Fractured: The Rose Tangled Banner

By Greg K. McDouglas

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far... well, no, that’s not true. It’s actually this kingdom, the glorious Dornroschen, filled with roses and dominated by a fairy tale white marble castle. Follow Prince Charming as he tries to piece together the fractured mind of the former queen, Malefynvere, while she unravels the dark and tragic tale of her life, sitting on his uncomfortable couch. Living in the shadow of her fair twin sister, Avrora, who was born two minutes earlier and inherits the throne, Malefynvere struggles with her desire to be queen until she is given a magic mirror on her eighteenth birthday. With the help of the “mirror mirror on the wall,” she commits acts of evil and sorcery to place herself on the Rose Throne. But all that comes to an end when a man named Grimm, along with Seven the deranged dwarf, and the terrifying Little Red Riding Hood, ruin her plans...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg K. McDouglas
• Release date: Jun 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773028545

Book preview

Introduction

Fractured is a world of steam and gears, built on the stories of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. More than three hundred years have passed since Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and established the Thirteen Kingdoms of the Grand British Empire. His descendant Empress Victoria II rules the Empire from Arthur’s golden throne in Camelot, but this is not her story or his. This is the story of Lancelot’s descendants, the Dornroschens.

August 22, 1919

Dornroschen Psychiatric Institute

Alone. Alone was something she’d been quite a lot, at least in her own mind. She’d always been surrounded by others but none of them truly understood her, except one. Though in the end, even she’d abandoned her. Now she had no choice in the matter. She was alone in this terrible place, this prison, confined against her will. She sat and waited, her mind taking stock of what lay around her.

This room… office reeks of him, the smell of disinfectant and far too much cologne. Nostril-tearing or nostril-infecting would be better terms, stenches that no one should find attractive. Everything in here is overly lavish and somehow utterly tacky.

Hand-bound leather books from places throughout the Empire, the leather dyed a multitude of colours. Each one is covered in designs and lettering, inscribed in fine gold leaf and ink. They’re organized meticulously by name and volume and stacked on the shelves around the room.

Then there’s the desk made of English oak, hand-carved with his family’s coat of arms, a white moon on a black stripe, featured prominently in the centre and accented by aether and silver inlays, stained in three shades of purple. The legs are carved into unrealistically beautiful women picking grapes which hang from the underside of the desk top.

Persian rugs of exquisite quality and texture are draped across the marble floor and feature patterns including the Vase of Immortality and the Garden of Paradise, and tell stories of epic battles lost and won, as well as love, tragic and true.

Paintings adorn every wall, far more than are necessary in this relatively small space, as there’s hardly an empty space between them. Many of them are created by the finest painters in the Thirteen Kingdoms such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Gauguin’s The Agony in the Garden.

There are meticulously laid out jars, vials and bottles of Venetian glass filled with medicinal ingredients made from plants, berries, roots and bark, all organized not by use or name, but by the colour of their glass container, the appearance upon the shelves and tables outweighing any other purpose. Speaking of the tables and shelves there were far fewer of them inhabiting the modest room than one might think necessary, as the collection of artistic objects took precedence over the medical and scientific.

That brought to her mind the horribly uncomfortable, hand-carved and embroidered couch. The cushions, legs and armrests held the images of elves and wood sprites playing in the forest. And I’ve been forced to sit on it and wait an insufferably long time. Then there is the centrepiece of it all, she snarled in her mind, sitting in the middle of his desk, in front of the large stained-glass windows, on a brass stand, that damned flute. Its silver body glistened in the light, contrasted by the golden keys. How many times in my youth did I force myself to listen to him play that awful thing? He wasn’t even good, in fact he was downright dreadful but no one had the heart to tell him although I really should have. How was I ever interested in him? He’s so self-interested, self-centred and narcissistic. It’s infuriating how much he loves himself. If I could just figure out what’s wrong with my magic…

She raised her hand, thinking how dreadful it looked from malnutrition. Then she tried to conjure something. Anything would have done, but nothing happened. Her eyes glared in rage at her hand and she tried again with the same result.

Her thoughts continued despite her disappointment and she dreamed about what she would do when her magic returned. I could vaporize him, or maybe tear his heart out…no, no. An evil grin crossed her face. I’ll shatter every bone in his body, collapse his lungs, and light his nervous system on fire. She clapped her hands in glee. Yes, yes, that’s the one. At the last thought she began to laugh maniacally, but stopped short as the solid oak door clicked open. She regained her composure, straightened her hair and sat politely and properly as anyone of any breeding should. She was the queen after all.

