Disclaimer: This story uses a mish-mash of the themes of Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella. I do not own any of these storylines.

A/N: This is just the intro-slash-teaser for a story I have started writing. If it sounds promising or enjoyable, let me know and I will post more!

Prologue: The Fairy Tale

I would like to think that we are all the masters of our own destinies, and that no matter the circumstances of our birth, we all have an equal opportunity to rise up and achieve greatness—if only we work hard enough. Unfortunately, this is not the truth.

I was born into the life of a simple scullery maid. My mother was one of the royal kitchen maids at the palace of Murdogh, and I was the result of her affair with a courtier she refused to name. Other than the accidental pregnancy thing, though, Mother was brilliant. Her official title was Royal Chambermaid, but she really should have been Palace Psychologist. She counseled the gardener and the cook about their marriage problems and advised the Royal Milkmaid on her self-esteem issues while slipping the toddler-aged Princess Celestine motherly words of wisdom to keep the girl's feet on the ground despite her ever-doting parents, the king and queen, who would have spoiled her.

As for me, she made me the luckiest servant's child in the entire palace, for she taught me to read and write. Occasionally, to my delight, she told me stories.

"… And so Prince Charming whisked Cinders the Maid away to his palace, for he had fallen in love with her the night of the ball. And they lived happily ever after," Mother would recite to me.

"But, Mama, how could the prince ever admire a maid like Cinders?" I asked, ever the critical child. "She was cowed by her family all her life. Certainly her meekness would have been a dead giveaway to her true status."

"Cinders was 'cowed,' hmm?" Mother chuckled her lovely, throaty chuckle. "That's a new vocabulary word for you."

"Well?" I persisted, not to be deterred from my original question.

"Scarlett, our circumstances change us more than we give them credit for," Mother explained to me. "A servant may be submissive and humble because that is what he is trained to be; it is his job. A king may be hard and imperious because it is his situation that he must always make decisions and give orders; he was raised to take orders from no one. So, you see, in the story, without her wicked stepmother around to tell her she was worthless and ugly, Cinders was able to become a confident and charismatic young woman who could win any man's heart."

The story of Cinders and Prince Charming was one of the most common children's tales in the kingdom, and it was told (by anyone other than my mother) so that the moral was that if a girl did her work uncomplainingly, a prince would someday sweep her away to his palace—provided she was beautiful, of course. I liked Mother's version better.

"But don't we have any choice in who we are, even if we grow up in difficult situations like Cinders?" was my next question.

"Of course! You just have to look at yourself a little more closely to make sure you are on the path you want to be," was her reply. To this day, I think that particular statement of hers was far too optimistic.

I will not credit myself, nor most of the people I know, with any personal, life-changing introspection. It was a single event, outside my control, that changed my path.

A/N: Thank you for reading! I would adore you if you took time out of your fiction-consuming to write me a quick review. =D