Every fairy was an old being. She - at first she doesn't have a name, not properly: the first being that granted you a wish named you, and hers... - is not as old as her sisters, who gave the first beings the ability to divide and multiply. Her smallest, most invisible sisters, as unnamed as she was, and who granted important wishes. She couldn't say if hers was important.

Her first wish was that of a common grass, the one that made her be born; it wished to thrive on the first few gulps of carbon dioxide being released, and she, like a flower of the future, blooming into existence, blinked and willed herself into the nothingness of magic into existence.

Since she can't exactly talk to the grass that made her be real, it's a more intuitive deal, looking around the harsh expanses that one day will be filled with the cousins of this little plant. Then, her eyes, ancient blue, light up, and she saw the threads of fate that guided the would-be Earth.

Magic wasn't a wishy-washy, powdery white thing. It was threads, set upon the ground and the air and the stars, deciding what happened and what didn't. Some had expiry dates: the ones where she had to change too many things, the ones where the outcome of the fate of what would-be humanity wouldn't be changed for much. Others, like the little grassroot wishing to breathe, did not. It would benefit the future, would create more sisters for her, so she flicked the right thread, and let the plant that was struggling to survive learn how to breathe.

It didn't have a best-by date (correction: it did, but it was so far off of this distant past, when the sun wished to stop, that it was meaningless anyway), and she found herself watching this little thing, green and new to the world just like her, thrive under the worst of circumstances.

For a long, long time - longer than what humanity thinks history has been told - she stayed in place, watching as the surrounding land flourished, thrived, died, changed: an ever-eternal cycle that never seemed to bore her, green to yellow to brown to green once more, always under beautiful blue skies and the moon, her eternal companion, just as the sun was.

That is, until the first few humans passed by her. They weren't much, were she honest, but in her current form, neither was she: she was just a flower, baby blue and basking into sunlight. They were bipeds, but by the gait of their legs, it seemed like a recent evolution. Or maybe not; if she were honest, as a stalk of a flower, deeply rooted into the ground as she was, walking seemed odd.

A little girl plucked her, stared at the flower with big, brown eyes that seemed alien to her. She spoke in odd words, odd sentences, that her tiny flower brain couldn't comprehend, before running off to accompany the group. In the hands of the girl, she felt small, a mouse compared to a lion.

So, for the first time in - how long? How long has it been ever since she was wished into existence? She had been borne before time had been invented, so it's hard to ascribe a precise marking to it: how does one celebrate a birthday, when they were born before the concept of birthdays were a concept? - forever, she became uncomfortable with her existence: to be held like a lifeless being is too much for her to handle. Wiggling herself out of the girl's grasp, she fell to the ground. The little girl seemed to not notice.

Then, for the first time, there's a change to her form: imitating the humans she saw, she became a girl, identical to the one who had plucked her from her place. The only difference were the wings: gossamer white, translucent, and allowing her flight capabilities.

She still doesn't have a name. It felt important to have one, but she couldn't quite grasp why.

That's alright; she'll soon learn that many of her older sisters, those who granted the first wishes, also do not have them. They'll tell her the things she didn't know and the things she did, and she talked to them: some submerged so deeply underwater only her sister, herself and the first few beings lurked around, temperatures so low her chattering teeth felt like breaking in half; some so deep into volcanoes that when she emerged, the fresh air felt as cold as being deeply into an iceberg. Some of her sisters were in the ground, buried with the animals whose wishes they had granted, slowly melting into black tar, while others she met near mountains, near animals that still lived and thrived, forgotten beings of an ice age long gone, shepherding them into safety. She doesn't want to think what will happen to her sisters when these animals die.

She visited the cities her sisters created for themselves, meeting her siblings who had decided to not grant wishes anymore, and instead retreated into their own worlds, molding the fabric of fate and cutting the cords to create a city (or several) of their own. It's a fun place, if she's rather honest with herself, but it feels like such a betrayal of what she was made for that she goes back to traveling.

Back to a life of occasional wish granting - very occasional, barely there, just those that people almost didn't realize they were wishing for -, and meeting her sisters. The least interesting ones were the youngest, still full of live, but with no stories to tell. She liked stories.

Once, just for fun, she visited the space where the moon and the sun hung from, and met her oldest sister, living amidst the sun, so blindingly white that she took a few millennia to recover from it, simply laying down on the soft earth of her birthplace and closing her eyes, sleeping as the world changed around her.

Then, when she woke up, she discovered a tree had grown atop of her. Crawling from underneath, she found a thriving civilization of white marble and a speaking language so different from the only one she'd ever heard that it took her more than a few seconds to realize that yes, this was spoken tongue. After her brain learned to process it - a quick twinge of her own thread of fate, the one deeply rooted inside her mind -, she blinked and looked around.

There were many wishes to be had, and so little sisters of hers to go around. With a smile, she hummed to herself, shook the dirt from her wings, and started to work.

