rhian_crockett | Flattr, and a story! (Reply)

First off, I've started using Flattr, as an experiment. Basically, if you have a Flattr account and you've loaded money into it, and you click on my Flattr button (in my profile, and possibly in individual posts that contain my writing), I get paid part of that monthly allowance. I like the idea, so we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I've been promising a story for a while. Well, this isn't the one I've been working on, but it is a retelling from a slightly different slant, and I hope you enjoy it. If you do, feel free to share it, link people to it, etc -- please don't reproduce it elsewhere, though, without talking to me about it first.

Letters Home

To my step-mother, and my step-sisters, Lucille and Mary Ann:

I couldn't bring myself to call you 'dear', even if it is the correct formula. I thought I would write, now that everything's settled, and perhaps help you understand what happened. I'll tell you the story right from the beginning -- I'm in the mood to talk, you know, but my husband, the prince, is busy.

It began with my real mother's death, I suppose. She's been gone so long I barely remember her, you know. All I have for the memory of a mother is you, my step-mother, and so nothing good. You came a year or so after her death, I suppose. I don't know what my father was thinking, marrying so soon. You weren't beautiful, certainly not compared to my real mother, and you aren't kind, or generous, or sympathetic in any way. Still, I was glad to welcome you, and Lucille, and Mary Ann -- my father couldn't be wrong, surely?

But he was. Even before he died, Lucille and Mary Ann were always there, tugging at my hair and ripping my dresses. They were always running around everywhere, and tracking mud into the house, and bossing around the servants, just as if it were their own home. But it wasn't, you know. It still isn't: I'm going to speak to my husband, the prince, about turning you out and doing it up again.

In any case, then my father died, and you took over. It was gradual, at first -- a maid laid off, and then someone forgot to set a place for me... Before long, I was the maid. My hands are still rough from that work now! They catch on the fine silks I have to wear these days. Of course, I have maids of my own here, and they're doing their best with me, but hardly a day goes by without them fretting over it. Still, when I'm at balls, I can wear gloves, and time will do the rest.

I could go on and on about how you mistreated me: the menial work you made me do, the humiliating situations you put me in... But you know all about it. So does my father-in-law, the king, of course: he was horrified to hear of it.

In any case, when the prince was due to be married, and the ball was announced, I knew that it could be my way of escape. I'm sure you have no idea how I managed to get there, but it turns out that my mother had a fairy godmother, a powerful fairy who took care of her and vowed to take care of me, as well. When she found out what was happening to me -- the evening Lucille and Mary Ann ripped all my clothes to shreds, to stop me coming to the ball: I'm sure you remember -- she came right away, and helped me to go to the ball. She made me the most beautiful dress, and the most delicate little shoes for me to dance in, and the most amazing coach to carry me to the ball. She warned me, though, that I could only stay until midnight, and then my dress would turn into tatters again, and my coach would turn back into a pumpkin.

So that's why I had to run away from the prince when it came to be midnight, and that's when I lost one of the shoes, the very shoe that they went around trying on the foot of every eligible maiden who might possibly have been there at the ball. You know what happened then, of course. You tried to keep me from it, but your own daughters had such big and ugly feet that it was obvious it wasn't them. And I managed to slip down, just as the official was leaving, to have my turn...

Then there was the wedding! You would have been quite overwhelmed by the splendour of it, though of course, you were one of the only people who weren't invited. Probably for the best: Mary Ann and Lucille would have been far outshone even by the maids who waited on us at the celebratory feast. My father-in-law is an old dear, and my mother-in-law too, I suppose. They spend so much time on matters of state, and take up so much of my husband's time as well, since he is the prince, but that's to be expected, I suppose.

I can't sign this with any affection, but with great sincerity I sign myself,
Her Royal Highness, Princess Cinderella.