While You Slumbered

“Once upon a time,” Blossom began, “there was a King and Queen who wanted nothing more than a child…though forces unseen had long been shaping the world toward that end.” The Fae looked down on the jovial face of Aurora, who although having only yesterday awakened, belied her exhaustion and exasperation at her current condition. She gently stroked a tress of seemingly pure gold behind her ear. Rivulets of perspiration rolled down her supple, ruddy cheeks. What a great stress this all must be, Blossom thought to herself knowing that a one-hundred-year slumber would put the most composed into an emotional maelstrom – even an ancient sprite such as herself.

“Dear Blossom, I know the story,” Aurora said. “What I want to know is why.”

Her earnestness moved Blossom. She had cared for the child and knew that after all this time she deserved the knowledge of what she had given up for her kingdom. Perhaps if she knew she would be able to adjust to this new life, this new century. Blossom hesitated momentarily to gather her thoughts ere she was sure she could convey all that she could without upsetting Aurora.

“My child, there was a great darkness lurking across the lands, creeping insidiously. A darkness which, without your sacrifice, would have ravaged the entire kingdom. And you were spared.”

“But to what end? Why me?”

“Your parents, the king and queen had seen the three wise men of the sand region for answers to their quest for a child. They scoured lands for mixtures and medicines many thought long forgotten by all but a chosen few.”

“And everyone outside the kingdom?” Aurora asked but Blossom’s downtrodden face could not withhold the truth. “Then why? If we couldn’t destroy the darkness, why did they hide me away?”

And so, Blossom began the story.

Her father, King Stephan, had gone on a quest to seek what the wise men said may be land’s only hope: a unicorn horn, the last of its kind. The journey revealed only destruction and the overhunting of unicorns for sport had ruined the very resource required to fight this darkness. The darkness was an elusive miasma causing black boils on the skin and the slow emaciation of once-healthy citizens and magik creatures alike. So the journey forced Stephan to seek Maleficent, the collector.

“The elder Fae. She carries dark magik. How could father have faced her?” Aurora inquired.

Stephan had gone with a sword imbued with an even more ancient magik than Maleficent’s – a shield, capable of withstanding any blow, and a sword unable to miss its target when thrown. They were gifted by the land of wine and discourse to the south many ages ago and refurbished by Argenta, the silversmith Fae to the west. But even with these tools, he was captured and imprisoned in her keep.

“However,” Blossom continued, “she relented and brought him to her menagerie of beasts. Now, I only know what he only told me second hand, but he spoke of a creature with the head of a unicorn and the body of a man which Maleficent prized above all others. She offered him the horn in exchange for something she had always wanted to create but could never conceive: a child of her own.”

Aurora’s face blanched, her stomach twisting with nausea. Blossom grabbed her hand reassuringly.

“I had a sister?”

“A half-brother, my child. And he was truly a great man.”

Blossom described the one called Samander, a gentle boy raised in the castle who studied the medicines of the world and the alchemy of heretics. He lived in secret, unseen, in the castle through the century of Aurora’s slumber, subtly guiding the kingdom beyond The Age of Darkness, pulling strings that none but he knew were tied to her awakening.

“Wait, Samander…Sam. The boy I met when I returned before…” She stumbled, “before I fell asleep.”

Blossom nodded in solemn confirmation.

Aurora’s face contorted as she recalled the moments of the night preceding her slumber – how she was told that she was a princess, awaited by the king and queen to return on the eve of her seventeenth birthday. She remembered the sadness in Samander’s - Sam’s - eyes and the healed whipping marks on his back from his childhood that she had traced tenderly. At once her stomach lurched; she retched violently over the edge of her four-poster oak bed, a trail of vomit staining the ornamental coverlet.

“So then…the children?” Aurora whispered.

“We have no way of knowing. But there was talk by Sam that while you were asleep, Philip - in a haze of drink-boldened manner - forced himself upon you.”

Aurora flooded with shame, disgust, and misplaced guilt. Though her ignorance and slumber has shielded her from the act, she felt culpable. Heavy tears dropped from her eyes and she turned softly into her down pillow.

“All this while, I was naught but a vessel unto them. Not daughter. Not lover. Not queen. Simply a hollow frame for their divisings!” She cried. “And Sam – did he… did he know?”

“He did not, he even hated you! But none of that matters now. You knew one another. You were both products of powers both terrible and awe-inspiring. And Loupere assured Stephan-”

“Loupere…?” Aurora said with recognition. “That name. A terrible man. His eyes were beady, predatory…He welcomed me to the castle the night I arrived and introduced me to Samander. He said that he was in charge of all of my medicinal needs and to begin discussing any illness I’d ever had.”

Sam was her physician, his responsibility. He was raised and trained by the finest in all the lands, sent away to foreign cities, and rigorously challenged. Medicine and alchemy both became his domains. Unwittingly, he had been raised for a single purpose: to find the cure the wise men had promised would save both the kingdom and its princess. While the kingdom remained encircled by a heavy thicket none could breach, Sam labored toward that cure.”

“And it was Loupere’s idea to keep him awake?” Aurora asked.

“Yes,” Blossom confirmed. “But in dreams lie sleeping dragons. We discovered that Loupere’s true aim was to use the cure only for mankind in order to wipe out all magik. Loupere had woven the fates of many with careful hand — he orchestrated The Threat, the Slumber, the raising of Samander, even the secret cures — all while presenting a mask of counsel and loyalty.”

Blossom found it was becoming more difficult to speak, her throat closed with emotion and her cheeks became ruddy. Though now unmasked as corrupt, Loupere had long sat at the King’s side, advising him, helping him maintain peace, even guiding the Queen and King toward conceiving a child.

“What am I to do now, Blossom? What of the twins?” Aurora pleaded.

“Keep them safe, but first, rest. You carry a burden. You have lost someone who was caring for you in ways you didn’t even know. For so long, others have played guardian, master, and puppeteer— each tugging at hidden threads whilst thou didst lie in slumber. Yet now, child, the cords are severed, and none but thee holds them.”

Blossom told her of Sam’s fate – his slow disintegration, piece by piece, into a setting sun as Philip lifted the curse. He had toiled all that time to preserve her, to help save both mankind and magikind.

Aurora wept for the loss of her half-brother, nestling herself deeper into her pillow. Blossom patted her on the head and left the room, knowing that she would soon return.

Hours later, Aurora awoke - to her surprise - and she walked to the cradle in the adjoined room. She looked through the lancet windows framed with a filigree design, like roses climbing into a flourish, the dusty pink showing through the glass in brilliant, lively color. Her periwinkle robe billowed elegantly in the light breeze and she inhaled as though for the first time.

She thought of Samander: He bore our burdens in waking. I bore them in sleep. Both of us made tools, shaped by others. But unlike him, I still breathe. I can choose.

She thanked Blossom for her candor. She thanked her father for finding the cure for their people. She thanked the lovely two blessings resting peacefully in their bassinet. She looked over her kingdom and felt invigorated. No longer under duvets or throws, no longer a pawn in the plan of someone else’s design, she exhaled with newfound freedom. The kingdom required rule – one destined for fairness and strength. She wrapped her arms around herself in the solitude of the moment.

They wrote my life in secret ink, but I will carve the next chapter myself. No Fae’s spell, nor any magik, nor king’s decree or vizier's scheme, nor any man’s desire will bind me again. No more strings, no more silent slumber; at last, I am truly awake.