He was not looking forward to this. In fact, he’d been dreading it ever since she’d been brought here. She used to be his friend. At first it had been easy to deal with her as she had been in a catatonic state for a little more than two months; finally, though, she’d come out of it and was ready to talk and it filled him with unease. By all accounts she had reverted to normal … well, normal for her, he thought. She hadn’t always been this way. In her youth, she’d been gentle and caring but now it was a very different story – a dark story filled with the most horrible incidents. He could have assigned this to someone else because the other doctors were as capable as he was, well, maybe not Rorschach, but he felt personally responsible for her.

He checked his pocket watch for the fourth time, suddenly realizing she was the one who had given it to him. As he clicked it open, he glanced at the inscription on the inside cover: For the charmingest man on earth. He watched the tiny gold hands ticking under the carefully cleaned glass, his dread mounting as the seconds ticked by, as was the lump in the pit of his stomach.

Well it’s time, he said to no one in particular. No point in putting it off.

He slid the watch back into the pocket of his grey vest, took a deep cleansing breath to calm himself and wrapped his hand around the brass knob. He released his breath, opened the door and stepped into his office. Normally, he felt comfortable in here with his books, medicines and the collection of artifacts, even with the other patients in the room. She, on the other hand, drove every ounce of warmth from the carefully-decorated space.

It had taken him years to acquire just the right things to make it look just the right way. Only a month ago he had found the last piece of his artistic puzzle. The couch on which she sat had been his most recent purchase and it brought the whole room together.

She turned slightly to look at him as he entered the room, which only added to his discomfort. She wore the same bland, grey clothes that every other patient wore. They were loose, baggy and exceptionally comfortable but, somehow, she still made the dress look regal. Her black hair reflected all the natural light of the office, her slender figure lit by the sun that leaked in through the windows, but it was her eyes that were her most striking and bone-chilling feature. They were red, rich deep red like blood, highly unnatural and unlike anything he had ever seen. They shone like her hair, but not from the light; power, determination and conviction are what caused them to blaze with raw intensity.

He stupidly started off as he always did with a new patient by introducing himself. Well, let me introduce myself. I’m…

Dr. Heinrich Charming Fitz-Herbert, the third. Chief of Clinical Psychiatry of the Dornroschen Psychiatric Institute, she stated coldly, cutting him off mid-sentence, no longer looking at him as she spoke. "Fourth heir to the throne of Abstossend, but in this setting you prefer Doctor to Prince, don’t you, Prince Charming? she overemphasized the last word as though it were a grave insult. Although who could tell from the way you’re dressed, Doctor? Again, she implied an insult. She rolled her unnaturally creepy eyes and said, What kind of a doctor wears a long military-style jacket adorned with fancy gold embroidery, epaulets and buttons made in the tiny image of their family crest? You look more like a general than a psychiatrist. And what’s with the colour? Why on earth would you get it made in purple? I understand it’s your family’s colour but, seriously, you look like a clown dressed like that. Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your feelings? I don’t care. She took perverse glee in the hurt expression on his face. Oh wait, I forgot the best part, the ever-important purple sash that indicates you are royalty. It’s stupid too. Nobody wears that kind of thing anymore, this isn’t the Dark Ages," she finished sarcastically.

Her eyes glossed over him. His appearance was always so perfect, so impeccably arranged. His brown hair was carefully styled, his glasses recently cleaned, likely within the last ten minutes. The silk shirt he wore under his vest and jacket was neatly pressed and the patterned purple cravat tied crisply around the collar. But then she giggled to herself, noticing his nose; it was ever so slightly bent on his otherwise striking face. It must bother him to no end that his face isn’t perfect anymore, she mused with great delight. The nose had been perfectly fine a few months ago and just another piece of his handsome face, that is, until the incident in the throne room.

Charming continued the conversation, interrupting her thoughts.

Ah good, he tried to pay her insults no mind but his face betrayed his feelings.

He really should be used to this sort of thing, as patients often slung a variety of insults his way. It was one of their few defence mechanisms in this situation but because they’d been friends, the harsh comments hurt. When patients assaulted him verbally it usually meant he’d hit a nerve in their discussion but he’d barely opened his mouth in this case.

Charming continued, You know where you are.

He tried to play off his earlier mistake of introducing himself by making it look as though he was testing her memory rather than admitting to his stupidity. He sat down behind his desk. Normally, he would have sat in the comfortable easy chair beside the couch, however he wasn’t prepared to get that close yet. She was still making him feel uneasy as though it was his first day with his very first patient.

