Cindy

So there’s the prince, okay? He’s like, smack dab in the center of the ballroom, and he is like, horrifically aware that this whole ball thing is a result of his dad falling into a panic about the royal lineage or whatever and he’s stuck listening to highborn girl after highborn girl, all lined up, introducing themselves like, “Oh yeah my family’s been a longtime supporter of the crown, and I think you’re cute, *cough* I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips *cough* Who said that? Anyway–” and Princey boy is just smiling through it, he has been the center of attention for entirely too long, he misses his emotional support horse, and is just internally like “Someone please kill me now.” And then… he sees her–This isn’t a love at first sight thing, this is a ‘what the hell is going on over there’ thing, because this girl has not gotten into the Debutante line for a solid 45 minutes.

She’s just at the hors d’oeuvres table going HAM on the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and like, she’s polite about it, she’s happy to move aside for other people grabbing punch and canapes (and she’s really so sweet with the wait staff, it’s kind of cute because they’re like… definitely not used to being acknowledged) but it’s like, “Damn girl, did you not eat today?” and then the prince is kind of stuck with the uncomfortable thought of ‘how many girls starved themselves to fit into a corset for this.’ And then the Prince realizes he’s missed the past 4 Debutante introductions because he’s watching Mystery girl hork down crab rangoons. So he’s like, “Excuse me” and manages to break free from the never-ending parade of girls who will hop on his dick for status.

And as he’s approaching Mystery Girl, it’s kind of hitting him that something’s not quite natural about her. Not fake, but not quite real. But at the same time this whole evening’s been just a whole circus of people acting fake as hell, so like, someone seeming a little off doesn’t seem bad, necessarily. And he sidles up to her like, “Hi,” and she’s like, “Oh–hey, have you tried the tapenade?” and she points to one of the plates, and at this point, he could hit her with the “You don’t know who I am, do you?” deal or the “Very funny, I see your play” deal, but at this point it occurs to him that, no, he hasn’t had anything to eat throughout this whole damn ball, partially because of being stuck in the debutante parade, partially because of nerves, and there’s something so disarming about the question that he grabs a crostini and she still seems so food-focused that it doesn’t seem possible that this is a play. So they both grab little plates and ditch the party.

She pretty much clears her plate in under two minutes and then has half of his plate, he’s cool with it, mostly he’s just absolutely fascinated listening to her.

See here’s the thing about Cinderella:

1. She doesn’t know he’s the prince. Like yeah, he’s been at the center of the room, but she’s kind of spent half the party eagerly looking around everywhere she’s allowed to go (”Have you seen rose garden? Have you seen the solarium??” further confirmation that she doesn’t know who she’s talking to) and the other half stuffing her face with food.

2. She assumes she’s never going to see anyone here tonight again, and no one recognizes her, so she has no filter.

So she’s just talking about whatever with this guy. He seems cool. She talks about her friends, who are rats. She makes little outfits for them. Sometimes they bring her little gifts. She is already the coolest person the prince has ever met because of this. She pretty much offhandedly talks about whatever is fucked up about the kingdom that would take his advisors two hours of hemming and hawing and watering down to address. She just says it like it’s nothing, just funky little things she’s observed, and again, she’s not aware that he’s the prince, but it’s still pretty damn bold to bring up at a literal royal ball.

She… seems to have the majority of graces that lots of girls from Respectable Families™ have, but there’s something strange about it, something simultaneously broken and hardened, like the way you can see where ice has thawed and re-frozen. Also the way she talks about her family, and the way she avoids talking about her family– is raising several red flags, not in the “Oh this is another person trying to take advantage of me” sense, but in the “Oh fuck, something’s gone really wrong and you need help” sense and also lowkey a ‘damn is she even getting fed?’ sense. But he can’t say, ‘Hey, that’s not fucking normal for people to say that to you or treat you that way. We need to get you out of there,’ without sounding crazy himself, so for now, he’s just going to chill, make sure she’s comfortable, and keep enjoying the evening. She’s somehow befriended like 4 of the waitstaff so they’re willing to cover for them while they disappear for a little bit, and they get plenty of time to talk, but eventually it hits her that she hasn’t danced yet and she’s like “Come on! I bet we can make the prince jealous!” and he just bursts out laughing at that like “hell yeah, let’s make the prince jealous. He’s a real asshole.” Like clearly she’s having a good time, so who is he to make it weird? So they head back to the ballroom and they dance. And our girl, Mystery Girl, Cinderella, while they’re dancing, becomes acutely aware that everyone is staring. That doesn’t seem quite right. Like, yeah she’s hot, she knows she’s hot, but at least a good third of the party should still be focused on the prince, right? Where is that guy, anyway?

Oh.

Oh wait.

Oh shit.

And Princey Boy actually picks up on her realization and they whisper argue for like 3 minutes. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Now I feel like a goddamn idiot!” “I dunno it was nice being treated like a normal person” “Well me treating you like a normal person makes me a goddamn felon or something did you consider that?!” “Hey–Hey–it’s cool–you’re cool–I think you’re amazing, and if anyone says shit about you, I can shut it down.” “Well I don’t like that! That’s fucked up!” “I agree. It is fucked up, but I believe in you, and I think you should have a chance, and I’m here to back you up. I know power is fucked up right now. I know. But are you cool with working with me to change that?” And our girl Cindy pauses on that for a couple seconds, because.. she’s just spent hours with this guy and like.. she knows he’s a good guy, she knows he means well, so she’s like, “I don’t know how long I can actually work with you.” and the prince is like “Look, I know your home situation is complicated right now, but I really think we can–”

And then the bell starts ringing.

It’s midnight.

And then she takes off in a panic, and our prince just met the coolest person ever, and like, he’s pretty sure whatever situation they’re headed back to is fucked up, and all he’s got going to find her is a shoe. A shoe.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So let’s walk it back to the beginning.

So like… in the king’s defense… he gets weird when his wife has been gone too long. And the queen had been gone a very long time negotiating a truce with another kingdom a little southwest and across the sea from them. These negotiations involved no small amount of ass-kicking but the Queen does not like to focus on such things. Anyway, the queen was all set to return, and gosh darn it, the King was all ready to throw a “My wife is back I love my wife look at my wife I love her” bash welcoming the very cool and badass queen back to the kingdom. Again, he gets weird when she’s been gone too long, plus, big parties like this are a nice way to kind of check the mood of the kingdom, check in with all the noble families and merchants, while improving the mood of the kingdom.

And like… honestly the king likes planning parties–politics, negotiations, ass-kicking, that’s all the stuff the Queen is super good at, but the king? The king is good at interior decorating, budgeting, throwing a party, and somehow managing to make noble families with generation-long grudges not claw each others’ eyes out on the dance floor. It’s just… y’know with the wife not around, he’s noticing he’s getting on in years. Like wakes up and looks in the mirror like “YEESH who’s this crusty old fart?” And his wife’s not currently there to kiss him on the temple like “you’re MY crusty old fart” so he’s kind of spiraling by breakfast.

Another thing is, he loves kids and his younger brother who has a duchy already has 4 kids and like 6 grandkids and the king is watching his only son, the prince, practice fencing, and wrestling, and horse husbandry, and work on model ships, and read, and read while fencing, and read some more, and ride horses, and read while on a horse, and read, and oh my fucking god would it kill you to get out there and make friends who aren’t Brad the Captain of the guard or Gabe the Valet or a fucking horse like boy you are well into your 20’s and it’s a time when catching a cold at the wrong time of the year can kill you and we’ve got a royal bloodline to preserve and I can’t fucking puppet-master your entire social life. HOW ARE YOU THE PRINCE AND THIS BAD AT THIS. WHY CAN’T YOU BE A HORNY, STUPID PIECE OF SHIT. THAT WOULD MAKE THINGS SO MUCH SIMPLER.

So that’s just… some background on what’s going on with the king.

So the story opens up on one sunny morning at the palace. The king is taking his breakfast outdoors in the rose garden’s gazebo, and he’s frowning over a letter and holding it at arm’s length and holding his glasses at a certain angle like when you show your mom a meme on your phone. In rides the prince, after a very busy morning of backseat-driving all of the palace’s stablehands. He’s a good kid. Good-looking kid. A shame his portrait made him look like an overstuffed sausage, but in-person he’s pretty darn good-looking as he swings off his horse. He smells like horse.

“Morning, Father,” he says, as several servants rush in and rapidly shove in a table setting and yogurt parfait in front of him.

“Mm,” the king responds.

“Interesting letter?” the prince takes a bite of parfait.

“It’s from your mother,” the king murmurs and the prince perks up a little. The queen’s letters are always interesting. Often more than a little concerning, but always interesting.

“What about?”

“…seems she’s been captured by pirates,” the king mumbles.

“Pirates,” the prince repeats.

“Intercepted on her return. She says it will be at least another week until she can commandeer the ship and come home. She’s managed to convince the captain’s parrot to deliver this letter but building alliances with the rest of the crew to form a successful mutiny will take some time.”

A loud “SCRAWK” sounds and the prince glances over at a green parrot perched at its own patio chair for breakfast. It cocks its head at him before pecking at its own breakfast of fruit salad with chopped nuts. (The royal family is nothing if not hospitable.)

“You know… we do have a navy to send after her,” the prince hesitantly turns his spoon in his hand.

“You know your mother,” the king says with a certain level of resignation, “If she wanted the navy she would have said, ‘If you don’t mind, send the navy’ but this is clearly turning into another one of her little projects and far be it from me to deny her that.”

“Ah,” the prince says. This is not an unusual occurrence. The queen is constantly getting into Some Bullshit and while it may have prematurely aged the prince 10 years back when he was old enough to grasp concepts of peril, he now fully accepts this as one of his mother’s charming character attributes. The king is now looking over a different letter while sipping his tea.

“A shame we’ll have to cancel that ‘Welcome Back’ party you’ve been working so hard on,” the prince shrugs before taking a bite of his breakfast.

“…actually I was thinking we wouldn’t cancel it,” the king takes his glasses off, “I hadn’t sent out the invitations before I got this letter, and honestly? I think this might be a sign.”

“A sign?”

“Well, you know, lad, and I say this with all affection, you don’t get out much.”

“I get out. I was out just now.”

“Out in the middle of a field on a horse with no people for miles around is not the ‘out’ we’re talking about here. I’m talking about out with people.”

The prince opens his mouth to retort, hesitates, then closes it.

“I’ve updated and expanded the invitations list,” says the king, putting his glasses on again, “All families of fashion will be invited.”

“All families of–” the prince’s mouth is hanging open and his eyes are crinkling, “Dad–”

“Fascinating folks, these nouveau riche types…” the king seems to be mumbling mostly to himself, looking over another letter.

“Dad…”

“Might be a bit of a crunch for catering but it shouldn’t be a problem if we lean more into the baked goods and crudités for the hors d’oeuvres…”

“Dad?”

“I mean who doesn’t like a good veggie tray?”

“I really don’t think–”

“We’ll have to expand for carriage parking but I’ve been meaning to fight back that juniper hedge on the side of the palace for a while now–”

“DAD.”

The king glances up from his letters.

“Can I just say, I am not a big fan of this?”

“Yes of course,” the King replies.

The prince exhales.

“I mean it’s still happening though,” the King shrugs before leafing to another letter.

“But–”

“Look. I love you, but you need to get out there.”

“It just… it feels a little bit like you’re throwing me into piranha-infested waters.”

“Oh be reasonable, Chuck,” (Important note: Only the king calls the prince ‘Chuck’ and even then he barely tolerates the nickname), “This is our kingdom! We’ve got good people here, and it’s about damn time you got acquainted with some of them.”

And so the king drafts the template for the new invitations, his secretaries copy them accordingly to each appropriate family, and the invitations are sent out to all of the families of fashion throughout the kingdom.

Including the worst one.

Well, the worst except for one person.

I mean, the family started out pretty good–good dad, good mom, good daughter–but then the mom passed. Again, this was a time when catching a cold the wrong time of year could very much kill you. The dad planted a hazel sapling on the side of the house as a memorial to her and the sapling grew… kind of freakishly fast. We’ll get into that later.

And like… look, we could give the dad a lot of shit for marrying someone who turned out to be absolutely horrible later on, but grief does shit to you, man. I don’t think he knew, and I don’t think he could have known. I think, at the time, he just saw a strong-willed woman, with two kids of her own, and he thought, “Hey, you know, I could use a strong person in my life. And god knows my kid could use some friends–some sisters. And it’s rough out here for a widow so I think this can really become a family because that’s what we all need right now.” It wasn’t true love, not with a wound so raw, but companionship? That’s honestly a pretty solid start.

And let me just say that a lot of the time, Stepmothers get a bad rap. Hell, maybe because of this story–probably, because of this story. But like… a lot of the time stepmothers come into the picture with the narrative stacked against them. “You are not my mom and are therefore The Bad Guy” when in truth, it is not a crime to be into DILFs and blended families can be cool as hell. But this stepmother? Hoo boy, this bitch was a piece of work. Every upper-middle to upper-class woman who has ever harassed a retail worker to the point of tears is descended from this woman like chickens are descended from velociraptors. But the father and the daughter didn’t know this at the time. Like, mostly they just saw her as sharp-witted, resilient, and glamorous.

And sure, at first the daughter was kind of intimidated by this lady, like Stepmother has some intense vibes, but her father gently explained to her that the stepmother had lost her own husband and that was very hard on her and her daughters, so just be patient. And the daughter had always liked the idea of sisters. Oh but the stepsisters seem kind of clique-ish. Hm. Well that’s okay, just be patient, right?

But then the dad passed.

And that was when the masks on the stepmother and stepsisters came away. They didn’t have to pretend anymore.

And Cinderella (because she was now Cinderella) learned some very harsh truths about the world and what people are capable of, very fast. A lot faster than any kid should have to learn.

She also learned a lot about rats, whom she was forced to share a space with. Eventually she gained their loyalty. Rats love an underdog. They also love someone who sneaks them snacks from the kitchen and vegetables from the garden.

Maybe Cinderella could have hardened her exterior. Maybe she could have become just as cruel as the assholes around her. I think the capacity’s in all of us, and I think that’s often our survival instinct. But she didn’t. And that doesn’t make her weak. She decided the person she wanted to be was the person her parents raised her to be, the person her parents loved. She knew that she herself and this house were all she had left of her parents, and again I stress: Grief does shit to you.

When it would all become too much, in the small dark hours of the night, she would sneak outside, huddle against the hazel tree her father planted and sob. Very quietly, of course, she didn’t want to wake anyone. But sometimes, watching her own tears run in little rivulets in the bark, she’d hear the boughs creak and rustle gently in the night wind, and she’d pretend it was someone saying kind things to her.

So just a little background, there.

Anyway let’s slam dunk Cindy into the present because now she’s picking up the letter and she’s seeing the royal seal on it and she’s thinking “Oh shit, am I in trouble?” because when you’re treated like shit long enough that’s kind of your brain’s first reaction at literally anything out of the ordinary happening to you.

But guess who just got an invitation to the ball.

Chapter 2: In Which No Rats were Harmed in the Making of These Horses

Chapter Text

So... Cindy has the invitation to the ball--only she doesn't know it's the invitation to the ball yet. There's the fancy royal seal on the envelope and she knows better than to break it before Stepmother. Luckily, she's in the middle of her morning chores so the stepfam's already banging on this stupid goddamn bell system they have installed around the manor so she's just pressing her lips together and bunching her shoulders up while these bells are just fucking ringing all over the place and she's hearing muffled "CINDERELLA WHERE IS BREAKFAST?!" from one of her stepsisters up the stairs and she's just taking calming breaths. Calming breaths, Cindy.

To Cinderella's credit, she's kind of gone through a fucked up Martha Stewart boot camp. Shit started out frankly horrific--you try being 12 years old and cooking for a family that refuses to teach you (not that they even know how--and I’m not going to get into the consequences of failure because... yeah. It wasn’t good.). But as she resigned herself to her position, eventually she resolved to learn to cook, not for the stepfam, but for the wonderful hypothetical party she was hosting in her head. She honestly imagined herself as glamorous as the stepmother (but definitely not as scary) and ushering people into this beautiful home that's she keeps so clean and pretty. And people would compliment the decor and they would laugh and joke and they would eat her food and say, "Oh, this is amazing, how did you make this?" and she would laugh and do that little 'Oh you' hand flap and say "Oh it's an old recipe I just modified it a little."

Imagining that she is preparing for a party that has never come has saved Cinderella from no less than 68 psychotic breaks in all the years since her father's death.

But hoo nelly, shit is getting frayed.

So she gets breakfast to the stepfam, leaves the letter at her stepmother’s desk in the parlor to read at her leisure, then scarfs down her own breakfast down in the cellar, sharing her bread heel toast with her little rat friends, then cleans her dishes, picks up the stepfam’s dishes, cleans their dishes, and continues on with her chores. She has a complicated relationship with the chores. Basically the main thing she likes about the chores is they allow her to keep interaction with the stepfam to a minimum. She’s also grown terrifyingly, depressingly efficient at them---like she’s basically turning her brain off for half of them and maybe half-planning the Hypothetical Party That Will Never Come in her head. (She will use her parents’ beloved wedding china that the stepfamily totally didn’t hock immediately after her father’s death--ooh! And crown-folded napkins! Classy!). So to her credit she’s able to get the chores done very quickly, which frees up time for her main hobby, which, ironically is kind of an offshoot of her chores and also a hobby of necessity but it’s still something she loves.

See, Cinderella doesn’t just make clothes for rats. Sewing, and embroidery, and mending were the things she would do with her mom all the time since she was little, and now? She’s basically the MacGyver of needlework. Since she can’t buy her own clothes, she’s kind of left frankenstein-ing together outfits from all the dresses her stepsisters have thrown out. (Before there were obnoxious tiktok influencers buying mountains of SHEIN sweatshop clothes and throwing them out in a matter of weeks, there were the stepsisters--Cinderella was kicked out of her room only a few months after her father died in order for her room to be converted into their walk-in closet). Cindy’s actually very good at making her stepsisters’ old clothes virtually unrecognizable in their new modified forms. Dresses are turned inside-out and re-paneled, chopped up into pinafores, petticoats repurposed into blouses, embroidery is pulled out and new patterns are stitched in--but Cindy’s careful. She can never make her clothes too nice because that draws attention and drawing as little attention to herself as possible has been the name of the game. A patch here, some awkward tailoring at the shoulder there, and cover it all with a healthy layer of ashes from the fireplace, and no one knows.

And one part of her hobby is the one thing that makes The Hypothetical Party That Will Never Come somewhat tangible--The stepfam sold most of her parents’ things after her father’s death, but a few months back she was able to find one of her mother’s old dresses in the attic and she’s been steadily modifying it, and it’s beautiful. She’s tailored it to her own proportions, she’s readjusted the bodice for a more modern neckline, she’s added this really cute lacing in the back, and the embroidery.... holy shit the embroidery. It’s like a mosaic! It’s like an impressionist painting! And her little rat friends have helped! Bringing her little beads they’ve found around the house and shiny iridescent beetle shells so there’s these little glittering bits! Cinderella loves this dress so much. It’s her mother. It’s her rat friends. It’s all of the skills she’s picked up fighting just to survive. It’s her. And unfortunately, you all know where this is going.

There’s another bell, but it’s too early for lunch. The bell is calling Cinderella to the parlor so she hustles up the stairs.

We can kind of fast-forward here. The stepmother telling Cindy and her Stepsisters about the ball, the Stepsisters getting hyped because “Oh boy this means the prince is considering getting married so we can jump on his dick to raise the family status.” But Cindy’s just getting the thousand yard stare. All eligible women from families of fashion are invited. All eligible women. She’s in that group!! Her!!! She’s going to a party. A royal fucking party. A party that will be grander and more spectacular than the Hypothetical Party That Will Never Come in her head. And there’s going to be food! Nice food! That she didn’t have to cook herself! And now there’s dancing??? There wasn’t a lot of room for dancing in her fantasies. But now there’s room!

But then the stepfam notices the hope burgeoning up in her and are quick to try and tamp it back down.

“Well of course you’re invited as well, Cinderella...” the stepmother says slowly, “But do you even have a dress?”

And Cindy without missing a beat, that distant look still in her eyes goes, “Yes. Yes I do.”

And there’s just a beat of “Wow, what the fuck, seriously?” from the Stepfam. The stepsisters break out into immediate mockery-- you know, standard procedure, humiliation to break the spirit, but it doesn’t seem to be penetrating, this time. Cinderella just looks so stunned, so distant, she doesn’t seem to register their insults at all. There is a party. And she has a dress for it. As of this moment she is fucking bulletproof.

“...Well... as long as you finish your chores first...” the Stepmother says with that same slowness.

“Uh huh,” Cinderella’s voice is still a little distant.

We can fast forward again. The rest of the day is filled with the stepsisters furiously freaking out about their closet, once again throwing out half of their closets because they’re ‘ugly and outdated’ Cinderella quietly scooping up their old clothes for her future clothing frankenstein projects as she continues on with her chores, but eventually, the sun is setting and despite several hours of bitching, the stepsisters and stepmother are all decked out for the ball.

And Cindy is too.

And she’s scrubbed herself clean, and the dress is beautiful, and her little rat friends have helped decorate her braided updo with bindweed flowers and purple clover, but they may as well be the finest lilies and orchids. The end result is a little pastoral, but still breathtaking.

And the stepfam can’t have that.

Maybe this is the part where I try and make us feel sorry for the stepfam, try and say they’re complex characters. Maybe I say, “You know the stepmother really did miss her husband before she hooked up with Cinderella’s dad” or “Both the stepsisters had severe self-esteem issues that made them overly hostile to others and hyper-dependent on having the latest fashions rather than reflect on what really drove people away from them” but to be honest.. having compassion for the people who hurt you, who hurt you over and over and over and fucking over again is goddamn exhausting. I don’t want to be zen about this. I don’t want to be compassionate about this. These people suck and they deserve every bit of misery that’s coming to them. I’ll find my compassion later, but for now, fuck these guys.

They accuse Cinderella of stealing. The dress is obviously nothing they’ve ever bought, but that doesn’t matter in this instance. The truth never mattered to them. Never needed to matter. All that matters to them is making sure this girl knows her place.

The moment the first shoulder strap of Cinderella’s dress is ripped away, that ball, and The Wonderful Hypothetical Party That Will Never Come merge into one in her head.

Look, I’m just going to say here, one of the only things worse than having something you poured your heart and soul into for months be destroyed before your very eyes, is if that thing is something you’re currently wearing, and if it wasn’t just your efforts--it was your friends, who risked life and limb beneath cat claws and chicken talons to bring you little beads and trinkets. Ripping into that dress, tearing her hair loose from its flowers and braids, may as well have been ripping into Cinderella’s flesh, ripping into her heart. Once all the damage is done, the stepfam just takes off... like it’s nothing. Like she’s nothing.

And maybe she is. She doesn’t know. Maybe all she is right now is pain. Maybe all she will ever be is pain, so she rushes out to the one spot where she can pour that pain. She throws herself against the hazel tree, her fingernails clawing into the bark, sobs wracking her body. She doesn’t know how long she cries. Everything’s spiraling into this vortex of despair. It’s not just the party anymore. It’s her parents. It’s her home. Her home hasn’t been her home for so long and she wants out. She didn’t want to say she wants out for so long because it’s her parents place and it’s all she has left of them but she wants out. She wants out so fucking bad.

And then the boughs of the tree start to creak. And the leaves start rustling in the wind.

And what I need you to understand about what happens next is that... when you spend years pouring all of your grief onto a living thing, when all of the love inside of you, all the faith you have in humanity has nowhere to go, when you have been stuffing your hope and your longing into the dirt and the bark, that all that isn’t going nowhere.

And it doesn’t make something human.

Cinderella’s sobs are winding down... she’s not sure if she’s going numb or she’s just tired herself out, but then there’s a sound of splitting, ripping wood and she glances up.

And a fucking hand bursts out of the tree about a foot and a half above her, clawing in the night air.

A yelp escapes Cindy and she scrambles back from the tree on her butt as a full-on upper torso pries itself out of the tree like the goddamn chestburster scene in Alien.

A head jerks up from the torso, its face in shadows, and Cindy finds herself staring into eyes that have the sickly mirror-like yellow of tapetum lucidum.

She screams.

Then whoosh, a hand suddenly slaps over Cindy’s mouth and her eyes flare wide open, stunned. The figure from the tree is crouched over her legs, on all fours save for the hand currently clamped on her mouth.

The voice that speaks next has a creaky, whispery quality to it... like the boughs. Like the leaves. “If I take my hand away, are you going to keep screaming?”

Cinderella stares for a few seconds.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, but I need you to be cool. I’m gonna ask again: If I take my hand away, are you going to keep screaming?”

Cindy shakes her head under the hand, her cheeks still hot and salty with tears.

“Promise?”

Cinderella pauses, because that addition seems... almost childish, and she furiously nods.

The hand withdraws from her mouth, wrist still tense and fingers curling. And now in the moonlight Cinderella can pick out the features of this being. A wooden smoothness to the skin, bark-textured horns, and almost bird-like facial features.

“Are we good?” says the fairy godmother.

Cinderella opens her mouth but all that comes out is a hesitant. “Uhm....”

“Oh man, why I am I saying that--look at you--okay--come on--To your feet, kiddo.” The fairy godmother pushes off of her to a full standing position (She is pretty fucking short) and offers Cinderella a hand. Cinderella is still in the dirt staring up at her, stunned. The fairy godmother holds her hand out a little more insistently.

“...you came out of the tree,” Cinderella says slowly.

“Listen, we don’t have a lot of time--” the Godmother starts.

“You have horns--” Cinderella’s voice is thick.

“So do cows. So do goats. You don’t see me going ‘Ahh oh no, you have--’” the Godmother scans her briefly, “Collarbones? Whatever. Will you just get up?”

Cinderella pushes up to her feet and sways a little with the blood rushing from her head.

“You good?”

“What is happening?”

“I’m your fairy godmother, obviously. Look, do you want to get to the ball?”

“What?”

“The ball, do you want to go?”

“Y-yes?”

“That’s all I need to hear.” the fairy godmother claps Cindy on the shoulder as she moves past her, starts briskly walking around the garden, looking around, picking up random objects, inspecting them briefly, before cursing under her breath and tossing them aside.

“Um..?” Cinderella is kind of sheepishly trailing behind her.

“Give me a minute, I’ve got this,” says the godmother, making her way over to the chicken coop.

“But--”

“What?” the Godmother his holding a squawking chicken upside-down by its feet before sniffing it, then cursing under her breath again and tossing the chicken aside.

“How does this... work, exactly?”

“It’s magic. The how and why are kind of packaged together-- Ah-HAH!” the fairy godmother rushes over to the vegetable garden, grabs up a zucchini on the vine, holds it to her ear before cursing and dropping it.

“I mean... am I going to have to give you my firstborn or something--”

“Woah-woah-WOAH kid, you do NOT ask fairies for a price. Especially not a fairy godmother.”

“Oh... Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the fairy godmother plants her hands on her hips, and looks around the garden, “The tree was planted to help you, so I’m here to help you.”

“The tree...” Cinderella repeats looking back at the hazel tree, but the fairy godmother is looking inside the garden shed now.

“You wouldn’t happen to have uhhhh... creatures of undying loyalty to you, would you?”

“My friends?” Cinderella perks up. She makes a few tsk-ing sounds and several rats scurry to her side.

“Oh perfect!” the Godmother snatches them up in her arms.

“But you won’t hurt them will y--” Cinderella starts but then gasps and rushes forward as the Fairy godmother holds one rat high above her head and fucking SLAMS it to the ground as hard as she can.

There’s an explosion of sparkles and suddenly there’s a moon-white horse sitting awkwardly on its haunches between Cinderella and the Fairy godmother, with unusually rounded ears and teeth that are a lot buckier than your average horse.

“Ah...” is the only sound Cindy manages.

WHUH-BAM. WHUH-BAM. WHUH-BAM. The fairy godmother hurls the other three rats to the ground and poof! Poof! Poof! All horses.

