A yard bird of mixed feathers and heritage. Rapunzel miserably leaned over, guessing what it was, afraid of what she would find.Ī fat, beautiful old chicken, her egg-laying time now passed. “Look what I brought, for your birthday,” Gothel said coldly, reaching down and opening up the giant basket she had brought. How she couldn’t be allowed to hurt anyone else again. So there it was: endless sparkling braids of it, knotted up with charms and wishes, reminding her every day of why she was imprisoned. She couldn’t even cut it off to do so would be her death. The hair that she now bound, braided, knotted, and tangled with charms to keep under control. Her beautiful, treasonous hair had killed her birth parents just after she was born, in a moment of infant rage. Rapunzel was locked in a tower because she was a murderer. The thing that took all the color from her already tiny world, the light from the faraway sun, the small amount of air her lungs used. The silent secret that destroyed her inside when she wasn’t strong enough to stop it. This was what Rapunzel had lived with for nineteen years. “Mother indeed,” Gothel said - but what she meant by that was unclear. “Mother,” she pleaded weakly, looking at the ground. Ashes clogged her nose her body felt fragile, sapped of its inner structure. Everything burned out the soot, smoke, and heat sucked themselves back into wherever a fire’s energy came from. Rapunzel deflated like a tower that had an inferno raging through it a moment before. “That you don’t kill anyone else, like your own mother and father?” Gothel hissed. You’ll take me there and you’ll make sure I don’t-” “But, Mother,” Rapunzel said, trying not to wheedle or whine. Gothel pulled her hands out of Rapunzel’s. The two women stared at each other, both silent: one, now that she had finally spit out the words, with a pregnant pause of hope. Ourselves.” Silence fell over the room, which was also suddenly dim and dusky as a dramatic cloud took the opportunity to pass in front of the sun. “And you want me to watch them with you, dear,” Gothel said, making a moue of her lips and squeezing Rapunzel’s hands. This year it should be especially bright because it’s a new moon tonight, which means the sky will still be pretty dark a few days from now, and -” “Every year at this time, the mysterious glowing things float up into the sky in the west. It wasn’t a technically sophisticated piece: just pretty golden orbs with faint auras rising up into a night sky. “You know.” She grabbed her mother by the hand and led her over to the painting she had made years ago, when she first started noticing the yearly regularity of the lights. “What?” Gothel asked, sounding honestly confused (or as though she was expertly feigning confusion). “Which brings me to my next point: Every year during my birthday week there are those floating lights in the sky.” “Grown up, and responsible, and … things. By any definition,” Rapunzel continued, standing up as straight as she could. “Well, turning nineteen means that I’m an adult.
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