Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

The same guard was stationed there that had been there earlier that night, when the Boys and I had entered the ball.
"Looks like the Prince had a little too much wine," Ezu grinned nonchalantly at the guard.
"Yep, just taking the poor guy out for some air. Help him sober up, you know," I added quickly.
"Smooth," Ezu grimaced under his breath.

My terrible lying abilities didn't matter though, since the guard was just as oblivious as last time.

"Prince?" He echoed uncertainly as we stumbled through the castle gates, a little too quickly to seem entirely innocent.

But the hard part was done, and we were through the gates, dragging the prince's dead weight to the pumpkin patch, with just enough time to save Cinderella. We cut it close, but from here on out it was smooth sailing.

Come on now, you don't really believe that, do you? Things are NEVER that easy.

****************************************************************

I spat a mouthful of blood at the Stepmother defiantly. She snarled and side stepped to avoid it--though my aim was pretty off anyways, since I was laying in the dirt on my back and she was looming threateningly over me.

"You little bitch," She spat, her lips curling in disgust as she stared down at me. "I hope you enjoyed ruining my life, because now I'm going to end yours!"

In any other circumstance, this threat might have seemed a little melodramatic. But as she raised the clubbed stick that crackled with black, electric energy above her head, making careful consideration to aim for my face, I found her words to carry plenty of weight. I grappled with the sword at my fingertips and seized it, thrusting it in front of my defensively, but uselessly. She was too far away, and even if she wasn't, I didn't think I would be able to run it through her.

"Not all of us can have a happily ever after, darling!" She screeched, and the club swung down to meet my face.

Confused? Maybe I should explain what led up to my desperate stand off.

Ezu and I dragged the unconscious Prince down the dark, moonlit path with more than a little grunting and straining, pretending not to hear his fancy lather boots scraping against the dirt. There was not a another living soul out in the night except for us, which was a blessing, of course, but also somehow made the situation seem all the more eerie. The pressing night silence certainly left me feeling quite alone with my thoughts, which quickly turned to how little time we had left, and how very much could go wrong if we didn't manage to save Cinderella in time.

Eventually, after perhaps ten minutes of more or less silence, Ezu spoke up.

"How much farther is this graveyard again?" He grunted, hoisting the Prince's dead weight up a little more.

"Not to far." I replied, trying not to sound like I was straining quite as much as I was. "We're nearly there. We've got maybe fifteen, twenty minutes left before midnight, I think."

"Are you sure it isn't more like ten or fifteen minutes?" Ezu asked.

"No, I'm not sure. We'll just have to work extra fast then." I huffed. We fell silent again, except for our labored breathing and the gentle scuffing of the Prince's toes dragging in the dirt.

"Hey, Rikki?" Ezu spoke up again, after a long moment.

"Yeah?"

"I'm, uh, sorry. For acting like a jerk all night. I shouldn't have let my emotions get the better of me like that while we had important stuff to do."

"Yeah, it did kind of make the whole saving the world thing a bit harder when you were acting like a moody little girl," I snapped, and then instantly regretted saying it. "No, I didn't mean that-"

"Yes you did," Ezu said desolately.

"Well, I did, but not as meanly as it came out. I suppose I haven't really been giving you a very easy time either, huh?"

"Not really."

"So, uh, I'm sorry about that, I guess."

We let the silence overcome us once again, until it was me who finally broke it.

"So... are we friends again?" I asked, tentatively.

"We never stopped." Ezu replied, and I smiled. We tried to reach around the Prince to give each other a brotastic handshake, but it was an awkward reach and we gave up. Instead we focused out energies on dragging the unconscious Prince the rest of the way to the graveyard, in a comfortable silence that wasn't charged with awkward tension for the first time in a long while.

It took us another five or so minutes to haul the Charming's but to the outskirts of the cemetery, and the moment we reached the boundary Ezu dropped him, sending the Prince and me crashing to the ground with a strangled cry.

"Oops, sorry, Rikki." Ezu said, stretched his arms high over his head.

