Princess Aurora Quotes

“The path remained steady for a time before dwindling down to dusty silt. The sky opened above as trees fell away on either side. To their right, the land dipped down into a tiny, almost impossibly beautiful valley. A stream ran through its lowest point, its bank lined in pink lupine. Before that, tall, dark green grass sparkled with white flashes in the sunlight. Late season dandelions and breathy, tiny white flowers on slender stems were avoided by bees, while purple thistles and asters thronged with them.
"I could do with a little bit of a break," she said, looking longingly at the soft, moss-covered braes above the tinkling water.
The prince made a big show of cautiously surveying the scene. Aurora Rose hid a smile. Nothing seemed harmful. "All right," he finally said. "My face could definitely do with a wash. Feels all dusty."
They stepped down into the quiet valley that smelled like all of summer crushed into a single flower.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“And then... she heard voices. Her aunt's voice... 'Your daughter?' Maleficent asked, her voice rising in dramatic surprise. 'Really? What kind of loving mother hands her daughter off to the fairies for sixteen years?'... Maleficent swung around, arching her arms and fingers like an animal, lowering her yellow eyes to their level.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“The magicked dress danced over to the princess. Despite her misgivings, she stood up to receive it- it would have been rude not to. The dress easily smoothed itself over her. Dark green velvet skirts, full and soft, twirled around down to her ankles. Golden buttons fastened themselves up the placket on the bodice and over the elegant, tight sleeves. From her elbows, wisps of dark green mist flowed to the ground for tippets. A collar around her neck drifted out into a cape of the same material.
"Truly, you are the most beautiful princess in the world," a fairy breathed.
Aurora Rose looked at herself in the mirror of dewdrops. She was indeed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Long neck, golden hair, wide violet eyes, narrow waist, lips perfectly pink and rosy.
She turned, just a little bit, to see how her figure looked from a different angle. The green velvet flowed softly and majestically, making delicious little noises when its folds rippled. As talented as the castle seamstresses were, the princess had never worn anything as elegant or perfect as this.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Aurora looked into the mirror and smiled. She was pretty. She was a royal princess. There was about to be a ball. These were things she could, once in a while, allow herself to be happy about.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Grace- the fairies' gift, according to his story- seemed to pertain to her running as well as dancing. She might not have been as fast as he, but she was nimble and fleet and didn't need to look at her feet to avoid stumbling.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“The princess found herself being gently prodded and pushed and combed and magicked, and her hair felt weird. When she was spun around to face the mirror again, she was in a yellow dress, waves of sunshine spilling down from her bodice to her toes. Her shoulders were bare, which was a little strange, but they were pale and perfect and delicate. 'Swanlike,' she could hear the minstrel saying. Her hair was loosely braided over one shoulder, a yellow ribbon tying it off.
The fairies gasped.
"You are 'sooooo' beautiful!"
Even 'more' beautiful!"
"Can it be possible?"
"Look at 'this'," a fairy commanded. With a serious look and a wave of her wand, she transformed the princess again. This time her hair was piled high on her head in an elegant chignon, a simple ribbon holding it back. A light blue dress puffed out around her softly, like a cloud. The finest gloves she had ever worn covered her bare arms up to her shoulders. Funny little tinkling shoes felt chilly on her feet.
She put her hands on the skirt and twisted this way and that; what a dress to dance in! She would look like a fairy herself.
Or a bride.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“She no longer wore the meringue-like light blue ridiculous thing. It was instead a strange mix of her outfit when she had lived in the forest and what she had escaped the Thorn Castle in. An old brownish skirt and black corset top- but with a golden shirt that flowed under the corset and over her hips like a tunic. The skirts were all ripped and in tatters.
And her shoes were once again gone.
She shrugged.
"It's 'my' dream, isn't it?”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“I want porridge!" she said, exasperated. "That's all. I wanted a bunny before and 'it' appeared, and now I want porridge. The way my aunts used to make it on cold mornings. Warm and buttery, with rich toasted acorns in it."
"Acorns? Really? That sounds... um... I mean, it's an interesting gastronomic choice."
She rolled her eyes. "We lived in the middle of a 'forest,' Royal Prince. It was what we had. And a real treat in the middle of winter."
Then she proceeded to ignore him.
She closed her eyes and cupped her hands. She prayed and wished and imagined and begged.
Phillip stayed politely silent- though he did look around, sigh a little, and do all sorts of other things to obviously fret over the passage of time.
She tried to call up the feel of the wooden bowl in her hands: it warmed almost like flesh where the wood was thin and the heat of her fingers and the hot porridge mingled. She summoned the smell, a mix of dairy and things of the earth and the tall green grass and the woods. Sometimes there was even a dollop of honey on top.
