The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 38
I didn’t know how to ride a horse well, but that didn’t matter much, as the only other way to find Rose was walking, which I found even more distasteful.
Fairy tales are real.
Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.
Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.
Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.
She has one chance to wake up.
She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat with the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.
But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.
Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.
Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.
I didn’t know how to ride a horse well, but that didn’t matter much, as the only other way to find Rose was walking, which I found even more distasteful.
The nice thing about riding a horse in the Dream Realm was that no matter how long I rode, I didn’t get stiff or sore. I had only ridden a horse once before, and even after ten minutes my thighs were aching. Diedre and I had been on horseback for over two hours and I didn’t need to rest or recover. That part was nice. One point for Urgu, a thousand points against it.
“So,” Diedre said, riding next to me, “am I to believe that the red rider with you was an agent of Ozma?”
“I think so,” I said, uncertain. “Honestly, things have been happening so quickly it’s hard to know what to believe.”
Diedre clenched the reigns of her saddle. “I wish I had known that. I would have killed her myself.”
“You don’t like Ozma?”
Diedre shook her head vehemently. “I don’t like royalty, or rulers at all. I’ve fought battles in my day, and had enough people fight for me, that I know these rulers are more trouble then they’re worth.”
“Better than the Wicked Witch, though, right?”
Diedre sneered. “That’s like saying poison is better than beheading. They are both part of the same broken system. Honestly, on some level I prefer my rulers outwardly evil. At least then they don’t hide it.”
“I don’t much like kings either,” I replied. “We don’t have that in America.”
Diedre chuckled. “Ah, yes. You have democracy still. That’s what it’s called, right?”
“That’s right.”
Diedre grinned. “I have met my share of Americans over the last two hundred years. You truly are the most gullible people in the world.”
I glared at her. “Gullible? I am not gullible.”
Diedre threw her head back and laughed. “Sure you are, Chelle. You believe you are free, even though you are ruled in much the same way we are ruled. It’s just under the guise of freedom, so your kings can more easily maintain control.”
I snickered. “Dude, I’m a nihilist, but that’s dark even for me.”
She shrugged. “I hope I am wrong, though I am not.”
“What would you do, then? If you were in charge?”
“I wouldn’t be in charge. That’s the point.”
I rolled my eyes. “You seem in charge to me. You had all those people fight for you back when we fought that giant and saved your people from those cages. They risked their lives for you.”
“I happen to be a leader, but I am not in charge. If I were in charge, though, I would burn it all down.”
“Anarchy, then?”
Diedre paused to consider for a moment. “I quite like that word. What does it mean?”
“It’s mayhem.”
A smile crested on Diedre’s face. “Yes, I very much like that. If I were to burn it all down, only mayhem would remain.”
I chuckled. “There are plenty of movies about that. It usually ends up not very good for the characters in them.”
Diedre cocked her head. “What’s a movie?”
“It’s like a book with moving pictures.”
Diedre scratched her head. “Hrm, like a play, then?”
“Sure, kinda.”
“Then the principle is the same.” Diedre chuckled. “Who do you think funds those stories? The people that control the system. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Same thing with books and songs and everything else ever created. Even the stories you heard—fairy tales, I think you call them—were manipulated by rulers to keep their sheep docile. For instance, do you know the tale of Beauty and the Beast?”
“Of course,” I replied with a slight bit of disgust. “Everybody does. You don’t know what this is, but there was a Disney movie about it. Two, in fact. The animated one was better.”
Diedre stared at me blankly. “I barely understand any of the words that you just said, but I’ll assume that’s a yes.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s a yes.”
Diedre pulled the reins of her horse until it stopped in front of me. “Did you know that story was created in order to teach children that arranged marriages were good. The beast represented the rich husband which could be tamed with love and become a prince. That story was mind control, and it seems to have worked, even into your animated movies.”
“That’s crazy.”
Diedre nodded before flicking the reins so that her horse would move again. “That is the power of the ruling class. They can keep a story going forever as long as it serves their purpose. I never wanted that life. I told my father—I begged him to let me marry outside of nobility—I saw how it corrupted.”
“You were a ruler?”
Diedre’s eyes dropped to the ground. “The daughter of one, but I gave it up to be with the man I loved. My betrothed was so angry at my slight of him that he started a war to win me back. He could have had any woman in the kingdom, but I was the fairest, and I defied him—so he needed me. Of course, none of that mattered in the end. I didn’t matter in the end. I was just property, like a prized cow.”
I couldn’t believe it. “That’s horrible.”
Deidre shrugged. “I knew what I was getting into when I ran off. It was worth it for one day of freedom. I still love that man with every bone in my body.”
“That’s how I feel about Rose.”
Diedre nodded. “Then we have to win her back for you. Good news, the Happy Dragon is right—”
But she didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, her jaw went slack. In front of us both was the horrible ruins of the Happy Dragon, charred and burnt to rubble. A dragon sat on the roof of a house across the street from it, happily chomping on the remains of a goat.
“Rose!” I screamed, but Diedre reached over and muffled my words.
“Don’t say another word. We’ll figure out what happened, but you have to act calm, even though there is a fire raging inside of you.”
I didn’t know if I could act cool, but I would try. My bones told me that Rose wasn’t dead. The odds were bleak, but I knew she wasn’t dead.
Fairy tales are real.
Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.