My mother is Sleeping Beauty.
Now, there are some variations to how this tale has been told: through various narrators that have most of the basics down--a princess falls into a sleep like death and a kiss wakes her up.
My mother was never a princess, in fact she was not even considered even a peasant by the Northern Kingdom's class system. She was a witch, one born of both mortal and immortal blood, but a witch nontheless. She lived in the Dark Forest that surrounds all of the Four Kingdoms, but could not escape the pull that drew her to mortal dwelings.
My grandmother, a pureblooded witch who will outlive us all, did not care for the mortal Kingdoms but would allow my mother to frequent them as long as she would return to the forest at dusk. And so mother did.
She met my father this way, who's name was Philip Dane, and was to be crowned King when he grew up.
My father says he did not want the crown but also knew he had little choice and so as a child he denied himself nothing. Except, he said, the things he knew were never to be his.
Like my mother. A witchling, lavender skinned and silver haired with eyes of emerald. He denied himself anything more then friendship, but they became fast friends.
Friendship can so easily blend into love that both of them were almost completely unaware of the depth of their bond. The time came when it would be tested of course, as these things are eventually.
My father was to be crowned when he found himself a queen, and so my late grandfather allowed Philip to search. And he did.
He traveled through all four kingdoms, looking for anyone who may gain his trust. But when he slept, all he saw was my mother's hair in the sunlight, blinding him even in the darkest nights.
And my mother, she did not visit the mortal lands for months. A queer darkness grew in her, an unfamilliar ache.
Grandmother, always wise but also vain knew what had rose between the two. She cackled wildly, "You have bonded to him! A mortal!"
"Bonded?" Mother asked, oddly meek for someone so often bold. Shadows hung under her eyes.
Grandmother grinned wickedly, as she did often but said nothing.
She said nothing even as my mother fell asleep one night and never woke up. Such as what happens to the Fae if they should gift their heart without creating a strong Bond, the heart no longer beats and the one afflicted with this shall sleep forever.
But, this bond was not two-sided, and father knew when he returned home that something had happened to mother. Something horrible.
He ventured into the Dark Forest, alone, with only sword and shield to find her. To tell her what he felt, even if it meant she would hate him.
In the Forest he came across a tower, old and half-crumpeled: a remnant of the old world. A derelict corpse of a time before the Forest ate the world.
Grandmother, who loved her daughter despite her attitude towards mortals, had called the plants and flowers to comfort my sleeping mother in this tower. No one could get to her.
Even so, my father slowly cut away the thorns and branches that cut him in retaliation. He cut through them for three days, grew weak, but continued simply so he could tell her.
My mother, sensing his distress, woke up. Half-mad she tore at the plants around her with her nails, only smelling his blood and feeling her chest clench as each thorn tore into her own flesh.
Seeing this, Grandmother went to talk with her daughter, thinking that it was best to comfront this sickess (she thought of love as this) head on and perhaps break this half-formed Bond.
Mother fought her, both physically and mentally to escape this tower of thorns. Grandmother, although strong and pious, relented to her daughter out of the bond each child and mother share.
Mother and Father confessed their feelings and the Bond wrapped around them, tying their fates intricately together in a way only the Fae are able. Their lives bound to eachother.
And so a witch of mortal blood became Queen of the Iron Castle, Queen of the Northern Kingdom of Eir and gave birth to a set of twins: my sister and I.
Ansel held the brush between her fingers and raised an eyebrow at my attemps at braiding my own hair.
"Really?" She asked, cocking a hip. "You have mud on your face."
I quickly turned to the mirror, "I though I got it all."
She looked into the mirror with me, at our shared faces, so similar and yet nothing alike. There was a small smuge of dirt or dust along my cheekbone, and I furiously rubbed it off and left my cheek red.
"You know mother wants this night to be perfect," she began to untie my makeshift braid and brush through the damp strands. "And that means we can't have you covered in dirt."
I knew this night was special, marking our shared nineteenth birthday and the moment we were socially able to be deemed fully grown adults. Which meant dating, and eventually leaving the castle we had been in since our birth and exploring the world.
"Its nothing to be scared of," she twisted my hair into a lose plait that allowed the small section of colorless hair to fall along the shape of my cheeks. Her own was dyed to blend into her dark hair. I could tell where that section was, simply from memory. "We can travel to the Southern Kingdom even, see the sun for more then a few months."
I smiled despite the acide in my gut, "That is true," a pause. "I am not scared, just--"
"Everything will be fine, you know that." She finished the braid, threw the brush on the bed and hugged my shoulders.
"I know," I placed my hands on her arms and breathed out slowly, trying to invision the tension on my shoulders being brushed away. "Think you can give me a boost?"
In the mirror, she rolled her eyes but pulled off a silk glove and put her hand on my neck, flesh to flesh. A sense of calm invaded, "You'll be fine."
Then, just as quickly her glove was back on and I was standing, hanging on to that fading thread of calmess as I brushed out my skirt.
Of course, even with this 'boost' my sense of unease stayed, screaming: something is wrong.
