Work Text:
Past experiences had taught Cinderella that she could run in a ballgown and glass slippers if necessary. But it wasn’t ideal. Not at a ball being thrown for a prince, and not in the dungeons of an unfamiliar castle in an unfamiliar world.
The night after the Heartless kidnapped her, the mistress of the castle paid her a visit. Cinderella remained sitting on her bed and regarded the woman without a word. She certainly made an impression in her black robes and headpiece shaped like two twisted horns. A raven perched on her shoulder. Both of them had the exact same smirk. Something about the woman’s face and elegant tone of voice reminded Cinderella of her stepmother.
“Greetings, Your Highness. It is an honor to have you as our guest. My name is Maleficent.”
The false charm, the pretense that Cinderella wanted to be under the woman’s complete control – that was Lady Tremaine’s style as well.
Cinderella squared her shoulders and returned a smile of her own. Fortunately, she’d been dealing with this sort of situation longer than Maleficent might have realized. “Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.”
Maleficent’s smirk grew. She must have come to the conclusion that she was dealing with a simple-minded princess, unfamiliar with cruelty and easily manipulated.
Good.
“We hope you will be comfortable here,” she continued. “Meals will be brought to you thrice a day. Should you need anything, ring this bell…” She gestured to a rope hanging by the cell door. “…And one of my servants will attend to you.”
Cinderella pretended to think it over. “Well…I would like a change of clothes. This is my favorite dress, but it’s not very comfortable for sleeping.”
Maleficent stroked her raven’s feathers. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We don’t have any spare clothing befitting a Princess of Heart.”
Princess of Heart. Cinderella had no idea what that meant, but it sounded important. Likely the reason that she’d been kidnapped in the first place. Perhaps she wasn’t the only princess in the dungeons.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she replied brightly, still smiling, still keeping her hands politely in her lap, no concern for her circumstances whatsoever. “I used to wear the same ragged dress when I cleaned my stepfamily’s house. I’d be comfortable in just about anything.”
Maleficent looked into her eyes – really looked – for the first time. Cinderella held her gaze and hummed a little tune that she’d often sang to herself in her attic bedroom. Maybe I’m acting a little too innocent…
At last, Maleficent said, “No. You should stay in the gown you wear now. It suits you.”
Cinderella nodded. “Oh well. It was worth a try – to ask.”
Maleficent didn’t return to the dungeons after her initial visit. That suited Cinderella just fine. She spent her first day examining the room that had become her prison. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of smooth stone. It had the usual cobwebs in the corners and small holes for mice or rats, but overall it wasn’t nearly as worn-down as her old attic bedroom.
She could see out of a small window in the door, covered by bronze bars – though not very much. No natural sunlight came through the cell or the passageways beyond, only a strange, enchanted series of pale lights embedded in the walls.
The lack of sunlight didn’t surprise her, but the lack of guards did. When she didn’t see any stationed outside, she waited to see if some kind of regular patrol went by. Aside from the occasional Heartless slinking around, and the ones who delivered her meals, nobody else came.
Yet she wasn’t alone. The Heartless carried more than one tray of food in their claws, not unlike the way that she used to balance trays for her stepmother and two stepsisters. That suggested another prisoner who needed to be fed.
When she received her dinner, Cinderella broke apart some pieces of bread and fish and placed them strategically outside of the two rat holes that she’d found.
The next morning, they were gone.
She placed a few crumbs from her breakfast in the same spots and waited.
The food remained untouched throughout the day. These rats didn’t know her and clearly intended to wait until they thought she’d fallen asleep. It had been the same with the mice in the Tremaine household until Cinderella won them over. She stretched out on her bed and sighed. At least at home, she’d had endless chores to keep her occupied. There had hardly been any time to sit around and do nothing. Chores were dull, but this was a level of boredom that she’d never experienced before.
She tried smiling at the Heartless when they brought her meals. “Thank you! Could you ask Maleficent to bring me some books, please? I’d like something to pass the time.” They didn’t strike her as creatures who could be reasoned with, not like the mice and the birds, but it didn’t hurt to try.