Please don’t call me Charming. Dr. Fitz-Herbert will be fine. He filled his favourite pen with ink in preparation for taking some notes that he could review later to assist him in her treatment. So, Twilight…

Malefynvere!

She cut him off again. Her voice so noble, so in control, so cold; it was off-putting, like mistakenly drinking cold tea or accidentally stepping in a puddle.

Charming leaned forward over his desk and looked her straight in the eyes and rather wished he hadn’t, as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. But your name is Twilight Dornroschen?

Her eyes flickered with rage. Yes, that is the idiotic name my parents gave me. It was a decidedly cruel joke based on my sister’s much prettier name.

Vast amounts of anger and fury were present in her response and expression, so much so that it caused him to spill some ink on his desk as his hands shook nervously. She controlled the rage rather quickly and returned to her cold, controlled demeanour.

I prefer Malefynvere, she said, then somehow her voice became colder than it had been before, like the deepest possible winter when your lungs stung as they inhaled a breath of freezing air. Her next statement was more of an order than a request. Queen Malefynvere, if you don’t mind. She finished by tugging down her top to try to make it look more royal, a task to which the bland, grey fabric was ill-suited.

Charming began again, stuttering as he went, I see… well… Malefynvere.

That last part, the commanding order, had thrown him. She was intimidating him from across the room, making him feel like an untrained youth who would easily succumb to his patient’s whims. He stood, adjusted his jacket, and began pacing the room. Maybe moving around will help me, he thought. Something needs to shake me from this awful mood. I can’t be in a state of panic for the whole session.

The prince started again with more composure after a deep breath. We’re here to talk. I want to ask you some simple questions. Answer them if you like, I won’t force you, but any answers you give will help me and in turn help you. Your comfort though, is my priority. I’d like to begin by asking if you know why you are here.

How could I not? she spat. It’s an asylum, a prison for the mind. You’re convinced that I’m crazy, loony, bonkers, or quite possibly insane! Did I miss anything? she paused for a response, however when none was forthcoming, she continued, But I am clearly not.

Suddenly, everything about the room seemed to change. The light dimmed, the air became charged with electricity, and everything smelled of… what was that? thought Charming – cinnamon. She abruptly stood up, hands clenched in trembling fists. A look of pure rage crossed her face, distorting her beautiful features, as she shouted, When I get free, you will all suffer and suffer greatly. My wrath is wide and infinite. None shall stand before the mighty Queen of Dornroschen.

The doctor stepped back in fear. This is ridiculous, he thought, his mind abuzz with conflicting thoughts, some wanting to help, others wanting him to turn tail and run from the office. I’m here to help her, he forced his clinical thoughts forward. I need to get control of myself. I can’t constantly cower away from each of her outbursts. He pushed his fears aside with some difficulty, moved beside her and placed a calming hand on her shoulder, easing her back onto the couch.

This is not an asylum, said Charming, reassuring her (he utterly hated the word asylum). We prefer to use more clinical terms such as ill. His voice was as soothing as he could make it, although to most it would still sound condescending. Do you think you are ill?

Of course not. Malefynvere tugged at her clothes as if they were in some way hurting her and replied, Why would I think that I’m ill?

He said nothing, just waited patiently for her to continue. Once she’d decided her clothes were appropriately arranged or at least didn’t seem to bother her anymore, she calmed down, returning to the regal state she’d been in when he’d first entered. She continued, I am sick, however, sick of everyone thinking there’s something wrong with me. I am the queen…

You were the queen, Charming interrupted and immediately regretted it, as her eyes tore through him, slashing the fear back into his heart, but he managed to stumble through his statement. The throne was never meant to be yours.

Malefynvere’s fury returned as she bellowed her retort, although he was better prepared this time and didn’t back away. It was mine and it will be again! You will all pay and suffer, and grovel… I am a great and powerful sorceress.

She leapt to her feet once again and as she finished speaking she made a small gesture with her hands. Nothing happened, which evidently shocked her. She collapsed back onto the couch, looking thoroughly defeated. What is wrong with my magic, she thought, concerned not for the first time that something was seriously wrong. It has never failed to come to my aid before, but there was nothing, not even the tiniest spark. Maybe they drugged me, she concluded. Yes, that could be it. They injected me with something, but she couldn’t find any marks on her gaunt arms to indicate they had.

