The slipper wasn't mine. Act 1, The transformation.
You think you know this story? The last slipper.
Sad girl. Fairy Sparkles.
Yeah. Yeah, we all heard that one.
But what if I told you the slipper wasn't mine?
I mean, duh. But maybe the story never really
belonged to her either. Because tonight, everything
changed. I wasn't supposed to be real.
I was a mouse, literally. And this, this is what actually
happened. We lived in the walls.
Warm corners, broken beams, just enough space to stay small.
Ella made it feel big. She fed us crumbs, whispered
stories when no one else was listening.
She gave us names. She called me Mika.
She was what kindness looked like when it cracked, but still
holding on. We helped her in our own way.
Tangled Lisa's twisted corsets, swapping sugar with salt when
the sisters weren't looking. Finn, my friend said I was
pushing it. Finn's the quiet and cautious
type. Thread counting rule following,
Safety first, Finn said. Mika, don't get too close to the
story. It chews up little things like
us. But I didn't want crumbs from
the edge. I wanted to hold damn Feast.
The birds adored her. They swooped in like royalty.
I kept my distance. Too flappy, too beaky.
Me. I preferred fabric, old velvet,
loose threads, ribbon ends I made.
Thanks. Tiny closes, mismatched outfits.
One day she saw me stitching A sash out of curtain fringe.
She knelts down, didn't scream, didn't flinch.
She just smiled. You've got good taste.
And I've been chasing that smile ever since.
You may go to the ball if you finish your chores and find
something suitable to wear. We all got to work.
Thin rent, thread lines like a general, The birds drop jewels
they borrowed. I climbed up to the attic and
found it. A curtain, deep blue, soft as
sorrow, still holding some months forgotten dream.
I cut it, measured it, turned it into a sash and wrapped it
around LS waist like a promise. She turned in the mirror.
The dress swayed was her breath, her eyes wide like she was
seeing herself for the first time.
It's beautiful. No, it's you.
Finally, she spun. We danced around her, mice,
birds, everyone, and for a moment we believed.
They came in like a storm. The sisters, the stepmother.
We tore the dress, tore her hope, poured ashes on her like a
shame 1 of guts stabbed on. I didn't move, just watched her
crumble. She didn't cry, didn't yell.
She just stood covered in ruin and walked to the tree.
She always went there when her heart broke.
The other said don't follow but I did and that's when I saw her.
Not Ella, her, the fairy godmother only not sweet and not
soft. She was made of Starlight and
warning. Her eyes looked at me like
they'd seen 1000 endings and still believed in beginnings.
She raised her hand and I burned.
I had a body, arms, legs, skin and jawline.
I have thighs, I have elbows, I have cheekbones.
She let me go with a look but before I could run.
When the clock strikes 12, you return not as a boy, but as what
you are. We took Ella to the ball.
That was supposed to be it. But once I saw that ballroom,
the gold, the candles, the sound of dreams rustling on their
silk, I couldn't stay outside. I slipped in.
I didn't know how to dance, so I didn't.
I moved like someone who forgot he wasn't invited, and then I
tripped into the step. Sister.
She was shocked, of course, but someone caught me.
Him ice like midnight storms. His hand on my waist, his breath
held, my breath stolen. He looked at me like he wasn't
supposed to, and I looked back like I didn't care, because I
didn't, not in that moment. Then I saw her, Ella, standing
at the edge of the crowd, half in the dark, watching.
And I remembered the godmother's voice.
Midnight. I let go of him, step aside.
He hesitated, then turned, walked to her, offered his hand.
She blinked like she didn't believe it, then took it.
They began to dance, but every time he turned, he looked back
at me. My chest ached, my fingers
flickered. Not just my body, my hope.
When the clock strike Minnie, she spawned too fast.
The slipper slipped off. It hit the marble stairs with a
sound that froze the world, and turned back one more time and I
knew he remembered me. And then it was over.
She stood on the stairs, 1 shoe gone.
He started at the spot I had just been, and I I was mice
again. The slipper wasn't mine, but
maybe the story always was. The slipper wasn't mine.
Chapter 2 The tree still stands. When the magic broke, I didn't
fall. I folded neatly, quietly, the
way paper faults around something it was never meant to
hold. No one saw me vanish.
It just disappeared back into myself, back into something
smaller. The velvet was still clutched in
my pause, a scrap from the sash. It's on for Ella.
I remember the way it looked in the moonlight when she wore it,
the way she toured, the way I thought we made something real,
but now it was just fabric. I didn't move for hours.
The hearth was cold and empty, the shadows didn't even shift.
Maybe time stopped with me. Finn found me eventually.
He always does. That's his magic.