She thought so hard she felt like she had to go to the privy.
Her concentration faltered for a moment when she distractedly wondered if that ever happened to Maleficent when she was performing an incantation. But after a few seconds she was back in her dream of porridge.
Time passed...
"GOOD LORD!"
The smell in her head was giving to a real scent in her nose now, with even that faint, almost 'un'tasty burnt smell the acorns sometimes gave off.
She smiled and opened her eyes.
In her hands was a cracked wooden bowl full of porridge, just like she remembered.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Sometimes concentrating on one lovely thing about each memory helped her remain upright. Like the foxes... she had 'hunted' with 'foxes'! Beautiful red-coated beasts who sometimes tangled under her feet like cats and let her scratch their throats. That had really happened. Focusing on their beauty kept her walking- shakily- and kept her stomach from reeling.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“My true gifts," she said. "Returned to me."
"Truly useless gifts," Maleficent said. "What good are grace and song and beauty- especially to a dead girl?"
"Not those gifts. Those were bestowed upon me by 'others.' These are my true, natural gifts. Intelligence. Bravery. Compassion.
"Those three you 'killed' weren't actual fairies at all- they were parts of me. My true self. Hidden from me by you. Dampened. Darkened. Just like everything else in this wretched realm. Just as I myself was hidden away from the world, first in the woods, and then in a dream.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“She didn't know 'this meadow', exactly. But she was familiar with the concept. The types of plants. The 'raven,' which she knew was too big to be a 'crow'. The trees: the way the trees circled meant there was probably a bog or a stream in the middle, where the land dipped. She 'knew' that. She knew that beyond these leafy trees would be gnarled, thicker trees with dark green leaves. And beyond them, pines. And under their heavy boughs, there lay a friendly darkness so complete it put the vines over the castle bailey to shame.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“At the base of the closest tree was a clump of wild mint. She broke off a stalk and chewed it, beginning to walk again. The world was beautiful. There was an ancient oak tree heralding a shift in the forest. At its roots underground would be the mushrooms the wild pigs liked.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“The day she was going to tell her aunts about the boy she had met.
She had come home, having forgotten it was her birthday. Time was both important and irrelevant in the woods; stars marked seasonal changes, the moon waxed and waned, the solstices were strictly observed... but normal days and weeks and months weren't.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Aurora Rose looked back up at the nightjar. She raised up a graceful hand. There was no reason the carnivorous and mostly shy bird should leave its perch and alight on her finger.
But it did.
'How did she know it was carnivorous?'
It burbled happily and did everything but rub its strange, whiskered beak on her hand like a cat. She stroked the back of its head.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“She remembered being in a meadow at the edge of the forest in the fall, feeling chilly but unable to stop watching the birds play in the growing ferocity of the air. The strong fliers, the jays and the woodpeckers and the crows, cavorted like eagles.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Try these," she suggested. She held out a pair of simple long gauntlets that were almost as fine as gloves, chain underneath and plate on top. Aurora Rose carefully took off the ones she wore and slipped the others on.
They fit perfectly.
"This is a bit more your style," the blue one said, approaching her with a breastplate that was almost as big as she was. It was curved femininely to fit Aurora Rose's body, but not ridiculously so. A staid design of roses and thorns was inlaid along the sides.
It was sturdy, and 'heavy.'
The princess had to readjust the way she stood to support it while everyone helped buckle it on the back.
"And for the top..." the red one said, looking around.
"Let 'her' choose," the green one suggested gently.
Aurora Rose walked down the aisle slowly, getting used to the weight of the armor. She passed each of the women and then Phillip- dashing in his shining cuirass and silver-white greaves, like a soldier from ancient Rome. Her eyes swept over everything, everywhere, pausing nowhere. Golden helms, intricate onyx headpieces, spiked and dangerous-looking crowns, plated metal turbans.
Finally, she saw what she wanted.
She strode forward and lifted a helmet- one she 'knew' would fit- off the top shelf. A point came down the middle of the forehead to protect her nose- and was also vaguely reminiscent of Maleficent's headpiece. But instead of horns, silver wings swept back over the ears.
With slow, sure movements she put it on.
It 'did' fit.
Perfectly.
She turned around to show the others.
Phillip sucked in his breath.
"You look 'magnificent,' Rose. Like- like an ancient goddess of war."
"Like victory," the green one said softly.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“All her life, she'd tried to find ways to sneak out of the castle. Ironically, only last year, she'd discovered the best way to sneak out was to actually pay attention to her lessons. Her magic lessons, that was.
