Cinder Elli

"What?" The princess blinked at him, mouth opening in a little "o" of surprise. "...You're my betrothed. You can't just disappear."

"Pick another girl," he whispered, ducking beneath her arms. "Tell them I wasn't pretty enough. Tell them I'm under a horrible curse. Tell them I'm a witch. I'm sorry, but I have to go..." The brunette reached out to grab his hand again, but Elliot pulled away before she could latch on. "I'm sorry."

The blond ran from her, ducking around dancers as she forcefully pulled people apart. He ran back up the stairs, pulling open the doors. His slippers didn't want to move past the doorframe, and he tugged fiercely at them. The princess was catching up, but all Elliot could do was focus his attention on the feet. There was a faint vibration spreading through his body, and then his feet popped free from the glass and he was stumbling through the door and down the hallway. He followed the red carpet, bare feet thudding on the plush fabric. He ran down stairs, and hallways, and past the portcullis. The princess wasn't far behind, and Eliot didn't wait for the valet. He ran across the flagstones for the carriage, as another vibration ran through his body. The doors didn't open on their own this time, so he wrenched them apart, throwing himself inside. Slapping the front of the carriage was enough to set the horses running, leaving the screaming princess behind.

The scenery rushed by. The tingles were coming faster, stronger, spreading throughout his entire body. The carriage buckled beneath him, and he felt himself sinking through the white seats. The wood around him started to fade, and another final tingle caused his entire body to shake, skin crawling. His dress dissolved into a tangle of threads, leaving only a silver hair tied around his waist. Before Elliot could even grab at the cloth, it fell through the carriage floor, and an ash covered blue dress was left on the road.

The carriage slowed. His bottom sank down another foot, bare skin hitting the air. He tried to put his hands on the seating, on the wood, but his fingers pressed through it like thick pudding. His bare ass hit the ground, scraping across dirt. With a loud yelp, he fell through entirely; the carriage kept running without him, taking off into the trees. Leaving him on the floor of a dirt road, a few feet from his house, in a naked female body.

Elliot waited for another vibration. For his body to revert, for his breasts to shrink or his penis to grow. Nothing happened. The tingling sensation was gone, and he was still in this form.

He heard hoofbeats. Too many for just one horse - a carriage? Had the princess followed him? Or was it his family? The blond swallowed; either would be bad, and he didn't stop to think before running for the house. If he could get up to the attic, dress as a girl, pretend nothing had changed, maybe he could buy a little time. Delay things until the outrage died. He could toughen this new body to maid work, and even Ellanore would have to admit he wasn't a threat to her children anymore, so maybe he could make this work. Except, without proof of his identity, with Cinder Elli already established in the town, there was no real reason Elliot couldn't just be kicked to the curb.

He needed to think. He needed time, alone. Pulling the door to the house open, her raced up the staircase. Past the second floor, to the attic, throwing himself onto the half rotten floorboards of his room and closing the trap door behind him. He only afterward realized how lucky he was that none of the stairs had broken.

There were voices coming up through the chimney. Elliot hesitated, then walked carefully across the unsafe wood, avoiding the more warped boards as he pressed his ear into the hole. It was his stepmother talking. Yelling.

"A woman! She ignored you two idiots, for a woman! If I'd known she wanted attention of that sort, I would have swallowed my pride and gone in myself!"

Elliot blanched at that suggestion, trying not to imagine his stepmother in a tight ball gown. Dancing with his princess. The princess. Everyone's princess, he reminded himself firmly, surprised by how fast his heart had begun to beat.

"And you two didn't even think of cutting in... Where's your sister? I need a stiff drink, and a chance to humiliate someone."

Elliot started to lean back, glancing at the closet. He'd put on some clothes, cover his face in a little soot, and survive the night. He was safe. Until a loud knock came booming through the house, and he heard the door smashing into a wall.

"Where is she?" He recognized that voice as the Princess's. A small electric shock, similar to when they had kissed, shot through Elliot's body. The princess had come looking for him, after all? No. If the princess caught him, he'd. He'd be stuck like this forever, Elliot realized. She'd never let him hunt for the fairy who'd done this to him.

"Where is who?" his stepmother asked, confusion in her voice. He could imagine her downstairs, deep in a curtsy. The Princess moving past her.

"Your stepdaughter. Cinder Elli. I know she's here."

How? There must have been countless horses on the road to and from the palace, on a day like this. How had she possibly have tracked him?