"Why don't you sound sorry?" I grumbled, picking myself up off the ground. "Look at this! You tore my dress!"

"Forgive me for not being overcome with emotion at the prospect."

It felt good to be able to slip right back into our usual argumentative, but not mean spirited, banter. Balance had come back to the world. And no more worrying about emotionally charged but meaningly ambiguous phrases such as "you're wonderful" either. That one was going right into the little box at the back of my mind label "Deal With This Later".

"Now where do we go from her, Miss 'I have a plan'?" Ezu asked. I looked into the graveyard, and my heart sank as I scanned the rows and rows of pumpkins. There must have been at least a hundred of them there, and we only had, at most, fifteen minutes or so. There was no way we could get the Prince to kiss every single one of them before midnight. That is, if kissing them was even the answer. Maybe that wasn't how we were supposed to save her. But I didn't know what else to do. Kissing always worked in the stories. It had to work.

"Well, I suppose our first task is to wake up the Prince." I said, spinning around and gazing down at the handsome lump of useless Prince at our feet. I crouched down beside him, gnetly turned his face upwards, and slapped him across the cheek. "Hey!" I shouted. "Wakey wakey! We've got a princess to save, your royal sleepy head!"

Ezu pushed me out of the way with a growl. "That is not how you go about that! Here, go find our backpacks!"

"Our backpacks?" Oh yeah, that was right. We'd stashed them behind a gravestone, since we couldn't exactly wear them into the ball without managing to look even more foolish than we already did. I scrambled to my feet and ran into the cemetery, trying to remember where we hid them. Eventually I found them, three little lumps of brown fabric amid the brown earth and brown leaves that covered the ground, everywhere that wasn't occupied by a pumpkin, at any rate. I scooped them up in my arms and ran back to Ezu, dumping them at his feet.

"Hey, be careful! I've got stuff in there!" He protested. He grabbed his and opened it, and began rummaging around inside. As he did so, I grabbed my own backpack and pulled out my short dagger, and then put the pack on. We might have to leave in a hurry if things went wrong, I figured.

Ezu had pulled out a little dark colored bottle from somewhere, and was uncorking it.

"Smelling salts?" I asked.

"Sort of." He replied with a shrug. He tipped the Prince's head back, and poured the contents of the bottle down his throat. Almost immediately, the Prince began coughing and choking, and he flew up into a sitting position so fast his head collided right into Ezu's, sending both boys falling back the the ground, groaning.

"Oh gods..." The Prince moaned, between hacking gasps. His eyes were watering; whatever Ezu had given him had done quite a number on him. Ezu pushed himself back up, grimacing and rubbing his forehead.

"You little-" He began, but I clapped my hand over his mouth.

"Hello, Prince Charming!" I said cheerily.

"Wha... where am I? What am I doing here?" He asked, a little fuzzily, looking around in confusion.

"Oh, uh, well, you see..." I tried to begin, but I had realized we'd hit another roadblock I didn't quite think through all the way. How on earth to explain to the Prince we had hit him over the head with a vase, dragged his unconscious form all the way to a graveyard, and now expected him to go around on his hands and knees kissing pumpkins until one of them turned into a girl. I'm sure that would go over fabulously.

"Ah, well, I'm afraid there is a bit of a... situation, your Highness..." I began, figuring my best bet at this point was probably just to wing it.

"Why does it feel like someone hit me over the head with a brick?" He moaned, rubbing his perfectly coiffed hair gingerly.

"A vase, actually, but that's beside the point. Remember that girl you danced with? The one you liked so much?"

This peaked his interest. "That lovely creature who captured my heart? Yes, of course. Why?"

"Weeeell, she is, in a manner of speaking, and don't get too excited now, in a manner of speaking, you might say she is somewhere here, now. Sort of."

"What? Where?" The Prince exclaimed, leaping to his feet before either Ezu of I could stop him, doing the exact opposite of not getting too excited.

