Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Summons
"In the darkness of her chambers, the Queen looked within the pages of the legacy tome and found her names. They are the ones lucky enough to be chosen for a fairytale legacy. But in Ever After there is no illusion of choice. It is happily ever after...or death."
The Kingdom of Roses was a dark and unfriendly place. The sky, shrouded in a near constant cover of gray haze, was eternally dark, while the landscape boasted remnants of scorched dogwood trees, the rest swallowed in dense thickets of thorny bramble bushes. Hugging herself as she stared out the window, taking in the early morning through busted glass panes, Briar could feel deep scratch scars dancing up and down her arms. Thorns were dangerous, the spikes mimicking vicious animal claws, teaching painful lessons to those young enough (and stupid enough) to challenge them. They certainly didn’t discriminate.
It was these very bushes that gave sixteen-year-old Briar her name. She used to be called Rose when she was very young, but it felt wrong to carry her late mother’s name. So she was just Briar, and that felt right. It was right to honor the bramble scars which mapped her sun kissed skin in dizzying patterns.
Despite the hazy quiet of the morning, however, something uncomfortable writhed in the pit of Briar’s empty stomach. Every girl in the kingdom between the ages of fourteen and sixteen was no doubt having the exact same feelings, though in which order, Briar couldn’t say. Hope. Fear. Dread. Nausea. Anxiety. Grief? These emotions were normal on the Summoning–Briar was not surprised by them–but the need to throw-up was unwelcome, nonetheless.
“Briar?”
A little voice, meek and sleepy, shook the girl from her wandering thoughts. She turned, taking in the single room of their stone cottage. It was hardly big enough for nine people to live comfortably, the still sleeping forms of her eight brothers lining the walls. A singular dirty face peeking from inside a burlap blanket made Briar smile.
“Tenacity?” The boy sat up a little more at being addressed, using a dirty hand to rub at his equally dirty eyes. It hadn’t rained all summer, meaning no baths unless they managed to fight through the brambles around their small clearing to reach the river. The older ones were simply too big to squeeze through without injury. Soon, with the way the youngest's were growing despite a lack of food, no one would be able to. “Go back to sleep, it’s still early.”
On a normal day, Tenacity would simply take her word and roll over. Situation aside, he was still nearly a teenager himself. It struck Briar that he would be turning thirteen in a few weeks; she didn’t even have a gift prepared. Tenacity must’ve sensed her trepidation, vicious red eyes narrowing as he frowned. “Is it today?”
Briar couldn’t lie to him, Tenacity was too clever, so she nodded silently, wringing her own dirtied hands. Rough grains of silt scraped against her calloused palms, causing her to grimace at the resting ache in her knuckles. It was hard work, cutting and hacking through the briar patches to find food. Briar didn’t have a mirror to look at herself, but she no doubt looked as poorly as her siblings. Tenacity clambered out of his sack, his shirt too small and riding up, revealing his swelling, starved abdomen. Briar winced in guilt. She hadn’t managed to kill anything substantial in months, what with their thicket growing denser and wilder by the day. It didn’t help that her random sleep comas didn’t care where or when she would collapse (falling right into a pile of thorns while hunting was never pleasant). Going further into the dense forest was her only chance of finding something to kill, a journey that was practically a death wish. Worry for the future reared its head.
Their father was most certainly dead by now.
He’d left on a long journey to slay a beast and never returned. Briar had been caring for her brothers for months now, barely able to keep up with how much they were growing. She had exactly one chance now to give the boys a better life, or they would certainly starve before the next frost. The Summoning was a blessing…just as it was a curse. But Briar also knew it was her only chance to properly provide for eight young boys. Glancing down as Tenacity took her wrists, holding them lightly in his bruised fingertips, he smiled at her. It didn’t reach his eyes nor crinkle his face, but she appreciated the gesture and kissed his dusty forehead.
“It’ll all be fine,” she said, though the lie tasted bitter. “You’ll see.”
“Do you think you’ll get chosen?”
Briar sighed. She still wanted to lie; she wanted to tell Tenacity that it was unlikely that she would be summoned out of all the prettier, smarter, stronger girls in the kingdom. For some places (for the lucky ones, at least), the purely random choice wasn’t nearly as daunting. She heard that other kingdoms actually celebrated the Summoning, rather than dreaded it. But for the Kingdom of Roses, it wasn’t common for a summons to be sent to just anyone. It could still happen, of course, but only if there were no other options.