"Rays of sunshine," she whispered, "align!"
As soon as she spoke the words, a powerful ray of light shone upon Aurora, concealing her from the guards' views. It wouldn't last long, so she hastily clambered over the castle wall.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology

“Briar Rose, the golden-haired one called herself. She continually drew Maleficent's attention, making her helplessly flinch, like at the first light of dawn.
Which was appropriate. Given her true name. A name she did not know.
Aurora.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“I can reuse the yarn and turn it into something that can be actually worn without hurting Tante's feelings. She dismissed any hope of me ever finding it after, and I quote, a vile sorceress must have snatched your birthday present."
From her hiding place, Maleficent's heart beat hard suddenly, a single throbbing jolt.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“It truly was an active choice not to get sucked into Aurora's energy--- she emitted a fascinating fervor, helplessly mesmerizing. This was a girl who had found her place, who loved and shared that love and looked out at her future with intoxicating wonder.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“She was so tired. Exhausted, inside and out, from her head to her soul. But she had spent too much time sleeping as it was; it was time for her to wake up, to reclaim her life, whatever that would look like now.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“So it stunned Briar silent when Köning handed her a list that had been decided on by all the vassals, debated over in a prior meeting and compiled so they agreed on her best qualities.
Self-assured
Thoughtful
Passionate
Envisions a peaceful future for the empire
And the one that set her mind spinning, dazed:
Fearless
She looked up at the vassals. "Truly?"
Köning, already shuffling through a stack of parchment for his next set of notes, half looked at her. "Which one, Your Majesty?"
All of them.
They saw her this way?
They barely knew her. They had only seen her in passing these few weeks, had only interacted with her on the periphery. So were these attributes truly hers, or were they things her vassals hoped she could emulate?
Fauna, who hovered just behind Briar's chair, placed a hand on her shoulder. "You have displayed all these traits in your time here, Rose," she whispered softly. "They honor you by recognizing what you are."
She used the name that Briar's aunts had called her by. That only Briar's aunts had called her by. Briar Rose had been her full name, but Frieda had thought Briar sounded more interesting, thorny and sharp, and so Briar had acquiesced to being Briar because she had been about six and had wanted so desperately to be interesting.
But she realized, hearing Fauna say Rose now, that the split of who she was had happened even earlier than she had realized. As a child, she had been Briar to some and Rose to her aunts and Briar Rose to even more---
Had there ever been a time in her life when she had simply existed?
Briar sat down the paper with her best qualities, eyes blurring as she read it over, and over.
Were these the traits of Briar?
Or of Aurora?
Which would best win empress?”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“Peasant to princess to queen to empress.
To spring from the first to the second was an act of God. To leap all four in a single year--- it was impossible.
And yet here she was, living her impossible life, Briar Rose the peasant bard, Aurora the princess, some new furious woman the queen.
What version of her would rise up once she became empress?
How many different versions of one person could she hold within her body until she broke from the strain?”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“But tonight's event, at least, was more Briar's style. Even if she would not be one of the bards playing, she knew this atmosphere, how to command a room, as her vassals said; how to perform. Something about this ball was so much more in line with who she was, despite every event demanding performance. Here, Briar could imagine the crowd was an audience; here, she could pretend she was in control.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“It may seem like I'm at the mercy of these larger forces, but I am not. I am choosing to do these things. You misunderstand what I have been saying--- I will not let any of these things destroy me. I am done being the victim. I am the hero now, Merryweather.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“She was here, fighting to be empress. Facing the ghosts of her past. Yes, she still had moments of doubt and indecision. Yes, she still wrestled with her instincts versus the choices advised. But she was making choices, learning from those choices, and growing. She was taking pieces from each mistake and each horror and all of the people in her inner circle, and she was evolving.
She wasn't the old Briar Rose anymore. She hadn't been for a long, long while. Yet neither was she this new Queen Aurora.
Perhaps all these labels only hindered her. Perhaps it was far easier than they had all made it out to be.
Perhaps she was simply Briar, and what that means could change daily.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“She would be crowned empress this morning.
She smiled, watching her reflection in the mirror, seeing a glimmer of the peasant bard in the crook of her grin, but the composure of a princess, too, and the stature of a queen, for however short a time she had been each.
There was no looming shadow behind her, no waiting other self who might swoop out and consume her. Going forward, she knew she would be a balance of these pieces, somehow, some way.
She could be many things all at once.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“Because the future that lay before her would indeed be one of unity and peace, starting here, with those she loved. Anything they built on this foundation could only be good and true and right.
It could only be the stuff of dreams.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber