Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

Completely ignoring my shrill protests, Ezu went up to the wolf- Alfred- and sheathed his sword, reaching out a hand stony faced towards him.
"I'm not necessarily happy about this," He began, and you could practically see him straining to swallow his pride and pent up years of hurt, "But a very smart- if overly emotional- someone told me that putting my anger on the wrong shoulders would only hurt those I love. And that's something I could never do. So until we get to The Next Kingdom Over, I'll fight along side you instead of against you if I must, Mr... Alfred."
The wolf surveyed Ezu for a long moment, as if trying to tell if he was lying or not. But after a while, he reached out a furry paw and shook Ezu's hand.
"It's a pleasure," He said, his great white teeth clicking together disconcertingly, and he inclined his head slightly in a predator's bow.

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The dictionary's definition of 'awkward': pronounced (ˈȯ-kwərd), an adjective. Meaning to be lacking in dexterity or skill, or showing a lack of expertise.
My definition of 'awkward': pronounced (mī-ev'ree-way-king-mō-mənt), can be anything from an adjective to a swear word. Meaning my current situation-- in any given place or time, and at almost any random moment of my life.

Take now, for example. Though nobody was screaming death threats any more, our little group was still a long way off from, say, chatting pleasantly over a nice cup of tea about how lovely the weather has been lately. Sure, anything was an improvement and I'm definitely not complaining, but Ezu could have at least pretending he wasn't so disapproving of our new guest, and Alfred's long winded spiel about equality and misrepresentation was getting a little old.
If the rest of the trip was going to be like this, I didn't think I was gonna make it.
"Alright," I finally said, giving up and interrupting Alfred's speech. "Alright, so we'd probably prepare for this thing, huh? I mean, we have no idea what we're going up against, so..." I waved my hands uselessly in the air, without any idea whatsoever of where to get started preparing to rescue a princess.
"Prepare for what?" Alfred asked, curiously.
"None of your business," Ezu snapped.
"To rescue a princess," I answered, shooting Ezu a glare that could have curdled milk.
"Rescuing a princess?" Alfred repeated, wrinkling his snout. "I thought that as a prince's job?"
"It would seem that they are all a little busy at the moment, so that task has fell upon us." I replied, grimly. Alfred fell silent, musingly.
"What princess?" He asked after a moment. "I don't think there are any princesses in The Next Kingdom Over. That's the whole reason a ball is being held-- to find the prince a wife."
"Yeah, we know." I sighed. "There is a girl who's supposed to become his wife, but if we don't go... save her or something, it won't happen." I tried to explain. Seeing as how I barely knew what we were doing myself, I had the funny feeling I wasn't doing too good of a job.
"What's this girl's name?" Alfred asked.
"Cinderella is the one she's known as nowadays." I replied. The wolf's furry eyebrows shot up.
"Cinderella, you say?" He repeated, curiously.
"Yeah." I gave him a sidelong look. "Why?"
"I've heard of her before. Apparently she's friends with some of the local wildlife." He waved a paw in the air dismissively. "But she's no princess. Just a poor servant girl."
"She'll be a princess when she marries the prince, won't she?" I pointed out.
"Hm. I suppose she will," Alfred said thoughtfully after a moment.
"Exactly." I said definitively. "And seeing how we've messed up the original story-"
"How you've messed up the original story," Ezu cut in. I glared at him.
"Story? Messed up what story?" Jack asked, looking at Ezu and me blankly. I groaned.
"Fate, story, whatever," I said with a wave of my hand. Trying to explain everything to Jack right now was not how I wanted to spend the next few hours, so once again, for about the hundredth time, I brushed his inquiry off. "Either way, since we-"
"You," Ezu cut in swiftly.
"I," I amended with a sharp glare at him, "Screwed everything up big time, she won't get to be a princess unless we... unless we... er..." I trailed off, suddenly all to aware that I had no idea what we were going to do. I didn't know how to save Cinderella-- I didn't even know what her problem was! And if a magical fairygodmother couldn't make everything all bippity boppity boop, what were we-- a rag tag team of two testosterone-raging teenage boys, a clumsy danger-prone girl, and now a talking, protesting wolf with equal rights on his mind-- going to be able to do?
"Shit."
It was all I was really able to say at the moment.
"What?" Jack and Ezu asked at the same time.
"Um, you guys remember those 'plan' things we keep neglecting to use?" I began hesitantly. "We should probably think one up right about now, because even though we've gotten lucky this far, fate only gives you so many 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards before it decides to start effing you over."
"What?" Jack, Ezu, and Alfred said simultaneously.
"Why don't you check the book?" Ezu suggested, before I could attempt to explain myself.
"The Book?" I repeated, mistrustfully. To be honest, the less I had to do with that dratted thing, the better.
"Yeah. Doesn't it have all the... the stories and stuff in it?" Ezu went on, frowning slightly.
"Yeah..." I admitted with a grimace of my own. Ezu gave me an expectant look. I replied with an exasperated huff and pulled my back pack open, more roughly than strictly necessary. "Oh all right." I conceded, rummaging around in the pack for the leather monstrosity. "I suppose we can't ignore it forever. And it might have something useful in it." After a moment of searching, my fingers brushed over the cool, wrinkled leather cover, and I grabbed it and pulled it out into the light.

