Chapter 27


She screamed, violently struggling in the grasp of the arms of the men that took her.

It was no use.

Why? Why!? Was it because she had an extra set of ears? Daddy and mommy didn't have an extra set of ears...

She kicked and screamed and howled her throat hoarse, watching, as mom and dad, her brother, faded away into the distance.

The doors of the van shut with a foreboding thud.

Tears began dripping from her eyes, as she begged the men to take her back.

"Shut up, brat!" one of the men roared, violently backhanding her straight across the face. She flinched back, cowering in pain. There was a little dribble of blood from her lower lip, and she cringed away from them.

"Stop hurting the merchandise, Tim," one called out.

"Tch," another one of her captors scoffed, spitting onto the ground, "Dirty fucking faunus down here in Mantle are willing to sell their kids for cold, hard cash. Pathetic. Disgusting."

She didn't understand what they were saying, but she didn't want to be hit. Not again. So she shrunk herself, trembling.

"Parents musta been from Mistral, I reckon. Look at the features. The thing's exotic, hundred percent, man. It'll go for a high price, that's for sure," someone else commented.

"Hey, don't ya think we have to get ridda these ears, though?"

She felt a hand roughly yank her ears, and she cried out in pain, earning herself another backhand across the face. She wailed, sobbing uncontrollably, not sure where the strangers were taking her.

She felt her head be pulled backwards as something was put over her mouth, and tightened, to the point where she could wail no longer.

Instead, she only continued sobbing, tears leaking out of her eyes, even as a dark cloth was put over them.

"Yeah, we probably should. They sell better without the ears, don't they?" the voice grunted, "No one wants filthy fucking faunus around their houses and stuff, eh? Especially those rich fuckers up there in Atlas. They'd throw a fit."

Someone else in the van guffawed, "You know they'd have the police on our asses the second they found out we tried to scam them."

Another voice grunted, "You're right. We'll just let the fucker that's buying decide, then. Mosta them only buy one anyway. Even those Atlas fuckers can't afford to get caught red-handed with faunus. One is easy enough to hide away for them."

It was silent after that. She couldn't tell if it had been a few minutes or several hours when the doors finally opened, flooding light into the van.

Someone tugged her arm, and she tripped out of the van crying out. Someone nearly tugged her arm out of her socket, causing her to cry out again she was again dragged off.

She couldn't see, she couldn't see...

Quiet voices echoed all around here, relentlessly seeping into her mindscape.

Faunus, they said. Another poor child off to Atlas, more echoed sadly.

It's useless, they said.

Useless, worthless, the others agreed sadly.

Useless, Useless, Useless.

She tried to ignore all the voices that echoed inside her head.

Still, they kept whispering... and whispering, and whispering.

Worthless, useless, useless.

Useless.


When the dark cloth was finally taken off her eyes, she was blinded by the light. She squinted, her small hands coming up to try and block it so that she could see. There was noise.

So much noise. People. There were so many people.

She shrunk herself in front of the jeering crowd, the mob of people.

They shouted at her mockingly, and in response, she shrunk again, trying to move away, but an iron grip on her arm pulled her back, the pressure making her cry out.

She didn't want to, but they made her. She couldn't move.

She was paralyzed, frozen with fear.

They mocked her, jeered at her, all while someone shouted numbers from the stage, and more shouted numbers from the crowd below.

All while the voices continued whispering into her mind.

They argued, and argued, but all of them agreed on one thing.

It was useless.

Useless.


It was a large building in front of her, filled with lights, and people. It must have been thirty times the size of home... So much glass, and so many decorations.

The people here were rich. Wealthy. They were... different, from people at home.

The streets had people. There were so, so many foreign things, things that made strange noises and beeped at you. People sneered at her, and she cringed, flinching away from them. Still, she was soon distracted again by the massive building in front of her.

She looked upwards in awe, her mouth open wide. Never before had she seen such finery...

It was... beautiful. This place... Atlas, the voices had called it... was so much more different from- from the place below... Mantle.

A slender hand touched her chin, forcefully bending her head to look upwards. It was a middle-aged woman, one that looked as old as M-mom.