“Are my rats okay?!” Cinderella is desperately pacing around the horses.

“Your rats are fine. I mean--they’re probably way more anxious now, horses, you know, but they’re fine,” the fairy godmother circles her wrist, “OKay... Now that we’re warmed up... patience.. I need something that needs patience...”

“Patience?”

“What’s something you put a lot of work into and...” the Fairy godmother trails off as Cinderella looks down at her dress and her lip wibbles a little.

“Okay, we can find something else...” mutters the fairy godmother.

“Well... I’ve been trying hard to get that pumpkin to grow for the autumn fair, but it hasn’t--”

“The pumpkin!” The fairy godmother smacks her own forehead, “Obviously!” She whips out a wand, “All right get over here!” And the pumpkin floats right up out of the garden, sextuples in size, and shudders into a round carriage, landing with a creaking bounce of its wheels on the ground.

Cinderella’s mouth is hanging open as she opens the carriage door and peeks inside to see a cushy elegant interior. “This is all happening very fast--”

“Well yeah! The ball’s already kicked off! We’re behind schedule!” the fairy godmother is still furiously pacing around, “Okay... got the horses, got the ride... now we need the crew...”

It is at this point that the old-as-balls farm dog has finally been woken up by the commotion and lopes out of the barn with a few hoarse warning ‘Boof’ noises.

“Chauncey, be polite, she’s friendly--I think,” Cinderella starts before the fairy godmother whips around and just fucking blasts the dog with a spray of sparkles, leaving a very bewildered looking coach driver with sad bloodshot basset hound eyes on all fours in his place.

“Oh god--” Cinderella’s hand goes over her mouth but she hurries over and helps the dog-coachman to his feet, “Ch-chauncey?”

The coachman tilts his head for a few perplexed seconds before dragging his tongue up the side of Cinderella’s face. Cinderella just pauses for a few seconds before shuddering hard.

“Yeah it’s probably best if you don’t try to talk to him, the most humanity I jammed into him is ‘how to drive a carriage,’” The Godmother is now rooting around in the bushes herself.

“This is a dream...” Cinderella backs away from the dog-turned coachman and is pressing her fingertips to her forehead, “I--I passed out against the tree, and... I didn’t eat much today, and--I’m dehydrated from crying---”

“Not a dream,” the Godmother pushes herself up to her feet a lizard in each fist, she gestures at Cinderella with one lizard-filled fist, “Look, I’m gonna need you to keep it together for the ball, okay? Because if you start freaking out and telling the palace ‘Oh my horses are rats’ this and ‘oh my footmen are lizards’ that, then shit is going to get really complicated.”

“My footmen are wh--” Cinderella starts and he fairy godmother hurls both fistfuls of lizards at the ground and in another double-burst of sparkles there’s now two footmen whose eyes are just a little too far apart.

“All righty,” the fairy godmother cracks her knuckles, now for the most important part--”

“Just--can we stop!? Can we stop this?! Can I have a moment?!” Cinderella’s shoulders are bunched up.

The Fairy Godmother pauses. “...what’s up?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Um, I already said, I’m your fairy godmother and you said you want to get to the ball, so I’m getting you to the ball.”

“Yes but--you’re doing... things! Things that shouldn’t be happening!”

“Yeah. Magic. What’s your point?”

“I--” Cinderella’s voice goes thick, “Nice things don’t happen to me. People don’t help me. Not unless it’s... it’s leading to something horrible. So if you’re going to do something horrible please just get it over with because I don’t think I can take anymore, tonight.”

“I’m not a person. I’m a fairy godmother,” the fairy godmother says, a little miffed, but there’s a quivering-lipped resolve in Cinderella’s face and she sighs. “Look, kid, I give you my word that this isn’t leading to something horrible. The only thing this is leading you to, is the ball, and from there, the night’s in your hands.”

Cinderella bites the inside of her lip.

“And I don’t know if you know this, but a fairy giving their word is a pretty big fucking deal. I’m just... trying to do you a solid, that’s all.”

“My dog is a person,” Cinderella says a little hollowly.

“Yeah don’t worry about that. He’s fine.”

Cinderella is still looking around, unsure. The fairy godmother sighs.

“I’m sorry about your dress,” the fairy godmother says, “If I could, I would recreate it--it really was something, you know?”

“Thanks...” Cinderella bunches the ragged remains of her skirts in her hands.

“Unfortunately, I can’t. Some bylaws about human artistry, or whatever. But I can make you a new one. Would you like that?”

Cinderella nods.

“I mean... can’t get to the ball without one, right?” and the fairy godmother grins and pushes up her sleeves. “Okay, kid, I got a limited amount of juice here so I don’t have a lot of room for alterations. How much cleavage do you want?”

“Cleavage?”

The fairy godmother gestures at her chest.

“I know what cleavage is!” Cindy blurts out.

“So how much do you want?”

“I--I don’t know,” Cinderella pushes her hair back, “An appropriate amount?”

The Fairy Godmother tilts her head a bit, “Come on, kid, when are you gonna go to another party like this?”

Cinderella pauses for a few seconds, then balls her hands into determined fists. “A noticeable but still tasteful amount!”

“Now we’re talking!” says the Fairy Godmother with a sweep of her wand. And a shower of sparkles whips around Cinderella, it’s beautiful, but then so bright she has to squeeze her eyes shut. The physical sensation of the spell itself hits with the kind of pleasant full-body helplessness you experience having a wave of water throw you off your feet when you throw yourself into a crashing wave, Cindy feels her feet lift off the ground for a few seconds, still squeezing her eyes shut for all the brightness, but then she kind of… plops down again, rocking a little in heels that weren’t there before. She opens one eye and there’s still spots in her vision from all the flashes before, but when she looks down, she’s wearing the most beautiful dress—I mean, sure it’s not the dress she made, and that has all of those attachments and effort and pride on its own, but this is a dress that has been given to her. Cinderella would almost feel tears well up if she hadn’t cried her fucking eyes out earlier. She looks down and her breath shudders a little, and she looks up at the fairy godmother, who kind of looks a little out of breath and is leaning against the hazel tree slightly.

“Is… it okay?” The fairy godmother tries to come off very nonchalant.

“Okay!?” Cindy stammers, “It’s—no one’s ever—I can’t believe—I—“ She bunches up her skirts and sees the most amazing, beautiful, sparkling crystal shoes she has ever seen, “WHAT!?” She blurts out and then slaps her hand over her mouth on instinct because the stepmother would usually give her a withering glare for gawping, but she takes a stammering breath and looks back at the fairy godmother, “Thank you.”

She’s looking down and laughing a little, she’s doing the skirt twirlies, she’s checking herself out in the reflection of the garden fountain, and all of a sudden this horrible realization falls on her and she whirls over to look at her Fairy Godmother like, “WAIT. If my stepmother recognizes me, I’m dead. I’m so dead.”

And Fairy Godmother is just like, “Oh pffft kiddo don’t sweat it. There’s a memory charm stitched into the dress.”

“Memory charm?”

“Oh yeah. Fae standard. There’s already illusion spells on the dress so no one’s gonna recognize you, and like… once the dress and the carriage and everything disappear at midnight, pretty much the only space you’ll occupy in people’s brains is like… they’ll basically remember you as a cloud of white noise. A talking cloud of white noise–they’ll remember what you say, but not the sound of your voice.”

“I don’t know what white noise is.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait–” Cindy perks up, “Everything’s going to disappear at midnight?”

“Yep. Everything,” The fairy godmother is smacking her wand against her palm, trying to figure out how much juice is still in it.

And then this ripple passes over Cinderella’s face. “Even the slippers?”

“The slippers?” The fairy godmother glances up.

“I just…” Cinderella fidgets with her dress a little, “I really like them. They’re so pretty and there’s… I’ve never seen anything like them in my life. I wouldn’t sell them or anything, and I know It would be much harder to hide the dress so I figured I couldn’t keep it… but… I just hoped I might have something so I’d know this night wasn’t a dream. Just something to take out from time to time and look at…” She seems to catch herself and straighten up a little. “But I understand. You’ve already done so much, I should be thankful for–”

And Fairy Godmother is massaging her temples like “Urrrghhhh oh god you’re making the face–Okay. OKAY. I’m bending like 15 rules for this but…” she snaps her fingers and the slippers on Cinderella’s feel just a little heavier, “There you go. The shoes are physical and permanent. But hey–HEY–keep track of them. This means the memory and illusion charms don’t work on them. These are going to be the only recognizable things about you from this night. You got it?”

And Cindy nods.

“I mean it! After this it’s going to be months before I can muster up enough magic to turn into a starling murmuration and peck your stepfamily’s eyes out. So I can’t protect you before then.”

“…w-what about pecking out eyes–?”

“Okay! Ball time! Go kiddo, go! Go! Go! Get in the carriage! Go!”

Chapter 3: In Which Cindy and the Fairy Godmother Run From the Cops

Chapter Text

Oh hey now we're back at the beginning! Which started at kind of the middle! The ball's happened, Cindy's run off, and now our boy is kind of left in a lurch!

The prince is sitting on the steps, his eyes aren’t quite focused and he’s turning over the glass slipper in his hands. What the hell was that? He’s trying to place her face in his memory but everything’s just… fffft. Gone. Blank. He remembers what she said. But even the pitch is weird–it could be any voice.

“Your highness?”

The prince glances over his shoulder at the Captain of the Royal Guard.

“Oh–hey—” the prince blinks a few times.

“…awfully odd, that girl,” the Captain folds his arms.

“I–” the prince draws a breath in through his teeth, “ I need to find her.”

“Understood,” the captain of the guard nods, “I’ll send guard details on every road leading out of the palace.”

“What?! No–that’s insane! She’s going to think I’m–No, I can’t approve of that…” the Prince is pressing his fingertips to his forehead, his other hand still gripping the slipper.

“I gotcha,” the guard captain says with a wink, “’Don’t’ send horsemen after her.”

“Did you just–Brad–don’t–no. I said no. No winks. Don’t send any guards after her, I’ll look psychotic.”

“Eh. Little late for that.” Brad the guard captain shrugs.

“What?”

“Well she and her whole carriage slipped past security somehow, and she got into the ball without even being announced by the Master of Ceremonies. That’s a security risk. And she seemed suspiciously chummy with the waitstaff. And if she ditched the party in this much of a hurry, she might’ve taken state secrets or something. So, obviously, I sent the horsemen…” he checks his pocket watch, “3 minutes ago.”

The prince pales. “She just–she said she needed to get home before midnight. I think she has a messed-up family situation, if I make things worse for her…”

“Or maybe she needs to reach a drop off point for whatever she’s stolen.”

“You don’t know if anything’s missing!”

“Not yet, we don’t.”

“Brad!”

“It’s protocol.”

“Protocol!? I’m the goddamned crown prince! And you’re sending armed guards after the love of my life!”

Brad blinks at him, not really sure how to process that. “Uh…”

“Ig-ignore that. Don’t tell my dad I said that,” the prince pinches the bridge of his nose, “Brad I swear to god, don’t tell my dad I said that. I was panicking and–and–You know how weird he gets about this stuff.”

“Yeah–no–totally, your highness,” Brad looks out over the palace gardens, “Look, we can just say we wanted to make sure she got home safely…. when we catch up with her, I mean.”

“Send a messenger pigeon telling them to hang back from her actual house–but get her address–maybe I can find a way to–to explain things… figure out what’s going on…” He’s wrapped both hands around the shoe again.

“That hers?” Brad nods at the slipper.

“…yeah…”

“Love of your life, huh?”

“I dunno… she makes clothes for rats. She’s funny. I like her.”

“..Your Highness, did she slip anything into your drink?”

“No! She’s–look, if you talked to her, you’d know. She’s amazing.”

—

Several miles away a massive pumpkin hurtles forward in a stream of sparkles at roughly 25 miles an hour, smacks against the dirt road, once in a burst of sparkles, twice in a smaller burst of sparkles, then three times (no sparkles), and explodes, sending a girl in rags, a dog, and a handful of rats and lizards painfully bouncing across the dirt road in the woods, sticky shards of pumpkin shell tumbling along with them. Cinderella rolls to a stop and moans on the ground, curled protectively around her one remaining slipper.

“Woah!! Woah–woah! Coming in hot!” the fairy godmother zips in in a flash of sparkles, she looks around, “Everyone okay? No one dead?

Several of the lizards are already slinking into the bush, and the dog and rats are now gently nosing at Cinderella, still curled up, stringy bits of pumpkin and seeds hanging off of her, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Kiddo–” the Fairy godmother drops to one knee and touches her shoulder, “Anything broken?”

Cinderella opens one eye, then glances up, “Godmother?”

“You know you’re really not supposed to be moving at full speed when the spell comes undone…” the fairy godmother bites her thumbnail.

Cinderella just looks at the slipper in her hands. “…I lost one of the slippers,” she whimpers, “I’m sorry.”

“Look–don’t worry about that,” the fairy godmother picks a piece of pumpkin out of Cindy’s hair, “Do you have a concussion?”

“I… I don’t think so? How would I know?”

“Oh boy–Okay–You know what? We’re just gonna get a good look at you. we’re sitting up–sitting up–” the fairy godmother helps her to a seated-up position, “Okay–anything broken? Feeling dizzy at all?”

A spackling of dirt and pumpkin juice is sticking all over one side of Cinderella’s face, but she looks down at herself, “N-no–I’m a little bruised but–” she suddenly gags hard, “Oh god–” she slaps her free hand over her mouth and stumbles up to her feet, rushing over to the side of the road and bracing her free hand against a tree to puke.

“Oh shit concussion–” the fairy godmother rushes up next to her and holds her hair back as she keeps puking. The rats and dog trot over, almost as if to offer emotional support as well.

“It’s not–” Cinderella pukes again, “It’s not a con–” she pukes again. “I just–” she pukes again.

“…too much champagne?” the fairy godmother guesses.

“Oh GOD why did I eat so much?!” Cinderella manages before puking again, now entering that point of puking where you’re half-crying on reflex.

“…no champagne?” the Fairy godmother blinks. Cinderella pukes again. “Woof. Okay that is a lot.”

Cinderella is panting when she finally brings herself up to her full height again, her godmother withdrawing her hands from her hair. “I’m–” She gags and swallows thickly, “I’m good.” She sniffles a little.

“…your body’s not used to that kind of food if you’ve been living on porridge and table scraps, kid,”

Cinderella sniffles again. “Yeah–I just–It tasted so good and–”she scoffs, ripping off a piece of her skirt to wipe off her mouth and try and smear some of the pumpkin juice-dirt mixture off of her face, “It’s stupid but…” she sighs, “I think I was scared of them taking it away.”

“Kiddo–that’s not stupid. You’re not stupid. I should have been more responsible but I wanted you to have a good night and I was overcompensating for not getting to you sooner, and I ended up kicking you into the deep end and–” The fairy godmother catches herself at the sound of hoofbeats. “Oh shit–hide!”

Cinderella rushes into the road, scoops up her rats in her arms, and whistles to the dog to call him to her side. They all slip into the brush on the side of the road and crouch in the shadows, staying deathly silent as moonlit dapple grays rush past. They wait a minute or two, and another couple horses rush past, their hoofbeats carelessly knocking the pumpkin chunks in the road away. They wait in silence another two minutes.

“Welp. I guess it’s not a magical night unless you run from the cops at least once,” the Fairy Godmother shrugs.

“The prince…” Cinderella says under her breath.

“The prince–? As in the prince-prince?” the Fairy Godmother perks up.

“I didn’t know he was the prince! I can’t believe how stupid I was! I–” she runs a hand through her hair with distress, “He doesn’t look like his portrait! He doesn’t have a chin in his portrait! And–and now I’ve caused an international incident?? Or something??”

“Nah, he’s in your country, so it’s just a national incident,” the fairy godmother kicks away a broken bit of pumpkin, “Ooh! Did you slap him? Throw your drink on him?”

“What? No–He’s wonderful. He’s kind of shy but he like… tries to play it off, you know? And he’s such a good dancer–like, he made me look like I knew what I was doing, and I really didn’t– And when he laughs he–” she notices the way her Fairy Godmother is beaming and the way the rats are gently nuzzling against her neck, occasionally picking pumpkin seeds out of her hair to nibble on. Even the dog is staring up at her with those big wet eyes. The night is almost over, she’s covered in rags and bits of pumpkin, and hope is dangerous again. She catches herself and forces a laugh, “I–um…We should get home.”

“Yeah, looks like the coast is clear,” says the Fairy Godmother.

They walk, briskly and silently at first. There don’t seem to be many other carriages on the road–they must be questioning the guests back at the ball.

“Why don’t you fly?” Cinderella asks.

“I told you, I used up a lot of juice on the dress and the carriage–and making the shoes—shoe–corporeal. I could fly to get myself back, but I don’t have enough juice to get you back. And someone’s gotta get you home safe.”

“Thank you,” Cindy smiles. She pauses. “You said something about… overcompensating, earlier?”

“I just.. wish I helped you sooner,” the fairy godmother fidgets with one of the catkins in her hair.

“…is there a reason why you didn’t?” Cinderella asks, but then she catches herself, “Sorry–I mean, I really am grateful for–”

The fairy godmother flails her hand with a, ‘don’t worry about that’ motion. “Well.. to be honest it took me a long time to… uh… be? Like don’t get me wrong, a hazel tree fed by the tears of a pure-hearted orphan? That’s good magic–that’s powerful magic. But tree magic is… slow. And once I was enough of a ‘me’ to able to see what was going on–I–I wanted to hurt them. The tree was to protect you, you know? So I used to do all the wicked fairy stuff–I’d turn their butter rancid and tie knots in their hair and turn into moths to eat their clothes–but that would just make them treat you worse and give you more work. And I couldn’t do that to you… not when it was your tears that made me. I asked some other fairies for help but and that’s how I got to godmother status but uh… there were some misunderstandings and technically I’m still on probation and–yeah–don’t worry about that–Anyway, after tonight I have to go back into the tree and” she makes a raspberry sound, “Recharge.” She sighs. “And I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I’ve never used this much magic before.”

“Should-should I cry on the tree more? Would that help?’ Cinderella asks a little blankly as they walk. Two of the rats are perched on either shoulder and she’s holding the third almost like an infant. The fourth is on her head, contentedly nibbling a pumpkin seed.

“Oh, no–kid, you can’t force it–Those tears came from grief–from a form of true love–if you did it just for me, that would be transactional and–it’s complicated. Tear magic is very specific.” the fairy godmother huffs a little, “Nah. The tree is strong enough on its own. But bless your heart. I mean you can cry on it if you need to. That’s what it’s there for–but be sure you’re doing it for you and for your mom, okay?”

The lights of Cinderella’s family estate are coming into view.

“Thank you,” Cinderella says again, still turning the glass slipper over in her hands, “This really was the best night of my life.”

“Even with the crash and the puking and the cops coming after us?”

“Mm-hmm.” Cinderella stoops and kisses her fairy godmother on the cheek.

“I knew I liked you,” The fairy godmother smiles, rubbing her cheek. “You hang in there, okay, kid? You’re gonna make it out of this. I just know it.” She gives Cindy a loving little punch on the arm.

“Nngh!” Cinderella’s hand goes over one of her bruises.

“Oh shit, right, the crash.”

Chapter 4: In Which The Prince Begins His Investigation and the Narrator Yells About Foot Fetishes

Chapter Text

The foot fetish joke.

You guys won’t fucking shut up with the goddamn foot fetish joke.

My boy was out here fighting for his life (figuratively speaking) and you guys are all “hoo hoo he had a foot fetish. I’m so creative and no one has ever suggested this before.” Fuck off.

Princey boy is staying up late, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling. He looks like absolute shit in the mornings–I mean the five o’ clock shadow is kind of hot but his eyes are hella bloodshot and his skin routine has been thrown COMPLETELY off so he looks rough. The man is HAUNTED because he just met someone and he thinks they’re amazing and they seem like one of the kindest, funniest, most genuine people he’s ever met, and they laugh at his jokes but my guy cannot remember a single damn identifying thing about them and he is so goddamn worried about their wellbeing. They looked so scared before they took off at midnight and he doesn’t know where they are! He doesn’t know if they’re okay! He doesn’t know if they’re eating! He’s like, pretty sure they’re not eating because they were putting away a frankly concerning amount of spinach puffs! He doesn’t know if they even have a bed! He doesn’t remember if they had bruises (he’d remember if they had bruises, right? What the fuck is wrong with his head?!) He’s barely eating, himself! He is SUFFERING and you fucking vultures are sitting pretty over here like “lol he wanted an excuse to touch feet.” Again, fuck off! My boy is going through it!

YES, all he had was the shoe, but he didn’t start with the shoe because that’s impractical.

Like any proper investigation, you start by asking the entire castle staff what they saw that night at the ball and ya boi has been THOROUGH. Here is what he has learned:

“Yeah I mean I definitely saw shit that night–I mean officially, I’m a footman but for bashes like this? My job ends up being mostly making sure drunker guests quietly get back to their carriages. Oh–a girl? Showed up late to the party? Yeah I remember there was someone I had to give directions to… she looked great. Uh… no, I don’t remember her hair color… or eye color… or her dress… Oh! But she fixed this button on my coat that one guest nearly yanked off! Even sewed a little flower into the holes, isn’t that cute? Who just… carries a sewing kit on them, right? Er–sorry, I know it’s not uniform regulation–Oh it’s okay? Awesome. Wait–you’re taking my coat? But I like this coat–Right. yes. Of course, your highness.”

“A girl wandering the corridors? Um… there was this one incident where one of the lordlings left this massive slosh of wine on the parlor carpet and–look, I’ve only been here a couple months since I got promoted from dishes, and me and three of my girls were trying to scrub it out while all the damn lordlings went on smoking their pipes and chuckling–Oh–not that you’re like that, Your Highness, but anyway I was kind of freaking out because I knew if I called in the head housekeeper it would turn into this whole thing, but then this girl… just kind of… wandered in. I don’t think she really understood the whole concept of ‘Brandy in the parlor is a gentleman’s thing’ but she just leaned over us and went, ‘Oh! Lemon juice!’ And before I could say anything she just hurried out. 5 minutes later she comes back with a lemon and a goblet of water. I ask her where she got the lemon and she said ‘the gardens–is that allowed?’ I didn’t know how to respond to that but get this: The lemon and water worked. But she was gone before I had time to thank her. It’s strange… I don’t remember her features very well… I remember thinking she was very pretty but more so she seemed… kind. A little nervous, but kind.”

“Oh the catering table? Yeah I was there all night–well you know actually I was running back to the kitchens to make sure shit wasn’t on fire, but yeah, I was more or less there all night. A girl? Oh the perky one! I mean, yeah, I’m used to talking about the food, ‘cuz, y’know allergies and whatnot, but she was… really interested in how to make them. She asked how I kept the breadcrumbs crisp on the stuffed mushrooms–no one appreciates my passion for breadcrumb crispness! The key is using three different bread loafs with a distinct variety of freshness and staleness and- What did she look like? Um… tall? I think? Oh but everyone was wearing heels that night, huh… hm…”

“You’re telling me I had 8 of the pageboys running interference on the rest of the guests so you two could sneak off to the gardens and you didn’t kiss her? Bro! What the hell! I mean–um… Sorry. Your highness. What? What did she look like? Dude, are you insane? She looked awesome. You know how her hair was like… um… uh… Wait. What the shit?”

And Guard Captain Brad has now somehow convinced himself that Mystery Girl is a criminal mastermind even though nothing is missing from the Palace.

“It’s obvious. She dosed the entire party with some kind of neural agent. That’s why she was hanging out at the buffet table all night and that’s why no one can remember her.”

“Brad, why would she do that if everyone was already distracted with the literal fucking party. Why would she dose everyone when she was eating literally everything!?”

“I don’t know… but she was eating all that stuff to cover her tracks… hell she may have even built up an immunity to poisons. She’s crafty…”

“Brad.”

And through all of the interviews with the staff, Princey boy is stuck with one painful, painful fact staring him right in the face: HE was the one spending the most time with her! He spent more time with her than anyone! He should know more than anyone! AND HE CAN’T FUCKING REMEMBER HER FACE. My boy is being gaslit by the fae and he doesn’t even know it.

But he’s not stupid. He is staring at this shoe, this shoe that is the hope and bane of his existence, and he says, “You know what? There aren’t a lot of glass shoes out there. And this shoe was definitely custom-made. All I need to do is find the person who made the shoe, ask them who they made the shoe for, and I find mystery girl and I get her out of whatever fucked up situation she’s stuck in, and then *cough* *mumble* maybe we get married or something I don’t know I don’t want to pressure her.” *mumble* *cough* So that’s what he does. He is very practical and reasonable and methodical and haha I’m just kidding he calls in literally every glassblower and crystal craftsman in the realm to look at…the shoe.

Which he has had put on its own cushy little velvet pillow on its own fancy little pedestal in the palace reception hall for this occasion. I dunno, it seemed more professional than just yanking the shoe out and saying, “Did you make this shoe?”

So in come all of the glassblowers and crystal craftsmen from all over the kingdom, and they don’t really know the details, they’re busy guys, they got their own stuff going on, and the Prince gestures at the shoe on the pedestal like, “I must know which of you has crafted this fabulous shoe!”

And like… okay yeah, this is where the foot fetish stuff starts leaking into the story but I swear to god he was mostly doing it as a cover for the whole, “the girl wearing this shoe might be the love of my life but my dad is going to get really fucking weird if something like that gets out so you know what let’s just let everyone assume I’m into… craftsmanship.” And like, the internet is not a thing yet, Quentin Tarantino is not a thing yet, we don’t really have the cultural consciousness to know about Foot Guys™, so it’s generally accepted that, “Okay, this is about craftsmanship. Maybe he wants to commission a glass sculpture or a chandelier or something. Or maybe he wants the windows re-glazed.”

But Glass shoes, as you might imagine, are really not a thing most glass craftsmen would make. I mean, at first there’s a handful of guys who are like “Oh this is about a commission, I’ll just say I made the shoe and then I can land that sweet sweet royal commission.” So they step forward like, “I made the shoe.”

“No, I made the shoe.”

“No, I made the shoe, your highness, don’t let these charlatans fool you.”

And knee-jerk the prince hits all of them with, “Great! Who did you make it for?”

And then there’s this beat of “…oh shit, this isn’t about a commission.” And a significant amount of the glassworkers leave while the dudes who stepped forward are stuck bullshitting like.

“um… a fair maiden?”

“A mysterious fair maiden.”

“Showed up in a an indigo cloak, with only her ruby lips visible beneath the shadow of her hood!”

“…ruby lips doesn’t sound like her…” the prince mumbles.

“Um… blushing lips? And the cloak wasn’t indigo, it was periwinkle.”

“Fucking dumbasses, obviously, she sent her own valet with her measurements.”

The prince just kind of folds his arms like, “You can leave and you won’t get in trouble for claiming to make a shoe you didn’t make.”

And the lying craftsmen are at least smart enough to see their out and they are SHOOP. Outta there. So between them leaving and all the guys who ditched as soon as they realized this wasn’t about a commission, only a handful of glass craftsmen remain.

“…I don’t suppose any of you made the shoe?” the Prince says, and oh boy you can just feel the despair sinking into his whole frame, but the glass craftsmen just… steadily step forward.

“To be honest, your highness,” says one, stepping ahead of the group with a slight bow, “I didn’t make the shoe. But a glass shoe is such an unusual commission that I just want to see how whoever crafted it did so. I’ll admit it’s a selfish reason, but at least looking at it could improve my craft.”

“I might be able to tell you where it comes from!” another pipes up, “I apprenticed abroad in the east!”

“I apprenticed in the north!” another glassworker calls out.

“I didn’t study abroad, but I’ve always been a little bit of a chemist, myself,” says another, “The way that slipper catches the light… I might be able to tell you about its composition.”

And there’s kind of a murmuring agreement from the glassworkers behind this guy and the Prince is like, “Oh, these guys are the hardcore artisans. It’s not about them, it’s not about me, it’s about the art.” So he kind of scoots to the side and is like, “Well if there’s anything you can tell me about this shoe, anything at all, I would deeply appreciate it.”

