Twisted Tales

The Prince's Ball

The fairy godmother had hooked us up.

Clearly, we couldn't disenchant Cinderella on our own. To do that, the fairy godmother told us we would need something of equal of greater power than the item that had been used to cast the spell on Cinderella in the first place—and the only thing we knew of that fit that category was the wand itself the stepmother currently possessed. And getting Cindy back into her usual shape was only the first step: we still had to make sure that she ended up with her prince.

That would be a bit tricky, since without a slipper of hers to leave behind on the castle steps, the prince probably wouldn't go hunting for her after the ball, and it probably wouldn't be an easy task to A) convince him to meet with some random kitchen wench in the first place, and B) then convince him she was actually the lady he had danced with at the ball, considering the fact that he didn't recognize her in the original story at all, until she put on the shoe. God, I sincerely hoped he wasn't actually as dumb as the story made him seem. Maybe he's just... incredibly unobservant.

Well, either way, we'd just have to cross that bridge when we came to it. Step one, getting the wand and changing Cindy back, was the most pressing issue at the moment, and everything else was just hypothetical until that was dealt with.

And that was where the fairy godmother came in.

A wave of her adorable little wand was all it took to whisk away that days' worth of grime and sweat that had accumulated on us. Another pinch of magic, and we were each provided with ball-worthy finery to take the place of our distinctly serf-chic clothing.

The boys stripped where they stood, much to the horror of the fairy's sensibilities. I, being someone who was not raised in a barn (actually, it was conceivably possible that Jack and Erik had, in fact, been raised in barns as a matter of course, so perhaps that wasn't the best expression to use), changed my clothes behind a small cluster of trees.

The dress the fairy had conjured from thin air (law of conservation of matter my ass) was a high waisted affair that at first made me think of Regency era dresses, a la Pride and Prejudice, but the heavy embroidered fabric and the sleeves which were slit at the elbows to allow the sleeves white under-dress to be puffed out of made me realize it was more in the 16th century style. I could have been an extra in a production of Romeo and Juliet. It was a bluish silver color, with silver embroidery, and I have to admit, I did a couple of girlish spins once I had it on, accompanied by a handful of giddy giggles. I'd never worn anything quite so fancy before, and even though the get up was a bit heavy and stiff, and I knew it was a pretty average dress given the time period I was in, I still felt like a princess.

Well, more like a little girl playing dress up, but like a little girl playing princess dress up. I had a pair of slippers to match, but they were certainly not made for hiking through graveyards, across town, and all the way to the ball, so I continued to wear my converse in place of them, at least for now.

When I reappeared from behind the trees, I found the boys fully dressed as well. They both wore, what I believe were called, doublets and hose, in a style that wasn't quite Renaissance and not quite King Henry VII, but somewhere vaguely in-between.

I burst out laughing, which I felt a little bad for, but I couldn't help it. With poofy sleeves, short capes, feather caps set at jaunty angles, tights that showed off way too much, and—I kid you not—actual codpieces, they made quite the sight. Jack looked awkward and kept fussing with his collar, while Erik just stood slightly hunched over as if he was trying to disappear into himself and glowered at me.

"What are you laughing at?" he demanded.

I managed to suppress my giggles. "Nothing, nothing. No, you guys look good. Really."