Happy Blog Year!!!! + blogfest

Hello, all! Today, three years after I started my blog, abandoned it, then rediscovered it, I have hit post 100! Today! With this post! Woo-hoo! And what better way to celebrate than to host a blogfest?

If you're new or not, come join the Blogfest: Retold! Even if it's just reading the entrants. Mr. Linky widget thing can be found below here, as well. Read everyone's...and enjoy!

Retellings are so interesting--even just a different POV can make things make more sense, or can put a different twist on things. I can think of so many awesome examples... like this poem, Penelope, by Dorothy Parker:

In the pathways of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.

My dad used to tell me bedtime stories like this: we'd pick the story, then we'd pick the POV. I loved them. So, I decided to go with a fairy tale because of that reason. I think I want to take it and add more story and more details and more length, but I wanted to give you this much, at least. So here it is. And don't forget to check out the other participants below!

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The courts had warned Rose's family long ago about the dangers of annoying the Magic Ones. But of course, you couldn't really talk to her parents. She didn't know what they had done to deserve it--no one really talked about that. But she knew they did deserve the curse they had earned for her. Because they did so many things to deserve just that sort of mistrust. And they knew it, too.

The curse had hung over her head from the first step she ever took. Her nanny told her how the maids all gasped when she took her first step, and immediately, the ruling came down from the throne: Remove all spindles. Even remove all spinning wheels. Looms. Anything. Just in case.

Rose kept looking around the castle for the strange things--they were foreign to her, anyway. Of course, the faerie who chose that as her curse knew what she was doing. In a land that had won its riches from textile exportation, spindles were part of daily life. Necessary. For everyone but Rose. Even before she totally understood the concept of it, she often thought it was justice--that her parents were forced to choose between her and between money.

The thread still had to be turned out, though. And she should have known her parents would not choose her, a girl, for long. Especially after Sam was born. Rose loved Sam, how rosy he was. Her parents were much more cautious, this time--and all the Magic Ones brought only kind gifts and boons. A sweet disposition, a strong leader, a healthy boy. Rose helped to care for him. Even his skin was silken.

But soon, it was not enough. She went looking for Nanny, and overheard the discussion from the hallway. "Hide the girl," her father's best adviser cautioned. "Keep her hidden away."

"You can't hide her forever," Nanny argued.

"It wouldn't be forever, would it?" Her mother asked. "The curse must end at some time."

"Curses can go on until they are filled," Nanny said. "You never know what might happen."

"Sire." The adviser sniffed. "We lose money everyday, sire."

So at age ten, she was hidden away from her family. Her brother, only four then, cried when she went away, and she wanted to run back and tell him not to cry, but she had to face her expulsion like the princess she was. Like a sacrificial beast sent to the altar. Kept away from the rest of the world.

She lived with her nanny for the next six years in the woods near the palace. She grew used to Nanny's murmurs and blandishments against her family. She muttered them herself, when Nanny wasn't there--Nanny would still box her ears for her complaints.

When she turned sixteen, though, she felt like that was should be the end of it. And she told Nanny so.

"Well, I've been thinking that you ought to return to the castle every day since we came to this loathsome cottage," Nanny said.

Rose smiled indulgently. Their home was a dear one, to her, and she knew Nanny loved it as much as she did. But she missed Sam, her sweet-faced brother, and she missed her parents--even their coldness.

She decided to sneak back the first night, so it wouldn't be so much of a shock. A lot could change in six years, after all. And it had--the buildings were much closer to forest than she remembered, and ran up against the walls surrounding the palace. They crept up and down the streets, traveling the same route they had used when they left, years ago.

They slipped through the gate, some ways away from a sleepy guard, and then they were home. Rose breathed in and let out a slow breath, pleased with their progress forward.

But not Nanny. "Oh, my stars," she said, and then she cursed a bluer streak than Rose had ever heard.

Rose blinked at this reaction, but then she looked around, too. And in the yard, in front of the doors, stood two large statues. She could see two more near another door, far off into the night. They looked the same--sort of wavy, and pointed six feet up in the air, gleaming in the moonlight.

"That, my dear, is your parents' homage to a spindle." Rose could hear Nanny's teeth grinding at her agitation. "Obviously, they are doing well. Blessings upon us."

Rose nodded in agreement, but she couldn't keep her eyes off the strange gold structures, gleaming blue in the night. And she found herself wanting--hoping--stretching.

"Come, Princess." Nanny obviously hadn't noticed, and Rose didn't want to bring it to her attention. "Let's go inside."