I Want the Good Times Back (OPEN)

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Yes this would do nicely.

She sat back in her newly leathered chair, a vast improvement from the horrid wooden one that had been there only seconds ago, and smiled. It was looking a lot more like the kind of place she could work in, that drab dreary room she had entered was beginning to fade from her memory and it was probably best if it did. The curtains changed from moth eaten woollen thing to a beautiful gauze of purple. The rickety table was instead a grand desk that had an elegant purple topping. There were, as she was want to have, many mirrors strategically placed around the room so that it looked larger and she could see her reflection at all times. She had also created a little sitting area should she ever need to have a chat with a student or other teacher and wanted to appear kindly and caring as opposed to the imposing woman she was behind the desk.

Eve stood up, her long purple gown falling down to her ankles and walked gracefully towards the window, pulling gauze back to look at the view below her. She could see the students lounging in the courtyard, heading towards their classes, chatting, arguing, all of them oblivious to the fact that they were being watched. Oh this would do very nicely.

Chuckling to herself she barely had time to register the knock, or of the door opening being her…

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Cinderella was a nice person, that was no secret at all, sometimes in fact she was probably too nice. That was why she was currently knocking on the door to her ethics teacher's office, to ask about something that was in the homework they'd gotten.
She was so nice that she often ended up disagreeing (politely, of course) about appropriate punishments to those people that had done wrong, since she preferred to think nicely about people, even people who'd made mistakes.
It wasn't that she couldn't be pushed - after all, she regularly scolded her stepmother's cat for being a mean old thing - it was just that she was sure there was a nicer way.

All that completely left her mind, of course, as soon as she stepped into the office and realised that not only had the room completely changed, the teacher had as well. Clearly they had got a new professor - that wasn't entirely strange around here, new people were coming and going all the time it seemed. No, the problem was who.
Talk about people who had done wrong.

"Stepmother!?" She gasped.

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Eve turned around ready to scold the impertinent child that had pulled her from her musings, when the familiar face through her off balance just for a second. It had changed a lot since she had last seen it but it was unmistakeable, you just couldn’t change certain features. Cinderella might have been able to change most of the outer packet but Eve knew, she could see through it. It wasn’t a bad job really, perhaps little cinders had been watching her a little more closely than she realised. The make up the clothes, yes this was a person that knew what they were doing. In short; Cinders was very convincing.

“My dear child,” she said with a smile that had no warmth to it, “how delightful it is to see you again, you haven’t changed at all.”

She had spent years with this awful child, she knew every button to press but she knew that one would hurt the most. The best kind of insult was the kind that the other person couldn’t be openly insulted about, because for all they knew it was merely a pleasant remark, a kindly word that they had taken the wrong way. You haven‘t changed at all…

She swept over to Cinders and placing her hands gently on her shoulders she kissed her on each cheek. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to see a familiar face, I thought I would be alone here in this place, with no companion to…help me,” she said and hugged the young woman, “now I see that the fates have sent me you.”

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Technically speaking, it was entirely true that Cinderella hadn't changed, apart from a few months of minimal growing up she really did look no different to how she had when she left her home. The only real difference was confidence.
Her family, of course, knew all about her, they knew how to be cruel, and her stepsisters were very often much more obvious about it than their mother. Here, nobody knew, and nobody guessed, and that had left her hoping that perhaps nobody ever would, that she was convincing enough, but that one tiny little sentence brought all that crashing down, all the old insecurities flooding back.

She barely moved when the older woman swooped down upon her, with her false niceties and kindly words, but she never stayed sad for long, so she pushed away that worry and sadness and forced herself to smile at her stepmother.

"How are you?" Was all she managed to say.

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“Oh I am getting by my dear getting by,” said Eve stepping away from her ex-step daughter, and walking abck to her chair behind her desk, motioning for Cinderella to sit, “to tell you the truth darling, I am lonely, have gone so long without the company of another person, without my daughters and my little…kitty…well…you know how loneliness is, you must experience it all the time.”

Pulling a pad of paper and a pen towards her she looked down at the desk and smile coldly. Oh this was too easy, Cinders had always been far too easy, at least some of the other had put up a bit of fight, but this one, Cinders had always done what Cinders was told.