Roman life was odd, if she was honest. She would sit on family tables at dinners, elbows on the table, invisible as usual, and watch them go around, words poised as if they were daggers. There were many wishes to be had, especially the closer to Rome she got. Something about power, she supposed, but she couldn't quite put it into words. They were surely more fun wishes than the ones of plants and trees. She enjoyed granting them, too: the closer to Rome, the more interesting wishes got.

Like the ones in front of her, at the moment.

"I wish you'd fall dead." Hissed an older girl to her younger sister, and the little girl - no more than ten; human's ages were so pesky to see - gasped, walking a step back. In between them, invisible in the family courtyard, she stood, watching, dressed as a patrician, just like the two fighting girls: although, were she honest, to call that a fight would be rather unfair. It did seem a little bit one-sided, after all. "I wish Jupiter would send a lightning bolt straight into that empty head of yours, right were you stand, and rid you of this Earth."

"It's not my fault!" The younger girl gasped, tears springing in her eyes. "The gods, the Augur said that they -"

The older girl grasped the younger by the shoulders, dangerously close, vicious poison in her eyes. Were this girl be an animal, she'd be foaming at the mouth, ready to tear the other girl's limbs. The younger girl glanced at the hands that were clasped around her, in a claw-like vice that would leave marks.

The older girl seemed furious, and she couldn't quite grasp why. Maybe because she wasn't married? Were marriages between people like her even a thing?

"Fuck the gods! Fuck the Augur's words, they're all fake bullshit! Do you think that reading a bull's intestines can really tell the future? If so, you're a fool." The girl, venom on her tongue, let go of her younger sister. "I meant it. I hope Jupiter strikes you. Take care tonight, sister."

Then, with a dramatic flourish, the older girl stomped away, while the younger girl fell to the ground, sobbing.

There were two wishes she could see. Making herself visible and hoping none of the family slaves would see the scene, she reached to the girl, leaning down to touch her shoulder. That made the girl jump, and she looked at her like she was some sort of -

"Lady - Lady Juno Sospita!" Oh, that was a goddess, right? And a name. Had she been named Juno? She never had a name; it was, after all, only the second time she had bothered to personally spend some time with the wisher, and the first one had been a plant: they didn't tend to have vocal chords.

"You have a wish." She started, slowly, as if testing the syllables on her tongue before speaking up. "I can solve it."

The girl fell in a prostration, head to the ground. Juno - since that was her name now, she might as well use it - cocked her head, kneeling to the ground, one hand in her face. She wasn't very good at this whole being a goddess thing, was she?

"Merciful Juno, I am not worthy." The girl said, and Juno patted the girl's head gently, her fingers feeling the sensation of hair odd against her skin. Huh. "My father, he's…"

"Your father's wish does not matter. I am here for you." Juno paused, and the girl looked up, eyes glinting with tears. They were brown and huge,and reminded her of that first little girl who had uprooted her. "Tell me what you wish."

"I want to get away from here. I do not wish to marry Lucius Claudius. I…" The girl's tears fell down freely, and Juno slowly wiped them away, which just caused the girl to cry harder. "I don't want to die. She'll kill me, I know, she always does that when something doesn't go her way, I…"

That was some interesting family dynamic, to say the least. Juno patiently waited for her to collect herself, patting the girl's head like one would to to an anxious pet. When the tears stopped falling, Juno spoke up.

"What's your name?"

This was a dangerous question to pose, her sisters had told her: if they gave the true name they had, then their lives were forfeited to the being she had told it to. Juno, who had a vague idea that this girl wanted to run away, didn't bother mentioning it. It wasn't important.

"I'm… Metilia Secunda Scaura Minor." She looked in Juno's eyes. Juno, without the girl knowing it was happening, started to slowly change the threads of fate, weaving it into something that would please her. "Please, lady Juno Sospita, take me to your palace."

"If that's your wish." Rising, she offered Metilia a hand, and she took it. Unfurling her wings, she waved a hand in Metilia's hand, and the girl, wide eyed like a deer, fell into a deep slumber.

She had work to do.

Juno got herself a home - a few waves of a hand, a few words and favor traded with her sisters who lived in the faerie cities - and put the girl to sleep there, before popping back into her home. The household had not seemed to notice that Metilia was missing yet, so Juno, humming a cheery song to herself, set to do what Metilia's wish entailed.

She changed her appearance, hid her wings with a quick spell, and pretended to be the younger sister for a few hours, joining in their dinner. They did not seem to suspect a thing, not even that her daughter had refused to touch the salt, the shine glossy sheen of her clothes, or that her eyes shone in a too-pale blue in the fire's light. Clueless, Juno would call them.

No matter. She smiled to the older sister, wished her a pleasant sleep, and the girl sneered at her when the adults' backs were turned. She kept the smile tight on her face, and went to bed, waiting for the moon to rise and the house to fall asleep - the sister had been given a slight twist, and was deeply into slumber. When she sensed it happened, Juno slowly padded out of bed, producing from a looking glass a dagger and from a shell, a perfect replica of the body she inhabited.