Somehow, it looked different than before.
I couldn't quite place what is was exactly, but there was definitely something off. It looked... thicker, somehow, almost swollen for once thing. And there was an underlying brightness to it's dusty, dark brown covers. Almost as if it were glowing from within, by it's own, otherworldly light. A breeze tip toed by, and the dry, crackling pages whistled and fluttered, mockingly.
"I swear to God, if you turn me into a toad or anything like that, I'll have you burned," I threatened under my breath, so only the Book could hear me. It, as books are wont to do, remained docile.

"What, that old thing?" Jack asked, looking at the raggedy piece of witchery incredulously.
"Yes, 'this old thing'." I replied, holding it to my chest defensively. Just because I hated it didn't mean anybody else could pick on it. Sort of like a sibling. I glanced down non-too-fondly at it's delicately worked leather cover. It looked innocently back up at me. I flipped it off.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Jack went on, ignoring my all-too-obvious animosity with the piece of literature.
"I guess you could say it's sort of like a crystal ball," I replied vaguely. It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't exactly a lie either. Or so I told myself.
"That thing?" Jack glanced at the Book in disbelief. "I mean, I always knew there was something funny about it, on account of how you were always so obsessive about it-"
"I am not obsessive!"
"-But... a crystal ball?" He finished, giving me the same disbelieving look he had given the Book.
"Like a crystal ball; I said like. More or less. Sort of. In a way. What does it even matter? It's going to help us, and that's that!" I huffed, flustered. "You hear that, Book?" I said down to the Book in my hands, not bothering to lower my voice. "You're gonna behave yourself, got that? You got me into this mess, now you're gonna get me out of it."

"Is she perhaps a little... off?" Alfred whispered sidelong to Ezu.

"I heard that!" I snapped at him, glaring as fiercely as I could.
"Yes. Yes she is." Ezu answered Alfred, looking me dead in the eyes. I tried to think of a facial expression immature and spiteful enough to throw at him, but failed. I settled for sticking my tongue out at him, and then turned my attention back to the Book.
"All right, come on," I muttered under my breath. I flipped the cover open, leaving the first yellow, cracked page exposed.
Grimm's Fairy Tales was all that was written in faded black ink. I flipped past the next two or three pages-- all blank-- until I reached the table of contents. I scanned the list, muttering the names of the storied aloud to myself as I went.
"The Frog Prince, The Six Swans, The Golden Goose, Mother Hulda, Rumpelstiltskin," I winced slightly as I read that particular name, "The Skillful Huntsman-- ah, here we go!" My tracing finger alighted on exactly what I was looking for. "Cinderella. Page 59." I flipped through the loose pages until page 59 loomed into view. On the top of the page, the word Cinderella had been written in fading ink, intricately scribed in almost illegible calligraphy.



