Super sorry this took so long! I hope this quenches your thirst for some more KukkiaKipu story juice. That sounds really gross.

Before The Dawn

"You should have started five minutes ago, don't make the same mistake in future, and don't make a freaking exhibition of this, it's just a little chore. After this I expect you to go straight down to the basement and clean up." Cassandra spat at Flora.

"Wait, the basement? I thought we weren't allowed in the basement- I haven't been down there in years. What's in the basement that I need to clean up?"

"You ask too many questions." Cassandra slammed the door to the music room shut and left Flora to her work. She hadn't actually spoken of the ball last night- it was obvious that someone had gotten between Chimera and Helia. It was also obvious that Cassandra was oblivious to the fact that the person in question was Flora.

There was a small knock at the music room door.

"Hey Flora it's Chimera, I've gotta go get some crap from the markets. Can you tell me about haggling?" she said casually. Flora made an internal groan before clearing her throat.

"Just remember that a carrot should cost a quarter of a credi- I mean… five credits. Yes, a carrot should cost five credits, so just base everything off that and don't let them charge you anymore than that."

"K." she replied and walked away from the door.

Flora pondered for a moment whether she felt bad or not, and after shrugging she carried on polishing the floor.

~.~.~

"I can't wait to talk to Flora about the ball last night! She was with the prince the whole time! I need the details!" Stella squealed excitedly. Musa sighed; she was not as enthusiastic as her friend.

"I can't believe I spend the whole night with some guy, and he has to leave today. I'm never going to see Riven again!"

"Muse, you're not the only one. Brandon's way too important for the likes of me." Stella huffed sarcastically, "At least last night is not going to be a night that either of us forge- hey, isn't that Chimera?" she pointed to a girl buying some shrimp from a very pleased looking vendor. "Why is she buying the food and not Flora?" Chimera turned around and gave the two girls a disgusted look.

"Well. If it isn't Flora's little friends. Misa, is it? Yeah, at some point we're going to want our cutlery back." Chimera said. Stella slowly turned her head towards Musa.

"Things got ugly when I went to Flora's house." She explained quietly. "Anyway, it's Musa, not Misa, and what are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be in bed sleeping because it's not even noon yet?"

"My mum's angry with me because I didn't hook up with the prince last night." She shrugged, "I'm not really bothered, it's nice to have some responsibility for once. Life gets so boring."

"Well… Where's Flora then?" Stella asked.

"She's not allowed to go to the markets anymore, my mum thinks she spends too much time socialising."

"You know that's complete BS. She sees us for half an hour every morning." Said Musa. Chimera rolled her eyes.

"Listen, I don't want any of my friends seeing me speak to any of the third-world Linpheans, plus I have to get back home anyway so… Bye." She turned around and left the two girls seething.

"At least she's better than her mother." Stella huffed.

"She's still a bitch though."

Just then, palace officials stormed through the markets. About twenty members of the palace guard were knocking on doors armed with pictures of shoes. At the back of the stampede three confused looking men were walking slowly.

"Hey… Stell, that's the prince! And Prince Riven! I can't believe I'm seeing him again! Oh my gosh!" Musa squealed, rare for her.

"AND BRANDON!" Stella squeaked. "When royalty walks through the market we're not supposed to approach then, what do we do?"

Musa took ten seconds to think, and then took a deep breath.

"RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNN!" she called at the top of her voice, Stella covered her ears and gritted her teeth at Musa. "I don't think this counts as approaching them," she shrugged.

Riven turned around and scanned the crowd to see two frantically waving girls.

"Hey Brandon, it's the girls from last night," he jabbed his friend on the shoulder and pointed in their direction. "Should we go say hi?"

"Now you get it, when a girl calls you over you don't run." Brandon laughed, "Hey Helia, are you coming?"

"Uh… I- sure. Okay, but not for long." He sighed. He was just anxious to find the girl he was with at the ball.

They walked over to the two squealing girls. Stella and Musa had to remember to cool it and bow.

"Hey girls, it's nice to see you in daylight. You look just as beautiful as you did in those dresses." Brandon smiled, Riven rolled his eyes.

"Oh stop it you," Stella giggled and gave him a light slap on the wrist.

"What's going on?" Musa asked.

