First Lesson

[katleept]

Title: First Lesson
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Disney Princesses, including Cinderella, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Little Mermaid, and a mention of The Princess and the Frog
Characters/Pairing: Mainly Cinderella, Aladdin/Jasmine, and an OFC, but also featuring Beast/Belle, Charming/Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, and Esmerelda
Rating: PG-13/T (but that part's in Spanish); otherwise, PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: To write a children's story for womenverse
Word Count: 2,023
Warnings: Crossover, AU, Future Fic
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners, not the author.


"Once upon a time, in a village not so far away, there lived a beautiful, little girl and her mommy and her daddy. They all loved each other very, very much, but one day, something happened to her mommy. She didn't come home, and the daddy and the little girl were left all alone."

"What happened to the mommy?"

"She . . . hum . . . "

"She's too young to know," the mother whispers anxiously.

The lady telling the story nods her blonde head and goes to speak again, but another blonde chimes in hopefully. "She went to live with the good Fairies."

"Is that like living with the Angels, where you go up to Heaven and nobody ever sees you again until they go to Heaven, too?"

"Yes."

"How did you know?"

"You said that's what happened to Grandma, remember?"

"Oh."

"So, any way, the daddy and the little girl were left alone, and they still loved each other very, very much. But the daddy was lonely, and he was worried about his daughter not having a mommy."

"But she had a mommy."

"Yes, but she wasn't there."

"But she still had one."

"Yes, but still, the daddy thought that the little girl needed a mommy who would be there for her."

"Why?"

"Because daddies always do," a redhead offers with a sigh.

"But why?"

"Because men know they need women."

"They'll never admit it, but they know they're not as good as us."

"They're not?"

"Of course not. One woman can do what it takes all seven men to do, and then some."

"Snow, we're getting away from the story -- "

"But isn't that the whole point of your story, Cindy?"

"Yes," the blonde admits, but then, she pouts. "I still want to tell my story."

"Okay, okay," the little girl says, rubbing the feline in her lap. "So your daddy thought you needed a mommy. It's not like I haven't heard this story before."

"Well, I guess you may have."

"Everybody knows the story," the little girl says with a roll of her big, brown eyes. "Your daddy married to give you a mommy but then he died and your mommy ended up being mean and evil and making you do all kinds of nasty things like cleaning the bathroom floor with your tongue."

Cinderella shivers. All the gathered women shriek with disgust. "That's one punishment she actually didn't come up with," Cinderella admits.

"Really? Did she have you chew her food before you fed her by mouth like a baby bird?"

"No!"

"Where have you been hearing these things, Iris?!"

"Oh, all the kids talk, mommy. You know that. Palace kids are never quiet unless we have to be and then there'd better be something in it for us."

A dark-skinned lady laughs. Jasmine cuts her eyes at the Gypsy. Esmerelda just shrugs. "Well, she is certainly your daughter."

"Yes," Jasmine admits, "and she's going to be a good girl and listen to her Aunt Cindy tell her tale. Aren't you, Iris?" she asks, looking pointedly at her only child.

"I guess, but I already know the story. Bojangles knows it, too, don't you, Bo?" she asks, lifting the tiger cub up from her lap and looking into his wide, curious eyes.

Jasmine shakes her head and blows at her bangs while wondering if she was ever this trying on her father's nerves.

"More so," Ariel whispers, and she and Esmerelda laugh.

"Where on Earth did she ever get the name of Bojangles from?" queries Aurora as she strokes a squirrel's fuzzy head. She gives him a nut, and he runs off, joyously clasping the acorn, as she looks up at her friends.

"From Tiana."

"That girl does have a lot of strange names and words."

"You should know, Es."

"I'm a Gypsy. What's her excuse?"

"Ladies, ladies!" Cinderella exclaims, growing exasperated. "We are all missing this very important lesson!"

"What lesson?" Iris frowns in thought. "All you did was what all the other Princesses do and what I'll do one day: You found the right Prince, and he made all your dreams come true. Now you're living happily ever after." She shrugs. "Where's the lesson in that?"

Cinderella sighs. Her hands on her hips, she shoots a narrowed look at Jasmine. "She is definitely your daughter."

Iris grins while Jasmine lowers her eyes from Cinderella's heated glare. "That's what everybody says."

Snow laughs, a musical sound that chimes perfectly in with the song of the nearby birds in the royal, Agrabah gardens. "That's because everybody's right."

"On that," Ariel adds.

"Yeah. People are very rarely right on what they're thinking if most people are thinking it," Belle speaks, finally looking up from her book, "but they are right on that one."

Iris looks dumbfounded at last. "Huh??" she asks, her own, dark eyes growing as big and round as the tiger's.

Cinderella sighs. "Look, Iris, sweetheart, I'm trying to teach you a very important lesson. Yes, you already know the story that everybody knows: My stepmother was evil and wicked and cruel. She mistreated me greatly every day of my life until my Fairy Godmother came and gave me a beautiful dress and shoes and turned my mice friends into servants and the pumpkin in the garden into a grand carriage. I danced with my Prince at the ball all night long until midnight. Then I had to leave, but as I dashed away, I lost a shoe. He searched all the kingdoms until he found my foot, because only I could wear the glass slippers. They were magical, you see. That's the real reason why no one else could wear them. And so he found me and we were already in love and we did marry and we live happily ever after."