There once was a rich man whose wife lay sick, and when she felt her end drawing near she called to her only daughter to come near her bed, and said,-

I became abruptly aware that Alfred, Jack, and Ezu had all stopped walking, and were crowded around me, staring down at the pages of the Book. with unhidden curiosity shining in their eyes.
"...What are you all doing?" I asked after moment. All three of them jumped guiltily and took a step back. It seemed almost choreographed.
"Er... we were curious." Jack said, more than a little abashed.
"Obviously." I replied tersely. "But I'm doing research here. You can do your pleasure reading at another time. You know, when there are less witches to stop form taking over the world."
To my slight surprise, Jack flushed, and Ezu refused to meet my gaze. Something dawned on me.
"Wait a minute, you guys... you can't read, can you?" I asked, hesitantly. Jack coughed lightly.
"Er... no." I replied, actually sounding ashamed.
"No good comes of reading anyways." Ezu snapped, on the defensive. "It won't help you kill any wolves or giants, so what's the point? Eh, beg pardon," He added hastily, casting a look at Alfred, who seemed to be unaffected by the phrase.
"I can read, of course." Alfred commented wisely, indicating his crudely painted sign. "The pen is mightier than the sword, they say." He said knowledgably.
"Who says?" I shot back.
That shut him up.

I gazed at the three of them ponderously for a moment; at Jack, who seemed thoroughly embarassed at his lack of education, and at Ezu, who continued to pretend that he didn't care one way or another if he could read or not. And of course at Alfred, who was trying to figure out who exactly had said that the pen was mightier than the sword. It was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, by the way. In case you were wondering.
"Oh alright then. I'll read it aloud." I finally conceded, smiling to myself at the sudden looks of pleased surprised on both Jack and Ezu's faces. Ezu almost immediately wiped it off and shrugged indifferently, but Jack came closer again, so he could look over my shoulder at the Book as I read.

I picked up where I left off.

"Dear child, be good and pious, and God will always take care of you, and I will look down upon you from heaven, and will be with you."
And then she closed her eyes and died. The maiden went every day to her mother's grave and wept, and was always pious and good. When the winter came the snow covered the grave with a white covering, and when the sun came in the early spring and melted it away, the man took himself another wife.
The wife brought two daughters home with her, and they were beautiful and fair in appearance, but at heart were black and ugly. And then began very evil times for the poor step-daughter.
"Is the stupid creature to sit in the same room with us?" said they; "those who eat food must earn it. She is nothing but a kitchen maid!"
They took away her pretty dresses, and put on her an old grey kirtle, and gave her wooden shoes to wear.
"Just look now at the proud princess, how she is decked out!" cried they laughing, and then they sent her into the kitchen. There she was obliged to do heavy work from morning to night, get up early in the morning, draw water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides that, the sisters did their utmost to torment her--mocking her, and strewing peas and lentils among the ashes, and setting her to pick them up. In the evenings, when she was quite tired out with her hard day's work, she had no beds to lie on, but was obliged to rest on the hearth among the cinders. And because she always looked dusty and dirty, as if she had slept in the cinders, they named her Cinderella.

"Wow," Jack said, wide eyed. "Did all of that really happen to that poor girl?" I gazed down at the little black words on the ancient paper, spelling out poor Cinderella's fate.
"I guess so." I replied. She was real, wasn't she? If Jack and Ezu were real-- and they most certainly were, there was no doubt about that-- then Cinderella must be real too. I suddenly felt very bad for the girl, princess or not.
"What happens next?" Ezu asked, forgetting to sound disdainful. I scanned the page. "Um... nothing important. The girls ask for present when their father goes into town-- the step sisters want jewels and dresses, but Cinderella wants the first spring plant that he sees on his travels. It turns out to be a sprig of a pumpkin plant, so he brings that to her. She plants it by her mother's grave, and it becomes a huge pumpkin patch. Oh, and here's the ball scene!" It was right there, less than halfway down the first page. "The king is throwing a ball that will last for three days, and the when Cinderella hears her sisters talking about it, she asks her step mother if she can go. After she begged and begged, the Step Mother consents, if she can pick up all the lentils the Step Mother has thrown in the ashes. Cinderella gets some birds to help her do it, and asks her Step Mother again if she can go. After she cries and cries, the Step Mother tells her is she can pick up TWO dishes of lentils out of the ashes, she can go. So Cinderella gets the birds to come help her again. But when she shows her Step Mother, she just tells her that she would be too embarrassing to take to the ball, and left the house with the step sisters. Then she cries on her mother's grave, under the birds come back with a beautiful dress. She puts it on and goes the the ball, and no one guesses it is only Cinderella, and she dances with the Prince all night long. Then she has to go home at midnight since that is when he Step Mother and Sisters are leaving, but the Prince tries to follow her. She manages to escape and get back home before anyone recognizes her. The next night, she is forbidden to go again, the the birds come back with an even more beautfiful dress. She puts it on, and this time the Prince is waiting. They dance all night long until midnight, and then she runs away again, and he chases after her but looses her. She runs back home, and no one suspects her. The next day, the last day of the ball, she goes to her mother's grave and... And then-- wait a second," I stopped, midsentence, peering down at the Book. "This isn't right..."
"What?" Alfred asked curiously as he peered over me shoulder as well, his furry muzzle tickling the side of my face. I brushed him away, and re-read the next sentence in the story.