"Well, it's sort of a long story, and I don't know how much of it you'll-" I began, standing up as well.

"Please! Please tell me where I can find her!" The Prince begged, grabbing me by my shoulders and shaking me. Ezu leaped up and wrenched me out of the Prince's grasp, perhaps a tad too possessively.

"Hands to yourself, Charming McTouchy," He growled. Te Prince paused, and blinked at Ezu, his expression befuddled.

"...Elsie?" He asked, after a long moment. Ezu snarled and ripped the wig, whose curls were hanging limply anyways by this point, off his head and flung it to the ground, smearing the worst of the make up off with the sleeve of his dress. A menagerie of expressions flitted across the Prince's faces, including but not limited to confusion, shock, mild horror, embarrassment, and pity.

"Ahem. As I was saying," I cut in firmly, apparently being the only one who cared we had a very strict time limit that was slowly ticking away, "Yes, Cinderella-"

"Cinderella? That's her name? That's beautiful..." The Prince breathed, his eyes going all misty and far away. I shook him back to reality.

"She's... here, in a sense. But not as herself."

"What do you mean?" The Prince asked, blankly.

"Well, she may have been... erm... transformed... into a pumpkin..." I finished, lamely. The Prince blinked at me.

"Oh ha ha, very funny. You do realize kidnapping royalty is grounds for execution, right?"

"No! Really! I swear! I swear on... on... on Ezu's grave!" I insisted, pointing at the fuming boy. Oddly enough, my earnest declaration didn't seem to improve his mood.

"Hey!" He protested, but I cut him off.

"Honestly, I mean, this Kingdom probably has problems with giants, and dragons and... and like witches and stuff all the time, right?" I barreled on, trying not to sound too desperate. I could practically hear the grains of sand in the metaphorical hourglass of time we had leave slip away.

"Yes, I suppose we do, a bit, though a dragon hasn't been seen in these parts for centuries..." The Prince said hesitantly.

"So why is the fact that a witch or sorceress or whatever transformed Cinderella such a shock? Stuff like this probably happens every day!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands into the air in my passion.

"But why would someone want to do that to my dear Cinderella?" He asked, in honest disbelief. His innocence was actually kind of cute.

"That someone would be her step mother, to be exact. The older lady you met tonight, deCre, I think her name was. She wanted her own daughters to have a chance to marry, but she discovered that Cinderella was sneaking off to the ball and had stolen your heart, and she--you know what, it doesn't matter. It's a long story. The point is, there was some black magic or something going on, and Cinderella got turned into a pumpkin, and if we don't find her and get her turned back by midnight, the world is going to end!" I finished in a rush, my face slightly blue because I'd said all of that in a single breath. The Prince stared at me, his expression unreadable.

"I think..." He began slowly. "I think I have to believe you, if only because that story is so ridiculous, you can't possibly be any sort of ruffian or kidnapper, because no one would be stupid enough to use that as their excuse."

"I think I liked him better when he was being disgustingly polite." Ezu muttered under his breath.

"That works for me!" I gushed, clasping my hands together. "Only now we have, like, ten minutes left before midnight, so if we could just cut the chit chat and get to the disenchanting, that would be awesome!"

"Ten minutes?" Said a cold, sacchrinely amused voice from behind us. We all spun around to see the Step Mother standing there, panting, her dress stained and muddied, her once perfect hair askew, panting slightly and smiling with a cruel intent. "Now that doesn't seem like the odds are in your favor now, does it?"

"She followed us?" The Prince gaped.

"It's alright," Ezu said, though his tone was hard and his hand reached for the hilt of the dagger he had insisted on sneaking into his bustle before we left for the ball. "She can't do anything to us, she's just an old woman."

"I wouldn't count on that," I responded, darkly. And my words were true. Even as I spoke them, something electric changed in the air. The night grew colder, and darker, and the air felt thick and sluggish, like it does right before it rains. "No. That wouldn't make much of a story," I went on, slowly easing my way backwards, step by step. "There's magic in the air, and I don't think it's on our side."

