63
" 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
64
" The nautilus shell was exquisite, brown and white and perfectly striped. The math that lay like a dazzling creation spell over all who lived in the sea showed clearly in the spiral, each cell as great as the sum of the two previous sections. Everything in the ocean was a thing of beauty and numbers, even in death.
Mermaids could live for a long time, but their bodies became foam that dissipated into nothing when they died.
The poor little mollusk who lived in this shell had a very short life, but his shell could last for centuries.
Ariel sighed and brushed her fingers over it, feeling strangely melancholy despite the triumph she literally held in her hands. Years of being mute could be swept away in a second. Years of frustration, years of silent crying, years of anger.
And then what?
If she destroyed it, what would it change? "
― Liz Braswell , Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)
68
" Wondrous..." was the last thing Captain Tregsburg ever said.
When Rapunzel wearily opened her eyes, there was a magnificent white horse where the captain had been.
There was dried blood on its pure white flanks, what looked like an old, healed wound on its belly-- and an ecstatic look in its eye.
It rose onto its feet, trumpeting out a whinny of triumph, kicking its front legs and tossing its mane back and forth.
"Oh," Rapunzel said, dismayed. "I didn't-- I'm sorry--"
But Justin "Maximus" Tregsburg, captain of the royal guard and now shining white stallion, gently nuzzled her cheek. He was... happy.
"I'm glad you're all right," Rapunzel said, hugging him. "I'm sorry we never got to talk."
The stallion rolled his eyes and tossed his head: What's the use of talk, he seemed to say. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
71
" Try the gougères," Lumière interrupted, popping one into her mouth before she could continue. It was warmed by his flame and melted on her tongue- nothing at all like the perfectly good but usually rock-hard ones she and her father baked.
"Ohhh..." she couldn't help saying.
"It's been so long since we had a guest!" Mrs. Potts danced around on the table happily, somehow managing to fold a napkin with her spout-nose. She tossed it into Belle's lap: a swan shape that gracefully unfolded as it fell, almost like it was flying. Belle shrank back, worried it was actually going to fly.
"I can't imagine why," she muttered.
And then she was distracted by the food.
Piles of it. More than a feast- a banquet.
There was a whole leg of lamb, multiple terrines and soufflés, three soup courses, a delicate fish in white wine broth, an orange ice in between to clear the palate...
There was a water glass, a golden glass for red wine, a crystal one for white, and a saucer for consommé. There were seven forks of descending size and different numbers of tines, the last three whose use she couldn't even begin to work out. "
― Liz Braswell , As Old as Time
74
" It was summer, so the sun appeared in the bottom left-hand corner of the big window at quarter past six.
Ish.
It was hard to tell exactly until the sun rose just a little bit more, enough to send his beams through the holes carefully bored through a piece of wood, above which the hours were marked off in beautifully painted flourishes. This simple timepiece hung from the ceiling off a stick hammered sturdily in, because a string would have let it spin and therefore fail its task of tracking the sun.
The wind chimes, however, assembled from more bits of wood, and pieces of metal, and shaped and dried bits of pottery, were free to swing and tinkle as they pleased. These were surrounded by celestial bric-a-brac that also dangled from the ceiling and spun with abandon when the breeze found them: paper-mâché stars, comets of hoarded glass shards and mirror, a very carefully re-created (and golden) replica of the constellation Orion, a quilted and embroidered cloth model of the sun, and several paintings on rectangular panels hung such that they faced straight down. So that the viewer, in bed, might look up at them and pretend they were windows or friends, depending on whether the subject was landscapes or faces. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
75
" 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
