Once upon a time

Post happily-ever-after

Two maidens, one old and one fair, met in a forest

A prison all their own

 

The old one tells of her woes

Of a pest called Cinderella

The old woman laments of her dear late husband

Who she lost to the end of her knife

And of her ungrateful stepdaughter

Who she took in as her own

And made clean the cinders

And she found a prince and banished her to the forest

And how her two natural daughters

Who were not all too bright

Were lost to the brush and wilderness

 

The fair woman shares a similar story

Of her stepdaughter, Snow White

The fair old queen began her reign as the loveliest in the land

Her husband’s daughter was an afterthought in her mind

But the youth soon grew to overtake her

Snow was so purposely beautiful

There was no doubt that she was trying to outshine the queen

So who could blame the queen for treating such treason with death?

When her discreet leadership became known

She was sent away by her own king

She became so miserable, who sends someone out to the forest, anyway?

 

So the two women create a scheme

To put the two younger ladies in their place

For the older one is not banned from the fairer one’s kingdom

Nor is the fairer one from the elder’s

So they switch instructions and warnings and ride off into the night

Heading the other way from which they entered the forest

 

Weeks later, two far kingdoms were rocked

By a kind queen who died by a poison apple

And of the fairest one in the land found locked in a tower, covered in cinder