Chapter 1:

Once upon a time, in a house just down the corner across from Joe's Crab Shack, there lived a man with his lovely daughter, Karen. One day, the man decided to remarry, for he thought his daughter needed a mother. The woman he chose to be his bride was a mean and spiteful woman, with two daughters from a previous marriage. Her daughters were quite lovely, but she thought that Karen's beauty threatened that of her own children, so she made her stepdaughter wear the dirtiest rags and hand-me-downs. One day, the man decided to go on a trip to a nearby Soaphouse and was never seen from again. It is then that our story starts...

"Cinderkaren! Cinderkaren!" Kanoe screamed from her room, sitting in front of a mirror. "Where is that girl?" she asked of her oldest daughter Satsuki, who was brushing her hair.

Satsuki shrugged sullenly, picking up a hair tie and putting her hair back in her usual ponytail. "What do I care?" she muttered. "She's nothing to me."

Kanoe rolled her eyes, realizing that she should have known better than to ask Satsuki (considering she was the antisocial daughter). With a dramatic sigh she got up and left the room, crossing to her younger daughter's room. "Arashi, have you seen the wench?"

The beautiful black-haired girl at the vanity turned around and looked at her mother. "No, Mother, I haven't," she said in her soft-spoken manner.

Kanoe made a noise of irritation and turned to leave the room, when Arashi spoke. "Mother, wait."

The woman turned around. "Yes, daughter?"

Arashi hesitated. "Is it true that... that you keep Karen in rags and make her do all the work because she is more beautiful than Satsuki and I?"

Kanoe looked shocked for a moment, then laughed loudly to cover up her surprise (for indeed, that was exactly why she treated Karen so badly). "That wench? Of course not. She's terribly ugly, and deserves no better than the life of a slave to us. Indeed, she's fortunate that I haven't decided to throw her out on the street, for she is truly unworthy of sharing the same house with creatures as lovely as my beautiful daughters."

Arashi smiled and regarded herself in the mirror, admiring her long, silky black hair and smooth pale skin. "Really?"

"Really. You and Satsuki are the most beautiful women in the land, and one day you will be married to the handsomest and richest lords I can find. Or perhaps even the Prince." Kanoe winked at her daughter.

Arashi's eyes lit at the mention of the Prince. "Thank you, Mother."

Kanoe kissed her daughter on the forehead, then remembered all at once that there were dishes that needed to be done, and that she needed to find that bothersome wench so that she could make herself useful for once. She quickly swept from the room, continuing her search for Karen.

The aforementioned girl was downstairs in the kitchen, sweeping and cleaning out the large fireplace. The cinders were sticking all over her skin and with a sigh, she attempted to brush it off with a small brush.

"Wench!" Kanoe screamed as she entered the large room.

"Yes ma'am?" Karen asked and climbed out of the fireplace.

"There are dishes to be done." Kanoe said coldly, regarding the dirty young girl.

"I already did them." Karen said.

"And did you sweep and mop the floors? And do the laundry? And empty the washbins? And chop the firewood? And bring in fresh vegetables?"

"No ma'am.. not yet.."

"Well then until you do them, you will have no supper." Kanoe rolled her eyes at the red-headed girl. "Hurry up and finish with your chores so you can begin to cook."

"Yes ma'am." Karen waited until her stepmother had left before sighing and pulling out the broom. "Clean this and wash that and sweep this.... you'd think I was a slave."

She stayed in the kitchen mopping the floors for a while before there was a knock on the large wooden door at the front of the house. As usual, she answered and took the envelope from the well-dressed man standing there.

"Make sure this gets to the woman of the house." He reminded her and bowed as he left.

"Yes, sir." She called after his retreating form and went upstairs to deliver the letter to Kanoe.

Pausing outside her stepmother's room, she fingered the envelope in her hand and contemplated opening it. She would certainly be punished for that, but the fancy dress of the man who had delivered it and the intricate gold lettering on the front of the envelope were making her very curious.

She turned the envelope over, and managed to catch sight of a royal-looking seal before Kanoe came charging out of her room and snatched it from Karen's hand.

"Mind your own business, wench," she snapped, then examined the envelope. Her eyes lit up when she saw the seal and she excitedly called to her daughters. "Arashi! Satsuki! Come quick-- we've received a letter from the King!"

