Heavy is the Head

Cinderella - 2

Chapter 5

As it stood, Cinderella currently had 3 major problems in her life.

Problem Number 1 : Her Family

There was a reason why this was top of the list. First of all, Cinderella's biological mother had passed away when she was 10. That in itself was extremely traumatic and difficult to cope with, but life was not done tossing her around just yet. Mr Tremaine re-married the following year, to a woman called Madonna. She had two daughters of her own - one who was the same age as Cinderella named Drizella and one who was a year younger called Anastasia. Both were complete brats that Cinderella wished she had never met.

For the next 2 years, Cinderella would wonder why on earth her father seemed to get over her mother's death so quickly and held a lot of resentment towards him because of that. Then he died, and it became evident that her father's second marriage wasn't out of love but purely so that Cinderella would have a family who could support her when he died. It was the worst day of her life, and that said something because there would be multiple close runner-ups to come in the future.

So now, just to recap, at 13 years old, Cinderella had lost both of her parents and was stuck playing happy families with a demanding, unfeeling woman and two of the most selfish, self-centered girls in the world. The two people she loved most in the world had gone, in the blink of an eye and Cinderella was left behind like an extra puzzle piece to the new Mrs Tremaine's life.

Just hearing her mother's title being given to this woman was absolutely unbearable and there was nothing that she could do about it. Just one example of how much her life had changed was that the amount of chores she had to do, which was more than doubled when her father died, and it was pure torture seeing the smug look on Drizella's face whenever Cinderella dared complain and then immediately got shut down with excuses and claims that it wasn't true and all of the girls were treated equally.

After a while, it seemed like she was going insane and the only thing that helped Cinderella keep her sanity was taking long walks in the mornings and muffled screams into her pillow at 2am. One of the small mercies she had was that she didn't have to share a room with Drizella and Anastasia, despite getting kicked out of her own room the very day the Fake Tremaines moved in because "Anastasia needs to have a room at the front of the house". Cinderella almost drop-kicked all of them right there and then, but her complete inability to stand up to people of authority in her life, caused her to accept it, mumbling that it was no problem at all.

By 14, she was completely numb to the world and her saving grace came in the form of the teaching assistant in her fashion design class who called herself Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, though her actual name was Mavis. She was a bubbly, energetic soul who went out of her way to make Cinderella smile, and even though she wasn't an official teacher, she was still a really big help in helping Cinderella believe that there were good people out there along with the bad.

There was no magical transformation overnight, but slowly and surely, Cinderella began to trust people again and open up more. In fact, it was due to Mavis' constant encouragement and compliments on Cinderella's designs that made her first start to consider the idea of going to a boarding school where she could focus on developing her skills and potentially find a career in fashion design. That way, she would be able to get away from the Fake Tremaines and work on grieving her parents' deaths instead of fighting to be listened to.

That led onto the second major problem of Cinderella's life.

Problem Number 2 : Northuldra Academy