Cinder X Bella ~ Twenty-Four!

“Can't steal what's already yours! My mice, I’ll need your help with this quest. It's not about being the best dressed; it’s about being able to rest.” Bella softly sang her song, repeating it over and over as she clearly visualized what needed to happen.

She knew the mice had a deeply ingrained knowledge of the intricate pathways through the house and had been trained for a full generation at this point on remaining hidden while carrying out tasks of both reconnaissance and sabotage. But tonight, they were going to fulfill one of her original goals: getting into the study and taking something Matringa was hiding from her. 

In her mind, Bella laid out the plan, singing her intentions into the minds of the creatures around her. Over and over she repeated her song, only drifting into silence as the last of the small animals vanished into tiny holes in the ceiling. “Can't steal what's already yours…”

Then she let out a deep sigh, carefully sitting on the bed and settling in to wait. At this point, there was nothing to be done, nothing except hoping everything would turn out as she’d envisioned. Right now, she was trapped in the dark, both figuratively and mostly literally. Between the extreme flammability of all of her decorations and her stepmother refusing to allow Bella to take an ‘expensive’ covered lamp to her room, as night settled in, the only illumination in the cellar was a soft glow sneaking between the slats of wood above her. 

Minutes stretched to an hour, and she had long since began pacing around her room from sheer nervousness. Every sound felt amplified: footsteps on distant floors felt like drums being pounded. The soft rustle of woven straw under her feet was comparable to crunching through leaves in autumn. What she didn't hear was tiny claws scraping on wood or the soft sigh of fabric snaking through tunnels in the walls. 

Finally, there was a muted *squeak* from one of her mice, the signal she had taught them when they needed to make sure the coast was clear. “Yes! Come in, come in!”

One by one, the mice appeared out of the shadows for only a moment at a time as they darted through the lines of light drawn on the floor. Her heart leapt at the sight of them, relief washing over her as she counted each tiny little head. “Are you all safe? That took far longer than I expected… I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have sent you on such a selfish mission.”

Mert Junior came to the front of the group, but as he got on his hind legs, he stared at the floor instead of meeting her eyes proudly as per usual. Bella's lips pressed into a line as she saw his dejected posture and crouched down to offer a hand to him. “You didn't find it? Or you couldn't bring it back? That's okay, don't worry about it.”

*Sq… squeak.* The leader of the mice shook his head, followed by what Bella could have sworn was a sigh, before he looked back and motioned with his paws.

A carpet of mice surged forward, and Bella's eyes widened in delight as she saw the fabric she’d been gifted appear. They went even wider when she saw that each mouse was carrying cloth, but none of it was connected. The sparkling blue fabric was in tatters, shredded into strips and patches without the help of scissors or a sharp knife. Bella's hands trembled as she picked up a piece, holding it in the light to see the damage that had been done.

Tears stung her eyes as she looked at the gift that had been stolen from her, and her heart ached as she realized that Matringa hadn't destroyed the fabric for any purpose but spite. Her stepmother knew exactly how much the fabric had meant to Bella, and instead of making something beautiful with it, even if it was for someone else, she had done her best to outright destroy it. “Why would she do something like this? Why would she save it? Was she going to show it to me in a moment where she needed to cause me grief?”

To her surprise, as she collected more and more of the scraps, Bella realized the majority of them were covered in a thin layer of soot. She wasn't sure what to make of this, until finally something clicked in her head, and she turned to look at Mert Junior. “Did you pull this out of the fireplace? She tried to burn it?”

*Squeak.* Mert nodded solemnly.

“It wouldn't burn…?” Bella turned the fabric over and over in her hand, trying to figure out what that meant. “Maybe… when I saw it for the first time, it glowed for me. Maybe that wasn't just my excitement; maybe it’s actually magical cloth. Bibbidy has never been one to take half measures with things, and if she has access to magical goods, some of her business practices would make more sense.” 

Turning her attention to the mice, who’d all been waiting silently, sadly, she put a smile on her face and looked around at all of them. “Thank you all so much for working on this, and… who knows? If this was magical cloth, maybe there's something else special about it. Maybe we can salvage something from this mess? At the very least, we'll keep it around to patch up my dresses when they get damaged. Would you all do me another favor and hide this in the walls for me?”

*Squeak.* Without another word, the mice rushed forward, swirling around her and lavishing her with hundreds of tiny hugs. Then, one by one, they accepted a scrap and ran it up into the ceiling and from there into their hidden places in the walls. 

Bella dropped heavily onto her bed, utterly spent from the bitter emotions she was feeling. Throwing an arm over her eyes, she took a long inhale, slowly letting it out and trying to bleed off her anger at the same time. “Well, at least they couldn't use it, and if Matringa was trying to burn it, there shouldn't be any reason for her to notice it’s gone.”

As she lay there, the almost-adult woman slowly drifted off to sleep, and the night slipped by.

