Variation on a theme - A Dark Cinderella Story {F for M}

[JuliettaRossi]

Since I came onto E back in Jan. I've always said I'm NOT looking for a Prince Charming....well...Now I am - sort of.

I've twisted the story of Cinderella. I need a Prince just as twisted. I'm not looking for her to be 'rescued' in the traditional sense. This RP will involve NC, pain, possible torture, possible blood, etc. I'm NOT looking for her to be treated well - especially in the beginning. There is room for you to play multiple jailers/guards as well as the main character of the Prince. I'm not looking for this to be a romance right off the bat kind of thing - perhaps over time it can develop into that. I am looking for a long term story.

Meet Ella de Lyon~

Her father died when she was only a year old, her mother, Andrea de Lyon when she was only fourteen, after many years of illness – and after remarrying Baron de Evry who had two daughters of his own. Life was fine while her mother was still alive. After she died, her stepfather made her life hell - physically and mentally. She handled all the housework, the cooking and cleaning, as well as attending to her stepfather’s disturbing ideas after his own two girls went off to bed. This kept up for the next five years…

The morning after being beaten because of not being able to get all the housework done, her stepfather started in on her again. When he lifted his hand to her this time though, she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. She stood over him and watched him bleed out on the kitchen floor, feeling somewhat at peace with what she had just done. She washed her hands, stained red with his blood. Her stepsisters – not hearing what went on in the lower levels of the house, went about the rest of their morning without knowing their father lay dead in the kitchen. Ella went upstairs and tied them up – one at a time. She wanted to torture them – for all she had gone through under the hand of their father, but simply couldn’t. She knew if she was caught, she would be jailed, if not killed for the murder of her stepfather. She didn’t need to add her stepsisters to the tally.

Tonight would be the masked ball. She had never had any interest in anything or anyone royal – she had simply been too busy with housework and too many problems with her more than dysfunctional stepfamily. She now had her choice of what to wear – with everything her stepsisters had, yet she would need none of it. She found a trunk hidden away in the back of her stepfather’s closet and in it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. It was folded with a pair of shoes that were embellished with pearls and gems. There was a pouch of jewelry – earrings and a necklace, as well as delicate lace gloves. She found her oldest stepsister’s mask and with a bit of craftiness, changed it enough to go with her gown. She was late arriving…

That evening, after she left, her stepsisters were able to free themselves and they found their father lying on the kitchen floor – right where Ella left him, in a pool of his own blood. The authorities were brought to the house and the girls told them where to find Ella – at the castle, attending the ball with their invitation.

The clock struck midnight and palace guards came streaming in. She was soon arrested – taken right from the prince’s arms as they danced to muted music out on the balcony, only one of the shoes she wore left behind from the struggle she put up.

They had danced for a good amount of the night without knowing who each other were – just that they had taken notice of one another when she walked outside onto one of the balconies. He had been looking out over the grounds, just the moonlight lighting up the intricate gardens below.

He didn’t know what she had done. He only knew that the woman he had been dancing with was being hauled down to the dungeons of the castle. He would only find out the truth by seeking her out in the dungeons – and getting past his father’s guards.



She’s not your average delicate girl of the times. Her body has scars from the ill-treatment of her stepfather. She knows hard work – chipped and broken nails, cuts and bruises, and she’s used to collapsing at the end of the night, just this side of broken. She isn’t soft-spoken, she isn’t gentle. She only knows of refinement from what she saw in her stepsisters and what she remembered as a child of her mother.

No pumpkins, no fairy godmother, no mice or whistling bluebirds. No magical carriage or going back to 'normal' after midnight. At midnight her world does come to an end though (so to speak). Where the story picks up is up to us to figure out (from the onset of her arrival at the ball, from her going out onto the balcony, from her being dragged away, or from him coming to see her down in the dungeon (which is what the picture depicts), or some other spot. Please PM me if you are interested - and see the 3 links in the signature to tell you more about writing with me as well as what I like and don't!

-Julietta

[JuliettaRossi]

Edited - added info, tweaked the story a bit.