It would be fun, setting up a murder scene. She even added a sprinkle of cannibalism, puppeteering the older sister's body to do her bidding as she slept. Maybe she should respond to more wishes.

When the house woke up, it was to a slave's screams, and soon enough, a choir was formed. Juno smiled her way through it.

The body of Metilia disappeared a few hours hours later, leaving behind a bloodied shell. The mystery was a puzzle to the guards involved, and all thought that the older sister had begged her lover - because how was a girl in prison supposed to disappear with a corpse? - to make the corpse go away. It didn't look good, and Juno sat down on the mockery of a trial with a smile on her pitch-perfect facsimile of Metilia's face.

The girl woke up as Juno washed her hands in the basin, the door to the bathroom she was in open, pointy ears poised to listen. When she gasped herself awake, startled into consciousness, all Juno did was peek her head.

"Are you alright?" Juno asked, finishing cleaning the blood off her hands, the once pristine white clothes she wore discarded in a heap on the floor. She was already wearing new clothes, and had gone back to her old appearance of a Roman matriarch, but the skin itched in her: it seemed too big, now. Too empty, full of holes. Juno needed a change.

Metilia sat down on the bed, looking around the palace - she had got herself a nice one, in the Roman style the girl was accustomed to, but even to Juno's eyes it seemed different from something humans would've produced: it was almost as if someone had shifted the architectural perspective slightly to the left, imperceptible enough to not be visible, but subtle enough that one knew it was there.

She then focused her eyes on Juno, brown, big and kind.

"Yes. Thank you for your kindness, lady Juno Sospita." The girl slid from the bed, and Juno approached her, light-footed, watching as she bowed as deeply as possible, a faithful in prayer. "How might I serve you? I, I've never served as a priestess, but I'm a quick study, I promise. Don't smite me."

Juno cocked her head, remembered she was supposed to be playing at being a god, and smiled, patting the girl's head for a moment, which made her look up.

"You can serve me by being the reason I come back home every day. How about that?" Juno fell down to the girl's level, hugging her knees. "I'll be honest, it's been quite a while since I've stayed stuck in one place."

Around a few millennia or so, but Metilia didn't need to know that.

"So maybe, just maybe, I may not be good company, but I promise I'll try. And you," She gently booped the girl's button nose, and Metilia seemed startled at it for a second. ", well, you can tell me what you need. Would you like that?"

Metilia was stunned into silence for a few, long seconds, and then she nodded.

"Yes, I think I'd like that." She said, at the end, and Juno patted the girl's hair.

Metilia was a kind, good girl, who required nothing more than a few books and a bit of company. Juno enjoyed coming back to her at the end of the day, instead of sleeping underneath the stars of the human world, and brought with her whatever she thought Metilia would like. It just ended up making her do several trips to the royal treasuries, libraries and the like.

And the girl did not stay unchanged during her time - a couple of centuries worth, at least, where Juno did a daily back and forth between realms -, her back sprouting delicate butterfly wings, shining metallic in purple, orange and a pale pink that was almost see-through, her eyes changing from the deep brown of the earth to a rich chocolate tone. She was as much of a creature like Juno and her sisters as any other, now.

"Lady Juno, may I ask…?" She started, going through a book Juno had brought to her, a book from the faraway land of the rising sun. Juno rose her head, still holding in her hand a pile of pretty silver jewelry, and looked at the girl she had taken under her wings.

"Have I ever forbidden you of anything, Metilia?" Juno replied, softly, and the girl smiled, bright and kind. "Speak what you wish."

"Yes, of course. Lady Juno, don't you get lonely with just me?" The girl asked, closing the scroll with a nimble, practiced motion. "I mean, your palace is enormous, and yet it seems just I and a few chosen invisible servants live here. Not that I complain, of course, you're a goddess and you know what you do, but…"

She had traveled among humans long enough to know what she saw: the longing in her eyes, the bottom lip chewed almost raw, the fidgeting hands.

"But you're lonely." Juno finished, softly as possible, and the girl looked up. "Very well, then I may find some companions for you. It means I'll have to leave for a long while, though."

Metilia smiled, bright and kind, and grabbed Juno's hands. She was so warm, warm like her sister who resided in the sun, but not as distant.

"I thank you in advance, lady Juno, for your compliance with my pleading." The girl always answered as such whenever Juno did anything for her, but she had grown used to it already. Kissing Metilia's forehead for luck, she left.

Once more, Juno slept underneath the stars and in people's homes, right underneath their noses. She'd leave behind gifts if she liked the place, and curses if she disliked it. During a few centuries, all she did was grant wishes, and picked up a small army of little sisters and little brothers and puppies and kitties for Metilia.

Metilia enjoyed being the older sister; Juno would not take it from her. Her name never changed, always Juno: this was the name given to her, and she protected it like the precious item it was, so she told it to the children whom she kidnapped.

