Cinderella woke with a start, having dreamt of fire. It took her a few confused breaths before she remembered where she was. When she did, she languidly turned on her cot to face the bars to her tower window, thin slivers of gentle Lamplight seeping through the slits between the iron rods coming to creep across her face like a gentle violator. From somewhere far, far below came the clamor of a large crowd having gathered, but no amount of commotion could tarnish for her the radiant sight of an open sky, cloudless and brilliantly blue.
Cinderella had her head resting on her pillow when she heard the sound of the key being turned in the tower door behind her. A candle-flick later came the sounds of chains scraping across the stone floor.
“My princess.” came a tired voice. “It is time.”
Cinderella gently rubbed the sleep from her eyes and turned back to face her visitor. An elderly man, stooped over and bald with two tufts of white hair on either side of his head, was standing in the center of her tower cell, looking her over with an expression of resignation etched into his face. He looked as if he had not slept in days. His hands were large and calloused as befitted a laborer who had worked his entire life, but he was dressed in a nobleman’s finery with jeweled rings encrusting his fingers and doused in the perfumes of a prince. Flanking him was a pair of guardsmen wearing morion helmets and wielding gleaming halberds. They both had hard faces hinting at harder hearts. One of them had come prepared with chains and manacles, their soft clunking an unspoken promise.
“He has sent you rather than come here himself.” Cinderella said softly. There was no accusation in her voice, only audible disappointment.
“So he has.” the old man replied.
“He does not wish to see me?”
“He does not.”
Cinderella rose slowly from her bed, planting her bare feet on the cold floor. She absentmindedly ran a big toe across a line of mortar in between a pair of stones, staring crestfallen into the middle-distance. When next she spoke, her tone was one of pained regret.
“Does he no longer love me, do you think?” she asked.
“I cannot speak for him.”
“I did not ask you to speak for him. I asked for your thoughts.”
“The Author Above states that true love triumphs over all.”
“Even this?”
“Even this.”
“And what of you, father? Is there still love for me in your heart?”
There was a beat of a pause. Her father placed his hand on his chest, right above his heart.
“Some wellsprings never dry, just as some rivers should never run.”
Cinderella sighed a long sigh, a deep sigh, a soulful sigh, a sigh with which she exhaled almost all the breath from her lungs and that caused her slender shoulders to crumple in on themselves in a physical display of utter defeat. With her next intake of breath her shoulders strengthened again and whatever display of pained disappointment that had been visible on her face faded like snow before summer sun. She rose from her bed with little further fanfare and looked down at her white sleeping gown. She then glanced at the chains held in threatening sway.
“Will you allow me some time to freshen myself?” Cinderella asked.
“Of course.”
“Cold water, then. And a mirror.”
The old man tilted his head and gave Cinderella a dubious look.
She saw it and made a dismissive twirl with her fingers. “You needn’t fret, father.”
She cast her gaze about the room, entirely empty save for her simple bed, a chair and a barren table to sit at.
“I have no intentions of harming myself with broken glass. I would not deprive a father of his last daughter.”
The old man brought a hand to his brow, rubbing it in troubled thought. What little Cinderella could see of her father’s face hidden by his hand was an expression of unstymied hurt.
“I shall see to it.” he said in a choked whisper. He turned to his guards, refusing to meet their eyes.
“See her brought in chains.”
He then turned on his heel, the golden tassels of his princely incarnadine robe swirling with the motion as he strode out of the room. His guards were left behind to share a meaningful look before they did as ordered. Their expressions were unreadable as they dutifully stepped forward. Cinderella’s eyes were drawn towards her tower window again. Swatches of glittering sunlight came past the bars to paint the walls of her cell a beautiful gold. The lilting notes of distant birdsong rose up above the din of the crowd far below.
Such a beautiful morning, she thought to herself as the guards began shackling her at her wrists and ankles. As Cinderella was led down the ceaselessly winding stairs of the tower that had been her prison for so long, she couldn’t contain a soft smile from playing around her lips.