What should happen next, is the birds should fly down with the most beautiful dress of all, and she goes to the ball but the Prince manages to get her shoes by spreading pitch on the steps. No maiden but Cinderella can fit in the shoe, even though the step sisters try to cut off their toes and heels to do it, and the Prince and Cinderella live happily ever after. But...

"But that's not what it says here," I muttered under my breath, a horrible, sneaking suspicion creeping up on me.
"What? What does it say?" Ezu asked quickly, noticing my expression. I tried to speak, but had to stop and clear my throat to stop my voice from shaking.
I tried again.

On the third day, when the parents and the step children had set off, Cinderella went again to her mother's grave in the pumpkin patch, and said the the headstone, "Little tree, little tree, shake over me, that silver and gold may come down and cover me."
Then the birds cast down a dress, the like of which had never been seen for splendor and brilliancy, and slippers that were of gold.
But little did poor Cinderella know, not all of the household had set out for the ball. The Step Mother, having heard the tales of the strange foreign princess the Prince had danced with all night long, began to suspect that something strange was afoot. So she remained behind while her daughters and husband set out for the ball, and instead followed her step-daughter in secrecy. When she saw the birds cast the beautiful dress upon Cinderella, she immediately recognized her step-daughter as the beautiful princess that Prince had danced with. In a fit of anger, she leapt out of her hiding place, and pointed an accusing finger at the frightened Cinderella. "Wicked girl!" cried she, "Deceitful girl! You are but a dirty little kitchen maid, to comely and foul to dance with a prince! How dare you?"
"Please Step Mother!" Cinderella cried, but it was of no use. The Step Mother, still carrying the whip used for the horses, flung this at her step daughter in her anger, but as it touched the unfortunate girl's skin, it became a green vine. The vine twisted and curled around Cinderella, until it had wrapped her up completely. The Step Mother, afraid at what she had just done, leapt forwards and tried to tear the vines off Cinderella. But when she did, all that lay amongst the vines was a round, orange pumpkin, right where Cinderella had once stood.

"What...?" Jack whispered, as if he wasn't sure whether to believe what he had just heard.
"What in the world is this?" I hissed to myself. Roughly, I flipped back to the front of the book, back to the Table of Contents.
It was blank.
"What?" I said again, flipping through the blank pages. Blank, blank, blank. Every single one of them.
"Wait!" Ezu cried suddenly, reaching out a hand and stopping my furious page turning. "There!"
He pointed to the single line, the only written words still left.

The Little Pumpkin Girl. Page 59.

"Oh no..." I groaned. I flipped back through the book. Every page was empty, every story had utterly vanished. It was a huge book, full of nothing but blank pages.
Except for Cinderella's story. Her new story. Slowly, my fingers shaking slightly, I turned back to it. After the sentence I had left off at, there was nothing. The rest of the story was gone too.
"What's that?" Alfred asked after a moment. I was about to snap at him, but then a noticed a faint glimmer on the page, after the final sentence. Even as we watched, another phrase was being written.

The Step Mother feared for her step daughter at first, but then realized that like this, her own lovely daughters would stand a chance at marrying the handsome Prince themselves. So she gathered her skirts about her, and leaving poor Cinderella, now a pumpkin, on her mother's grave, the Step Mother left for the ball.

"Oh no..." I hissed.
"It's not done yet..." Ezu whispered.

There were only a few hours left until midnight fell upon this sad scene. Unless Rikki and her Knights can break the spell upon Cinderella before then, a pumpkin forever she shall remain. And the Witch shall rise again.

"...You've got to be [censored] kidding me."
"My dear!" Alfred gasped, shocked at my language.
"Well." Ezu said grimly, stepping quickly away from the Book and looking as if he was going to be sick. "I guess we'd better start running then, huh?"
"Why didn't I do more cardio?" I lamented, slamming the book shut.