AN: I wrote this last year for a project in school and decided to upload it, I got a 80 :)

Declaimer: Don't own the idea of Cinderella

Word Count: 1700

Warnings: Femmeslash

Enjoy!

Sagira

Once upon a time, in a mountainous region in Gansu, called Shan Mai, there lived a colony of pandas. Shan Mai was a 15, 000 foot high mountain filled with spruce, fir, and bamboo trees, perfect for a panda colony to call home. Shan Mai also had various caves for the pandas to sleep and live in; the cave highest up Shan Mai was where the leader of the colony built his home, so he could easily look over Shan Mai and the valley under it. But this isn't a story about Shan Mai; this is a story about a little panda by the name of Sagira.

Sagira's story starts when her mother died; she was 3 years old, not quite mature, but not considered a baby. Her father, Matchitehew, never liked her, the only reason she was alive was because her mother wouldn't let her father abandon her. See, Sagira was born as a twin, her older twin brother, Kari, was the stronger of the two, which meant Sagira was supposed to be abandoned at birth. Sagira's mother knew if she abandoned the cub, she would die, and she didn't want to be responsible of killing a poor innocent child, so she took her home and called her Sagira, meaning small.

When her mother died, Sagira was scared to death her father would abandon her, or worse, kill her, but to her surprise, he allowed her to stay in their home and everything went on as normal. Her father ignored her, and her brother tortured her. Many times she ended up at the Nurse's cave with broken paws and deep wounds from Kari's claws. These deep wounds left horrible scars that you could see, even with all of her fur covering her skin.

Sagira hated her twin brother; he made her look ugly and think poorly of herself every day. One day when she was walking through the forest, on a path never taken before, she found a hollow tree. She decided that this was going to be her special place to go and vent about her father and brother, and most of all, how she missed her mother.
"I miss you mum," the girl cried into her paws one bright and sunny day.

"I'm sure she misses you too." came a voice, which sounded very close to where Sagira was sitting.

"W-who's there?" Sagira asked, frightened it might be a leopard that wanted her for dinner.

"Don't be frightened, my name is Feather." the voice said, "What's yours?"

"Sagira," Sagira said, looking around the forest until she spotted a little creature sitting on a branch on the hollow tree.

The creature had wings and was very small. "What kind of animal are you?"

Feather laughed, "I'm not an animal, I'm a fairy."

Everyday after that, Sagira and Feather became wonderful friends, she was amazed to find out that Feather could do magic, and forever envied him.

The April after Sagira's mother died, almost a year later, Sagira's father found a new mate. Her name was Lamia, and she was evil and wicket towards Sagira. She made her clean the cave, pick the ticks out of her brother's fur, and do whatever Lamia or her father told her too. Sagira hated Lamia even more then she hated Kari, all the chores that Lamia made her do gave her less and less time to spend with Feather.

"Sagira, come pick the ticks out of my fur." Kari declared one day when their father and stepmother were out hunting rodents.

"No!" Sagira exclaimed, running away from her brother. She was sick of having him boss her around.

"You ungrateful little prat!" Kari said as he scratched his claws into Sagira's body, Sagira felt the blood running from the wounds straight away and had to use all of her strength to stay on her feet, which soon failed and she fell to the ground. Her brother just laughed at her and walked out of the room, leaving her there, bleeding to death.

"Feather... Please... Help me..." Sagira managed to get out before she lost consciousness.

Feather heard the signal of distress from the dying panda and at once raced off towards her. He used his fairy dust to carefully stitch up the wounds on Sagira's body, to stop the bleeding, and within no time, she woke up.

From that day on Sagira did everything she was told to do in fear of losing her life. The things her brother and stepmother got her to do were very unpleasant and dangerous, but still she did them without complaining.

The summer ball was coming up and this year was more special than any year before, this year Naomi, the leader's daughter, would find a mate. All the young pandas in Shan Mai were getting ready for the ball, while Sagira was busy washing the cave floor. "Please, Lamia, can't I go to the ball?" Sagira asked for the millionth time that day.

