She's Cinderella and She's Pissed About It. (Ch. 1)

Chapter I

      At some point during an eternity called ‘time’ (that no one kept track of because calendars were taxed heavily), there was a very tiny yet mighty queendom. It was prosperous, corrupt, and so incredibly sketchy that even the orcs and monsters who roamed it freely muttered, “Now, that’s suspicious.”

      Bribery was a national sport. Secrecy was currency. Pay anyone a pretty penny (plus tax, obviously), and the scandal vanished sooner than a nobleman’s virtue. It was the perfect system.

      Even a blind man could see that this queendom was supremely sketchy. Naturally, in an odd place, several oddities lay within. But we’re not here to talk about questionable ethics, are we? No, let’s focus on one particularly, truly tragic soul.

      A freak of the highest order.

      "CINDERELLA!" Beauty shrieked, at the early buttcrack of dawn. Several angry neighbours shouted across their grand estates in protest. A girl dressed in ragged clothes scrurried down from the ornate dark wood stairs into the parlor, carrying a mop and a bucket. She dropped them and pushed a lock of curly blond hair to the side in an attempt to look semi-presentable despite being dressed like an abandoned sock. Her expression was tired but cheery.

      “For the last time,” She panted, forcing her voice into something sweet and light. “It’s Syndeyrella.”

      Syn’s voice was coated with fake warmth, through gritted teeth. She smiled, though she didn’t feel like smiling.

      “You’re so slow,” Beauty pouted, brushing her hair gently (you could never catch Beauty without a hairbrush in her hand). “Make me crêpes, Sinabella.”

       Syn didn’t even bother correcting her this time, just smiled (because friendly people smile). Syn pulled a crumpled, tear-stained chores list from her pocket and squinted at it.

      “No milk,” Syn said.

      Beauty parted her perfect, rosy lips to scream. Syn could already hear it.

      Before the queendom’s fragile peace could be obliterated, Bella, the Other Sister™, floated down the staircase like a wisp of silk.

      “Good morning!” She sighed dreamily, probably fresh from a splendid dream. Knowing her luck, she was. Unlike the rest of us mortals, she never had clean scary hairballs from the shower drain.

      Bella turned to Syn with a sweet, half-asleep smile. “Beauty, Syn, how are you doing?”

      Syn scampered to greet her. Bella, being the saint she was, laughed it away, of course. So generous, so kind, Bella. She had no idea how much control she wields over the very air Sydney breathed.

      Or maybe she did.

      Bella walked toward the kitchen sink. Like a tragic heroine, she gazed into her warped reflection on the tap. If a gentle violin piece started playing in the background, it would fit right in.

     “Am I pretty?” She muttered, her voice heavy with tragedy.

      Syn sighed. She’d been here many, many times before.

      “No,” Syn deadpanned, careful to keep her voice flat. Safe. One wrong answer could twist into tears, screaming — or even worse — existential poetry.

      This was a filthy lie. Bella was stunning — her beauty came second only to, well, Beauty. Unlike her sister, Bella didn’t embrace it. She trapped it in a basement and refused to acknowledge its existence.

       Bella beamed like she had just won an argument with fate. “I know, right? Why am I like this? Why is my hair so tangled and hard?” Bella cried, swiping at her silky, shoulder-length locks. This was also a lie, but anyone’s hair looked like a bird’s nest compared to Beauty’s, who, may I remind you, stroked hers ten thousand times a day.

      Bella kept spiraling. Her freckles? Hideous (they were flawless). Her eyes? A dull brown (they were a golden hazel, probably blessed by woodland nymphs themselves).

      If you’re ugly, then what am I? A cryptid termite? Syn thought. But because she was kind, lovely and had a stunning amount of patience for nonsense, she smiled. Again.

      Like a thunderclap, Syn’s stepmother, Lady Delilah Tremaine, burst into the parlor. “SYNDYCABELLA!” she thundered. Her face was magenta with pure fury. “WHERE. IS. BREAKFAST?” she bellowed, making the furniture vibrate ominously. (Yes, this has happened before. Yes, their neighbours have filed complaints.)

      Syn barely flinched. She had an unhealthy resistance to auditory abuse.

      BTW: The levels of rage Delilah reached that morning nearly launched the manor into orbit. Alas, Syn had milk to get and shower drains to clean, and she could not afford to waste this beautiful morning entertaining to a self-loathing narcissist and a self-loving one.

      Syn had a routine for her mornings in Goldcliff. Under the pretense of an odd chore, she’d slip away for a sacred fifteen minutes of meditation on the pasture, vividly picturing vaporizing her (insert egomaniac of choice)’s pathetic little particles into oblivion.

      It was almost as leaving Goldcliff entirely. Almost.

      She liked to mix it up. Some days, she would meditate on launching a particularly snobby Tremaine into the stratosphere, watching as they twinkled away into the night sky. Other times, she envisioned them trapped in a never-ending monologue with a tax collector.

      Today? A ring of fire. Classic. Healing.

      Satisfied after fifteen consecutive reruns of this cinematic masterpiece, Sydney dusted her skirt and exhaled zenly.

      She looked up at the sky. The clouds drifted lazily and weightlessly above the towers of Tremaine, high and far from all the problems of this crusty world. No need for bravery, coin, mothers or fathers. They were free.

      A smile tiptoed on the corners of her mouth, then she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

      A charred dead bird.

      Bella’s fire magic.

      Wings spread out as if mocking the very idea.

      But she knew it wasn’t trying to. It wasn’t its fault. She knew the feeling all too well.

      She sighed. Even birds couldn’t belong to the sky. In the end, they didn’t even belong to themselves.

       And with that happy thought, Sydney continued her errands.

