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Trotting down the road to the castle came the scholar and her steed. The scholar was called Maribel. The steed, a gelded mule of patient temper and indeterminate brown, was unimaginatively and inaccurately called Jenny.
The castle in question was extremely famous. The whole former Royal family and all of their Court and servants were in there, or so it was said, fast asleep due to a fairy curse on the Princess.
That wasn't the bit Maribel was interested in.
What interested her - in fact what her latest research grant was for - was the briar hedge.
She could see it from a goodly distance away, gleaming darkly in the early afternoon sun, and clicked up Jenny to go faster in her excitement. The smell alone proclaimed its magical birthright, never mind its growth habits - deep and musky and somehow carrying both all the promise of summer roses and a hint of rot at the same time.
It was absolutely bally fascinating, if one could excuse Maribel's Thurnian.
She clapped her hands in glee when she got close enough to see the occasional bleached skeleton in the remains of expensive clothes and armour hanging from the thorns; given how far off the ground some of them were hanging the rumour that the hedge was sentient (well, malevolent was the word actually used) had to be true.
Then, because Maribel was no idiot, she carefully turned Jenny around and moved back to a very safe distance before setting up camp.
The next morning, well rested and with all her wits about her, Maribel rearranged the loading of Jenny so as to have all the tools of her trade handy: a theodolite and marking poles, plumb bobs and crystals for checking magical parameters, and most importantly her oil paints and easel. She led Jenny to a reasonable working distance, greeted the hedge with a cheery, "Good morning, don't mind me!" and got on with her measuring and cataloguing.
It's hard to tell the emotional state of a briar hedge, but Maribel was the veteran of her department for good reason and she was fairly sure she'd got its attention. Sure enough, some time after lunch while she was doing an oil study of part of the trunk system she noticed one vine carefully untuck itself from the tangle and wave at her.
"Yes?" she enquired politely, putting down her brush.
The vine coiled into a fairly good approximation of a question mark.
Inwardly Maribel cheered - evidence of genuine cogitation! - and outwardly she displayed a polite but warm professional smile. "My name is Maribel Jeffries, I'm from - well, everyone just calls it the Institute, if you've heard of it?"
The vine waggled from side to side.
"Didn't think so - I can't imagine you get much of a chat, between everyone inside being asleep and most everyone outside being knights and princes and such."
If the vine had had eyes, Maribel would have called the twitch a guilty look up at the tower.
"Ah," she said consolingly, "It's not your fault. But that's sort of why I'm here, you see - part of what we do at the Institute is investigate enchantments of all kinds and, if we can, make sure all those affected get a good quality of life ongoing. Not just the targets, but everyone else - the animated statues, the talking animals, and well, my specialism is plants like yourself."
The vine pointed back at itself then cocked the tip over, quite a lot like a curious head tilt.
"Oh yes," Maribel continued, warming to the subject, "There are quite a few plants like yourself of varying levels of intelligence that get roped into enchantments - especially curses - without so much as a by-your-leave and certainly with no thought as to what will happen to them if the enchantment ends. If we can leave them safely where they are then that's generally the best option for everyone of course, but where it's not possible we do what we can to move them or at the very least take seeds or cuttings so they can start again somewhere fresh if they want to."
The vine coiled up on itself, then zipped back into the safety of the tangle. Maribel sighed - roses did tend to be sensitive about their own possible mortality in a way that beans and peas weren't - and got on with her painting.
It took about a week before the briar started being comfortable with Maribel. She didn't flinch when it extended a vine close enough to 'peer' at her painting, nor when it tried to make sense of the theodolite by poking at it while she was working. It certainly appreciated the couple of deer carcasses she moved close enough to the base of some of its biggest trunks after she'd taken the cuts she could eat before they'd go bad; it looked like knights had been thin on the ground recently, and a bit of blood-and-bone is always good for roses.
In the meantime, she talked to it about the other cases she and her colleagues had looked into. She personally had managed to save beans from a Phaseolus Giganticus before either a giant or a Jack had happened to it and had found a nice temperate mountain for them to grow up instead, and had worked with a shape-cursed prince and the young woman who'd moved in with him to take cuttings of the rose that had equally been cursed to be a timekeeper. Roses, if she was honest, were her speciality.
"Of course, the really tricky bit is always working out who I need to talk to - apart from the plant itself, that's a given - about doing any care or propagation." Maribel waved the crystal onna stick that she used for measuring magic levels at the briar. "Some fairies get quite feisty about such things, even after their enchantment has played out, and the wizards aren't much better. One of my colleagues ended up with donkey ears for a month after we rescued several of the sons of the North Wind from a hoarding situation but honestly, a shed on turkey legs following a hut on chicken legs is no place to keep one magical horse let alone four."
It was at this point that the briar shook itself, a lot like a large dog gearing up to commit a shenanigan. Maribel took a smart step backwards, just in case. Not one but several vines worked their way free from the mass and assembled themselves just above the ground in front of Maribel; to her surprise, and with a noise somewhere between a 'shunk' and a 'slurp', all of the rather impressive thorns on those vines alone suddenly sucked back under the bark, leaving a flat platform just big enough to stand on. The briar made its intentions clear by extending one last vine that it used to point emphatically at Maribel then at the platform.
It felt like a one-time invitation - but, as previously mentioned, Maribel wasn't stupid. She quickly adjusted the hobble stopping Jenny from wandering off so if he really felt like it he could get himself free, tucked up the various straps on his tack so he wouldn't get caught on anything, and penned a very quick note explaining what she was doing that she tucked into Jenny's saddlebag.
Then, with an apology for taking so long, she stepped onto the platform.
