Chapter 4 Part 2 Poor Unfortunate Souls
Here is part 2. Though this story is centered on Kit, I wanted to fill out Cinderella's background some more so here you go.
Please read, enjoy and review.
If Kit had returned to the clearing just ten minutes later, he would have seen another supernatural beauty, a witch, stalk toward the girl and backhand her as two ugly toads hopping around.
"How dare you talk to mortals, you ungrateful snip!" The witch's glare could turn flowers to dust (and had actually done so before). The toads kept hopping around Cinderella and croaking insults loudly.
"Who would ever want to talk to her?"
"Maybe a pig farmer or chimney sweep".
Her stepsisters started laughing but as toads it sounded positively revolting.
"I didn't intend too, he had followed me as a horse and then found me hiding here as a girl." Cinderella stated quietly.
"You let a human see you change?!" The witch seemed to tower over her while the toads finally shut up with smug looks on their faces.
"No! No, he doesn't suspect anything." Cinderella's eyes were wide with fear but her voice was strong. "You don't need to hurt him."
Cinderella prayed that her stepmother wouldn't seek him out.
The witch stared at her for a moment longer before huffing. "Fine. You know the conditions of your curse I suppose. Care to recite them for me?" the witch sneered.
The two toads looked on eagerly while mucus dripped off their sides onto the forrest floor.
"Yes, I can never let a mortal know I am a wood nymph by changing in front of one unless I want to be stuck in my animal form for a season.
I can only be human after the sun sets and I must become an animal once the sun rises."
She sighed at that. She used to be free to change at will, to come and go as girl or animal.
She had even had friends in the village, long ago now.
"Your father was so very alone and so very rich after your mother died so, I married your father since he knew of magic and wouldn't be scared of mine. Mortal men are so easily sway by a pretty face." Her stepmother smirked. "He was just what I wanted."
"Did you ever love him?" Cinderella asked, wanting it to be true.
"Love" She sniffed. "It seems that your mother did quite a number on him. I thought he would move on after marrying me. But no, the sappy fool still put you first above me!. " The witch huffed yet again.
"He loved my mother for who she was, not just because she was magic." Cinderella boldly declared.
"When I first tried to use my own magic to make my own daughters even lovelier, they turned into toads so I had to find another source of magic." Her stepmother turned her glare on Cinderella.
Cinderella truly pitied her stepsisters and done her best to make them comfortable in their toad skins.
She had even resumed toad form to spend time with them but they laughed at her and pushed her around.
"Your selfish father entrusted you and not me with the location of the enchanted spring. You, a stupid girl, no better a wild child, raised in the woods without a true lady to show you how to behave or how to use magic as it should be used." Her stepmother stated arrogantly.
"But stepmother, the enchanted spring exists only to bring spring into the world after winter and to heal the land with hope, joy, and the promise of new life." Cinderella pleaded, hoping her stepmother would let it go.
"It's not for our personal use or to fix our problems. We must do that on our own or we will never grow."
"You are so very selfish, to keep to yourself what could save your family ." Cinderella just looked down at the ground.
Had she not known that her stepmother could not be trusted with magic, she would have helped her.
In the time before her father's death, Cinderella had admired her stepmother's beauty and skill with magic.
But then she saw how cruel she could be and what terrible things she could do.
So, Cinderella resisted telling her the location. But, she stayed to take care of the woods and her stepfamily.
She had promised her father she would cherish the woods, always to honor the happiness her family had experienced there.
She also felt guilty about her stepsisters' fate. They had wanted to be a wood nymph like her but the magic went wrong inside them.
She tried to tell them that kindness and goodness were the root of magic and could save them if they would only try.
But her stepsisters and stepmother scoffed at her words and made her wait on them until the day she revealed the location.
The witch grabbed her chin and jerked her head up while the two toads hopped on the witch's shoulders.
"Look me in the eye you nasty sprite, you their little half-breed bastard. Your father married me so I could teach you how to be a lady." Her stepmother sneered.
"You, ha, you aren't even a proper wood nymph. You change into filthy animals, not plants. Maybe because your mother was so wild in her ways and your father was so weak willed at discipling your wildness, Fate saw fit to make you into a beast, succumbed to animal instincts."
The witch smiled, a lovely smile on any other face but her eyes were cold.
"It was so easy to curse you to change forms only at sunrise and sunset due to your polluted blood. Why, barely any work at all for a talented witch like myself."
Cinderella just crossed her arms and tried to remind herself that her stepmother was grieving and in a lot of pain.
But the words stung and tears entered her eyes.
The witch put her hand on the girl's shoulder.
"You know, the curse all goes away if you just tell me where to find the spring…" She clasped her hands together as her eyes lit with a dark energy.
"Then my daughters will become beautiful once again and I can stay young forever. After all, Cinderella, I only want what's best for the family." She ended with a smile.
"I won't show you the location of the spring! That spring is what ends winter and lets life begin anew. It opens the first flowers and brings life into the soil. It's not for selfish uses of vanity. It must be kept pure or the kingdom will die for spring will never come." Cinderella explained, yet again, hoping her stepmother would accept the the truth.
"I tried to help your daughters but I warned you about that spell. It enhances the heart, not the body. For a good heart, your looks may improve. For a selfish heart...well..." Cinderella trailed off, not wanting to insult the daughters of the witch.
The toads glared at her and stuck out their tongues. The witch glared and the grass turned black everywhere but where Cinderella stood.
"You will change your mind, I know girls like you. Spoiled little daddy's girl, you won't be able to stand only being human at night forever, not that anyone misses you or would even care to be your friend."
"The only thing a worthless girl like you can hope for is for me to end the curse and you can work as a servant in someone's home if I chose to show you mercy and not keep you as my own slave." The witch ended with a smile and a pointed look at the dirt covering Cinderella.
Cinderella felt her heart tighten at the reminder of her loneliness. The words burst out of her before she could stop them. "The curse could also end if I find a mortal prince willing to declare his love for me and he gives me true love's kiss!"
"Darn good magic and its loopholes in curses. Can't even carry out decent black magic anymore without there having to be a clause with a cure." The witch stomped her feet. "Why is it always True Love's Kiss? Huh?"
Cinderella smiled softly and said "Because love is the root of all magic."
The witch rubber hands together nervously. "Was that boy a prince? The one that was just here?"
"He's an apprentice as the castle." Cinderella stated proudly.
The witch cackled, "He can't even break your curse then. Oh why was I worried?"
"No prince would ever want a filthy animal freak like you." The witch cackled again and the she and her two toad daughters vanished with unpleasant smelly, lime green puff of smoke.
Cinderella just sighed and comforted the animals who had slowly crept back to the clearing after the witch left.
"Even if he wasn't a prince, I wish I could see him again." She sighed. "He was so nice to rescue me when I was younger from those wild boys and that pot of boiling water. At least I know his name now." She got lost in thought for a while.
Then her eye brightened with excitement. "I can still see him in my animal form, there's no rules against that! I will just have to wander through the kingdom until I find him again. Besides, it's been too long since I have been anywhere but the woods. I could use an adventure."
With those happy thoughts, she drifted to sleep and the sun found her the next morning as a deer, lying peacefully in the clearing.
Thoughts? What animal forms should I use? Should I add any more parts to the curse?
Let me know in reviews below.