And all the glassworkers just briskly step forward and are staring at this shoe. Gesturing at it like, “May I?” and the prince is like, “By all means” and they’re picking up the shoe and poring over it.

And then they’re talking,

And then they’re talking a little more intensely about lead levels, and chemical compounds for this level of opalescence, and then they’re holding the shoe up in sunlight trying to identify what went into it to make the light shine through it so… prismatically. And then they’re debating about blowing vs. molds vs. carving.

And then they’re arguing.

And then they’re REALLY arguing and the prince is cutting in like, “Okay you guys are all getting really heated so I’m just gonna put this shoe back on its little pillow–” and all the glassworkers are so caught up in their argument that they barely notice but then ONE glassworker just breaks off from the group, pointing a shaking finger at the shoe that the prince is carefully placing on the pillow and there is fucking fear in his eyes.

“No man made that shoe. No human made that shoe. No creature of god made that shoe,” he has a thick accent and his voice is shaking as much as his hand.

“Come on, man,” says another glassworker, “Surely you don’t really think–”

But the thick-accented glassworker is furiously crossing himself and doing the gesture of the horns at the shoe while anxiously backing out of the room.

“I will have no dealings with that shoe. I am honored by your invitation, your Highness, but I must leave,” and he does.

So everyone in the reception hall is kind of standing around awkwardly.

“The shoe isn’t… that weird, is it?” the Prince says to the other glassworkers, and they kind of mutter amongst themselves for 90 seconds before quietly looking back at him.

They don’t have an answer.

So all princey boy has to find mystery girl is a shoe.

And the shoe is fucking weird.

Chapter 5: In Which We Meet the Queen Because Fuck You She Was Alive in the Rogers and Hammerstein Version

Chapter Text

The prince is draped across a cushy and appropriate fainting couch, it’s been about… 3 days since all of the glassworkers have been called into the palace and he is distraught. But with this whole, “literally no glassworker in the kingdom has ever seen anything like this slipper before (and at least one was convinced the slipper is cursed)” thing, he’s hit a dead end in the investigation. He also felt guilty about calling the glassworkers here when they all thought they’d be commissioned for something so he hasn’t really dismissed them saying, “I don’t know, make a chandelier or a greenhouse or something.”

Like, I need you to understand the whole “every girl in the kingdom claiming the shoe is hers should try on the shoe” approach was very much a last resort, at least in the Prince’s mind. In fact, news about the shoe hasn’t even left palace grounds yet. Hell, not even the king knows, which has been a very high priority for the Prince. He’s still trying to keep things low-key even though he’s clearly going full Hamlet—wearing fucking all black, sighing dramatically all the time, and pacing very quickly and muttering things under his breath that make the servants give him a wide berth and a wary side-eye in the palace hallways. The servants are muttering about mystery girl, too—since the prince has questioned the staff so thoroughly, and since she made such a strong impression on a handful of them, they can’t exactly help speculating. And Brad, under orders from the prince, has told the staff, “look, don’t bring this up to the king, he’s um… very busy. The prince can handle this.” And then the servants look back at the prince who is currently the saddest, wettest, most pathetic prince they’ve ever seen and they’re like, “…right.”

The king has mildly noticed the Prince’s transformation, but he’s basically under the impression of, “Oh he’s just being dramatic after that ball that he was complaining so much about. I had a goth phase, too. I’ll just give him space until he pulls himself together.”

So it’s business as usual at the palace but it’s business as usual with the weirdest fucking vibes ever and the Prince is draped over the fainting couch like “Brad she’s going to die and it’s going to be all my fault.”

“Or she’s going to get away with state secrets and it’s going to be all my fault,” says Brad. Brad pauses for a second, “Why do you think she’s going to die?”

“I don’t know if she’s alive!” The prince throws his hands up.

“…is this part of that ‘she was actually a ghost’ theory that’s been floating around the servants, because I still think that my neural agent theory is far more—”

Then a servant bursts through the doors of the prince’s quarters.

“Highness!” The servant blurts out, “There’s a pirate at the gates!”

“Pirate?” The prince glances up and he rushes over to the palace window. Indeed, just outside the gates there is a gorgeous-looking pirate with the hat, the coat, the thigh-high boots, everything. But there’s something familiar about her expression. Patient, regal… Wait—Regal? “Mum!” The prince blurts out and races down the stairs, barking orders at servants as he goes with Brad hurrying after him. Several footmen race ahead and open the palace gates and in strides the queen through the garden. She pretty much kicks the palace doors open and calls, “Darling, I’m home!” to the foyer, where there’s several glassworkers gathered around a small temporary worktable. The queen has two massive treasure chests under each arm dripping with gold and jewels with the slightest movement. She tilts her head at them with a slight ‘Hm’ and they all stare at her awkwardly until the prince cries out “Mum!” at the top of the stares, and then there’s a collective ‘Oh shit’ from the glassworkers as they recognize that this person in the sexy pirate outfit does in fact look very much like the portrait right behind them, and they all take a knee with a muttered, “Your majesty” as the queen sweeps into the foyer.

“Hullo, dear,” says the queen looking up at the prince, “I hope you weren’t too worried—”

The prince is stammering as he descends the stairs, “Well, to be honest, I probably should have been more worried—“

“God, just like your father…” the queen says with an eye-roll, “You know I have contingencies—”

“I know,” the prince says awkwardly.

Brad steps forward. “Your majesty, do you need help with—”

“Oh so lovely of you to offer, Brad,” says the queen, more or less shoving one of the treasure chests into his arms,

“I meant—” Brad starts but she stacks the other treasure chest on top of the first, “It’s—my pleasure—your majesty—“ he grunts under the treasure chests.

“I can always count on a strapping gentleman like you,” the queen smiles before whirling to face the prince. “Now, Chaz,” the Queen says, (another important point: only the king can call the prince ‘Chuck’ and only the Queen can call the prince ‘Chaz’,) “Do you care to explain to me why there are five glassworkers in our foyer?”

“I summoned them,” says the prince.

The queen looks mildly impressed because the Prince really doesn’t get out a lot. “Oh! For what?”

“Well.. I… thought they could… design a new chandelier? Or maybe a greenhouse.”

“Oh you know your father loves his chandeliers or greenhouses,” the queen is tossing off her sick pirate coat and a servant is fucking diving to catch it.

“He wanted us to look at a shoe!” One of the glassworkers pipes up.

“That shoe ain’t right…” mutters another glassworker.

“Shoe?” The queen arches an eyebrow, handing her giant feathered pirate hat off to a curtsying maid.

“Mum, you must be exhausted after all those pirates put you through—” the prince takes the queen by the forearm and is very quickly leading her away from the glassworkers and into a parlor, while Brad awkwardly lumbers after them, barely able to see over the stacked treasure chests and turning beet red with the strain.

“Privateers,” the queen holds up a finger.

“What?”

“They’re privateers now. Our privateers. Lovely chaps. Quite fond of musical theater.”

“…right…”

“What’s this about a shoe?”

“Oh you don’t need to worry about that or the glassworkers. Just a… little side project?”

“Mm,” the queen tilts her head at her son.

“But after all you’ve been through—” the prince starts but the queen motions to one of the servants.

“Would you draw me a bath, please?” and the servant nods and runs off. “Chaz,” she says, flopping back onto one of the parlor couches, “I won’t bore you with all the sword fights, homoerotic power struggles, drama, heartbreak, and musical numbers. Mostly, I’m just concerned with what I’ve missed. And I have a strong feeling I’ve missed an awful lot.”

“Well.. Dad…had… this one party…” the prince starts.

“Oh my welcome back party! I knew he had his heart set on it, poor thing… How was it?”

“It was—” The prince nearly says, ‘Terrible at first but then it was most amazing party ever and now it is also the bane of my existence, it’s very complicated and I’m in the middle of something that might be the most important thing in my life—I’m not sure but it feels like it.’ But he catches himself. “It was… um… uneventful.”

“Dearest?”

The queen perks up to see the king in the doorway to the parlor. She pushes herself up from the couch, “Oh Darling!”

And the prince just kind of glances off and twiddles his thumbs awkwardly while his parents throw themselves into a passionate, kiss-littered embrace, sentences barely making it out between kisses like,

“Oh, my love, were the pirates terrible?”

“Privateers, now. And they were perfect gentlemen. But the worst part was being apart from you, darling. Now you simply must tell me about the party you threw! Chaz was just telling me about it.”

“Oh yes, the ball! Every family of fashion in the kingdom was invited, he had a massive line of potential partners.”

The queen gives a steady, cool glance back to the Prince like, ‘That doesn’t sound uneventful, boy,’ before glancing back to the king and smoothing his hair, saying, “Oh darling, you know that’s an awful lot to put on our poor Chaz, he’s sensitive—”

“Well, we’ve talked about this! You know he can’t carry on the way he has. He’s a grown man, now!”

“He’s also in the room,” says the prince, a bit sullenly. Brad is turning purple in the face with strain at this point, still holding the two treasure chests.

“But I suppose it doesn’t matter, because when I was off checking in with the older lords in the smoking room, he just… disappeared from the whole party.”

“Disappeared?” The queen looks at the prince.

“It… all got a bit overwhelming!” said the Prince, brightening up and nervously trying to laugh things off.

“You could have given me some warning, Chuck!” the king blusters, “I was stuck spending the rest of the night convincing furious ladies that their daughters were in fact very pretty and then having to play rapid-fire matchmaker with any eligible bachelors present to make sure the whole thing didn’t fall into—into—wig-snatching, champagne-splashing, anarchy!”

A quiet wincing sound of strain, close in pitch to a kettle whistling, is now escaping Brad, still holding the treasure chests.

“But what does all this have to do with glassworkers and a shoe?” The Queen taps her chin thoughtfully.

“Oh that?” The prince straightens up in his seat, “Just—totally unrelated. Just a side project like I—”

Both treasure chests clatter to the floor with a clatter and a thud and the tinkling and ringing of spilling gold and jewels as the Captain of the Guard blurts out, “The prince slipped off from the party with a mysterious girl who held his attention nearly the entire night, but she fled the party at midnight. But now he can’t remember anything identifiable about her. Nor can any of the staff who interacted with her. Our only clue as to who she is, is the glass slipper she left. Which is why the prince brought in the glassworkers in the hopes of one of them identifying the shoe and telling him who they made it for. But none of them could. So we’re kind of back at square one.” He’s panting, still pink-faced.

And there’s a long pause in the room.

“Brad,” the prince says, “What the fu—”

“You said not to say a word to the king, you didn’t say anything about the queen,” Brad is still trying to catch his breath.

“You were with a girl all night?!” The king cuts in.

“Not all night, she left at midnight!” The prince blurts out.

“That’s basically all night,” mutters Brad.

“What was her name?” asks the queen.

And the prince opens his mouth like, oh he should absolutely have an answer ready for that but he just makes a short, half-squeaking “eh—” sound and new horror washes over his face. “Sheeee…. never said,” he says slowly.

“So… you don’t remember any identifying features, you don’t have a name, and all you have is a shoe?” The queen muses, “Well she must have made a very strong impression.”

“He did call her the love of his life,” Brad offers and the prince shoots him a look like ‘Brad I swear to god if I didn’t know you could kick my ass 6 ways to next Tuesday I would fucking destroy you right now.’

“AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME!?” the King is pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead.

“BECAUSE I KNEW YOU’D BLOW IT UP AND MAKE IT A HUGE DEAL!” the prince throws his hands up.

“IT IS A HUGE DEAL! IT’S THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!”

The queen loudly clears her throat and both the king and the prince catch themselves.

“Remember your blood pressure, darling,” the Queen gives the king a gentle pat on the head.

“Look,” the prince takes a steadying breath, “Just… the way she took off, she looked really scared.”

“Possibly because she committed a crime,” Brad peppers in.

“Brad,” the prince says in warning.

“Just doing my job, your highness,” Brad mutters.

“So…I do want to find her,” the prince turns back to the King and queen, “I have to find her. But if I do it the wrong way, I—I could mess something up and never find her, do you understand?”

“Chaz,” the queen says, gently touching the side of the prince’s face, “I can’t tell you how much it thrills me that someone would inspire this… this passion in you.”

The prince reddens a little at the word ‘passion.’

“But I have to ask—” the Queen keeps that steady, gentle tone of voice, “You understand that loving someone isn’t the same as wanting to save them, don’t you?”

“I know…” the prince says, glancing down, “But… the way she talks, the way she acts… she doesn’t think twice about helping people. And I swear, Mum, something felt off, like really off. I need to find her. If anything, just to make sure she’s okay. The way she treated me… I don’t think she’d hesitate to do the same if our places were switched.”

One corner of the queen’s mouth quirks affectionately at her son. “Well, if you feel so strongly about it, I’m willing to trust your judgment. However, I won’t have anymore of this—this…” she flails a hand, “’Sneaking around’ nonsense. Asking poor Brad and our dear loyal staff to keep secrets between the family? That’s simply not fair to put on them.”

“Well-put, your majesty,” Brad says, and the prince gives him a ‘yeah you WOULD say that, asshole’ look.

“And you can bet that we’ll do all we can to help you find this girl as well!” says the King.

“That’s… Greeeaaaaaat…” the prince is forcing a smile.

“My Lady?” A maid stands in the doorway and curtsies, “Your bath is ready.”

“Oh perfect timing,” says the queen walking off towards her and rolling her shoulders as the maid briskly walks off. The queen hesitates in the doorway before looking back at the king and prince, “And I don’t want you two arguing about this!”

And the prince and the king are talking over each other as she walks off.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, dearest!”

“Oh, mum, I’d never—”

“Why this is my flesh and blood we’re talking about—”

“Two peas in a pod!”

“Mm-hmm,” The queen walks off and the prince and the king listen to the footsteps of her kickass thigh-high boots down the hallway.

“Okay,” the prince draws in a steadying breath before pressing his knuckles to his forehead, “So now you know. But I am begging you. Begging you. Please don’t make this a huge ridiculous thing.”

“Huge ridiculous thing?” the king huffs, “Why would I make it a huge ridiculous thing? I don’t make things into huge ridiculous things.”

“You literally turned Mom’s ‘could-have-been-canceled-welcome-back-party’ into some giant matchmaking clusterfuck.”

“Where you met the love of your life! You’re welcome, by the way!”

“I–you–that’s–!”

“He has a point,” Brad pipes in.

“Oh—-pick up the damn treasure chests, Brad!” The prince storms off, leaving Brad and the king.

“So dramatic..” The king puts his hands on his hips, “You know, his mother was just as much of a firecracker at his age, too.”

Brad glances at the king and points to the treasure chests. “Er—Can I get another guy on this—?”

“Of course you can get another guy on that,” the king pats his shoulder.

“…you’re going to make it a huge ridiculous thing, aren’t you?” Brad says after a beat.

“Sir Brad, I am your King. I wouldn’t dream of making it a huge ridiculous thing. Oh–by the way–when you’re done with that, find Gabe the Valet and you two go find me all the criers for every town, village, and hamlet in the country.”

Chapter 6: In Which News of the Slipper is Spread Throughout the Kingdom

Chapter Text

Cindy’s in the market. She likes being in the market more than she’s willing to admit, because it gets her away from the house, and again… the house is all she has left of her parents, so it’s kind of guilty feeling good being away from the house, but the market’s hitting a little different today. After that night, after that taste of freedom, after that sobbing, agonizing realization that her home hasn’t been her home in so long, she likes the smell of the market air more. She’s contentedly swaying like kelp to accommodate the press of the crowd around her. She’s still humming the music she and the prince danced to, goddammit, and she’s running all the decidedly un-glamorous errands the stepfam aren’t willing to do. The stepfam doesn’t like how the soap maker’s hands are all fucked up from years of lye exposure, so Cindy gets the soap. The stepfam doesn’t like how the fishmonger smells, so Cindy gets the fish. The stepfam doesn’t like how the cheesemonger infodumps about goat social hierarchies and tyrosine crystals, so Cindy gets the cheese. The stepfam doesn’t like the tinkerer’s glass eye, so Cindy goes to the tinkerer whenever tinkering needs to be done. She’s always considered them all very pleasant people, oh but today they’re vibing even more. She is walking on air, this girl is still high on the afterglow of the ball. The cheesemonger is in the middle of a fascinating lecture on the impacts of goat diets on cheese fermentation rates when all of a sudden a loud bell rings.

“An announcement from the crown! An announcement from the crown!” The town crier is parading into the market square with a burly guard at one shoulder and a bookish valet clearly from the castle at the other.

The thrum of the market dies down with the ringing of the bell as the town crier hops on the border wall of the fountain, still ringing his bell.

“Hear ye, hear ye! In this, the year of our lord seventeen-or-eighteen-something-something, in our most proud nation of—” The town crier cough-sneezed hard into his elbow, “I bear a message from our most beloved king!”

Cinderella, along with literally everyone else in the market, perks up and moseys towards the crier.

“The prince has found his intended bride!” The crier announces and an excited titter goes through the crowd. Cinderella’s heart sinks a little. Well… whoever she is, I hope she’s nice, she thinks a bit sadly. And like… this is where we get depressing again because like… she likes the prince. Oh boy does she like the prince. By all definitions, she probably loves this guy, because he’s funny and clever and kind and an amazing listener and he talks so passionately about horses and whatever he’s reading and goddamn, he can dance, but ‘love’ is a dangerous thing for her, just like ‘hope’ is a dangerous thing for her. So she’s thinking, ‘Well there was probably a girl from a very politically advantageous family at the ball and probably the matchmaking thing was a whole formality that’s supposed to make whatever this pairing is seem more legit.’ Sure it’s pageantry, but it’s pretty solid pageantry. But the town crier goes on.

“However,” the town crier declares, “Before we were able to identify the young lady in question, she fled the premises!”

‘Oh, hey, I did that, too,’ thinks Cindy. Maybe politically advantageous girl was in a hurry? She’s probably very busy, what with being politically advantageous and all. Even if Cindy felt she really connected with Princey Boy, she’s not… super-strong in the self-esteem department. Y’know, years of being treated like shit will do that to you. So she assumes there has to be someone way cooler who totally has their shit more together and that’s definitely the Prince’s intended bride.

“But not before she left her shoe!” The town crier adds dramatically, “Thus it is declared: Whosoever fits the shoe in question, is the Prince’s intended bride!”

And this is where an abrupt sensation of of ‘Oh shit,’ flares through Cinderella’s body. Because leaving a party early, even abruptly, that’s not that unique, but leaving your shoe? She’s pretty sure that’s not something that would happen twice in one night. A questioning murmur ripples through the crowd. Shoes? Why on earth would the prince only be able to recognize his supposed bride by shoes?

“Fitting shoes… feh!” One villager scoffs next to Cindy and distracts her from her rising panic. He wipes under his nose with his thumb, “Back in my day, you stacked up 20 feather mattresses and stuck a pea somewhere in there and you let a girl sleep on it. If she woke up with bruises, you knew she was a princess. Hemophilia, don’t you know.”

“Hemophilia?” Cinderella stoops a little to hear him more clearly.

“Oh yes, hemophilia. All the royals have it. Bruise like pears, they do.”

“Huh…” Cinderella’s eyes scrunch a little, because she knows the prince mentioned wrestling a couple times when they were hanging out and talking, and that doesn’t seem like a very hemophilia-friendly sport, but then again, maybe this complete rando is an expert on the crown (go easy on her she doesn’t get out all that much). But then she draws herself back up straight as the town crier continues speaking.

“I will now present an artist’s representation of the shoe!” The crier announces, and the king’s valet next to him opens a scroll to reveal a detailed ink drawing of a crystalline shoe. A glass shoe. Her shoe.

The crowd ‘oohs’ at the shoe, because, you know Cindy was right to love the slippers as much as she did, and she was right to ask to make them the only permanent thing about the outfit, because they are fucking beautiful.

‘Oh,’ Cinderella thinks, looking at the drawing, ‘Well isn’t that something.’

And she just… fucking blacks out.

I passed out at the Dickens Fair a couple of years back and like, I was overheating and dehydrated and on my feet for too long, BUT MY POINT IS, even if everyone around you is wearing cute silly period outfits, passing out in public is still embarrassing as fuck.

“Miss? Miss! Miss, are you all right?” The voice comes in muffled in Cinderella’s ears and she flinches hard, throwing up her forearms over her face in a flinch. But a hand is feeling at the back of her head. Gentle pads of the fingers even gently pressing beneath her low bun to feel at the scalp. “Are you concussed?”

“People keep asking me that…” Cindy says distantly, eyes blinking out the sunlight and forearms still crossed. Squinting, she slowly lowers her arms and realizes there’s a hand on her back, propping her upper torso up off of the cobblestones. Her lashes flutter and she realizes the guard who had been standing near the crier is stooped over her, holding her. Several nearby ladies are tittering excitedly because holy shit this guy is a beefcake. Her shoulders bunch up. “Ah…”

“It doesn’t seem like you hit your head too hard…” Brad murmurs.

“I’m fine!” Cindy blurts out. Like she recognizes this guy from the ball (I mean he’s a big guy, he’s kind of hard to miss) and she knows the Fairy Godmother told her a memory charm was stitched into the dress but holy fuck she doesn’t know what’s going to happen if he recognizes her! Like yeah Fairy Godmother said she’d be a white fog but now also the shoe is in royal custody!! What does that mean?? Is she recognizable if she’s seen the shoe after the spell is broken? God, she should have been writing more stuff down the night of the ball.

“You sure?” Brad’s eyebrows raise.

“Mm-hm!” Cindy gives a tight-lipped nod.

“Welp,” Brad rises to his feet, pretty much picking Cinderella up by her shoulders and pulling her upright along with him. Her body goes completely rigid at the combination of physical contact and movement, there’s a brief second where Cindy’s feeling her feet dangle underneath her because holy shit this guy is huge, before he plants her on her feet like one might stick a surfboard upright in the sand at the beach. She wobbles for a second but quickly straightens up. “Er… thank you, sir…?”

“Guard Captain Brad Bradstone, miss,” he gives a shallow bow, “And it was nothing. I am sworn to protect all subjects of the kingdom.” In his bow he notices all of the soot physical contact with her has smeared all over his uniform. It’s all over his sleeves and there’s a significant gray smudge across his torso.

“Oh!” Cindy’s hands go over her mouth, “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine, miss,” says Brad, first instinctively moving to brush it off, but deciding not to bother upon seeing his hand now smeared with ash and soot, “And may I just say, I think what you’re doing is very brave.”

“B-brave?”

“It takes a lot of guts for a lady to break into a male-dominated work field like chimney sweeping, and you can bet you have the crown’s support in your endeavor,” says Brad, thumping his fist to his chest in a salute.

“Ah..” Cindy slumps a little, “Yes. Chimney sweeping.” She clears her throat, “Again, I’m sorry for causing such a fuss.”

“Eh, you’re not the first swooner, and you probably won’t be the last,” Brad shrugs, “Really commendable recovery time, though.”

“…so the prince really wants to marry the girl who left the shoe?” Cinderella fidgets with her fingers a little.

“Well, to be honest, all the ‘bride’ talk is embellishment from the king, but the prince did call her the love of his life,” Brad is preoccupied with trying to brush off all the soot on his uniform in a way that doesn’t make it spread more. It’s not working out too well.

“The love of his life?” Cinderella’s breath falls hushed and trails after him as Brad paces away. She quickly shimmies up behind him.

“Mm-hmm,” Brad rinses his sooty hands off in the fountain and then moves to wipe off his sleeve and—oh fuck that made it worse.

“Does he… talk about her?” Cinderella tilts her head.

“Talk about her?” Brad scoffs, and then leans close to Cinderella in a conspiratorial whisper, “He doesn’t shut up about her! Between you and me? He’s a complete wreck.”

“A complete wreck?!” Cindy’s hands clasp over her heart.

“Oh god yeah, he’s barely eating, he’s waking me up at odd hours with new conspiracy theories about what this girl’s whole deal is, and—“ Brad catches himself, “I apologize, miss, I shouldn’t be talking about this. It’s not appropriate. I would ask for your discretion on everything I’ve just said.”

“Of course!” Cinderella salutes, and then doesn’t really know why she saluted. This guy feels like someone you should salute at.

“It was deeply unprofessional of me,” Brad murmurs.

“It’s fine. It… sounds like a very stressful situation,” Cinderella folds her arms.

“Oh if only you knew,” Brad chuckles a little. He clicks his tongue. “look, you seem very nice, and I’d love to talk more but—”

“Brad!” A call comes across the market square and both Brad and Cindy glance up to see Gabe the valet giving a pointed glance to his fancy little agenda journal before glancing sharply back at Brad.

“…as I was saying,” said Brad, “We’ve got like… 10 more villages to hit up with this announcement today, so I can’t stay. But—hey—would you keep an eye out for me?”

“For what?” Cindy perks up.

“Just… anything suspicious. The prince may be all lovestruck, but if you ask me? There’s a lot of fishiness about this ‘mystery bride of the prince.’”

Cinderella stiffens a little. “I see…”

“I mean, no one being able to remember a single identifying feature of her? At one of the biggest parties of the year? And then rushing off as fast as she can? There’s something wrong there, don’t you think?”

“I… Um…” Cinderella is fidgeting again.

“Brad!” Gabe the Valet calls again.

“I gotta go,” Brad shrugs and then hits her with a quick finger-gun, “Best of luck with your chimney sweeping, miss.”

“…thank…you…” Cinderella says blankly as Brad rushes off.

Chapter 7: In Which the Slipper is a Non-Euclidean Object Which Defies All Laws of Physics

Chapter Text

A day has passed since word has spread of the shoe throughout the kingdom. It’s a pleasant late morning in the palace and the Queen is in the solarium working on one of her prized bonsai trees (she was terribly worried about them while she was away), mindlessly humming one of the showtunes she picked up from her stint with the pirates.

“Morning, dearest,” the king strides into the room, Gabe the Valet hurrying behind him with a massive stack of letters.

“Darling,” the Queen instinctively angles her head over to get a kiss on the cheek before the king takes a seat at his own desk and Gabe carefully sets the letter stack at his left hand and carefully tweaks the position of the royal ‘Done’ basket before bowing and hurrying off to attend to some other palace business.

“That’s quite a lot of correspondence,” the Queen prunes a stray leaf.

“It’s to be expected,” the King puts on his glasses before opening the first letter, “I did send word out about the slipper yesterday.”

“Ah. And how did that go?” the Queen spritzes her bonsai tree with a spray bottle.

“Brad reported swooning ladies in no less than 4 towns, so that’s promising,” the King is reading a letter and quietly scratching out response on the royal stationery.

“Is it?” the queen glances up.

“Well, there’s bound to be someone, isn’t there?”

“Chaz seems to have a very specific idea of who this ‘someone’ should be,” the queen muses.

“How specific can it be if he can’t even remember their face?” the king gestures airily with his quill before resuming writing, “And you know he gets…. odd.”

“He gets that from you,” the queen smirks, “So you drafted the announcement together?”

“Well, he sort of… huffed off before I had the chance to discuss it with him, and you know the way he spoke about the whole matter as if time was of the essence.”

“Mm-hmm,” the queen is pivoting the bonsai tree in its pot and making sure it looks nice from all angles.

“So I just drafted up something right quick with Gabe and we called in all the town criers to spread the word, and that was that.”

“…and what did Chaz think of the announcement?”

“He was riding his horse and sulking until well into the night,” the king shrugs, “Servants said he got back late last night. I think he was wandering the hills sighing again.”

“He’s gotten very into that since that book he read two years ago.”

“Mm-hmm. So I just had a copy of the decree sent to his quarters for him to read at his leisure.”

“Mm,” the queen nods before gingerly carrying the bonsai tree over to its little shelf in the solarium and setting it just so. She picks up another bonsai tree next to it and carries it back to her worktable, pulling out a tiny pair of shears from her apron pocket. Both she and the king are quietly, contentedly working for the next few minutes, until a bloodcurdling, bellowing scream is heard upstairs. The queen very narrowly avoids mutilating her poor little bonsai tree at the surprise and her shoulders bunch up before she gives a sharp glance over to the king.