"I told you, Sagira, if you clean the cave floor so clean, I can see my reflection, you may go." Lamia said as she hurried off to find Kari.

Sagira knew cleaning the cave floor was hopeless, and she feared that she would never get to go to the ball. Then she got an idea, she could ask Feather for help, and so she went to the window and called, "Oh Feather I really need your help, please come help me." A few minutes later she saw Feather flying towards her with a few more fairies.

"Hiya Sagira!" Feather exclaimed, "This is Rainbow, Twinkle, and Sunshine."

Sagira nodded her head, said a quick hello, and told the fairies what they had to do. In less then a half an hour the cave floor was spotless. Sagira went to her stepmother but she just shook her head and said, "You're a mess! You can't go to a ball at the leader's cave looking like that."

Kari added, "Plus, look at all the scars over your body, your ugly and disgusting, I'm ashamed to call you my sister."

At those horrible words Sagira burst into tears and ran to the hollow tree where Feather, Rainbow, Sunshine, and Twinkle were waiting for her. They sprinkled their fairy dust over her and her scars disappeared and her fur became clean. Sagira was overjoyed that she would be able to go to the ball at last.

"But don't forget," Rainbow said, "you will turn back to your old self when the clock strikes 11."

Sagira nodded, putting a red bow in her fur on her head, and ran off towards the Leader's cave. When she got there everyone stared at this new panda that no one had seen before, or so they thought. Naomi took a particular interest in Sagira, she asked her to dance, and danced with her the whole night. When some of the male panda's asked her to dance, Sagira politely refused and continued to dance with Naomi.

When the clock struck eleven, Sagira told Naomi she was very sorry but she must leave, as she turned to go, Naomi grabbed her paw and asked, "Please, I must know your name."

Sagira apologized again and shook her head, taking her paw out of Naomi's as she ran out of the cave. Naturally, Naomi followed Sagira, as she expected she would, but Sagira was prepared for this, she ran a little faster, slipped past her cave and into the woods where the hollow tree was. She hid in the tree and Naomi couldn't find her, but Naomi did find a piece of Sagira's claw stuck in the tree. Naomi decided to search all of Shan Mai for the mystery girl.

Naomi searched all of Shan Mai, but the claw didn't fit any of the pandas the last cave was Sagira's cave. Matchitehew answered the door and scowled when he saw Naomi, "That girl isn't in this cave. We haven't any girls in this cave." He said sternly but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Kari screamed out to Sagira too pick the ticks out of his fur.

"Then who's Sagira?" Naomi asked looking very cross, "I do not liked to be lied to sir, I know I'm only a child, but I would like to be respected."

"She couldn't be the girl!" exclaimed Matchitehew, "She has many scars, Is very dirty, and a disgrace to this family. I will not show her to you."

"Then you will leave Shan Mai at once." Naomi said, pure and simple.

Matchitehew groaned, "SAGIRA!"

Sagira came out from the back of the cave and stood paralyzed with shock. Naomi knew that this was the girl from the ball as soon as she laid eyes on her, but just to make sure she walked over to try the claw. The claw fit perfectly on Sagira's paw as Naomi knew it would, she smiled and said, "I found you."

Sagira was speechless, in her mind no one could ever love her for her, she hated herself so much she gave up on love. So she did the only thing she could think of to do, run away. Naomi expected her to do this so she once again followed her. This time Sagira didn't hide from Naomi, she just looked at her, tears in her eyes, and said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even gone to the ball."

Naomi looked puzzled, "Whatever do you mean?"

Sagira sighed, "I'm ugly, and why would anyone want someone as ugly as me?"

Naomi just smiled, "I think you're beautiful."

The rest, as they say it, is history. Naomi took Sagira away from her family, to live with her in the highest cave on Shan Mai. Once the leader found out all the cruel things Sagira's family done to her, he banished them from Shan Mai at once, and they got attacked and killed by leopards. Once Sagira found out her family was killed she felt relived, they would never torment her again, and she and Naomi could live happily ever after.

End