"Helia's conducting a search to find the girl he was with last night. Because he forgot to ask her name." Riven replied.

The two girls slowly turned their heads to the prince and raised an eyebrow.

"It didn't seem important at the time." He seethed. "Please can we go? I just want to find her."

"Hey, we can help!" said Stella, "We know the girl you were with,"

"Really?" Helia asked with hope in his eyes.

"Sure! She's our best friend. She's meant to be shopping with us right now but her step sister just told us that she's still at home."

"Well, where does she live?" he asked.

"I… Hm. where does she live Musa?" Stella turned to her shrugging friend.

"I can't remember, I just remember taking cutlery and running." Musa said thoughtfully, "She works as a live-in maid in one of the houses on the rich side of Mithweald.

"Wait, what's the house name?" Helia asked, "Every house in that area is named after the owner."

"It could be the name of her father, or it could just be Cassandra." Stella tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"I can't believe you were going to go around all of Mithweald asking for everyone's shoe size! I'm pretty sure that both Stella and I would be able to fit into that shoe." Musa laughed.

"I didn't have any other leads." Helia seethed.

"You're not very bright, are you?" Stella sniggered.

"Oh come on girls, give him break. He's been up all night figuring out the way to do this; he really badly wants to find her. You're just enjoying tormenting him because you know you won't be arrested." Brandon put an arm around his shoulder.

"Sorry, your highness," Musa bowed, "And I promise you that she'll appreciate every bit of work you put into finding her."

"I… Thank you girls, you've been incredibly helpful." Helia smiled, "Brandon, can you…"

"Sure," Brandon whistled loudly at the party of palace guards and pointed in the opposite direction, "HEY! WE KNOW WHERE WE'RE GOING NOW!" There was a slight cheer of relief coming from a few of the guards.

"We'd better get going, are you girls coming?" Riven asked. Musa shook her head.

"This kills me because it sounds like it's going to be dramatic but my parents are counting on me to earn some more money," she said sadly.

"What do you do for money then?" Riven asked with a slight smile on his face.

"I- um… play the flute and sometimes sing on the side of the road…" she said in a quick whisper while her cheeks heated quickly.

"Awesome! I'll come by and have a listen a bit later, I'd love to hear you play," he said enthusiastically. Musa turned away slightly.

"I'm really not that good…" she blushed. Stella smacked her on the shoulder and rolled her eyes.

"She lies! She's AMAZING." Stella clarified. Musa cleared her throat.

"Okay fine, maybe I'm a little good…"

"How about you Stella?" Brandon asked. She nodded vigorously.

"Technically I should be working too but this sounds way more fun!"

~.~.~

Flora stood up and wiped the sweat off her brow, allowing herself to feel a little bit of pride for the gleaming floor beneath her. She adjusted her apron and re-did her bun.

"Right… Basement," she muttered to herself. On the way to the door she took a brief detour to one of the large, bright windows looking down at the street. "It's noisy out there today… So many people… Wait, the palace guard?" she looked down at the road and observed as they walked up her drive. She took a closer look and saw that they were holding pictures of shoes. "Wait… Those are the shoes I was wearing last night! Maybe I killed someone when I kicked them off! Crap!" She ran down to the basement as fast as she could, and shut the heavy door behind her. She gave a sigh of relief and looked around at her surroundings. The room was almost completely empty apart from the neglected furnace that used to heat the house. The room was covered in a thick layer of ash and dust, and the small windows at the top of the walls were painted black and the vents were sealed.

"What the heck am I supposed to be doing down here?" She asked out loud. She was never allowed to go down there when she was younger and she would always invent crazy stories to herself about what lurked down there, a monster who would scratch and bang at the door, trying to get out to kill her.

~.~

Cassandra stood up as soon as she heard the basement door click shut. She made her way to the kitchen cupboard where a dusty switch was hidden behind various cleaning products and aprons- this was not a cupboard she was usually in. She blew the dust away from the switch and took a deep breath.

"She has been a thorn in my side for years. She won't be able to bother me any more." she pushed the button and closed the door briskly, then walked to the basement door and turned the key. She took it out of it's hole and placed it in the pocket of her dress.

