This story starts where no story should start. We start this tale at the ball.
It's every girl's dream to gracefully walk down a staircase in front of a packed dance floor and have every woman cast a subtle gaze in envy as the men stare scandalously at whatever the dress doesn't leave to the imagination.
That is where Ella found herself, basking in the spotlight, and showered with the looks of every man and woman. No one could blame them for staring. The dress could never have been made by mere mortal hands, her hair shone by dew-like diamonds nestled between curls, and her shoes rang with every step as the glass slipper made contact with the marble floors.
Every detail was perfect. However, as she reached the bottom of the stairs and her entrance was finished, she found herself very alone. One by one, people grew bored of the mysterious masked woman and one by one, their backs all turned away from her. She stood awkwardly near the bottom of the staircase and looked out at the sea of people.
She had wanted to wish for riches or to be very far from here, but the fairy godmother had insisted. She had waved her wand and insisted that this masquerade would change her life. Now, she was at a social event with less than adequate social skills. At least the music was enjoyable.
There was no where to go, no friendly faces, no available seating, and no way to escape back the way she had come without drawing an even bigger scene. No one would make eye contact with her unless they were whispering between eachother like a bunch of gossip-mongers.
The longer she stood unmoving, the more dread began to settle at the bottom of her stomach.
"Excuse me my dear." a man in a rabbit mask said to her as he pushed past her to access the stairs.
"My apologies." She said, mortified. The wall was turning out to be her only friend for the night. It was the only things there for her when she needed somewhere safe to stand.
Standing against the wall and out of the spotlight calmed down her racing heart. There in the shadows she could tell herself that no one was staring at her. Her eyes sought out the exit more than once. It would be all to easy to just flee, but the thought of returning home to her lonely tower suite made her promise herself that she wouldn't leave the room until she had lived a little.
She made a sad farewell to the wall, and pushed off into the sea of strangers.
Laughter surrounded her. Ladies gossiped in their friend groups, men traded harrowing tales, and couples swirled the dance floor effortlessly. It was hard not to be drawn in by the shared joy around her.
A gentleman caught her eye from across the floor. He had on a sunset color mask that perfectly offset his sunshine colored hair. He looked friendly enough and he smiled at her a nervous sort of smile. Ella dipped her head to him and it was enough to spur him forward towards her.
Her heart rate picked up and she waited with anticipation. She took a few steps forward wringing her hands in front of her.
A woman from the crowd broke off and walked directly towards her, breaking her eye contact with the man she was waiting for. She realized at once that it was her stepsister, Anastasia.
She was masked, but it was the same teal satin mask that Ella had seen tucked into a box in their room. Anastasia walked briskly towards her as if she had recognized her and was going to run her off.
Run. That was the only word coursing through her heart. The man in the sunset mask was forgotten. Propriety was forgotten. She turned her head towards the stairscase, but couples littered the stairs, blocking her exit.
Ella went the only direction she could, she dug her heels in the floor, and turned towards the dance floor with a dramatic twirl of her dress, which is how she managed to colide with a very tall and solid object.
"Oh no." She said, and when she realized that the object she had hit was a man and that man had been holding not only one, but two completely full glasses of wine. She turned beet red.
"Oh my goodness! Oh no!" She turned quickly to see if her sister was behind her, but Anastasia had stopped her progress and was not hiding her open glower directed straight at Ella.
She will not approach me if I am not alone, Ella realized, and some of her anxiety melted out of her until a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the problem she had run into.
She turned and looked up into the eyes of the man she had collided with and all apologies died on her lips. He was breathtakingly gorgeous. His mask was a deep forest green lined with gold that matched his eyes. He had an easy smile on his lips and he was holding her.
He had asked her a question, but his deep voice had pushed away the very last coherent thought she had. Ella felt her face turn a bright red as her eyes moved down his broad shoulders to his green doublet that was now being stained red by wine. It was going to ruin his expensive clothes, and it was her fault.
She jerked out of his grasp and took her shawl off from around her shoulders. She folded the fabric quickly and pressed it to the man's doublet, trying to soak up the wine.
"I am so so so sorry. You need to clean this as soon as possible. It needs salt... or was it vinegar?" She asked. In her panicked state she couldn't remember.
"Salt or vinegar, or both! I'm sure there's some somewhere around here!" She said desperately, looking around as if she would find some just sitting in a corner.
Everyone who surrounded them were now staring, and at this point she was just trying not to cause more of a scene than she had already.
She was still furiously wiping at his jacket when his hands wrapped around her elbows once again, and she realized that he was laughing.
It took her exactly that long to realize that she had been manhandling a complete stranger after practically pouring two drinks on him. Every eye was on them watching as the wine bled into his jacket and into her shawl. Tears sprang to her eyes and she tried to say so many things at once that she just remained silent.
The fairy godmother had said tonight would change her life, and she had been right. This experience was not likely to leave her memory again.
She was leaving, that much was sure. She would push past couples on the stairs, run to the magic carriage, and she was going to go back home where she would never venture outside her walls again. This moment would be enough to fill a lifetime of reasons to never want anything more ever again.
"Dance with me." He said with a smile.
With those three words her plans of escaping were dashed and he left her even more tongue tied.
"What did you say?"
"Dance with me. I had planned on starting by bringing you a drink and introducing myself, but that didn't work out very well. Now after being so indecently close to a beautiful woman people will think I'm taking advantage of you if you don't agree to dance with me this very moment." He said.
"But your jacket!" She said, "The stain will settle if you don't-"
He laughed which cut her off effectively. He had one of the most magnetizing laughs.
