An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
star-crossed just hit 1,000 kudos!
(klance / cinderella AU / fantasy & medieval elements)
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR AMAZING LOVE AND SUPPORT.
I never thought this story would amass such a loving audience and im humbled everyday when i log into AO3 and see the steady uptick in kudos, comments, bookmarks all of it. I check the stats on this fic religiously and I promise if you’ve even VIEWED the fic I’ve noticed, I watch it that closely. thank you, from the very bottom of my heart; there aren’t adequate words to express my gratitude.
I wanted to at least share something to mark this milestone, so here is the working introduction to the second installment. I’m so excited to get some of my other projects finished so I can dive back into this. :)
Lance had heard his fair share of folk tales from his Mamá, about people who rise above the station of their birth, about triumphing against bitter odds, about falling in love and living happily ever after. He remembered a lot of awfully convenient montages, glossing over the finer details of consequences. What happened to the villains? Did they get thrown in jail? Executed? Or what about the hero’s best friend, ex-lover, family—do they miss the hero once they go on to live their big, exciting lives, or is it always a happily ever after?
Maybe those are just the stories people like to tell. The stories people like to remember, where everyone is happy and the bad things only happen to bad people.
Most of the tales Lance knew didn’t tell him what happened when people are stuck living in the poverty they were born into, no matter how hard they try to get out of it; or what happens when the odds are not in the hero’s favor; or how love is so painfully unconditional, and impossible to explain, and that it could kill you much faster than any magical weapon or poisoned apple if you let it.
He was staring at the pages of an old tome, thick but well-maintained, the pages all in decent shape. It had been pulled from the archives by Sir Coran before he and the others returned to Altea, and Lance had found himself zoning out on the image of a pretty blonde human in the arms of her pretty human Prince Charming.
A weird thought occurred to him: would stories be written about Keith, like this one? It was easy to forget that Keith was indeed a figure of legends, would be memorialized like all the Princes and Queens and rulers that came before him.
Would people make up harrowing things to say about them?
Lance almost laughed out loud before turning the page. “Pfft. No.”
Because, first of all, Prince Charming? Out of the long list of words Lance would use to describe his fiancé, charming was not really one of them. Irritable, thoughtful, and just mullet, to name a few.
and, a few other small things to share in celebration, I’ve included two scenes beneath the cut
deleted scene from epilogue pt. 2
untitled dream sequence from the second installment