Cinder

Chapter One

I'm sure everyone has heard the fairytale of the servant girl nicknamed Cinderella by her wicked step-mother and step-sisters who was transformed into a beautiful lady of the court and stole the handsome prince's heart with a single dance at the royal ball, and who was reunited with him and became queen thanks to a tiny lost shoe. This…is not that story…well, not quite. Still, it begins the same.

Once upon a time…

In a kingdom far away, there lived a widower and his young son. When the boy was eight years old, his father remarried. He wed a wealthy widow who had two daughters around the boy's age. One was a tall and thin thing with pretty features and luxurious, wavy blond hair that fell to mid back. Green eyes narrowed shrewdly at the widower's modest home in the countryside. The other however, was shorter and built like a cherub, chubby and round faced. Her black hair coiled into curls about her head. Large, brown eyes took in the world like open mouths gulping air. She was ready and eager to experience the world and all it had to offer.

The boy's new step-mother was kind in the beginning. She spoke softly to him and laughed at the jokes that he made. His sisters too were kind enough. The blond one was polite to him, but she never offered to play a game with him or anything of that sort. The black haired one was very quiet and soft spoken. Sometimes, the rest of the family would forget that she was even there. However, the boy never forgot her presence. Even through her silence, he could see that she was somewhat happy with her new life with a blended family. Her tiny lips would stretch ever so slightly into a closed lipped smile as she ate at dinner, listening to the family's chatter about their day. Unlike her sister, she did not turn up her nose at him when he asked her to play. She was hesitant, but this was out of shyness and it was easily over come. She giggled with him as they ran around the yard, chasing each other and sometimes even throwing mud, much to their parents' dismay. Still, she rarely spoke, but that was just fine with the boy. Her laugh and her smile were proof enough that she liked him and was happy to have a new brother, even if they were not related by blood.

The happiness, however was short lived and the kindness that the boy received was stripped away in a single moment. While fox hunting with some other men from the village, the boy's father was thrown from his horse. His neck was broken in the fall and he died instantly. Almost as soon as the poor boy's father was buried, the step-mother took a drastic change. She was no longer kind to him. She no longer claimed him as a step-son. She threatened to send him to an orphanage, but decided instead to put him to work in her household.

The boy did not mind. In fact, he was happy that he got to stay. All that he wanted was to be able to stay with them. They were the closest thing to family that he had. And at least he'd get to hear the black haired cherub's laugh and watch her smile…and perhaps from time to time he'd hear her voice, whispering in his ear, her most secret of thoughts.

Ten years passed over the land since the day the widower died. The boy grew up into a strong and handsome young man, his face held masculine features and his body was hard from doing back breaking labor for most of his life as his ex-step-mother's servant. Upon reaching puberty, the step-mother became increasingly aware of how handsome he was getting. To protect her maturing daughters' virtue, she banished him to the servants' quarters. There was not enough beds for him, so he was forced to sleep in front of the tiny servants' house's fireplace. Due to this, he was often covered with ashes. As a joke, his closest step-sister, Anatole, started calling him Cinder. The playful nickname, unfortunately backfired. Thinking that she meant it as an insult, the blond, Babette and her mother started calling him that as well.

The man called Cinder was actually named Henri. Sometimes he suspected that the masters he once called family had forgotten that. Hell, sometimes he couldn't remember his actual name. All day long, Babette and her mother barked orders at him, "Cinder, fix the door on the barn!" or "Cinder, find my shoes! The blue ones!" The only time he did not mind being called by his nickname was when Anatole said it. For he knew that she did not call him that to look down on him or to insult him. It was a pet name, said with love and kindness. And unlike her sister and mother, she still called him Henri sometimes, reminding him that he wasn't just Cinder the servant, but Henri, the same little boy she used to run around with and have mud fights with. He still chased her around when no one was watching. He didn't dare throw mud at her anymore, more in fear of tarnishing her pure, milky flesh, than of retribution from her mother for getting her clothes dirty.

Both of the girls had grown beautiful in Henri's eyes. Babette, with her slender frame, lovely creamy skin and full breasts could stop any man in their tracks. But she was ugly on the inside, spoiled and hateful. To most, Anatole was not what was considered beautiful. She was larger boned than her sister and shorter. She still had a baby's round face, framed by tight coils of black. Most would say that she was fat, but Henri didn't think so. She reminded him of all those nude goddesses in the Italian master pieces. She was fleshy and soft, curvy and womanly. And she still had those absurdly large brown eyes that gazed upon the world each and every day in absolute wonder. Those eyes made him quiver every time she looked at him.

"Cinder!" Henri's body stiffened at the call as he was laying fresh hay along the bottom of the stall he'd been cleaning. A smile stretched his lips. It was Anatole calling him. She'd gotten a little more talkative as she grew more comfortable with him over the years, but she was still quiet. Any opportunity to hear her soft voice was a blessing that made his heart flutter and a smile appear on his handsome face.

"Yes?" He asked, straitening his back and turning to see her walk around the corner and enter the stables. He discretely admired the way her soft curls bounced when she moved and the slight flush in her cheeks that worsened as she discovered that he was not wearing a shirt.

