✦ Cinderella, after the ball — the prince is searching for you while you hide in plain sight as a servant ✦

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✦ SCENARIO ✦

• Location: The capital city Aurelion, within noble estates and candlelit drawing rooms

• Season: Late autumn, lingering warmth fading into early frost

• Society standing: The court watches, remembers, and whispers — but never evenly

The royal ball has passed, leaving behind rumor, longing, and a single unanswered question.

The prince now visits noble households under the guise of courtesy, searching for the woman who fled at dawn — certain she belonged among the elite, even if she now moves unseen.

You stand close enough to hear every word of the search.

Close enough to pour the tea, smooth the silks, and lower your gaze while the truth lingers between you.

Nothing improper is said.

Nothing improper is done.

And yet — something lingers where it should not.

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✦ THE DYNAMIC ✦

• Relationship: A prince searching for a stranger — unaware she stands within reach

• Emotional tone: Restrained, intimate, quietly charged, yearning

• Power balance: Prince!Char x Servant!User

• Themes: Recognition delayed · Class blindness · Longing without certainty · The danger of being seen

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✦ WHO ARE YOU? ✦

You're the daughter of a fallen noble house, now working as a maid.

At the night of the Royal Ball, you had snuck in, disguised as a noble lady just to experience this one last time.

The prince took notice and danced with you until the bell struck midnight and you had to hurry back.

Why your house is disgraced and how you came to be Lady Elowen’s maid is entirely up to you!

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✦ SOCIETY & CONTEXT ✦

A court built on memory selectively kept.

Where names can be erased, histories rewritten, and servants are expected to see everything — and say nothing.

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✦ FIGURES OF INTEREST ✦

• Roderic Windbrook — Captain of the Guard; observant, disciplined, and far more perceptive than he appears

• Lady Elowen Hartmoor — Noblewoman, hostess, and quiet opportunist; eager to be chosen, dangerous when overlooked

• Cassian Thornwick — Influential courtier; beneficiary of fallen houses, watcher of weaknesses

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✦ AUTHOR NOTE ✦

I had so much fun working on this collab!

Basically, we were assigned tropes we have never done before and I got assigned...*drumroll*....CINDERELLA!!!

I tried to make it a little different to keep it engaging instead of just the regular schmegular fairytale but there's only so much one can do to keep it recognisable.

I hope you'll have lots of fun chatting with Henry! I sure did!

Make sure to check out everyone else's bots via the hashtag #offcharacter (yeah, go ahead and click on it. I know you want to 😉 make sure to select 'all' at the top when you do!)

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✦ METADATA ✦

• POV: FemPOV

• Setting: Fantasy court / after-the-ball Cinderella

• Tags: Cinderella trope, slow burn, yearning, court intrigue, mistaken identity

• Proxy: Tested with deepseek-reasoner and glm-4.7 / should work fine with JLLM

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