When she's at home, Ashlynn Ella starts every day with chores, just like her mother Cinderella did. After serving breakfast to her ungrateful Auntie Step, she muses that it is good preparation for her destiny, a future which involves serving mean stepsisters of her own. Unfortunately, it reminds her about her mother's predestined early death, something she doesn't want to think about.
She finishes her chores and starts packing for school, thinking about the upcoming year. It's been tough for Ashlynn, not having any friends who shared her interest in the outdoors. Fortunately, she had made friends with many woodland animals. Unfortunately, because she can actually communicate with them, their drama sometimes spilled over into her life. Though she was leaving forschool the next day, Ashlynn was not one to decline helping someone in need. She stopped packing and went outside to check on a sad bunny, but soon other creatures needed her help.
Just when Ashlynn was headed home, one mother bird cries out because her nest had fallen and the chicks were on the ground. Ashlynn immediately worked to fix the broken nest. Suddenly, all the animals around her were talking about a boy coming through the woods. She couldn't hear him, and thought it best not to look since he didn't want to be seen. Then the animals announced that he had hung up a birdhouse, and Ashlynn's curiosity got the better of her; but when she turned around, he was gone. She rushed home after realizing it was nightfall already, but to her surprise, the animals she had helped were all in her room, and her trunk was packed. She thanked them, and spent the night imagining the lumberjack in the woods who was full of humble, good intentions. It made her heart pound, even though she always knew she'd have to marry some prince some day. As unlikely as it sounded, she hoped he would be a nature-loving prince; someone with a good heart who would take her into the forest and help animals with her.