~.~

Flora tested out the windows but they wouldn't give, even the glass was, from what she could see, too thick to be broken without some kind of hammer.

"Why bother making such an irrelevant room so inescapable?" Flora pondered.

Suddenly the furnace jumped to life, making Flora's heart stop. She turned around and cautiously walked towards it. There was a small flame flickering inside and catching on to other bits of kindling.

"I didn't think this still worked, how did it turn on?" Flora backed away from it and put her hand on the door handle and pulled it down, but nothing happened. She tried again and again but it was clear that it had been locked.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?!" She yelled hysterically, but there was no answer. Flora kept her eyes on the furnace as a thick, black smoke started to fill the room from a pipe at the side of the furnace. "What is that?"

~.~

Cassandra made her way to the front door and looked through the spyglass.

"The Prince? Another chance?" she grinned.

She composed herself and opened the door.

"Your highness? What's going on?" she bowed.

"Forgive me for interrupting your morning but I'm actually looking for someone I danced with at the ball last night. This is quite embarrassing but I don't even know her name, I was hoping you could help me." Helia bowed.

"Well, I'll do my best. What did this girl look like?"

Helia proceeded to give an incredibly detailed description of a girl who sounded a lot like Flora, he even described the dress that she recalled cutting to shreds.

"But that's not possible…" she said quietly, "Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I recall a girl like that, she's the daughter of a wealthy businessman who's always in and out of the city, and we spoke once when she was younger but I haven't seen her since. I have to say I'm a little offended that she'd come back into town and not say hello to me. She was very good friends with my daughter, CHIMERA." She yelled the last word, making everyone jump.

Chimera came out of the kitchen and turned her gormless glare into a happy and peppy smile.

"This is her." Cassandra beamed.

"So you don't know where this girl lives?" Helia asked sadly. Cassandra shook her head.

"You could scour the country for her but I wouldn't bother if I were you, she was a very… um… violent child. Right, Chimera?" Cassandra nudged her daughter.

"Oh! So violent, yes."

"And rude."

"Hot damn she was rude!"

"And ugly."

"Uglier than a seal wearing people clothes."

"You can stop that now Chimera." Cassandra laughed heartily and patted her daughter on the head.

"Cassandra you LIAR!" Stella pushed Helia away.

"Right, and who are you?"

"I'm only your step-daughter's best friend! Helia, she lives here." She exclaimed, "Where is she?!"

"Oh, you mean the maid?" Cassandra suddenly turned, "She's no step-daughter of mine I assure you. Yes, she lives here but I know for a fact that she didn't go to the ball."

"And I know for a fact that she snuck out!" Stella countered.

"Hang on, if she lives here then where is she?" Helia asked.

"She left to go see her family in the country." Cassandra said nonchalantly.

It was at that moment when he knew for a fact that she was lying.

"Don't even try that on me." he said angrily, "I knew her mother."

Just then there was a loud banging at the basement door, and someone was yelling for help.

~.~.~

All that Flora had on her mind was leaving the room and getting some clean air. The smoke was incredibly black and didn't smell quite right.

"Hey." A casual voice came from behind her. She whipped her head around to see Layla standing in the smoke with her arms folded.

"LAYLA!" Flora croaked out, "HELP ME! OPEN THE DOOR!"

"I will." Layla said, "But first I want to bring your attention to one thing; do you think it's a coincidence that the room is set up like this?"

"What do you mean?" Flora coughed.

"It must have been like this for a while."

"Layla please! I don't know what you're talking about! Open then door I can hardly breathe!"

"I know you remember hearing a lot of banging a couple of days before your seventeenth birthday." Layla stated, and with that she disappeared. Flora gave a huge push to the door and it came open, throwing her on to the floor, coughing and gasping for clean. She ran up the stairs and opened the second door, slamming it behind her. She came out of the utility area and out into the hall, where she fell to her knees and started to breathe in the fresh air. She looked up to see Cassandra, Chimera, Prince Helia, Stella, Brandon, Riven and a whole group of the palace guard staring at her.

"Uh… Hey…"

"FLORA! ARE YOU OKAY?! IS THERE A FIRE?!" Stella ran up to her friend and pulled her up to her feet.

"The furnace was malfunctioning, the vents were sealed shut and someone locked the door with the key," Flora said breathlessly.

