Cinderella (Canon Tale)

Cinderella is a European folktale with many variations across the continent, though the German and French versions are the most well known. The most famous retelling of the fairy tale was Cendrillon by Charles Perrault which introduced many of the concepts inherent to the Disney cartoon and live action film. The moral of the story is that beauty is a gift but that graciousness of spirit is a treasure to be cherished and fostered even amidst suffering.
Once Upon a Nightmare's adaption maintains many of the traditional elements, but with a typically darker twist. In our Cinderella, the ball is being held to find virginal young women to serve as sacrifice to maintain the protective barrier over the kingdom; the Fairy Godmother is in service the Queen who is doing the sacrificing; and the handsome prince is the illegitimate, half-dragon, demigod son of the Queen and her adviser.
== Canon Tale ==
Xehacora was shielded from the blight which threatened all of Ga’leah by the impressive powers of its queen, Maleficent. But those powers came at great cost… and terrible things needed to be done to reinforce the barriers that keep the darkness at bay. Rumors had spread through the kingdom that human sacrifice was what fed the barrier, but fear of the blight made most turn a blind eye to the murders being committed by their own queen.
No young woman was safe, but they were finding it more and more difficult to obtain young women that would not be missed. So, the Queen sent invitations to the daughters of peasants and merchants all over Xehacora inviting them to a ball in honor of her eldest son’s birthday. Many assumed that he would be choosing a wife. None expected Queen Maleficent to be making a list of potential sacrifices.
Cinderella understood oppression better than most and longed for a way out of her domestic situation. She saw the invitation as just such an opportunity, so with the help of a benevolent ‘fairy godmother’ on Maleficent's payroll, she hoped to realize that chance. But winning the Prince’s heart is more important than even she could guess, because only he could convince his mother not to claim a potential sacrifice and silence her family for all time… 
== Canon Characters ==
* Cinderella - A short one sentence description. 
* Xehacoran Prince (Jalan Marillac) - Eldest son of Queen Maleficent and her adviser Corvus Dagonite. Half dragon demigod. 
* Stepmother - A power hungry woman who killed her first husband and later married Cinderella's father to further increase her status. 
* Stepsister 1 - The older of the twins that make up Cinderella's stepsisters, she was sent to Dokrayth for marriage before the Walking Starvation hit. 
* Stepsister 2 (Katherine Tremaine) - The younger and more subtle of the twins that make up Cinderella's stepsisters, she is left alone with her mother since her twin and Cinderella left. 
* Maleficent - The former goddess of Mercy, de-powered by the Pantheon, now bearing the powers of Vengeance she has become the Queen of Xehacora and must sacrifice chaste young women to power the magical barrier that keeps the Blight out of Xehacora.
== Original Characters ==
* Corvus Dagonite - The former Shepherd of Fire and god of vengeance, he gave his powers to Maleficent to use in her own search for revenge and later became her lover long enough to father the eldest prince and heir of Xehacora.
== Plotlines ==
Cinderella is a Canon Tale ripe for exploration and interpretation. Many of the aspects of its plot line have yet to be hashed out and many of its characters are available to those who wish to make this tale their own.
* Katherine Tremaine and her twin sister were separated shortly before the Walking Starvation came to Ga'leah. The older of the sisters was sent to Dokrayth to wed a man she'd never met. Her fate is unknown to her sister, Katherine.
* bullet lotlines inherent to only a few characters, plotlines for the whole tale should be in paragraph form above
== Related Stories ==
* Sleeping Beauty - The Queen of Xehacora, Maleficent, is the same 'faery' who placed a sleeping curse upon the Princess Aurora nearly 100 years ago.
* Rapunzel - This Xehacoran Prince is the older brother of the Xehacoran Prince who finds Rapunzel.
* Frog Prince - This Xehacoran Princes is the older brother of the Xehacoran Prince who finds himself transformed into a frog.
* The Pantheon - The Pantheon voted to remove Maleficent's godhood when she overstepped her bounds as goddess of Mercy. Dagonite was also a member of the Pantheon at one time before giving his powers to Maleficent.