Sometimes, she'd hear myths of the fair folk stealing children from underneath their parents nose, and she'd cock her head, and wonder which of her sisters was doing that, unaware these myths were about herself.

Around mid-17th century, she found herself near her birthplace, although the precision she could give to it was hard to say, since the continents had changed form and the terrain looked different, but she knew: like a moth to a flame, Juno found herself drawn to the place, where a village stood. And, on the village, she stood at the center, sitting underneath the branches of a tree, Juno saw a little girl - no more than ten, maybe, hair a fine gray-blonde color and thick with ashes, skin covered in soot, carrying a pail of water too big for her lite body.

The people of the village saw her, back home from grabbing a bucket of water, and averted their eyes, as if she was invisible, as if they couldn't see the fact that the rags she wore weren't proper for the winter climate, that her lips turned blue with cold.

Curious, Juno floated lazily behind her, sniffing the girl for wishes, but found none. She had wishes, but none related to herself: for her mother to be watching from Heaven, to her father to come back safely from his trip far away. Not wishes someone in that condition would have, and Juno had seen enough of them to know.

So she followed the girl into a lavish state, and saw the girl enter not through the main door, but through a servant's door, alone in a kitchen too big to be manned solely by herself. The girl set the bucket of water aside, and started to work on a feast.

Juno cocked her head to it, and looked around the state, finding it filled with too many things to call the owners anything less than rich. She found a woman, who looked nothing like the girl on the kitchen, fast asleep in her bed, and found two other girls, each in their own rooms, also asleep. These last two looked like the older woman, so Juno assumed there was some familial relationship.

The troubling thing was that she saw no servants besides the little girl, so Juno went back to the kitchen. The girl kept working at a steady pace, humming to herself. She didn't seem any warmer, and she sniffed too shallowly to be anything but a tentative to not be hungry.

Making herself at home and sitting on the empty wooden table, she put her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, wings spread. She changed her appearance a little - last time she had been of help, it had been in the midst of the Ottoman Empire, and the standards of beauty were quite different: she made her hair a deep brown, molding it into the curls that were fashionable, and kept her eyes blue as her skin paled into dangerous levels, a good satin dress to accompany her image. Then, making herself visible, Juno spoke.

"Don't you want help?" She asked, and the girl whirled around, looking at Juno with big, brown eyes.

She looked a bit like Metilia. This little girl would make another wonderful addition to the small army of changelings she had.

"Are you my fairy godmother?" The girl asked, in turn, and she seemed so excited at the prospect that Juno blinked, slowly. "Oh, I've always heard the myths that told me they existed, but I thought they were supposed to be invisible. And have feathered wings."

"That's guardian angels."

"Same thing, really." She waved Juno away, and Juno rose an eyebrow at her. "As for your question, I wish for nothing but some company, and you've solved that!"

That wasn't a wish. Well, not the usual kind Juno answered to, at least. She cocked her head.

"You're a weird kid."

"I know." The girl turned back, and was going to say something - she looked at the clock, and hissed. "Oh no! I'm late!"

Cleaning her hands on the terribly dirty apron she wore, the girl started to run to the older woman's room, and Juno, making herself invisible once more, followed her.

The girl woke up the woman, calling her stepmother, and Juno paused. She had saved too many children from terrible families, the most recent one being a girl named Vasilisa. Juno wasn't in uncharted territory.

She did find it odd the girl hadn't asked for escape, though. Maybe she thought she was hallucinating?

"Cinderwench, you're late." Not even a good morning, or any sort of similar greeting. Just a false name - she was a fairy, she knew when a name was real or not - and sneer dripping from her tongue.

Juno already wanted to kill her.

"I'm sorry, stepmother. I have breakfast ready." The girl let the insult roll off her back, as if it were water. Juno followed the girl around as she helped the stepmother dress up, ignoring insults as if they weren't meant for her, before going to help the two young girls wake and dress up.

The older sister was perhaps twelve, and already a nasty piece of work towards the little girl, mouthing her off for not waking her up earlier, for not bringing breakfast to bed; to which, the girl responded like she wasn't being called every name in the book that their stepmother wanted her to stop eating in bed, lest another rat infestation happen.

That shut the girl quickly, and she spoke nothing more. Then, the girl went to the younger sister's room, and woke her up.

"Oh, Élisabeth. Good morning." She yawned, lazily stretching herself as the girl (Élisabeth? It sounded real enough, but as she hadn't been given the name by the girl herself, Juno couldn't claim it) went around the room, grabbing the brush and a dress.

"Morning, Marguerite. Have you slept well?" The girl replied, and set to work. It was weird to Juno that relationship: these two seemed to get along slightly better than either stepmother and the oldest sister.

Weird.

Once more, the girl dressed and brushed someone's else hair, while barely giving a thought to herself.

