So, she built up a system. She made a House, in the name of her Daughter, on the premise of her point of pride… Beauty. She collected those who were saw and sought after for their beauty as members of her court and even workers in her household. They aligned with fairies, assigning godmothers whenever they could, to protect their daughters from evil and jealousy, and they drafted quests to find worthy husbands, to protect them and to create more beautiful heirs. 

Leah’s House was the most dominant house of all of the tales of the House of Beauty, and she took things very seriously. There had been others before her, nameless queens, unable to protect their daughters from curses and devils. 

The earliest, and probably least hopeful, one that, for Leah, made her make peace with all of her grave decisions that were unbecoming of a good woman, was the Tale of Zellandine. An unfortunate maiden, harmed with a curse and put into the defenselessness of a sleeping curse. Another tale that inspired Leah to forsake some of the more lenient expectations of a good queen was that of Princess Talia, who, like Zellandine, was also cursed with the pricking of her finger, and like Zellandine, was found, helplessly compromised by the sleeping curse and misused by a powerful man. Both of them, with nobody to protect them, were targets for their beauty, abused by men of stature, and left with babies that they in no way would be able to properly care for once being awoken when their curses were removed. 

Sleeping Beauty, she would become known to much of the world as, but that was not who she was. The archetypal helpless maiden, cursed with sleep and fated to be raped and impregnated, with no real repercussions for the men who did these things to them.

Eventually, she evolved, as times did with tales. The Prince’s Kiss became a cure for sleeping curses. Leah wasn’t sure if this took place because of a purposeful rewriting, or if somewhere, in some land, the version of that particular Sleeping Beauty was granted fortune, that a powerful man might look upon her, and (while not necessarily being given the consent to intervene), deciding to touch her in a more healing way that the sleeping maidens before her had experienced. 

This version, too, had not been as blessed by the touch of a powerful man as one might believe. In fact, for whatever reasons he might have held, he married his maiden in secret and they grew a family, who became targets of an ogress queen. She, too, leah learned from. For, when she discovered that her son, the Prince, had taken a family for himself with the beautiful maiden, she attempted to consume them. Perhaps the Prince knew how she was and what she might do if she knew of his secret family. Perhaps Leah even misremembered the tales told to her as a young princess and interjected different accounts after the attack on her own daughter.

But, what Leah did remember was that somehow, the evil mother-in-law devised a plan to murder the family her son had made, was thwarted and wound up killing herself. What Leah did remember, was thinking that Sleeping Beauty needed a mother to protect her (She thinks that maybe she was told that her parents had been slain when she was put to sleep, but it was fuzzy. Her mind was old, she had many responsibilities in her own kingdom, and tales from her childhood simply did not often make the cut for information her brain knew she needed. But… maybe she did need this information.

Little Briar Rose, the tale that most knew for their Sleeping Beauty heroines, was the most succinct and where the House of Beauty, under Leah's motherhood grew its greatest roots. It rewrote the formula, altogether, to the one that Leah adopted and perpetuated throughout the evolution of Sleeping Beauty and the empowerment that damsels in distress gave to her own daughter and their bloodline.

Sleeping Beauty… Leah didn’t tell these stories to Aurora as a child. In fact, whenever Aurora was put to sleep by a dark fairy, Leah wasn’t sure if she had known that there had been a story like it before. (Of course she knew a bit, from childhood), but what she didn’t know was that there were other forms of the tale in which a dark fairy descended upon the castle and cursed their baby girl.

When it happened to leah, she couldn’t understand how this could have happened! WHY it had happened. It all felt so senseless, and she had been trying so hard to be a good queen and have a strong house! It was in the years that Aurora could not be awaken that leah began forging the future for her daughter and her house. She sent out messengers, gathered historians, and formed councils in order to find everything that they could about such an incident and how they might free the princess. 

She became obsessed with it. She learned of sleeping curses and ways they were sometimes inflicted. She learned of the darker sides of a story, or a segment of stories that she had only vaguely remembered and couldn’t even say back then whether there was an obvious lesson or if these were simply horrifying tales of a horrid nature. When she discovered the Prince’s Kiss, she immediately drafted a quest. Drafting quests was still new back then. Princes went on adventures and found quests, but in Leah's day, quests become what they were now in her old age: an assignment, generally assigned by someone powerful in order to achieve some specific great purpose.

