own father."
"No, no I wasn't!"
"Then you're a dolt for denying it."
She didn't expect how crass the squire could be. However, what was salting the wound was how nonchalant the snow-haired teen pointed out the possibility she never wanted to find out:
What if her father hated her so much that he'd like to get rid of her?
She need to re-track the flow of this conversation's topic.
"How about yourself?" she asked.
There was a small shade of red infiltrating the squire's cheeks under her knotted brows. "It is a fool of me to wander this forest for the first time without a company."
"Oh, so you're lost?"
"I'm not lost!"
"You are, Miss Knight-in-Training!"
"Fine, I admit I am," grunted the white-haired girl not-so discreetly. "Will you show me the way back to Lord Ironwood's keep, if you may?"
She couldn't hold it and laughed loudly. This soon-to-be knight was just too much, trying to look tough with her adorable denial.
"Hey! What are you laughing at?"
"Sorry, sorry! I'll show you the way! It's coincidentally on the same direction I head to."
The squire deliberately slowed her walk to let her took the lead. The path leading to the lord's keep was actually quite a roundabout way to her destination, but she felt the need to repay the squire who saved her life.
The way they walked led them to the western backside of the keep.
"Thank you for your help," the white-haired squire smiled and set down the bundled wheat. "Are you sure you can carry the wheat all the way to your destination?"
"Yup! Don't worry, I can handle this!"
"Thank you, once again. Be safe on your way."
The way she said 'thank you' made her lost in awe, especially those sky blue eyes that just reflected kindness in her smile. What a person the squire was, a dash of aloof coldness blanketing a kind persona.
She felt the temperature rose near her cheeks, prompting her to look away with a shy grin.
"Can I have your name?"
"Weiss—I'm sorry, I have to go!"
The squire suddenly ran all the way to the fortress.
Yet there's no way she let herself owed the squire—Weiss—a name. With all of the air stored in her chest, she shouted:
"Thank you, Weiss! And my name is Ruby!"
This one kind of style I rarely use, usually when I want to write drabbles/one shots with unnecessary sprinkle of purple prose. But hella fun for me lol.
Never trust me with fairy tales, coz I'll butcher 'em soooo bad lol. Like, why the hell you keep the Sleeping Beauty from the curse by training her as a knight? Well, because a castle filled only with knights won't have any spinning wheels (or spindles, if you're faithful to the source, that is Perrault's version)! They only have giant needles-I mean, spears, lances and rapiers lol.
Or maybe it's just me, watching Sleeping Beauty after playing Dark Souls.
Thank you for reading!