As Cinderella releases a large, gushing breath, Belle looks up at the Queen with a single, slender brow arched in question. "Should I point out all the grammatical errors in that sentence?"

"The grammawhat?" Iris asks while the other gathered Princesses all shout for Cinderella, "NO!"

"Okay," she says and drops her eyes back onto her book. She knows where this story is going and has no interest in helping with it. True love shouldn't only be a tool for survival, but too many of the other Princesses have come to look at it over the years after being disappointed by their Princes. Belle's marriage is one of the rare, truly happy ones, as is Jasmine's. She is far too happy in love and with too much respect for love and marriage both to present it to the child as a tool, but she does understand where Cinderella and the others are coming from. Iris needs to be aware of all of her opportunities as the first in the next line of Disney Princesses.

"So that's the same story everybody else always says you have," Iris speaks, looking back up to the recently crowned Queen of Disney World. "What do you have to tell me about it that's any different?"

"My meeting Prince Charming wasn't just destiny or me looking for love, Iris."

"It wasn't?"

"No. It was much, much more than that. I was looking for a way out. Now, hopefully, sweetheart, you won't ever need a way out of your live. We all hope your mommy and your daddy and your grandpa, too, live a very, very long time. We hope that you marry for love and that your children marry for love and have their own children long before they go to be with your grandma, my parents, and the Angels."

"But you need to know that isn't already the case, senorita," Esmerelda adds softly as Cinderella stops in search of what she next needs to tell the young Princess.

"Yes. Bad things happen sometimes. We all want to always be here for you, Iris," Snow White adds gently, "but that may not happen."

Aurora nods and looks up gravefully from her animal friends. "You may find yourself alone."

"But you're never really alone," Snow chimes in again. "The animals will always be your friends, but you may need more than them."

Iris grins. "Bojangles can eat anybody that messes with me."

Jasmine smiles upon her daughter. "I used to think that about Rajah, too, but you may still need another friend or you may need a way out of a bad situation."

"A bad what?"

"A bad thing," Aurora clarifies.

"You may need to escape a man," Snow adds.

"Or even a wicked stepmother."

Jasmine looks sharply at Cinderella. "Aladdin is not going to remarry!"

"No se preocupe, Jasmine. Ya sabes, si alguna vez siquiera mira a otra mujer, me lo corté para usted!", Esmerelda spews in Spanish, gesturing to the folds of her sleeves where the other Princesses know she still hides a dagger.

"Wait a minute," Iris says, her confusion clear on her face. "Are you saying you didn't marry Prince Charming because you love him?"

"I fell in love with him," Cinderella admits, "but I wasn't in love with him at first. But I knew, Iris. I knew if I married him, if I could somehow make him fall in love with me, he would protect me. He would take me away from my stepmother and sisters, and if he loved me, really loved me, I could rule from behind him."

Iris blinks, her confusion growing rapidly. "What do you mean?" she asks plainly. "Rule from behind him? You do rule. You're Queen."

"Yes. Now. But what I'm saying, dear, is if you ever find yourself in a bad place and you need help, find a man. Find a man with power and strength and make him fall in love with you. Then you can use him to get whatever else you ever need or want."

Iris looks up at her mother. "Do you do that with daddy?"

"Sort of," Jasmine admits, thinking about it. "Your daddy keeps me happy, but I wasn't in a bad place when he found me. I thought I was, but I wasn't really. I married your daddy out of love."

"That's why we're supposed to marry, right, Mommy?"

"Yes. If things go right."

"But they don't always."

"You just need to know, senorita, a woman can always use a man to get what she wants."

"Am I missing something out here?" The women look up sharply at Aladdin's call. He is followed by several other Princes as he steps out of the palace and into the gardens.

"Daddy!" Iris puts Bojangles down onto the ground and rushes to her father. Laughing, he picks up and swings her around in his arms. "I want ice cream! You're going to get it for me, aren't you?"

"Of course." Jasmine melts again at the sight of Aladdin's broad smile. She is thankful she was one of the few Princesses who truly did marry for no other reason than love and hopes that her daughter is like her and instead of one of her friends. She never wants her to know hardship and wants her to marry to be happy and in love with the right man, but she knows that doesn't always happen. She stands and goes to greet her husband with a kiss while her friends whisper behind her.

"She doesn't get it," Esmerelda is the first to point out.

"Not yet."

"She's still young," Snow adds.

"Perhaps too young."

"I was younger than her, Aurora, when the Huntsman tried to kill me."

"She'll understand one day," Cinderella vows, "and besides, she'll still have us all for a long time to come to help her learn all she needs to know."

Belle shuts her book with a snap. She's heard enough today and vows to one day tell Iris another story, the story of her life where all a woman really does need to be happy is her own intellect and true love, but still, she knows the other Princesses are right. Iris needs to be aware of all the possibilities with which life might present her, but still one of those, the greatest and the best by far, is the path of true love. Like Jasmine before her, she goes to greet her husband with a kiss, always thankful for what she has in his arms and what they have together in their life and their love.

The End