He held out his hand expectantly and Ella looked over her shoulder to find that Anastasia had dissapeared. Her dancing was ill-practiced and she would surely look like a fool next to him. She wondered if she had the courage.
"If you leave now I'll forever remember this night as the night I had a drink thrown at me and a rejection by the same woman in one night. How will my ego survive?" He pleaded in a teasing tone.
He had finally managed to get a smile out of her and that's what finally cut through her desire to flee. She reached out and grabbd his hand and he led them toward the dance floor.
He paused briefly on the edge of the dance floor and took time to take her shawl out of her hands that was still folded up and now soaked with wine, and then he took off his jacket, stripping down to a simple white tunic.
Ella's eyes widened in complete shock. She hadn't been to any social gathering since the death of her father, but even she knew that his atire now bordered on indecent for an event like this.
"I'm not a good dancer." She told him in a rush of words when he turned his attention back to her.
"You are not a good dancer and I am not a good speaker. I'll worry about the dancing if you'll take charge of the awkward silences."
She laughed outright at that and his hand was in hers, leading them towards the dance floor. He didnt follow the other couples. He led them both in a blessedly simple 4-step dance. His arm was around her waist and her hand was wrapped in his hardened calloused hand.
She fixated on the way he held her and she was lost in the moment. Joe had practiced a few dance steps with her to make sure she was competent enough to dance, but there was no education to be gained from the way she was held now, but not even his proximity could make her ignore the dozens of people who were now staring openly at the both of them.
"Here you had me worried. You are a beautiful dancer." He said
"You are kind, and a good liar."
"I would never tell lies about a beautiful woman." He told her.
"No, I would never think you would lie about a woman. Her dancing however, that's a different story."
He threw his head back and laughed. She took the moment to look around at the couples surrounding them who were all gazing in awe.
"What are people going to say?" She asked helplessly.
He looked over at what she had seen and shrugged.
"They will probably say, "that looks like two people who really like dancing.""
"You're barely dressed!" Ella said, trying to interupt his casual demeanor. If he would not take their impropriety seriously, she would have to worry for the both of them.
His eyebrows flew up suggestively and Ella felt her face turn red again. She would not be escaping this dance alive.
"No matter what they say you don't have to worry. I'll be sure to defend your honor when they all besmirch your good name for dancing without a shawl."
She scoffed, "I'm sure no one will have anything to say about your casual appearance."
"No one is going to be saying a single thing about me while I am standing next to you." He said simply.
"Has anyone every told you that you could become an effective jester? All these jokes come too easily to you."
His eyes were bright and with every word they slung at eachother they got closer and closer until she was tight against his chest.
"I could never be a jester, but I think I could have a promising career as a fool." He said, but before she could agree with him, he continued.
"Would you believe that I watched you from across the room and puzzled with myself- no agonized with myself over how to ask you to dance with me and I drew up extensive plans that immediately became obsolete?"
"Do you not suppose that you can just ask a woman to dance without an elaborate scheme?"
"Of course I can't simply ask a woman to dance. Not if I don't want to completely blend into the background." He said dramatically.
"I am not sure what you mean." As if he could ever fall into the background.
"Well, tonight you are going to have dozens of men asking you to dance. So many in fact, that by the end of the night they will all blend together. All the Davids and the James' and the Richards will become jumbled until you don't remember who is who. Then, when I call upon your home to court you, you'll have to quickly think,
'Oh which one was he?" he said, now switching to a falsetto to badly mimic her voice. She laughed a little too loudly and more dancers looked over at them. "'Was he the one with the mustache, or the one with all the boring hunting stories?'"
He switched back to his deep tenor, "and if I was just another man who simply asked you to dance you might get me confused with someone else and turn me away, telling yourself that you didn't like me because I was boring or sickly looking. I will not allow that to happen."
She smiled, "So when I do reject you for being boring and sickly looking you want to know that I have a vivid picture of you in my mind?"'
"Truthfully my whole plan was for you to not find me boring and sickly looking, but I can see now that my logic had it's flaws to begin with."
"Actually I would say that you are a perfect judge of your own character. I could never honestly describe you as sickly looking. You're too..."
Ella trailed off and he raised a singular eyebrow. She blushed furiously, but every word that came to her mind was more embarasing than the last one. Too handsome. Too fit. Too brawny. Too gorgeous.
"healthy." She added slowly and he threw back his head and laughed again. She could feel his laughter in his chest and it sent tingles all the way to her toes.
"and no one could ever accuse you of being boring. Not while we're still dancing a four-step while the music's changed to a waltz, and especially not while you're woefully underdressed."
"I don't think I've ever had a dance partner suggest I should cover up more. My ego will be in a pitiful state when you are through with it."
Ella rolled her eyes. "Somehow I think your ego will survive."
They both laughed and he effortlessly led them into a waltz. They weren't in time with the other dancers. They missed steps and fell off the beat too often when they slowed on account of many fits of laughter, but when the waltz was over he bowed deeply to her and pressed a kiss to the top of her hand while she gave a blushing curtsy and another man wearing a pale yellow mask stepped between them to ask for Ella's hand.
She nodded to the man in the pale yellow mask and sent one last look over her shoulder at her previous partner.
-The Prince-
He made it all the way to the edge of the dance floor where he collected his discarded doublet when he realized after all of that, he still hadn't managed to find out her name.
He smiled at his own folly and deemed the jacket dry enough to wear. His father would be upset at his uncouth atire and his mother would rather have him walk through glass than be uncouth, but he didn't care.
He did his princely duty and asked another woman to dance, and another after that. Their faces and names all began to blur together, because every spare moment, his eyes swept the dance floor searching for the woman he wished he was dancing with.