*Wham.*

The sound of her door being thrown open hard enough to bounce off the stone foundation startled Bella out of her sleep, and the intense light of the lantern caused her eyes to water. Not knowing what was happening, she scrambled away from the intrusion, freezing in place as Matringa’s voice rang out with frigid malice. 

“Where is it?” 

Still half asleep, though her adrenaline was surging, Bella looked around the room frantically. “W-what? Where is what?”

“You know what is missing!” Matringa hissed at her. “That cursed cloth vanished overnight, and the only person who would want to have anything to do with it is you.”

“Cursed?” Luckily, Bella fixated on that word instead of showing any guilt to indicate she knew what Matringa was talking about. “Something cursed was in the house?”

Matringa went silent for a long moment, the lantern highlighting her face in an unflattering way as she stared at her stepdaughter. Enough time passed that Bella was able to gather her wits about her, and she stood up straight and met the eyes of her father's wife. Both of them knew there was something dark and cursed indeed going on, but Bella couldn't accuse her, and Matringa would never admit it.

Instead, she stepped forward and slowly swung the lantern to the side, looking for any hint of blue in the room. “Yes, cursed. I don't know why she did it, perhaps out of jealousy of your father reaching Perfection in his Merchant Class skills, but the woman you had thought of as a friend, Bibbidy, put a nasty curse on the cloth she brought for the household.” 

“For me,” Bella growled before she could stop herself. 

Matringa paused for a moment, her eyes darting back to lock on her stepdaughter. “Yes, for you. How lucky for you, after it was made into a dress and worn by Malvagio, its dark magic was activated and affected her instead of you. The first time she tried it on, the threads of the cloth dug into her skin, causing a painful, itching welt to appear. Over the course of the night, it spread as a rash until almost every inch of her skin was affected.”

Bella blinked at that information, her mind flashing back to the night of Rosa’s party, when Malvagio had been scratching at herself. Matringa continued her tirade, slowly advancing on Bella as her voice became more and more heated. 

“We had to tear the dress off of her, cutting it off in some places where it had dug into her skin. Even then, it continued to try and come after her, and we needed to absolutely shred it before it stopped. Then, we tried to burn the material, only to find that it wouldn't hold any heat. So, yes, it was meant for you. The cloth, the curse, and the suffering it caused. You are welcome. I'm sure you'll be pleased that my daughter suffered instead of you, the intended target.”

“She would never try to hurt me,” Bella managed to squeak out as she looked up at her stepmother looming just in front of her. “Something else had to be going on.”

Matringa scoffed and stepped back, though her line of vision was still darting all over Bella’s dress, hovering on her pockets. After a moment of hesitation, she turned and started walking around the room, continuing to look for any patch of blue. After a few minutes where Bella's dread mounted, she finally gave up and instead looked at the surroundings and decorations.

“Oh me, oh my.” She bent down and ran a finger over the woven straw mat that covered the floor. “You have been bored, haven't you? What an industrious little thing you are, child. All made out of straw? Rumple would have a fit of glee if he saw this…” 

The last line had been spoken so softly that Bella almost missed it, but she made sure to burn the name Matringa had spoken into her brain. The stepmother hesitated as she looked around the room a few more times before finally scoffing and walking toward the stairs out of the cellar. “If I find you had anything to do with that fiasco, or are hiding the material for some reason…”

Her voice trailed off as she climbed the steps, leaving the rest of her threat unspoken. Bella stayed where she was until the oversized, horizontal cellar doors slammed closed, only then did she allow herself a quiet moment of relief. “Thank the system I've always had the foresight to have my creatures hide everything for me. If she asked me where it was, I could’ve honestly said I have no idea.”

It was morning already, but only by the technical definition. Still, there was no way Bella was going to be going back to sleep, so she changed and got ready for the day. Leaving her room, she went up into the main house, finding it dark and nearly as cold as her underground room. Though she walked around the servants’ area, the only people she found were the three silent maids.

“Looks like the cook and newer staff were already fired. Did she throw them out just before bedtime?” Bella shook her head at the absolutely shocking behavior Father's wife would exhibit whenever he wasn't home. Since the rest of the house was so quiet, she also moved around stealthily, trying not to wake anyone.

Gathering an armful of wood, she went to the main floor and began stacking it in the hearth. Just before she reached for the tinder, she froze in place as she heard Matringa’s voice floating down the chimney from where it connected to the study. 

“No… it’s just gone.” Matringa gnashed her teeth loudly enough for the *click* to be heard. “There was no sign of it in her room, and she gave away no hint that she knew what had happened to it.”

A few moments of silence passed, then the stepmother spoke again as if responding to someone who’d been speaking quietly. “I suppose that is possible… but if the magic had faded enough for it to finally catch on fire, why wouldn't it have done that the first few days? Yes, I understand what ‘fading’ means. I agree, it couldn’t have been her, but… no, you don’t need to-”

At that point, Matringa must have moved away from the fireplace in the study, since the conversation became too distant for Bella to hear.

In the next moment, the Beast Singer’s arm flared with a gentle golden light.