He didn't ask what happened. He didn't say anything at all,
just sat beside me in the ashes and waited.
Later, he tried to joke. I had been something beautiful,
and then it was gone. I don't know what made me go
back to the tree. Maybe was because no one stopped
to me. The moon was high and cold above
the orchard. The pass to the tree felt longer
than before, like it knew what I've done.
I walked slowly, and when I reached the tree I didn't stand
tall. I didn't call out, I knelt and I
whispered. I wasn't trying to steal
anything I said, I just wanted to feel real.
I don't know if I expected an answer, but I was too tired to
pretend I didn't want one. Then when she appeared, no, not
the godmother, no lightning, no Granger, just shimmer a flicker
of Starlight in the far form a mouse not much bigger than me,
with a velvet ribbon for a Cape and a earring made from broken
beads. She didn't announce herself.
You're waiting for her. Her voice came tiny, dry, full
of dust and secrets. She doesn't come for repeat
customers. I stared.
The one whisted dress, the drama, the want.
The mouse wave, The paw. Too busy granting your stories?
You. You're in the rewrite face.
That's when I realized this wasn't the fairy cod mother.
This was someone smaller, older, maybe wiser.
Who are you? I asked.
Fairy got mouse. She said like it was obvious.
Or Sparkle if you insist on nicknames.
I blinked. She tilted her head.
You wanted to be human, but you never loved the mouse first.
I don't know what to say to that.
My tongue felt too thick, my chest too hollow.
I thought I had made peace with who I was, but maybe, maybe I
only ever dreamed of being something else.
I felt big, I said finally. But it doesn't count if you only
believe it when someone else is holding your hand.
I looked away. You have to be your own magic
first. She added.
Then she smiled. It wasn't sweet, but it was
real. Next time you ask to be
transformed. She said.
Make sure you know who you're becoming.
She vanished before I could respond in a swore of dandelion
fluff and dust, but I heard her voice echo just once more.
Borrowed time only feels real when you forget it's borrowed.
I walked back slower, my paws dragging back home.
Finn didn't ask where I'd been, but he saw something had
shifted. He handed me half a walnut.
I nodded in thanks. We sat in silence.
Then a shadow dropped across our window sill.
A bird out of breath, covered in crumbs.
The Prince. It chirped.
He's. Looking for the girl, the one
with the glass slipper. I froze, my mind fleshed to the
dense the step, the way the Prince had looked at me, then
her, then back at me again. Finn groaned.
Not again. I stood up.
We have to help. Finn tilted his head.
Help who? Help him, He's looking in the
wrong direction. He's chasing a symbol, not a
person. We're small.
I said we can't hide, we can't sneak.
We can reach him. Finn groaned again.
Why is it always me doing this sneaking?
But he followed. He always does.
The journey was ridiculous. We hitched the right, dodged
wheels, climbed up curtain, nearly drowned in a paddle of
spilled wine, and then we made it the palace.
We crept into the ballroom, and there he was, the Prince, alone,
seated on the ballroom, steps 1, slipper in his lap, his face
turned toward the moonlight, still dressed in royal blue,
like heaths deflated under the weed of the crown.
I climbed to the table near him, found a parchment, an inkwell.
My paws trembled. Finn climbed onto my shoulder,
whispered. Are you sure?
I nodded. I dipped the quill and began to
write. Her name is Ice glowing.
The castle cat. I froze.
Don't move, I whispered to Fin to myself.
His claws were up, one paw already mid swing, ice narrowed,
backed legs coiled. Every instinct in his body set
pounce. And I thought, so this is it.
No fairy tale ending, no second chance.
Just teeth, just fur. Just the blur of clothes and a
note I didn't even get to finish.
Finn curled against my side, Eyes shot.
And then everything stopped. The cat lifted, not by wings,
not by magic, but by hands. Human hands.
Strong, gentle, unexpected. The Prince.
The cat hissed, but the Prince did a flinch.
He just held it, held him, held time, and then he looked down,
right at us, right at me. Not at the note, not at the ink,
at me. His gaze didn't say What are
you? It said I've seen you before.
I didn't breathe. I didn't move.
Neither did Finn. You are two mice caught on the
edge of a page in a story that wasn't ours anymore.
His eyes flicked to the paper, the half written sentence her
name is. And then back to me.
Not confused, not angry, just watching.
And something in his face softened, a corner of memory
bent and folded. Like maybe he couldn't place me,
but he felt to me like I was music he couldn't name but
couldn't stop humming. Then Finn squeaked.
We ran down the table, leg over the velvet, close behind the
silver plate. The whole ballroom blurred past.