She accompanied Marguerite downstairs, a few steps behind, and as soon as they left the room, the younger sister's demeanour changed completely: from a kind girl to a haughty, chin up, looking down on others, little brat.

When they arrived downstairs, the stepmother and the oldest sister were already eating.

"You're late, Marguerite." The stepmother said, barely looking up from her food, as the girl whose name she hadn't taken yet went back to the kitchen. The younger sister, meanwhile, shrugged.

"You know how Cinderella is." She said, shrugging slightly, and Juno followed the girl back to the kitchen, looking as she went even further back, to the garden, picking up the dry clothes from were they had been.

She stared at the back of the girl's hair for a long while, until every single pristine white linen was perfectly folded in the basket that laid on the ground. Juno made herself visible, and grabbed it as the girl went to do it.

"You could wish for something better, you know." She said, voice low, but not dangerous. The girl cocked her head. A beat of time passed, and when the girl didn't speak again, Juno did. "I'm Juno, by the way. May I have your name?"

"I like working." The girl replied, ignoring the blatant trap Juno had laid, grabbing the basket from the fairy's hands as she went inside the kitchen once more. "And it's Cinderella."

Juno frowned. She knew the girl was lying - the younger sister had called her by her real name not even thirty minutes ago, right in front of her! -, but she couldn't quite grasp the why.

"That's not your real name." Juno floated, lazily behind, visible only to Cinderella. "I know it's not."

Cinderella snorted, eyes focused on the work ahead instead of Juno. As if she was a ghost.

"Well, my mom taught me a lot about fairies. I'm not stupid, I know the wishes your folk grant have drawbacks. And besides," Cinderella shrugged, putting the linen from the basket onto the ratty old wooden table. ", I don't have any urgent wishes."

Juno looked around, seeing the girl's living conditions, her treatment, her ashen-stricken face and the way her bones seemed sharp against her skin.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, fairy godmother. I am quite sure. Now, unless you're going to help me, I don't have any wishes." Cinderella left for the vegetable patch outside, skipping as she went, and Juno did not follow, staring at her through the window.

Cinderella was the oddest of the children she had found, by a long mile. Taking a decision, Juno settled herself on the table. She was going to stay around a while.

Cinderella truly was the weirdest child she'd ever tried to steal. For starters, she had failed at the first meeting, which compromised her otherwise immaculate record. Second, she didn't seem to care for how she lived.

She didn't have a room, nor a bed: she slept curled by the fire, dying her face black and grey with ashes. She ate scraps of old bread and the vegetables that were halfway to rotten, and treated them as if they were rare delicacies. Her clothes were composed from what could be salvagedfrom her stepsister's trash, although the younger sister, once in a while, would purposefully rip something of hers to hand down to Cinderella. It was kind, but so infrequent that Juno figured the stepmother figure had something to do with it.

Most times, though, the rags came from the older sister, who in anger at - well, seemingly anything that didn't go her way - would tear apart the whole house. The stepmother would smile, snap her fingers, and order Cinderella to grab what fabric she could while the whole family - sans the girl herself, of course - went shopping for furniture.

Cinderella would always look sad at it, sewing what she could to fix what had been torn to be usable until what was new arrived, and Juno would cock her head.

"I could snap my fingers and make them change their opinion, you know." Juno said, once, when the girl was sixteen. Her birthday was the following day, and as usual, no one seemed to have remembered. "Make you the apple of your stepmother's eye, and they the servants."

Cinderella shook her head, busy gathering scraps, sewing them into something that wouldn't look like a eighteen-year-old had gone through with a pair of sewing scissors. The younger sister had watched, quiet, with a pale face that reminded her of Metilia, and Cinderella had the deadest eyes she'd ever seen.

"No. This is my fate." A pause, and she glanced at Juno. "Fairy godmother, tell me. Don't we all have our sins to bear?"

"I wouldn't know. The entire concept is… Foreign to me." She waved it away, and Cinderella nodded. "Honestly, you don't deserve this life. Many children I've taken, and all of them rejected this. And yet, you…"

The words died on her tongue, and Cinderella gave her a dark chuckle. Her hands rummaged through the stuffing, putting it back in place.

"My mom wasn't a child of Christ." Cinderella blurted, averting her eyes to go back to sewing. "She was, how do you call it… A heretic? That's why I know so much about your kind."

Another pause, only the sound of breathing to fill the large room.

"My father loved my mother, and so he didn't care. My stepmother is… Quite the Catholic. She sees me as a pagan child, too wild, too ready to contaminate her children. That's why I'm treated like this." Tears, crystalline and sad, fell from the girl's eyes as she sewed. "I bear the burdens of my mother. This is my destiny."

A little bit more and she could be - what was his name? Jesus?

"It can be changed." A shake of Cinderella's head - the girl, rail thin, malnourished, and yet still so beautiful under the ashes coating her skin - and she did not say anything anymore. Juno also did not speak, simply petting the girl's hair.