The Heartless came back with a stack of books a few hours later. Cinderella flipped through them aimlessly, all the while listening for those familiar sounds of rustling and squeaking.
At last, she saw a nose and whiskers peek out from the rat hole on the right side of her bed. She held her breath as the rat slowly emerged and reached for the bread crumbs on the floor. Another rat poked its head out too. “Hello there!” she called out.
They scurried back into their hole without touching the food. “Wait!” Cinderella hopped down from her bed and crouched down. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I have more food, if you want some. I saved it from my dinner.”
She saw their eyes watching her from inside the hole and tossed the bits of potato and beef on the floor before taking a step back. “There. Go on.”
Perhaps it was the light from her heart that drew them out again. They kept their wary eyes on her as they snatched the food and retreated. But they still came. It was a start.
“What I really need is a new set of clothes. This ballgown won’t do for sneaking around and making a quick escape. But you couldn’t possibly fit something practical through your tunnels…” Cinderella tapped her chin while the rats waited patiently. “…I suppose I could alter my gown…Could you bring me a needle and some thread?”
“On it!” squeaked Lucille, the rat with a chipped tail. She’d been the first one to accept food from Cinderella’s hand and had a tendency to dive into situations without thinking it through.
“I’d ask if anyone could find the key to this cell, but there’s no lock that I can see,” the princess mused.
Samson – who’d been won over by steady gifts of fish – scurried up to the door to get a closer look. “I don’t think that sorceress uses keys. She usually locks things up with her magic.”
Cinderella sighed. “I was afraid of that. Well, we’ll just have to find another way to escape. Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask all of you: do you know if I’m the only other prisoner in this castle?”
“Nuh-uh,” said Samson. “There’s another lady locked up down the hall. She’s real pretty, like you. The sorceress called her ‘Aurora.’”
“Hmmm…” Cinderella tapped her chin again. “I wonder…would any of you be able to sneak a quill into this room? And some ink?”
For another free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the rats were willing to try. They managed to push an inkwell through the hole without spilling too much of it in their tunnel. Next came a battered quill. Cinderella tore a blank page from the back of one of her books and began to write.
Dear Aurora,
My name is Cinderella. I understand you’re a prisoner like me. How did you get here? Do you know anything about this sorceress who is keeping us here? I hope you’re alright.
She passed the note to Ilene and Amos, who were happy enough to deliver it. While they waited, Samson filled her in on everything that his colony had gathered. “Maleficent wants seven princesses. You, Aurora, and some others that she hasn’t found yet. She says she needs your hearts for something important. You’re the only ones who can open a special door.”
“But not the door that I want to open,” Cinderella noted, shaking her head with a wry smile.
“Nope, not that one!” Samson agreed. “It’s something that’s going to make her more powerful! Powerful enough to rule every world!”
“Well, we can’t let that happen. Please let me know if you hear anything else about Maleficent’s plans.”
“We will, Cinderell-y!” he assured her.
“Thank y…” Cinderella’s throat closed over without warning. They’d called her “Cinderell-y” before, just like Jaq and Gus and all of her other friends back home. Why, she didn’t know. And she didn’t know why her heart was crumpling and tears were falling to the floor. She’d never stopped missing her friends or the lights from the palace or the kind young man who’d swept her through the ballroom and given her the best night of her life. Even her old bedroom took on a rosier shade in her memories.
The rats who’d remained in her cell crawled up into her lap and patted her as best they could. Their little feet tickled against her skin and made her laugh. “Thank you. This…hasn’t been ideal, but I’m so happy to have met all of you.” She wiped her eyes. “Alright. No more of that. I’ve been through worse than this. If I could get away from my stepfamily for one night, I can certainly get away from that old sorceress.”
Right on time, Ilene and Amos came back with Cinderella’s note, which contained a new message underneath her handwriting: Oh, I’m so happy to know I’m not alone! But I’m so sorry you got captured too. Maleficent told me she was looking for other princesses. She’s from my world and she’s hated me ever since my parents didn’t invite her to a ceremony in my honor…
Cinderella raised her eyebrows as she settled back against her bed to read the rest of the letter. This sounded like quite the story.
