The Next Cinderella

Introduction--Happily Ever After Gone Wild

The sunny sky rained down with confetti, drizzling onto the flashy male dancers tearing up the royal stage. They moved in a blur of yellow tights and sparkling feathered cloaks, showing off their moves in honor of love and the unity its magic could bring.

As long as you were a royal.

This was the fifteen hundreds after all, and if you weren't a royal of the highest order, there would be no dance for you.

The only exception was to break your way in like the famous Cinderella, on the strength of her beauty and her...personality? Or book smarts? Or perhaps good diplomacy skills?

Maybe it didn't matter how she'd done it, but Cinderella had officially joined the club, and on this sunny day in the year fifteen-hundred-and-something, the Enchanted Kingdom's royal dancers were putting on an epic show. Their dance was a part of the latest jubilee to celebrate Prince Charming and Cinderella, whose wedding had only just taken place...eleven months ago.

The Enchanted Kingdom called it the 'eleven-month anniversary' of the royal marriage, and in their minds it was a notable cause for celebration. Others may have disagreed, but human nature was likely to blame as nearly five hundred years later, people would go on to celebrate twenty-three-month-old babies, pimping them out on Facebook as if to tell the world that a totally random milestone--or anything a baby did--somehow mattered.

Facebook aside, being narcissistic in the sixteenth century was an important reason to live, a fact rarely mentioned in idyllic tales so embedded in our storytelling memories.

And so...what follows is a story of what actually happens in a fairytale, without the gloss and confetti from the picture books your childhood knows. You may worry that the journey is cynical, but this crusty old narrator sitting by the fire can safely assure you 'no.'

Sparks do fly, love is real, and happy endings can exist for one and all. The important thing to remember though, is that the road from A to B is rickety as hell; so hold on tight to something random in your horse-drawn carriage (sixteenth century, no seat belts), and prepare for an extremely bumpy ride...

[WRITER COMMENTARY: So....I love classic fairytales, but I'm also intrigued by the idea of what they would be like if we saw them from another angle. What if Fairy Godmother wasn't what she seemed? What if the female character didn't need saving? And what if the prince wasn't that perfect 'charming' stereotype?...This story will explore all of that, with some comedy and romance along the way :-). Hope you enjoy it, and feel free to comment with your reactions on your fave/hated characters, your predictions of what will happen, or anything else!]