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Cinderella was escorted by her two guards along by her chains through a long, arched hallway. A luxurious red carpet stretched the entire length of it, with the priceless tapestries and portraits of princes past that decorated the walls delicately lit by candle sconces that danced in the whish of their brisk wake. Suits of ornate armor were lined in various intervals on each side, their shields embossed with the symbol of a turtledove gloriously on the wing. Each time the guards led her past one of the inanimate knights Cinderella couldn’t help but feel the weight of their sightless gazes pressing down on her shoulders, as if they had already cast their judgment and found her wanting.
By the time they reached the opposite end of the lengthy corridor, Cinderella’s feet were sore and her ankles and wrists were raw from the chafing irons. They had come to a large set of double-doors that dominated the space before them, the portal tall enough to let a dragon through. The doors were decorated with the filigree outlines of a crowned prince holding up the crystalline shape of a slipper on the left door up to a faceless female figure on the right. Cinderella’s eyes were drawn to the woman and she was quickly engrossed by memories flooding back of a familiar scene that had played out not too long ago.
She suddenly struggled with her breathing, alternating between shallow, panicked intakes of breath and the multiple rising waves of deep emotion coming from somewhere deep within her chest. She had not shed a single tear during her imprisonment, but now, seeing the simple scene before her, it was all she could to try and keep herself from breaking down in abject remorse.
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Cinderella heard words being spoken to her, but she couldn’t quite make out what, her ears ringing with the sounds of tolling bells and beautiful birds atwitter. She felt a gentle tug at her chains, but she was preoccupied with the physical memory of cool crystal gently encasing her heels.
An abrupt jerk at her chains by the guard that was handling them forced Cinderella to crash into her knees, her bound-together wrists held aloft above her head.
“Get up,” said one of the guards in a rough voice. “Princess.” he added as an afterthought.
Without waiting for compliance, he leaned down to hoist the princess up.
Cinderella let her head hang as she was brought back up to her feet, still panting heavily. Her flaxen hair was long enough to reach her knees and curtained the anguish in her features - and shielded her sight from the doors in front of her.
“This way.” said the other guard, opening up a smaller door to the side that led to a small antechamber, more brightly lit than the hallway. The chamber was empty save for a pair of comfortable cushioned chairs and an accompanying table upon which waited a small washing basin filled with water and a hand mirror.
The guards moved to have Cinderella in one of the chairs, then posted up beside on either side of her. Cinderella sat at the tip of her chair, her knees clumsily pressed together and her wrists in a wait on her lap as she stared at her feet. She was entirely silent and showed no movement, save for carefully trailing her big toe to follow the circular patterns in the rug.
It wasn’t long before the guards sprang up to attention as the door to their chamber opened with a slam. An elderly woman dressed in a many-layered green court robe came storming inside. Her matronly features immediately contorted into a mask of grave fury as she noticed Cinderella flanked by her guards, turning red to the very roots of her gray hair.
“What is the meaning of this?” She cried out in great indignation. She rushed over, dress held up pinched by the petticoats, but rather than speak to Cinderella she instead directed her anger at the guards.
“Why have you brought a princess here in chains like some lowborn criminal? Free her immediately.”
A guard protested. “My lady Queen Mother, we were ordered to--”
“I do not care one whit for your excuses! Remove these shackles right this instant or I shall order you off the nearest tower!”
The guards shared a single concerned glance, then hurried to release Cinderella from her irons. Once freed, Cinderella caressed the red around her wrists, her eyes still downcast.
“Now leave us.” the queen mother ordered as she brought a chair closer next to Cinderella’s and sat beside her.
“Queen Mother, I fear that if we leave you alone, she may--”
“I said leave us! Go stand by the door and make sure no one else enters. Make me repeat myself again and I shall instead order you off the highest tower.”
At that the guards both bent at the waist in a uniformed bow and marched out of the room. They shut the door behind them, leaving the pair of women entirely alone.
The queen mother reached her hands out to clasp them around one of Cinderella’s, rubbing them gently.
“My dear girl.” she said softly. “My sweet, innocent girl.”
Cinderella raised her head slowly, looking past the veil of her own hair at the other woman. “I fear I am no longer so innocent, mother.”
“We shall see it all tended to. It will all become alright again.” The queen mother brought their clasped hands to her lips, planting kisses on Cinderella’s fingers in a showing of great sympathy.
