Dance with Me

Disclaimer: If I owned Cinderella, I would be very happy. Sadly, I do not.

A/N - Sorry for not updating for a while, everyone! Here's my (short shortie short) next chapter and another will be coming up soon, because we're about to get to the ball and I love writing about the dresses!

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Francesca had spent one day sitting around sobbing, and then she got up from her bed, wiped the tears from her face, and decided to catch her prince's heart away from the rest. She ordered Eline to begin work on her ball gown, as the ball was in five days. Hearing that while on her way downstairs, Felicity ordered her the same for her. Eline complied.

She went to the sewing room and, not knowing what to sew, sat there for a minute before closing the door quietly. She bolted the door, and whispered a spell so that her step-family only heard her sewing.

She walked over to the table, pulled out her wand, and reached to Francesca's thoughts to see exactly what kind of dress she wanted. Luckily, she already had a mental picture of it, so, seeing it, Eline waved her wand.

Instantly, fabric came pouring from the air, and a figure changed to Francesca's exact shape. The fabric wrapped around the figure, beginning to form the dress's outline. Eline waved the wand again, and the process stopped. She needed to go at a regular pace.

The same process was repeated for Felicity.

Eline looked wistfully at the beginnings of the ball gowns, and decided to wave her wand once again. A form fit to her shape, and beautiful gray-blue shimmery fabric came from the air. It draped over the form that was now her shape, and she let the process finish. It was a beautiful dress. She went over and touched it, the elegant dress that was what she wished she could wear to the ball. She wished only to go so she could make sure Evander and Francesca did not marry. Her heart told her there was another reason as well, but she brushed that aside. Sighing, Eline waved her wand over the dress, and it dissipated and formed a neat pile of fabric folded in with all the rest on the other side of the room. She unbolted the door.

"Ah, there you are, Eline." Ruthia stopped her stride. "Go clean the banisters. Have you started the girls' dresses?"

"Yes, I have-"

"Have you started mine?"

Eline was taken aback. Why did Ruthia want to go? Plots of her stepmother's flitted through her mind. She nodded slowly, and flicked her arm behind her back, letting a silent process of sewing begin to take place until it was at the same pace with the other two.

"Shoo, young person! Banisters," Ruthia said over her shoulder.

Eline was perilously close to melting Ruthia's clicking heels and stick her to the floor, but she resisted. Besides, Felicity was blundering up the stairs, catching Eline's elbow and bringing her close.

"Make my dress better than hers." Felicity had developed a husky whisper out of nowhere. "It must be better than hers."

Eline squeaked, "Hers?"

"Francesca's."

"Oh." Eline felt a mouse had taken her place. So she wanted Evander too. Get a place in line, she wanted to shout. There were many girls better suited to him than them. Eline herself would have been better than them. She was sure that they would not rest until either they had him, or the girl who would was miserable. Maybe if she found the girl just before the ball...a plan was hatched.

Eline slowed time and speed-cleaned the banister, than changed it back and ran up to her room in the attic, peeking around rafters to her wall, writing out a plan in fairy dust, something only she could see or even notice.

Find the perfect girl for Evander. Begin search immediately...

"ELLLLINNNEEEE!"

With a gasp Eline pushed herself out the door, Felicity's voice alerting her to the fact that something else needed to be baked and/or cleaned. Passing the sewing room door, she added a little to all of the dresses and continued onwards.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ruthia's voice was particularly clipped as she held a small paper in her claws/hands. She looked up at Eline curtsying. "What is this? Tell me!"

She flung the paper at Eline, who grabbed it up off the floor and widened her eyes at her own name on the front. Opening the flap, what she saw was a self-written envelope from Evander, to her, about the ball. A small smile flickered across her features as she read.

You are cordially invited to my parents' stupid find-me-a-bride-ball.

A week from Saturday, beginning at eight and lasting til the last guests leave.

HELP!

Evander / Prince Evander

She wanted to laugh. The official Prithee-But-There-is-a-Ball man had been for everyone, but she had a special note to attend. When she looked up, Ruthia snatched it back and tore it in half.

"But of course you can't attend. You have work to attend to. Your work is your life, because I believe it is your father that I married, was it not, Eline? As my former step-daughter, it is your sole position to meet our needs before your own."

Eline stood there, wanting to slap her. Instead, wand in hand, she said, "Say that again, Ruthia. Say it once more."

Ruthia actually looked surprised. "Child, you mustn't sass me. I can do much worse than this for you." Would her mother want her to go through with this? Surely she must realize that she was about to burst with all this horrible life-she dreamed of owning this place as her own. It was her childhood home, underneath the guise that Ruthia and Francesca had covered it with. It was rightfully her father's. Where was he, anyway?

Wand hand shaking, she said, "Say it. Are you certain that my only place is at your foot? Are you so certain that I will stay here forever? Why do you believe that I will just stand and be pushed and unloved for so long?"

Ruthia looked at her, Felicity peeking out behind her with rounded amber eyes. Francesca stood by, her own set of eyes looked particularly beady.

Ruthia's left arm extended. "Go clean the kitchen and begin preparing our supper. I believe you will find a rather large mess from where Felicity-"

"I am tiring of this quickly, Ruthia." Eline closed her eyes and reopened them, seeing the three looking still at her. "But I will continue this, at least for now. I suggest you begin to think."

Eline was beginning to sound like them. She had to get out-maybe not today, but someday. For now, the flour-crusted kitchen called her attention. What had Felicity been trying to-

Ah. Eline had found the burned "bread-things." Of course. Using an invisible broom, Eline swept the dust into nothingness, the flour reminding her of snow.

"I will run away. Someday," she reasoned with herself, whipping up another batch of croissants and putting some things out to thaw from the icehouse. Walking back through her garden, she said again, "I will."

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Somebody got tired of getting bossed around, it seems. Review please; It makes the author break out cookies! Thanks for reading.-dreamer303

ps- Think of Felicity with that Godfather guy's accent from The Godfather with the part in italics. That's how I wrote it. Hee...