A/N: I really have nothing to say in this author's note other than I hope you enjoy this and I'm so very excited to see the new Cinderella movie! If you'd care to leave a review I would greatly appreciate it.
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Ella was very much her father's daughter in every sense of the word. Not only did she proudly bare the name he had chosen for her long before she was even brought into this world, but blood, and his ways as well. Deep down inside she knew she was just like him, which was something she was richly proud of. From his generous heart to his fiercely compassionate streak. Ella was certainly like the late Eustace Borde of whom she still missed deeply with all of her too-big heart.
The apple didn't fall far from the tree, was the English expression she believed.
As was customary of the time Eustace had been expected to have little involvement in child rearing, more so since he was blessed with a daughter and not a strapping son. It was woman's work to rear the children, particularly female children, was the belief of the day. Men provided, while mothers raised the offspring.
Eustace had never been very orthodox because from the moment Ella had been born he pampered, and spoiled her, as well as spent much of his free time with her. This closeness only increased after the premature death of Ella's mother. Father and daughter had been so close, and he had taught her so many valuable things. "Remember Ella, we are a friend to all creatures big and small," he told her once upon finding a unwanted litter of puppies in their barn without the security of a mother. Together Ella and her father had bottled fed the small dogs until they were big enough to find homes of their own. They even kept one for themselves and named him Bruno.
Ella knew even then that Bruno and his littermates were very lucky to have ended up in their barn and not someone else's. Her friend of the time, a waif of a little girl by the name of Marceline DuPont had once told her that her that her own father had found an abandoned pup on their property as well. Ella was mortified to hear that Marceline's father had 'rectified' the situation by throwing the poor thing in a river while tied tightly in a burlap sack. "How awful!" Ella still remembered tearing up at Marceline's nonchalant recount, to which the red headed girl looked perplexed upon her friend and responded, "It would just grow up to bother the hens and sheep. It was just a pest, Ella. Nothing more, no need to feel sorry for it."
Maybe it was that early lesson and experience in life that had let Ella see only potential friends and confidants in creatures such as mice while so many others saw pesky vermin to be rid of.
Ella was most grateful to her father for his teachings.
Now, Ella Charming, formerly Borde, the young woman who was once a servant but now a princess of an entire kingdom found herself in a similar, but different situation much like her father had so many years before.
First let it be known that as the crowned princess Ella was expected to do certain things. Birthing royal heirs and speaking to dignitaries when her husband wasn't present were two of them. By no means was a future queen expected, however to raise the children she gave birth to. It simply wasn't done. That was work for the nannies and various royal attendants.
Like her father before her, Ella was never orthodox. From the moment her firstborn was greeted into the world Ella made it a point to become a constant fixture in the child's life and not to pawn him off to stiff servants who would merely care for, but never love him the way only a mother could. She wanted to not only love him, but teach him things like her father had taught her.
Princess Ella and her son Prince Robert found themselves alone in the royal gardens one bright summer afternoon. Having shooed away courtiers in the politest way possible, Ella was thoroughly enjoying the warm summer sun beating down on what little skin she had exposed, warming her to her center. The sun and the not-too distant laughter of a boy barely out of his toddler years running amok, chasing butterflies sat her soul at peace.
A shrill gasp of what she believed to be pain shattered that. She had been looking up at the fluffy clouds only for a moment and in that time it seemed little Rob had fallen. Kneeling down ahead of her on the path she quickly hiked up her gown as much as possible and rushed over to her son. When she reached him in a few paces, though she was glad to see he had not fallen and was not in fact hurt, she was disheartened to see what had caused him such a shock.
A little bird with a broken, worn wing lay in the middle of the path. It's tiny chest rising and falling frantically both in fear and probably pain.
Ella was about to speak to the bird, to assure the small creature that all would be fine and that she had mended far worse, when Robert spoke up in a soothing voice that was rather becoming of him, "Now, now little birdie." With gentle and what almost appeared practiced hands Robert scooped up the fragile thing. His touch was so light that Ella was certain it felt like a feather's touch against the bird's actual feathers. "You shouldn't fret so," he continued. "We can make you better." With expectant blue eyes he looked up to his mother. "We will help him, won't we?"
A warm smile spread across Ella's face. Bending down the place a soft kiss on her son's forehead she then carefully cupped the bird in her own hands, surveying the torn wing. Noting the damage was indeed not as bad as it could have been she regarded her son fondly. "Of course we will, little Prince."
"We are a friend," Rob echoed something he had heard his mother say a few times before, "to all creatures - "
"- big and small." Ella finished in unison with her five year old with a bright smile.
Feeling extremely proud of her child Ella ushered him into the castle while gingerly carrying the injured avian.
Later as she sat at the ornate window sill stitching up the bird's tattered wing, Ella briefly glanced over at her son once more who was now sitting on the luxurious burgundy carpeted floor, engrossed in one of his simple children's books. She then thought again of the saying she had once herself read in an English to French translated book.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, was the proverb the English folk said. She recalled the meaning of the adage; Children are like their parents.
Warmth radiated through her as the now stitched back together bird tentatively outstretched it's wing experimentally, before letting out a chirp of happiness, pleased by her handiwork and already feeling better.
Children are like their parents. Or in this case, Ella thought with a smile tugging at the corners of her petal like lips, children are like their parents who are in turn like their own parents.
Ella was her father's daughter in every sense of the word, and Robert was very much his grandson.