"Come then, faunus. I will show you your tasks and chores you must perform at the Glass Unicorn."


She followed the woman into the kitchen, before she saw two girls next to the woman.

She didn't look at them, though. The scent of food was in the air.

She opened her mouth, taking a step towards it.

"You are to make sure the laundry is folded, the dishes are spotless, and the floors are clean enough to eat off of," the woman stated, her eyes narrowing. After nodding, she turned around, walking towards the door.

She would have shrunk backwards, but her stomach was aching in hunger. She needed to eat.

Mustering up the courage to ask, she coughed, "F-Food?" she asked, pleading.

The two girls snickered, laughing at her, as the woman turned around. She grabbed a piece of bread, throwing it onto the ground before her.

"Now hurry up, and get to your chores. The floor looks filthy. And we wouldn't want the guests to be kept waiting."

She didn't know what 'guests' were, but she didn't care. She dropped to her knees, picking up on the bread, and munching. The bread was stale, and hard. But it was food, and she was hungry.

So she ate, and munched on the stale bread.

The two girls followed the woman out the door, laughing.

They didn't say anything, but she could almost hear them speaking. She knew the words by now.

The voices came back into her mind, and she knew she was right.

Worthless, useless, useless.

Useless.


For years, she toiled away, working hard at tasks. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

She had to clean the linens. She had to sweep the floors.

She gave guests the trays of food, and they took it, ignoring her. They shut the door in front of the faunus girl, the servant who everyone ignored.

She tried talking back. It never worked. "Madam", the woman, would shock her with that necklace around her neck.

And she couldn't do anything about it. She was too weak.

Too... useless.

Sometimes, she would get so hungry that she would try to have a piece of cake. She would always get caught, either by one of Madam's daughters, or Madam herself. And the consequences were severe.

More shocks, or less food, or no shower for the day. No water for hours.

She had to scrub the dishes in the sink, never think for herself, always seek to make herself as useful as possible.

Because without Madam, she was useless.

She had to shine the silver, she had to wash the clothes... and when she was finished? She had to have time to herself, right?

No.

Darn the socks, draw the girls' bath, fetch their slippers, fill their glasses with drinks, scrub the toilet, rub their feet, clean their room...

"Hurry up, you're so slow! I hope you know that your life is of no use! Useless..."

Useless...

She scrubbed away at the floor, gritting her teeth. Useless.

"You missed a spot," one of the girls stomped onto the floor in front of her, caking it with mud.

They laughed again, and again, and again. And they did it daily.

"You're so useless!" they laughed.

Useless, useless.

Her hand clenched in anger, and she threw the scrub down in pure, unfiltered rage.

There was a flash of orange that rippled across her body, and steam exploded from her hands, rushing over the entire area, and into the two girls as they screamed in shock.

She felt good. It was satisfying.

She could do something. She wasn't useless.


"Now that wasn't very lady-like, was it?"

She screamed, jerking as shocks ran through all of her nerves, through her entire body. No matter how many times she felt it, it always hurt.

She begged her to stop it, but Madam ignored her. She always did.

Finally, Madam stopped it. She fell to her knees, panting heavily.

"I suggest you remember your place."

"Say it!" Madam snarled at her, as she pressed the button.

She panted, sighing defeatedly, "Without you, I am nothing."

"Hmph. That's right. You are... useless."

Useless.


Every night, she practiced. She practiced heating things. She would heat her own skin, she would heat the bedsheets, she would heat the walls.

In a way, it comforted her. It was her own little secret, the thing that she could do, and only she could do.

She was useful, not useless.

During the day, Madam's two daughters would bully her, abuse her, call her names, and taunt her. Madam would assign her incomprehensible workloads, and she struggled to complete them.

She would try to run away sometimes, but Madam or her daughters would catch her before she even left.

They knew. They always knew.

She would serve the customers, each time silently begging them with her amber eyes to see that the necklace she wore was only a poorly disguised shock collar.

Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. But it didn't matter if they did see or didn't see. They didn't care.

She would tell them that Madam and her daughters abused her, and that she needed help.

Madam is an extremely well-respected Atlas hotel manager, they would say. You're only a useless faunus, they would say.

They didn't care.

They never did.