That’s interesting… Charming, being a man of science, had never believed a word of it. He had heard the stories, the rumours and the outright lies that she had some sort of magical powers and he thought it utterly preposterous. Magic did not exist. It was that simple and he intended to prove it to her, hoping that the knowledge might help cure her obviously fractured mind. He returned to his desk to pick up his pen and paper and then sauntered back to her side, taking a seat in his normal, extremely comfortable chair.

How did you come by your powers? he asked, clinically interested in the answer because it could lead to a treatment.

That’s difficult to explain, she said.

Of course it is, he thought. If it were easy to explain then it would exist. But to get anywhere I have to play along, not exactly sure why he was explaining his own methods to himself.

Try me. He scribbled a quick note about her being initially evasive, keeping it from her red eyes as she tried to peer over the top of the page.

It’s a matter of harnessing nature, she began, "controlling the energies of light and darkness. Everything, and I mean everything, is made of energy. Some people call it chi, or pneuma, or elan vital, though the proper term is mana. I know it sounds crazy to you, you and the rest of the idiots around here that are too simple to understand how the world works. There’s a lot more to it than your narcissistic eyes can see. I’m surprised you don’t walk into more things, considering how self-obsessed you are. You do miss the most obvious things."

Fine, he snapped at the quick verbal jab she’d just given him. Let us start at the very beginning, that’s where one normally begins. Tell me about your childhood. He scribbled another quick note: she is basing her belief in magic on stories and legends from ancient and foreign religions, a complex and intelligent web of lies she has surrounded herself with.

Very well, she agreed, much to his surprise, but we will have to start further back than that. This is the story of how I gained and lost the throne, she explained matter-of-factly. The once and future queen if you will, she smirked slightly at this statement. "It’s really quite a hilarious tale, a story of epic proportions, of heroes and villains. The story of two gloriously beautiful sisters and a man named Grimm. It even involves a prince filled with desperation, vanity and greed, but you already knew that, didn’t you, Charming?"

Unfortunately, he replied, then thought, that one hurt, but he refused to let her petty insults continue to bother him.

It all started, like most natural things, with Mother Nature. Once upon a time, in a country far, far away … well, that’s not true, she corrected herself with a creepy little laugh. It’s actually this country, but the story sounds so much better that way.

Of course, he replied, not at all worried about how she told it because every lie and fabrication would give him insight into her state of mind.

She was quite animated now as he watched her and scribbled his notes, much closer to how he had remembered her years ago when they’d both been far younger.

Let me begin again. Once upon a time, in a country far, far away, a tiny rose seed found its way to a verdant valley. The seed was not one of a kind but one of many that the great Earth Mother, Gaia, blessed with mystical properties. Supposedly they were all planted within the walls of the lost city of Shangri-La, but this one little seed wasn’t, whether through divine intervention or just dumb luck we’ll never know…

Do you know how hard it is to grow a rose from a single seed? Charming complained.

It’s magic. Roses can grow from anything. I could plant a drop of sunlight and it would produce a rose, she stated matter-of-factly as though it was common knowledge.

But you can’t have a drop of…

MAGIC!!! she shouted, then soothed her rage. "After many seasons, a shimmering multi-coloured rose grew from the ground. The inside was not solid or anything you would expect. Instead, it was filled with a mystical energy. The iridescent rose held both the powers of light and dark, good and evil, yin and yang, salt and pepper, as well as the power to heal the sick and injured or to inflict unimaginable harm. She took some sadistic glee in saying the last two words for she had wrought this kind of harm on others. Or so the story goes."

You know a thing like that can’t exist, right? Charming began rather stupidly. Our society is founded on science and technology, not hokey religions and ancient tales of fantasy.

His statement was not about the rose itself, but about what it contained. He had done extensive research on the topic, having heard the tale before and found that there was a rare variety of rose that was almost crystalline in appearance. Not as iridescent or kaleidoscopic as she’d made them out to be, however to his great surprise, they appeared like glass and shone like the flames of an opal. It appeared in many old medical texts as a cure for many ailments when mixed with other ingredients. In one text, it suggested you could cure the plague by rubbing the petals against your skin; another proclaimed it could cure scarlet fever by brewing the petals in a tea. He’d even found a particularly interesting cure for infertility in a modern book written by Blanchette Dubois. No scientific evidence of this rose ever being any kind of cure had been reported by scientists, although that was largely due to the lack of specimens.

