Really wanting to do something new with Mother Gothel, after "Experimenting with the Flower", I thought of this idea. If you think it's weird and random as you're reading it, you're probably right, but look at how it ends; it'll probably make more sense.
By the way, Rapunzel, Mother Gothel, Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert, and Pascal all belong to Disney.
Rapunzel makes her way through the forest to the vine-shrouded cave which leads back to the waterfall, beside which is her home of the last eighteen years, the tower. Presently, she reaches the tower and stands at its base, calling out in a musical voice, "Mother Gothel, Mother Gothel! Let down your ha-air!"
Happily, Gothel calls back, "Coming, Rapunzel!"
Rapunzel's done this every day for as long as she can remember, so why does it suddenly feel like something's dreadfully off about it? Anyway, Gothel appears to be taking her time, so Rapunzel calls, "Come on, Mother Gothel! I'm not getting any older down here!" "Wait, don't I mean younger?"*
Gothel comes and loops her hair over a hook attached to the eaves of the roof, before lowering it towards her daughter. All seventy-so feet of the beautiful, glossy black curls. Rapunzel grabs onto them, and Gothel reins her in.
"Hello Rapunzel dear, welcome home!"
"Oh, Mother Gothel! How can you do that like, every day! You must get so tired from it!"
"Oh, don't worry dear, it's nothing!"
"Oh, really?" Rapunzel slyly asks. "Then, why exactly does it take so long?" Gothel looks at her, unsure, then Rapunzel says, "Don't worry, Mother Gothel! I'm just teasing!"
Gothel looks at her, unamused, before beginning to say, "Um, well Rapunzel, I wanted to ask -"
"Oh! Mother Gothel!" Rapunzel exclaims excitedly as she grabs Gothel's wrist, dragging her rapidly over to the mirror. "Mother Gothel, look in that mirror! There is such a beautiful lady there!" Thinking she means her, Gothel smiles, then Rapunzel continues, "Oh! And look at that! There's you, right beside her!"
Gothel's face drops. One hand raised to her bosom, she says, "Oh, but Rapunzel-"
"Mother Gothel!" Rapunzel suddenly scowls. "You're not trying to ask me to let you outside, again?"
"No Rapunzel, I was just-"
"I have had it with your constant whining!" Rapunzel rages. "Don't you realize how dangerous it is out there?" She points to the window.
"Rapunzel, please, I only -"
"NO! I've told you this like, a thousand times Mother Gothel! You have to stay here, where you're safe! I only keep you confined in this tower, where you do virtually the same routine, day in, day out, and get increasingly bored, frustrated and cage-stressed, because I care about you!"
"But Rapunzel -"
"ENOUGH WITH THE LINES, Mother Gothel! YOU are not LEAVING this TOWER! EVER!"
Stunned, Gothel backs away from the fuming Rapunzel, who then seats herself on the edge of the window sill, arms around her knees and resting her head in her lap. "Oh great! Now I'm the bad guy!"
/
"Gah!" Rapunzel wakes up in her bedroom, in the palace of Corona. Catching her breath, she places a hand up to her short brown hair.* "Whoa, that was the strangest dream ever!" Then, she feels something scaly touch her other hand, and looks down to see Pascal glancing up at her with concern. "Pascal, I just had a really, really weird dream! I was Mother Gothel, and she was me!"
Pascal stares wide-eyed at her, thinking, "Poor Rapunzel, what a nightmare!" "Pascal, what do you think it means?" He looks at her, uncertain. "Dreams always have some kind of meaning, this one can't be any different!" Both go into their thinking poses. Pascal then raises a claw, signifying he's got an idea, and chirps at Rapunzel.
"You think I dreamt Mother Gothel and I were in each other's places, because deep down, I want her to know how it felt for me to be locked up in that tower all my life?"
Eyes closed, Pascal nods firmly.
"Yes! Of course! That totally makes sense!"
"Huh, what, Rapunzel?" Eugene sleepily mumbles, raising his head from his pillow.
"What?" Rapunzel turns to him. "Oh, it's nothing, Eugene. Just a bad dream."
"Oh, alright!" It sounds like Eugene mutters into his pillow again. Rapunzel and Pascal lie down and return to the realm of sleep too. Both sleep peacefully the remainder of the night, although Eugene begins to imagine a single Stabbington Brother fleeing from the Corona palace guards, accompanied by two Flynn Riders…
The end.
AN: So there you have it! I modified Rapunzel's version of Gothel's lines, as you can tell, to better match the way Rapunzel might have said them (Try picturing the way each character in this oneshot would say what they say; it actually works really well!). As for those asterisks:
1. This whole paragraph was meant to illustrate a brief moment in which Rapunzel's starting to realize she's dreaming, before her mind slips completely back into the fantasy again. I'm sure we all know that feeling from personal experience. As for the "I'm not getting any older" line, that's also a reference to the fact that Gothel and Rapunzel were designed as complete opposites of each other, in character and appearance.
2. Speaking of her hair, I'll leave it open to interpretation whether in her dream her hair was long and blonde, or short and brown, but a seventy-feet-of-blonde Rapunzel with a seventy-feet-of-black Mother Gothel would be pretty cool…:)