25 November 2022
Coming up with rules for magic is hard. I don’t know how Brandon Sanderson does it, and does it so well. I actually figured out a lot of rules for fate-spinning here, and in particular I came up with the idea the death doesn’t cut peoples “strings” of fate; it just splits them off to go somewhere else. That fits in nicely with my beliefs, and made it easier to conceptualize what the curse might look like to someone who can visualize fate. I felt fairly proud of that, but I still have a lot of work to do to figure out the limits of fate-spinning, how everything works, and how exactly that ties into the witches’ ability to steal things, or the fairy gifts that created them in the first place.
(While Isaac and Aurora are talking after Gothel’s death)
For a moment, Isaac didn’t respond. Then he said simply, “Thank you, by the way. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead.”
Aurora wiped her eyes. “Huh?”
He nodded over toward the alleyway, not far from where she’d first arrived. “I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I was about to be roasted alive. And then you showed up, with that Tower wall.” He scrunched his eyebrows together. “How did that work, by the way? I mean, you literally appeared out of thin air. And I thought the Tower was, well, a tower. It can move?”
“Oh, right.” Aurora reached into a pocket and pulled out a figure of a tower. “While I was stuck in time, I actually met him. The Tower, I mean. He gave me this. He’s the one that helped me get back to the real world.”
Isaac froze. “Stuck in time? Back to the real world?”
Right. He wouldn’t know about that, would he? “So… I was headed over to use fate-spinning to break the curse on our parents, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, turns out fate-spinning is really dangerous. Like, ‘erase everything out of existence’ kind of dangerous. Though, it’d be much more likely I’d just erase myself.”
Isaac’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Let me guess. You tried anyway, and that’s how you got ‘stuck in time’.”
“Basically. Maleficent actually tried to stop me. She didn’t want me to risk my life like that or something. And nothing else I tried to get past her worked, so…” She shrugged and pulled her shoulders in. “One more for the list of screw-ups for the great Aurora Lowenveil.”
Isaac sat down. The smile he’d worn ever since they’d beaten the dragon had long since faded away. The weight of the world settled on his shoulders, and his face sank into his palms. Then he looked up, a curious expression on his face. “I wonder if that’s what she’s been up to.”
“Huh? Who? Up to what?”
“Maleficent. There are these… golden threads I can see sometimes now, that connect all of us together. The past few days, she’s been messing with them, D’you think she’s trying to break the curse herself?”
Aurora stood suddenly, feeling more alive than she had in ages. “That… that’s it.” She took off running for the inn.
(While Aurora is stuck in time, talking with the Tower)
… enjoyed so much? And that’s not all. How many people - witches, if you will - have ever successfully stolen from a fairy? Is there anyone besides you and Maleficent?”
Aurora leaned her head against him. “But what good does that do? Even with gothel’s eyesight. Isaac’s been overwhelmed with all the things he can see now, and he can’t understand it, and I can’t help him because I don’t even know what he’s seeing.” She chuckled bitterly. “Not that it matters anyway. I’m stuck here now.” She glanced up at Tower’s face. “At least I have decent company.”
“Don’t worry about Isaac. He’s smart; he’ll figure it out in time, and it will be surprisingly useful during his reign as king.” Tower stroked Aurora’s head. “As for being stuck here, well. I can probably do something about that.”
Aurora frowned. “How?”
“I have my ways.” Tower gave her a knowing grin, then turned more serious. “I know things are difficult right now. If you really can’t bear to deal with it anymore, you are free to stay with me as long as you like.” He clasped her hands in his. “But don’t you remember? In all those stories you used to read, there’s always a darkest hour. The night is darkest just before the dawn. Things will get better.’
From his suit coat pocket he pulled out a small figurine of a tower and pressed it into her hands. “Know that whatever happens, I will always be with you. I’m so proud of you.”
Tears started flowing down Aurora’s cheeks again. She hugged him tight. “Thank you.”
He reached out and grabbed what looked like the finest golden thread. “Are you ready?”
Aurora nodded. Tower pulled the thread, and time moved again.
(After convincing Maleficent to let Aurora help her)
Maleficent led the pair upstairs to the room their parents lay in. She asked Aurora, “What do you know of the workings of fate?”
Aurora grimaced. “Less than I thought I did.”
The corners of Maleficent’s mouth twitched upwards. “At least you recognize that.” She looked over to Isaac. “And what about you, boy?”
Isaac shook his hand. “Is it connected to all the golden threads I see?”
Maleficent nodded. “Very good. Now, over here. What do you see?” She handed Isaac a glass lens, about a foot and a half in diameter, then angled it so he could focus on a space about a foot above his parents’ bodies.
“Woah.” Isaac stared for a little longer, then pointed at a specific spot. “Wait, what’s that?”
Aurora tried to angle herself so she could see, too, but no matter where she stood, even when she looked in the lens, she couldn’t see anything unusual. She bit her lower lip and backed away.