Science, she snarled back, annoyed with his close-mindedness, is simply the reluctant human expression of nature’s grand blueprint. My understanding of the world goes well beyond the blueprint. I’ve seen and created things you wouldn’t believe. I can see the flow of the energy that exists in the natural world and watched it flow from one thing to the next in the great web of life. But you go about your mundane and meaningless little lives not understanding any of it, like an ant trying to relate to a shoe, she remarked bluntly, thinking him a dunce. Are you following? Shall I continue?

Yes, of course, please! the prince said serenely, but he was already losing patience with her in this session.

She continued to make him feel uneasy; he wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else, doing anything else.

Well, time passed, she resumed the story, seeming quite happy in the telling of it, and not far away from the rose, well it was a little far – you had to climb down a rather steep hill, take a boat, not a big boat mind you, more like those ones they have in Venice, and then walk a couple of kilometres, relatively close on a global scale, but a fair distance without the use of a carriage. In that spot grew a glorious kingdom that would someday be ruled by a great and devastatingly beautiful queen. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, posed and winked. "That’s me, in case you missed that, however that part comes later. At the time of our story, the kingdom was ruled by a beloved king and queen, though I think the beloved part was all propaganda."

Carefully, Charming made some notes: Malefynvere or Twilight always had a difficult relationship with her parents. Due to her special abilities they seemed to be frightened of her, or at the very least, unsure of how to deal with her. They can hardly be blamed for their actions; many parents struggle to deal with children who have mental illnesses. It takes a lot of time and patience. They did, however, make the mistake of showering all their attention on Malefynvere’s twin sister, Avrora. Instead of sharing their affections between the sisters they doted entirely on Avrora and the kingdom did much the same. She was loved by one and all because of her beauty. The fairest in the land is what they called her almost from the moment of her birth. The parents’ neglect led to a lot of resentment and hurt feelings, which Malefynvere liked to claim would never grow back. In contrast to her parents, Avrora was curious about her sister’s powers.

In Charming’s mind, he travelled back to a conversation he’d had a couple of days before with Avrora when she stopped by to visit her sister and had inquired about Malefynvere’s abilities.

Tell me about yours and Twilight’s childhood, he inquired, specifically her magical powers.

I don’t know about magical, Avrora replied, but she certainly has a different grasp of the natural world than the rest of us. I’m afraid as I look back that she was rather odd.

That’s very true, he agreed. She’s never been what most people would consider normal. It was obvious to everyone that she was somewhat off.

That’s putting it mildly, Avrora agreed, but as a child it was exciting. It appeared that nature itself bowed to her will. She knew when every flower would bloom, when every leaf would fall and when it would snow or rain. And at times it seemed she could understand what animals were saying. I witnessed several conversations she had with Olaf the castle dog, although I could have imagined the whole thing. Time does play tricks on the memory but it definitely seemed like magic back then.

Charming snapped out of his reverie and focused on Malefynvere as she continued, lounging back on the couch with one arm draped over the back. The king and queen wanted children more than anything else but it was not to be. They sent word throughout the kingdom to find a cure and offered great and fabulous rewards for any help they could get. Day after day people with cures both real and imagined showed up and tried to claim the reward, but time and time again they were sent away or their cures did not work. One day, a gnome, Rubble-lick-shin or something was his name, appeared at the castle with the promise of a cure. Malefynvere got sidetracked by thoughts of the gnome. Now, someone told me a tall tale that he could spin straw into gold. If that were true, why wasn’t he rich?

"It’s Rumpelstiltskin,¹ he corrected her, looking up from his almost illegible notes, which looked more like some ancient and foreign language than English. He has a room just down the hall, then added, and still believes he can spin straw into gold. He’s always going on about people’s firstborn children, although he’s not exactly clear about what he intends to do with them once he has them. Nasty little fellow, he’s got a bit of a hygiene problem. I suppose that could be normal for gnomes. I haven’t treated any others."

You interrupted me again, she snarled, the rage building in her eyes. She sat up and seemed about to lash out and strike him.

Her movements caught him off-guard so that he pushed his pen far too hard into the paper, causing a great puddle of ink to spill out across his notes, ruining them. Oh, I’m so sorry, he said hurriedly as he tried to contain the spill and keep his voice as serene as possible, hoping it would keep her calm. Please continue.