I didn't dare look back, not until we were halfway down the
corridor and Finn had stopped breathing like a deflated
bellows. I turned just once, and I saw
him still standing by the table, still holding the cat, still
looking our way. He didn't call out, he didn't
chase, but he didn't look away either.
That's when I knew he remembered something.
Not my face, not my name, but the way it felt when our hands
touched the weed of a glance, the pit of a dance we never got
to finish. We slipped into the walls and
didn't stop until we reached the attic, collapsed in a drawer of
fabric. Scrap sends thread.
Finn didn't say anything, Neither did I.
The slipper wasn't mine. Act 3A.
Glass Slipper. A hidden truce.
The castle had dispatched guards, messengers and the
velvet lined bots holding a single glass slipper like it was
an ancient relic instead of something someone had literally
run out of. At first we thought maybe he
wouldn't go through with it. Maybe the Prince would remember
the feeling, not just the moment, and followed the threat
back to me. But hope is slippery, and the
slipper wasn't mine. Everywhere girls were lined up
like laundry, blushing, preening, some pretending their
foot was smaller than it was, others just hoping he'd look at
them first so they could pretend it had been a fate.
We watch from the rafters as the slipper was slipped onto ankle
after ankle and was each not quite fit.
I watched the prince's shoulder curl inward, like the search
wasn't bringing him closer to something but hollowing him out
from the inside. He didn't speak much, only once
when a girl toe barely brushed the heel off the shoe.
He murmured. Not quite.
It wasn't cruel, it was wistful, like someone humming a song with
the wrong words. Thin and I had no plan, just
instinct. We had to get back to Ella
before they got it wrong forever.
The stepsisters went feral. Ankles wrapped corsets tighter.
One tried soaking her foot in milk and honey, claiming it made
the skin compliant. Another stump ice cubes between
her toes for slimming. Both screamed.
Ella stayed silent. She watched them whirl around
like bees in perfume. Didn't speak, didn't move,
didn't even check if the slipper would fit her.
When we arrived, the stepsisters were already elbowing their way
to the front. The older one tried first.
She twisted her foot sideways, gritting her teeth until her
face matched the shade of her gown.
The younger one, Shoppera sighed, tried stuffing cotton at
the tip of the slipper, but the shoe refused them both.
It just sat there, patient, indifferent.
Like it already knew it was waiting for someone else.
The Prince turned 1 foot on the step.
One breath from leaving and then chaos bursts erupted from the
roof beams. Ella, you have to meet Ella.
She's here. They spiraled above the guards,
and below them the mice moved. Some dashed straight for the
fireplace, where Ella still sat, knees drawn to her chest,
watching the room unravel with a kind of tired grace.
But not me, not Finn. We went the other way, straight
for the Prince, and then I grabbed the hem of his coat,
pulled. He stopped.
Finn scrambled out the other side and tout twice.
Hey, your Highness. He squeaked.
You're about to miss the point. The Prince looked down, not
confused, not scared, just still, like the moment was
holding its breath. Ben.
Across the room, Ella stood barefoot, bun flinching, quiet
in the way that makes people lean forward.
She didn't make a speech. She didn't plead.
The Prince turned. Not because of the birds, not
because of the mice. Because something shifted into
Rome. The kind of stillness that falls
just before magic speaks. She walked forward like the
slipper was calling her, like maybe it had always been hers.
The slipper was still cradle in a guard's gloved hands.
He looked at the Prince. The Prince nodded, and Ella
slipped her foot inside. Slipped on was the sound of
truth. It didn't sparkle, It didn't
sing. It justified.
The room sighed. Someone clapped, the stepsisters
fainted in opposite directions, and I, I stepped back into the
shadows, filling a story close like a book not written for me.
But then the Prince looked up, past to cheers, past to fuss,
and for the second time he saw me.
Not as a mouse, not as a mistake, but as someone who had
been there, who had mattered. His gaze didn't linger, but it
landed. And then he stepped down besides
Ella. The crowd pressed in, but he
only saw her. Her name?
He asked, turning to a guard. The man stammered.
Ella blinked, then smiled shyly. It's Ella.
She said softly, a hush, then cheers again.
Louder now. Wilder the slipper had found its
story, but the Prince still looked at her like something
didn't quite click. He kneels and gently reaches
out. He lifts me first.
In his hands, warmths care all. Then, instead of a cage or a
pocket, he opens the veil. That line box that had carried
the gloss slipper inside a soft corner weights.
He places us there like we are part of the fairy tale.
We rolled back together. The carriage rocks gently as a
nearest palace. Finn and I hartled in the
crystal box like stowaways. Nobody questioned it.
Not the guards, not Ella, not even the Prince.
You left a note. The Prince voice was low, like
he was asking the knight, not her.
