The Curse of the Eleventh Faerie

WR:  College is hectic!  I’ve fallen out of writing everyday, but I finally wrote something today!  Its 3x as long as my usual flash fictions, but I think y’all will like it anyways.  Enjoy!

‘Once upon a time’ they say, hah!  They only say such a thing because they do not know the correct date.  They heard this ‘thrilling tale’ from someone who heard it from someone who eavesdropped in on someone else’s conversation.  Heaven only knows where that person heard it from.

Now, there is a very specific story that irks me at the moment.  Perhaps you have heard of it – the story of the sleeping curse, and the castle of roses?

The tale, as it is told by the easily-deceived common folk, goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a lovely Royal couple who desperately wanted to have a child.  For years they hoped, and when their wish was finally granted, they rejoiced by throwing a massive celebration.  Everyone was invited, all throughout their land and the nearby kingdoms.  The Fairies of the land were invited, of course.  This particular land was home to four Faries, three of them sweet and kindly and wise.  The fourth, however, was wicked and horrid, and was not invited.  She appeared at the celebration anyway, and cast a spell upon the unborn child, that the baby girl would fall asleep on their 16th birthday, and never wake again.  The days go on, turning into weeks and months and years, and the panic wears off.  The little princess is alive and full of merriment, preparing for her 16th birthday.  The next morning, the nurse-maid cannot wake her.  No voice, no noise, no smell and no plead can awake the princess.  Before the castle falls into panic, one of the good fairies sends the entire castle into a deep sleep.  Roses are coaxed over the castle, and hundreds of years go by before a handsome young prince arrives, hacks his way into the castle, and upon seeing the sleeping princess, falls madly in love.  He kisses her, and thus breaks her spell.  The entire castle is awakened, and they live happily for the rest of their lives.

Bah!  Twaddle!  Sit sit sit, I will tell you the true story!

There was indeed a Royal couple who longed for a child, but they were not King and Queen.  The woman, whose name was Amera, was the second cousin of the Queen of the land (this was Partenon, just north of the Great Western Port, by-the-by).  Her husband, Luden, had been granted lordhood at the age of twelve for burning down the campsite of an hostile raiding party.  They were very happy, except that they so dearly wanted a little girl.  They had four sons, all wonderful young men, grown and married and off on their own, but they wanted another.  Amera and Luden wanted to have a daughter, but were unable to have any more children, having aged past their time.  So Amera made a plea to the fairies of the land, of which there were eleven.  She begged them to allow her to have a child, but they turned her away.  It was not their business to give children to happy couples who already had plenty.  But as she returned home in tears, the eleventh faerie followed her, hidden under the disguise of an old woman.  She told Amera that if she truly wished it, she would give them a child – but it would not be their own, though it would be born to them.  Amera did not understand, but agreed.  So the fairy in disguise, the Eleventh Fairy, created a child of magic and blood within the woman, that it would be born as her own.

When the child was born, most people were confounded.  Amera and Luden were a bit dull, with thin faces, grey eyes and black hair.  Their sons were the same as well.  But the child – the little girl that Amera gave birth to – had hair as white and soft as clouds, a lovely round face and flashing green eyes.  She was as giggling and sweet and as joyful a baby as any had seen.  They loved her, and they named her Aurura, after the dawn-fairies of the east.

On the child’s first birthday, the traditional celebration was held, and everyone was invited.

The fairies, however, discovered what the eleventh fairy had done, and were angry at her for it.  The eleventh, you see, was a bit of an outcast.  She was not native, but rather had been given the gift of Fairy lineage as an infant, as an unwanted child left out to die.

This was all well and good, and truth be told she was not very different from the others, but she was a bit of a troublemaker and the other Fae despised her.  One of them, who had a particularly deep grudge against the eleventh fae (a story which we shall not go into right now) convinced the Amera that it was best not to invite the impish fairy.  Of course, since it was a celebration about children, the fairies were automatically invited by their very nature and birthright.

You must understand: to be left out of a party is a very disheartening thing, but to be un-invited is wounding in a particularly grievous way.  The mischievous fairy felt slighted and her temper flared up, as she had been the one to break the rules and give the woman a child in the first place.

