cinderella marries the prince
and itâs⊠fine. The prince is great! Theyâre in love, heâs very sweet and passionate, writing her poems and songs, giving her anything she wants. The time she spends with her husband is great.
but cinderella is not royalty, her family was noble but she never spent time in those circles. Sheâs used to being busy, sheâs used to cooking and cleaning and mending. There are hours, days, where she has nothing to do.
time passes. cinderella learns the fancy lady type of needlework. Learns to ride horses. Reads a lot.
as is normal for royalty at the time, they travel and are hosted by nobles or stay at castles owned by the king. But even that variety begins to become routine. The prince is distracted, thereâs a lot of young women living and working on their route. Daughters of nobles. Younger and prettier with soft hands that have never done a dayâs work.
cinderella needs something to spend her time on, and thereâs a part of her thinking a couple-only trip might get her husbandâs attention again, so she suggests making an old castle thatâs fallen into disrepair their âproject.â It was built in the time when castles were made to be defensible, so itâs quite sturdy, but itâs overgrown and secluded. The prince doesnât know why his family stopped living there either. A hundred years ago it was their summer home.
so they go. And they work. And for a while itâs great! But when they leave for winter cinderellaâs husband forgets her once again. cinderella resolves to make the best of her life and stop worrying about a man who has gotten what he wanted from her.
summer comes again and this time cinderella goes alone to the old castle (minus staff, of course, but cinderella manages to narrow it down to only repair workers and one maid). She can cook and clean and mend again, but this time itâs her own choice. She is happy.
this summer they make more progress on repairs. The workers say that most of it can be salvaged, except one tower thatâs been completely overgrown with vines and briars. It will have to come down, eventually, but for now it can be safely ignored.
cinderella has more free time now. The old castle has a surprisingly untouched library, though time and moisture have damaged many of the books. Behind a collection of greek poetry cinderella finds an old diary. Very old, in fact, at least a hundred years. Itâs rude to read a diary, of course, but whoever wrote this is long dead, and cinderella is bored, soâŠ
from the description of activities the author looks to have been nobility. Maybe even a princess. Sheâs sensitive and sweet and smarter than she seems to realize. If circumstances had been different cinderella wishes they could have been friendsâŠ
after the summer ends cinderella returns to her husband. Heâs spending a lot of time with a young musician and cinderella canât even work up the energy to care. She does some research about the castle and the family sheâs married into, finds out the name of the princess who wrote the diary.
aurora. Cursed and forgotten. She died young, they say, in a plague that also took out the castle staff and her own parents. Luckily they avoided a succession crisis, but not so lucky for the dead.
time passes. cinderella goes to the old castle again and again, even out of season. Soon enough all that remains to be done is the old tower, and the builders say they should tear it down and fill the gaps before it gets cold.
one night cinderella is restless. The princess from the diary had been fond of that tower, and cinderella is far more attached to a dead woman than she ought to be. She gets out of bed, reads by candlelight, and finally goes to walk the empty halls.
she finds herself going to the tower. Pushing past the vines that donât seem so troublesome really. They almost part before her. The stairs are perfectly intact, the door at the top is already cracked open. As if she should have done this years ago, cinderella steps into auroraâs bedroom.
sheâs as beautiful as the stories say. And sitting under her hands, crossed across her stomach as it rises and falls, is a book of greek poetry.
years later, people will tell the story of cinderella as a cautionary one. Donât seek above your station. Donât marry for prestige. After all, a girl who grew up as a servant once married the crown prince, and disappeared after only three years. She ran away, they say, she couldnât handle the lifestyle.
two old women who run a bookshop together agree with the lesson. Marrying for the wrong reasons never ends well. Itâs best to wait for someone you have things in common with, shared interests.
or, failing that, the more linguistic of the two says, wait a decade or ten for someone to fall in love with you from your diary.
her partner laughs and hits her with the socks she is mending.