“Now…was there something you wished to discuss about your class? Is there something that you aren’t quite understanding?” she said with fake concern, “I know you didn’t quite get the education my girls got, so its perfectly fine if you’re a little slow darling.”

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The very last thing Cinderella wanted to do was sit down and spend any more time in the woman's prescence, she wanted to run away, wanted to tell her that she couldn't tell her what to do here... but she could, because she was a teacher, and Cinderella respected authority and she just couldn't bear to be so rude as to leave.

So she took a seat and tried to maintain her smile and hope that maybe things would be different here, maybe her stepmother would be nicer to her, if she was lonely perhaps she just wanted a friend...

"Oh, no, I'm understanding everything fine, thank you," She said sweetly "I just came to ask about the homework the previous teacher assigned. Is that still due now that you're the teacher?"

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Eve was delighted to see how uncomfortable Cinders was staying and sitting down, sharing the same air as her. It was good to know that even after all these years being apart that she could still strike such fear into the little Cinders heart. Well maybe not fear but definitely a discomfort, which was most amusing. However, she was determined not to let her enjoyment at that show and instead smiled in a pleasant way before saying, “No. I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. I looked over the previous work and classes your teacher has been conducting in the past and…I cant say that he has been doing a particularly good job.”

She pulled one of the files towards her and opened it on the desk, “This class here for example, on gender equality. I find his teachings on that…most intriguing. Wouldn’t you say? Intriguing and wrong in my opinion. You do agree, don’t you Cinders?”

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Eve seemed to be trying so hard to be nice, from Cinderella's perspective, and she felt bad that she disagreed with her - after all, she'd quite liked her previous teacher, despite some of their differing views on punishment, and the class Eve mentioned now had been one that she particularly enjoyed. She'd found it interesting, and refreshing.

She didn't want to say all that though, because if Eve was going to try and get along, Cinderella felt just terrible at the thought of rejecting that, or doing anything that might upset her stepmother, so she stayed silent for a moment while she composed an appropriate response that didn't involve lying, which was bad, or being mean about her previous teacher, which was even worse.

"I found them very... interesting, I suppose I never really thought about whether they were right or wrong..." Which was sort of true, because she hadn't thought about it, she'd just agreed with it.

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“Oh my dear, I suppose you are right,” she said, smiling and reaching out to caress Cinder’s cheek, “women are not really expected to have thoughts on these matters, but that doesn’t mean that you cant.”

Oh the wonder of double meaning. Under ever statement lay another land mine, and she was just waiting for the moment when Cinders would step on one. Another jibe, another hit that may just pass unnoticed depending on how the dumb little servant translated it. Her meaning could have been one of empowerment, that she as a woman may not be expected to have thoughts but that didn’t mean they couldn’t. Or the stress of her words could have meant something else entirely.

She couldn’t really care less about equality. It was something a woman achieved on her own, and really, most of the time it was better for men to think they ruled the roost, it was so much easier to control them when they thought they were in charge…or when they were dead, that was even easier.

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Cinderella caught the emphasis on the word 'you' and her cheeks burned with embarrassment, understanding what her stepmother was getting at. She daren't say anything, the woman seemed to be trying so hard to be nice, and perhaps she'd got it wrong... Cinders was very good at second-guessing herself in order to avoid conflict, and she always tried to be pleasant to her stepmother and do as she was told.

"I...I should let you get on with what you were doing before I interrupted, I wouldn't want to get in your way..." she tried, feeling too overwhelmed by the whole thing and just wanting to escape so she could work out what her stepmother being here really meant for her.

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“Oh Cinders,” she said and laughed a little without any humour in it, “even when you weren’t trying my dear, you were always in my way, just a little bit. But that’s all behind us now, we have both moved on and we can both start fresh.”

She patted Cinders hand before looking down at her work once more. “It is a delight to see you again my dear, we must catch up soon. Perhaps we could take a little shopping trip together, I see that you are in desperate need of some advice when it comes to the female wardrobe,” she said turning to look over Cinders clothes, “you haven’t quite mastered it yet have you?”