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He's never really believed in The Curse. That's how the braver people of Uncle Stefan's kingdom - and, indeed, Uncle Stefan himself, on the rare occasion he chooses to mention it at all - always seem to refer to it, when they mutter and murmur under their breath about what happened to their missing princess. "The Curse".
As if there's only one, only ever one. As if the spoken phrase has capital letters. As if ...
Well. For some reason his memories of the princess' naming ceremony are few and far between. That's part of his reasoning behind his lack of belief: if such a monumental thing had really happened, and he'd been present, would he not have remembered it? Surely no curse had been placed on his childhood memories! He had been young, but even then, not so young that he ought not to remember events with some degree of clarity.
He cannot. But every time he wonders why, or actively tries to recall the details of that day, his mind seems to slip away from them, as if he cannot look too closely.
His strongest memory, even years later, is of giving the gift he had brought for the babe on behalf of his royal house, an intricate silver rattle shaped like a stem of snowdrops, with singing bells dripping from every flower. It had been crafted by the best silversmith of their kingdom, that rattle: a present fit for an infant princess, in the form of a future heirloom that could be passed down to their children, someday.
His father had shared Phillip's childlike desire for the gift to be flawless, though perhaps with less urgency, the mellowing of age. Phillip does remember, more clearly than almost anything else, shifting from foot to foot in the silversmith's workshop: a little boy, in a borrowed leather apron atop his normal court clothes, watching as the delicate bauble was brought into being, fighting not to flinch from the fire of the forge, holding onto a jar of water with the original stem of snowdrops therein to try to keep it from wilting until it was no longer wanted.
He hadn't needed to be the one to find the flowers for the design, or to stand in the workshop to hold them, naturally—normally, a servant girl would have been called upon for such things—but Phillip was a creative child, and he'd wanted to watch the whole process. His royal father had chosen to allow it, in the hope that his son's wish to be more closely involved with the gift would bode well for his betrothal to the baby daughter of his dearest friend.
He can remember holding the rattle low above the princess' carven cradle, young enough still to be enchanted by her infant attempts to reach for what she saw before her, pudgy little arms flailing excitedly. He'd wondered what a child so small could really see, what she might think yet, and whose faces she might already know.
He recalls, however vaguely, hearing his father acquaint Uncle Stefan with his hope that the heirloom would be handed down to both kings' grandchildren when the two youthful heirs matured and married, lowering his voice to acquaint his friend with how deeply the prince had delved into the mechanics of making, in order to give his future bride a gift of true beauty, to show his pride in young Phillip having been so impassioned that her present should be perfect.
When he thinks in depth about it all, he can feel himself moving backward with a strangely slow step, still watching the cradle as specks of bright coloured light blur above the infant face, as the tiny princess blinks and gurgles in delight.
The sudden shock of being startled by a sound behind him, the heavy doors of the great hall slamming against the stone of the entryway.
A cold gust of wind.
A sudden darkness.
A snatch at his shoulder: someone pulling him back as he'd tried to turn toward the door. (He thought it might have been his father, the only man present who'd had the authority to touch him so.)
The shocked and scared susurrus of a spellbound crowd of common people, many of whom had come from the furthest reaches of the kingdom to see the christening of their new Crown Princess.
One high, cold laugh.
Nothing more.
He shies away from the subject, if anyone happens to bring it up in his presence. After all, no one really expects him to talk about it, having been such a child.
But when he does think about it, when he pushes himself hard to try to remember, that single moving picture is clearest in his thoughts: a happy, curious baby reaching out for the rattle he'd watched be crafted for her, and the feel of silver warm in his palm.
Yet, sometimes, his dreams call up a different memory. One less certain, more frightening.
In his mind is one more image, somehow intertwined with the deep green shadows of a forest night he has never seen: his younger self standing, stock-still, staring ahead at that same old cradle: rich, intricate, beautiful ... and utterly, entirely, empty.
Shocked awake, he sits silent in his bed, staring into the dark, still and shaken, suddenly sure of nothing.
It never occurs to Prince Phillip that he never remembers her name.
It concerns King Stefan, from time to time, that his queen allows those around her to see the depth of pain she seems to feel, over his never making mention of their firstborn daughter or her fate.
He might understand it had she been a commoner prior to their marriage, but someone of her birth and stature ought to be rather more aware of her dignities, less open in allowing her subjects to see any weakness. He might have shown more sympathy for her over her perpetual inability to conceive a second child, were she not already the mother of an heir to the throne.
Naturally he will always wish their first had been a boy, to be groomed for statecraft and political life and to bear his father's sword — but it would be crass to tell her so, in light of her visible suffering. He may be blunt, bluff, and behave in most ways like a warrior king of old, but one thing he has never been is crass.
He's not certain what it would do to her, were he to admit that he barely remembers their daughter. On some level he's aware that he should, at least as the babe she had been, and that he ought also to have a perfectly normal memory of the day of her naming ceremony, albeit now clouded by time.
He writes it all off, in his own mind (and nowhere else, for he would not make such an admission in the hearing of another: sooner arrange for a regent to assume his throne in his dotage than acknowledge or admit to a weakness!), as himself growing old, and tells himself that the smudged and blurred quality of one particular year in his memory is simply the hand of Father Time at work.
After all, he had not been a young man by the time they had married and, six or seven years after the birth of his heir, strands of white thread through his beard. There's no wonder that there might be some things he has begun to forget. There's nothing to fear in that, surely, so long as he never forgets how to govern his kingdom or his people.
They never use the child's name, even between themselves. Even when Leah hurls impassioned epithets at him, hurting so clearly it shows in her shaking hands, accusing him of forgetting their heiress had existed, of letting go of the little princess without reason, of stealing her babe from her arms by his own mistakes... she never calls her daughter by her name, nor asks where she went.
He never wonders why.
In the depths of a midnight-dark castle, in a chamber lit only at intervals by an infrequent crack of emerald lightning through a highly-placed arrow-slit window that lets only onto a courtyard long sealed, there lies a four-poster bed.
Its curtains seem made from the thickened stems of some plant that might once have been thorn briar, the sheets and blanket within of some simple material; nothing ornate, except for the vicious thorns that coat the thickly-woven stems, and the shifting, strangely insubstantial flowers that blossom atop - perhaps even from - the simple wooden frame. It is not a bed for someone to climb into, not for anyone wanting to seek out comfort. Hardly a bed at all, and yet...
And yet...
In that bed—that simple, impossible prison of a bed—lies a girl. Tucked tightly within, her arms entrapped by the blanket, as though a parent had tried to prevent the escape of a sleepless child. Her eyes remain closed no matter the disturbance, and her body so still that an indentation would lie deep in the mattress, were anyone ever to lift her.
She will never shift on her own—such a privilege belongs to a natural sleeper, one who may dream and awaken. Her hair, baby-fine and long, continues to grow alongside her, and maybe someday it will outgrow the curtains and reveal itself to that meagre light. Until then, it may as well be black or white as gold or grey or green, all pigment stolen by the darkness.
The drifts of green smoke swirl so thickly in that room; growing as the spell endures, they almost choke the flowers. Yet still they grow, and still the girl—whom her faery keeper renamed "Briar Rose", after weaving the spell she had made to remove the girl's name from the world, from the hearts and minds of all who might care for her—will sleep and grow with them, inhaling the magic around her until it sets deep in her bones.
There is no spell to reverse this, no caster so strong as its maker.
She made it so she, too, would forget.