Maleficent glanced over, then asked Isaac, “May I share your sight with her? I’d like her to see this, as well, so she can understand what we’re trying to do.”
Isaac nodded, and Maleficent pinched at something in front of Isaac’s eye. She held whatever it was with the utmost delicacy. “Aurora, would you come a little closer, please?”
Aurora stepped up in front of her, and Maleficent guided whatever it was she held to her eyes. A moment later, and Aurora thought her eyes had exploded; bright threads of all colors streamed around them.
Aurora flinched back and blinked desperately. Isaac watched her from the side and commented, “Yeah, it takes some getting used to.”
Aurora took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again, things were somewhat back to normal. She could still see the threads, when she focused on them, but now she could clearly see the real world around her. When she looked at Maleficent, though, the witch-queen looked like a brilliant beacon of all kinds of colors. The magics and lives she’d taken, maybe?
Aurora squared her shoulders and stepped up beside Isaac. This time, when she peered through the glass, she saw a tapestry woven together. When she focused on the specific section Maleficent had pointed out, she saw a thin lump set crosswise from most of the threads, which diverted a handful of threads away from the tapestry entirely. “What’s with this weird bump, over here?” Aurora asked, as she moved in to look closer.
Maleficent sighed. “That’s the curse I placed on you as a baby. It was designed to separate you - along with the curse the fairies placed on you - away from the tapestry of reality. By killing you, in this case. But the important thing to understand is that this cord was placed in a way to separate some threads from everything else.”
“But… That bump’s been woven in,” Isaac said. “There’s threads running back and forth all over it.”
“Of course,” Maleficent replied. “That’s what makes this so hard. Think about it; is there any part of your life - either of your lives - my curse has not impacted in some way?”
Both Aurora and Isaac shook their heads.
“No, right? Even I’ve had my life changed drastically; see here.” She gestured to a large, multi-colored band of threads that bent sharply where the bump was at. “I never would have become such good friends with Hannah had she not stormed my castle, a year later, and demanded my reasons.” A ghost of a smile played at it her lips, but it vanished so quickly Aurora wondered if she’d imagined it. :That’s why we can’t simply remove it. It’s such a big part of who we are, doing that would unravel our very reality.”
“But then…” Aurora glanced over where her parents slept. “How did you…?”
“Very carefully.” Maleficent sighed. “In essence, I nudged it, so it pushed a different froup of threads up. That was extremely delicate work; in particular, positioning it so that neither of your parents died was quite the struggle.”
Aurora’s heart felt like it turned to lead. That’s why Maleficent hadn’t wanted Aurora messing with things. Especially when she couldn’t even see what she was doing. “So, is there anything we can do?”
“I’m still figuring that out.” Maleficent leaned over and stared intently at the bundle of threads. “The simplest answer would be to weave their threads back into the tapestry. However…”
Aurora brightened at first, then drew her eyebrows together. “What is it?”
Maleficent grimaced. “If I wanted to do that in a way that doesn’t cause any problems, they might remain asleep for the next hundred years. That, in itself, isn’t a problem; I have ways to preserve them, so they would not age or rot. But I do not think that is the life they would choose.”
Aurora bit her lower lip. Isaac studied the tapestry. “You said that was the only way that didn’t cause problems. What did you mean by that?”
Maleficent shrugged. “It would be possible to force it sooner. As early as tomorrow, in theory. But that starts pulling a lot of other threads out of alignment. Yours, especially.” She glanced over to Hannah’s face. “And considering Hannah’s motivations when she asked me to do this initially, I don’t think she’d appreciate it if I forced that cost on you two.”
“Even if we were willing? Even if we wanted it?” Aurora asked.
Maleficent glared at her. “I will not trample on Hannah’s wishes on this matter. That is not negotiable.”
Aurora frowned and retreated. How had the Tower woven her back in so simply, then? “I have a question.” She pulled out the tower figurine Tower had given her. “After our duel, when I was trapped between moments in time, my thread had been pulled free of reality, right? How hard would that have been to weave back in?”
Instead of answering her question, Maleficent stared at the figurine. A line of translucent silver thread Aurora had never noticed before ran from the figurine to the tapestry, and was closely tied to a series of blue and violet threads Aurora guessed represented her and Gothel.
“Where did you get this?” Maleficent raised a hand and lightly brushed it with her finger.
“In that other world, the space between seconds, I met him. The Tower, I mean. He gave me this, as a way to keep him close.”
“May I?”
Aurora handed the figure over, and Maleficent raised it to study it from every angle. “Fascinating.” She returned it to Aurora and asked, “This lets you summon parts of this Tower around you at any time, correct?”
“Yes.” Aurora looked a bit skeptical. “Does that matter for what we’re doing, though?”
Most recently updated draft of Rapunzel, the Sleeping Beauty (potentially including unposted content)