The Mirror Perception

The Loss of a Father's Love - Cinderella or the Little Cinder Girl

Hey, everyone! Thank you so much for reading my stories and I hope you're enjoying them! I really appreciate it.

If you like The Mirror Perception check out my other published work Prince of the Lost. It's a novel, of a similar genre and completed so you don't have to wait for updates. It's not quite so tragic or horrific.

If anyone has a request for a story, film or poem you would like me to rewrite then let me know in the comments or message me. I'm currently working on a version of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and possibly Briar Rose.

Enjoy the chapter! Thank you for your patience!

WARNING: Contains elements of child abuse, violence and character death. Please continue with caution and seek help if you need it.

Background: This whole story was modeled off of the Grimm's Fairytale version. I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say, the ugly step-sisters and evil step-mother get their due from Cinderella. If you like these types of stories, I suggest you read them. My version is just flipping the roles of evil and good and taking it all one step further.

Once upon a time, in a prosperous kingdom, a tale of a young girl covered in cinders began. Each telling of the tale portrays the girl as beautiful, kind and courageous, a young woman who could do no wrong and won the love of a prince and lived happily-ever-after. Like all stories however, there is more than one way to tell them. I know a very different story of an abandoned child and a murderer.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Surely you wish to hear this tale from the very beginning, yes? Well then, I shall tell it – but I warn, this is not a story of happily-ever-after. More so, it is a tale of the destruction caused by a lack of love.

To tell such a story we must have a family. The one of which I will tell you was quite simple but quite blessed. There was a man and his wife who lived contentedly in the countryside on an income brought about by trade, rather than social standing. To this couple, a daughter named Elle was born who was gifted with her mother's beauty and her father's intelligence. For many years they lived happily together and had troubles few and far between. It would please me greatly – and no doubt you – if our story ended here. But alas, the night must always take away the sun.

When Elle was but eleven her mother fell pregnant again. Until the child was born, a boy, nothing appeared wrong. But child-bed fever soon overcame Elle's mother. She could not feed her infant son and the family could not send for a wet nurse in time to save him. Both mother and babe perished that winter.

Without her mother who had been her dearest companion, Elle's spirits took a turn for the worse. The once bright, cheerful girl turned sullen and quiet. To ease her loneliness, she began to converse with birds and trees, claiming they returned her conversation.

Elle's father was much changed as well. While he loved his daughter, he could not bear to be near her as she resembled her mother. The loss of his wife had taken a piece from his heart and Elle reminded him of the pain it caused. Elle was also a painful reminder that he had very nearly had a son – an heir to inherit his profession and assets. Elle was not a boy and her father felt bitter for this.

Two years passed and Elle and her father became greater strangers to one another with each sun that set. Whilst her father was away on business, Elle received a letter from a friend of her father's, congratulating him on his impending marriage. Elle had no idea to what the gentleman referred but resigned herself to ask her father when he returned home.