“…what did the decree say?” she asks flatly.

“I paraphrased him a little,” the king shrugs.

Rapid bootsteps thunder down the stairs in the foyer, Brad is heard yelling, “Your Highness!” from the foyer and thundering down the stairs after him. The main doors to the palace are heard creaking open and closing with a thud, and then a short yelp is heard outside in the palace gardens before a splash. There’s distant, indistinct arguing and more splashing sounds.

There’s a beat between the queen and king before the queen glances at one of the liveried servants at the solarium door. “Keating? Do be a dear and go check on them, would you? And report right back.”

“Of course your majesty,” Keating the servant gives a quick bow before briskly walking out of the solarium.

“I told you, he’s sensitive,” says the queen, trying to survey any damage she might have done to her bonsai tree.

“If he doesn’t like the idea of everyone in the country having an immediate reaction to his whims and feelings and constantly over-analyzing him, then I have some bad news about being king,” replies the king.

The servant steps back into the solarium, “Your majesties? I have surveyed the situation and spoken with Guard Captain Bradstone. We have surmised that the prince is not trying to drown himself.”

“Pardon?” the queen tilts her head.

“Apologies. What I should have started with was, the prince has thrown himself into the garden’s reflecting pool. Guard Captain Bradstone wrestled him out but the prince threw himself right back in. He seems to be using the water to muffle his own screaming. But he is regularly coming up for air. In order to scream more, you understand.”

“I understand,” the queen nods, “Thank you, Keating.”

Keating bows, pleased with himself, and resumes his position at the side of the solarium doors, only to immediately get slammed against the wall with a door as the prince kicks the doors open, dripping wet and seething.

“INTENDED BRIDE!?” his voice rattles the glass of the solarium as he wrings his hands. Through the door it’s clear an equally sopping wet Guard Captain Brad has followed him back, however Brad is caught up in a mess of maids and footmen who are all suspiciously eager to make sure he doesn’t get too much water on the floor by toweling off those sopping wet pecs and calfs and biceps of his.

“Chaz, that is not how we treat our staff,” the Queen says crisply.

“No, you listen, you–!” the prince glances over his shoulder at Keating, who is primly trying to stem a massive nosebleed, “Oh shit–Keating–oh my god your nose is bleeding–”

“It’s fine, your highness–”

“I am so sorry–I seriously didn’t know you were there–I mean–okay I know that’s kind of a spot for people but I was kind of caught up in things and I forgot–”

“Occupational hazard–”

“Here, take my handkerchief–”

“I have my own, your highness—”

“At least go to the infirmary to make sure it isn’t broken–”

“I’m sure it isn’t broken, your highness–”

“Please?”

Keating gives a glance to the King and queen, who give him a nod before he briskly walks off again. There’s about fifteen seconds where the prince is trying to re-situate himself back into his rage but it’s kind of clear that the whole moment has been thrown off-kilter by that incident so he’s just there fucking dripping all over the floor, his fingers twitching uselessly in front of him, still trying to figure out how to react.

“So I take it you read the decree?” the queen offers the prince a lifeline over the emotional and mental log jam that is going on within him.

The prince shakes his head and blurts out, “INTENDED BRIDE!?” again, even though it’s very obvious it doesn’t have the same impact as previously, swinging his head over at the king.

“You said ‘love of your life,’ I just paraphrased,” the king shrugs.

“You—You don’t get to–I–”

“You know, if you storm off again, you’ll only have less control over this whole thing,” the king is stamping a letter with the royal seal.

The prince presses the heels of his hands to his forehead and then draws in a long and furious breath, then he grabs one corner of his coat and angrily wrings it out.

“You know what this whole thing is going to do, right?” the prince huffs, “This is going to make literally everyone in the kingdom scrabbling for social footing come forward to secure power based on foot size.”

“And your idea for finding the girl whose shoe this was would be…?” the king floats the words out and the prince opens his mouth and points a finger, but then hesitates and closes his mouth into a grimace before folding his arms, pressing all the unpleasant wetness against himself.

“We’ll get people who weren’t even at the ball claiming the shoe is theirs,” the prince mutters.

“Oh, that part’s easy,” the king shrugs, “We’ll just filter them by the master of ceremony’s list.”

“…she was never announced by the master of ceremonies,” the prince says quietly.

The king blinks a few times. “So we… filter her by everyone who wasn’t at the ball?”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” the queen pipes up, “I mean, you said you weren’t paying attention to a number of debutante introductions. Maybe she just thought you weren’t interested and focused on the hors d’oeuvres table until she piqued your attention.”

“I wouldn’t–” the prince starts, but then catches himself like, ‘Oh fuck, maybe I really was that much of an asshole.’ But it doesn’t feel right, because the way she talked, it just wasn’t calculated enough. She said some kind of stupid and deranged-but-goodhearted shit that no one in their right mind would say to the prince, and he adored her for it–was that calculated? How would anyone be able to calculate that? But he doesn’t know!! He doesn’t fucking know!!!

The prince presses his knuckles to his forehead for a few seconds, thinking hard. His eyes flick to the stack of letters on his father’s desk. Fuck, fuck, this is really happening. “Call back the glassmakers,” He says, his head jerking up with determination.

“But they just got started on the greenhouse with a chandelier in it,” the queen clicks her tongue.

“Call them in!” the prince blurts out.

And so the glassmakers are called back in to the foyer, where the prince, still soggy, is standing very formally next to the glass slipper on its little pedestal. The prince once again presents the glass slipper to them.

“I need you guys to make 100 exact replicas of this shoe,” the prince, “I mean exact exact. The measurements cannot be off. At all.” If they’re going to go through with this whole bullshit, they might as well expedite the process to everyone matching the shoe size, right? And then from there the prince can scan through them and find mystery girl! Easy peasy!!

The glassmakers all bow and are like, “It shall be done, your highness,” because they’re craftsmen and they take their jobs very seriously, and holy shit, what a challenge of one’s technical skill, right? And by no less than the fucking crown prince himself!! So two days pass, and the prince is vibing, he’s rocking in his seat like “I’m so fucking smart,” all these letters are pouring in to the palace like “Oh yeah the shoe is totally mine” and the prince is like “yeah you fucking would say that, but we’ll fucking see.”

But then…

One of the glassmakers shows up at the prince’s quarters like, “Your highness, may I have a word?”

And the prince is like, “Oh of course,” and ushers the glassmaker into his quarters and there’s tea set out by the staff and the prince is still so hyped, he is so proud of himself for bringing in these glassmakers who will make finding mystery girl that much easier, but the glassmaker is uneasily swirling his tea in its cup.

“Is… there an issue?” the prince asks.

“There is,” says the glassmaker, and his lips press together, “I… don’t know how to really articulate this, your highness, but the shoe… defies measurement.”

“D-what?”

“I mean.. we have been measuring the shoe to produce a replica that fits your qualifications, but we cannot come to a consensus of the shoe’s dimensions. Everyone’s measurements are different.”

“…what are you saying?”

The glassmaker draws a mathematical compass out of their pocket, “At first we were all measuring with our own tools and comparing notes, then we were all measuring with each others’ tools–and we were not able to come up with a single consensus on the shoe’s size. Not once. To be frank, your highness, the shoe does not obey the laws of physics. We’ve even made the point of making our own copies of the shoe independently they ended up being wildly different sizes.”

“That–” the prince blinks several times, “That’s not… possible.”

“That’s what we’ve been saying, your highness,” the glassmaker huffs, “I apologize on behalf of my craft and all of my peers but… we cannot give you an exact replica of the shoe. I–” the glassmaker huffs a short breath through his teeth for a moment, “Your highness, I dearly apologize for what I’m about to tell you but… I took the liberty of taking the slipper home.”

The prince blinks, “What?”

“I replaced the slipper with my own replica for the night, my replica is marked with my signature and I can easily show you my replica and the original–but the point is, I took the slipper home. I know it was a breach of trust, but this was all just so strange I needed to…test something. I assure you the slipper is perfectly fine, it’s back on its respective pedestal, but I needed to see what happened if the slipper was placed.. on a foot. Call it a hunch.”

“Okay…” the prince says slowly.

“You see, I have two daughters. Wonderful girls, But the older of them has very small feet like me, and the younger takes after her mother… just… massive feet. She was voted ‘Miss Rat-Stomper Seventeen or Eighteen Something Something’ in our village back before we got engaged, you know. My wife, not my daughter. But either way, the cobbler really gouges us, you know?”

“Mm,” the prince is politely tamping down the urge to scream, “Goddammit man, get to the point!”

“And I had each of them try on the slipper–” the glassmaker goes on, and then he looks, up, utterly bewildered, “And wouldn’t you know it? My older daughter said the slipper was too small, and my younger daughter said it was too big! Just for experimentation’s sake, I had my wife try it on, and she said it was too small–of course, I kind of expected that–Miss Rat-Stomper and all.”

“Right?” the prince is trying to keep up with the very concept the slipper defying measurement and now just arbitrarily deciding whether it was too small or too big for someone.

“But then I had my older daughter try the slipper on again, and then it was too big!”

“What?” the prince’s brow crinkles.

“The shoe defies measurement, and the shoe defies fitting,” said the glassmaker, “You could probably try it on yourself, and see. You could even compare my replica, if it so suited your fancy.”

There’s a brief mad millisecond as the prince considers it, but honestly, dude has pretty big feet and he’s kind of concerned about damaging the slipper through his own curiosity.

“I’ll… consider it,” the prince says at last.

The glassmaker excuses himself and the prince is left alone in his chambers.

A couple hours pass and Guard Captain Brad pops into the prince’s chambers with a gentle knuckle rap on the door.

“Highness?” he calls into the dark chamber, “It’s dinner time. Tonight’s main course is roast duck with a peach glaze. Your favorite.”

There’s no response.

“Prince?” Brad says, pushing into the room a little more.

“I didn’t dream her, did I?” the prince’s voice comes distantly from the other end of the room.

“You shouldn’t be sitting in the dark, your highness,” says Brad, turning on a lamp.

“You’d tell me, right?” the prince’s voice is taut, “If–if this was all some elaborate prank because I’ve been a stupid jerk up my own ass for too long.”

Brad paces through the dark chambers a few steps just to see the prince on his bay window nook, his forehead on the glass, staring out into the night beyond the palace.

“If it’s all a joke, it’s… it’s been very funny, but I’d be okay with it ending now,” the prince’s voice is thick, “I get it, you know?”

Brad feels a stab of pity for him then. Like god, the prince can sigh and rail and throw himself into the palace reflecting pool, but now it’s clear that holy fuck all of this doubt is just torturing him and he’s willing to accept the idea that everyone in the palace is cruel enough to pull that kind of shit with him rather than the idea that he really met someone who could mean that much to him and he might never find them again.

Brad clears his throat. “Your highness… this whole… matter… is just as much of a mystery to the rest of us. Plenty of servants want to find out who this girl is just as much as you do. I want to find out who this girl is just as much as you do.”

“The shoe doesn’t obey the laws of physics, the shoe doesn’t–” the prince catches himself, lifts his chin to take a long weary breath before bonking his forehead on the window glass again. “Why would it be like this? She’s one of the only people who’s ever made me want to…”

“I know,” Brad replies and the prince glances over at him.

“Respectfully speaking, your highness,” Brad starts hesitantly, “You’re… far away all the time, you know? Either off in your books, or literally far away on a horse somewhere. You’re polite enough, but… I think you’ve talked to more people, engaged with more people, in these past few days just looking for this girl than you have in years,” Brad smiles, “Anyone who brings that out in you is someone I’d like to get to know.”

The prince looks at Brad, and then sets his jaw with determination, drawing in a steadying breath. “I am going to find her,” he says, staring out the glass of the window, out into the vast night, “Even if it takes,” he draws in a shaky breath, which he huffs out through his teeth, “Socializing.”

“You want dinner?” Brad offers again.

“Yeah I think I’ve forgotten to eat for the past sixteen hours,” the prince says vacantly.

“Oh I can tell,” says Brad.

Chapter 8: In Which Cindy is Every Drunk Girl Who Has Ever Comforted You in a Bar or Club Bathroom

Chapter Text

“It’s foolproof,” the prince is fitting on a tricorne hat.

“It’s fool-something,” Brad mutters.

“It’s genius,” The prince is putting his hands on his hips and turning about in the mirror.

“It’s an enormous complication to security,” Brad is leaning against the wall in the Prince’s quarters.

“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it first,” The prince is trying on a spare pair of reading glasses he nicked from his father’s office and checks his reflection again. He blinks a few times at how much clearer his own image is. Shit, he may actually need a prescription.

“I didn’t think of it because it’s an enormous complication to security,” Brad frowns.

“But I pull it off, right?” The prince steps out from behind the peacock-printed folding screen in full servant’s livery. He’s not wrong. The servant’s livery has fully activated the some-guyification of the prince. This is literally just some guy. It’s a perfect hide-in-plain-sight disguise. I mean he still looks good because goddamn if the king and queen don’t have amazing taste when it comes to their servants’ livery, but this brightly colored fancy lil outfit with perfectly tailored piping and fancy white gloves is enough to heavily distract from the prince’s face. And of course there’s the hat. The king and queen allow for the servants to have a little fun with their hats, decorate them with a feather or maybe a little sprig of flowers or maybe a cute brooch. They say it’s a ‘fun’ thing but also it’s this whole thing where they feel really rude going ‘You there, boy!’ and it’s hard to tell who’s who from far away with the uniforms so the hat flair doubles as visual shorthand for who’s who. The prince has opted for a hawk feather he found on one of his rides and he thinks this is really cool. It’s only kinda cool. But still he really looks like a servant. Brad honestly wonders why the prince’s jumpy, antisocial ass didn’t try something like this sooner.

“You pull it off,” Brad concedes, “But I’m not entirely sure what you mean to accomplish by doing it.”

“Easy!” The prince throws his hands up, “I finally figured it out! All the staff talked about how she was helping them all night at the ball, right? That’s one of the reasons why she showed up so late and well after the master of ceremonies finished announcing everyone!”

“Uh huh…” Brad says slowly.

“So if I’m a servant, and she treats me like shit, I’ll know it’s not her!”

“And what if all the shoe candidates treat you perfectly pleasantly?”

“Well it’s more than that, she goes out of her way to help people! She.. she grabs lemons from the garden! She sews… flowers in buttons!”

“Which reminds me, Danvers asked if you were going to give his jacket back, because he really does like it—”

“It’s evidence, Brad! He’ll get it back when we get to the bottom of this!”

“And you think coming along to every house along with me, will help you do that.”

“I know I’m going to know her when I see her, I—I—I can feel it.”

“And because you don’t trust the shoe.”

“PEOPLE HAVE SIMILAR FOOT SIZES AND THE SHOE DOES NOT OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. ”

“We’ve only had the laws of physics… like… what, 100 years? 200 years?”

“Longer. I mean, Newton cribbed a lot of it from Ibn Al-Haytham so…”

“You really do read too much. Anyway, what I’m saying is, maybe there’s another rule we haven’t thought of, yet.”

“And it chooses to manifest itself in a shoe?”

Brad makes an ‘I dunno sound.’ Brad is veering dangerously close to accidentally creating a new early theory of entropy before his brain manages to go, Wait the prince is tagging along for all of this and now I have to recalculate every house-casing for threats to the prince when he is not immediately recognizable as the prince. Do we leave a body-double at the palace? Goddammit I only have a couple hours to re-tool this entire fucking process.

The prince is looking at himself in the mirror again. He takes in a short huffing breath. “I think it’s definitely going to work.”

And for the most part it does.

Like, don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is still tedious as hell, but thankfully, a lot of ladies have been taken out of the running already, not by any previous shoe-related process of elimination from the Prince’s own investigations, but because, true to his word, the king matchmade the hell out of that ball in the Prince’s absence, and a lot of the attendants at the ball had already been paired off in perfectly respectable courtships. So the list is actually significantly reduced already thanks to the king’s efforts.

Still, plenty of the potential shoe-wearers don’t notice the prince any more than they notice their own furniture when they’re chatting up Brad and Gabe the valet. Sure, on a family scale, there are plenty of attempts at buttering up Gabe and Brad with tea and biscuits and fancy pickles and cold cuts, but thankfully Gabe is probably the biggest hard-ass in this story and is terrifyingly good at polite expediency, so the prince is just kind of watching Brad and Gabe speed-run through all these parents and their pretty daughters going, “Oh good sirs, welcome to our humble abode, won’t you have some terrine?” (a disturbing number of respectable families have been convinced that terrines and aspics are very fashionable and they’ll be the only ones cool and modern and cultured enough to offer it to the palace representatives—they are not.) But honestly… the prince is right. He can pretty much feel right off the bat, before the shoe is even tried on, if this isn’t the house—if that isn’t the girl.

They still try on the shoe, because obviously it’s a whole thing, and there’s this whole process about the whole thing. They measure the foot and take down the foot’s measurements on a fancy little table for future reference and research onto the properties of The Shoe that Defies All Measurement and Fitting (The prince thinks he’ll make a graph later… maybe a bell curve?? Mostly they just end up accidentally inventing those shoe-size carpets you see at shoe stores), but then the shoe doesn’t fit, and well… to be honest the reactions to the shoe not fitting turn out to be the most interesting parts of the whole thing.

“I’m having an allergic reaction. Foot’s just… swollen right up. This isn’t my usual foot size.”

“I’m really dehydrated. That’s why it’s clanking around like that. Let me get a couple of glasses of water and try again.”

“Mother? Would you have one of the maids get the lard tub?”

“Look! Behind you!” (Cue furious grunting of continuing to attempt to shove the shoe on when everyone turns around)

“Um… more cold cuts?”

“Oh thank god, this means I can join that convent.” (Cue a scandalized gasp and a furious splutter of “Amelia!” from a mother.)

And the thing is, you’d think your brain would end up glazing over all these house calls, especially when you’re looking for The Love Of Your Life. You’d think like… you’d get sick of it, get sick of people, but it turns out, when the Prince isn’t put at the epicenter of a weird ritualized glam-fest of girls competing for a chance to hop on his dick for status, when they aren’t even recognizing him as the prince, he’s actually seeing people in the context of their own homes. Like, sure, it’s definitely very appearances-minded from every family involved because they’re presenting their homes to representatives of the palace, but you pick up on vibes, you pick up on dynamics. It’s like Kitchen Nightmares: Bourgeoisie Household Edition. But also you see families that are trying to secure their futures, and girls who just want to do right by them.

There’s this one house, right? Beautiful estate—it’s on a hill all laced with vineyards and during the carriage ride there the prince is glancing at Gabe and he can tell Gabe is like, “God I hope this is the girl” partially out of exhaustion from this whole ordeal, partially because… yeah it’s a really nice estate and you wouldn’t mind sitting out on the veranda with a nice glass of chilled rosé. God Gabe wants a nice glass of chilled rosé right now. This house probably has the best snack spread yet with fancy toasted spiced nuts and sharp cheeses and olives and this really great flatbread stuff?? And the wine, holy shit, like… these families have been shoving forward black tea and lemonade and super sugary brandy to them all day, but now there’s a nice perfectly balanced white wine in these cute stemless glasses? And they’re even offering them to the prince, who, as far as they know, is a footman! Like after a day of all these families being really weird and desperate and stilted, the environment is just low-key and hospitable enough for both Brad and Gabe to be like, ‘God let this be Mystery Girl.’ And there’s this very wonderful family with loads of kids that are showing them around the estate with a very pretty eldest daughter, with bright green-brown eyes and big curly brown hair and a wide mouth that lends itself to charming expressions. And like… the prince is kind of thrown through a loop because the way this girl acts around her siblings… maybe it’s mystery girl? She’s kind of a mom, kind of an asshole when the mom can’t be, and all-around this peacemaker dealing with a messy but lovable family. Of course she wouldn’t talk about her family because family can be messy, right? Maybe all his thoughts of danger and peril and abuse for Mystery Girl sprang from him being so fucking removed from everything. Maybe he has no fucking good judgement of anything.

But then they try on the shoe.

And the shoe doesn’t fit.

And the girl’s mouth hitches and she’s just like, “…all right,” a little stiffly.

And you feel this collective crestfallen exhale from her parents and all her siblings. Like her next sister is only 11 and the sister after that is 8 so it’s like… yeah… all their hopes were resting on the eldest.

“You… you can take some of the flatbread with you, if you like, sirs,” the mother pipes up.

“I’m sorry,” the girl cuts in, “For… for wasting your time.”

“It’s fine,” the prince suddenly steps forward from his spot next to the door.

The girl instinctively springs to her feet and curtsies. “Your highness,” she says with a bow of her head.

The prince freezes. The girl’s whole family freezes. Brad freezes. Gabe is taking down notes, I don’t know what the fuck he’s writing down.

“…you knew?” The prince says slowly.

The girl looks at her family and draws herself up straight. “May we have the room?”

The parents very quickly herd all of the siblings out of the room. The prince gives an ‘It’s okay’ wave of his hand to Brad and Gabe and they back out as well. Not too far so they can’t spring into action if anything funny happens, but enough for a bit of discretion.

“I was three feet in front of you. Did… other girls not recognize you?” the girl asks.

“I’m pretty sure they’ve either got amazing poker faces or you’re the first.”

The girl gives an amused ‘Hmph’ and eases up where she’s standing a little. “I think… I should also apologize. I mean, yes I wanted to marry you, but I didn’t really care about… well… you… or my qualifications as queen, mostly I just wanted to…” the girl draws a breath through her teeth, “There was a drought a few years back and it threw our wine’s taste off and we had to raise our prices to cover the water cost. We lost a lot of customers and a lot of favor with the noble families that would usually be our patrons. Our wine’s better now, if anything, the acidity of the grapes that survived the drought lent to a better complexity of flavor with the new grapes, but… It turns out… a reputation is not as easily rebuilt as a vineyard is regrown.”

“You were trying to protect the people you love,” the prince shrugs.

The girl pushes her brown curls back from her face and looks down. “Big feet… great for crushing grapes…fitting into slippers.. not so much.”

“Mm,” the prince takes off his tricorn hat and itches at the back of his head, “You could… try it on again?”

“What?” The girl tilts her head.

“The slipper it’s like… it’s not a normal shoe. I’ve had glassmakers all over the country look at it. We’re mostly doing the foot-measurement thing to see if there’s any pattern, but like… so far? On a data-scale? Foot size is completely irrelevant. Maybe you just need to… try again?”

“It’s not me,” the girl clasps her hands in front of herself, that wide mouth quirking off to one side.

“How do you know?”

“Because I was looking at you the moment you saw her. The girl at the hors d’oeuvres table, right?”

“Do you remember what she looked like?” The prince asks on reflex, his voice denser and more desperate than he really means to sound but holy shit, a flicker of hope?

“No,” the girl replies and the prince’s shoulders sink, “I’m sorry. I really wish I could. But I saw her a while before, in the powder room. Another one of the girls was crying, some drama with her cousin or something, and.. and this girl, the girl you’re looking for, she was… holding her hands and fixing her hair, and helping dab away the smudges in her makeup, and she was saying, ‘It’s okay, you’re so pretty and brave. And this is going to be a wonderful night, I promise you, I promise you. Even if everything seems horrible now, you’re in this beautiful place. And you’re going to dance and laugh and you don’t have to let everything that hurt you take this night away.’ Just… I don’t think I would have remembered it, if not for this distinct feeling I got, that the girl who fits this slipper knew hurt more deeply than the girl crying right then would ever know.”

“I got that feeling too,” the prince says vacantly, “I mean—I wasn’t in the powder room—”

“I know, your highness.” The girl shrugs, she exhales. “I wish you all the luck in finding her.” She huffs a little. “If I may speak freely?”

“You may,” the prince replies.

“My family has this one super old story—something about a gold ball and a pond or something? But—when she’d finish the story, my grandma would tell me this: sometimes… a situation is well out of our understanding, and if that’s the case, we have to remember that appearances aren’t everything, that you have to trust your heart and your gut, and you should keep an eye out for the people who care for others at their lowest moments. Even if everyone else thinks they’re gross.”

“Like rats…?” The prince says absently.

“Rats?” The girl shudders hard. And that shudder tells the prince, ‘Nope. Definitely not mystery girl.’ “With their freaky little… clawed people-hands? Eugh. No. I was thinking… more like frogs?”

“Frogs have people hands,” the prince says vaguely.

“Frogs’ hands are webbed with four fingers. There’s a difference,” the girl rolls her eyes.

“Your highness?” Gabe sticks his head in the doorway, “I don’t mean to rush you, but…”

“Oh—” The prince glances back at the girl, “Er—thank you again for your hospitality.” He bows.

She curtsies in turn. “I hope you find her, your highness.”

“Thank you,” the prince replies.

“And once you find her.. if you need wine for the wedding…” the girl gestures vaguely and the prince snorts.

“We’ll be in touch,” he says, before stepping out with Brad and Gabe.

—-

“I’ll be honest, your highness, I’d really hoped it was her,” Gabe mutters, still taking notes in the carriage as the family waves them off.

“Brad? The palace provides wine for the castle guards, right?” The prince glances over at Brad.

“Mm-hmm,” Brad is munching on some flatbread. I mean the lady of the house said they could take some.

“And… I wouldn’t say they’re picky, are they?” The Prince tilts his head.

“You could cut it with pig piss and they wouldn’t notice,” Brad shrugs.

“Brad!” Gabe barks.

“I mean… no, your highness.”

“Let’s… order a few casks from this vineyard to have on tap at the palace?” The prince suggests, “And a few more casks for free access to the public at the harvest festival this year.”

“A wise decision, your highness,” Gabe says, taking notes, “And a bold bit of proactivity, if I do say so myself.”

“It’s not that bold, I mean it’s good wine, we all tasted it,” the Prince mutters.

“He means it’s the most you’ve done in like, five years,” Brad says, still chewing on flatbread, “Aside from the glassmaker thing, I guess.”

“BRAD,” Gabe says, exasperated.

The prince just leans his head against the glass of the carriage window. “So how many more houses today?” He asks.

“Two more and then back to the palace to recap?” Gabe suggests.

The prince draws in a long tired breath. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this,” he says.

He keeps thinking of mystery girl while he’s seeing these families, but it’s not 100% this doomed yearning he’s been going through like in the previous days of his investigation—Mystery Girl would help these people. She’d make friends with girls like this. He keeps thinking of what she said when they were dancing. “I don’t like that, that’s fucked up!” And like… it’s really something to see these carefully laid out social dynamics actively poking and prodding these people into this weird ass situation. Like he has such a love-hate relationship with the shoe at this point, but he’s weirdly thankful for it, because it just seems to… disrupt every human preconception and every social construct it comes in contact with. It brings out a weird and authentic side of people, just as much as it refuses to fit, the crazy royalty-high stakes of the situation bring out this realization that people have so much different stuff going on.

That used to be so exhausting for him. Figuring out what’s going on with people, keeping it all lined up, helping where he can. It’s still exhausting, but the exhaustion doesn’t hit quite the same. He hits the mattress that night and he dreams… not of mystery girl… not quite. He’s chasing this ideal of a person but crashing into how people are over and over again. So this person he sees in his dream, he’s not sure it’s mystery girl, but it doesn’t matter if it’s mystery girl. It’s a bitter, complicated, stupid, selfish, awkward person, and he decides, in that moment, that he is going to do everything in his power to make sure they can live their best life.

Because he’s the goddamn prince. And that’s his fucking job. And dream or not, that’s what Mystery Girl would do.

And just a few feet away from his pillow, that damn glass slipper is glittering on a pedestal in the moonlight.

Chapter 9: In Which Cindy Has No Interest In Being That Wife Chained Up in the Attic in Jane Eyre

Notes:

I swear I don’t mean for these chapters to keep getting longer and longer. But also no gods, no editors. I am George Lucas and the year is 1997, baby.

