Life is precious. From the moment a child touches the heart or mind of another to the moment it leaves, a footprint is left on this world. Every once in a while, there is someone who loves life more than anything else, someone who loves it enough to never let go of it.
The Queen was hard in labor with her thirteenth child. The king paced up and down the hallways, waiting for the scream that would signal the arrival of his new heir. But there was more on the king's mind than a simple matter of a new child. The thirteenth child was never a good sign; most died, those that lived were not always normal. Often blind, deaf, dumb, or physically disabled they were seen as curses rather than blessings. And this child, if born, would be no exception. A scream woke him from his pensive stupor- he hurried to the queen's chamber.
A small child with blond hair and blue eyes looked up at her father. He smiled as she presented him with a pink rose she had gotten from the garden. He took it from her and she ran out of the room, curls bouncing as she headed off to play again. Her father gazed lovingly after her, and gently touched the petals of the rose- his eyes sharpened and his blood ran cold as he jerked his finger back, dripping with blood. The rose shattered as it fell to the floor. The soft petals of the flower had been stiff, as if frozen, and the razor sharp edge had cut him. He picked up several shards of the petals, and went to tell his wife.
The seer had not been consulted in many years. Most people considered seers to be foolish, or at the very least, obsolete... She smiled as the royal family parted the heavily embroidered gold curtains that surrounded her inner quarters. She had no crystal ball, she was not one of the gypsies. She saw the girl, who was smiling and playing with one of the many cats in the tent. Her eyes widened as the cat stopped moving, and the family quickly whisked their daughter away from the animals. The seer moved to the back room, and reappeared with a mirror. Speaking softly to the mirror, she held it up in front of the child. There was a flash of light, and then the mirror turned black. Taking a black cloth, the seer polished the mirror and gazed into it. She sighed sadly, and turned to the family. Their faces paled as she told them what had happened, and what was yet to come.
In order to prevent their daughter from bringing the castle harm, her parents made a mistake. They locked her up in the high tower, a tower that rose seven hundred feet over the rest of the castle, and was attended by no one. They could not bear to kill nor watch their daughter be killed, and so they left her there among her room furnishings and stuffed animals to slowly starve to death.
Her body grew weaker week by week, but the thirteenth child, once born, does not give up on life so easily. Her power, to take life from all she is surrounded by, was appropriated. The court begged for the release of the princess as little by little, the servants, and then the courtiers, began to freeze. Her body was unable to keep moving, but with the energy she received from those robbed of life she was able to maintain a frozen, coma-like stasis, not unlike those she took life from. Soon the castle was filled with wax-like figures, and the forest took over the outer wall, transforming it into a seventy-foot impassible mass of thorns and brush.
A young man on a black stallion approached the tent of the seer. She was one of the few people left in the surrounding towns that had not seemingly stopped in the middle of life, neither dead nor alive, but frozen. The old woman was reluctant to talk, knowing full well what would come of any attempt to pass those walls. If one did not perish on the vines, one would not survive three days without having life stolen from them. She felt her fingers begin to stiffen and grow cold. The young man in front of her would not enter if he truly knew, so she told him what he was to do- climb the tower, find the witch, kill her if you wish to revive the people you see here. With that, she closed her eyes and became as glass. Setting his jaw, the determined prince unsheathed his word, spurred on his horse, and set off for the palace. Upon reaching the wall, he became grateful for the many times he had been scolded for running away from home by climbing down the vine outside his window. Skills like that never leave you, and he jumped down on the other side, staring agape at the thousands of people in the courtyard, figurines in a museum.
He ran, dodging cooks with loafs of long-deteriorated bread, tripping over servants with brittle brooms and rotten mops. He reached the highest tower and opened the door, unsure of what he would find, but sure that it was worth it to save the thousands of people caught on the brink of life and the edge of death.
He stood, once again with his mouth agape (he was wont to do so when something surprised him, and he was most certainly surprised...) He had an active imagination, but a beautiful girl with extremely long hair (it had been growing for over 50 years) sleeping soundly on a canopy bed somehow had not entered his mind. He looked at his unsheathed sword bemusingly, wondering why he had bothered to bring it at all. He gently touched the rosy cheeks, and wound a strand of the golden hair around his finger. He stepped away, and with that motion his fingers began to lose some of their dexterity. He looked at his sword once more, and stiffening with resolve (and the spell) he thrust his sword into her hand- and recoiled in pain. His own hand bore an exact wound. In desperation he thrust the sword into her heart. She awoke, and as he collapsed onto her, soaking her white sheets with red blood, she paled as life drained out of her. Whether or not he heard the last words of the princess is unknown, but into the still night air, so softly that only the birds heard it, were the princess's last words- "thank you"
The Prince died to save thousands in a moment, but the seer sent him to save millions in the future... Seconds after her last words rang out into the night- the shattering of glass was heard. The one life source that had kept them stable for these many many years was gone, and thus the last remnants of them disappeared... The rest of the world slept safe and sound, never hearing of the valiant prince who saved them nor the princess who loved life too much.
Save for a traveling merchant who ransacked the seer's tent, no one would ever have heard the story the seer wrote as she gazed in her mirror during her last days, a story changed over centuries: the story of Sleeping Beauty. All that bears witness to that story lies in a glass box buried in the vaults of a museum- a colorful shard of glass, the color of the Seer's eyes.