I didn’t always have this name. It found me, along with my princess in Fairest. Actually, I’m the one who found her, cursed her, intending to take her for myself. Instead Rose found me in the darkness of my own loneliness and led me out. I became her Briar after that. How badly I needed that change after all the changes previous. I detested my birth name, Blanche. Quartz, my beloved surrogate father gave me a nickname when I stayed with him and his six brothers, Fairest. One of the reaons I spiralled into the darkness was fear that I had filled him. Happily Quartz has his own story to tell in Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins, a story I appear in, dragging the name of Blanche behind me. There were a lot of painful memories attached to that name. Meeting Quartz and the other six dwarves, living with them in their cottage, I hoped to let go of that pain, to change. Only the pain came looking for me and I got trapped in it as always. My existence seems to have been a series of changes, some good, some bad. One thing I’ve learned is I can’t hide from them. I have to face the changes when they come, cope with whatever they bring me. Sometimes that whatever is wonderful. Sometimes it shatters me, shaking me to the core. Sometimes both.
Something wondrous may be about to happen, something I didn’t dream possible. I was too lost in my own guilt to anticipate it, but I must be ready. I can’t ignore all the little changes happening, the dreams, the call I’m hearing in my dreams. I could miss that moment of wonder if I do. I don’t want to miss it when it comes.
(To read more about Briar, you can find Fairest along with other LGBTQIA+ fairytales in Once Upon a Rainbow available at…
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/once-upon-a-rainbow-volume-one-mickie-b-ashling/1127395428?ean=2940155023067
Quartz isn’t happy about what happened to him in Fairest. He’s demanded that I change his fate in his own story, Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins. I’m working on it right now. :))
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