"...I don't have a stepdaughter." Elliot could imagine his stepmother's false smile. The gears turning in her head. "I have a stepson. He's always been a little feminine - and we do sometimes call him Elli, to accommodate his delusions, but. I assure you, he is a man. Though if your interests lie in that direction, surely I could interest you in - Your highness?" There was a creaking noise. Someone coming up the stairs. Silence for a moment, and then the voices again - not through the chimney but the thin floorboards. "-ly be disappointed. I don't think he's even capable of fathering children, anymore."

"Cinder Elli!" The princess was calling to him. "I'm coming for you." The princess was coming for him. He was sitting, naked except for a single silver ribbon, in the attic and she was coming for him. He hadn't had time to think. He hadn't had time to turn back.

The ribbon. It was the only connection Elliot had left to his fairy godmother, and he desperately latched onto it. Pulling it taut between his hands, he yanked it off his body and held it in front of him. "Please!" he begged. "Please, please, please. Help me, Galindi." He felt a faint vibration through the cloth, and sudden warmth. He didn't change back. The floorboards beneath him suddenly cracked open, dropping him to the second floor.

The world seemed to slow as Elliot fell. He saw his stepmother, staring in open mouth shock at the busty woman falling through her ceiling. His stepbrothers, blinking in awe at his breasts. There was the princess, dropping the glass shoes to the floor and casually lifting her arm, as if she'd expected him to be there. She slid her arms beneath Elliot's, holding him the air in front of her. Smiling at him as his legs kicked uselessly at her. "Let me go! I can't! I won't... I..."

The princess leaned in to kiss him. Elliot felt another little tingle, a shock of warmth in his stomach. Kallina lowered her betrothed slowly into the glass slippers, each foot popping perfectly into place. Then he was being lifted again, arms wrapped beneath his legs and around his waist. "You. Are coming with me."

"Y-Your highness... "" His stepmother stammered. "I swear. My stepson is a man. That is a man. That was...:" She gestured, flustered by the princess's cool gaze, flicking between Elliot's breasts and Ellanore's face. "A man."

"I'm sure..." The princess whispered, dryly. She pushed past Ellanore, moving down the stairs. She went out the door and toward the gold and silver painted carriage. The driver opened the door for them and Elliot was deposited carefully onto the brown leather of the seats. The princess settled besides him, placing Elliot's feet on top of her lap.

"...It's true," the blond whispered. He had to say it. He had to tell someone, had to get out of this still. It was a mistake. "I'm a-"

The princess placed her finger on his lips, sending a warm tingle through him. It wasn't like when the fairy did it - he could still move. He just didn't want to.

"You're not the only one who made a wish to her fairy godmother," the princess whispered, pulling the silver ribbon from her hair, letting it cascade around her shoulders and gently touching the silver ribbon that Elliot was still clutching in his hands. She began to tie each of their ribbons to the other's wrists. "I wished to find someone I could be with. For the rest of my life. I know you don't love me, and I don't love you, but. When you're a princess, potential is all you can ask for. I think we have that."

Elliot shook his head. "It's not that. I'm really a m-" The finger touched his lips again, gently parting them. He felt his tongue lightly against her finger, and was surprised to find it somewhat sweet.

"Fairies see things differently than we do. They see our true essence, our true selves. They're the ones who dressed me this way; and whatever you were before - this is who you are. You're a woman, Cinder Elli. And you can't run from it." She removed her finger, leaning down and gently pressing a kiss against her betrothed's inner thigh. "Besides, fairy mounts are ridiculously easy to track..."

Elliot wanted to respond, but the words died in his throat as Kallina placed another kiss on his inner thigh, climbing up the naked flesh. Her tongue darted across the creamy skin, teasing its way up the thigh. She drew her tongue back in every other inch, kissing and sucking the flesh, letting her teeth ever-so-lightly bite down on the skin. She stopped just short of his groin, and he felt a strange heat rising within him, beginning at his freshly-formed mound. The heat rose through his body, building across his stomach and chest until it finally reached his cheeks. His entire body felt flush with excitement. "Wh...What are you doing to me?" he whispered, and she smiled. Her teeth nipped the hairless skin again. She didn't respond, but simply splayed her fingers across his other thigh and slowly pushed it out until his legs were spread parallel.

"Tell me you're a woman," she whispered, placing a soft kiss right on the tip of his mound. Her tongue darted between the lips, and left again, leaving a trail of saliva that intermingled with Elliot's own moisture, just starting to flow from within his delicate sex.