Chapter Text

The latest shoe candidate is sprawled lazily on her couch with her foot extended as Brad awkwardly tries to jam the shoe on. This girl is cool. The prince thought Mystery Girl was cool when he met her, but not the same kind of cool as this girl is cool. This girl is cool-cool, with thick dark lashes and semi-wiry black hair and a Cleopatra nose. She looks more bored about this whole thing than anyone here. Her parents are standing behind the couch nervously, shooting glares at Brad like it’s somehow his fault he can’t get the shoe on.

“Yeah—okay—that’s—” cool girl clicks her tongue, “It’s fine. You don’t have to keep trying.”

“Oh—she’s just being shy—I’m sure it’s just—” her mother cuts in.

“It doesn’t fit, Mom,” she looks back at Brad, “Flat feet,” she says in a low voice, and she subtly flicks her eyes in her dad’s direction before mouthing ‘from his side.’ Brad gives a sympathetic, conspiratorial nod. Gabe very quickly takes notes of this. At this point all of the foot data they’ve collected from throughout the kingdom is a podiatrist’s wet dream. They don’t really know what they’re going to do with it, because podiatry as a branch of medicine isn’t really established yet, but goddamn this is a lot of data while the prince is on his desperate quest for a girl who makes clothes for rats and far be it from them to not write it down. The prince literally has five different charts back in his quarters at the palace and there’s yarn on the walls–it’s a fucking nightmare.

“But, Eunice, darling, we wrote a letter to the king. You don’t just…” the mother lets out a high manic laugh, “Claim the shoe will fit to the bloody king! Then what are you supposed to do when the shoe doesn’t fit, hm?”

“There’s been general amnesty over the er… shoe confusion, madam,” Gabe glances up from his own notes, “There will be no claims of perjury.”

“Oh…” the mother noticeably eases up where she’s standing, “That is… good to know.”

“Does this mean we can use my dowry for art school like I asked?” Eunice looks over her shoulder at her parents.

“Eunice!” Her mother reddens.

“You’re an artist?” The prince pipes up.

“It’s just a hobby for a cultured lady—” the girl’s father speaks as Eunice is opening her mouth.

“I work with oils. But I still dabble with tempera,” Eunice cuts him off.

“Darling, they aren’t interested—” her mother starts.

“I… actually have it on good authority that the prince is looking for a new portrait,” says the prince.

“Oh—‘cuz the current one makes him look like a still-curing ham?” Eunice tilts her head.

“Eunice!” Both her parents scold.

“What? It does!”

“Yes,” the prince smiles, “If you have a portfolio, I’d be happy to bring it back to the palace so he can look it over—”

“The palace needn’t waste it’s time with—” her mother starts but Eunice is already springing up off the couch.

“It’s upstairs! I’ll be right back!”

“…quite liberal with your footmen, aren’t you?” Eunice’s father looks at Gabe.

“He’s a new hire,” says Gabe, looking over his shoulder at the Prince who’s kind of glancing off, casually.

—-

“I feel the need to remind his highness that this is not a shopping trip,” Gabe says crisply as they’re all riding in the carriage.

Brad self-consciously sets the really cool new bayonet piece he got from the blacksmith’s house they visited about three houses back aside. Gabe is also writing with a noticeably fancy new pen that he got from a distinguished pen maker whose daughter tragically did not fit the shoe.

“It’s not a shopping trip,” the prince is leafing though Eunice’s portfolio, a lot of charcoal sketches, though she also has some oil miniatures on card stock, “I’m just… being proactive! Like you said! Have you seen this?” He brings up a lovely miniature of a king charles spaniel on a velvet pillow, “I mean, it’s great right?”

“That dog’s eyes aren’t facing the same way,” Brad murmurs.

“That’s just how his head is,” the prince shrugs.

“Ah, well then from that alone, I can see why she would be a good portraitist,” Gabe resumes his note-taking.

“That’s probably an insult, huh?” The prince scratches at his stubbly cheek. Like he knows he has to shave in order to blend in as a servant, but again, this dude has been sleepless and sad and wet and pathetic as hell despite all the fervor of the shoe-quest.

“It’s been a very long few days, Highness,” Gabe replies.

“But we’re at the bottom of the list!” The prince leans forward, “So that means we’re close, right?”

“Well… possibly but….”

“But…?”

“Have you thought about what would happen if.. you don’t find her after these last few houses?”

“Well that’s when we enter phase two,” the prince says, pulling a folded up piece of paper from the interior of his jacket and unfolding it to reveal a complicated set of plans, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think we might be able to work something out if we take lots of observational notes on the local rat population, so we’ll need to send a team down to the sewers–I’ll be accompanying, obviously, and, failing that, expand the shoe search outside our primary region and, failing that, again checking the rat population. Then we can cross-reference that with our previous data and—”

“Your highness,” Gabe’s voice is taut, “Have you considered that perhaps, the woman at the ball has no desire to be found?”

“Well—that would suck!” The prince blurts on reflex, “Like… what, she’d think the ball was the only thing she could have to keep her happy until she could…” the prince trails off and thinks a bit harder, “Unless… given her means, the ball could be treated as her last hurrah before she leaves the country. But that doesn’t make sense either! She—the way she talked about everyone here… she cares about people! She cares about her home! Would she really just.. leave everyone—?” His voice seems to drown in his own throat. And for a brief couple seconds he imagines the possibility that this mystery girl is some kind of hardcore 18th or 19th century rock star like his mom and he couldn’t make her give a shit about anything if he tried… but she did give a shit! She gave so many shits about so many things! She gave shits about things that made him give far more shits about things than anyone could ever imagine! Who would just… inflict that on another human being? Could someone that brilliant be that cruel? But he shakes his head and remembers that one girl’s advice: trust your head. Trust your gut. And not everything is as it seems. He stiffens his shoulders in his seat, “What’s the next house? The last house on the list, right?”

“I cannot say if I’m sure it really counts, highness,” Gabe’s lips draw back from his teeth with distaste.

“Oh god, please don’t tell me—”

“I’m afraid so,” Gabe says quietly and everyone in the carriage has this collective ‘Ugh’ moment because here’s the thing: for a lot of these girls, even though the ball was basically a byproduct of the queen being kidnapped by pirates, the king getting anxious about not having any grandkids yet, and the prince generally not getting out much, most of the ball guests saw, “All eligible ladies of families of fashion” on the invitation and basically went, “Oh this is a job interview.” Which further added to the prince’s misery of the whole situation. So it’s these weird high-stakes very socially intense vibes under the guise of “heehoo it’s a fun swanky party.” Neurodivergent nightmare, unless you’re Cindy who, the entire time was operating under the assumption that this is her one fun night out like… ever.

So like… the depressing part is, when you have all these guests treating introductions basically like a job interview, they basically treat all of their otherwise engaging and charming features as a box to be ticked—it’s weird, it’s stilted, it’s forced and the really sucky part is, all of these boxes to be ticked make it really easy for you to be generally unmemorable as a debutante, basically turning the whole fucking night into one tedious-ass process even though that wasn’t the king’s intention at all. Yeah he wanted the prince to find love but also the prince was such an “I don’t want to be here” weirdo that everyone ended up falling back on typical debutante behaviors and just fucking lined up. And like… that’s kind of what’s made this whole slipper quest more enjoyable than anyone thought it would be because now princey boy gets to know all these girls in their own homes, and see their whole situations with their families, and like I said, for the most part, they’re all really cool or friendly or funny girls who are just trying to do right by their folks. And like… y’know, people being pleasant and unmemorable and all lined up, that can be draining, sure, but the shitty part is… you remember the assholes. You remember the people who made a big stink about being groped by one of the footmen even though it was clear to literally everyone around them that footman was just trying to help them through the door because they got jammed in there from their fucking crinoline/pannier and that was a fire hazard.

But anyway, that is a long rant to sum up the point that: The prince absolutely remembers the stepfam, and he remembers that they are overall people with the worst fucking vibes you can possibly imagine. Some girls were hitting the prince with “I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips” these guys were hitting the prince with “I’m currently ovulating so chop-chop” and also being noticeable assholes to all the other guests, saying this dress was so last season or spreading rumors that one girl that they had perceived to be their toughest competition had lice so that the entire fucking ball wouldn’t come within ten feet of her. They’re dicks. They brought the whole vibe of the party down. And now, the prince is headed to their house. Because checking the slipper for everyone in the kingdom means checking the slipper for everyone in the kingdom.

——

Cinderella’s head is buzzing as she’s hanging up laundry on the line near the hazel tree. She knows the prince is coming, so her body seems possessed by this energy which doesn’t seem 100% her own, but she also knows she’s gotta keep a cool head so that the stepfam doesn’t pick up on the idea that she might be fucking getting out of here. Deep breaths, Cindy. She keeps the slipper on her person at all times in a handy little very-well-hidden pocket in her skirts she initially sewed in there to carry around a rat comfortably.

“He said he liked duck so I made curried duck mince pies,” she’s saying to the hazel tree. She doesn’t cry on it as often, but knowing the fairy godmother is there encourages her to talk to it more, these days, “I had to dip into my own pocket money for it, but it’s worth it, right? I mean, I know he’s probably not going to show up, because he’s so busy with prince stuff, but I just felt it in my gut, you know? Should I have made a dipping sauce? I mean it’s already a lot of fat and spices…maybe something yogurt and mint based? I still have time for a yogurt sauce…” Cindy’s own stomach growls and she just huffs as she hangs another sheet on the line and she breathes in a steadying breath. “Just… keep it simple. Be cool. You were cool that night, right? You can do it again,” she says to herself, and glances over at the hazel tree. “Right?”

The hazel tree, being a tree, doesn’t really respond.

“Right,” says Cindy, pulling another sheet out of the basket.

——

“She’s talking to the tree again,” the stepsister sneers, looking out the window of the upstairs study.

It’s worth mentioning a this point that the stepsisters are the kind of people where like… if you hung out with them long enough, you would be acutely aware that they are very used to treating each other like shit. Like, yeah, I get it, playful rudeness can be fun, but when you’re calling each other bitch at every opportunity? And like, Jesus, what happens when you’re just sitting there? Like… at that point that’s saying a hell of a lot more about you than you think it is. Like yeah! Maybe you’re a naturally self-deprecating person! But why are you passing that work onto someone else instead of like… I don’t know, being with people who make you want to make things better for yourself? But you know that’s not immediately available for everyone. Sometimes you’re an asshole, and you’re surrounded by assholes, and tragically, that is the case for the stepfam.

“It’s only a matter of time before she burns the house down with all of us in it,” the stepsister folds her arm and turns away from the window, “I still think we should send her off to bedlam before then.”

“Then we’re stuck with your cooking, dumbass,” the older stepsister is on a loveseat, leafing through a particularly mean-spirited social pamphlet.

The younger stepsister huffs but both of them flinch to attention as the stepmother enters the room.

“Girls,” the stepmother says crisply.

“Mother,” both of the stepsisters, say, neither really moving from their position.

“I’ve been thinking,” the Stepmother steeples her fingers, “Given the… unfortunate situation regarding Cinderella’s name and the name on the deed to the house, we might run into some… awkward questions from the representatives of the palace.”

“I mean, we’ll just say she’s a servant, right?” The older stepsister shrugs from the loveseat.

“We could say that, but…” the stepmother steps up to the window, watching Cinderella hum and talk and hang laundry below, “Something’s.. shifted about her, lately. Something’s off. I don’t trust it. I think it better if she’s out of the way while the palace representatives are here.”

“Send her on an errand?” The younger stepsister suggests.

“Mm… no…she’ll know the timing’s off, and the townsfolk will as well—freaks tend to cling to each other like that, and I’d hate for it to turn into a bigger embarrassment,” the stepmother chews her thumbnail.

“I think it would be funny if she got to try on the slipper,” the older stepsister smirks, “See how it’ll never fit on her nasty feet. Maybe that’ll get things through her thick head.”

“Maybe…” the stepmother muses, watching Cindy pick up the empty laundry basket and sing to herself as she heads inside.

The stepmother watches her path, waits two seconds, then steps over to the study’s bell pulley and rings it.

“You’re calling her in here now—? But we haven’t—“ the younger stepsister starts.

“Quiet, dear,” the stepmother says with a crisp, ‘do not fuck with me’ pleasantness before taking a position in the center of the study so that she is the first thing that Cindy sees when she opens the door.

“Oh! Stepmother!” Cindy is way too bouncy and cheerful for anyone’s liking, “The mini-pies are cooling and the lemonade’s chilling as well, and the parlor’s all ready for our guests.”

“That’s all very good dear, but you should probably wash up before they get here. Best draw a full bath. Heaven forbid you’re all sooty and sweaty in front of the palace representatives. ”

Cinderella gasps excitedly. “I can use the bathtub?” Maybe having royal guests over is making Stepmother more generous?

“Oh heavens, no, child, you’ll leave a ring. No, your basin should suffice.

“…right…the basin… of course… how silly of me,” Cinderella says slowly.

“And once you’re all cleaned and dressed, do be a dear and bring up our best port from the cellar? You know, the one with the er… goat on the label.”

“…you mean the unicorn?”

“Yes, that one.”

A ripple passes over Cinderella’s face. “…that was a gift from my christening. My father told me I could open it on my wedding night.”

The entire stepfam bursts out laughing at the words ‘wedding night’ but Cindy’s still trying to reason her way through it like “And port’s a dessert wine, so even though it pairs well with duck, I’d say it’s more of an evening wine so—”

“Married??” The older stepsister is laughing too hard to hear any of that and Cindy’s voice dies in her throat.

“You?!” Says the younger stepsister.

“Oh how I miss your father’s sense of humor,” the stepmother wipes a tear away, chuckling.

“Me too,” Cinderella says distantly.

“But seriously, Cinderella, how can we serve representatives of the palace anything but the best?”

“Right…” Cinderella says quietly.

“Now wash up, child,” the Stepmother says, moving away from her in a signal of ‘You’re dismissed.’

“Stepmother,” Cinderella curtsies before heading down the stairs.

The entire fam is silent as she descends. The stepmother closes the door.

“What was that?” The younger stepsister pipes up, “I thought you said—”

“Sweetie, what I am going to ask of you next will require significantly higher brainpower than any you’ve displayed in your tutoring, do you think you can do that for me?” The stepmother cocks her head.

The stepsister gulps.

—-

Cindy usually has a cauldron full of hot water on the fire for laundry purposes, so drawing the bath doesn’t take too much time at all.

It’s kind of nice, even if Cinderella’s bathing basin is so small it kind of has her stuck in a balled-up goblin pose to soak, and she basically has to do a yoga standing-forward-fold pose to wash her hair, but the rats bring her violets, lavender sprigs, and rose petals from outside to float in the water as she bathes.

“I mean.. they said ‘Intended bride’ so I guess opening the port here would count. Sort of,” she mutters to a rat perched on the edge of her basin as the other rats sniff around the dusted-off bottle of port she retrieved from the crawlspace under the house. “Hey!” Cindy perks up, “You guys should look your best too, right? Go check my sewing box. Grab what you want.”

The rat hops down from the edge of the basin, gallops across the floor, climbs up a moth-eaten tablecloth and rifles through the box for a few moments before scurrying back to Cindy with a fancy little rat-sized green band jacket in its teeth.

“Oh excellent taste, my good sir,” some water sloshes out of the basin as Cindy fits the little jacket on the rat before wrapping herself in a thin moth-eaten towel and stepping out of the basin herself. The rat seems to be very proud of its tiny jacket, then gives a look at the little ground window of the cellar.

“All right, but don’t get it too dirty,” Cinderella opens the window and the rat hops into her open palm as she lets the rat out into the yard. “Show-off,” she snorts. She puts on one of her nicer dresses, a nicer pair of shoes, wrings her hair out and puts a bit more effort into it with a crown of braids rather than her usual messy bun, then she grabs the bottle with a shrug of resignation, slips the slipper into the handy hidden rat pocket on her nicer dress, heads up the cellar stairs, moves to open the door.

The door doesn’t open.

She blinks and tries it again.

The handle just feebly wiggles with her grip.

Locked. It’s locked. She knows it’s locked. It’s not the first time she’s been locked down here, and this is when that first flare of panic burns from her heart to the back of her neck and she looks angrily at the bottle of port. How could she be so stupid! Why would the stepfam waste money being actually hospitable when they would obviously hock that port for all it was worth? She thought it was just a complete dick move, but it turned out to be a cover-up for an even bigger dick move! Stupid! So distracted with dancing! And with the shoes! And with those stupid little pies! Her pies! She never made the yogurt sauce! Wait—focus—life being ruined. Okay, Cindy, think. You can get out of this.

She hustles down the stairs and goes to the cellar door and it’s—stuck? Bolted from the outside somehow?? She tries to get out of that basement window, but she can’t fit. Curse her stupid powerful mopping-and-clothesline-sculpted shoulders!

And like… this is the part where people determined to hate Cindy and who, for some reason, love to beat down on the literally abused and traumatized, will say, “Oh, well I would have just started screaming. Any decent person from the palace would rush in because it’s just fucked up to hear someone screaming for help and not do anything.”

But here’s the thing: Cindy knows, so long as she is in the fucking basement, she is not in charge of the narrative. Much like this is a time where catching a cold at the wrong time of year can very much kill you, this is also a time where there’s mutterings all over the place of this family sending an ‘unwell’ relative to the country or that family keeping another ‘unwell’ relative contained to their chambers because sending them to an asylum is so inhumane! Not to mention humiliating for the family! Oh and everything’s just been so overwhelming with all this shoe business it really hasn’t helped her delusions at all! Not to mention the fact that the guard captain already mentioned he thinks she’s sketchy! Cindy’s locked in the basement now, and she’s lived with the stepfam calling her stupid and crazy for talking to rats for enough of her life to know it is not hard for them to sell the ‘she’s insane’ story.

And now, the palace carriage is pulling up to the estate. Cindy can hear the stepfam rapidly shuffling around up there, and her eyes flick back to her little worktable, where several rats are nosing around cute little vests and pinafores, and around their little rat feet, shining in the light of the basement window, are sewing needles.

Chapter 10: In Which Tasty Pies are Consumed and Also Maybe the Slipper Fits Someone or Whatever

Notes:

Content warning for Foot Trauma and Blood.

Chapter Text

Admittedly the stepfam sucked so much that the prince more or less expected the house on haunted hill for their estate, but it turns out the estate is about equidistant between the palace and the village, and is snuggled up in a semi-wooded, semi-farmland area. As the carriage pulls up to the estate, the prince’s eyes fall on an oddly noticeable hazel tree at the side of the grand house.

“Welp,” Gabe huffs as he opens up the door and looks at Brad and the prince, “Let’s get this over with.”

The prince is scanning around the area as they walk up the path to the front door. This whole house is suspiciously nicer than he expected it to be, and it’s throwing him off. You can tell when any kind of domestic worker takes a lot of pride in their work, and that’s clear here, but what kind of person would be happy to work for assholes like these? Okay, settle down, he probably doesn’t have the whole story. Maybe they’re really nice to their own housing staff and assholes to everyone else? But where is their housing staff? He feels like he should have at least seen a footman or something with how well the estate looks, but it’s… unnervingly empty. They step up to the door and Gabe gives a brisk but polite knock.

The prince and co. plaster on their politest smiles when the stepmother opens the door.

“Madam,” Gabe sticks with his usual script that the prince pretty much tunes out at this point, “I am the king’s valet, and this is the captain of the guard.” (there’s no need to introduce the Prince, who, as far as anyone is concerned, is a footman), “We’ve come here on behalf of the palace to investigate your claim regarding the glass slipper.”

“Oh gentlemen,” the stepmother says, with a sweep of her arm, “So glad you’ve finally arrived! Please, do come in!”

As soon as the prince enters, the smell of the most delicious food in the world hits his nostrils. There’s pastry, and spices, and a rich, fatty, smoky-gamy poultry smell.. could it be… duck? His stomach audibly growls.

“This way,” the stepmother nearly sings the words as she leads them to the parlor where two okay-but-very-mean-looking girls are standing. On the table is a small pile of miniature pies garnished with nasturtium flowers and sprigs of parsley. Still warm, still fragrant. The prince is looking at the pies much longer than the stepsisters. Holy fuck he wants those pies so bad. There’s even a point where he’s doing that thing, where like, you flick your eyes really quickly down at the food back up to the person who has the food like, “do I have permission to take the food?” But he’s like, basically invisible to both stepsisters so he’s just stuck smelling the very rare food that’s managed to break through his stress-induced appetite barrier. Brad, meanwhile, has already started helping himself with an audible “mm!” Within minutes he’s already taken down four mini pies, and Gabe’s steady nibbles have taken down two. Two!! This is Gabe the Valet we’re talking about here! They cannot resist the curried duck mini-pies! And who can blame them!

“These are amazing!” Brad says with his mouth half full, “Where is your cook?”

“Ah, I’m afraid they’ve already… left for the day,” says the stepmother.

That’s kind of weird, the prince thinks, You’d think they’d want feedback from the palace…

“Do they have the recipe, at least?” Gabe perks up, “The palace kitchens would be very interested in serving this, themselves.”

“It’s a secret family recipe,” says one of the stepsisters.

“Very secret,” says the other stepsister.

The prince’s eyes narrow slightly at this. His eyes flick down the girl’s clothes and hair. No spots of flour anywhere, and not a whiff of spice on either of them. They’re densely perfumed. These guys were nowhere near the fucking kitchen! How can they call it a family recipe?

The stepsisters are now launching into this long-ass spiel about how it took the palace this long to find the real owners of the glass slipper, talking over each other, both talking shit about each other, both talking shit about all of the honestly delightful shoe candidates who came before them.

“Did you see that girl with the curly brown hair, big mouth and giant nasty feet? I mean, you didn’t think that idiot could have fit the shoe, right?”

“Or the girl with the massive ugly nose?”

“Or the girl who kept crossing herself and looked like she was about to piss herself and cry the whole ball?”

The prince stiffens where he stands. Oh no, they are not talking shit about Dutiful Winery Daughter, Eunice, and Amelia. Not on his watch! But he can’t say anything because he’s the goddamn footman!

“Well, as delightful as this food is,” Gabe says, shifting the subject, “We do have a schedule to keep—”

“Madam, may I use the washroom?” The prince suddenly pipes up, “All the tea from these meetings just goes right through me.”

“The servants’ privy is—” the stepmother starts and then catches herself, “I mean, obviously a footman of the palace should use our best washroom. Second door from the staircase.”

“…thank you, madam,” the prince gives a hollow bow and briskly walks out of the room. And like, of course now his hyper-observant detective ass is internally going ‘She is absolutely hiding something. Why would she direct a servant away from the servants’ quarters? I have to find the servants’ quarters now. This house doesn’t look big enough to really have a proper servants’ quarters unless it’s—” as soon as he’s out of sight, he pivots in the hallway near the stairs and glances toward the scullery and suddenly the voices of all of the servants he interviewed after the ball come flooding into his mind.

She fixed this button on that jacket.

She knew how to get a stain out with lemon juice.

She was really interested in how to make the food.

Her best friends are rats.

He walks down the hall. His ears are burning and he feels like he’s moving through molasses. There’s a door. There’s a door at the end of the hall. He can hear rats scuttling in the walls. He presses an ear to the wall—are they all moving in one direction?

But then there’s a bloodcurdling scream and the sound of a shatter and all of a sudden the prince’s heart plummets into his gut. He sprints back to the parlor where Brad and Gabe are doing the fitting, except the older stepsister on the couch is wailing.

There’s shards of glass flecked with red all over the floor.

“She—she kicked It off—I didn’t have time to grab it—Oh god—” Gabe’s hand goes over his mouth.

“The shoe bit me, Mother, you must believe me, it bit me!” The older stepsister insists.

“You broke it…” the prince’s voice is more blank than angry as he hangs in the doorway.

“Because it bit me!” says the stepsister, and suddenly a horrified holler escapes her, “My TOES!”

“What?” The prince glances over and his own hand claps over his mouth. Her pinky and… ring? toes are missing. And the stumps are bleeding. Dripping and spurting all over the carpet.

The younger stepsister lets out another earsplitting scream. Oh my god it is not helping.

“You—you could have warned us there were such consequences for not fitting the shoe!” the Stepmother says through gritted teeth to Gabe.

“Madam, We swear, we had no idea—” Gabe starts but the Prince can’t contain himself. HE JUST LOST HIS ONE FUCKING LEAD.

TO ASSHOLES.

“Consequences?!” The Prince blurts out, “This is the first time I’ve seen this happen! With every other girl in the kingdom it’s just either been too tight or too loose! Ma’am this is the first fucking time I’ve seen anything like this! What the hell did you do to piss a shoe off!?”

“You have no right to speak to me like that, you lowly servant!” The Stepmother barks.

“You will address His Highness the prince with respect!” Brad says on reflex.

And the Prince huffs a breath through his teeth like, ‘Goddammit, Brad.”

“…what?” Says the stepmother.

“MY TOES!” The stepsister wails again and the prince flinches to attention, looking sharply to Brad, “Send one of the footmen to the palace, have them send in a royal surgeon on the swiftest horse they can,” says the Prince. It’s one of these princely lines that has always lurked ready at the back of his mind, but he never imagined himself really using, especially not for someone who pisses him off as much as this asshole.

“It shall be done, your highness,” Brad gives his shallow bow before hurrying off. The prince swears and pulls off the kerchief of his own servant’s livery, quickly wrapping it around the stepsister’s bleeding toe stubs and applying pressure.

“OW!” The stepsister cries out, “That hurts!”

“Just shut up and just focus on not passing out,” the Prince says darkly.

“You’re the prince?” The stepsister winces.

“Yes,” says the prince.

“…and you’re… worried about me?” The stepsister says breathlessly.

“Yeah,” the prince says, looking up at her sharply, “I’m the prince. It’s my fucking job to worry about the subjects of my kingdom.”

The stepsister’s lips purse together and there’s kind of a beat here where she’s almost, almost picking up on the whole, “nobility isn’t just a matter of birth” deal. I don’t know. Maybe give her a couple years. Maybe.

“I hope you will see our family properly compensated for this horrific incident,” the stepmother adds.

“Yes,” the prince says hollowly, his eyes flicking down to all the glass shards on the floor and the blood that’s now staining the knee of his servants’ livery, “Of course.”

It’s a whole thing. The surgeon does arrive extremely quickly because goddamn if the horse they sent them in on isn’t the fastest horse in the kingdom, he honestly looks a little shaken by the time he arrives because holy shit is that horse fast, but he’s able to stitch up the stepsister’s toe stubs—they do look for the stepsister’s toes to reattach them, but they don’t find them. The prince really, really doesn’t want to think that the shoe ate them, and neither does anyone else, but that is absolutely on everyone’s minds as the royal surgeon is carefully wrapping the stepsister’s foot in gauze. The prince apologizes for the incident, and, with everyone deeply uncomfortable and really not wanting to be around each other, they make the arrangements to leave.

The stepfam watches as the carriage takes off.

—-

Cindy, god bless her, has deeply, deeply hoped she is the dastardly criminal that the guard captain thinks she is, because a dastardly criminal would be able to pick this fucking lock. But she isn’t. She’s just a nice girl staring at no less than 9 sewing needles jammed hopelessly into a keyhole and she’s furiously trying to hold back tears. She’s heard a bloodcurdling scream and muffled yelling about toes but she honestly isn’t paying it that much mind because the stepsisters scream like that whenever they see a rat. She has to focus, goddammit but shit, shit shit, there’s no way in fuck she’s picking this lock. And like… why would she?? She’s never picked locks before! The village tinker’s shown her some interesting stuff so she knows tumblers exist but she doesn’t know how to make them do the thing without a key!

If I was half the girl the prince thinks I am, I would be out there, she thinks, If I was half the girl fairy godmother thinks I am, I’d be riding in the prince’s carriage by now.

But then this little furious fire lights up in her heart. The fairy godmother wouldn’t want her to give up. The fairy godmother would want her to go down kicking and screaming, and probably biting someone to the point of drawing blood. The fairy godmother is a manifestation of this goddamn column of PAIN in Cinderella and GODDAMN if Cindy is going to let that agony amount to nothing. She draws in a furious breath through her nostrils, gives a glance toward the cellar door leading to the garden outside and huffs it out. Her hands ball into fists and she descends the stairs.

