Time for the Truth: a story of a sleeping beauty

Rior's truth: Part 3

A muffled knock sounded on the door, and I hopped off of my hard chair by the fire. I reached up to undo the locks as quickly as I could, struggling a bit less this time.
"Follow me." it was the man from before, not Rosernan. I set my disappointment aside and took three deep breaths.
Breathe. let go of the disappointment.
Breathe. let go of the worry that Rior and I could get into trouble.
Breathe. gather strength not to become frustrated with the people here.
I opened my eyes, still following the man.
"What shall I call you?"
"Guard."
"That seems so distant though."
"As it should be." I stepped back, deciding not to be friendly with him anymore at least.
"Your instructor shall meet you here." the man's voice- older definitely, cut off sharply and he left.
He backed into the shadows of the hall corner, and waited. I felt oddly exposed, standing in an intersection in the hallway, not knowing which direction to look, and I didn't like having my back open at all times.
"Mademoiselle." a raspy old voice quavered to my left. I jerked towards the old robed voice, I could only guess it was a male. The deep forest brown of his robes, tinged in green and gold stood out from the almost black brown of the man and the sky blue of Rosernan.
"You shall call me tutor. I shall call you pupil, before you ask."
"Has someone told tales of how I am to you?" I wondered aloud, having asked others what to call them seemed harmless, yet they all seemed annoyed or shocked. 
"Pupil, your presence cannot be contained in a court such as this. You are different. You are new." a gnarled hand with fuzzy knuckles and inkstains gestured for me to follow the tutor.
"Do you not have a surname I can affix to Tutor, at least?"
"Will you need to differentiate between tutors in your stay here? There shall most likely only be one or two. Never at the same time."
Perhaps this would be alright. The tutor seemed talkative at least, so perhaps I would truly learn.

Prove obedience, breeding, tales, whether or not people can be trusted. I patted the note in my pocket, reassured that there was someone that I could talk to in this castle.

"Princess, your studies await you."

"Don't call me that. Call me Sie, please." My tone lightened as I added please, realising he probably thought I was strange for not being ecstatic about marrying someone I'd had no choice in- typical for an older man, expecting all the toes to be in line without question. I wondered if this short man with bushy eyebrows had ever been rebellious. It made me smile while he grumbled.

"First, you will copy these down in boxes. Then I will tell you, little bits at a time, which notes coordinate with which of your letters."

"You use a different script?" The man doesn't answer my obvious question, and I slump. He prepares ink. I amble over to look over his shoulder.

"Please, it is rude." He glances like I am too close. I lean back.

"What are you doing?" I say it like I don't know, but I have watched our scribes do this a thousand times. What is really interesting is what he's making it out of. It looks like an orange petal, dried. We had always used berries or Irongall nuts. "What is this?" I say, picking up one of the leaves outside of the pile he is crushing in a stone bowl.

"Ah!" He smacks at my hand, making me drop it. I give him my best alarmed face. "Don't touch that with your bare skin! It will stain those pretty fingers." I push the hairs back from my face with my hand, not wanting to give him satisfaction by looking at it. I studied the leaf on the table while he adds liquid to his bowl. It has lighter, almost yellow speckles ringed in blue on its veiny surface.

"Someday soon, you must be able to do this for yourself." The man sniffs and spits into the concoction. I wrinkle my nose at his back. "Not this spitting, no that is for Morijdian's only." He smiles with gapped, stained teeth, but it is still pleasant.

I smile back. "I would like that." He seems happily surprised.

My hand looks shaky and horrid as I write the first symbol.
Tutor has me copy it 74 times before he gives a grunt of approval.
"You may take a break and begin with the histories."
"The history of the Morijdian's?" He nods, and opens my hand to place a sharpened stick and ink on it.

"You will take notes." The man smiled again, and I thought maybe he wasn't as pleasant as one could hope. I did enjoy the privilege of knowing how to write though, so I could at least use it. The man poured himself a drink out of a pitcher on a side table and began to sip on it slowly, slipping into a chair.

"Once there was an evil queen. She believed she had magic powers, so she stole a little boy to try to work her magic. She kept him as a slave.

One day, the evil queen decided that her court had to be the most beautiful, but not so beautiful as she. So she convinced the boy to create a potion that he knew from his homeland. It would be foreign to the people there. It would make the people beautiful.

She gave it to all the court.

And they did grow more beautiful.

But they all began to fall asleep."

"And they fell asleep for one hundred years, and no one knew to look for them, because anyone who knew them was dead." I finished for him. "That's not history, that's the myth of Maleficent."

"Not all myths are false. You know your version, and perhaps someday you shall teach me as well. You must hear this, you may find it pertinent." The way he said it made my mouth shut quietly.

"The little boy escaped. He knew his people would protect him. The queen's valiant, ignorant son came back from an overseas voyage, only to find his mother's court in a sleep that could not be broken. He heard of the little boy, and followed into the boy's homeland. There, he learned of what made the poison, and he killed hundreds for it, and then forced the people into hiding, and were never seen again." The man's voice read false at the end.

"That is how a version ends, but the Prince falls in love and stays there, never returning after his mother dies." I remember hearing a different version of the story from my brother's wife. 

"Love is strange, I cannot pretend to know." The man was lost in thought. I cleared my throat uncomfortably.

"Will you teach me how to speak some of your language?"

"Ah, that is not yet allowed by the King. He wishes you to be kept in the dark a bit longer. But don't tell anyone I told you that, because then we are both liabilities." The man winked and bowed, passing me a book across the table. Keep me in the dark? Why? The more clueless I was, I supposed the more malleable I was as well. 

"Please read this before we meet in two days." he handed me a small dyed-leather blue book. 

"A whole book?" I had never tried to read something that quickly before, choosing to savor my books. He didn't answer before a new high misty voice swooped in. There was a scent of baked sweets that did not go with the regal, bony presence before me. 

"You shall address me as Madame. You shall not speak unless spoken to. You shall do all I say without so much as a whimper- noble ladies must suffer in silence in this culture." I didn't even want to turn around. This had to be a nightmare.
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