She tried to run, over, and over again.

Madam and her daughters would find out. They always would, and then she would be punished each time.

One time, she almost made it out of the block, and they caught her. When they brought her back, they cut off her ears.

It was horrible. Only a quarter of an ear left on her right side. The other ear was gone.

Because she was useless.


Night after night she trained her semblance. She read up on what articles she could, she heated things constantly, always honing her semblance.

And one night, she decided she had enough. Damn the consequences.

Like every normal night, Madam's two daughters barged in on her to check her room for any signs of 'illicit' activities or items.

She was waiting this time, though.

As soon as they stepped through the door, both of her hands shot out, and clasped around their necks.

Instinctively, they reached up to try to pry her hands off, but she didn't budge. She didn't care, like how they didn't care about her.

She scorched them with her semblance.

They cried, choking and struggling, kicking their feet madly, but she only smiled.

It was beautiful. Their cries were music to her ears, a perfect melody that echoed from a pair of birds. The skin of their throats was being charred, yet she only clenched her hand harder and harder. She could feel her collar being shocked, but the feeling was far, far away from her. She didn't care anymore.

They finally went limp, and she unceremoniously dropped the bodies onto the ground.

She whirled around, her right hand instantly reaching for Madam's throat, even as Madam frantically pressed the button over and over again.

It was no use, not for her.

She smiled as her hand heated up again. Madam let out cries of pain that soothed her being, and a smile spread across her face.

She laughed at Madam's suffering, smiling. It was genuinely funny! Who could blame her?

Madam was getting what she deserved. Oh, the irony...

Madam begged and begged, lavishing her with promises of better working times, less labor to be done, better food and better treatment.

"Please! I'll treat you better, I swear!" she cried out in pain.

She didn't reply, only a cruel smirk dancing on her lips.

It was beautiful.

Not what she was doing, exactly, no, but the irony. To do such a thing against someone who truly deserved it, to take vengeance and justice into your own hands.

That was why she smiled.

Soon, Madam was limp, and she dismissively tossed the corpse to the ground, not even bothering to look at it.

Except...

She bent down, picking off the green brooch that Madam always wore on her chest. Taking it off, she clasped it on her own chest, adjusting it to make sure it fit snugly.

It was a souvenir, of sorts. A... trophy. A trophy to keep, to remind her of the chains she had broken.

But she knew she had to get going. If dealing with customers had taught her one thing, it was that no one would believe a faunus, let alone a faunus that had killed her abusers. No one was going to believe that Madam abused her, overworked her daily.

She had to escape Atlas.


Her hair was now shorter, hanging near her cheekbones. She wore a short black dress with tassles on it. And, with a knife, she had cleanly cut off the remainder of her ear herself.

She looked markedly different from before.

It was pathetic how easily she slipped out of Atlas. No one expected a faunus to turn into a human, and the change of clothing and hair only sealed the deal. She had dressed herself in Madam's daughters' best clothes, and she looked the part of an Atlesian elite. No one blinked twice at her.

Now that she had escaped Atlas, she was sure she would manage to avoid the authorities looking for her. No one would recognize her.

She looked out to sea, enjoying the small waves of the rocking boat to Mistral. She leaned on the railing of the ship, looking at the endless horizon.

Until she saw two people approaching her from both sides.

On her left was a massive, tall giant with brown hair and hazel eyes that approached her slowly. He was absolutely massive, an intimidating aura about him. She turned to her right, but there was a man there, too. On her right was a slightly shorter, but still tall man dressed in a suit and a blazer, along with a briefcase in his hand.

She instantly stiffened. Had she been found out? Were they here to take her back to Atlas?

"Hello. A fine day of weather, isn't it?"

She panicked, part of her wanting to immediately bolt and run away. But to where?

They were already a fair bit away from the dock, and running would cause a scene... and she couldn't afford to cause a scene, not with officers on the boat.

"Don't worry," the giant one on the left tried to placate her, "We represent someone who can help you."

"We both despise Atlas," the right one butted in, smiling, "Atlesian elites are disgusting. We can be of great assistance to you, but you muster understand that you have to come with us to our cabin."