She relaxed on the couch, the rage subsiding as she continued from where she’d left off. The gnome arrived at the castle with the iridescent rose. He said if they could find someone to make a potion out of the rose, their greatest wish would be granted. Again, she fidgeted with her clothing, appearing to find it restrictive despite its bagginess. An obvious symptom to her distaste for both her surroundings and the drab clothing she’d been confined to. Finding someone other than him would be difficult, the gnome admitted, so he offered to make the potion himself, if and only if they gave him the firstborn child of one of the wealthy noble families. They refused, of course. How could they accept such an offer? Instead, they had him arrested and took the rose. As he was dragged away by the soldiers, he warned them that misfortune would befall their children. They ignored his warning because they were blindly stupid or ignorant, probably both; they just wanted a child so badly. Having found a satisfactory state for her clothing, she occupied her hands with twirling a few strands of her hair. Charming noted the subconscious action. With the gnome locked away, they sent for the city’s wisest woman in the hope that she could help. She wasn’t just wise, she was in fact a witch.

Malefynvere was again calm and serene, lost in the story. Charming had finally relaxed and he felt he was now doing his job properly. He got up, went to his desk and retrieved some new paper to replace the blotted sheets the ink had destroyed, throwing the old ones in the trash bin. Confidently, he returned to his chair next to the couch and he pulled up what he knew about Malefynvere’s so-called witch. Blanchette Dubois,² the author of, 102 Uses for Extraordinarily Rare and Hard-to-Find Plants, which Charming thought was an incredibly stupid title in that it lacked elegance. It did however contain the medicinal uses of the iridescent rose. There were rumours throughout the city that she was some sort of witch or wizard. Obviously, this couldn’t be the case as there are no such things as witches. She was most likely wiccan,³a medicine woman, or natural healer. Charming had read many of the texts she kept in her home; they contained ancient remedies for many afflictions both mental and physical. These cures were so astounding and brilliant that several of them were currently being used at the Institute with many positive results.

"No one uses that word anymore. The word witch has bad connotations, Charming stated, correcting her and supplying the modern term. They prefer Wicca."

Stop interrupting me, Malefynvere shouted, her voice rattling several of the jars on the shelves.

He’d relaxed too much and said something stupid again. It was his great curse that his mouth always got him into trouble no matter what the situation.

You wanted to hear my story, she seethed, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from him in a huff. For such a supposedly smart man, you really are very stupid.

Sorry, he apologized, realizing that he needed to be more careful or he was never going to be able help her. It could get far worse for them both if he really upset her – one of them could end up severely injured – he wasn’t exactly sure what she was capable of.

She didn’t respond and refused to look at him.

I really am sorry, he said, would you please continue? But still she didn’t respond. I’m very sorry, he pleaded. I really want to hear your story.

Slowly, she lowered her arms and turned back towards him, his pleading finally appeasing her. Now the potion was made and the power of the kaleidoscopic flower granted their wish, she said evenly. Two healthy baby girls were born, one with beautiful golden hair, Avrora, and the other with extraordinarily majestic black hair and dazzling red eyes, a rare beauty to say the least. That’s me, by the way, she said smirking and he just nodded in agreement. Everything seemed perfect for a long time in the happy little kingdom with its happy little royal family. However, year after year, the king and queen showed that they loved Avrora more and more, and I began to hate them more and more, though loathing may be more accurate, considering they didn’t even try to love me.

Charming had been watching clinically the whole time, despite his fear and unease. She is displaying some sort of dual personality disorder, he thought, to flip between those extremes of emotions so abruptly! He asked a new question, hoping for a different kind of response.

Did you blame your sister for monopolizing their attention?

Why would I? She wasn’t the one at fault. She was the best sister anyone could ask for, Malefynvere confessed lovingly, a new and happy expression on her face that showed she cared for her sister. Underneath though, Charming detected a deep sadness. It’s good to see she is still capable of that after all that’s happened.

My parents were the ones to blame, she continued, the anger returning, and I put up with it for a long time. But on our eighteenth birthday everything changed. I was excited, more so than I had been in years. The present my parents had found for me was more beautiful than anything they had ever given either of us before. It was old, as ancient as time itself, irreplaceable, and ultimately priceless. My joy, however, was soon to be smashed into itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny little bits…

---

1 Rumpelstiltskin: Patient #65482, has several severe mental conditions, which focus around an obsession he has with families’ firstborn children. He seems to believe they contain the power of the family, though he hasn’t been particularly clear on how he could acquire that power from them. Charming’s fear is that he intends to ingest them. He also has the belief that he can spin straw into gold. He was found once screaming in his room in pain. It turned out that he’d pulled one of his gold fillings out of his teeth, but claimed he’d woven it from straw. He is currently under heavy and repeated sedation.

2 She also happens to be mother to Marian Dubois (wife to Robin of Locksley, also known as Robin Hood) and grandmother to Robyn Little Red Riding Hood.