—

“Highness…” Brad’s words are slow, unsure as the prince is walking back towards the carriage, “I—I know you really cared about her, wherever she is and whoever she is,” Brad casts his eyes downward, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the prince says the words on reflex.

“If it’s…. worth saying, your highness,” Brad says slowly, “I think.. going through all this, as painful as it has been, I think it’s been really good for you. It’s… it’s been really good to see how much you care about people.”

“It’s one thing to care, Brad,” the prince says quietly, “It’s another thing to actually fucking do something.”

“You’re going to do a lot of things, highness,” Gabe says quietly, “I’m sure of it.”

“Mm,” the Prince just slips into the carriage and closes the door.

He leans his head against the glass of the carriage window as it rattles on, staring out at the woods surrounding the estate, then the fields beyond as the carriage rattles down the road. The prince is weighing Brad’s words in his head like… okay, maybe the idea of someone is enough to get you off your ass to try and put some good in the world, but at the same time… fuck, it hurts. It hurts so bad. Only remembering the idea of a smile, of a laugh…of someone grinning and calling you on your shit… it fucking hurts his heart more than any of you can fucking imagine. The scenery is rolling by, fallow fields, the odd handful of trees set up as a windbreak, and the fence that trails along the road. Wooden, and unassuming, bleached by sunlight. The prince lets his eyes bump over the fenceposts as they roll by. Fencepost… fencepost… fencepost… fencepost with a rat in a little green marching band jacket on it… fencepost…

The prince suddenly jerks to attention and smushes the side of his face against the glass of the carriage window, looking behind him. There is a rat, in a swanky little green band jacket perched on the fencepost that is rapidly rolling behind the royal carriage. Its nose is high and twitching in the air. The prince stares after the rat shrinking In the distance in awe and blinks several times. Just before it falls out of view with the carriage’s progression, it hops back into the grass.

“I suppose with the slipper broken, we’ll have to make an announcement that—prince?” Gabe the valet looks up from his agenda.

The prince means to shout “RAT IN A JACKET” but what comes out sounds more like “RAJACKINRAT” and Brad goes, “What” and the prince just fucking opens the carriage door and fucking jumps out and tucks and rolls out of the full-speed moving carriage, bouncing painfully in the dirt road.

“Your highness?!” Brad yells out the swinging carriage door but the prince has already sprang to his feet and broken into a dead sprint across the field back to the house. He vaults over a fence, clips a hedge hard with his shoulder, stumbles over the roots of several copses of trees, and then hops another fence to find himself at the rear of Cindy’s family estate. His shoes fucking skid hard to a stop in the dirt, and he’s looking around this cute little garden and farm yard. It’s an adorably kept garden for something owned by such horrible people, but he’s not getting too caught up on that detail. He’s feverishly looking around. Where’s the rat? Where did the rat go? The rat in the jacket—where is it??? And then there’s a… whispering, rattling sound and he glanced over to see a hazel tree that seems to be moving… a little too much for it to just be the wind. It’s swaying… pointing? He narrows his eyes for a second but then suddenly flinches hard at a loud, ‘WHUNK’ sound and a pained, muffled grunt, and he glances over to see a cellar door.

A cellar door barred with a criss-crossing shovel and rake.

He rushes over.

Now, okay, maybe the smart thing to do here may have been to yell through the door ‘Who’s in there?’ Or maybe ‘what happened’ or even just ‘Hello?’ But this boy is amped up on enough adrenaline and desperation to kill a younger, bedridden, asthmatic version of himself. So instead, he yanks away the shovel and rake barring the cellar doors and takes hold of both cellar door handles and flings them open, only for Cindy to fucking rush headlong into him.

And like, I need to stress here that the prince is all about horseback riding, fencing, and wrestling. Like, do you know how much that builds up your core and quads? Those are all VERY CORE AND QUAD-FOCUSED SPORTS. This dude is cute but he is STURDY, but now scrappy Cindy has just caught him hard with a bony shoulder/elbow combo right to the solarplexus like a goddamn axehead, so he’s making this “Phwoor” noise on contact and Cindy has maybe a 28% idea of what is currently happening because she’s just fucking SPRUNG UP meaning to literally bust open a cellar door and instead she’s… hit something… not quite soft-ish?? Definitely not a cellar door???

And then WHUMPF they’re both sprawled out with Cinderella on top of the prince in the chicken piss-drenched dirt of the farm.

“Guh..?” The prince makes a noise that’s half-suppressing a gag before glancing down and seeing hair clotted up with soot and ashes. Cindy’s covered in a fresh layer of soot after her last ramming attempt sent her painfully rolling down the stairs and into the ashes near the fireplace.

Cindy’s eyelashes flutter. Her head jerks up because she still has half a mind to race after the carriage that’s just taken off, but then she looks down because she doesn’t know what she just hit.

And then she sees the prince.

It’s him! It’s him! Sure he’s wearing (now crooked) glasses, and servant’s livery now, and his hair is all mussed up and there’s the five o’clock shadow (Wow she really likes the five o’ clock shadow), but she knows those eyes from when they were dancing together! It is fucking NOW OR NEVER. It is fucking GO TIME. So she just braces both hands in the dirt on either side of the prince’s face and this whole marvelous gracious script she had in her head goes right out the window and she just shouts, “I HAVE THE SHOE!” In the prince’s face, except it comes out more like “IVETHASHOE!”

“What?” The prince is staring up at her. Oh fuck I don’t know how to explain what he is currently going through right now. You know that whole ‘tip of your tongue’ sensation when like… you know something, you know you know something, but it’s not clicking? It’s just not coming? And it is the worst fucking mental itch. Imagine that, but a million times worse. The weight of her—he knows the weight of her from when they were dancing, from when he was obsessively running through every detail of that night through his head night after night. He knows the feel of her back muscles, and he’s pretty sure it’s the same feel as this fucking battering ram that’s sprung out of that cellar. This face. He has to know this face. He wants to know this face so fucking bad. He can see the fear in her eyes and he knows the fear in her eyes, the fucking timing of her expressions, but every human is capable of having fear in their eyes so there’s just this fucking tidal wave of “is it you? Please, please, is it you?” crashing against these walls of fucking despair.

“I—I have the other shoe,” Cinderella’s voice comes slow and dense to her.

But then there’s the sound of a door slamming at the front of the house and Cinderella flinches. And fuck, the Prince knows what her flinching feels like in his arms from the sound of that first midnight bell ringing.

“What are you doing?!” The stepmother barks, “Get off of him you wretched little thing!”

Another visible flinch goes through Cindy, but she stays still, her mouth pinches for a second before she says again, “I have… the other shoe.”

“Cinderella, did you not hear me? Do you know how much of an embarrassment you’re making of yourself?”

Cinderella winces, her eyes squeezing shut, but she feels a gentle hand touching her forearm and she opens one eye.

“You have the other shoe?” The prince is staring up at her. He looks like total shit compared to the ball, but she thinks she likes it more. The five o’ clock shadow, the eye bags, the mussed up hair… this is the fucking dork who snuck off with her and let her have half of his plate of food without hesitation.

“Yeah,” she says, pushing back from him. He props himself up to a kneeling position and she pulls the other glass slipper out of the pocket on her dress. And he recognizes it. This dude has spent hours and hours poring over the other glass slipper, he would recognize its partner in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat. It’s the other half of the pair, and this girl, this girl who is slamming against some wall in his psyche with the frustration and distrust of one’s own memory, has the other shoe. “Um… here—” she pushes the slipper into his hands and yes, yes, he knows the weight of it. He turns it over in his hands, just marveling.

The stepmother is going on like, “Cinderella, you will listen to me or so help me you will never—that is to say—” The stepmother can’t properly threaten Cindy the way she always does! Not when the prince is fucking there! Oh but the prince picks up on that. Dude has grown up with a complicated web of dynamics of servants and lords and advisors and tutors and he knows, he knows the exact fucking look on someone’s face when they can’t use their usual ammunition. He looks back at Cindy.

“…you have the other one…” he says, very slow, very quiet.

“Your highness, she’s not well, I simply must—” the Stepmother starts but the prince holds up a ‘Shut the fuck up’ hand and she falls silent.

The prince holds the slipper back out to Cinderella and she takes it.

“Show me,” he says, “Please.” It’s impossible to keep all the desperation in his voice out of that ‘please.’

She turns it over in her hands. So careful, so loving—trying to have as little finger contact as possible even though the Prince has determined through multiple experiments that the slipper doesn’t fucking smudge. The way she looks at this shoe—it’s just as much hope and despair for her—it’s a memory of the best fucking night of her life, and it’s also a manifestation of her fear that she will never again know happiness like she knew at that ball.

“Do you need more time?” The Prince asks but that just seems to prompt Cindy out of her daze and the complete three-way pile-up of hope and love and terror.

She shakes her head, then pushes back onto her butt, extends one leg, stubs her heel against the dirt to get off her normal shoe, and then stoops forward and pulls the glass slipper on. After so long of watching people furiously try to jam their feet into the slipper, or seeing the slipper awkwardly knock loose against heels, it is so goddamn surreal to see the shoe fit. Without a second thought. Like she’s just pulling it on in the morning like any other shoe.

The prince is still, dead silent, absolutely dumbfounded. She pushes back onto her hands and extends her leg again, now turning her ankle with a slight ‘Ta-daaaa’ gesture. It’s not bragging or smugness, it’s more like a gesture of respect to the slipper itself, and everything it represents. Brad runs in right at this point but basically the combination of being out of breath from running after the prince and the sight of a girl who he previously thought was a chimney sweep wearing the slipper has rendered him silent save fore some labored, buckled-over panting.

Cindy gives a glance to her Stepmother on reflex, the muscles of her shoulders and neck unconsciously tensing, ready to be seized by the hair and for everything she’s hoped and dreamed of to be torn agonizingly away from her again, but… there’s nothing. The Stepmother has just gone full blue-screen. 404 File Not Found. Mouth hanging open, stunned. Cinderella looks back at the prince, who is staring just as slack-jawed. She looks back at the prince, whose expression is unreadable.

“If you need to try it on other people to make sure, I understand, but I don’t think my stepsisters—“ Cinderella starts.

The prince lunges forward and hugs her. Just, all these years of all this gentlemanly training, all of these social defenses, ‘this spoon goes here,’ ‘maintain this distance and bow at 45 degrees,’ and walking with books stacked on his head just fucking disintegrate and he just whips his arms around her. His head is just a fog of, It’s you. It’s you. It’s you. You’re real. I knew I didn’t dream you. It’s you. And Cinderella just.. freezes. Leggy still stuck out. It’s almost a flinch. Just a few stunned seconds of registering affectionate human contact. He remembered her. He was looking for her. He was worried about her. He turned the entire goddamn kingdom upside-down for her. And somewhere in the midst of these realizations she becomes aware that her cheeks are soaked with tears and her chest is heaving with sobs and at some point they’ve both come together on their knees he’s pulling away like, “Oh god, I’m sorry, are you-? I didn’t mean to—”

And she’s pushing forward, clawing at the front of his jacket, fingers trying to find purchase—she’s so used to crying against a damn tree— and she’s like, “No—I mean I’m fine—I— mean—“ and then the sobs are rippling through her words and she just kind of slumps against him, arms winding around him like she has to think about where they’re supposed to go. God, how long has it been? His arms find his way around her again and he just kind of sits there for a long while, just letting her cry.

He strokes her hair lightly. His hands come away sooty and he doesn’t even notice.

After a minute, maybe two, she pulls away again to snort up a big glob of snot and wipe her face off a little, her tears streaking away the ash and dirt, and she has never looked more beautiful. Her eyes are all puffy and her skin is all red and blotchy but the girl at the ball doesn’t have shit on the girl he’s looking at right now. “I’m sorry—” she says, snorting again, “I’m trying to…” another sob falls out of her and she laughs at herself a little, “I’m really trying—!”

“You’re fine,” he says, and he tucks back a little strand of hair that’s stuck to her face with snot. Then he smiles, a gentle, lopsided smile, and he hits her with the same line she hit him back at the ball, when they were both at that buffet table and she had a mouth half-full of bacon-wrapped dates, but here it carries so much more weight: “Hey… do you want to get out of here?”

“Uh huh,” her voice is shaking with the force of her nods.

The prince cranes past Cindy and looks at Brad, who is still panting, buckled over from chasing after him.

“Uh Brad? Could you bring the carriage around?”

“Of—,” Brad huffs, “Course, your highness.” He briskly, but wearily hustles off.

“I—” Cinderella wipes at her face again, sniffles and swallows thickly, “Can I get my stuff? It won’t take too long.”
“Yeah,” the Prince says and she’s standing up and pulling away and like… he realizes he isn’t holding her in place but he’s raising his hands to let her wrists slip from them, as if trying to keep the contact as long as possible before she hurries off.

And he’s just… kind of staring into space there in the dirt, like, Holy fuck, it really is her. That spell, that fog, all that unsureness has just been wiped away and now, ka-CHUNK, this girl is locked in—it is the girl from the ball. It’s mystery girl! Who has rat friends!! In clothes!! That she made!! He has never been more sure of anything in his life. And he’s never known a love like the one that is fucking surging up in him right now.

And the stepmother thinks this is a great time to speak up. “Um, your highness, if I may—“

“You may fucking not,” the Prince says with a pleasant blankness, not even looking at her.

And the stepmother makes a sound that would have been an assenting ‘Ah,’ sound but it comes out more like a strangled, “Eh—“ And she tries to compose herself, “I’m sorry your majesty, I must have misheard—”

“You did not,” and the prince is now gracious enough to glance up at her, still kneeling in the dirt. There is something dark behind the pleasant blankness in his expression. Something that says, I am not going to ask why that cellar door was barred with gardening tools, and I hope for your sake you recognize that as a mercy. We are a progressive kingdom and we are very proud to have banned virtually all forms of corporal punishment. However, it is taking an ungodly amount of self-control to not bring back the most fucked up medieval punishments solely for you, so I suggest you do not fucking push me.

Because like… one thing to keep in mind with the prince is… sure, most of the time he’s a good-hearted (albeit kind of antisocial) dweeb: He likes his books, he likes his horses, and he sees his hobbies of fencing and wrestling as more exercises in athletic ability and camaraderie than really anything martial. However, he is also his mother’s son.

And the queen will not hesitate to absolutely destroy a motherfucker.

And the stepmother recognizes this and quietly clears her throat. “Right,” she says, glancing off again as the carriage once again pulls up to the estate with Brad hanging off the side of it all cool and shit like he didn’t nearly pop a blood vessel chasing after the prince. A breeze blows through the boughs of the hazel tree, and it sounds almost like a snicker.

“I—oof—I got my stuff!” Cindy comes up out of the cellar, hauling a heavy-looking chest. A rat is perched on the chest, and a rat is perched on each of her shoulders, with a final, fancy green-jacketed rat sitting sphinx-like on her head.

“Oh—!” The prince rushes over, prompting the chest rat to jump into one of Cindy’s apron pockets, “Here—I can carry that for you.”

“Your highness, I must insist—” Brad cuts in and takes the chest from Cindy, “And…” he looks at Cinderella, “Miss, if I may have a word?”

“Brad—” the Prince says in warning but Cinderella touches his shoulder in an ‘It’s fine’ gesture, and follows after Brad as he carries the chest over to the carriage.

“So…” Brad says, carrying the chest over, “You’re not a chimney sweep.”

“No, I’m sorry, I should have said so,” says Cinderella.

“No, it’s not your fault—I shouldn’t have made assumptions,” said Brad, “So all the ash is from…?” He studies her for a second and then glances off as they finally reach the carriage.

Cinderella is looking down at all the soot dusting her ashamedly. “It’s my own fault…” she says quietly, “It.. gets really cold down in the cellar, but I should know when I’m tired enough to get into my own bed.. but…” she trails off.

Brad’s face scrunches with guilt. “I would like to apologize,” Brad says, as he’s strapping the chest to the back of the carriage.

“A-apologize?” Cindy perks up.

“I was convinced you had sinister, ulterior motives, I made many assumptions about your character which I now realize to be unfounded.”

“Oh…” Cindy says quietly.

“I should have trusted his highness’s judgment.” Brad isn’t looking at her.

“But you were just doing your job!” Cinderella perks up a little.

Brad blinks a few times and tries to re-compose himself. “It was still unjust of me to assume you were… some sort of criminal mastermind.”

“Criminal mastermind…” Cindy breathes, “No one’s ever thought I was a criminal mastermind before!”

“Because… you clearly aren’t?” Brad really wasn’t expecting the conversation to take this turn? He was kind of expecting her to just accept the apology by now.

“Well, I mean, it’s just.. I get called ‘stupid’ a lot—It’s kind of flattering to have someone think I’m a criminal mastermind!”

Brad yanks on the last strap on the chest before saying, “Miss, would you please just accept my apology?”

“Oh! Sorry,” Cindy laughs a little, “I’m not used to people apologizing to me.”

There’s just a beat and Brad is putting 2 and 2 together of ‘I get called stupid a lot’ and ‘People don’t apologize to me’ and there’s this flicker across his face of ‘Jesus fuck we need to get you out of here.’

“er—I mean,” Cinderella straightens up, clearly trying to imitate Brad’s own impeccable guardsman posture, “I accept your apology, sir.”

“…thanks,” says Brad. He stares at Cindy for a second and makes eye-contact with the rat on her head.. “So the rats are coming—?”

“The rats are coming,” says Cindy, “And… if it’s possible… Chauncey isn’t as good a watchdog as he used to be, so I was thinking, maybe he would be more comfortable at the palace… but if stepmother wants to keep him I under—“

“You want the dog? Why take the dog, my dear! Why would you ever think I would stop you from taking the dog? Take the dog! Take him!” A terrified, manic laugh falls out of the stepmother and there’s a long quiet beat before Cinderella just kind of… shuffles over to Chauncey’s place in the barn and brings her formerly-carriage-driver-dog over to the prince’s carriage. His hips aren’t that good so both she and Brad help the dog into the carriage.

“Is that everything?” The Prince walks over.

“Oh—! One more thing!” Cinderella rushes away and comes back with one hazelnut from the tree her father planted, pocketing it and then clasping her hands together. “Okay. I’m ready.” The prince holds out a hand to help her up into the carriage.

“I hope you don’t forget all we did to get you here, my dear,” the stepmother coos, and a there’s another visible flinch in Cinderella’s shoulders as she’s pulling herself up into the carriage. The prince looks back at the stepmother, and that shadow passes behind his eyes again, and the Stepmother draws herself in with a prim posture. The prince can just… feel this roiling, seething anger in him, his mother’s righteous fury, his father’s love for all things small, and good and kind, and there’s a three-second beat where he wants to fucking scorch the earth of this godforsaken place.

But then he looks back at Cindy, sitting in the carriage.

And she just looks… so tired. So very, very tired.

So without a word the prince pulls himself up into the carriage, and closes the door. Brad hops on the back, and off the carriage goes. The green-jacketed rat finds its way into the prince’s lap as they ride and he mindlessly traces a finger along the line of its body. The dog is audibly snoring at their feet.

Cinderella leans her head on his shoulder, her eyelids heavy.

“Prince?” She says quietly, lifting her head.

“Mm?”

“Sorry for um.. tackling you like that.”

He snorts a little. “It’s fine.

“I didn’t give you internal bleeding, did I? You know,” her voice drops a little, “From the hemophilia?”

“…I… don’t have hemophilia,” the prince says squinting a little, “I’m not internally bleeding. I’m fine. Really.”

“You don’t?” Cindy relaxes and snuggles her cheek against his shoulder, “Oh… that’s such a relief…”

A short pause passes between them, filled only with the sound of the rattling carriage. Gabe, for once in his life, is not furiously taking notes. He’s also in the fucking, absolute blank faced ‘who the fuck are you’ mode while Brad is avoiding contact with everyone, staring out the window and quietly chewing on some of the extra pies that he quietly pocketed during all the horror of the shoe straight-up biting off the stepsister’s toes.

“Uhm… hey—” the prince glances at Cindy, “So… okay this is going to sound like… a really weird question, and I swear I’m not trying to be weird it’s just.. I put a whole chart together, but the shoe didn’t go along with the chart, so like—I know it doesn’t matter because the shoe fits but like… just so I don’t go crazy from all this… how big are your feet?”

“I don’t know,” Cinderella doesn’t lift her head from his shoulder, “Like…big rat-sized, I guess?”

“Big rat-sized,” the prince repeats.

“Mm-hmm.”

“I can live with that,” the prince settles against the carriage seat cushions.

He glances down at Cinderella and then follows her line of sight back to the estate shrinking in the distance. It looks like there’s a swarm of starlings spiraling above it. He glances back at her and her eyes are already closed. The prince leans his cheek on Cindy’s hair. She smells like ash and smoke, but beneath that, beneath the faint smell of sweat, even, there’s another smell: Vegetal, and sweet… pumpkin? He doesn’t dwell too long on the thought before closing his own eyes.

Chapter 11: In Which We Meet The Parents

Chapter Text

Cinderella’s arrival at the castle is very quiet. Like, mostly, everyone is aware how volatile a situation like, “Hey whoever fits this shoe is going to marry the prince” is. So it’s like… 4 gardeners, 3 maids, and the butler see an absolutely filthy girl sleepily slump out of the royal carriage with the prince supporting her in her descent, and they carry about their business. If there’s an announcement, they’ll hear about it later. This is just a perfectly normal instance of some weirdly dirty rando showing up the castle in the company of the captain of the royal guard, the royal valet, and an almost-equally dirty footman who is certainly not the prince in disguise, no sir! Still, a royal messenger is discreetly sent to the king and queen, and they both hurry to the foyer just in time to catch the prince and the supposed shoe-fitter quietly trying to make their way through. In their company is, of course, Gabe the Valet and Guard Captain Brad.

“Chaz?” The queen calls out.

Both the prince and Cindy look up.

“Oh—Mom, Dad, this is Cindy. Cindy, these are my parents.”

“Hi,” Cinderella gives a small wave, “I mean—” she’s been a little thrown off by the whole ‘these are my parents’ thing and remembers this is the literal fucking king and queen and she quickly curtsies, “Your majesties.” She stands up straight again and brushes her hands down her skirts, sending a dusting of ash onto the palace floor. “I—um—“ she stuffs her hand into a fold in her skirts—oh it’s a pocket—and pulls out the slipper, “I have the shoe. The other shoe.”

“Ah,” the queen blinks and she gives a glance over towards the king, who like, he’s not upset, but you can definitely kind of hear the laptop fans whirring on him seeing this girl. Like… Is that a rat? On her head?

“Darling,” the queen places a hand the king’s shoulder, “Do say something.”

“Right—” the word stumbles out of the king, “So… the shoe fits then?”

“The shoe fits,” the Prince says.

“Here—I can—” Cindy slings an arm around the prince’s shoulders as she stubs her heel out of the shoe and puts the slipper on again, once again extending her leg, though this time it’s less of a toe-pointed ‘ta-daaaa’ gesture and more of a foot-flexed can-can kick.

“I… see,” the King says slowly.

“You can try it on other feet if you need to,” Cindy pipes up.

“Seeing as the other shoe…” Gabe starts and isn’t really sure how to finish that sentence.

“You know what?” The queen clasps her hands together in front of herself, “I know this whole slipper search has been an ordeal, so we’ll have some apartments made up for—for our most distinguished guest, and you can tell us all about it once you’re a bit more…settled.”

“Just so, Dearest,” the King agrees, desperately thankful for an opportunity to compose himself a bit more but now eying the old-as-balls dog sitting on its haunches just behind Cindy.

“You will have my report on the events that transpired surrounding the shoe, sire,” Gabe dutifully places his hand over his heart.

“And my debriefing as well, your majesties,” Brad bows from the hips.

“Good—good…” the king says blankly.

—-

So that night, both the king and the queen are in bed, and the king is wearing a fancy, kingly little nightcap and the queen is reading in bed next to him.

“I’m glad he found her,” the king says firmly, as if trying just as hard to convince himself as he is the queen.

“Mm-hmm,” the Queen turns a page.

“And she seems very nice and it’s clear he’s quite taken with her and—and you know him! He’s odd! He’s picky!”

“Mm-hmm,” the queen nods.

“But the state of them both—”

“Darling, they hardly looked any worse than we did when we first met,” the queen glances up from her book to lovingly brush her thumb over his sideburns.

“Well that was different! When we met, they were asking me which finger I would prefer they cut off to send to my parents, and that was—” he catches himself, “My god, you don’t think he found her in such a state?”

The queen thinks for a few moments. “No… no, I don’t think so. But there is a lot we don’t know about the situation.”

“I know, I know—there’s the reports and the debriefs—and I’ll be doing my own research as well.”

“Oh I know you will. That’s where Chaz gets it, you know,” the queen kisses the king on the temple.

“Mm,” the king responds.

“That’s an ‘I’m turning off the light’ kiss,” says the queen, turning off the lamp next to the bed.

“Mm,” the king murmurs again.

There’s the soft settling of pillows and sheets as the queen snuggles in for the night.

“…the rats are a bit of a hard-sell,” the king says after a few long beats.

“The rats are a little weird,” the queen concedes.

——

“I don’t think they like me.”

It’s late in the afternoon and early in the evening the next day. Cinderella is fidgeting with her fingers as she and the prince are walking through the garden. She’s wearing one of her nicer Frankenstein gowns, still too nervous to take any of the beautiful dresses in the wardrobe within her apartments. The prince just watched her plant the hazelnut she took from her family estate in a bare, quiet patch of the royal gardens.

“They’ll like you! They will! Just… things need a bit more time to get settled, that’s all,” the prince is holding Chauncey’s leash. This dog is old as balls so they’re both stuck walking very, very slowly, “Everything came together so fast…” he trails off briefly. “And.. I have a lot of questions, but I don’t know how to ask them, and I don’t know if asking them will undo everything—”

“What do you mean ‘Undo everything?’”

“Well… there’s the shoe. I know the shoe isn’t a normal shoe because I wanted to have glassmakers create a hundred replicas of it to expedite the shoe-fitting process but they couldn’t come up with any consistent measurements or fittings and—”

Cinderella pressed a single finger to his lips then, quieting him.

“It’s not a normal shoe,” she confirms, “But… I’m not really in a position to tell you more about it. All I can tell you is that the shoes, the dress, the carriage, everything, were lended to me by a very dear friend, and I had to give them back at midnight. And I’m not in a position to discuss this friend’s identity or resources—only that… they were acting out of a kindness that… is very rare in the world, and even if they’re a little snippy, they mean the best. Do you understand that?”

Her finger still pressed to his lips, the prince nods.

“But also, like you, I’m scared of kicking a hornet’s nest I can’t really see, so… I’m just going to take the good. And you’re the good. And I just hope I’m the good, too.” She withdraws her finger from his lips.

“You are,” he says quietly. He glances off for a second. “I—look, I should say this—about the ‘intended bride’ thing…” they pause under the willow near the reflecting pool that the prince threw himself into a few days earlier. There’s a little bench there and Chauncey takes the opportunity of this slight pause to lower his bad dog hips to the ground and lay down. “I—” the prince glances down and looks at her, “You don’t have to.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to do the thing. The marriage thing,” the prince offers a hand to Cindy so that she can sit down on the stone bench beneath the willow, “I mean, you can if you want, but I know it’s a lot. I know they’re a lot. And I know I’m a lot. And—“

“You’re not a lot.”

“I’m not?”

“You know, you seemed a lot more cocky at the ball.”

“I was a jerk at the ball. Everyone was… pulling out all the stops for me, doing all this stuff, and it wasn’t even about me, it was about their families! Their livelihoods! But all I could think about was how uncomfortable I was and…”

“Well you’re not livestock!” Cindy throws her hands up.