Bella tilted her head. A note.
Someone did. He said.
Was it him, the men you came with?
Your horseman. Ella blinked, looked down right
at me, and then at Finn. Her smile softened.
I didn't leave a note. She said gently.
The Prince nodded once, but he didn't say anything else.
He just looked at me, not startled, not unsure, just
steady. Then reached into his coat,
pulled out a crumbled scrap of parchment, the one I tried to
finish, folded it once, twice, and slid it gently into the box
beside us. That night the palace shimmered
like a dream. We weren't meant to stay in gold
railings, marble floors, candlelight that dance until
morning. Their servants has brought out
tiny crumbs. Just Ross soft cake, blazed
nuts, sugar, fruit no bigger than my paw.
Then set on the folded napkin besides the velvet box, ice wide
cheeks. Stuff like he was saving Joy for
later. I didn't even know food could
taste like this. He was happy.
He had never tasted anything that didn't come from a pantry
floor or torn paperback, and now he was in heaven.
I smiled, but it didn't reach my chest, because even in the glow
of chandeliers I felt a tongue, a whisper of something
unfinished. So I slipped away, climbed onto
the window sill and looked out. The town glowed in the distance,
tiny rooftops, chimney smoke curling like questions.
I don't know how long I sat there, but Finn found me
eventually. I didn't turn to him, just
whispered. We don't belong here.
He didn't answer right away. But they like us here.
He said. I nodded.
But that's not the same. He crept closer, licking one
last bite of icing from his paw. We helped her, didn't we?
We did, I said. So what now?
I smiled. We go home, we tell the others
we find a way to turn the attic into a ballroom just for us.
Finn blinked. Even without magic.
Especially without magic. He looked at me for a long time,
then nodded. OK.
He said. Let's go.
And for the first time, I didn't ache at the sound.
We were home. The attic was dusty on Ken,
quiet again, just the way we left it.
I sat by the window. The palace belonged to Ella now,
and we we belong to the part of the story people didn't
remember, and that was OK. It was evening when we heard it.
A carriage stopping outside our very house, thin, bolted
upright. Is that?
I didn't move. Outside, the town was still
holding its breath, waiting for an announcement, a wedding, a
new queen. But none had come.
Inside the carriage, the Prince leaned forward and whispered.
The boy, the one she ran with, the one who left a note.
I want to see him. He didn't say my name, but I
knew he remembered. A shimmer crossed the window.
Spin, then a voice. You didn't go to the tree.
Fairy God Mouse said, hopping onto the cracked window sill
beside me. Didn't need to.
Came the godmother's voice. He found his story without it.
They looked at each other, then at me.
A wink, a hum, a pulse of something old.
The attic glowed, My skin prickled, my breasts cocked.
And then I stood. Not as a mouse, not as a
mistake, not for one night only, but as human.
Me. The door opened.
The Prince stepped inside. He didn't look surprised.
He smiled like he'd been walking toward this moment the whole
time. I was looking for you.
He said. And then he kissed me.
Soft, certain, like maybe this was the ending, or at the
beginning the slipper had always been pointing toward The Prince
made the announcement the very next morning.
No trumpets, just true. I dance with a girl that night.
He said. But I fell for someone else.
Gasp rippled across the courtyard, not in scandal, but
in wonder. His name is Mika.
The Prince continue. And we are getting married.
Some stared, some smiled, some clutched their pearls a little
tighter, but no one stopped it because something in his voice
made it impossible to argue. They called it the first fairy
tale, waiting off its kind. Not because it was 2 Princess,
but because he was built on honesty, on choice, on someone
not written in the story being chosen anyway.
Ella, she didn't mind, not even a little.
The palace gave her her own wing full of books, blue dresses.
She laughed more now. And Finn, Well, Finn stayed a
mouse. He had no desire to be anything
else. He lived in the royal pantry
with full diplomatic immunity and the twice weekly delivery of
fresh scones. And As for me, I ruled not from
a throne, but besides someone who never forgot to feel off my
hand. We ruled with kindness, with
laughter, with no more hiding in rafters.
And if you ever ask how our story ends, it doesn't.
Not really. Because some fairy tales don't
close with a kiss. They open with one and live
happily ever after. If you stayed until the very
end, thank you not just for listening, but for holding space
for a mouse who has never meant to matter.
If this story made you smile or ache a little, or feel like
maybe the smallest heart still deserve the biggest magic, then
maybe it was always yours too. Feel free to like, subscribe or
leave a note. And if there are other stories
you want whispered your way, we are ones.
Quiet ones, almost forgotten ones.
You know where to find me. This has been the slipper,
wasn't mine. Until next time.