"There's going to be a ball." The younger sister said, one morning, as Cinderella brushed her hair. "Mother told us yesterday, and I'm sure Françoise will shove it in your face today."

"A ball sounds fun, Marguerite." Cinderella said, barely caring, and through the mirror Marguerite's blue eyes looked into Cinderella's brown ones.

"Don't you wish to go?"

Cinderella's brush stopped, for a mere moment, its work. A minimal shake of her head later, the girl spoke.

"No."

Juno snorted, and Cinderella glared at her for a moment. The younger sister seemed to not notice.

"It's - it's a ball where the king will chose prince Louis' bride, Élisabeth! Every girl in the kingdom has been invite, and that includes you, too!"

"With what clothes, Marguerite? With what shoes, with what jewelry? If stepmother saw me with anything nicer than a rag, she'd make sure to throw Françoise at me with a knife." She snorted, and the younger sister huffed. "Besides, it's not like the prince would ever chose someone like me. Come on, have you ever looked at me?"

The younger sister rose from her seat, and Cinderella jumped back.

"Sit down."

"You'll be late -"

"I'll just tell mother I asked for you to fetch some clothes from outside, it'll be fine." The girl interrupted her, waving Cinderella's concerns away. "Sit down, eyes closed."

Cinderella blinked, slowly blinking, and then nodding, obeying the command given, brush on the stand, almost hitting a bottle of perfume as she put it down.

The younger sister grabbed the rosewater bowl and stared at the linen cloth Cinderella had used to clean her face, finding a clean-ish spot to dip into the water, and slowly rub away the soot from Cinderella's face.

Then, with careful, nimble fingers, she brushed Cinderella's gray-blonde hair, until it shone and looked moderately glossy. She didn't pin it, or put it up, instead simply letting it lay flat against the girl's neck and back.

"Open your eyes." Cinderella obeyed, and stared at the girl in the mirror. "Okay, I know it's not much, but - but you're beautiful, Élisabeth. Don't sell yourself short."

"I'm still with nothing that would make him notice me." Juno waved at her, through the mirror, and Cinderella promptly ignored her. She rose from her seat, and the younger sister sighed. "Now, come on. Let me finish my job so I can get yelled at."

The younger sister sighed, but sat down, handing Cinderella the brush once more.

At the night of the ball, Cinderella helped the pair of sisters dress up to their most beautiful: she did their hairs in wonderful curls, make up in colors that complimented their faces, laced their corsets to give them a pitch-perfect hourglass shape.

She put on earrings and necklaces and stocking and shoes and did not complain once. She even helped the stepmother, going from room to room to room in one seamless, unstoppable voyage.

When the three related by blood women were in the living room, waiting for their carriage, they called for Cinderella. The older sister had just whispered something to the stepmother a moment ago, and Juno started wondering if she should follow them to the ball, just so she could undo the lacing on the older sister's dress at a critical moment.

"Yes, stepmother?" Cinderella asked, slinking into the room. Her face had rivulets of sweat amidst her soot-stricken face, and she seemed tired, ready to go to sleep. She was cleaning her hands on the dirty apron she wore.

"Say, Marguerite has a dress your size." She started, slow, and the younger sister looked at the stepmother, puzzled at the game being played. "Wouldn't you like to go?"

Cinderella rose an eyebrow.

"Dirty as I am?"

"You're right." The older sister laughed, smiling too cruelly. The younger sister seemed dejected, for a moment, and Cinderella looked down. "Mother, who would like to see a wench such as her there?"

"As always, Françoise, you're right. What was I thinking? After all, this pagan girl wouldn't be a good fit for the future king. Why, he might even kill us all if he sees you there." With a badly covered laughter, the stepmother rose, and Juno extended a hand, ready to tear her skirt. A glare from Cinderella stopped her, tears amidst her brown eyes. "Take care of our home, won't you?"

Cinderella did not answer; she nodded, looking down as the trio left, the younger sister offering her a worried glance before following along.

Juno had the decency to wait until the door closed firmly behind them before she spoke up.

"You know…"

She never finished her sentence; the girl spoke first.

"I've - I've worked so hard." Cinderella started, hands balled in fists, holding the dirty fabric of her apron. "I've never complained. I've done their hair. I sleep after them and wake before them. I do everything - everything! - in this damned house. I've never been allowed to mourn my father, because they refuse to tell me what I know to be the truth. And for what? Tell me, fairy godmother. For what?"

Juno didn't speak, simply floating to the girl, staring at her with kind eyes. Cinderella seemed to have a soliloquy to herself, and as such, it wasn't Juno's place to interfere; her task was to listen.

"All I wanted was a scrap of affection. An assurance that that witch hadn't married my father for his money. Marguerite is kind, but it's not enough. Cinderella, Cinderwench, both are the same thinly veiled insults, like it's my own fault I have to sleep by the fire to not freeze to death. My name… It's not my name. I am… I am my own self. I am not Cinderella."

