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The thorns were harsher now, growing more internally. Rosamund could feel the thorns growing out of wounds, growing into shackles and chains that trail out of her skin, wrapped around bone, and reaching through blood. They wrap, armor-like around her torso, creating perches for her birds off her shoulders.
Rosamund feels close to weeping from the injustice of the digging vines around her neck, the collar that her choice, a choice for choice, created, a reminder of the weight of what she has done, what she has failed to do. The price for choice is a price she is willing to pay but it hurts that she must pay it. That she must suffer for a chance at choice.
She will wear her suffering as armor, as has been foretold by her choice. She will look, but will not expect love or devotion in a partner for herself. She can wish and hope that Jonathan will love her without the faeries' help but she doesn’t expect him to love her. If he does not, that is fine , she will survive if he does not come to love her, if she does not come to love him, giving up True Love for a chance for him to survive was enough. It must be.
The Baba Yaga can take her True Love if it means people have a choice in life and love. Besides, even if she never found romantic love, she had this odd family of a frog cousin with a failing marriage, a trickster spirit cat, a pseudo-father who kept apples in a bag for months to give his husband, a little boy who was expected to follow too strict rules to be good, and the bravest little girl she had ever met. Even alone and wishing for romantic love, she would still love and be loved by those around her, that would be enough.
Swarm perched on ever-moving briars, Rosamund headed back to the house, a few dead rabbits in hand.
She hadn’t been lying to Baba Yaga when she said that she was no longer the soft flesh Baba Yaga apparently preferred, she may not be the burly Cinderella or even as strong as Ylfa or Tim, but archery at the angles she hit required a good core and arm strength, she may not be the strongest, but she was not soft, hadn’t been since the Sleep, sense the briars and the thorns. She may have been naive, hoping for her true love, expecting them to find her, but she hadn’t been soft. Couldn’t afford to be soft when there were briars wrapped around her bones.
A part of Rosamund, the part that had just given up the dream she’d had her whole life, raged at the injustice of it, that she couldn’t be soft. That a part of her hadn’t been since she was cursed, since over 100 years ago. Legs had to be able to run hard and fast, arms had to pull back the tremendous weight of a bow, tension building until she let the arrow fly.
Another part of her, that girl who saw what some of her so-called Happily Ever Afters called for, relished in her sharp elbows, her strong arms, and her quick determination. A feral, unchained part of her howled with Ylfa, laughing as she bounded, too-sharp eyes tracking her prey. Was it so hard to believe that she was just as much an animal as the rest of them?
They saw her title, forgetting that, at this point, she was Princess of Nothing, a kingdom dead or asleep - don’t think about it, don’t think about it - they forgot the looming figure her swarm could be, the swiftness with which she let her arrows loose, forgot she had killed just as much as they had. The forest was her home, and it was a kill-or-be-killed world at times, but it was honest, for all that it was ruthless.
Rosamund found that she was as fed up with half-truths and pretty lies as Baba Yaga was, a lack of lies was not enough, not when it hid the dagger in the ribs. She was tired of being stabbed, but if she had to be stabbed, if that was her fate, she was the one to choose it. She would be the one to invite the briars in, they didn’t get to invite themselves.
Lost as she was in thought, Rosamund almost missed the changes in her friends. Gerar- Ger- Her cousin was now a huge frog, much bigger than his first time, surely, no dog would try to eat that. Ylfa, for she was still Ylfa, even if Rosamund no longer knew the history of the name, was much more akin to the Wolf they had saved, nearly as big as the cottage, which seemed to warp to accommodate all of them. Pinnochio’s joints creaked more, his face seeming more painted, less animated in a way. Everyone seemed diminished, in some way, they had given something to Baba Yaga, though what was given, Rosamund didn't know.
“I expected no one more than you to understand” Snow White stated, standing tall as she brought upon the end of all stories.
“I expected no one more than you to want to live” Rosamund responded, knowing what was coming, feeling the next words being written, her death being prophesized moments before it happened.
And she was dying, could feel the cold of Snow White’s power leeching her life, could feel herself fading away. And there was Thumbelina, small little Thumbelina flitting into her waning view.
“Princess, is it your time to rest, or do you want your story to continue?”
“I don’t think it’s my time to rest,” Rosamund says, feeling that truth down to the thorns in her bones, she is still needed here, she can’t rest yet, can’t go back to century-long slumber.
“Then I think-” Thumbelina starts, abruptly stopped by briars puncturing her small body, pulling life into Rosamund at the expense of her friend, one she had fought so hard to save and heal.
Rosamund screamed her denials, her retracement of this deal made, she would gladly die a thousand times to keep her friends safe, and here she was, taking a friend's life for her own.
The briars laughed, delighted to have such power once again, and Rosamund could feel the despair that there was no life outside of this room for her, this was it. The briars had won, and there was no story for her outside of this final battle. Every moment “alive” brought only pain, as the thorns pumped her heart to force this body to continue.
Rage bubbled up in Rosamund, she had already given everything she had ever wanted to be here, only to have to give her life beyond these doors, beyond this fight.
How dare Snow White?
How dare the Briars ?
How dare the Authors?
She may not be able to make it out of this room, but she would make sure that her family could, and no one else so long as she drew any semblance of breath, there would be no one that would stop Tim’s plan. Everyone deserved a choice. Thumbelina chose to help her but she didn’t choose to die.
She steps out, thorns piercing her muscles as she forces herself to move, to line up the shot. Snow White killed her, and the briars killed Thumbelina to bring her back. Snow White used her. Snow White wants to kill everything, wants to hurt her friends, her family .
The arrow flies.
Briars swallow Snow White, and then there is nothing. No briars, no Snow White.
Rosamund can breathe, as much as she can when each breath is nettles constricting her lungs, a little easier now that the main player is down, that her killer is gone. But there is still danger to her family, still those that search to take the choice of choice away from everyone.
She will defend them, it doesn’t matter if she doesn't make it out, they will. They will . There is no other option. The briars will work for her this time, will keep her loved ones safe for this battle, will help others choose choice .