"I'm not-Ah!" Another kiss interrupted him, sending shivers through his body. He'd been so focused on her mouth, he hadn't noticed the hand creeping across the leather until Kallina's fingers gripped hold of his left nipple and gently tweaked it between her thumb and forefinger..

"You are," she whispered. "Now say it." She released the nipple, grasping the pillowy breast in her hand, kneading it, becoming more forceful as her own arousal grew stronger. Her mouth began to kiss its way up the stomach, but her left hand stayed in place down at the groin. Splayed across his mound, the thumb lightly touching his stomach, but slowly pulling down. She spread the lips apart, her thumb gently caressing the sensitive button, as she slowly slipped a finger inside of his dripping sex, setting off a spark inside that made the warm feelings explode through his body in a cascade of gentle tingles. Then, suddenly her hand was gone. The warmth, the electricity, began to fade. "Say it, and I'll make you feel that way a thousand times over."

"Look, I don't mind you touching me but I'm not a-aahhh!" She licked his belly button, slipped her way up his stomach and nuzzled between his breasts. Nipping both sides of his breasts with her teeth, and leaving red marks on each side. Her finger pushed into his slit again, sending another wave of that new, exciting pleasure throughout his body. It was stronger this time, and it left a lingering warmth in his limbs, a strange new pressure in his pussy.

He had to hold on, he told himself. Hold on, as she kissed the taut skin that stretched between his breasts, her eager mouth sending new jolts of pleasure through him. Hold onto himself as she pressed the palm of her hand against his mound, sending warmth out as she fingered the tiny nub protruding from his sex, and kissed his breasts to send waves of desire through him. He needed to hold on, so that he could go back to his old life. Cleaning, being dirty, mistreated and abused. In his old body, ungainly and out of place, stuffed in clothes that didn't belong on it but somehow felt right to be wearing.

He. She. Needed to hold on. He needed to go back to the misery of how things used to be, instead of the wonderous feeling filling her now? No. She needed to hold onto this new feeling, the warmth of honest affection for her and her body as the hungry mouth licked over her breasts and the thumb began to press itself harder across her clit.

"I'm a woman..." whispered Elli. Growing pleasure slid through her, lightning lancing down from everywhere Kallina kissed, and fire sparking wherever the princess touched her body. Squeezing her breast, kissing her nipple, and rubbing her button, the princess was absolutely merciless in making her betrothed cry out. Making her back arch and her new body sing, while the carriage slowly made its way toward Cinder Elli's fresh beginning. Neither of them could have been more happy.

***

EPILOGUE: Six Months Later

***

Elli walked down the forest path, arms lightly wrapped around her belly, cradling the slight bulge. Her first daughter; their princess and heir.

A step behind her walked two guardsmen, following her on orders from the queen; the blonde's wife. They were making sure she'd stay safe during this trip, while the queen herself was away on early business. Which was code for having been kidnapped, or some other adventure, no doubt. But Elli knew her love would be back in no time.

She was more concerned with setting up a surprise for her wife. A place they could all escape to, when they needed to be alone. When they grew older, most likely, and left the castle in the hands of their own daughter and her future spouse. It was a long way off, she knew, but she wanted this place to be waiting for them. To be theirs.

Elli walked a few more steps, and stopped at the edge of the clearing, choosing to just stare at her mother's old house for a moment. It had become run down. Tiles were missing from the roof. White paint had peeled from the door and surrounding walls. Its current owner hadn't fared much better, sporting gray hairs among her blond tresses and glaring from her position on the rotted porch. Having to deal with her children's messes, on her own, hadn't been working well for her.

"Your highness," the lady whispered, through gritted teeth. She even made a mocking little bow, not quite shallow enough that she could be called out on it.

"Stepmother." Elli smiled at her. This place, this woman, held a lot of bitter memories. But it was also the birthplace of Cinder Elli. The home of her mother and father, before things went bad. This place meant a lot to her, and it was where she thought she'd one day want to retire. In the woods, where her wife could hunt for them and their family could come visit.

She tossed a pouch of gold to her stepmother, who fumbled with the brown leather bag for a moment as if it were made of hot coals. Perhaps that was what she expected from her stepdaughter, after all this time.

"It's gold, stepmother. All you've ever wanted. Take it, and go live the life you tried to steal with it; and get out of my mother's house. I'm buying it back."

Elli smiled as she spoke. "And take my father's sons with you."