Keeping track of the days was difficult, even with the regular deliverance of meals. It might’ve been a week or a month before Cinderella heard the clanking of Soldier Heartless and another young woman sobbing. “Where are you taking me? Why are you doing this? Please don’t lock me in here – please!”
According to Lucille and Samson, her name was Snow White and she’d received the same “greeting” from Maleficent, though she cried through the whole thing and probably hadn’t absorbed a word that the witch said. They’d tried leaving one of Cinderella’s notes, but last they’d checked, she hadn’t noticed it.
Cinderella had almost finished altering the bottom half of her ballgown into a pair of loose trousers. But it wouldn’t do any good if she still couldn’t find a way outside of her cell. I can’t stay here, she mused. That witch won’t stop until she has four more girls like us, and then…who knows what she plans to do with us? Even Aurora wasn’t sure about Maleficent’s endgame.
As she paced her cell and pondered what to do, she heard the faint, trembling sound of the newest prisoner trying to hum a tune.
“I’m wishing…”
Snow White’s voice faltered. It seemed she couldn’t work up the spirit to keep singing. Cinderella walked over to the door and pressed her face against the bars. It was a shot in the dark, but she had to try reaching out in some way. “I’m wishing…” she sang back.
Snow White gasped. “H-hello? Who’s there?”
“Cinderella! I’m a princess like you!”
Farther away, another voice called out, “And I’m Aurora! It’s nice to meet you!”
“Oh dear! So I’m not the only one trapped down here?” As the other two princesses assured her that she was not alone, Snow White let out a little sigh. “And here I was crying all this time and you’ve been down here longer than me. I’m so ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t say that. We’ve all had times when we cried, haven’t we, Aurora?” Cinderella called out.
“Ohhh yes.” Aurora sounded exhausted just talking about it. That prompted a laugh from Snow White. “Cinderella’s been working on a plan to get us out. If you see any rats in your cell, don’t be afraid of them. They’re her special friends.”
Plan was a generous word, but Cinderella wasn’t about to correct Aurora.
Soon enough, the rats reported two new arrivals: a girl and a boy. The girl might be another Princess, but there was something odd about her: she’d fallen into a deep sleep and wouldn’t wake up.
“Oh, that’s not odd at all,” said Snow White. “She must have been cursed. If we can find her true love, she’ll wake up.”
The rats weren’t so sure. “Her name is Kairi,” said Amos. “The boy’s name is Riku. We think he’s her friend. But it doesn’t sound like he knows that she’s here. Maleficent told him that if he helps her, she’ll help Kairi.”
“Hmph. I doubt that.” Cinderella swished her legs back and forth on the bed – she’d finally completed her trousers. “Even if Kairi isn’t a Princess, we can’t leave her behind. Maybe we can convince Riku to come with us. Where is he now?”
“Maleficent sent him to a world called Wonderland!”
The next Princess arrived that evening, as Cinderella sketched out a map of the dungeons with assistance from Lucille and Samson. She actually caught sight of the girl passing her cell when the Heartless forced her down the passage. Unlike the others, she was a child. No fancy ballgown either; she wore a simple blue dress and white apron.
Just in case Maleficent showed up, Cinderella sent her a letter instead of calling out to her. She was wondering what kind of a response she might get when she heard the rats coming back. And they weren’t alone.
The new Princess emerged from the hole alongside them, covered in dust and only a few inches tall. “Hello!” she called out, waving her arms over her head. “My name is Alice! It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She stooped to curtsey.
Cinderella made an attempt to curtsey back, but this was startling even for her. “How did you get so small?!”
Alice held out her hand, full of tiny specks. “These are mushrooms I had in my pocket from Wonderland. They can make you smaller or taller depending on what side you lick. When I saw your friends come out of the hole, I realized I could go with them!”
Cinderella gasped; this changed everything. “How many of those mushrooms do you have? Enough for four people, including you?”
“Hmmm…well, let’s see…” Alice counted out the specks. “…Yes, that should be enough. Oh! I see what you’re saying: we can all shrink down and escape!”