3 Wicca are simply people who pawn off natural remedies as magic, fueling the mysticism by doing a lot of jumping, dancing and hollering, or at least that’s how Charming saw it.

June 14, 1914

Dornroschen Castle

Dornroschen Castle stands on a trivial-sized hill on one side, where the front gates sat, and a steep cliff as you came around the back, placing the city both level with and far below its great walls. The building stood just to the right of, or maybe just a smidge off, the centre of the city. It rose high above everything, looking out over the vast, modern, steam-powered city of Dornroschen in the country of Dornroschen (the original king wasn’t very original in his naming of things) and just one of the Thirteen Kingdoms of the Grand British Empire. Where is Dornroschen city, you ask? Well, it was once the capital of what was once known as Bavaria. It sits on the banks of the river Isar, north of the Bavarian Alps among several old forests. The city was laid out in a circular pattern, radiating out from the castle. The original idea was to shape it like a blooming rose but controlling the rapidly expanding urban metropolis proved difficult and so it ended up in a vaguely circular shape contained within a large outer wall. The city was broken up into twelve districts, each named after a month of the year. The districts were separated by the grand streetways like spokes jutting out from the castle above and were wide enough to take at least four carriages side by side. The main structures of the city were made of brown bricks, brass and glass, with few exceptions, as every generation of the royal family had been a little obsessive about the city’s aesthetics.

The nicest and most expensive houses, along with the high-end shops, hotels and restaurants occupied the Golden Ring, which was the circular area closest to the castle. As well as being the most lavish, these buildings had the distinction of being the tallest next to the castle, with the exclusion of the Arthurian Catholic Church, which was well outside the Golden Ring’s boundaries. The nobles’ houses had ornate patterned brickwork, several terraces and barge boards, which were highly decorative panels placed on the gable ends, stained-glass windows, unusually large porches and generally reached several stories into the sky. Due to the city’s space restrictions, they did not have a large footprint, which accounted for their great height.

Further out was the Silver Ring, which was far bigger than the golden one and housed approximately forty percent of the population. The middle class, along with the average restaurants and shops and the four continental train stations filled this ring. The average Dornroschen citizens spent their days in the Silver Ring, having little reason to enter the Heights, as most referred to the Golden Ring due to the size of the buildings. No guards policed the boundaries or walls. People didn’t like associating with those outside their class and it wasn’t seen as something that proper citizens did. The people of the Heights looked down on the people below them, thinking them uncivilized and quite below notice. They did occasionally intermingle for business purposes but no one enjoyed it, or at least pretended not to.

Beyond that was the Bronze or Workers’ Ring, which the rich called muck-pushers or muck-dwellers; it contained all the massive factories that drove the economy. People lived here too, but in small, very ordinary houses with far more inhabitants than was sanitary along with some who didn’t have homes at all, though they were few.

Like all major metropolitan areas of the Grand British Empire, Dornroschen was growing, but unlike the other cities, the technology that was particular to Dornroschen allowed the city to get taller rather than wider. Five- and six-story buildings were becoming ever more common in the Silver Ring and in the Heights they were even taller than that. Everything was in a state of constant construction because as the Silver Ring got taller so too did the Golden Ring, the nobles not wanting to be outdone by those they deemed inferior. This competition required the castle to grow ever taller to maintain its dominance over the convoluted cityscape.

The castle was a remarkable building by anyone’s standards. It was about five hundred years old, having been built before the establishment of the Empire, although little of the original building remained. It was lavish and opulent in the extreme, made almost entirely of white marble and shiny brass pipes which stuck out here, there and everywhere. Several towers reached far into the sky, overshadowing everything below, appearing like great white fingers of the earth reaching out to grasp the sun. Vast well-manicured gardens surrounded the back half of the building, while the front featured a large cobblestone courtyard with twelve marble and gold fountains, which represented the districts and led up to the massive golden doors of the main hall and throne room. The castle was surrounded by a thirty-foot wall of solid white marble that was more decorative than protective but it could hold back the average invader, although that had never happened and seemed an impossibility this deep into the Empire, as Dornroschen was surrounded by other imperial countries.

The castle was designed with proportions which couldn’t fail to please the eye. The only person in the whole country for whom the castle was a general disappointment was Avrora Dornroschen and that was because she was stuck living inside it, a virtual prisoner of her parents’ overprotectiveness. It wasn’t the building itself she hated but the existential feeling of emptiness it gave her. It made her nervous and irritable being cooped up inside. She wanted nothing more than to travel the countryside exploring the world, meeting new people, discovering new cultures and cuisines and having great adventures, like the people in the books she read. But that wasn’t proper for the Crown Princess of the Dornroschen royal family. Especially after today. A dark day. The dreaded day.

