Princess Charming

Chapter One: Elliot

"Eli? Eli? Where are you? Hurry up!"

"Eli? Where's my tea?"

"Elliot? It's past nine. Where are the papers? I shouldn't still be waiting for my breakfast."

"Coming! I'm coming!" Elliot muttered under his breath as he reluctantly put the paper he had been caught up reading back on his step-father's breakfast tray. Past nine and in want only of breakfast and papers, imagine the horror! Elliot had been up since four: feeding the livestock, baking fresh bread, and washing the first lot of laundry. Reading that story had been the first time he had paused for breath all morning, but it would be worth the chastisement his step-father was about to give him. He hurriedly added buttered toast, boiled eggs and individual pots of tea to each of the three trays before balancing them precariously in his arms and heading upstairs.

Navigating the stairs was a fine art, but Elliot had months of practice and could have done it with his blue eyes closed. Perhaps it was because he was running late, or maybe his mind was still lingering on that headline: he didn't see the cat.

"Lucifer!" Elliot hissed, almost dropping Helios's tray as the cat shot - claws out - across his bare toes. He winced in pain, pausing to compose himself.

"Elliot!"

"Eli!"

"Eli"

The demands droned on and Elliot resumed his upward journey without complaint. This was his life and he had learnt to accept it long ago. Moaning wasn't going to change anything; it only used up valuable energy.

Unfortunately, his step-siblings didn't share this view. "It's about time!" Helios huffed from beneath satin sheets when Elliot nudged his door open with a foot. "I'm starving."

Elliot murmured his apologies, placing the tray on the bedside table and opening the heavy, velvet curtains so that the bright morning sunlight could streak across the room.

"Argh!" he step-brother hissed, covering his eyes. "Close those at once. It's too early for daylight."

Elliot shook his head sadly as the room that had once been his returned to shadows and gloom.

One down, two to go.

With her hair in curlers and a putrid poultice smeared across her face, his usually flawless step-sister was looking positively monstrous as she blinked her large green eyes at him from the midst of a mountain of pillows.

Elliot mastered his urge to recoil, swiftly putting down her breakfast tray and retreating out of her room. But when Selene's door shut behind him, he wished he had spent longer in his step-siblings' rooms; he was in no hurry to go through the final door at the end of the corridor.

Once upon a time, entering that room had filled him with joy. When it had belonged to his mother and father, the windows and curtains would have been thrown open. Flowers, grown with his father's careful hands, would have filled vases on every available surface. He liked to bring Elliot's mother bunches with her breakfast each morning, so that she would remember the simple beauty of home when she was engrossed in stuffy meetings at the merchants guild.

But now, Elliot opened the door to a room of precision and severity. Everything was ordered, dark and soulless; from the thick black curtains which hung over the firmly shut windows, to the empty sideboards that his step-father wouldn't tolerate a speck of dust on, let alone a vase of flowers. Even the pictures of Elliot's mother - his step-father's former wife - had been taken down on her death. His parents' presence in the house had been methodically eradicated, until Elliot himself was the only remnant. And he survived only due to his usefulness.