The journey up the side of the wall and onwards to the top of the tallest tower was the most exhilarating moment in Maribel's life so far. The briar clearly wasn't taking any chances with her safety even as she was passed from one vine to the next, rolling her feet forwards on an endless wave; it even went as far as adding a few extra vines to form a loose waist-height cage around her in case she slipped. Equally, the briar was not wasting any time; Maribel practically flew, giving into the urge to cackle gleefully as she went.
Finally the briar platform stopped on the balcony of the tower, one vine gesturing to her to step down as another politely knocked on the Thurnian doors. Maribel was deeply surprised when the curtains behind twitched and opened; on the other side of the glass was a young man, perhaps a few years younger than her, looking equally stunned.
"Oh, I do beg your pardon," Maribel said on reflex to the unexpected human as he slowly opened the door, "I wasn't expecting…well either to be up here or for there someone else to also be up here." She paused, then asked suspiciously, "You're not also a researcher, are you?"
The nearest vine suddenly pouffed out several leaves, rather in the manner of an offended cat pouffing out its tail. The young man lifted his hand and covered a smile. "No, the briar isn't kidnapping researchers that I know of, although I admit it could be hiding them elsewhere in the castle and I'd not know. It's generally quite friendly if you're friendly to it first and don't try to go anywhere you shouldn't, or at least that's what I've found."
The wheels attempted to turn in Maribel's head. "So…if you're not a researcher, and you're here willingly, and you're awake…who are you?"
The young man's expression turned sombre. "Willingly might be a stretch…come inside, I'd rather be sitting down for this conversation. And yes," he said, turning to the briar vine, "I'll leave the window open so you can join in."
The tower room was not what Maribel expected. If anything, the aesthetic was solar turned junk room turned bedroom - now she was closer she could see the curtains were mostly dust sheets, and it looked like a rather worn out chaise longue had been pressed into service as a bed with more dust sheets serving as bedding. There was, as well as the chaise longue, a couple of mismatched chairs, one being used as a bedside table and one by the balcony doors; these were both hastily cleared and dragged to a comfortable talking distance of each other.
Maribel could see the young man getting more and more embarrassed. "Look," she said, dredging up some of her Talking To People skills, "let's start with an easy one. What would you like me to call you?"
"...Jacques," the young man muttered.
"Well, Jacques," Maribel replied, looking around, "You've made a very good nest up here from limited materials."
That was when Maribel spotted the remains of the spinning wheel tucked behind a box. It looked quite a lot like someone had taken their anger out on it with a chair.
Jacques took a deep breath. "It's a little bit complicated," he said. Maribel wasn't good at people - there was a reason she largely dealt with cursed horticulture - but even she could see how hard he was working to keep his composure. "But the short version," he continued, bitterness creeping in, "is that a curse that specifies that the princess will prick her finger on a spindle and sleep for a hundred years gets really confused when the princess isn't exactly sold on either being female or royal…"
It was the sort of conversation that really called out for a good cup of tea; unfortunately Maribel's supplies were some distance away at her camp, and any supplies in the castle were twenty-seven years old at this point. Jacques hadn't eaten anything in that long, sustained by the curse in the same way everyone else was, but at this point bored out of his skull - the briar did its best but wasn't the best conversationalist.
"And it can't let me out because that's part of the curse," Jacques said finally, "We did try that about…eighteen years ago, I think?" The nearest vine waggled up and down as an approximate nod. "It can't carry me out, and when I tried to go through the kitchen doors it actively blocked them."
Maribel was frantically taking notes. "That's fairly normal, sadly. And what did you say the exit conditions were?"
Jacques sighed in disgust. "True love's kiss to break the sleep and wake the castle."
"Mmhmm. There's a good chance that it will also kill the hedge, unfortunately, there's generally a hidden clean-up clause." Maribel snapped her notebook closed. "So, questions: do you have any plans for your future once the curse is over, do you object to me trying to save the hedge, and are you in any sort of rush to leave?"
Jacques looked poleaxed. "Honestly? I always assumed that if the curse was broken I'd have to go back to being Jacquelyn…and the briar has been my friend for about two thirds of my life now, so sure, if you can save it then go for it."
The briar vine reached out and gave Jacques a comforting pat.
"Good good, that will make things a lot easier." Maribel grinned hugely. "If there's one thing we know at the Institute it's that True Love means a lot more things than people think, and I'm in need of a new assistant. Don't worry, you're not stuck with me forever, but I feel that if you're willing to put the work in I can manage sufficient fondness to break this nonsense by the time we've worked out how to get this one," and she reached out and patted the vine herself, "safely away from here."
It took about four months in the end, two of which were trying to encourage the briar that taking a few cuttings would be the most efficient way to move it, especially as there were no guarantees that its personality would transfer into seeds.
There was a great deal of uproar in the castle when everyone woke up, between the dust and the veil of dying briar over the walls and the complete lack of a princess - but Maribel, Jacques, Jenny and three large pots of gently waving rose vines, down the road and moving as fast as they could after a kiss on the forehead by the kitchen door, didn't care.
Jacques chose to stay with the Institute after all - the fondness went both ways, and Maribel was more than happy to act as a mentor and pseudo-guardian until he achieved full researcher status. His original family were too busy being embroiled in the legal mess left behind by their kingdom transitioning through to a democracy during the twenty-seven years of downtime to come looking for him, but did unwittingly end up funding several of his expeditions later in life.
As for the rose? Without the curse it never grew anywhere near as large, but it happily colonised a corner of the Institute's rear courtyard where it could interact with people on a daily basis and be fed the occasional steak. The toy castle tucked in near its main trunks was a nice touch, and if on certain anniversaries a pair of scholars who should have known better decorated the branches with the toy knights that came with the toy castle well…it kept everyone happy, and that was all that mattered.