Twilight had been desperately searching for Avrora all morning on this momentous day, but no one had seen her beautiful blonde twin since her parents presented her with her gift first thing this morning. The first place she had checked was Avrora’s room, where she took advantage of her sister’s absence to rearrange a few of her things, which she knew would drive her sister crazy. Everything, and she did mean everything, had an exact and proper spot in the room. Avrora knew immediately when anything was out of place and it irritated her beyond belief. From there she moved to the bathroom, then the sitting room that was next to the great library and the atrium. After that it was on to the dining rooms. The first was the main dining room that could hold two hundred people, then the secondary dining room that held one hundred people, and finally the family’s personal dining room which had only a small table and four chairs. Not finding her sister in any of these locations, she continued her search in the small library, which held Avrora’s personal books, the ballroom that wasn’t used very often since most parties and balls were held in the magnificent throne room, and the ball-room, you know, the one full of balls that you play in as children. Still unable to locate her sister, she widened her search to the eight separate and vastly different kitchens, one of which produced only Chinese food, which had always seemed odd to her since the family rarely, if ever, ate from the strange kitchen filled with weird and exotic smells.

All these places she checked with no sign of her sister. Then it hit her like a wave. How stupid can I be? she muttered to herself. I know exactly where my sister is. The excitement of her present must have gotten the better of her normally sensible mind. She ran through the hallways, pushing past the servants and guards, who weren’t used to seeing the princess speeding down the halls and fumbled to bow to her as she passed. In the past, it had been quite normal to find the twins giggling and running about the halls as they played, but as they got older the games became fewer until they basically stopped altogether. As teenagers, they were far less happy than they had been as children. Avrora had become sullen and Twilight’s angst grew with each passing day.

The dark-haired princess entered the gardens and stopped just beyond the threshold to take in the view. The sun was shining brightly, the flowers were in bloom and there in the exact spot Twilight knew she’d be sat Avrora, reading a book, surrounded by the roses that grew up the white marble walls like green veins.

Avrora loved the gardens. She would spend hours here, looking up at the sky and dreaming of far-off places. She always had a book with her and normally she was reading it, but lately she spent less time reading and more time watching, as she did now. A dark shadow passed overhead. She leaned back to get a better view and stared in awe at the beauty above her. The sleek brass body reminded her of an old sea galleon, the four aether-powered turbines affixed to the port and starboard sides, which turned almost silently in their housings, and the snow-white, oval balloon that kept the ship in the air.

This was a new tornado-class airship on its way to the airfield just outside the city walls. Airships were a relatively new invention and they were built right here in Dornroschen, although their production was severely restricted by imperial law. The Icarus, as it was nicknamed, was the newest and largest airship and unlike anything anyone had seen before. Avrora admitted to herself that although the airship was beautiful, it was really the freedom it offered that appealed to her and made her stare in wonder. She gazed longingly at it, her book utterly forgotten, as the ship drifted overhead.

Twilight stared as her sister watched the airship, her jewelled hairpin glinting in the sun and the white of her clothes a stark contrast to the red and green background of the roses. It was a scene that would have made a beautiful setting for a painting. It always had to be white with her, some browns and golds as well, but white was forever the favored colour. She was always so clean and tidy that it bordered on monomania. But who was Twilight to comment? Her entire wardrobe consisted of burgundies and blacks, all except her favourite gold and silver goggles, which were shaped like angel wings and were always perched on her head. They were a gift she had received years ago from Charming.

Twilight walked up to her sister ready to share her excitement. So, she started, big important day, today!

Really? Avrora asked as she lowered her head and turned towards her sister looking confused, her long curled golden hair gently waving in the light breeze. Something important is happening today?

Of course it’s a big day, Twilight exclaimed. It’s our eighteenth birthday!

No, no, no, it can’t be, her sister joked, I’m pretty sure we had our birthday… She put a finger up to her mouth, mocking a thoughtful expression. How long ago was that? Twelve months? You’d think I’d remember something important like that – you must be mistaken.

Birthdays happen every year, Twilight replied with mock exasperation, not just when you want them to, which is good because I’d be well over ninety already if we’d celebrated every time I’d wanted to when we were little, she continued, knowing that her sister was just making fun of her. Did you get your present yet? she asked, but couldn’t hold back