The two girls came rushing out from their respective rooms and gathered in the hallway around their mother. Karen waited to be dismissed, but Kanoe ignored her, so she decided to stay and see what the letter said.

Smiling, Kanoe opened the envelope and began to read. "Dear madams: You are cordially invited to a Royal Ball at the King's palace tomorrow night. Here, the Prince will be choosing a bride, so all single women are especially welcome."

The mother and her two daughters squealed happily (well, as close to squealing happily as Satsuki and Arashi ever got, anyway).

"Of course, you'll be wearing your finest gowns for this occasion," Kanoe said, putting an arm around each girl's shoulders. "You'll be the most beautiful women at the ball, and the Prince will be choosing one of you for a wife."

Arashi and Satsuki momentarily glared at each other, realizing the rivalry that now stood between them. Their anger was soon replaced by excitement as they began to discuss which dresses they would choose to wear.

"Um, ma'am..." Karen said quietly. Satsuki and Arashi closed their mouths and glared at her for interrupting them. "May I go too?"

Kanoe laughed loudly. "YOU? Why should I let you go?"

"Well it says all single women are invited..."

Kanoe scoffed. "What would you wear anyway? I doubt they would let you in with those dirty rags."

Satsuki snickered.

"I could make a dress... oh please, Kanoe. Let me go!"

In a rare moment of kindness, Kanoe relented. "You can go.. as long as you make your own dress AND all your chores are finished." She turned away and gestured to her daughters. "Come on, girls.. let's get you prepared for this ball."

Karen counted her lucky stars and ran down to her basement bedroom to see what sort of material she had to make a dress. Mostly it was just scraps of different dresses that she had collected over the years but at the bottom of the box, she found a large bolt of green material. Grinning happily to herself, Karen left the fabric on her bed and left to do her chores as quickly as possible.

A few days later, Satsuki examined herself in the mirror and adjusted the neckline of her dark green dress. "Why did mother insist our dress be as low cut as possible?" She asked Arashi irritably.

Arashi was pulling up her neckline. "So that her cleavage isn't the only thing to blind people?"

"Heh, most likely... I just don't want something to happen to my complexion."

There was a knock at the door and Satsuki turned slightly, calling out. "Come in!"

Karen stepped in timidly, dressed in a plain but pretty green dress. "Um.. I don't have any nice shoes to go along with this dress.. do you think I may borrow a pair of yours?"

Arashi and Satsuki simply stared at their step-sibling. They glanced at each other, malice in both their eyes, and stepped toward Karen with smirks on their faces.

"You're not thinking of going in THAT, are you?" Satsuki pressed, picking at one of the sleeves.

"What do you mean?"

"It's so simple, so plain. No one's going to notice you." Arashi pulled forcefully at the waist of the dress.

"Stop, you're going to rip it." Karen tried to pull away from them, but Satsuki took hold of the neckline.

"Rip it? You mean like this?" She pulled and Karen screamed and slapped the girl as a tear down to her waist appeared.

"What's going on here?" Kanoe appeared in the doorway and Arashi and Satsuki leapt back, Satsuki holding a hand to her cheek.

"Mother, she slapped me! In defense, I had to rip her dress." Satsuki lied, pointing to the red-head.

"Is this true?" Kanoe glared at Karen.

"No, it's not! They ripped my dress."

"You mean that pile of rags? I hope you know you're not going to the ball like that." Kanoe grabbed the girl's shoulder and pushed her out into the hall. "Go to your room and wait til we're gone to come out.. we're having a Royal escort pick us up and I don't want him to lay eyes on a filthy wench like you."

Karen bit her lip, fighting back the sudden urge to cry. But she had never allowed Kanoe and her daughters to make her cry before, and she didn't want to start now. "Yes, ma'am," she said meekly, and stepped out of the hallway into the closet-sized room with the straw pallet.

Outside the door, she could hear her "family" busily getting ready for the ball. She was quickly bored by the shallow discussions about clothing and shoes that her sisters were carrying on, so she tuned them out and began to daydream.

In her dreams, she arrived at the ball in a beautiful carriage drawn by four white horses. Her dress was made of red satin and made her look beautiful and refined... fit to be a princess. When she stepped out of the carriage, her flame-red curls beautifully framing her face and her dress trailing majestically behind her, all eyes immediately turned to her.