      She stopped by Mrs. Thrag, a kind dwarven grandma, to deliver snickercrust loaves. Upon receiving her bread, she dropped a few misshapen and suspiciously sticky coins into Sydney’s hands and scowled.

      “Everyday, I curse the Tremaine household name into the winds,” she spat and slammed the door.

      Sydney pressed a hand to her heart, touched. The kindest thing anyone had said to her all day.

      Then, she would take her basket and go for a groceries hunt on the paved market roads.

      Syn moved with the market crowd, keeping her pace quick but unnoticeable. Yet today, something felt wrong. The usual scheming was quieted. The whispers were sharper and clipped if she got too close. That was bad. The kind of bad that got people thrown in rivers with bricks in their pockets. Something big had happened; she could feel it. She had no idea what was coming. Only that it was coming for everyone.

      She kept her head down and gripped her basket tighter. Eyes ahead, and walk like you have somewhere to be. Be friendly, but don’t look like prey.

      As she passed the bakery, she caught sight of a boy — no older than ten — slipped a coin into the paws of the local giant rat baker. “Mum says to burn a loaf for the naughty leprechaun man,” he whispered.

     The baker nodded solemnly. “Consider it scorched.”

    Sydney made a mental note: Avoid offending friends of the baker — or anyone with enough money to spend on burnt toast, frankly.

     A familiar voice boomed out to her.

    “Syn! How are you, sugarplum?”

    Sydney turned. I was Mr. Flufflebottom, the werewolf merchant, dressed in his usual pink and beaming right at her. He waved her over to his booth, claws clicking expectantly against the counter.

     “Now, what is it you need, dear?”

      My dignity. A sense of self. A hairbrush. A better nickname.

     “Just some goat milk.”

      Mr. Flufflebottom flexed a muscle — a random werewolf thing he did — and nodded approvingly. He went on to inspect the tottering jar stacks of Wyvern cheese and buttermilk, tail flicking almost seriously. The moment he looked sufficiently distracted, an ice fairy employee, of whose name Sydney could never remember, flited up to her.

      “Have ye heard, then?” she squeaked, shivering with urgency. “Please tell me you’ve heard, Sydney!”

      Syn had disastrous hearing. Always had. Even now, she was 80% sure the fairy had just asked if she had “absurd kidney”. But in Goldcliff, being slightly deaf was evermore of a comfort than not.

       “No?” she said. She had not, in fact, absurd kidney.

       The fairy zipped closer, quivering with excitement. “Ay’ve been itching to talk to someone about thzis—” She was quite literally itching, which was mildly concerning. “The King, he has found it! Our King, he found the trail to the Final Will! Can you believe?”

        Now, Sydney was entirely, painfully sure she had misheard.

        The Final Will. The oldest, famous and horrible scam in all of the queendom. No matter how enragingly stupid the king was, surely — surely — he wouldn’t hunt for the Final Will.. No, he wasn’t stupid.

       Right?

      “We will not SPEAK of the Final Will within my store!”

      Mr.Flufflebottom boomed with the force of thunder, suddenly looming over the ice fairy like a hairy, disapproving tower.

       His voice dropped to a low murmur, “Aren’t you supposed to be elsewhere, Minty, darling?”

      Minty — Minty. M-I-N-T-Y. Commit to memory, Syn! Minty!— bowed her head low in deep shame. “Sorry, Meester Flufflebottom… I’ll—I’ll go ice the products, now.”

      He shook his head disdainfully as they watched the droopy-winged fairy flutter away. His gaze shifted to her, and Syn felt uncomfortable. Not too many people came with notes on how to appease offended werewolves. She wished her father was here. He probably would.

      He exhaled through his nose then shoved a clay jar of cold milk towards her. He flexed a muscle. “Scram.”

      She did.

      On the long way home, Sydney met a few other townsfolk just as nervous and jumpy as Mindy (or Minty? Definitely not Mandy).

      She felt unsettled, too, but she always made sure to give short, reassuring smiles. To which they gave a ugly grimaces in return. Typical Goldcliff fashion.

      Nevertheless, today was a good day. She passed the city gates — for which she had an inexplicable and slightly embarrassing fondness for — and found a muddy map of an elven country littered on the park grounds. (Score!)

       By the time she was jamming the keys into the Tremaine Estate’s front door, Syn’s cheeks ached. They’d haven’t had such a workout in years.

      She hesitated for a second too long, fingers tight around the key. The Tremaine Estate loomed over her, towers like jagged teeth, its stone walls cold and unwelcoming. Inside lay another battlefield just as cold and treacherous as the streets.

      The afternoon breeze was cool and bitter. It was far too temperate and beautiful outside for drab chores. If could, she would drop her baskets, lift her skirt and leave right this instant.

     But where would she go?

    Shoulders tight, Sydney inched the door open.

     The door hinges shrilled an ungodly sound. But all else — silence. Good sign.

     Lady Delilah was out. Bella and Beauty should have been suffering through Ms.Dovernick’s scarily over-priced dance lessons.

     They weren’t.

     Beauty was sprawled unconscious on the couch.

     Bella was curled in a corner, book balanced on her knees. The Accountant’s Grimoire (?).

     Sydney sighed, knowing it was as peaceful an expression as Beauty would ever get.

     Against her better judgment, she removed Beauty’s shoes. Then, a silk pillow. Then got her a blanket. And, because she was far too soft for her own good — Beauty’s favorite hairbrush. She looked disgustingly peaceful. All normal and harmless, not demanding anything. Like a little brown-haired girl she once knew and giggled with until they learned their places in the world.

      Honestly? Sydney thought Beauty looked a thousand times prettier when she wasn’t screaming at the top of her lungs.

    Syn smiled.

    Maybe silence was the true Beauty factor.