“I mean, yeah but—“ the prince’s jaw tenses, “Just… it was nice that there was someone who… didn’t see me as… that? For just a little while? But that’s not how things are, and it’s not fair to pull you into things just because I like you—I mean, I really like you—but it seems like you care about lots of things so—”

“I’m not the same person you thought I was at the ball either!” Cindy blurts out, “I do care, I do, I’m just… I’m scared, all the time. I’m horribly, awfully scared that everything’s going to collapse on me at every second, and I cry a frankly unreasonable amount, and—and—the only reason why I acted the way I did was… I figured everyone would forget about me… Like they’ve always done.” She blinks a few times and it kind of hits her that she actually hadn’t thought that much about the impact she would have on people after the ball—that her initial concern was about being recognized.

“How could anyone ever forget you?” The question comes out of the prince, incredulous, as he bends to look at her. Literally every staff member or guest at the ball remembered her for some good deed or kind word or the impossible speed with which she could scarf down celeriac tarte tatin. He’s almost looking for an indicator that that was a joke, but he studies Cindy’s face for a few seconds and he realizes that no, it’s not a joke. His eyes flick downward. “Cindy?” He says, not making eye contact.

“Yes?”

“Everything I’ve gone through these past few days to find you has been… the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I know that’s stupid—I know it’s nothing because you and everyone else is working so hard all the time while I’ve been off… fucking reading! Or horseback riding! Why am I better with horses than people? They’re the most fucking paranoid animals on the planet!”

“It’s not nothing—” Cindy starts.

“But I’d do it all over and over and over again a thousand times over or however many times it takes if it meant making sure you have a home with people who love you and value you.” The prince has been bent over the bench, but now his back is starting to hurt, so he drops down to one knee to maintain eye contact with her.

“Is.. is that here?” Cinderella’s voice is brittle.

“If you want it to be,” the prince glances off, “This… was also supposed to be a conversation where I give you an out. In case.. I don’t know… you have way cooler things going on. There’s so much I still don’t know about you, so much I want to ask but I’m… honestly scared to ask.”

“I know,” Cindy interlaces her fingers in her lap, “But… I don’t know how much I can tell you about it right now without sounding completely mad or without making things very complicated for the friend who helped me. But as soon as I can—if I can—I will. I promise. And—and I don’t have anything cooler going on. I do want to stay here. Very much so.”

“I mean, of course you could still stay at the palace—like… just… as an advisor. I can deal with it. I can be cool about it. I swear. But like, I mean as far as official titled jobs go, I think… you’re.. really… well… qualified for um. For the whole ‘princess consort’ thing?”

“So you’re giving me an out but this is also… a proposal…” Cindy says slowly.

“Well, yeah if you want to get really intense about it—” the prince huffs a little then realizes he’s on one knee, “I mean… Yes. Yes it is.”

Cindy snorts hard.

The prince presses his lips together. “I mean there are people out there— I can see that now—I… I can be with people, and I can be okay—”

“Prince—” Cindy starts.

“And I know that sounds stupid and completely removed and selfish of me, but… you’re the person who really made me see that. I mean, also people made me see that because that’s the whole point—”

“Prince…” Cindy starts, a bit more softly and affectionately this time.

“And I really do like all your ideas! I really think we can hammer some stuff out that can make things so much better for—”

“Prince!” Cindy suddenly cups his face in her hands.

“Yes?” His cheeks are a little smushed with the gesture.

“I get it,” Cindy smiles.

“Oh. Good. That’s good,” says the prince. A pause passes. “Is this a ‘Yes?’”

“Yeah, it’s a yes.”

The prince’s hand comes up and clasps around one of hers, still on his cheek, holding it tight to him. He squints his eyes shut for a few moments, just feeling the warmth of it. He seems to catch himself and his eyes flick open,

“In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear, I’m not nearly as cool as I was at the ball,” the Prince is staring into her eyes.

“Neither am I,” she says before kissing him.

——

The king has been poring over numerous documents pertaining to the estate where the prince’s soot-covered partner emerged from as the queen looks out the window with a chilled glass of white wine in her hand. She’s watching the whole ‘whoops-it’s-a-proposal’ unfold in the garden below, and like—this is really nice wine that you do want to take your time with (Is it new? When did they get wine this nice??)—but she does take a slightly larger gulp at seeing her precious baby boy who is just as deranged as his father get down on one knee to a girl who was covered in soot and rats just yesterday. Like, yes, she knows she and the king had their own very unique situation, but it’s like, there’s you, and then there’s your kid, you know? You want things to be better for your kid and you don’t really know what this whole deal is yet so she’s counting on the King’s nerd ass to figure this mess out.

She glances back at the King who is still flipping through different documents at his desk alongside Gabe.

“Well?” The word comes out of the queen a bit thick. It’s not clear if the king heard her. “Darling?” She turns away from the window.

“Mm?” The king blinks several times as if breaking out of a trance.

“What were you able to find?” The queen clarifies.

“Oh…” and the king seems to get distant for a few seconds, “Do you remember a Lord Ashcroft?”

The queen thinks for a second. “Oh!” She says after a beat, “It’s been a very long time but—yes. Charming fellow. Hammered out some amazing textiles deal with the east a long while back, didn’t he?”

“Yes! And we sent him that bottle of port when his daughter was born!” The king perks up with the memory.

“Oh yes—such an adorable, chubby little girl—and of course Chaz was fussing and miserable throughout the whole christening—” the queen’s face drops, “Oh god—don’t tell me that’s—”

“It’s… her,” and that distant look settles back on the king’s face.

“But surely she would have been announced at the ball!” The queen briskly approaches the king’s desk, “Her father—”

“Died,” the word comes out of the king as a flinch, “When she was 12. Only a few months after he remarried.”

Something dark flickers over the queen’s face and the King blurts out, “Appendicitis! Appendicitis! The doctors ruled it as appendicitis! And grief, probably? Heart and gut.. couldn’t take it…”

“Grief,” the queen repeats, unconvinced.

“Dearest—”

“I know—I know…” the queen lets out a shaking exhale and then does this calming, pincer-like gesture with her fingers with another steadying breath, “Just… instincts and cultural differences…”

“I know,” the king touches her arm.

“So this… remarriage…” the queen starts hesitantly.

“Well… on paper it seems respectable enough—but then there’s fact that they didn’t even pay for an obituary—for Lord Ashcroft! I would say that’s a bit suspect. And I had Gabe look into some expense records registered for that estate with the local merchants and bankers… all these heirlooms sold immediately after his death compared to the actual costs of the funeral… I suppose we all grieve in our own way, and its difficult keeping the things of a lost loved one around after they’ve gone but one would think they’d at least keep the some of the objects on here for his daughter’s sake—”

“But as a young girl, she wouldn’t have a say in it,” the queen’s voice is brittle.

“Not with the stepmother being the acting executor of the estate…” the king rubs his brow, “Granted, there’s still a lot we don’t know.”

“Chaz said the poor girl was locked in a basement. I don’t think we need to extend a lot of the benefit of the doubt here, darling,” the queen’s voice is terrifyingly icy.

“There were murmurings at the ball about that family as well…” the king muses.

“I need to talk to her,” the queen says firmly, “This situation requires a woman’s touch.”

The king kind of gives her a look then.

“What?”

“Are you saying ‘This requires a woman’s touch’ as in you’re going to kill someone or—”

“No! No, of course not! Probably not!”

“Probably—?”

“I can be sensitive! I’m sensitive!”

“Of course, dearest.”

——

Cinderella’s been at the palace for a few days now. Honestly between the tour of the grounds and the ins and outs of her own proper quartering and getting to know the staff, it’s all been a bit of a blur.

“You can come in, dear,” the Queen is squeezing some lemon into her own tea before leaning back in her seat.

Cindy edges into the room. She’s been scrubbed head to toe and has been laced into maybe the first new, not-made-by-herself, not-made-of-magic dress she’s ever worn since she was 12.

“…would you like to sit down?”

Cinderella shuffles over to the couch and sits down a bit stiffly.

“Here,” the queen pours another cup of tea, “Sugar? Cream? Lemon? Honey?”

Cinderella’s eyes flick across the tea set like it’s a bomb she needs to defuse.

“No wrong answers,” the queen settles back into her seat.

Cinderella gingerly spoons a little bit of honey into her tea and the smallest splash of cream. The queen watches her hands, the scuffs on the knuckles, the brittle nails clipped to the quick, before Cinderella raises the teacup to her mouth and sips.

“It’s delicious, thank you.”

“Mm,” the queen nods, and there’s a few beats of silence.

“It’s… it’s an honor to be here,” Cinderella says, forcing herself to make eye-contact, “I—I promise I’ll learn everything I can to be a good princess consort. I’ll read more, and—um—I know I’ve been throwing the servants off, but I really am used to making my own bed! It’s not because I don’t think they can do it, it’s just… I’ll figure things out. I promise. I—“

“It’s all right. Breathe, dear,” The queen is refilling her own teacup, squeezing more lemon. “Do you know the story of how the King and I married?”

And Cinderella blanches for a second like ‘Oh shit I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz.’ She really doesn’t know how the king and the queen came together. She’s read what she could, and she’s decently smart because her stepsisters would sometimes make her do the homework that their tutor gave them and she would be forced to learn what they hadn’t been bothered to paid attention to in one fourth of the time, but these were mostly subjects tailored to the running of a house and the cultural refinement of a lady, like etiquette, poetry, a little bit of law, and some arithmetic with a focus on finance and expenses. History and science? Not so much. But the queen is just swirling her tea in its cup, not quite looking at her.

“The royal historians downplayed a lot of the… ugliness that came before it,” the queen says, and Cindy eases up in her seat a bit thinking ‘oh thank god it was a rhetorical question.’

“You see…” the Queen gently sets her teacup and saucer down on the table and primly folds her hands in her lap, “The country I grew up in—that is, technically, it wasn’t quite a country as I was growing up—but it was… oh, how to put this politely? A flaming death pit full of murderous power-hungry petty tyrants all with delusions of grandeur and no care as to how many soldier and peasant lives they needed to ruin or end to gain one more acre of land.”

Cinderella blinks at that, and doesn’t really know how to respond to it so she just sips her tea while maintaining eye contact.

“I grew up the daughter of one of these petty tyrants, then as a political hostage, to secure my father’s alliance with a neighboring lord,” the queen’s gaze has trailed to the window, now, “And then my father and brothers were killed, in one of many stupid, pointless battles, for this bridge or that mountain pass or some other such nonsense…From there I saw two clear paths laid out for me: Either my foster-lord would have me killed so he could snatch up my father’s lands, or, more likely and far less pleasant, he’d marry me to one of his brutish sons who were at least twice my age to, again, secure my father’s lands. I was lucky enough to have a handful of retainers from my father’s house to help smuggle me back to my own family estate where I could regroup and see of my own forces and resources but…” she sighed, “From there…It all kind of blurs, to be honest. A part of me became just as merciless as everyone I fought against, but at the same time I hated them so much, so I hated me so much—I couldn’t bear the thought of just… becoming one more of them. And looking among the people that were my responsibility to protect…” she trailed off, “I wanted a better life for me. For them. For all of us. But I didn’t know what that looked like. I was terribly stubborn about the idea of marriage, you understand. I imagined myself having some… passionate torrid affair with some battle-scarred Samson, and then naming whatever bastard came of that my heir to continue the fight when I inevitably died in one more stupid battle for this bridge or that mountain pass.”

Cinderella is kind of thrown off by the bastard thing, like ‘You can do that? That’s allowed?’ But then Cindy has the reasonable assumption that probably no one told the queen she couldn’t do that, and if she had done it, no one would really try to tell her after the fact.

“But then I met the king,” the queen goes on, “He was just a prince himself, then. The poor fool was traveling through our lands as part of some… diplomatic mission when he was captured by one of my remaining enemies. I didn’t even know he was in that keep, I was just… there to take down one more scourge. And I took them out right before I found him.” Her eyes get a little distant then. “I must have looked monstrous the first time he saw me…” she’s quiet for a few beats, then she seems to catch herself and she smiles a little, "Once I found out who he was, I more or less bullied him into our match. I was of high enough birth, after all. I thought he was so agreeable because he was afraid. But… I soon came to learn that there are many different kinds of bravery. Which… brings me to my point, dear,” the queen leans forward from her own seat, “Between what I saw of the king, and what I saw of my own people… I know what it means to have to be brave far longer than anyone should have to be. Something happens in the eyes…” the queen extends a hand and Cinderella unconsciously shrinks back in her own seat. Cindy’s mouth opens to apologize on reflex, but the queen is drawing her own hand back, fingers curling in. “What… I want to tell you is that… we want this place to be a home for you. I know what it feels like when your home… isn’t your home. When what remains of your family—” she catches herself again. “I’m sorry. I’m overstepping. This all must be so much on its own—“

“It’s— it’s fine—“ Cinderella is still tense in her seat, “It’s—it wasn’t nearly as bad as you think it is—I—I was never in a war—”

“It doesn’t have to be a war,” the queen says gently.

“Well, yes, but my stepsisters calling me stupid and ugly and saying I smelled bad all the time isn’t a war—”

“They called you stupid and ugly and told you that you smelled bad all the time?”

“But I did smell bad because I was cleaning out the chicken coops or the stable, or shoveling from the compost heap, or hauling laundry around, or because I had smoke pouring over me from the hearth and I got ugly muscles in my legs from going up and down the stairs all day—”

“They were making you do all that and they weren’t helping?”

“But that isn’t a war!”

“But you’re afraid of them,” the queen says softly and Cinderella flinches at the word ‘afraid.’ “Even now, even here, you’re afraid they can still make you hurt like all the times they hurt you before.”

“I—I—” CInderella stammers.

“Am I scaring you now?” The queen asks, not accusing, but genuinely concerned.

Cinderella’s knuckles are white around the handle of her little teacup. She’s gone deer-in-the-headlights again.

“It’s so hard to turn off…” the queen says softly, and Cindy isn’t sure if she’s talking to her or to herself. “And when you can turn it off you just feel so silly for thinking that way, but then something happens and it comes back all the worse…”

Cinderella’s half-come out of what would be called ‘tharn’ in Watership Down enough to sip her tea a little bit. The teacup rattles a bit in its saucer as she sets it down.

The queen gestures at the little tiered cookie trays. “Um… macaron?”

Cindy takes one and munches it down in barely a bite and a half, eager for the gap in conversation chewing affords her.

The queen huffs and slumps back in her seat. “Chaz was right about you. One really does feel like they can tell you anything and you don’t know if you’ve made a fool of yourself until after you’ve said it.”

“Is that… good?” Cinderella is picking up her teacup again.

“I think it’s good,” the queen says, taking a cookie herself and taking a bite out of it, “People are cynical, you know. It means a lot to inspire that kind of confidence. You managed to make quite the impression on a number of the palace staff the first night you came here.”

“Because I crashed the party…”

“Because you were kind. And helping seemed to be your first instinct about, well, anything. So this is what I’m saying—with regard to.. your previous living conditions, regardless of the abuse put upon you, there is only a limited degree to which the crown can respond. But I can assure you we will find every means we can to—”

“I don’t want to punish them,” Cindy blurts out, tense in her seat.

The queen’s gaze flicks up to her.

“What they did to me…” Cindy starts, but then stops and glances off, “I don’t think hurting them further than how they already are will help. I don’t know what will help them. But all I know is that I don’t want them anywhere near me. And I don’t think they need to hurt to know that.”

“…exile, then?” The queen munches a macaron and Cindy blanches.

“No,” Cinderella says quietly, “That doesn’t feel right either.”

“Well… we have a whole library and dozens of legal experts at your disposal, dear,” the queen smiles, “I trust you to be a far more merciful person than I’ve ever been.”

Cindy stills in her seat, full deer-in-the-headlights mode.

“…that’s good,” the queen says, reaching forward and putting a hand on Cinderella’s knee.

“Oh!” Cinderella eases up, “Th-thank you.”

And so, over the next few days and with much discussion with many royal lawyers, the first restraining order was invented. Granted, if you look up legal history as we know it, the modern restraining order popped up in like, the 1970’s, which is… really fucked up and you’d think it would pop up sooner. But also people are terrible so it makes sense that it would take that long. But we’ll just assume this was kind of like the whole ‘sometimes people act like Don Quijote was the first novel and not Lady Murasaki’s Tale of the Genji just because Don Quijote saw wider distribution,” and also an instance where something was so unusual for its time we wouldn’t really see its implementation until a long-ass time later situation. And also I made up the country they’re all in so fuck it. They invented restraining orders. Which is what Cindy deserves.

Oh god. like, I would hate being in the presence of the stepfam in any situation, but what I wouldn’t give to be in the room when the royal messenger shows up at the stepmother’s doorstep. Like the stepmother would totally think she’s receiving a ‘guest of honor’ invitation for the royal wedding despite the Prince’s absolutely harrowing look at her, and she’s like ‘Finally that little rat of a girl is proving herself useful.’ And there’s the royal messenger on the doorstep like, “Good afternoon ma’am, I have the distinct honor of issuing to you this royal decree that you and your daughters are not to come within 800 paces of the Princess Consort-to-be. As well as this fruit basket.” (The palace had never issued a restraining order before and as such wasn’t really sure the proper means of delivering it, and the fruit basket was Cindy’s idea so that they might ‘part on good terms.’ Cindy’s never issued a restraining order before either, and she also has a very inflated opinion of the power of gifts and fine food, so go easy on her.)

“…I suppose… the seating for the wedding will accommodate?” The stepmother says a bit blankly.

“Oh—Madam, unfortunately, I have no invitation for this household. But! You will observe that this fruit basket does indeed have a pineapple! So let that be a symbol of the crown extending all the hospitality it can extend in line with this decree.”

“Ah. Yes. A… a pineapple,” the stepmother says, blinking several times.

“Oh, yes, and also this sack of gold to cover any additional medical expenses with regard to the…” the palace messenger clears his throat, “Toe incident.” The messenger unceremoniously plops a roughly coconut-sized sack of gold onto the fruit basket. “Ladies,” he says, tipping his hat before leaving.

The stepmother snatches the gold sack up right quick but then she and the stepsisters are stuck staring at this pineapple for three days in utter befuddlement. Both the pineapple and the gold are enough to take their minds off of the increasingly large groups of starlings gathering in the hazel tree on the side of the house… for a while at least.

Chapter 12: In which Cindy is going to be okay but also it’s not a fairy tale unless the ending has at least a little bit of threatening ambiguity towards the audience

Chapter Text

There is a royal wedding. You don’t throw the words “Intended Bride” around in a royal decree going out to the whole kingdom and not have a Royal wedding. Both the King and Cindy are absolutely delighted to plan the whole thing and admittedly they kind of butt heads over aesthetics and the menu at first but eventually they figure things out and my god the king adores her. The prince is a little embarrassed about the whole thing but oh boy he’s more than happy to have a couple extra dancing lessons with Cindy, parse out some event logistics with moving the wedding party from point A to point B and arranging for everyone’s safe exit from the party to local inns and estates and the appropriate after-parties with Brad and Gabe, as well as taste-testing some samples for the reception catering (THE PRINCE GETS HIS PIES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN).

Eunice paints Cindy and the Prince’s new portrait in the weeks leading up to the wedding—it looks much better than his old one—some say it’s because he looks a lot happier in this one, others say it’s because he’s looking at his fiancee in the portrait, which gives a much better angle to his jawline. Cindy is smiling out at the viewer of the painting, a rat in a dapper miniature guard uniform jacket on her shoulder.

The wedding itself is a fascinatingly egalitarian affair, outdoors in the palace gardens. The official ring bearer is a rat, sitting on its haunches with a ring in its little rat hands, carried on a velvet pillow by one of the king’s younger grand-nephews. The reception is catered by both the palace and some of Cindy’s favorite food stalls in the market. Kids of all classes are running around barefoot on the palace lawns and polished little heirs and scrubbed-raw ragamuffins alike are shoving child-fist sized bouquets ravaged from the gardens at the happy bride and nicking tarts from the buffet table. The queen’s privateers show up to the reception with kegs of rum and cool-ass fire-breathers and acrobats from far-off lands and they break into a musical number as is their custom. The local cheesemonger is rocketed to widespread fame and fortune through the sheer force of their le chevrot and is honestly unsure how they feel about it. It’s such a perfect combo of joy and chaos that even the king’s hardcore party-planning ass gets caught up in all the fervor of the event and he goes nuts on the dance floor and pulls the queen into it, too!

Dutiful Wine daughter is there and she catches the bouquet! Good for her! And she goes on to be the royal sommelier so actually she and Cindy are good friends and they have girls’ nights and sleepovers and Cindy just adores all of Dutiful Wine Daughter’s siblings. Eunice hangs out with them too because she has an ongoing commission with the palace of painting rats in fancy outfits next to bonsai trees and honestly she didn’t get out that much either prior to all this shoe stuff and it’s cool having friends. Prints of her rat-and-bonsai-tree paintings are extremely popular as a status symbol with both old families and the nouveau riche. Eunice honestly wishes her gay-as-hell mythological nudes were her bigger artistic legacy, but hey, y’know that’s how shit works when you’re a creative. You take what you can get.

Now, could I have the stepfam crash the wedding with the intent of humiliating Cinderella and then have a flock of fairy-possessed starlings peck their eyes out to the horror of the entire kingdom? I mean honestly that would be fucking metal but I don’t think Cindy wants to see any eyes pecked out on her big day. And also everyone else was having a blast so that would be a real downer. Even if they are abusive assholes. And you KNOW my man Brad has security for the event locked down pat! Oh the stepfam tried, but they weren’t getting in. The stepmother even tried hitting Brad with “Let me speak to your manager,” which is when Gabe showed up like, “Oh hello, Madam. You may remember me, I’m the King’s Valet, and I had some questions about your deceased husband’s estate.” (Cue anime glasses glint). And that’s when the stepfam was like, “Actually we were just leaving.” So they go home to their increasingly filthy estate, growing piles of laundry, and absolute jungle of a garden.

Meanwhile, after a cozy little wedding night where they crack open a certain bottle of port with a unicorn on the label, Cindy and the Prince honeymoon at sea with the queen’s privateers. To put it mildly, it is a wild ride. And I could go into all the sword-fighting and musical numbers and rat shadow puppet theater and the prince wearing those slutty puffy shirts with the pec cleavage and also the passionate kisses next to sunsets on glittering seas, but we’re just going to shift the camera to the stepfam for a second here—I know, I know, they suck but don’t worry, Cindy and the prince are fine, and you gotta give a couple some privacy on their honeymoon, you know?

See, quality of life on the estate quickly plummets without Cindy doing… well.. literally everything. There’s no one cooking, no one cleaning, no one doing the laundry, no one gardening, and it doesn’t take long for the Stepfam to get at each others’ throats real fast. Their house is no longer in a suitable state for them to have anyone over—they have no one cooking to serve food to guests and the whole place looks like shit—one might say the garden got out of control with almost supernatural speed, and without anyone doing laundry, they quickly run out of clothes to make themselves presentable in public. By the time they actually miserably figure out laundry? Every family of fashion has spent the last two months talking about how the royal wedding was the most exciting social event of the season—or, in one case, about how their son eloped with a foxy acrobat that came with the privateers. The stepfam does two (2) loads of laundry and like… four miserable attempts at cooking and one wretched attempt at dishes before they go, “Okay fuck it, we’ll use the gold the palace gave us to hire a new servant.” So they put on their muddy, unwashed cloaks and put out fliers under cover of night. Eventually a handful of candidates show up to the house, but the conversation always goes the same—or at least some variation of it.

“I’m sorry, you expect me to do… all this… and you’re only offering me this level of payment?”

“As well as room and board!” The stepmother blurts out.

“…in the basement. It’s freezing down there—are you at least going to get thicker bedding?”

“There’s a hearth!”

“Well yeah, but you built the bed into an alcove on the far side of the room. What am I gonna do, sleep in the ashes? On the hearthstones?? Those are literal rocks!”

“But—”

“And you know this contract doesn’t say anything about overtime or weekends.”

“What the hell is a weekend?”

And the candidate would press their hands together like, “Look, lady, even if I was crazy and desperate enough to take this job, which I’m not, the conditions you’re outlining literally aren’t legal.”

“Luh… legal??”

“Yeah! Haven’t you heard about the DDWR?”

“The what?”

“The Decree of Domestic Workers’ Rights? It was ratified as soon as the prince and princess consort wed! Why do you think the whole kingdom was celebrating? Literally 75% of the shit you’re describing with this job is well outside of its parameters! 95% if you were really being serious about the basement shit!”

“P-princess… Consort…” the stepmother repeats.

“Anyway—like, for me it boiled down to this job or a leather tannery, and to be honest, you’ve made the leather tannery look way more attractive. But anyway, best of luck with revising your contract to meet DDWR standards. I’m out.”

And that happened about 5 times. Except replace “leather tannery” with “fishmonger’s underling who deals mostly in cleaning out the guts” or “dyer’s apprentice whose job more or less guarantees your arms will be a weird teal-y gray up to the elbows” or “Bog witch’s apprentice even though damp environments wreak havoc on my complexion.”

So once again the stepfam was up shit-creek without a paddle. Except the younger stepsister got a very bright idea of “Well, Cinderella did all that because she had nowhere else to go, right? All we need is someone we know has nowhere else to go! And if they’re young enough, they aren’t protected by that DD-whatever!”

And Stepmother is like, “Finally a decent idea!” And she looks at the elder stepsister like “Why didn’t you think of that? Did your brain bleed out of your toe-stubs?” So the Stepfam takes off for the local orphanage.

It’s not nearly as miserable and depressing as they were expecting. They can hear faint singing in one of the buildings, they pass by a classroom where a bunch of orphans are eagerly raising their hands at an arithmetic question, and out in the yard, one of the nuns is overseeing a bunch of cute grubby orphans working on the garden and congratulating them on cultivating excellent bean sprouts. The stepfam is steered to a directory office where they’re greeted by an unfortunately familiar face. The stepmother doesn’t immediately pick up on the rising dread at the stepsisters’ reactions on seeing a girl they had previously described to the prince as ‘looking like she was either going to cry or piss herself.’ Amelia looks fucking great—she’s a novice, not a nun yet, but it’s clear she’s found a really good environment for herself—all bright eyes and cheery smiles and the kind of customer service politeness you would find in a Waffle House waitress who has SEEN IT ALL. And there’s a flicker of recognition in her eyes at the stepsisters that tells the stepsisters, “Oh we’re fucked.”

“So!” Amelia tents her fingers, “You want to adopt one of our orphans. That’s great! Well, as soon as you pass our vetting process, we can set up meetings with children we think are best suited to your living situation.”

“V-vetting process?” The stepmother is remembering their house currently looks like absolute shit right now.

“Well, yes! Making sure the child is brought up in a clean, loving, and caring environment is first priority!” Amelia tilts her head cheerfully.

“We were hoping to just get an orphan as soon as possible,” the stepmother stammers, “You know how these children are so desperate for a home…Oh! And we’d like an older child—you know how it’s harder for the older children to get adopted—”

“But not too old,” the younger stepsister chimes in, “And strong, too.”

“Oh who doesn’t want a good home!” Amelia agrees, “However, with the OPA in place, there are ongoing vetting processes to make sure the children’s needs are being met.”

“The what?”

“The OPA? The Orphan Protection Act? It was ratified with the marriage of the prince and princess consort?”

“Her again…” the stepmother seethes.

“This act also granted massive amounts of funding to the support and building of orphanages so that we can provide the best possible environment until these children can find a home that truly loves them! Isn’t that wonderful?” Amelia’s shoulders bunch up all cute but the Stepmother is just bluescreening again with a high-pitched note screaming in one ear.

“So we can’t even get some useless gutter rat to do what needs to be done?” The stepmother huffs under her breath.

“I’m sorry, what did you call our children?” Amelia tilts her head.

“Nothing,” the stepmother draws herself up from her seat. “We were just leaving.”