“And they lived happily ever after.” she murmured soothingly from in between their fingers. “So states the Author.”
Cinderella averted her gaze from the queen mother and let out another sigh.
“When am I to be summoned?” she asked despondently.
The queen mother reached out a hand to lovingly wipe away the locks from Cinderella’s face.
“Soon. He still expects the arrival of a Stylus from the church.”
Cinderella nodded, then slowly rose from her chair.
“I would like to wash myself.”
“Of course, my girl.”
The queen mother followed suit and began helping Cinderella undress.
Cinderella brought the hand mirror to her face, running a caressing finger along the breadth of its back. She once owned a similar one.
Before they took it from me.
She turned it over to look at herself. Her unwashed, unkempt hair clung to the contours of her sunken features as if desperately trying to conceal the way she looked for her own good. Her time locked up in her tower had done her no favors; once-rounded cheeks had fallen in on themselves and plump full lips had withered to a pair of bland worms stuck to her face. Almond-shaped eyes that had once been described to her during times of crepuscular lovemaking as dark diamonds aglitter had dulled to colorless grays.
Before they took everything from me.
“There is no time for a proper bath, I’m afraid.” the queen mother said apologetically as she began to undress and then wash Cinderella, scraping away the crust of sweat, dirt and worse that had come to cling to the princess in certain spots like an uncomfortable layer of second skin.
“But I shall have a dress sent for you.” she added as she began to clean her back. “Do you have a preference in color?”
“Gray.”
“Gray?”
“Yes. A kirtle.”
There was a pause from the queen mother. All Cinderella heard as she glumly stared at herself in the mirror was a long sigh coming from behind her.
“I shall have one of the maids bring you hers.”
“My hair?”
“Perhaps only time for a quick rinse, though the water is cold.”
“I asked for it that way.”
“But why, my girl?”
“My tower was so high, it felt like the sun was right above it. I was often left to bake in its heat during the day. I wanted something cool after so long.”
“It will be difficult to get it straightened with no hot water.”
“Braiding?”
“I fear not. There are too many clumps.”
Cinderella brought a hand to her face, raking uneven fingernails through some of the matted clumps of her hair.
Songs were sung about my hair. Poems, written.
The princess let the mirror fall like sand slipping between her fingers. It fell to the floor and cracked like a broken heart, its tinkling shards strewn about.
“What are you doing?” asked the queen mother as Cinderella leant forward to pick up the largest of the shards.
She glanced back over her shoulder and gave the queen mother a withering look before bringing the broken part of the mirror up towards her face. For a moment, the sliver tantalizingly lingered by her neckline in temptation, but she instead brought it further up and began to roughly saw into her hair.
“My girl, please, no. Your hair, your beautiful hair!” The queen mother feebly reached up her hands to try and stop the princess, but her hands were swatted away each time.
Cinderella’s hair fell down in clumps at her feet. She sawed and she cut at what had once been the most beautiful locks in all the kingdom of Brightsilver until she was left with little more than a disheveled mass that barely reached the base of her ears.
Once done, she turned to the queen mother who simply stood there aghast, clutching her clavicle in horror.
“Please, mother. Send for my kirtle.” said Cinderella calmly.
Without another word or glance back, the queen mother stood up and rushed out of the room. Cinderella could hear her shaky voice commanding the guards standing outside the door, but she was too taken by the sight of the reflection of a ruined woman staring at her from the mirror shard in her hand to hear what was said.
Cinderella tried a smile and the woman in the mirror smiled ruefully back. The smile, she noticed, never reached the stranger’s lifeless eyes.
Cinderella let the last of the mirror slip from her grasp and closed her eyes. She thought of the gentleness of the sun - that cruel sun that had baked her for so long, but not today - and of the sounds of the birds that had sung so sweetly this morning.
Such a beautiful morning, she thought to herself again.
And then she remembered her dream. Her dream of fire and of ruin. She remembered the smell of burning flesh and the sounds of screaming.
The screaming of her step sisters as she made sure to cook their bones down to ash.
When she opened her eyes again, Cinderella sat herself back on her chair and patiently waited for the queen mother’s return, grinning from ear to ear.
Such a beautiful, wondrous morning.