"First," The Step Mother began, seething with rage and taking a menacing step towards us. I took another one backwards, trying not to be too conspicuous. "First, that little brat my slovenly husbands wife left behind defied me, and tried to ruin everything I have been working for. Then that idiot Prince over there shunned me, and my stupid daughters couldn't even stifle their own idiocy for a moment. And then that fool and his drink, ruining my gown and distracting me; he was yours, wasn't he?" She advanced closer, forcing me backwards with every step. A wild raging light gleamed in her eyes, and her words became snarls. Ezu and the Prince remained right where they were, and both had drawn their weapon--though neither had anything more than a small dagger, and somehow I didn't think that would be enough against what was coming. "And now, two little mice have spirited my only escape from this dung heap of a life away from me; these two little rats, vermin, are trying to undo everything I've worked for for these miserable long years! I won't let you, I tell you!" Her voice raised a decibel with every step she took, until she was all but screaming into the quivering night air. "I won't let you take it away from me! I will be Queen! I won't let you! I WON'T!"

And at that moment, she threw herself at the Prince and Ezu with a shriek of fury, her hands outstretched and claw like, her hair unraveling from its bun and billowing out behind her like a dark waterfall. At the same moment I spun on my heel and launched myself back towards the headstones, where I knew our swords were still hidden. I tumbled to the ground, landing hard on my elbows and trying not the listen to the screeches and yells coming from behind me. I crawled forwards on my stomach, reaching out and grasping desperately in the darkness until my hand closed around the cool blade of a sword. I ignored the blood oozing from my new cut and dragged the weapon towards me, grabbing the hilt and pushing myself to my feet. I bent down and grabbed the second sword as well, before turning to face the scene raging at the entrance of the cemetery.

Ezu and the Prince were holding the Step Mother back, but not without difficulty. It was evident neither of them were aiming to kill, but her ferocity wasn't giving them much choice. She was fighting like a wild beast, screaming and clawing at their faces, her hair flying and her dress billowing about her like a cape. She was like a dark Valkyrie, hell bent on dragging the two men down with her.

"Ezu!" I shouted. He half turned to look at me, still desperately trying to fend off the woman's blows without harming her. I tossed the sword through the air at him, and by some miracle he caught it, dropping his pathetic little dagger in the dirt. He raised it high, and began to swing, the blade glinting in the weak light of the milky moon--

And struck the woman's hand, which had raised at the last moment to catch the blade. The three of us froze. Dark blood seeped from her clenched fist, closed tight around the sword. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't that. His eyes widened in shock. She smiled.

With a flick of her wrist, Ezu was sent flying across the graveyard, his sword still in the Stepmother's hand. With a shout of pain he collided hard with a headstone, and fell slumped into the dirt, face down and unmoving. With her other hand she flung the Prince into the air as well, and he landed painfully twenty feet away, groaning. She turned to face me.

"Once upon a time," She snarled, the charged air condensing around her and causing her hair to whip around her face, as if in a high wind. "There was a little girl, who tried to meddle in my affairs."

"Doesn't sound like a very smart girl," I said, swallowing hard and gripping the hilt of my sword tightly in both hands. I didn't know how to wield it, but I suppose now was as good a time as any to learn. The Stepmother grinned at me. Leered, really. It was a feral expression, like a wolf barring its teeth at its prey. I could here crackling, like static. She raised Ezu's sword and pointed it at me, and I could see veins of blackness twitching along its length. If a horsewhip could turn a girl into a pumpkin, I didn't want to know what that thing could do to me.

With a howl, she rushed at me, and it was all I could do to raise my sword in time before she was upon me. I swung too wide, and all I did was slash a hole in her gown at she leaped upon me. The hilt of her sword crashed into the side of my face, and I tasted blood in my mouth. My head was spinning, and I couldn't see anything but a whirlwind of black all around me. I lashed out with my hand and felt my fingernails tear across soft flesh. The Step Mother howled in pain and retreated hastily out of my reach. I kicked out, trying to knock her feet out from under her, but again she was too fast for me. Why wouldn't she be? She had disposed of Ezu and the Prince easily enough. I was probably going to die here.

