cinderella marries the prince
and itāsā¦ fine. The prince is great! Theyāre in love, heās 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. Sheās used to being busy, sheās 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, thereās 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 dayās work.
cinderella needs something to spend her time on, and thereās a part of her thinking a couple-only trip might get her husbandās attention again, so she suggests making an old castle thatās fallen into disrepair their āproject.ā It was built in the time when castles were made to be defensible, so itās quite sturdy, but itās overgrown and secluded. The prince doesnāt 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 itās great! But when they leave for winter cinderellaās 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 itās 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 thatās 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. Itās rude to read a diary, of course, but whoever wrote this is long dead, and cinderella is bored, soā¦
from the description of activities the author looks to have been nobility. Maybe even a princess. Sheās sensitive and sweet and smarter than she seems to realize. If circumstances had been different cinderella wishes they could have been friendsā¦
after the summer ends cinderella returns to her husband. Heās spending a lot of time with a young musician and cinderella canāt even work up the energy to care. She does some research about the castle and the family sheās 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 donāt 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 auroraās bedroom.
sheās 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. Donāt seek above your station. Donāt 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 couldnāt handle the lifestyle.
two old women who run a bookshop together agree with the lesson. Marrying for the wrong reasons never ends well. Itās 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.
