"...but it was just the old minstrel."
SKUMPS! SKUMPS! SKUUUUUUMPS!
Even the minstrel was there - albeit with discreet golden chains holding him to the closest pillar and a guard standing nearby. He had been apparently allowed a furlough from forced recuperation just for tonight. And though his eyes were red, bloodshot, and watery, he was picking his lute with the speed and skill he was renowned for. And acting otherwise completely like his normal self.
From page 44 of the paperback version of Once Upon a Dream, of the Twisted Tales series, by Liz Braswell
“Well, I’m really not supposed to speak to strangers, but we’ve met before.”
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream.
one day he will come, riding out of the dawn; and you’ll awaken to love’s first kiss. till then, sleeping beauty, sleep on…
“Oh, we walk together, and talk together, and just before we say goodbye, he takes me in his arms, and then… I wake up.”
I love that, in Liz Braswell's writing, she will encorporate very minor characters in the animated films. In Once Upon a Dream: A Twisted Tale, she weaves the drunk minstrel character into her adaptation.
"YOUR HIGHNESS."
A hand clawed her shoulder from behind.
Aurora spun around - but it was just the old minstrel. His face was pale, and his long, narrow nose was pinched beyond its usual extreme. He seemed more degenerate and wild than ever; his clothes were torn in a dozen different places, there were scratches near his eyes that maade it look like he was crying blood.
"You are unwell, Master Tommins," Aurora said gently. She couldn't smell anything about him - not even the home-brewed moonshine some of the peasants had begun to amuse themselves by distilling. But he was so far gone that sometimes not having a dram drove him to fits.
From pages 21-22 of the paperback version of Once Upon a Dream, of the Twisted Tales series, by Liz Braswell
The minstrel, "Master Tommins" has a pivotal role in this book, because he first clues Aurora in that she is in Maleficent's dreamworld, by giving her a feather from a bluebird. I do want to read more about minstrels, historically. I have heard somewhere that minstrels or jesters often have a more sinister role - they are often harbingers of when something bad is going to happen.