“You know the Summons are familial,” Briar told her brother, giving his bony hands a squeeze. “It will be me.”
“Father could stop this,” Tenacity scowled, wrinkling his nose into an expression of distaste. “What if you’re gone when he gets back?”
Briar’s heart ached in pain. Tenacity was twelve and quick as a whip, but he just couldn’t grasp that their father was probably dead. Briar wasn’t ready to rip his heart out like that, though she was realizing now she may not have much of a choice. “He won’t miss me that much,” she muttered, stealing her emotions as best she could. “Come sit with me.”
Pulling Tenacity to the window seat, her makeshift bed was still warm. Setting the boy on a threadbare cushion, Briar pulled her only blanket around him, placing both hands on his shoulders. “Today is the Summoning, Tenci. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah. A girl from the kingdom gets chosen to continue the fairytale.”
“Which fairytale?”
“Sleeping Beauty.”
Briar inhaled and exhaled shakily, swallowing the lump forming in her throat. “Tell me about the story. What’s it about?”
“Uh, a pretty girl gets cursed by a wicked dark fairy by touching the spindle of a spinning wheel and falls asleep.”
“How long does she sleep for?”
Tenacity paused, thinking about the question. Briar continued to hold him, trying hard to keep her hands from shaking. His red eyes brightened as the answer came to him, only to darken again as he stared very intently at her. His chest shuddered with the beginnings of a sob.
“One-hundred years.” Briar grunted as the boy lunged forward, slamming into her waist as he began to cry. “W-we’ll never see you again if you go. Briar, you can’t go.”
Briar tilted her chin towards the ceiling, her own eyes burning with the sting of tears. She promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. She had to stay strong for this.
“Tenacity, you have to promise me something,” she croaked, running a hand through his mop of unruly hair. “Make me this promise, ok?” Feeling the boy nod against her, Briar sniffled herself, struggling to keep the water out of her eyes. “Whatever happens today, you have to promise me to take care of your brothers. Loyalty, Courage, Gallantry, Trust, Dauntless, Valiant, and Honor are all depending on you now. As the big brother, you must protect them. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want you to go!”
“Tenacity.” Briar peeled the boy off her, settling him with the most serious stare she could manage. “Your brothers will die without you. You have to be brave, my little prickle bush. Brave and daring and courageous, just like Papa. Promise me you’ll take care of them.”
Tenacity, with a snotty nose and watery eyes, managed a shallow nod. “I-I promise, Briar.”
“Swear on it.” Holding out her pinkie finger, Tenacity locked his own around it, solidifying the promise. Sitting back with a weak sigh, Briar wiped at her cheeks, turning as noise began coming from the other lumps on the floor. “Looks like the cavalry is waking up,” she chuckled, glancing at her little brother who had from teary to downright depressed in a matter of seconds. Briar ruffled his hair again, rising from the window seat and offering her hand. “Come on. You can help me with breakfast.”
Briar didn’t know what to expect when the summons arrived. She had heard many different rumors and stories of how it would go, ranging from a great stork descending from the sky with a letter in its beak, to the envelope just appearing by magic on the table. Seeing as their lonely cottage, built of mortar, gray stone, and a thatched straw roof was completely surrounded by thick bramble forest, they had never had a single visitor come to their door.
It was impossible to reach them.
This meant that in the middle of breakfast, where eight hungry boys were tearing apart the last pieces of dried and salted deer jerky from Briar’s stores, a knock at the door ground everything to a halt. Eight pairs of eyes blinked, going wide with fear. Even Honor, only six years old, stopped chewing, staring intently down the table. Briar stood as the knock came again, this time a bit louder and more forceful. She swallowed hard, glad nothing was in her stomach as she was sure she’d throw-it up. Brushing out her badly stained frock and pushing her hair back behind her ears, she took the doorknob and peeked out.
A tall figure in beautiful silver armor was waiting for her there. The sun catching on the metal nearly blinded her as she squinted, raising a hand to try and shield her eyes. “C-can I help you?”
“Are you Rose Beauty?”
“I am.” Briar frowned at the use of her real name, opening the door a bit wider. The knight had somehow carved a path through the brambles; a feat no one else had ever managed to do. She realized at that moment it must’ve been the legendary Ever After magic. She’d only ever heard about how powerful it was in stories.
“I am here by order of Queen Snow White to deliver you to Ever After, to heed the magical summons of Sleeping Beauty, as decided by the Storybook of Legends.”
