Little Briar Rose

Little Briar Rose, more commonly known as **Sleeping Beauty**, is the second story explored in the series. The iteration this series uses is the Grimm Fairy Tales version, and it is different from its Disney counterpart.

## Original Story

A king and queen long for a child of their own. One day, the queen meets a talking frog who tells her that her wish will come true within a year. Sure enough, before a year has passed, the queen gives birth to a daughter, who they name Briar Rose. They celebrate by throwing a christening ceremony and inviting the whole kingdom, including the thirteen wise women, or sorceresses, to bless the baby. However, the wise women can only eat off golden plates, and the king and queen are short one plate, so they decide to leave one wise woman out.

At the christening, eleven out of the twelve invited wise women bless the princess with gifts of virtue, like beauty, intelligence, gracefulness, and other positive attributes. Before the twelfth one goes, the thirteenth wise woman arrives uninvited. Angry over being snubbed, she curses the princess to die on her fifteenth birthday by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, then leaves. The twelfth wise woman isn't powerful enough to undo the curse, but amends it by making it so that instead of dying, the princess will instead fall asleep for a hundred years after pricking her finger and be woken up by a prince. To prevent the curse from ever happening, the king and queen burn every spinning wheel in the kingdom.

The princess grows up to fulfill all the gifts she got from the wise women. On her fifteenth birthday, she finds an old woman spinning on a spinning wheel and approaches her curiously. She ends up pricking her finger and falling asleep. As soon as she does, everyone else in the castle falls asleep, too, and a forest of bramble thorns grow out of nowhere and surround the castle. A hundred years pass, and the story about the sleeping beauty becomes a legend. Many men try to get past the thorns, but none succeed. Finally, just after the hundred years have passed, a prince approaches, and the thorns part to let him pass. He enters the castle, finds the sleeping princess, and, taken by her beauty, kisses her. Briar Rose wakes up, and so does everyone else in the castle, and she and the prince get married.

## Altered Story

Robin and Tank enter the story on the day of the royal christening. Tank worries about a dragon and Robin uncertainly corrects him, saying that the dragon was only in the Disney version. Robin is allowed entry by introducing herself as a prince. At the christening, the twelve wise women make their entrance and the King and Queen welcome them. The women offer blessings for the baby, but the King insists on nothing, since the birth of their child was blessing enough. The Wise Women then degree that since they are generous enough to not ask for blessings, they will increase their blessing tenfold. One by one, they give Briar Rose gifts of beauty, grace, innocence, warmth, cheeriness, cleverness, modesty, sweetness, softness, tranquility, humility, and generosity, all while Robin laments with envy.

Then the Thirteenth Wise Woman, Hira, enters uninvited, and laments that she must have missed her invitation. The King and the first Wise Woman tries to calm her, but Hira rebuffs them both, even teasing the First Woman for giving Briar Rose the gift of beauty, which she finds needless given how Briar Rose's parents are both beautiful, so any child of theirs will be, too. The First Women foolishly taunts back, asking Hira what gift she would give. Robin and Tank then step in and confront Hira, promising to not let her hurt the baby. The King pleads with Hira for mercy, and Robin asks her to hear them out and let them explain not inviting her. The King then defends the choice not to invite Hira because they only had twelve golden plates and left Hira out because she lived the furthest away. Robin and Tank both scowl and sweat over such a dumb reason, since they could have just made another plate.

Hira is unmoved and steps forward to curse the baby anyway. Robin tries to intervene, but Hira turns her and Tank into stone statues and curses Briar Rose to the destined century-long slumber.

## Characters

### Original Characters

Briar Rose

 Prince Charming (Robin)

Briar Rose's Parents

The Twelve Wise Women

 Thirteenth Wise Woman

### Altered In Characters

Tank

Wicked Witch

Messengers

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