“A quest has been decreed. A sleeping curse has befallen the beautiful princess Aurora, inflicted by a dark fairy who goes by the name of the Mistress of Evil. We know not the extent of her power. Therefore, be warned, the outcome of such a quest may be death. The reward for accomplishing the feat of awakening my kingdom’s heiress is her hand in marriage, the honor of a hero’s tale, and all of the rights and privileges allotted to a mighty Prince. The Queen of the Noble House of Beauty”

Many princes answered the call, and all but one failed. Philip, the Dragon Slayer, he was now called. The husband of her daughter and father of her granddaughter. He was the only one besides Leah who seemed bothered by the rise of the Diamond Witch, who all were saying would be the next “Witch Queen,” someone else she was bothered by. 

“A good mother would know the tale that she wishes to weave for her daughter.” she said, after these moments of racing thoughts. Her royal hairdressers were tending to her hair, nails, face, and feet as she spoke to her daughter and granddaughter, with enchantments on the staff, so that they could not hear discussions of a royal matter. “And IF she DOES know the tale that she wishes to weave, but she’s giving us mixed messages as to her goals, we may be getting in bed with someone who radiates evil. I just don’t trust her.”

“I’m aware of your distrust, Mother. You and Philip have made it very clear.” Aurora was also getting all of her beauty services met. Her hair was being styled most elaborately, per her mother’s instructions, as she stared ahead, a facial mask on and multiple woodland creatures assisting her beauty team. “We’ve decided to hear her out. Nothing more, and if we decide unanimously to form an alliance with her, you’ll be the first to know in my camp.” She looked over at Audrey, sitting under the hair dryer, scrolling on her cell phone. “Please have something more than doom scrolling, while your grandmother does the analog version next to us.”

Audrey looked up, as though broken out of a daze, “No, I’m not doomscrolling. I am documenting today’s beauty day and making notes for the tips I’m gonna include. You know that I have to get my numbers up. What are you talking about?” 

Aurora sighed. “I have to go through the portal to have a triad meeting. We’re deciding if we will make an alliance with a regent queen in a faraway land to potentially go to war with a Witch Queen.”

Audrey put her phone aside, lifted the drier and leaned in to her mother. “Say more, please?”

“Your mother is hellbent on destroying the legacy of the house that I built by getting entangled with witches of war.”

“War is a natural part of ruling,” Audrey said, over her mother’s lap, “And mom has the most ruling portion of the kingdom. What does dad think?” 

“He is leery of her, but supports whatever I decide with my fellow princesses. I feel as though I should tell you… we are not gathering to decide whether or not we will go to war. We will go to war. That much is unavoidable. We are gathering to decide if we will ally with this Diamond Queen..” (leah interjected “Queen Mother, at best”) but Aurora didn’t acknowledge her, “Or if we will be on the side of a Witch Queen, who seemingly has taken over a kingdom, possibly unlawfully. We won’t make any decisions until we have spoken to each of them, unless our attempts are declined by the Witch Queen.”

“So… what’s her deal? Is she a witch that took the kingdom, or is she a queen who studied being a witch?”

“I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

“Either way, neither of them can be trusted.” Leah grunted.

“But one of them will win, and we have to decide which one we believe in and side with them.” Aurora sighed and reached for her daughter’s hand. “You’ve seen some pretty grand things take place, but I fear this will be… one of the most catastrophic tales of war that we have been involved with. I would feel so much better if I knew that you had some stability…”

“Ugh,” Audrey put her head back under the dryer and grabbed her phone. “I wanted to know about a badass Witch Queen. I’m not interested in being pressured to accept a marriage from Chad. You know better than anybody that destiny isn’t a thing that we plot. That spindle got to you despite all the precautions and preparations made. If I’m meant to marry Chad, I can’t stop me. Just wait and see if that happens.” She smiled and returned to her device.