“Oh,” Briar couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. She had hoped someone else would be chosen for once. Unfortunately, her luck just wasn’t that good. “Of course. Would you like to come in?”
The knight looked a bit awkward at first, shuffling on their metal feet. But as Briar opened the door and waved inside, he entered without complaint. Ducking under the threshold, eight boys stared up at the stranger in awe, their breakfasts forgotten.
“My brothers,” Briar introduced, pointing to each boy as she said their names. “Tenacity, Loyalty, Courage, Gallantry, Trust, Dauntless, Valiant, and Honor.”
“Greetings, children,” the Knight said, giving an awkward little bow. He then turned, a hand resting on the sword Briar only just noticed. “Miss Beauty, we must be on our way. Ever After doesn’t wait.”
“I know.”
“Do you have anything you’d like to bring with you?”
“No, thank you.”
“No?” The Knight seemed surprised, tilting his helmet in a way that almost seemed puzzled. “You haven’t any personal effects or clothing you’d like to take with you?”
“Afraid not,” Briar said, slowly pulling on her deerskin boots. “We don’t have much in the way of possessions.”
“I see. And…your request, if you have one?”
“My request,” Briar mused, slumping heavily. Queen Snow White was supposedly the most gracious in the land, granting each child summoned to become a legacy a single request as a sort of ‘prize’. It barely made up for being taken away from her home to sleep for one-hundred-years, but she had no intentions of squandering it either. “I want my brothers to be taken care of. They deserve better than to starve out here in the brambles.”
“I will see what can be done,” the Knight said, stepping back as Honor ran to Briar’s side, clinging to her leg.
“Don’t go, Briar!” he wailed, fat tears streaming down his face. Briar had to hold in her own emotions again, hardly able to breathe as she scooped the child into her arms. The knowledge settled on her that she wouldn’t get to see any of her brothers become young men. She wouldn’t get to see them grow up, meaning Honor would always be six in her memory. Turning, the other seven stood around her in a semi-circle in various stages of grief. Most were crying, while Tenacity stood resolute, doing his best to stay strong.
“It’ll be ok, I promise.”
“Do you have to go?” Loyalty croaked, grabbing onto the hem of her ratty leggings. “Can’t you stay?”
“Refusing a summons would be treason,” the knight said flatly, glancing down as Gallantry began banging on the kneecap of his armor.
“You’re horrible! I hate you! How dare you take our sister away!”
“Gallant!” Grabbing the boy by the scruff, Briar dragged him back to the rest of the group, wagging a finger at them. “He’s just doing his job. Now pay attention, all of you. This is important. You’ll be listening to Tenacity now, ok?”
The consensus wasn’t a happy one, but Tenacity took Honor from Briar’s hands, who promptly began to scream his lungs out. Briar’s chest felt like it was breaking as she struggled to keep air in her lungs, biting her lip to keep it from wobbling. This would be her last memory of her family. Crying…grieving over her. Never knowing what became of them.
“Miss Beauty, we need to leave now,” the Knight said, motioning to the door.
“Y-yeah, I’m ready.”
Following the brute out, the air was crisp against her bare skin. Her boots sunk in the still wet grass as she followed her chaperone to a rolling wooden wagon. It wasn’t very elegant looking, just four walls and some wheels, the small windows blocked by thick iron bars. Inside didn’t look much better, the floor covered in piles of straw. Stopping at the door, Briar glanced over her shoulder. the boys stood watching her, silently weeping amongst themselves. A heavy hand landed on her shoulder.
“I promise they will not be left to die,” the Knight said. “Your request will be my personal duty.”
“T-thank you.”
The Knight offered his hand as Briar stepped up into the wagon, the interior smelling faintly of animal as the door was shut and heavily bolted behind her. Sitting down on one of the hay piles, she spotted a pair of iron shackles on the floor, open and abandoned. She wondered how many legacy children fought the summons…how many knew they were practically being sentenced to death. Briar knew her legacy wasn’t the worst to exist; in technicality, she was destined to be a princess. But others were not royalty. Some were villains, others were the heirs to horrible tragedy. Even some royals had not so happy aspects to their stories.
Briar closed her eyes as the wagon jerked, beginning to roll forward. On the wind, her brother's desperate screams echoed to her ears. And only here, alone in the musky dark of a wagon, did Briar finally allow herself to weep.