Sleeping Beauty
In a land beside a shining sea, two Queens—after long years of trying—were blessed with a healthy baby daughter. Overjoyed, they planned a lavish christening for the infant Princess. They bickered about the seating chart (one cousin was too fond of mead, while another was too fond of his opinions), but overall the preparations went smoothly and the invitations were soon sent.
Among the guests were seven good fairies. “Or at least,” said one of the queens, “let us call them ‘adequate fairies’. Nobody’s perfect, but they do try their best.”
“Unlike that other fairy,” her wife said, meaningfully.
They nodded together over their cooing baby, for the other fairy was spiteful and mean, selfish and greedy and cruel. In fact, she even called herself ‘the evil fairy,’ just to make people fear her.
Finally, the day of celebration came. The musicians played, the fountains bubbled, and each of the fairies gave a gift to the infant Princess.
The generous, vain fairy gave the gift of beauty.
The clever, critical fairy gave the gift of intelligence.
The brash, sporty fairy gave the gift of athleticism.
The capable, prim fairy gave the gift of discipline.
The fifth fairy gave a copper statue of a robed lady bearing a torch and a tablet.
The smug, accomplished fairy gave the gift of ambition.
And the seventh fairy—
“Stop!” cackled the evil fairy, hunched over the infant Princess. “You didn’t invite me, but I’ll give a gift just the same.”
“Of course you were invited!” the Queens cried, lying desperately. “The royal mail must’ve lost your—”
“My evil gift is this,” the evil fairy said, as dark clouds gathered outside the palace windows. “One day the Princess will prick her finger on a spindle and die.”
The Queens sobbed and guests wept, “What has the evil fairy done?”
Except for the cousin with a fondness for his own opinions, who muttered, “Stop referring to her as ‘evil’!”
“But I am evil!” the evil fairy cried, and she vanished into the storm front.
“See?” the cousin who enjoyed mead said. “She even calls herself ‘evil.’”
“Watch your tongue!” the opinionated cousin snapped. “You overreact to the slightest things. Besides, a prick of the finger won’t kill the Princess.”
“He’s right,” said the seventh, forgotten fairy. “For here is my gift: the Princess shall not die if ever she pricks her finger.”
“Told you so,” the opinionated cousin muttered. “You’re all so hysterical.”
“She will merely fall into a deep, nightmarish sleep for four, tragic years,” the seventh fair continued. “Or for eight unimaginably devastating ones, if a mighty voice doesn’t wake her.”
Afraid for their beloved daughter, the Queens immediately ordered the destruction of every spindle in the land.
Over the next sixteen years the infant Princess grew tall and strong. However, the economy faltered, on account of complex and multicausal systemic weaknesses, and the people became restive, blaming the land’s ills on the prohibition of spindles. (Except for the opinionated cousin, who said: “You get what you deserve, for not politely inviting evil into your house.”)
At sixteen, the Princess ventured into a palace tower she’d never visited before, and slammed the door behind her. (Although beautiful, smart, athletic, and wise, she was still a teenager, and subject to fits of sullenness.) There she met the evil fairy, in the guise of a Repugnant Prince.
“What is the matter, Your Royal Highness?” asked the Repugnant Prince.
“My mothers treat me like I need a nanny,” the Princess grumbled. “And the people are angry.”
“They’re so, so stupid,” the Repugnant Prince told her. “Crooked queens are the worst.”
The princess found perverse comfort in the prince’s words. “My mothers try to make my life better through policies I barely understand,” she said to herself, “but the prince is already making my life better by insulting who I resent.”
“Do you know what the Queens would truly hate?” the Repugnant Prince asked her. “If you pricked your finger on that spindle. That would show them. They’ll be sorry they ever neglected you.”
“They will!” the princess cried. “They will be sorry!”
So she pricked her finger and fell into a fitful sleep, haunted by horrific dreams.
The people mourned and the sorrowful Queens scoured the land for a ‘mighty voice’ to wake the princess, searching ceaselessly for a singer, a hymn, and a chorus to break the evil spell.
And the Repugnant Prince? He grabbed the Princess by the pussy as she slept. She didn’t stir, but that didn’t bother him. He just started kissing her. He didn’t even wait. When you’re a Prince, you can do anything.