But if I was going to go out, then I was going to do it on my terms. I swung out with the sword again--it was too wide, not even close to hitting her, but it had her distracted enough for my to grab a fistful of her hair and force her head down. The electric energy coursing through her, the black magic her rage had lent her, stung my hand, which gushed even more blood, making me have to grip her harder. Even so, her free hand suddenly came up and gripped my neck, closing with an iron grip around my throat and forcing me to release her and gasp for air, while I clawed at her hand.

She threw me away from her, and I was sent crashing into the ground, on my back, staring sightlessly up at the stars and heaving from breath. My sword clattered down beside me, almost out of reach. The Step Mother wiped her hair out of her face with her bloody hand, and with stately grace, she walked over to my prone form. As I tried to sit up, she placed her foot on my chest and forced my back down.

"Yes," She said, slightly breathlessly. "What a stupid girl.

And so we find ourselves at the beginning.

Laying at her feet, in pain and alone, there was nothing much I could do, except remain unflinching.

I spat a mouthful of blood at the Stepmother defiantly. She snarled and side stepped to avoid it--though my aim was pretty off anyways, since I was laying in the dirt on my back and she was looming threateningly over me.

"You little bitch," She spat, her lips curling in disgust as she stared down at me. "I hope you enjoyed ruining my life, because now I'm going to end yours!"

In any other circumstance, this threat might have seemed a little melodramatic. But as she raised Ezu's sword, which crackled with black, electric energy above her head, making careful consideration to aim for my face, I found her words to carry plenty of weight. I grappled with the sword at my fingertips and seized it, thrusting it in front of my defensively, but uselessly. She was too far away, and even if she wasn't, I didn't think I would be able to run it through her.

"Not all of us can have a happily ever after, darling!" She screeched, and the blade swung down to meet my face. I screamed--I couldn't help it--and flinched, brandishing the sword. But suddenly, before the black magic could singe a single hair, something huge, grey, and furry flew through the air, launching itself into the Step Mother and throwing her to the ground, Ezu's sword flying from her grip and spinning through the air, until it hit a gravestone and exploded, sending sharp stone shrapnel whizzing through the air. I forced myself into a sitting position, and saw Alfred--good old Alfred--snarling and drooling and snapping, with the Stepmother pinned beneath his massive paws. Where he had been this whole time, I had no idea, but I was thanking my lucky stars he was here now. The Stepmother was screaming bloody murder and trying futilely to claw at his face, to push his massive form off of her. I didn't blame her, without his red velvet pants and suspenders and in fierce Big Bad Wolf mode, he was truly a pretty terrifying sight to behold. I shuddered, remembering my first day here in this storybook land, when the wolves chased me through the woods. I'd feel a little sympathetic to the Stepmother, but she did just try to murder me, so I decided she could suck it.

Instead, I looked around, over my shoulder, to where the Prince was groaning and struggling to rise to his feet. Blood was running down the side of his forehead, but other than that he looked like he was in one piece.

"Prince!" I shouted. He glanced around, saw me, and made to stagger in my direction. "No time! It's almost midnight! Cinderella, find Cinderella!" He spun around in a circle, looking at the hundreds of pumpkins that surrounded us.

"Which one is she? There are too many, how do I know?" He called back, desperately.

"I don't know, I don't know!" I replied, scrambling to my feet now as well and looking helplessly at the pumpkins at my feet. As my eyes slid over the ground, they caught the gleam of white marble. A headstone, shining in the moonlight. I gasped.

"It's on her mother's grave! Her mother's grave!" I screamed, running through the rows, trying to read every engraving on every grave I could see. "She was on her mother's grave when she was turned, the pumpkin will be there!"

"What's her name?" The Prince called.

"What?" I stumbled to a halt, cold dread running through me.