Then suddenly the Prince was there. Karen didn't know what he looked like, but in her dreams he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He gazed at her in awe and began to walk toward her. When he reached her, he took her arm and they entered the ball together...

She was quite rudely interrupted from her nice little fantasy by the harsh, grating voice of her stepmother. "We're leaving! And I expect the house to be spotless when we return, wench!"

"Yes, ma'am," she called politely, her tone revealing none of her dark thoughts about burning her stepmother to a crisp. A moment later, she heard the door slam, and then an eerie, lonely silence reigned.

Karen sighed to herself and went out to the back of the house, to the garden. She sat on a log and buried her face in her hands, letting tears slide down her cheeks.

One of her tears splashed on the ground glowed white. Karen looked at the glowing ground and backed up as a small figure dressed in all white appeared. The small woman's white hair seemed to be longer then she was tall and she was floating in a large transparent sphere. Her robes were as white as her hair and on her forehead there was a strange symbol.

"Who are you?"

(( I'm your fairy god-mother )) the figure said, and showed Karen a wand to prove it. (( You've been terribly mistreated and I've come here to grant your Wish... to go to the Ball and meet the prince))

"You mean I can go?!"

(( Yes, you can go.. but first you must bring me a pumpkin, four mice and two Kamuis ))

Karen raced around the house to find the items and when she had gotten them all, her fairy god-mother turned them into a coach, four white horses and two coachhands.

(( There you go, my dear.. you're ready to go ))

"Um, ma'am.. fairy god-mother.. I can't go in this dress.." Karen said, showing the fairy the rags.

(( Oh dear, you're right... )) with another flick of the fairy's wand, Karen's dress turned into the dress from her dreams, bright crimson with white lace at the low neckline and sleeves. Her hair lost the dirt and soot and curled at her neck, becoming flame bright. On her feet were pure glass slippers fitting perfectly on her feet.

(( Get in the coach now, before you are late ))

Karen climbed into the coach and waved goodbye to her fairy godmother. "Thank you so much!"

(( Remember this.. you must leave before the clock strikes midnight! At midnight, it will all turn the way it was before! ))

"I'll leave before midnight, I promise!" Karen called as the coach drove onto the road and down to the castle.

The trip to the castle seemed to last forever, and Karen's excitement built with each passing moment. Even if the Prince didn't choose her... even if she didn't even see the Prince, she would still have the memory of going to the ball and feeling beautiful and worthy just for that one night. Even the worry that her mother and stepsisters might notice her and embarrass her was not enough to temper her happiness.

Finally the coach pulled up in front of the castle. Karen gazed out the window, in awe of the beautiful scene. The turrets of the castle were lit with hundreds of candles, and outside, hundreds of handsome lords and ladies in beautiful dresses were making their way inside, stepping delicately on the red velvet carpet that had been laid out.

Feeling a little nervous, she stepped carefully out of the coach and began to walk down the carpet, trying to act as if she did this sort of thing all the time. To her surprise, she saw heads turn toward her all the way up the walk. Ladies looked at her with envy and admiration, and men stared in awe of her loveliness. In this atmosphere, she could almost pretend that the Prince was standing in the doorway, waiting to take her arm and lead her into the ball as his princess.

At the doorway, she stood for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the bright light. When she could finally see, she gasped in pleasant surprise, letting her eyes wander across the huge ballroom. Hundreds of men and women were dancing across the floor, dressed in beautiful gowns and suits.

Karen smiled and wandered off to the side to continue watching people. She was so engrossed in watching the people dance that she almost didn't see Kanoe and her daughters to her right.

"Where is the Prince?" Kanoe grumbled as she looked over the heads of the people in the ballroom. Karen turned at the sound of her voice and ducked behind a curtain.

"I don't know, Mother... and many people haven't seen him either." Arashi said, fanning herself with a large ornate fan.

"I wonder if this whole thing was just a hoax made by the King..." Satsuki mused.

Kanoe shook her head. "I doubt it. They're probably desperate to get the Prince married.... he IS in his 30s."

"He's that old?" Arashi asked, aghast.

"Don't worry, dear." Kanoe said, smirking as they begin to walk past Karen's curtain. "He's rich, that's what matters."

Karen waited until they were out of hearing range before she let out a breath. "Old money grabbing bitch."

"I agree." A voice said from behind her and Karen whirled around, eyes wide.