"But if you don't," the right one continued, stroking his moustache, "I'm sure the captain of the boat would love to know that a wanted criminal is traveling to Mistral right under his nose, on this very ship..."

The warning was left unsaid. She resigned herself to them, understanding the threat that hung over her head.

She followed them, entering the cabin with extreme caution. She couldn't let herself be caught off guard here.

It was completely bare bones, fully empty, with only a few blankets and sheets on the bunkbeds.

The slimmer man strode forward, setting down his briefcase on a small, wooden desk.

He opened it.

A jellyfish-like thing with long, red tentacles floated out.

She flinched backwards, but the other two men in the room only stared at it passively. Taking a step back, she decided to observe it a little more.

It had a small, black, spherical body, like a smoky crystal ball, covered with bone-like plates and spikes. Long, red tentacles with sharp barbs drooped down from the body.

Even if she had never seen a Grimm, she had heard enough stories to know what they looked like, generally.

Black bodies, red eyes, white bone plates of armor.

She silently stilled herself, as a black mist seeped out of the thing.

A humanoid Grimm woman appeared out of the black mist. Her skin was a deathly pallor, with visible, eerie purple veins that ran along the sides of her face. Her eyes had black sclerae, with glowing, red irises that bore into her.

She had a powerful, commanding aura about her, causing a sense of unease that permeated throughout the room.

She took a step back, eyes wide. She was panicking, her heart pounding rapidly against her chest.

What was this? A humanoid Grimm? That... jellyfish-like thing was a Grimm... right?

"Be at peace, child," the humanoid Grimm spoke.

She took deep breaths, trying to regain control of herself.

"This, is Salem. The Queen of the Grimm," the giant introduced.

Q-Queen? Of the Grimm?

"You need not concern yourself with such semantics at this moment," the humanoid Grimm- Salem, said, "All you need to know is that my plan is to create a new world in the ashes of the old, where the true worthy are the ones who will lead. A world full of equality, where ranking and wealth would be based on merit, not merely inheritance."

A world based on merit. Her eyes began to light up at the idea. Where Atlas elites didn't exist, only those who truly deserved the wealth. Where everyone was equal, where everyone could live.

Salem continued, "If you join me, if you pledge yourself to me, I will grant you incomprehensible power beyond your wildest dreams. The magical heroes in the fairytales you were told as a child are real, but they are not huntsmen."

"They are maidens. Four women who represent the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Each maiden has unimaginable power. Each can strike down any single aggressor on Remnant, and stop injustice all together. I will make you one of them."

S-She could be useful! She could be strong! She could be an asset!

She had no one that loved her. With power, she could do it all! She could be of value to this, this Salem! To Salem's plan, and to herself!

"Long, long ago, I had four children," Salem added, her pale face clearly showing some emotion,
"And they were brutally ripped away from me in this cruel world. Your parents were brutally ripped away from you as well..."

She grit her teeth, but was ultimately unable to stop the flowing of tears that came into her eyes.

"Join me, and you will never lose anyone, or anything again."

She accepted.

"Yes," she said simply, kneeling to show deference before Salem, the Queen of the Grimm. The humanoid Grimm hummed in satisfaction, as the other two men in the room stood back.

"Before we proceed, what is your name, child?" Salem asked, tilting her head.

It had been so long since she had been called a name.

It was always 'faunus', or 'servant', or 'slave'. Reminiscing back to when she was still with her parents, she remembered she had been named Cinder Ella.

Cinder Ella.

She had been Cinder Ella once upon a time. But that Cinder was long gone. She'd been killed, and a person had been born anew in her place.

"Cinder Fall," she finally decided.


AN: Cinder Fall's backstory is finally revealed! Let me know what you think about it! I decided to rehash it since I didn't really like the canon backstory of Cinder, but I can admit it still isn't perfect.

On another note, I update biweekly, but I post previews of the next chapter each week on discord!

Discord links

FFN (remove spaces): discord . gg / M4yMguEz2J

Wattpad/AO3: /M4yMguEz2J

How'd you like this chapter? Review, comment, favorite, follow, vote, but only if you enjoyed! It helps motivate me to write more.

'til next time!

Next Chapter: November 11th (two weeks)

-thann3