"What's her mothers name, how do I know which grave is her mothers?" The Prince shouted.

Oh Lord. I didn't know her name. There were as many gravestones in this place as there were pumpkins, there was no way we would be able to find her in time. I dropped to the ground, skinning my knees on the sharp stones in the dirt, but not caring. I ripped my backpack off and tore it open, throwing all the spare clothes and food and junk I'd accumulated out into the dirt, searching, searching. My hands closed around the soft leather of the Book, and I pulled it out, flipping it open to a random page. Blank. I turned to another, and another, and tore out three in my frustration. All blank, except for the three pages of Cinderella's revised story.

"No no no!" I screeched. "Her name, what's her name?" Still empty. Just milky white pages, staring blankly up at me. "Do you want me to save her or not?! It's almost midnight, help me!" I yelled, shaking the Book as if to knock some sense into it. It didn't answer, but a sudden, chilling wind picked up, and blew the pages over, until it rested open on the center pages. Both blank.

But then...

Again, like it had that first time, a little bubble of black ink began to seep into the page. It stretched, and spread, and soon was spelling words. Just two, a name. A woman's name. Simone Tremaine.

"Tremaine!" I called to the Prince. "Simone Tremaine, look for the name Tremaine! That's where Cinderella is!" I crawled on my hands and knees over the ground, the Book still clutched to my chest and the sword in my other hand, reading the names from every grave marker. The Prince too was stooping low over the headstones, frantically pulling overgrown weeds from their faces to get a better look at their worn lettering. And then, abruptly, three things happened at once.

"Here! Here it is! I've found it!" The Prince shouted, crouched before a waist high block of white marble.

At the same moment, the Step Mother gave a furious shriek and somehow managed to hoist Alfred off of her, tossing him bodily across the graveyard as if he were a ragdoll. As she lept to her feet and made to lunge towards the prince, seemingly completely possessed by her fury, somewhere nearby, a clock began to toll.

DONG

"It's midnight!" I screamed. "Hurry!" The Prince dropped to his knees before the grave, surrounded by pumpkins.

DONG

"Which one is it?" He shouted.

DONG

"The one on the grave! Right there, right in the middle! The big one!" I pointed frantically. But even as he reached out for the round, white pumpkin beside the gravestone, the Step Mother flew in a flurry at him, her dress billowing out behind her like a dark cape, her red mouth open wide in a furious shriek, her eyes flashing and wild.

DONG

Whatever magic she has gotten crackled at her fingertips, and I could see it coursing through the veins on her arms, which had turned black and throbbing. The Wicked Step Mother from the story--from the ball we had just left, even, was gone. This creature was some sort of monster, driven wild by whatever forces had brought me here, had enchanted the princesses, had brought the sorceress back and warped the fairy tales. This woman was going to Kill the Prince if she could, I could see that.

DONG

"Prince!" I shouted. He whirled around to look at me, caught sight of the Step Mother, and looked as if he was about to lose his lunch. "Here!" I caught his attention again, and lobbed the sword at him.

DONG

That was what, five chimes? Six? Midnight was almost over. Cinderella's time was almost up. And if hers was, then so was all of ours. "Go Prince! Go!"

DONG

My aim was poor, and my throw weak. It landed two meters to his right, and he had to launch himself away from the grave to reach it.

DONG

The Step Mother was almost upon him now, but his perfectly manicured had closed around the hilt of the sword just in time.

DONG

"Kill her! Kill her! Hurry!" I screamed. I was too far away to do anything else, there was no way I would reach her before she was upon him, and even if I could, what could I stop her with?

DONG

The Prince used the sword to push himself to his feet and he leaped back towards the grave and Cinderella's pumpkin, just as the Step Mother reached the same spot.

DONG

"It's the last chime! Now!" I screamed. The Prince lifted the sword high into the air, the moonlight glinting off the silver blade, and he brought it down with lightning speed, just as the final bell tolled Midnight.

DONG!

And he rent the pumpkin in two.