Briar Rose

Better known as Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose was Prince Charming’s second wife. She escaped from the Homelands with close to nothing, but a blessing received on her christening day, which promised that she’d always be wealthy, came to her rescue, and she rapidly gained great wealth through successful speculation on the stock market. As such, she lives in a luxurious apartment filled with expensive furniture and decoration. Her curse, however, remains in effect, with the slightest prick of her finger leading to her falling asleep, followed by everybody else in the building, which is then surrounded by rapidly growing thorn-bearing plants. A kiss from a (genuinely) loving “prince” resets the curse back to the start.

While generally a hazard, forcing Rose to take extreme care and wear gloves at all times, the curse has proved useful on at least two occasions. The first was in the story A Two-Part Caper when journalist Tommy Sharp threatened to reveal what he’d discovered about the Fables, the curse was employed to put the inhabitants of his building to sleep while a team led by Bigby Wolf ransacked his apartment.

The second occasion was during the war against the Empire, as depicted in the War and Pieces story-arc, was the curse was deployed within the Imperial capital, putting the inhabitants of the entire city to sleep, depriving the Empire of most of its senior officials and the majority of their combat-ready sorcerers. As of the current storyline, Rose is still asleep under the effect of her curse.