She looked up, staring at Juno with fierce eyes, out of character for the morose girl Juno had come to known.

"I've got my wish, fairy godmother. Let me go to the ball. Let me outdo every single one of them there. Let me be the queen. Let them regret ever crossing me."

Juno smiled, seeing the chords of fate form in front of her. Yes, this girl would do great things.

With a snap of a few chords, she made the dirty dress become a beautiful dark blue satin gown, full white sleeves embroidered with gold thread, the corset embedded with so many diamonds that it would make her shine. With silver thread and opals, she created in the skirts a miniature ocean, waves moving with every step Cinderella would give. As for the shoes, from glass she molded them, a perfect fit only to Cinderella's feet.

Then, gloves, miniature diamonds on a beautiful constellation pattern against the blue of the fabric. From the face of the girl, she washed away the soot, makeup making Cinderella be a beauty from another world. As for the hair, a snap of her fingers washed and brushed it, curls piled up high, framing her pale face.

"As you wish." Juno said, a warm smile taking her face. Cinderella grabbed her skirts, going for the mirror on the hallway, and she seemed gobsmacked at her appearance, touching the cold looking glass with a gloved hand. "Say, why don't you bring me a few things?"

Cinderella agreed, and Juno, sitting lazily on the couch, smiled. This would be a fun wish.

As Juno watched the pumpkin-turned-carriage go away to the castle, she couldn't help but meddle with the threads of fate. Sure, by herself, Cinderella could probably get the prince in her hooks. But a night was a night only, and Juno had been around enough time to know it wasn't enough to change a heart's desire.

So she meddled. A twist here, a knot there, some snipping. She even brought out scissors to help, and sewed the threads she wanted to be realtogether.

When she finished, Juno stared at a job well done. Now the prince would look at her and fall in love, and the girl would have a better life; perhaps even better than one in the fairy world.

She cocked her head, looking at the clock: she had a few hours until midnight arrived, which was just enough time to go home for a while.

With a flick of her wings, she found herself in the palace Metilia reigned in, and a flock of children of all ages came to her, clamoring for lady Juno, hands holding her hands, her skirt, her arms.

Smiling affably at the children, she returned their affections, riding the wave as she found her way to the library, ever-expanding since Metilia learned the way to the human realm.

Now that she was more of a fairy than a human, it was safe for her to do so; for her siblings whose wings still hadn't dried yet, for whose biology hadn't changed and adapted, not so much. Metilia had been around the longest, so she could.

Metilia was sitting on one of the comfortable chairs by a window, the scenery of a beautiful sunny prairie offering her enough light to read. Her wings were carefully folded, and her eyes, still so brown and big, scanned the lines with a voracity she'd only seen in feasts.

"Metilia." She called, as the last of the children made their way outside the library walls, giving them some privacy. Metilia looked up, smiled as she bookmarked her book and set it aside, rising up and going to hug Juno at full speed, making the older fairy give a step back.

"Lady Juno, you're back! It's been a while. Did you find anything interesting while down there?" Metilia asked, smiling so brightly she could overpower her sun sister, letting go and stepping back after a moment. She gave Juno a little bow, but not with the same formality her self from before would have: loose, uncaring, but still respectful. Still as if Juno was some sort of goddess.

"Sort of, but we can talk about it later. Say, why don't you sit down? I have some time, and was wondering if perhaps you wouldn't like to drink with me." Juno guided the girl to her chair, a hand in her shoulder. It still felt warm, like human skin; perhaps a side effect of being a changeling, instead of a full-blood fairy. It helped she looked the same: Metilia still wore the same clothing style of when she was alive in Rome, and allowed the children she raised to wear the clothing from the eras they'd been taken from, too.

The wine appeared in glasses as they sat down, likely a little bit of magic from Metilia's side, and Juno drank it quietly as she collected her words, telling, in the meantime, the story of Cinderella.

"Do you regret coming here?" Juno asked, in the end, the wine already drained a long time ago. Metilia pondered the question for a few seconds, sloshing her wine in its glass, observing the circles it made.

The silence ate the time, but Juno did not press on. If Metilia wanted time to talk, then she received it.

"Honestly? No. I would've died a long time ago, and… I think I was always afraid to die. Metilia Primera was terrifying. She would've killed me, eventually, when I had displeased her further. Probably sooner, considering the whole situation with Lucius Claudius. Coming here was a good decision." She then paused, sloshed her wine around. The sky slowly changed colors. "But this girl, this Cinderella you speak of… If she wishes to brave politics - they can't have changed all that much since I've been alive, right? -, then that's on her."

Metilia took a swig of her wine.

"If she doesn't wish to come, then she doesn't have to. If you wish to hang around her, lady Juno, and give her some protection, that's your decision."

Juno smiled, rising slightly so she could mess up Metilia's prim and proper hair, taking a giggle out of the girl.