So like, another couple months pass for the stepfam, and like… shit gets weird and resentful. I think the stepmother started blaming the elder stepsister for fucking everything up with losing her toes, but like… it’s not exactly the eldest stepsister’s fault her toes were the ones bitten off, nor that she kicked the shoe off and shattered it in response. The fairy godmother hated them all for what they did to Cindy, so any one of them would have gotten their foot mangled by the shoe if they tried it on. The elder stepsister was just.. the first. But you don’t think rationally when your heart is full of resentment. If your heart doesn’t know what it loves, what it’s fighting for, then it just… fucking starts eating itself and gnashing out at anything close to it. And that’s how shit was with the stepfam. They were able to support themselves for a while by extorting gold from the palace for the eldest sisters’ ‘Medical expenses,’ but eventually the eldest stepsister had enough, left the house, married some sideshow owner at the pier, and eventually sent a letter to Cindy saying, “Hey, I don’t live with the stepfam anymore, so if they’re asking for money on my behalf, they’re full of shit. Also sorry for forcing you to do literally all the work around the house while insulting you on a daily basis or something. I guess. I don’t care if you actually forgive me. Don’t bother writing back.”

Cindy does draft up several nice responses but eventually opts to just respect the ‘don’t write back’ wishes. The palace sends a polite letter to the stepmother congratulating her on her daughter’s wedding and saying they’re so glad she found someone to take care of her in spite of her medical expenses, and sending one final, decent-sized sack of gold as a ‘wedding gift’ even though they know the stepmother is just going to spend it on herself. Sometimes it’s not about forgiveness and redemption, sometimes you don’t know if this horrible person became a better person, sometimes you’re just glad they’re getting distance from a horrible situation.

And boy is it horrible.

The house is dilapidated as hell—we’re talking some Miss Havisham in Great Expectations shit. The Royal Restraining Order basically blocks the stepfam from attending crucial upper-class social events—aside from like, some horse races, and the regatta, and a good number of more middle-class social events, but they would never lower themselves to such sorry appearances!! To rubbing elbows with such riffraff! No sir! But eventually… it gets easier and easier for all the respectable families of the kingdom to just… stop inviting them to shit. So they’re in a filthy house, that’s basically rotting at this point for lack of maintenance, eating burned and undercooked and unseasoned or over seasoned food and regularly insulting each other over how they could stand to let them live in such a state. The older stepsister has already dipped but about a year later, eventually the younger sister can’t stand it anymore, scrapes up as much of her jewelry as she can sell, and takes off in the dead of night. I don’t actually know what happens to her. Like if you want to give her a whole redemption arc or whatever, go ahead, but all you’re going to get from me is a big fat question mark.

But the Stepmother? I can tell you what happens there, and I can tell you it’s not pretty.

Like, even if all of her interactions with her daughters were horrible arguments towards the end, like… at least that’s other people to like.. bounce off of, you know? At least there are other people around who, even if you’re all miserable together, give you a common sense of reality. When you’re all alone, and when you’re already miserable and bitter and completely convinced the world is punishing you and that has nothing to do with what you’re putting out into the world? Woof. Shit gets weird. Shit gets dark. I mean, the labor situation isn’t as bad when you’re just cooking and cleaning for yourself, but this is a big fucking house with a big fucking garden—it’s not designed for one person to live in and maintain. So whole wings of the house are closed off—furniture is covered with sheets—but more and more of the rooms are getting barer and barer as the stepmother is selling off furniture just to keep herself fed, hire drifters for one-off odd jobs, and keep up minimum appearances.

Maybe if the stepmother wasn’t so concerned about “riffraff” it might occur to her to lease out some rooms to tenants, but honestly the house is in such shit shape, it’s hard to imagine who’d really be willing to stay there.

The stepmother is pacing through the house, and every time she hears the wind through the hazel tree outside, every time she hears the chirps of starlings (and god, they’re getting louder) she swears it sounds like mocking laughter, or a coo of ‘Have you remembered to do the dishes?’ (The dishes are molding over in the sink—all the mold is probably not helping the mental health factor), or that it even sounds like Cindy’s goddamned singing.

And then, one night, when the stepmother is in bed, and the rain is pounding the half-rotted window frames, and there’s a cacophony of ‘tink tink tink tink tinks’ because the roof is leaking and she’s set out all of these pots and pans to catch the drips. The wind is howling through the hazel tree’s boughs, and it sounds like Cindy’s fucking singing again… and then, the Stepmother gets this grand revelation—The Hazel tree! That damned hazel tree that her stupid dead husband planted because he never actually loved her! He only ever loved the mother of that stupid little rat girl! The hazel tree is the ghost of that girl’s mother cursing her! It’s been so clear all along! So she springs out of her moth-eaten sheets and she races down the stairs, not even bothering to put a robe over her nightgown, out to into the mud of their fucking jungle of a garden which the semi-starved chickens now roam like mini-velociraptors themselves. The stepmother glares up at the hazel tree and then she furiously sludges through the mud over to the garden shed where she pulls out the axe she used to make Cindy chop firewood with. It’s very rusted at this point (and god her house is so fucking cold), but it’s good enough. It has to be good enough. Gripping the axe, snarling through her teeth, the stepmother goes to the hazel tree. She hefts up the axe for that first swing and hurls it down and THOK it bites hard and deep and cruel into the bark. Rain is pelting down on the stepmother and lightning flashes, but she doesn’t care. THOK. She strikes the tree again.

So like…you remember that whole bit I had about like, Fairy Godmothers being pretty dang strict about using magic to do ‘good’ and not focusing on curses and punishments? Like of course it was a whole thing because the Fairy Godmother herself emerged from a magic that was born from a very deep pain and grief—but Fairy Godmother actively chose to try and be a positive force in Cindy’s life because being a cruel fairy would just make things harder for Cindy. So even if she has to put up with lectures from other fairies, even fairy godmother’s vengeful, furious, bitter little ass is willing to try and be the bigger person for Cindy’s sake. So she really wasn’t doing anything to make the stepfam’s life harder—aside from the garden getting out of control really fast–but that’s more of a typical side effect of fae presence rather than an active act—but also she was mostly focusing on building back her juice after all the whizzbangs of the ball and the growing number of birds were more like a charging battery icon in this case. So she was literally minding her own business! But my point is—the Fairy Godmother code of “We don’t curse and punish people” goes right out the window when it’s a matter of self-defense.

And the stepmother was fucking with a tree she should not be fucking with.

The birds descended on her like a meteor shower. So many clawed little feet and beating wings and pecking beaks. The stepmothers’ screams were drowned out by cracking thunder and screaming birds and the boughs of the hazel tree moaning in the wind, and as a bit of a mercy by virtue of her own stress and malnourishment, the stepmother passed out at the peak of the worst of the pain. Rain still pounding down on her, her face staring blindly up at the sky, not even seeing the flashes of lightning. Pink water was crowning and overflowing out of her clawed out eye sockets. She was found moaning in the mud the next morning by someone duck hunting with their dog in the irrigation ditches nearby. She was carried inside her crumbling manse, dressed in the driest warmest clothes she had, her hollow, bloodied eye sockets covered with gauze, but fever had already well set-in, and her breaths were already shallow with pneumonia. I’ve mentioned before that this is a time when a cold at the wrong time of year can very much kill you—this is being out in the cold and rain with your eyes clawed out—open head wounds with the agony of exposed optic nerves.

A messenger was sent to the palace and, despite the prince’s assurances that “You don’t have to be there—” Cindy rushed over, along with the best doctors she could haul with her. And the prince followed after her because goddammit he worries about her! And he knows that whole situation’s fucked up!!

“I think you should hang back,” Cinderella pats his arm as they head up the stairs of her old house.

“But—” he starts.

“I… I can do this. It’s going to be okay,” she kisses him on the cheek, “I’m not scared.”

The prince presses his lips together with distress and Cindy goes, “Okay yes I’m very scared but… I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” he says and he hangs back as she enters the room.

“Stepmother?”

The room is dimly lit. It’s overcast outside.

“Who is that? Who’s here?” The stepmother’s head is swinging around.

“Your highness, you should keep your distance,” the physician warns, his mouth and nose covered by a kerchief, “We don’t know if she’s infectious.”

“Highness?!” The stepmother squawks.

“It’s… me, stepmother,” says Cindy, maintaining a few steps away from the stepmother’s bed.

“Cinderella?”

Cindy feels like she’s really come to love her name in the two years she’s lived with it at the palace, but the way the stepmother says it still makes her stomach tighten.

“Yes, stepmother.” Cindy lets out a steadying exhale.

“I suppose I’ll be arrested now, as well, what with your 800 paces rule.”

“It’s been temporarily suspended, given the… circumstances,” Cindy fidgets with her fingers.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” The stepmother scoffs a derisive chuckle.

“No, no it isn’t what I want at all,” Cindy pushes a stray hair back.

“Don’t you play coy with me, you little witch—you and your singing. You and your rats. You and your—your cooking and sewing. You and your fucking tree. You—” the stepmother breaks into a wet coughing fit and Cindy instinctively takes half a step back, “You… You’ve been planning this for years, haven’t you?! I bet you made my daughters abandon me as well.”

“I—I haven’t. In fact, I’ve sent a letter to the elder and we have several men looking for the younger, so if you just hang on, I’m sure once they find out what’s happened, they’ll come too, and—”

“They won’t come, you little fool, you wretched—” the stepmother moans and presses the heels of her hands to her forehead.

“Please don’t strain yourself,” Cinderella says gently.

“All those laws you wrote… don’t act like you didn’t write them to spite me.”

“I didn’t write them to spite you—I had a lot of advisors to help draft the specific—”

“I don’t care!”

“Ma’am—” the physician starts.

“Shut up! No one asked you!” snaps the stepmother.

“I didn’t write those laws for just you or just me! I wrote those laws because I realized… I’m probably not the only ‘me’ and you’re not the only ‘you.’ I know I won’t be able to protect everyone, but if I can make a difference for at least a handful of people…” Cindy furrows her brow for a second, because she feels like what she’s saying right now is making sense, but it doesn’t seem to be making any significant impacts on the stepmother. Man, shit hits different when you’ve been living with people who actually listen to you.

The stepmother’s lips curl back from her teeth. “So you were still thinking about me when you drafted it…”

“Yes. I did believe that what you did to me shouldn’t be done to another person, and I did everything in my power to stop that,” Cindy huffs a little and looks around the room, “I think a part of me assumed you would still be fine in spite of that.” She looks at one of the pots on the floor with rainwater still in it from the leaky ceiling.

“And now you’re here to mock me at my lowest point.”

“I am not!” Cindy’s touching on a vein of anger within herself that she’s kept at bay with just calming breaths and there’s this flare of adrenaline in her, because she could punch down. She has every right to punch down, but she’s remembering a glamorous woman on her father’s arm, with two pretty girls hanging behind her skirts, and seeing her father’s fragile smile for the first time since her mother died, and all that is boiling down into a mild feeling of nausea.

“So what do you want?!” The stepmother demands.

“I don’t know, I just—I just thought you shouldn’t be alone,” Cinderella folds her arms tight across herself.

“You were the one who did this to me you rotten whelp!”

“I just made it so you would leave me alone! I don’t know what you did to yourself after!” Cindy blurts out furiously, but catches herself, “I’m sorry—you’re in so much pain already.”

“Oh shut up with your stupid, pathetic little morality play. Don’t act like this isn’t what you always wanted.”

Cinderella pushes her lips together. “This is never what I wanted. When I first met you…you seemed… so powerful and clever and beautiful and confident…and…I think I wanted to be like that, but mostly… I just wanted a mother.”

“A mother…?” The words float out of the stepmother, and like, even though there’s a band of gauze where her eyes once were, she fixes those bloody patches on Cindy, and Cindy suddenly gets this stinging memory of every time she assumed something good happening to her couldn’t be real, couldn’t be true, had to be some cruel trick because it was what she had known for so long. Maybe the stepmother couldn’t see Cinderella as her daughter because that would be too easy, too good to be true, and therefore, her only defense against something like that was quashing Cindy down. There’s a flicker of understanding, in that look between them, and Cindy sees the person she could have become, the person shaped by injustice and cruelty, had she not held onto the loving memory of her parents—Had she not had her little rat friends to comfort her, or even the Wonderful Hypothetical Party she was constantly planning in her head, had she not been able to shed her tears on that hazel tree. A short, breathy sound falls out of the stepmother, and at first, Cindy thinks she’s going to cry, but… it’s a chuckle. Then it seems to deepen and ripple in the stepmother’s already drowning chest, “A mother!” She declares again, like it’s the funniest punchline to the world’s longest joke, and that chuckle bubbles up into a full-on laugh interspersed with wet, hacking coughs. She’s laughing hysterically, the gauze over her eye sockets is darkening with fresh blood at the force of her laughs.

“Ma’am?!” The physician is stepping forward and Cindy is backing towards the door, but still the stepmother is convulsing with laughter.

The physician is calling for laudanum to calm her down, but suddenly that long peal of laughter seems to spiral and tighten in on itself like a tetherball whipping around the pole.

The stepmother dies laughing.

Cinderella stares at the still form in the bed, the physician fussing over her, trying to shake her back to consciousness, but there’s something about the way the stepmother’s features are frozen that tells Cindy it’s over. She sways on her feet for a few seconds, then blinks, and staggers to the door. As soon as she opens it the prince is taking her up in his arms, (of course his protective, fussy ass has been eavesdropping but also half frozen unsure whether to interfere because on one hand she said she’s got this but also holy fuck there’s a lot happening in there) and he’s pulling her out into the hallway. “I’m sorry,” he’s saying, “I should have come in, but I didn’t know if I would make it worse—I—you shouldn’t have been in there alone—”

“I’m fine,” her voice is hollow and blank, “I’m fine.”

“Cindy—” And there’s that mental log jam again, he wants it all to come out but it’s stuck in his throat. You’re not a fool. You’re not wretched. You’re not a rotten whelp. You’re not a witch. Actually you might be a witch because there’s still a lot I don’t know, but I don’t care if you are because if you are, you’re clearly a very nice one. But his mouth is just hanging stupidly open and he’s stammering a little.

“Can we go home?” She’s almost limp in his arms, not looking at him, “Please?”

They head out of the estate of Cindy’s father for the very last time, and they’re about to get into the carriage but Cindy, in a daze, unlaces her arm from the prince’s and kind of dizzily makes her way over to the hazel tree. She runs a hand over the two deep axe marks in the wood, “Are you okay?” She asks gently, “Did she hurt you?”

“Cindy?” The prince is deeply confused and concerned but his head jerks up as the hazel tree’s boughs creak and leaves rustle in a wind he can’t quite feel.

“You… didn’t have to do that for me…” Cinderella’s voice is a bit distant, “I’m not mad, I just…”

The tree rustles again and the prince is looking at the other trees surrounding the garden like, please tell me they’re moving in the wind, too.

Cindy’s neck cranes up at the boughs overhead. “Okay,” she says, “I—I understand. Take care of yourself.” And she gently kisses the bark before pushing away from the tree and kind of lightly, gracefully making her way back to the prince. The way she moves reminds him a bit of the fog that seemed to hang around her that night of the ball.

“Your um… your friend?” He asks a bit helplessly.

“Mm,” she just gets into the carriage and the prince mouths ‘What the fuck’ to Brad who just kind of shrugs before taking his place on the driver’s seat next to the carriage driver.

They go home. It’s a weird couple of days after that—they never really get in contact with the stepsisters, they send out news of the stepmother’s death but get nothing back, and Cindy’s staying in bed until noon for a couple days, but eventually she’s pulling herself to the palace gardens and to the stables and also she’s made a point of rescuing her now feral-ass chickens from her old estate and making sure they get back to their fat, happy selves. When she’s asked about the state of the house the stepmother left behind, Cindy just kind of blankly says, “It’s not mine anymore,” and everyone eventually accepts that that’s the answer she has to that.

Another few days pass. Servants say that Cindy’s eating more again and she and the prince can be heard quietly talking long into the small hours of the morning.

Another two weeks pass and Dutiful Wine Daughter and Eunice motion to whisk Cindy away for a few days by the sea. The prince voices some concerns but the queen 100% supports this girls’ trip and they depart. About a week and a half later, Cindy returns seeming a lot more energetic than she was before. Also she has a handful of cute new outfits—Cindy keeps forgetting she can actually buy clothes now—and loads of recipes for wine steamed mussels and chowders and fish fried in breadcrumbs, and also they have a little bowl of the mother yeast of the local sourdough which Cindy is very excited about.

A few more weeks pass and Cindy’s more or less back to her earnest, kindhearted self, still making her bed every morning (and of course roping the prince into it because it’s his bed too, dammit) still poking around and sometimes backseat-driving the palace kitchens, and still insisting on embroidering cutesy things into the guards’ uniforms when she notices a loose button or thinning elbows, not to mention she has her chickens to fuss over and rats to make cute clothes for—she’s still finding that no-filter self she had at the ball, but every so often it comes out and the prince gets the stupidest, most lovestruck grin on his face. She has the strength to show up to council meetings again, and the king and queen are very relieved to see her there.

I feel like we all have a very weird relationship with the term ‘happily ever after’ because like, life isn’t like that—that’s the term that’s come to breach suspension of disbelief even in a goddamn fairytale. Cindy’s put on some pounds at the palace and she looks great—like she doesn’t get as cold as easily, she doesn’t have that ‘orphan hollow eye socket’ thing going on, she doesn’t get dizzy when she stands up too fast, plus, her boobs look amazing. Fairy godmother would be proud. It isn’t just endless bliss forever because if it was like that, shit would be really fucking weird—if bliss is all you know, then is it actually bliss? I think you need the odd pain and argument and frustration and maybe even heartbreak here and there to really appreciate what you have, and for the record, Cindy and the prince overall have something really good—but like… they have an awareness about it—they know it’s a thing they both have to actively work on and be conscious of, because that’s actually how this shit works. Love takes patience and attention and work, but at the end of the day, it should be work that makes you feel satisfied with, both with yourself and your partner. It doesn’t have to be happily ever after—it’s quiet afternoons of listening to rain on the window and your partner reading aloud to you while you work on a new dress with some cool fabrics your mother-in-law got you because she saw them and thought of you. It’s you and your friends trying to go all ‘incognito’ because your cool friend found a cool new cafe downtown but the captain of the guard still insists on coming along for security reasons and god bless him he is trying to look like a civilian to maintain your facade but the man is fucking huge and everyone keeps flirting with him. It’s your father in-law’s valet quietly slipping you his footnotes on the drier texts of the kingdom’s legal history to help you get up to speed for another council meeting and you smiling at his snippy sarcastic little comments in the margins. It’s even headdesking at said boring as hell council meeting and your father-in-law quietly sliding you a cup of tea with a warm smile because yes, this stuff is boring but he’s pretty sure you’ll still get your motion to fill those potholes passed, just hang in there, kiddo. It’s good things and bad things and sometimes long stints of crazy shit—but the only constant is that you’re with people who love you and care about your well-being, and you love them, and want the best for them, too.

Now you’re probably asking, “okay but do Cindy and the Prince have kids? Because that was a pretty big deal for the king.” And I’m gonna leave that up to you. All you really need to know in that regard is that there’s a healthy hazel sapling in the royal gardens, and the king isn’t pressuring them nearly as much for grandkids as he thought he would be since they opened up those really high-grade cozy orphanages. The king reads books to the kids there, every Sunday. I’m like 80% sure the kids there don’t even know he’s the king, they just like that he does the voices. The queen still gets up to her usual adventures and bullshit, but actually does make more of an effort to include her family now, to mixed reactions from everyone. She plans on teaching Cindy fencing, or maybe boxing—that’s therapeutic, right? She’s sensitive—she knows she is. She’s going to be the best mother-in-law ever, goddammit.

Meanwhile Cindy and the Prince will sometimes spend a day riding horses together, they go through fields and through the woods and cut crazy paths between village roads and farmland footpaths, and sometimes, they ride down a road where a while back, a pumpkin bounced along and exploded on, and they ride that road until they reach a big, familiar house, crumbling with neglect. There’s a hazel tree there, and it’s grown so big it’s practically growing on the house.

The tree looks like it’s eating the house.

The End.

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LaurentheFlute on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 05:20AM UTC

Holy shit, this is incredible. Like, I literally laughed out loud at multiple points, but then you pen some gorgeous turn of phrase or absolutely cutting (yet not uncompassionate) insight into human nature, all woven together seamlessly in what I initially took to be a Drunk History style narrative but it's actually so much more and that description would be doing it an absolute disservice. I don't know what this is but I love it and am looking forward to more.
I admit that I just randomly browse recently posted stories here from time to time (as a means of avoiding doomscrolling, we all have our vices) and I'm so very glad I stumbled across this gem. I haven't devoured a chapter this quickly in a while but damn.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 12 Jul 2022 03:00AM UTC
  
  Ahhhh thank you so much!! I try not to be too heavy-handed with the whole "insights into human nature" factor because my major goal with this story was having fun, but I think the insight factor ended up inkling its way into the story more and more as I developed the characters more. Such is the power of the plastic deck chair.
  
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MarlynnOfMany on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:01AM UTC

Hooray, it's here! I'm gonna have to read the whole thing over again.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:24AM UTC
  
  Please do! I’ve made a couple tweaks from the original to suit AO3 better. :)
  
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Hobbitguy1420 (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:17AM UTC

I'm not very eloquent, so I'm just gonna be plain with my feelings.
EeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!

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karmictrickster on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 07:13AM UTC

I'm so happy you uploaded this! I read it as you released it and I had the master list as a pinned tab so I didn't miss any releases! I loved this!

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RoaAoife on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 08:01AM UTC

Yay! I'm so excited to share this with my non-tumblr friends. This is one of my favorite stories ever, and if you ever publish I would buy copies to hand out to people.

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Incasa on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 02:49PM UTC

I devoured this while it was coming out on Tumblr and I'm sure I will devour it again here. Great work!

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 03:00PM UTC
  
  Thank you so much!!
  
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ProphecyFlame on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 03:14PM UTC

This is one my all time favorites!!! Everything is just so great about it whis this was the story i grew up with! I first read it on tumblr and the first thing i did when i saw you uploaded it here was to bookmark this! I'm pretty sure I'm going to re-read this like a 1000 times! xoxo

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Thu 14 Jul 2022 09:18PM UTC
  
  Ahhh thank you so much!!
  
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bkwyrm on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 04:19PM UTC

I’m so glad this is on AO3 - loved it on Tumblr but it’s wonderful to be able to download it!

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RaguelZet on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 04:45PM UTC

Favorite Line. Right now torn between
“Come on! I bet we can make the prince jealous!” and he just bursts out laughing at that like “hell yeah, let’s make the prince jealous. He’s a real asshole.”
And
HOW ARE YOU THE PRINCE AND THIS BAD AT THIS. WHY CAN’T YOU BE A HORNY, STUPID PIECE OF SHIT. THAT WOULD MAKE THINGS SO MUCH SIMPLER.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sun 19 Jun 2022 03:04AM UTC
  
  The initial title for the 'opening' chapter was "In Which Things Would Be Simpler if the Prince was a Horny Piece of Shit" but I had to slap it together with the OG post which kicked everything off.
  
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BioHammer on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 09:27PM UTC

💙💙💙💙

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Evrard on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 05:01PM UTC

This was so good as a Tumblr post, and it's EVEN BETTER expanded. Love the tone, love the pointedness -- well done, I look forward to reading the rest.

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Coruscant on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 06:59PM UTC

Heeyyyy it's my favourite tumblr fic on ao3!! I genuinely think that this is the best cinderella fic/adaptation i've ever read. like, you get it, you know? you get it. i will be totally down to like, buy this, if you ever publish it or anything.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 03:51AM UTC
  
  awww gee thank you so much!!
  
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FabulousAlien on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 11:13PM UTC

I haven't read this yet
(I mean, I have, on tumblr, but you said you made changes, so I need to read it again)
but I'm commenting anyway because I know it's ridiculously funny and I'm going to enjoy reading it as much as the first time.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 05 Jul 2022 02:18AM UTC
  
  Thank you so much!!
  
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claraowl on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 01:14AM UTC

"Every upper-middle to upper-class woman who has ever harassed a retail worker to the point of tears is descended from this woman like chickens are descended from velociraptors." I am ROLLING.

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 03:46AM UTC
  
  The rare Karen-saurus.
  
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Severina_Blue on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 04:14PM UTC

I followed this eagerly on Tumblr, and it's great to see it here too. It's a wonderful piece of writing!

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 28 Jun 2022 03:11PM UTC
  
  Thank you!!!
  
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Emmalylis on Chapter 1 Thu 23 Jun 2022 07:50PM UTC

That hits-to-bookmark ratio is wild. This is good stuff. Thank you so much for writing it!

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 28 Jun 2022 03:07PM UTC
  
  I'm shocked too! Thank you!!
  
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lilacmeep (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 23 Jun 2022 08:38PM UTC

oh my stars I've been absolutely obsessed with this since I found it on tumbler i cant wait to see other peoples reaction definitely going to re read this like 20 times <3

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 28 Jun 2022 03:11PM UTC
  
  Ahhh it's been so exciting seeing both the tumblr folks who have been following this from the beginning and AO3 peeps who have never heard of it! Thank you!!
  
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PumpkinVoid on Chapter 1 Tue 28 Jun 2022 07:27PM UTC

I read this on Tumblr. It's so good!!!!

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1. NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sat 02 Jul 2022 02:50AM UTC
  
  Thank you!!
  
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FullmetalDude1 on Chapter 1 Thu 30 Jun 2022 04:54PM UTC

I have read a few of the posts for this on Tumblr and I am so fucking glad this is on AO3 BECAUSE I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS! I LOVE THE KICK ASS QUEEN! I LOVE THE KING WHO JUST WANTS HIS BOY TO BE A BIT MORE SOCIAL! I LOVE OUR BOOK WORM PRINCE! AND I LOVE THE SET UP FOR CINDY'S FAMILY!

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Utter_Immolation on Chapter 1 Thu 07 Jul 2022 08:46PM UTC

Ahhhhhh yes! Been catching bits and pieces of this on Tumblr, and now I have the time to settle down and read it in full. Can I just say, I'd love to hear your style and perspective on other fairytales!

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Work Header

Cindy

NiteWrighter

Summary:

Notes:

Chapter 1: In Which The Narrator Immediately Gets Ahead of Themselves

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: In Which No Rats were Harmed in the Making of These Horses

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: In Which Cindy and the Fairy Godmother Run From the Cops

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: In Which The Prince Begins His Investigation and the Narrator Yells About Foot Fetishes

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: In Which We Meet the Queen Because Fuck You She Was Alive in the Rogers and Hammerstein Version

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: In Which News of the Slipper is Spread Throughout the Kingdom

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: In Which the Slipper is a Non-Euclidean Object Which Defies All Laws of Physics

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: In Which Cindy is Every Drunk Girl Who Has Ever Comforted You in a Bar or Club Bathroom

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Chapter 9: In Which Cindy Has No Interest In Being That Wife Chained Up in the Attic in Jane Eyre

Notes:

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Chapter 10: In Which Tasty Pies are Consumed and Also Maybe the Slipper Fits Someone or Whatever

Notes:

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Chapter 11: In Which We Meet The Parents

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: In which Cindy is going to be okay but also it’s not a fairy tale unless the ending has at least a little bit of threatening ambiguity towards the audience

Chapter Text

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LaurentheFlute on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 05:20AM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 12 Jul 2022 03:00AM UTC

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MarlynnOfMany on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:01AM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:24AM UTC

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Hobbitguy1420 (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 06:17AM UTC

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karmictrickster on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 07:13AM UTC

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RoaAoife on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 08:01AM UTC

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Incasa on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 02:49PM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 03:00PM UTC

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ProphecyFlame on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 03:14PM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Thu 14 Jul 2022 09:18PM UTC

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bkwyrm on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 04:19PM UTC

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RaguelZet on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 04:45PM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Sun 19 Jun 2022 03:04AM UTC

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BioHammer on Chapter 1 Sat 18 Jun 2022 09:27PM UTC

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Evrard on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 05:01PM UTC

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Coruscant on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 06:59PM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 03:51AM UTC

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FabulousAlien on Chapter 1 Mon 20 Jun 2022 11:13PM UTC

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NiteWrighter on Chapter 1 Tue 05 Jul 2022 02:18AM UTC

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claraowl on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Jun 2022 01:14AM UTC

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