Fairies, while they are good creatures, are known in many places as evil, horrid things.  This is due to fairies’ temperaments.  They are easily offended, quick to anger, and delight in any opportunity to hold a grudge.

So when this eleventh fairy discovered she was not allowed to attend the celebration, she fumed.  In the middle of the party, she arrived and placed a curse upon the child:  

What life was given to the little girl so unnaturally, shall be taken away.  Not now, not in a year, not in ten.  It will happen at the exact moment that you forget this, that you forget me, that you forget this threat.

The eleventh Fairy vanished,  leaving the celebrators silent, terrified, and unhappy.

The years went on, and the little girl grew up lovely and sweet, unnaturally beautiful and gracefully kind.  At the age of fifteen she fell madly in love with a nobleman of a neighboring land, and he with her.  It was said to be a perfect match, and they were to be formally betrothed on the girl’s sixteenth birthday, which was growing near.

But the night before the celebration, just as Aurura was falling asleep, something happened:

Not a single person in the estate, in the kingdom, or in the world was thinking about the curse of the eleventh fairy.

The next morning, as the house buzzed in preparation for the party, the girl’s maid went to fetch her.  The girl would not wake.  The household was thrown into a panic – she did not appear to be dead, yet no amount of shaking or pleading would bring her around to consciousness.

At the instant the curse came about, the eleventh fairy was aware of it.  Still clinging to her old grudge with a vengeance, she grew angry and guilty as she heard the wails of grief calling from Aurura’s family and friends.  The fae silenced the household, sending everyone inside into a deep sleep.  Still filled with guilt, the fairy ordered her flowerless roses – all iron branches and thorns – to grow up over the entire estate, to seal it like a tomb forever so that she would have peace.

But Aurua’s beau, whose name was Lieven, had been traveling with his family for near a day to reach her home, and arrived shortly after all of this had taken place.  Upon discovering the curses that entangled the estate of his beloved, Lieven took up his sword and began to hack away at the iron vines.  The stony plants cracked and chipped the blade, eventually weakening it so that it snapped in half.

So the boy took up his father’s sword, and swung it against the vines until it too snapped.

He took up the sword of the coachman, and it snapped.

Finally he took his knife, desperately trying to cut through the imprisoning vines.

The eleventh fairy was still wracked with guilt, and thought she might get rid of the boy and finally have peace.  She opened up a pathway through the vines for him, that he may enter the home and be trapped inside.  When Leiven saw this, he ran forward into the estate, only to have the vines entangle again once he was through.  He ran into the home to find the occupants struck still, as if turned to stone where they stood and sat.  The eleventh fairy found herself waiting, unable to strike him still as well as he ran through the home shouting the name of his beloved.

Eventually he found her, asleep in her bed, dead yet living and still as beautiful as he remembered.  He thought her lost, and wept at the sight of her.
Leiven knew, looking at the iron thorns grown up to block the light from the windows, that he would never escape the prison of the rose-estate.  So he stilled his tears, sat at the bedside of his love, took her hand, and kissed her softly one last time.

At this, the eleventh fairy’s heart was softened, and she could not bear the sadness of the young man.  In a very un-fae-like gesture, she returned Aurura’s life to her.

The girl sat up in bed, astonished to see Leiven and unaware of what had happened.

“Was I ill?”  She asked him.

“No,”  He cried, holding her close.  “Only sleeping, my dear.”

The Eleventh fairy awoke the household, and peeled back the stony vines from the building walls.

When Aurua’s family ran to her room to find young Leiven there, they might’ve killed him were it not for the testament of his family to the curse that had befallen the estate while they slept.  As it was, they believed the boy, and were grateful, thinking that he had broken the curse.

Aurua and Leiven were married two years later, and a series of events began which led to the ascension of Leiven to the title of Duke of Pushire.  You may remember a tale about the Dutchess of Pushire, who adopted a little red-headed child from the streets.  That child, you should know, grew to become the Heroine of Ridding by killing the wicked lycanthrope Hoode who lived in the surrounding woods.

I suppose you could say, if you must, that they lived happily ever and ever until the end of their days.

If you must.

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