[Psst...changed the character's name by one letter so it doesn't start with C like Cinderella; have updated other chapters to reflect this!]

Myrielle stood frozen with her skirt at her waist, mirroring the time when she'd first met Fredrick and feared being banished to the dungeons. The irony of the moment was far too rich, but he clearly didn't seem to find it amusing so she pulled down her skirt and backed up a few steps.

In the continued silence she took in the full sight of Fredrick. He'd lost some weight and had clearly lost the access required to maintain his appearance, or maybe he no longer cared. His hair was greasy, his face was partially covered in grime, and his cotton shirt was soaked through in sweat.

"Hello," she said tentatively, like she was speaking to a former colleague she'd screwed over in a hostile takeover.

"Well look at you..." he said. His voice was neither kind nor malicious, but laced with the sort of evenness that came from having seen too much. He studied her hair and gown, while carefully avoiding her eyes. "So you finally became a princess."

"Actually I didn't," she said, hiding a smile she was too afraid to share. "I won just like they'd told me, but I managed to change the outcome and they let me go."

He seemed confused. "But what about the kingdom's debt?"

"Absolved," she said timidly, trying not to sound too proud of herself.

"And what about re-opening the academy?" he said.

She shook her head. "That's a lost dream; unless Bella develops a sudden passion for education..."

"I see." He stared at the dungeon wall, blankly at first until he noticed a spot of mud. He wiped it with the rag that was hung over his shoulder.

As Myrielle observed his shocking dedication to clean amidst his 'banishment' conditions, she couldn't contain herself any longer. She leapt towards him and wrapped him in the tightest hug.

He didn't hug her back and had to pry her off his body.

A part of her had expected that reaction, but that didn't make it hurt any less than a punch to the gut. "Of course you're still upset," she muttered. "Why wouldn't you be?" He folded his rag and said nothing. "Fredrick...I am deeply sorry, but once you hear what I have to say—"

"You should go now," he said.

She shook her head, determined to break through. "Fredrick just listen—"

"Leave," he said more firmly. "You don't belong here."

She spun around her decrepit surroundings and scoffed. "Leave? As if I just strolled into the dungeon? Do you think this was a breeze? Do you think it was simple to escape the royal ball? Do you think it was easy to understand Fairy Godmother's ridiculous map?" She unfolded the scroll and showed him a blueprint that amounted to little more than gibberish. "I'm not even wearing shoes!" She kicked out her foot to show him her grimy heel. "And please tell me those puddles are a hundred-percent rain water and zero-percent urine."

"Seventy-thirty split," he said casually.

She rubbed her stomach to calm the sudden urge to vomit. "Fine, seventy-thirty, add that to the list. But I did all of this to make things right!"

"Make things right?" He shook his head. "Look around you and tell me how to make this right."

She reached out to touch his shoulder, and instead of backing away this time he allowed for the gentle touch.

"I said the most awful things about you," she said. "But I said it because it seemed like the only way to help the kingdom out of its trouble. And if I didn't say those things...how much worse would it have gotten for the people who were already suffering? Like my family, and the neighbors, and the villagers...and I'm guessing your family too?"

He glared at her. "Leave my family out of it."

"Do you seriously mean to tell me you would've been happier if we'd both ended up in the dungeons and the kingdom had been stuck with its debt? I had no choice!"

"You always have a choice," he said.

She spun around again in frustration. "You know what? We don't have time for this, let's go."

He crossed his arms. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes you are so stop being ridiculous!" She snatched the rag from his hand and threw it against the wall. "You're coming with me because this isn't how it ends." She paused to take a calming breath. "Look, I know things seems a little tense right now, but this is the part where you trust me so we can escape, okay? This is the part where I save you!"

His face went beet rage with rage. "Save me? You're the reason I'm here in the first place!"

She sighed. "And it was a good reason that I already explained!"

"A good reason according to whom? We could've told the truth, escaped the dungeon eventually, and still helped the kingdom bit by bit; just like you'll still find a way to save the academy on your own."

She scoffed. "No I won't; it's impossible now."

"You'll find a way around it," he said. "But I'll stay here, because I don't need to be saved by the person who hurt me the most."

Her defensive enthusiasm waned. "But this can't be the end," she whispered. "That's not how stories end."

"The problem with all these stories—especially Gianni's fairytales—is that they make it seem like as long as you're decent, things will magically work out. But that's not reality; sometimes the worst ones succeed, and somebody always suffers."

"For a person who loves to read books so much you're not exactly honoring the art form," she muttered.

"Maybe all those stories helped me figure out the difference between fantasy and reality."

She felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. "So you would throw this all away to be stubborn? You would actually stand here and pretend you feel nothing?!"

He swallowed hard. "I do feel nothing, and it's over now so you need to move on."

Those final words were all she needed to hear before running away. She ran around the corner, past the creepy prisoners with their roving fingers, and all the way through the rest of the dungeon, splashing through the muddy-urine puddles without care.

She stopped at the foot of the dark stone stairwell, straining her ears like she was listening for something. What she'd been hoping to hear was the sound of Fredrick's footsteps, racing down the corridors to tell her that he'd changed his mind. What she got was the hooting and hollering of the sexual predators locked away behind bars.

It was truly over.

She shuffled up the stairs and cleared her throat. "You can open it now," she said sadly to the guard.

"Just the two of you, right?" the guard whispered.

Her chin quivered as she held back more tears. "No, just the one."

***

Myrielle stumbled out of the castle and into the moonlit sky, with the sounds of the ongoing celebrations echoing in the breeze. The kingdom had its princess and hope was renewed, except for here, on this patch of gravel, where not a single hope of a positive future remained.

Myrielle was relieved to find the grounds free of drunken nobles and nosy onlookers. She wondered if her family might still be inside, since she'd left in such a rush and hadn't made arrangements of where or when to meet them. She was relieved to avoid them for a little longer, because the thought of explaining what had actually happened made her sick inside. How would she tell her parents the truth? And how would they respond to her record-breaking list of failures?

She wasn't yet ready to find out, but she also couldn't stay in the castle grounds all night, so she approached the wagon with the anorexic horses who would serve as her way back home.

Avoiding the usual high-traffic route, she led them down a winding dirt path through the forest, careful to avoid the crowd of people in the square. The horses' stamina lasted through the detour and the start of the village's dirt road, but a few yards later they gave up completely and stopped under a tree for what seemed like a tandem nap.

"Of all the nights..." she said shaking her head.

She hopped out of the wagon in frustration, her only remaining option now to walk barefoot the rest of the way. Her feet began to bleed under the surface of the gravel, but she didn't notice the macabre red footprints she was making or didn't care. She felt nothing besides a gaping hole where her passions and dreams had once lived.

As she turned the corner, the silver moonlight lit up her gown in sparkles so shimmery she couldn't help but notice the glow. She was no longer swayed by the powers of fashion porn, but she couldn't help but acknowledge that for a moment or two on this terrible night, she'd actually played the role of a princess-in-waiting. She would've traded it all to have Fredrick alongside her, but since that wasn't going to happen she could at least admire the way the gown continued to sparkle, a mother's labor of love she would cherish forever...

[WRITER'S COMMENTARY: Well, ]that didn't go as planned... :-/ One more chapter and an epilogue to go, will post that on Friday and then it's done! sniff sniff...]