"Who locked you down there?" Brandon asked.

"I… wouldn't know." Flora tried not to make eye contact with Cassandra, although there was an obvious key shaped lump showing through one of the silk pockets of her dress.

Banging downstairs a couple of days before my seventeenth birthday. The next morning was when we found my father dead in front of the fireplace.

Flora stared up at Cassandra's face; she was keeping her composure and had a stiff frown on her face, as though she was trying to show concern but couldn't quite bring herself to do so.

Flora had obviously thought before about how Cassandra was a possible perpetrator for the death of her father, she'd joked about it with her friends but she never in a million years thought that Cassandra would actually do something like that.

"It all makes sense now…" she said quietly to herself. "SUDDEN ADULT DEATH SYNDROME MY ASS!" Flora threw herself at Cassandra and pushed her to the ground, slapping her around the face and finally trying to hold her still.

Bodies could be moved, she must have put him in front of the fireplace before Flora woke up. She must have bribed the doctor who was conducting the autopsy not to reveal that he had suffocated in the smoke.

She took the money for his life.

She treated Flora like a slave.

She ruined Flora's life and couldn't care less.

But now, by trying to end Flora's life in such a dark and lonely way, she had pushed her to her limit.

"You killed my father." Flora said quietly, directing her voice at Cassandra.

Chimera widened her eyes and took a cautionary step away from her mother. There were a couple of gasps and a couple of people rolled their eyes.

"Young lady, that is an extreme allegation. I'd think twice before saying it again. Cassandra is very well respected around these parts." One of the senior guards said to her, frustrating the girl even more.

"YOU KILLED MY FATHER!" Flora slapped her around the face again and again, "WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?! WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?!" she cried out. She was pulled away and held back by Brandon and Riven.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Cassandra screamed, wiping the blood away from her nose, "I demand you have this girl arrested immedietly!"

"Cassandra." Flora cried, "What did I ever do to you? Please. I want to know," she sobbed.

Helia walked up to Flora and knelt down to her level.

"You know I'm not a liar, don't you?" she asked him. "You haven't forgotten me already, have you?"

He looked into her watery and bloodshot eyes, she was obviously distressed but the vivid emerald colour was still shining through.

"This is the girl." He stood up and turned back to his guards.

"You can't be serious!" One scoffed, "She's a maid, and besides, she's obviously crazy."

"Don't say things you'll regret." said Helia. He turned back to Flora and Cassandra; he knew this was something that had been going on for a while, and it was something that needed sorting out. "Take them both into custody, and search the rest of the house." Helia ordered.

"You leave me house alone! And how dare you take me into custody! I have done nothing but good for this city!" Cassandra exclaimed as two guards restrained her.

"Trust me: this is for the best."

~.~

Later that night, Chimera was sitting alone in the kitchen of the empty house with a mug of black tea. The guards had cleared the basement of smoke and had found that it was manually set up as some kind of death chamber that was controlled from the kitchen cupboard. She sighed deeply, struggling to fathom the idea of her mother being involved in anyone's death.

She stood up and walked back up to her room, but caught a glimpse of the moon through her curtains and sat on the window seat of her large bay window. She didn't like being alone, especially at such a dramatic time. She never really cared about Flora, but she never really cared about her mother either. She never wanted to be royalty, rich maybe, but not royalty. She did, however, care that her mother allegedly killed her step-dad and tried to kill Flora, that was going way over the top.

She got off the window seat but subsequently knocked her knee on the wooden top. After seething in pain, she realised that it had made a slight echo. She knocked on it again, and it made the same echo. She removed the cushion to reveal hinges.

"I didn't realise this opened," she said to herself as she lifted up the lid. She peered into the seat and frowned that there was nothing inside but an envelope.

"To my loving family: Flora, Cassandra and Chimera from David Willow in the event of my death."

"I can't believe it: it's his will."

~A/N~

Well, I re-wrote this chapter like seven times. Fun.

It took a turn for a little bit of violence, but hey, what's Cinderella without violence? Probably not Cinderella. Cassandra just didn't seem insane enough to me.

More to come sooner than this one was up, and maybe some actual romance too.

What did you think? Leave me a review!