She bowed her eyed, attempting to appear like she was not staring at his bare chest, when in fact her eyes had never moved. "M-mother is calling you. She wants tea." She stammered.

"I'll be right in." Henri assured her. He leaned the pitchfork against the wall and grabbed his shirt from where he'd hung it on a nail. He shrugged it on as he and Anatole walked across the yard, towards the main house. He looked around the yard, making sure that there was no one to see before reaching to take her hand in his. She closed her short fingers around his larger hand and smiled shyly at him, her long eyelashes fluttering in the pleasure of having his skin touching hers. "Do you need some apples?" He asked. "I was thinking of going to the orchard and picking some for you."

Anatole's lips stretched further into a smile. Apples were her most favorite thing in the world to eat. You could make so much with them, jam, cakes, pies, and they were not bad on their own either. Henri never forgot her love for apples and he always made sure that she had plenty of them when they were available. "Wait until after breakfast and I'll go with you." She said softly, her whole face warming under Henri's sky blue eyes.

"That's not necessary. I can do it." He said, stubbornly. "You don't have to help."

"But I want to." She insisted.

He picked up their linked hands and rubbed his thumb against her palm. "If I keep letting you help me, you're going to get calluses on your pretty, soft hands."

Anatole's face felt like it were on fire now and her stomach was flipping restlessly. Only he made her feel like this, like she was going to explode. It made her crazy. She pulled her hand out of his grasp, in hopes that he wouldn't notice how sweaty her palms were. "I don't care about calluses. You work so much. I like to help you when I can." She said.

"Very well." Henri sighed, trying to hide the pleasure filled leer that was threatening to appear on his face. He had noticed the sheen of sweat on her hands and how absolutely nervous she looked. Honestly, it thrilled him to no end. "I'll wait for you outside the servants' house. Come to me when you are finished with breakfast."

Anatole took her seat by her sister at the table, while Henri slipped into the kitchen to begin brewing the tea. Babette cocked a blond eyebrow at her as she sat down with a sigh. " Anatole, why is your face so red?" Babette asked, cattily.

"I-I've been running." Anatole lied. In truth it was Henri who'd made her turn the color of a beet.

"Running?" Babette cackled. She reached over and pat Anatole's stomach. "My dear sister, if you ran at all, your stomach would not be so large."

"I did run. I was hurrying to find Cinder." Anatole replied. She flinched inwardly at the insult, but shoved the pain aside for the moment. She was used to her sister's cruelty by now and she never wanted to give Babette the pleasure of seeing her cry for something she had said.

"I bet you were." Babette giggled.

"What do you mean by that?" Asked their mother, the solemn and demure lady of the house. "What are you implying?"

Babette grinned at her mother, cutting her eyes at Anatole, who sank further in her seat, nibbling at her lips, anxiously.

"It's just that Anatole and Cinder are awfully close, mother. Sometimes they sneak off together to do only god knows what. I suspect they've been going for tumbles in the hayloft." Snickered Babette.

"That's not true at all." Anatole piped up, still not daring to raise her voice to the scream she'd been holding back for most of her life. "Cinder and I are friends." She explained to her mother, trying to assure her that there was nothing romantic going on between them. "I help him with his chores sometimes, that's all. I promise you mother, I would not do anything that would bring shame upon our family."

"I know my dear." Her mother said in a shrewd voice. "Babette you should not jump to such absurd conclusions. What would Cinder want with Anatole?" She said with a chuckle, implying that Anatole was too ugly for even a servant boy to desire her, especially not one as handsome as Cinder.

Anatole knew this. She could read it in her tone and in her face, her black, unloving eyes, flittering over her face and body, noting every single flaw. It sent another pang of pain through her. It squeezed her heart like a serpent coiled around a mouse, bringing tears to her eyes that she would not dare shed in front of them. The sound of the kitchen door swinging open snapped her back to attention. Cinder entered the room, carefully balancing a silver tray, laden with the tea pot and some cups and saucers. He sat it on the table, reaching over her shoulder to place it at the center. The sleeve on his arm was rolled up to his elbow and the skin on his forearm lightly grazed a bare spot on her shoulder as he reached over her. The contact sent shivers through her and the smell of him, a mixture of hay and ashes, blurred her vision with pleasure. God, she'd want nothing more than to have him take her and make her his, to kiss her and love her, but her mother and sister were right. What would such a handsome man want with her? She was too fat and ugly to be desired, least of all by this princely servant. They were friends and that was all they could ever be.

After placing the tea down, Henri saw the troubled expression on Anatole's face. He'd heard their teasing from the kitchen. No doubt her viperous sister and mother had hurt her feelings deeply. He flashed her the silly grin that usually made her laugh, but Anatole's lips did not pull back up in the corners. She stared down at her hands on the table, frowning as if someone dear to her had died. He wished he could tell her that it wasn't true, that he did desire her, more so than he had ever desired any woman, that he thought that he was even in love with her, but he was afraid to do that. He was, after all, a servant, and her status conscious mother would never allow them to be together. He didn't want to break his dear Anatole's heart. That was the last thing he'd ever want to do.