"When did you get so smart, Metilia?" She asked, the smile audible in her voice. Metilia's wings rose in happiness, trembling softly. They reminded her a little of the stained glasses of a church, casting colorful shadows on the floor.

"You flatter me too much, lady Juno. Now, don't you have a time limit to obey, too?" She asked, and Juno rose fully, extending her wings.

"Cinderella can do well on her own for a night, can't she?" She yawned, stretching for a brief moment. "Come on, show me how well the children are adapting. I don't think I've seen Vasilisa since I've brought her here, you know."

Metilia jumped to her feet, offering a small bow as she guided the two around.

When Juno arrived, the next morning, in Cinderella's house, the girl was awake and alone, the entire house asleep except for her. She was sitting still in front of the fire, hugging the glass slippers as if they owned her life, staring at them as if they could offer some sort of answer.

The rats Juno had magicked into humanity hung around her, sleeping in her pockets, huddled close together, as if friends.

"Nice night?" Juno asked, and the girl jumped, the rats screeching for a minute, until they realized it was Juno. "Aw, come on, what's with that reaction?"

"I was - I was deep in thought." She looked at the glass slippers. "And yes, I had a nice night. Louis and I danced the whole night, he didn't even pay attention to other people."

"Aw, already in a first name basis with the boy?" Juno sat down by her side, touching the girl carefully. She was still thin, underweight, and her hair was still the greasy mess of always - but yesterday, she had a taste of what it would've been like to grow up as yet another child of nobility. A taste of the fame, the power - the everything she did not have.

"Is it any of your business?" Cinderella was blushing, and she rose, careful to not dislodge the rats from their resting places. "But yes. He said I could call him by his name, we had a very nice chat, and when midnight almost struck I ran away."

She stammered, still holding the slippers close. The rats looked up, whiskering, and seeming distrustful of Juno. Well, no wonder they were: she did change their forms, elongated them and gave them a different purpose. They seemed to have liked Cinderella, at least.

Cinderella seemed like she was going to say something else, but instead, just hid the glass slippers in the woodpile, and started to go to work, carrying rats in her pockets and with the faint smell of citrus in her hair.

The day passed much like the one before: Cinderella woke her sisters up and helped dress them up for the ball, doing their hair and lacing their new dresses, even more beautiful than the ones from the day before.

"I hope that girl from yesterday isn't there." Sighed the older sister, as she fingered through her jewelry box, Cinderella doing her best to lace the dress. "She hogged the prince all night yesterday, even sat with him in the place of honor!"

"You're quite chatty with Cinderwench today, Françoise." The stepmother hummed, dressed already, as extravagant as if she had any chance of stealing the prince for herself.

"Of course I am! If I say one more word about this mysterious princess from yesterday, you threatened to sew my mouth shut! Anyway, as I was saying, we were all seething with rage, and thought that, when the girl suddenly left before midnight struck, we had a chance to impress the prince. Right?"

Cinderella nodded along, and Juno watched, sitting on the couch. The elder sister picked a gaudy piece of jewelry, earrings in citrine, and all but stabbed her ears to put it in.

"I swear, if she appears today, I'm dropping soup on her perfect dress." The elder sister huffed, and Cinderella nodded, distracted, only half her mind in the present.

"She was so kind to us yesterday, though." The younger sister said, and the elder glared at her. Both of them would look beautiful underneath candlelight. Juno made a mental note to do her best to overcome them. Perhaps white, today.

The elder sister huffed, but said nothing more. When the time came, Cinderella saw the three to the door, smiled and waved, and went directly to the woodpile. She grabbed the slippers, the rats already congregating near her, and looked at Juno.

Juno did not need to be told what to do: she snapped her fingers, gave her a most beautiful hairdo and makeup, and made the dress of a beautiful white silk, which in candlelight would reflect in all colors of rainbow, with pure gold jewelry to adorn her. No matter where she went, attentionwould be on her.

"But remember," Juno started, as she made the rats human once more, working as Cinderella put in the slippers. "Midnight."

"Midnight. I don't need more."

She did. Juno tutted at the girl when she arrived home, dress unmaking itself with every step she gave.

"You lost one of the shoes?" Juno asked, one eyebrow raised, and Cinderella looked at her feet. Her rat companions were scattered by, squeaking in anxious worry as she grabbed them and stuck them into her pockets.

Cinderella blushed.

"I, I may have wanted something so that he could remember me by." She fidgeted in place, changing the weight of her body from one clad feet to another unclad feet. Hilarious. "And besides, it's just a shoe, right?"

Juno gave the threads of fate a quick glance, satisfied to see her work holding up. The stitching she had done had melded together, transforming her work into reality.

Soon the prince would come knocking.

"Yes, just a shoe. Now go to bed, will you? You're going to have a long day ahead of you." Juno smiled; Cinderella looked at her, quizzically so, but obeyed.

In the air, she could already hear the whispers of the prince wishing to find Cinderella, and she smiled.