Aurora pushed her short blonde hair out of her face, her grin wide, her teeth stained red. Her dress was ripped, and scratches covered her already scarred arms. Her eyes glittered with excitement and something not fully here, not fully sane, not fully Aurora.

The girl curled up at Aurora's feet let out a whimper. One eyes had a long slash right through it, still dripping red, and the other eye was wide and fearful. Her arm was bent at an awkward angle, her red hair hacked in various places and sticking up in spikes.

"You see..." Aurora murmured, bending down, her mouth right by the shaking woman's ear, "I hate you, Marianne. I. Hate. You."

Marianna whined, her pitch high and shrill. Her breathing was ragged and harsh, tearing at her throat as she whispered, "Why? I thought...you cared about me...about Janine...why did you...kill Janine?"

Aurora shrugged, her blue eyes careless. "Love and hate is separated by a thin line, Marianne. I just crossed it." Her scratches were bleeding again, and the blood dripped onto Marianne's pale and shaky body.

Aurora straightened up, brushing her hair back from her face as she turned away from Marianne. "Anyway, both you and Janine lied to me for years. And I always wondered why you would always call me princess. It wasn't just a pet name, was it? Oh no, no it wasn't. Certainly not. Because it was just another truth coated in a sweet lie."

"You don't get it..." Marianna whimpered, her breathing rapid. Beads of sweat covered her clammy and pale face. "We did it to protect you, princess. You would have died if you didn't live here..."

Aurora let out a harsh bark of laughter, and Marianne flinched, tears of pain springing to her only eye. "I don't really care about that, Marianne. I don't care if I live or die," Aurora said, her grin wide and cold. "I just hate liars."

"You used to be so sweet..." Marianna murmured, turning her neck so Aurora couldn't see the look on her face as tears forced their way out of her single eye. "You were a lovely child...why are you like this, princess? Why did you change?"

Aurora didn't reply for a moment.

When she did, her voice was low, her tone harsh and full of venom and angry, her eyes bright and clear. "You lied to me for years, Marianne. You and Janine...you lied. When I asked who my parents were, you said they were dead. But now I find that my dead parents – who are very much alive – are king and queen, and I have a curse on me that says I'm going to fall asleep for many years."

She let out a sharp breath, before continuing, her voice rising with each word. "I believed you when you said they had died! I believed you when you said that I was going to have a free life! And now I find that I'm destined to be a princess who can't leave the castle, who has to sit and stare out the window instead of being out and there!"

"That's not true..." Marianne's weak voice cut in, shaking badly. "If you're the princess, you could leave. You could go outside, princess. Everyone would listen to you."

Aurora shook her head, her lips thinned and eyes hard and cold. "No one lets a princess do anything that's not proper. You've lied to me my whole life, Marianne, just like Janine. And I'm not believing you any longer."

Aurora picked up a shining knife, tracing her finger along the razor sharp silver blade. "You say I'm to sleep for a hundred years?" she asked, tilting her head to the side as she studied her whimpering victim. "Well, too bad. That wouldn't be happening."

The knife slashed down and Marianne let out a high pitched scream. Blood dripped from Aurora's hands as she stood back up, eying the warm liquid dripping from her hands. Bringing them to her face, her tongue flicked out and slowly licked it, her eyes half-lidded as she eyed the chilling, bleeding body at her feet.

"I'm not going to sleep," she told the silent and bloody kitchen as her knife dripped, dripped, dripped onto the dirty floor. "I never did like bedtime much."

----

Princesses do not like being lied to.

They do not like being used.

They hate thinking they are tools.

Even though what a princess is meant for is marriage, to secure an alliance. A bargaining chip to play with, to toy with. It's an unwritten rule, but a very real one.

Just because that is what a princess is good for doesn't mean they have to like it. It doesn't mean they'll obey it, follow all the rules, become a sheep ready for the slaughtering of their freedoms and wills.

They will fight it, if given half a chance. They will kill and ruin to make sure they are free. At least the brave ones, the insane ones will, no matter the cost.

And Aurora wasn't going to be lied to any more.

She wasn't going to let herself be used.

And she wasn't a tool for anyone's gain.

----

The wicked fairy was wondering what had gone wrong. She knew Aurora was suppose to be back in the castle by now, but the princess had not returned, her room remained empty, the spinning wheel untouched.

She couldn't find the girl either.

She had sent her spies to visit the cottage in the woods, hoping that they could get close...and surprisingly, they could.

The images of the dead fairies sent back stunned her, as much as she was loath to admit it. Blood everywhere, and no sign of the princess at all. The kitchen coated in blood, a knife sticking out of the fairy Marianne's throat, Janine strangled with a piano wire, her throat a mass of purple and blue bruising and dried blood...yet there was no princess. No one else, except for the two dead bodies lying there.

In the moment, she wondered.

Why did people crack?

It didn't matter what she did to Aurora now.

The girl would end up dead anyway.

----

Aurora ended up in a village six months after she killed Marianne and Janine. With a charming flirty look, a warm smile, a shimmy of her thin and curvy body, the villagers let her stay, gave her a job at the local inn, and accepted her.

They never suspected anything.

Never suspected she was a murderer and a princess. That she was more cruel underneath her pretty and kind exterior than anyone would have guessed. That she had killed, and would kill again.

When royal soldiers came through, searching for the princess, she ran. She knew that Marianne and Janine had promised to return her to her real family on her sixteenth birthday – the standard age for anything of importance.

But she wasn't going to be used, so she slipped away from that town and went to the next one. And then another one after that. And then another one after that.

It didn't matter how long she had to run, so long as she was free. So long as she wasn't being lied to and used, she was safe.

----

In the end, she was running for the rest of her life.

It was a tragically short life; she was shot by a royal guard when she was twenty-nine, an arrow to her heart. She was running to another town again when she ran into them on the road.

And by that time, she was a well-known murderer, after she set fire to a village when she nineteen, killing almost everyone living there.

They never guessed she was the princess. Her hair was tangled and messy, dirty and slimy. She was scarred from numerous battles, and she was missing her right eye from when a victim had stabbed her. Her clothing was ripped and hanging off her too-thin body. She hadn't eaten in days.

She was buried in a commoner's grave as the rest of the population went mad searching for the vanished princess Aurora.

Too bad they would never find her.

----

Pick a finger, fall asleep.

Helpless princess, needing saving. Needing help. Unable to help herself.

Where is she now, o noble prince?

Are you sure you even want to know what a princess is like once you peel away her kindness and her beauty? Will you worship her even if her hands are stained with blood, her soul empty and shattered?

I thought not.

Good luck with finding a princess.

One that is not insane.

----

Author's Note

I hated Disney's Sleeping Beauty. If I was writing the screenplay, it would be more along the lines of this.