Some time later, while Audrey and Leah headed for the spa for meditation and brunch, Aurora was flanked by her retinue of fairies, woodland creatures, human handmaidens. All of them were adorned in pink, or featured pink in their appearances, and the chariot that she was helped into by Philip was adorned with it, as were the horses that were to pull her through the portal. 

Philip kissed her hand and looked at the wall, which looked liquid as the retinue were walking through first, in case of traps, and he wished he could just make sure himself, but part of their understanding was that when she had important matters, he would hold things down on the homefront and vice versa. Them being virtually inseparable had ended when their daughter had a mental breakdown that resulted in her going on a villainous spree through their land… a sleeping curse, at that. Their family’s most wretched form of hexing. Now, they took turns being present, when they weren’t all together. “I’ll return soon.”

“Yes, I know. But, you’ll be returning with news of whose side we’ve joined in war.”

“There is no good outcome, but at least we won’t simply be attacked.”

“Are you ready for it? For the burden of power that comes with knowing that you will call forth people to die?”

“She was taken by a witch of the Ebon Shadowlands, and held in an underground cavern, lit by the eyes of nocturnal creatures keeping watch of her…” 

“Did the prince slaughter them during his rescue?” 

Rapunzel furrowed her eyebrows, “I don’t know.”

“If they were keeping watch, that means the Witch of that cavern would have known the moment he stepped foot inside. Did they attack him? What type of nocturnal creatures were they, anyway?” She asked with a childlike wonder that Punzie could tell was fake. “Bats? Possums? Racoons? Were they some type of magical creations, or animals given employment by the witch?”

“ I don’t know. Do you want to hear what I do know, or do you want to interrupt?” 

 Witch Mother smiled, made a zipping gesture over her lips, which surprisingly literally zipped her lips together, startling the girl. “He… he went into the cavern. Wait. He was given the quest by his father…” Witch Mother tilted her head, like she had more questions, but Rapunzel waved her hands, as though shooing them away before they could be spoken. “I don’t know how his father came up with the quest or found out about it. I just know that he told my father that it was time that he went on a quest. He told him where it would be, and gathered him for an announcement and a seeing off. He was given provisions, a weapon, and a horse. He set off on Diamond Stallion, to find the princess and rescue her from the evil witch…”

Now, the witch unzipped her mouth, licked her lips to clear it away. “Oh. I know who your father is now. Right. I know who your mother is too.”

“Of course you know. She is the Queen.”

“A Queen, for certain, as she did marry a Prince, and shortly after this quest, a perfectly healthy king and queen, within mere months of each other, and so young, at that… passed away. He became king far too young, a lot of people said (when they knew nobody was listening, that is), and he had a daughter, some years later. He wanted sons, all of the kings do. But, unfortunately for him… He… was married to a witch. She never would have given him a son,” she waved a hand.

“What makes you think that my mother is a witch?” 

“What makes you think that a woman who can use familiars to spy on you, manifest desires out of thin air and keep you safely contained and alive without human interaction nor social dependence, is not a witch?” 

“Because witches are outlawed in the kingdom!”

“In the kingdom you were born in, and that is only for witches who are unaffiliated. Your father’s kingdom employed witches. Where do you think the prince got his stellar horse, his weapon that could defeat a witch, his quest?”

“From his father.”

“I love you. You’re so innocent.” She stopped smiling and looked serious, and mean. “Kings and Princes are always finding witches to try to get us to do their bidding. Sometimes, we’ll get a wicked queen, but usually, it's Kings and Princes. They want a quest for their son. They want a healing for their wife. They want to be rid of a daughter that they wished would have been a son… They cry out to us all the time…” She imitated a lamenting cry, “Someone! Someone please behold our plight and give us a way out of this!” A scoff later, she was calm again. “Sometimes, it is a war. They need a victory, or they need supplies. And the payment is often greater than what they can afford. Because they are wealthy with things that we do not need nor desire. But, sometimes, they might have something that we want.”

“What is it that a witch might want, if not riches? Or… fame? What are you getting, by being here?” 

“I will answer the first question. The second is my business.What might a witch want, if not riches? Perhaps the power of a vast ritual. War Witches, for example, can give a boon, or even an army of spirits, if they’re powerful enough, and in return for their help, they are perhaps granted souls, or the blood of the fallen. Either of those is a really good haul for a War Witch. Sometimes it is freedom. As you said, witchcraft is supposed to be illegal in your father’s kingdom, but if you were able and willing to offer something to a human of great status, your witch crimes would be pardoned and overlooked in the future. Sometimes, it is to find an assistant or a successor, if you intend to move on to bigger and better things. Sometimes… And this doesn’t happen very often, in fact your mother is the first to do it in my long lifetime, and I am told it has been at least 300 years since we’ve been able to claim this… Sometimes, it is a kingdom.”

Rapunzel gasped, felt lightheaded, then sat on the foot of the bed, next to Witch Mother. “For what it's worth, Punzie - I do think that your mother loved your father. If she killed him on purpose, I think she probably had a very good reason to do so.”

Rapunzel turned to her, glaring, and ready to argue about it. But, Witch Mother snatched into the air and was suddenly holding in the palm of her hand, Rapunzel's lips. “There is no question as to whether or not she killed him. This, I know for a fact. I wouldn’t have been able to take you if she hadn’t killed him. In my opinion, being the Widow Queen of a kingdom wasn’t a very fair trade, even for her firstborn daughter. But, now that I see you and I’ve seen the spirit that embraces you, I definitely came out on top.” She lifted the lips on two fingers, blew them once and they fluttered their way back onto Rapunzel’s face, making her mouth operable again. 

She frowned. She didn’t know why, but she believed it. Even in wanting to protest and scream about it not being true. “It had to have been an accident, if she did that. She really loved him, and me. Whatever she’s done, I just can’t believe that killing Daddy would’ve been something she ever chose.”

“I don’t care one way or another,” Witch Mother told her with a shrug. “I currently have a circuit of thirteen princesses, and you’re the only witchborn one. The others I have to try to convince, if I’m ever gonna get my power’s worth out of them.” She turned and collected two handfuls of the hair, “But to find you, in this humble tower, with this homely princess… I could give the others away and still be ahead of everyone in the Coven, maybe even in the network!”

“The spirit in my hair… where did it come from?” 

The woman quickly looked at her, “ Well, when we are witchborn, spirits know of our arrival to this plane. Some of us are marked. Whether or not we want it, we belong to a certain spirit, or a certain group of spirits. They are sometimes called familiars, and despite what you might hear, they select the witch. They always select the witch, be it at birth, or later on in life, when they discover each other. The two are connected, witch and familiar. If there are more familiars, there are multiple connections. But then there are spirits that are much more powerful than a familiar. We call what they do embracing the witchborn. It always occurs at birth , or shortly afterwards. Rarely do they embrace a witch later of their own accord, but sometimes, a which may find and coerce it to embrace her. Embracing is deeper than the connection of a familiar. The spirit who embraces a witchborn lives inside of them. An embraced witch’s power is dynamic, and often uncontrollable, if they don’t know what is inside of them. If nurtured, the embraced witch could become immeasurably great and powerful.”

“That’s… that’s why Mama sent me away..” 

Witch Mother neither confirmed nor denied this, but Punzie cried anyway. After a moment, Witch Mother hissed, jumped to her feet and summoned her staff to herself. This shocked Rapunzel, as she hadn’t seen, heard, or experienced anything to merit that type of behavior. 

One tap on the floor, and everything she took off came rushing to her, another tap and it all began moving to their various places, and with the third tap her staff hovered sideways, and she leapt onto it and flew right out of the window! Punzie sat, still in shock and quite confused. She didn’t see the woman again for quite some time, but in that time, she spent time writing down everything that she could remember about that night, in her texts. She drew a portrait of the woman, in various positions, making various faces she had watched her make. She even wrote down all of her accusations.

Months went by before she once again heard 3 taps and “Rapunzel, let your hair down.” She rushed to the window. She had started to wonder if she had been having an elaborate dream that night, but there she was, hooded, staff in hand, weapons on her person, awaiting the hair. 

“I’ve seen you fly. Why don’t you just fly up here into the window?”

“Let down your hair, or you’ll miss out on a present!” Witch Mother sang. 

“Ugh,” Rapunzel grunted as she tried to find the end of her afro. Putting it into a bubble ponytail had gotten old. Instead, she just dragged it, sometimes stepping on it and then apologizing profusely, sometimes tripping over it and feeling fortunate that it always moved beneath her to catch her in it’s fluffy softness. She found the end and threw it outside. Moments later, there she was again. The huntress looking witch with a small armory on her person. She tossed the staff and the cloak, which had been merely draped around her shoulders and pulled something out of the satchel. It was what appeared to be a baby teacup pig.

Rapunzel gasped and jumped up and down, “Is it a pet???” 

Witch Mother extended it in one hand and said, “It’s a familiar!” 

Punzie’s excitement died down. “I thought you said that the familiar chooses the witch.”

“Oh, they do. We haven’t summoned the spirit yet. This is just a vessel.” She handed the pig to Rapnuzel, who rubbed noses with it and snuggled it. 

“I like it like this.” 

“Sure, you do now, but when it's whining for food and pissing and shitting all over this tower, you won’t.”

“Can we teach it to use a box, like a kitty cat..”

Witch Mother slammed a knife down on the nightstand and turned to her, with wrath in her eyes. “YOU have yet to even say “Thank you, Mother, for this gift that I already adore!” The pig squealed and began trying to run up Rapunzel’s chest to her shoulder. It managed to kick itself free, trying to get away from Witch Mother, and seemed to be swallowed in her hair. She could feel him moving around in it, probably trapped, she presumed.

“I’m sorry, Witch Mother. Thank you for my gift…” The woman sighed and forced a smile. “Are you okay? You left so suddenly last time.”

“Yes, well, like I told you. I have several wards. One of them came very close to escaping with a prince!” She reached into the hair, withdrew her hand, and had the piglet by the throat. “But, he couldn’t defeat me,” she said, smiling wickedly at the little pig.

“Wait… That’s… that’s a prince?”

“Not anymore it’s not. It is a pig. A greedy little pig. Can you believe, that even with a court of wives and a harem of concubines, for prestige, he dared to try to take away one of MINE?” Her grip tightened and the pig squealed.

“You’re hurting him!” Punzie cried out and reached for him, to get him safely back into her arms.

“Punzie… if we do not kill it, it cannot be replaced by a familiar spirit!”

“I don’t want a familiar, if that’s what it takes! Why can’t I just cry out to a spirit and the spirit comes?”

“Because, if you are trying to get the attention of a familiar that you want to choose you, you will need to prove that you want them. Blood always makes a clear statement.”

“I’m just fine without a statement.” She pat the pig on the back. “My apologies for Witch Mother.”

“You don’t speak for me,” Witch Mother said, grabbing the pig and stabbing through him with her dagger. 

Punzie screamed and covered her mouth. The pig also screamed, and it wasn’t the pig voice it had been squealing in, but a young man’s pained scream that echoed through the tower. “How could you? How could you?” Punzie asked, unable to see past her tears, a blurry image of nothing but blood crowded her eyes. 

“Who is it that summoned? Is it the Witch Mother, or the daughter?” Someone asked. She pulled up her top to wipe her eyes and cleared her vision to see a man with a pink mini afro and vitiligo standing with Witch Mother and dressed in dandy fashion. “Oh. Oh, she’s lovely! And she has a very nice embrace!” He cheered, transformed into the teacup pig and scurried over to her barefeet. He tapped on her toenails with his little hooves, crawled up her leg and rested on her shoulder. 

“You’re welcome, Daughter,” Witch Mother said. 

Rapunzel simply glared at her, but she also reached over to pet her new familiar. “You’re a prince killer,” she spat. 

The Witch Mother smiled, “I hate to tell you this, but most witches are.” She shrugged her shoulders, “Sort of comes with the job. They’re always breaking into our properties trying to play heroes. You’ll understand someday.”