This was it; the break Cinderella had been hoping for since her capture. Map in hand, she gathered some leftover food and accepted the tiny bit of mushroom that Alice offered her. The rats scampered ahead to guide them through the tunnels. “So, this is how Jaq and Gus used to get around the house,” she mused, stepping around a cobweb the size of a bedsheet. She laughed to herself. Soon, she might be able to talk with them again and tell them all about her miniature adventure.
They reached Aurora’s cell first. Her startled scream knocked Cinderella and Alice off their feet. To their collective surprise, Snow White took their appearance in stride. Soon all four of them stood outside in the dungeon passageway, back to full size. “See that bubble over there?” said Cinderella, pointing toward a waterway that ran along the walls. “Lucille told me that it’s magical. It should take us outside the castle.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” cried Snow White, clapping her hands together. “And how do we get home?”
“Well…that part I haven’t figured out yet,” Cinderella admitted. “First, we need to find Kairi. Riku too, if he’ll help us. Once we get beyond the castle, I’m sure we’ll find someone who can help us get home.”
Alice frowned. “What if Riku doesn’t want to help us? Maleficent might be fooling him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll believe what we say.”
“There’s four of us and one of him.” Not that any of them were skilled fighters. Cinderella only knew how to swat a cat with a broom. “Besides, that’s why we need to find Kairi first. If we save her – better yet, if we can wake her up ourselves – we can show him that Maleficent has been lying to him all along.”
Something rattled in the darkness: the familiar clank-clank-clank of the armored Heartless marching down the passageway. Cinderella beckoned to the other girls and they all silently rushed to the bubble. It rose up the ceiling, through another level of the dungeon, and out into the icy exterior of Hollow Bastion.
The wind cut through the top of Cinderella’s silk gown and makeshift trousers. Snow White clung to her arm, where goosebumps began to form. Still, the air felt good after the stuffiness of the dungeons. They kept close together as they moved forward, Cinderella checking her map all the while.
Parts of the castle felt familiar; the entrance hall and its grand staircase reminded her of the warmth of the palace at home. The moving platforms were something else altogether. None of them wanted to step onto the first one. “How do we know it won’t take us back down to the dungeons?” wondered Snow White.
“One should be careful about stepping onto a moving device if they don’t know where it’s going,” Alice agreed.
Cinderella felt the same, but there didn’t seem to be any other way of getting to the upper floors, where the rats claimed to have seen Kairi. Not unless they shrunk down again and found another rat hole, and even then, they didn’t have the means to climb the way that the rats could.
Finally, Aurora squared her shoulders and stepped out onto the platform. “I don’t know where this goes either, but I’m not going to wait for Maleficent to find us here. I’ll go first and tell you if it’s safe.” That proved to be unnecessary; they were able to watch for themselves as it brought her up to the next level.
“That was brave of you,” Cinderella told her, after they’d all disembarked.
Aurora shook her head. “My guardians never let me take any risks while they were protecting me from Maleficent. They meant well, I know they did, but just once I wanted to try something for myself.”
“Did they ever make you do history lessons? In books without pictures?” asked Alice.
“History lessons, yes, but my books had plenty of pictures,” Aurora replied, as they followed a path that took them back outside along the castle wall.
“That’s how it should be.”
“There are plenty of good books without pictures,” countered Cinderella. All the while, she kept one step ahead of the rest of the group to watch for any approaching Heartless or Maleficent.
Alice wrinkled her nose. “You sound just like my sister, Margaret.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted a sister!” said Snow White. “I used to get so lonely cleaning my stepmother’s castle all by myself. It would have been lovely to have someone to talk to.”
Cinderella smiled to herself. “I have two: Anastasia and Drizella. All they did was give me more chores to do.”
“Well, that’s not fair!” cried Alice, placing her hands on her hips. “When you get home, tell them to pick up a mop and help you!” That made Cinderella laugh hard, but Aurora quickly shushed her. They’d reached the castle chapel.
“According to your map, Kairi’s in a room to the right of this one…” Aurora frowned. There were no other visible doors in the chapel.
“It must be a secret door,” said Snow White. “We had secret passageways in our castle back home. I used to scrub them too.”
