The Peasant Princess (Nalu)

Chapter 1- Natsu meets his CinderLucy.

Growing up I had heard the stories about the royal family how the King would adopt boys to be his heir to the throne after he had a son of his own that went missing and continued to adopt boys until he had 8 heirs.

I had always dreamt about what it would be like to be adopted into a royal family or to be born into one the pretty gowns and having servants to do whatever you needed them for. However as I grew older I realized that having a lot of money and fancy things didn't make you happier it was whom you spent your life with.

I found that out thanks to my father he works on trains he cleans, fixes, loads, a drives all types of trains. However he doesn't make very much so Mother and I stayed at home and she taught me how to clean and cook and we lived in the lower middle class circle of the royal city of Magnolia that is until mom died.

Daddy cried the most but what hurt me the most wasn't that I had lost my mother it was that my father no longer looked at me, not with loving eyes anyway it was always with disdain and hatred.

He took up a drinking habit and he would yell and toss me around whenever he was drunk so I learned to stay away from him. I always felt more at peace when he was gone on business trips, driving and working on trains out of town but when he came back I always feared for my life.

I cleaned and cooked for him but it was never enough he never appreciated me, because of his drinking habits we fell to the lowest outer circle of the city we lived in a wooden shack there was another family that lived in the room above us while we thrived in this small place.

The kitchen and livingroom was difficult to move around in and they were in the same room it was so small that if you stood up from a chair in the living room and take 3 small steps you would be in the kitchen.

Then there was one small bedroom and a tiny loft Daddy took the bedroom while I took the cramped loft it only had a pallet of hay, an over sheet for warmth, and a pile of hay for a pillow.

I only had one outfit and it was a simple shift that had been dirtied and stained from the many times my father tossed me around and my body had been broken, bruised, and bloodied, I had a problem with my right arm when I held it out straight it did a curve upward but my left didn't it was an obvious sign that I had gotten a broken arm.

But thanks to my many friendly neighbors and an elderly woman that lived next door bandaged it up for me until I was healed enough to use it again.

Before my Mother passed away I was lucky enough to see the King at the Fantasia parade and when I saw the King dancing around and doing the universal symbol for strength I did it too and I felt strong.

I do the symbol whenever I feel weak and it always works, the next time I went to see the fantasia parade was a few years after my mother died and instead of the King it had all 8 of his sons perform each one doing a special trick on a special float then one of them that had pink hair did the symbol for strength and I cried, my body was so weak I had to lean against a brick wall and did the symbol with the pink haired prince the rest of Magnolia.

I felt stronger everyday since then, I never understood why seeing the pink haired prince gave me more strength then the King or just the symbol itself but I took what I could get then it was only 2 years ago when the news came that the King was retiring and his heir the fourth son Natsu was going to be crowned the new King.

I had never heard any names of the princes so I don't know which prince Natsu was, but I silently prayed for the pink haired boy he had given me strength and if he was my King I would feel even more.