The Alive - by LoudButStillQuiteDeadly

A/N: Hi, guys! I'm in love with fairy tales of all types. I've had little ideas brewing in my head every once in a while, but this is the first bit I've ever scribbled down. I've been clinging to it for a while, and I haven't shown it to anyone but a few of my friends. I really want some critiquing - no compliments, no making me feel special. Tell me what you liked, and tell me what you hated. I look forward to it!

PS This first little tidbit is written really... I dunno, vaguely. Opaquely. It's more story-time than the rest of the story will be. It's just to get a little glimpse of Vivianne and her personality beforehand, and to basically summarize the first few years of her life. It gets better, I hope!

Prologue

When Vivianne was born, she was quiet.

She bled from her mouth, wide open in a soundless scream. Blood fountained from her round, pale, perfect lips. She was choking on her own life, and without help, she would die. The only screaming came from her mother. Madeline sobbed in despair: after eighteen hours of splitting, cruel, relentless pain, her child was destined to die.

Sorcerers, midwives and apothecaries struggled to staunch the child's bleeding. It was then, when the bleeding ceased and was wiped away with a spell, that the girl cried. Cold, sharp oxygen broke into her tiny lungs. The shock of air, the relief of breath, forced a pathetic whimper to rack her pathetic body. And then she slept.

She was placed in her mother's tired, sagging arms. The woman, the Queen, had already borne two daughters; Vivianne was a last, feeble attempt at producing a male heir. Madeline knew this would be her last child. She could not handle another day like this one - fevered, painful, and overall disappointing. She would die. She was weak.

Vivianne was also weak. Her heartbeat was a tired hummingbird, struggling against the confines of life. She would have cried if she could; but she could not. She could never catch her breath enough to wail away the pain in her tiny chest. A sorcerer, Gideon, stayed by her cradle day and night, forgoing food and sleep so that she wouldn't slip away in the middle of a fit.

When it became apparent that she would not die, but that she would be as strong and pouty as any two-year-old, a sigh of relief was exhaled by all. The girl was not the son that the King and Queen so craved, but she was still a Princess, and that was how she would be treated. She slept in the royal nursery with her older sisters, Marianna and Margaret. She was taught how to walk and talk not by her parents, but by a young, pretty nurse-mary. The ailments of her early youth were soon forgotten, and she grew up to be as pretty, poised, and spoiled as her sisters.

Gideon remained her constant friend. When she was scolded, it was to Gideon that she ran. When she scraped her knee, she relied on his spells to heal her. Sweet, humble Gideon, with the face of a boar and the heart of a lamb, endured her tantrums and petulance with fatherly gusto.

When her mother, frail and weak as she was, became pregnant, it was to Gideon she sobbed. And when Queen Madeline gave birth to a son, Timothy, and died, it was Gideon that she blamed. And then, as Timothy choked on his own life's blood just as she had, and died in his mother's limp arms, it was Gideon that she hated.

For, as close as Vivianne was with Gideon, it was Madeline that she adored. In winter, her mother would sew by the fire and listen to her girls reading fairy tales out loud. During the spring, they danced through the gardens together, skipping in their heavy skirts and plucking flowers from their stems. On hot summer days, the girl would curl up with her mother and sisters in the browning grass like a litter of kittens to a cat. And in fall, when the leaves were brown and the grass crackled underfoot, she would sing to them in her high, clear, sweet voice, of mermaids and fairies and dashing princes.

Vivianne used to look up to her mother. She had loved all of her daughters, no matter how disappointing they were in the fact that they weren't sons. She had loved her husband, too, and had treated the servants with respect.

Vivianne used to think her mother could do anything. But when she died, she left a wound in Vivianne's chest, a wound that hurt as much as the sickness she had as a child. And it was Gideon's fault. He could have saved her mother, would have saved her, if not for the son. The son had been his priority.

But now, Madeline and the infantile Prince were both dead. And it was all Gideon's fault. For the remainder of her childhood, Vivianne hated Gideon with every fiber of her being.

Vivianne had been twelve when her mother died. Now, it seemed as if everything had deserted her. Her mother, her baby brother, Gideon... even her sisters seemed cold and distant.

Her grief could not be channeled into words, for no one would listen. She could not write about her pain for fear someone might see. She wandered about the Palace grounds forlorn and lonely, for the next four years, wearing her hurt like a garment. When she turned sixteen, and saw the withered, destitute gardens that her mother used to care for with such tenderness, she wept. It was then that she shed whatever self pity she kept and poured all of her energy into the gardens, making them lovely once more.

And when they were restored to their former glory, full of life and light, Vivianne sat among the rosebushes and wept some more, wondering why she still felt as lonely as ever.