Cinderella glanced down at her rough sketches. “If you’re right, it would have to be somewhere over here…” On the right side of the room, where the passage was supposed to be, a section of the wall was bare. She felt along the stones’ edges for anything out of the ordinary; the other Princesses did likewise.
“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise…”
The soft voice that spoke from the darkness left Cinderella small, alone, retreating into herself as she pretended not to feel bothered by her stepmother’s endless demands. Then she remembered where she stood and who was actually speaking. Maleficent stepped out of the shadows, regarding her escaped prisoners with the same smirk that she’d had when they’d been captured.
“To what do I owe the honor of four Princesses of Heart coming to visit me?”
“What do we do?!” Snow White whispered.
Cinderella didn’t know; they didn’t have any weapons except for their own hands. That will have to do, she decided.
But Alice had another idea up her sleeve – literally. She nibbled on the edge of her mushroom piece and grew until her head scraped the chapel ceiling. “Let’s see you try and fit me in that dungeon now!”
Then Aurora took advantage of the distraction, rushing forward to grab Maleficent’s staff from her hands. Maleficent stopped smirking; her teeth clenched together as she struggled to keep her grip on it. “You little fool! You dare to challenge me? Me, the…”
Alice picked her up, forcing her to drop the staff. Aurora grabbed it and pointed at the wall that they’d been examining. Just as Snow White had guessed, the wall disappeared to reveal another passage.
“Hurry! That must be where Kairi…!” Cinderella faltered. A cluster of Heartless had arrived to defend Maleficent. Aurora tried waving the staff and hit one of them with a bolt of green lightning. But her aim was off and her second bolt almost hit Snow White.
Cinderella rolled up her sleeves. When she looked at them a certain way, the shadowy creatures weren’t all that different from a cat, except for the glowing eyes and antennae and their ability to steal hearts. She could handle a couple of Lucifers with antennae. As they moved toward her, she managed to punt one away, then ducked around the others. Snow White and Aurora followed after her. But Alice’s scream stopped them from going any farther.
Even without her staff, Maleficent had conjured green flames around herself, burning Alice’s hand. The witch fell to the floor, then seized Aurora. Cinderella and Snow ran to help. They all struggled to pull the staff out of Maleficent’s grasp, clawing and kicking as best they could.
And then Maleficent vanished. With her sudden disappearance, the Princesses fell into one another. Alice returned to her normal size, cradling her burnt hand. “Where did she go?” Cinderella wondered, staring frantically around the room. She couldn’t have surrendered…
But as her eyes moved from corner to corner, she felt her muscles slowing down of their own accord. The chapel took on a different color as a green haze spread across her field of vision. Cinderella opened her mouth to ask Aurora what might be happening – but she couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t move at all, not even to blink.
“Well done, Princesses.” Maleficent reappeared in front of them. “You almost had me concerned. For that, you deserve a reward.”
And once again, Cinderella stood before a woman gloating over her, unable to speak out or fight back.
Maleficent gestured with her staff towards the hidden passage. “You want to see where I am keeping your fellow Princess? Who am I to deny you? Come right this way.”
All four of them moved forward as puppets on strings. Maleficent led them into a new chamber lit by blue flames. A girl lay unconscious on the floor. That must be Kairi. Cinderella tried to move towards her, but Maleficent turned her to face a set of glass cases embedded in the wall.
“I intended to wait until I had found all seven of you before moving you to this room. But if you are so unhappy in your current accommodations, I can be flexible. After all, you are my honored guests.”
Cinderella watched as Snow White, then Alice, fell unconscious like Kairi and were encased in glass. Maleficent turned to her next. With a flick of the staff, her clothes changed back to their original ballgown.
She ought to feel angry. She ought to feel terrified and helpless. She felt all of it, and yet…
She’d felt helpless before, when her stepmother humiliated her, when her stepsisters tore into her dress, when the Heartless kidnapped her. And she’d still gotten to the ball without her stepfamily’s approval. She’d still found a way out of her cell in Hollow Bastion.
She’d find a way out of this new prison too.