“No! I don’t want to be like you! And I don’t want to be like my mother, either!” 

The hairdresser dropped the act with an exhale, took another breath, then turned to meet the little girl's gaze in the mirror they both faced. "Well, Punzie... We'll figure something out that her majesty can accept.."

"I think it's pretty," the girl said, sounding embarrassed to admit it.

"It is." She met the woman's gaze in the mirror, "It is pretty, Punzie. The Queen simply... would like to be able to control it better." Her hands rubbed the child's scalp. "Healthy scalp. Strong roots. Great follicles... Hmmm..." She picked up a magic mirror and spoke into it. " I need a team at the castle for Princess Rapunzel. Bring the horses' decor." She set the mirror down face down and said, "Yes, yes. Punzie. It will be good."

Rapunzel was the one faking a smile now. She looked at her face in the mirror. She looked nothing like her mother. Her mother, with high cheek bones, long legs, flowing hair (the flowiest hair in all the kingdom, they had said of her when she first became queen), and eyes as deep and dark as the blackest diamonds. Rapunzel looked like her father.

The king was a good man, but not considered a handsome man. He had united the kingdoms in treaties and alliances. He had fought in wars and sat in political seats. When he was a prince, his father before him sent him on a quest to the Ebon Shadowlands to free a princess from the grasp of a vile witch. He rode in on his horse, Diamond Stallion, battled the witch, defeated her and rescued the princess who would become his wife, and Rapunzel's mother.

When Rapunzel was 6, her father died and the queen's heart seemed to shrink. No longer was she the loving mother and queen she had been to her precious baby... She was like someone else, altogether. Everything about Rapunzel seemed to bother her now. She didn't like her face. "Those round, formless cheeks," she would say, with none of the affection Rapunzel had known prior to that. She didn't like her body. "The piglike form you've decided to keep," she would say. She didn't like her hair. "That wild explosion atop your head," she would say... instead of the crown that she used to call it.

"Your father is gone forever. It is up to US to carry on the legacy of this kingdom. You have to grow up and stop being so unruly!" She had been glaring at her hair when she said it. She had been combing the hair, herself, roughly handling coiled tangles and pouring oils to make the pressing comb slide through.

Rapunzel heard a scream, that sounded like is came from her hair, itself, then a hiss from her mother and the queen hurried away from her. Rapunzel turned to look and wondered, "Did you burn yourself, Mommy?"

The Queen looked at her in horror and she whispered, "She has it!"

Moments later, she rushed from the room, shut the door, locked Rapunzel in, and the next times she saw her was when she was bringing in others to handle her daughter's hair.

Presently, Rapunzel asked the hairdresser, "Does hair scream when it hurts?"

The hairdresser threw a confused look at the girl's reflection, but quickly softened her features. "I am not going to do anything to hurt your hair, Princess. We will simply make it lay down for a little while, so that the Queen doesn't focus on it during the party."

The team tied up Rapunzel's hair into a bubble ponytail, tied with straps that they then covered with ribbons and put on a hennin, with enough of a train to cover the bubble ponytail. She smiled at the reflection. Her mother was sure to accept this!

At the party, when Rapunzel was announced to be escorted into the ballroom, she put on her most proper smile, held her most presentable posture, and walked in, with the exact form and rhythm that her mother had taught her.

The guests ooed and they awwwed, but then... she heard a gasp. Her smile faltered, but she didn't break her stride. She made eye contact with her mother. It was NOT good. The Queen looked furious. Now, Rapunzel's stride broke, but she quickly regained control and found her way to the throne. She kneeled, "Queen and Mother, thank you for having me here, in the midst of the people for this grand celebration," she announced.

A servant sat an ornate stool at the feet of the queen and they took Rapunzel's hand to lead her to the seat. It was only then, when Rapunzel sat, and moved her hair to her lap, that she realized the it had broken free from the top shackles of ribbons and while there was a bubble ponytail to her waist, atop her head was an afro, pushing away the hennin forced onto it.

Rapunzel dared another look at her mother as the hairdresser rushed to try to fix the top of the hairstyle again. But, the damage was done.