Author's Note/Disclaimer: This is a request for ConfusedColumbia26220. When I wrote my first Into the Woods fan fiction, she requested that I write a story about the witch. I'm sad to say that due to recent events and my lack of immediate creativity, it took this long to produce something, but I finally found the story! It's a little more like a drabble than anything else, but I think it's decent. Again, I used the original actor's name as the character's name, since we only know her as "the witch". Lastly, I do not own these characters. I believe that they are owned by the brothers Grimm, but Stephen Sondheim also stakes a claim with these characters.
Well, here it is. Hope you enjoy it, CC!
*S. Snowflake
Rapunzel
Swirling vines of green reached for the sky, groping their leaves for the grey clouds above. The morning dew dripped off the cold plants' stems like earthen rain. Outside the garden's wooden fence, a thin layer of snow still sat, not yet melted from the winter, but depleting nonetheless.
The witch emerged from her wooden shack, hobbling slightly to hold onto her oaken cane. She still had some of her strength left, but the creeping disease of age was creeping up on her. Skin hung a little loose from her face and a large pustule was forming on her nose. Even with all of her aging, her eyes still glimmered with youth and her hair was still just a little brown in its tinge. If she could measure her appearance in those subtle features, she wouldn't seem so old after all, but that was just not the case. The spell had been reactivated by the beans, and it was taking its slow toll on her.
A rabbit was nibbling away at her cabbages before it saw her and darted away with just one look.
"-Bah!" she muttered. "Little, furry devils. Go then, out of my garden! And don't you be forgetting the face of old Burnadette!"
She kicked her knobby legs out as she walked among her plants with the hamper tucked under her arm. At last, she pulled at the radishes and turnips in the ground, smiling when they finally came loose. At least her garden provided the old witch with something to do.
She walked over to the herb corner, plucking at the leaves of the flavorful plants one by one. They would all make excellent stews, but she stopped plucking at one particular plant.
It was a Rampion, or better known as a Rapunzel.
Once the witch had grown a plant just like it, but it was so delicious that no one could resist its flavor. That must have been the very same Rampion that attracted her neighbor, and her husband went to retrieve some to satisfy his wife's pregnancy cravings. All of this led to the agreement for the child once it was born, and sure enough, the witch did take the child. To leave a lasting impression on the family for cursing her and stealing from her, however, the witch had furthermore cursed the child's family tree to be barren. The thought still made her smile deep down. She had made her point and shown her power, but that story was at this point ancient.
Twenty years had passed since then. The child that Burnadette had claimed, a baby girl, had grown into a fair young maiden. The witch raised her, well, smothered her was more appropriate. Sooner or later, a hansom prince came along and the fair maiden was seduced. The witch's adopted daughter, still a wandering child deep down, left home and became a mother too soon. Burnadette pitied herself. She was never able to congratulate her daughter then, or say goodbye when everything fell through. She had really never known how to let go or be happy.
"I suppose that's what we always had in common, my Rapunzel and I," Burnadette sighed to the plant with melancholy. "I thought I did you good by shielding you from the world, but I was wrong. I see my ways now." She stroked a long, sagging leaf on the plant, thinking about Rapunzel's beautiful, long hair. It was something she was always proud of. She had often helped the girl take care of her mane.
A tear glimmered in the witch's eye. It was as cold and silver as death itself. "Oh, my Rapunzel," she grieved once more, dropping the hamper at her feet with a thud. "You'll never know how much you meant to me; the only thing to stay by my side, in this horrid, ugly hide."
The morning clouds cleared, and for a moment, the sun shone on the witch, illuminating her with golden light. The color was beautiful, yellow as corn, just like Rapunzel's hair. For a moment, Burnadette almost thought she heard her daughter's singing deep within the woods. It was almost as if the maiden was there, telling the witch something. There was something to look for yet. Then, silently, another cloud appeared, and the sunlight disappeared once more.
The witch paused and dried a tear before picking up her hamper. "Well, enough of that. If anyone saw me here now, they might think I've gone nice or some jibberish."
She was just about to finish her picking when she looked once more at the Rampion. Just at the base in the old beaten earth, lay two small shoots side by side.
They reminded the witch of something. Her Rapunzel had perished, and that blasted prince of hers had run off with some other, empty-headed maiden with skin white as snow, but there were two survivors of the family tree. Burnadette had never heard of twins that Rapunzel bared after the giant attacked. After all, they were from the neighboring kingdom. Most likely they had been kept safe, but where had they gone to? Surely, surely they would have to know of their heritage.
As the witch picked the last fruits of the day, she clutched at the basket. At the end of the day, she would find her flying broom and set off to find the answers to her questions and maybe answer her grandchildrens' questions. Thanks to one little plant and her daughter's spirit, she had a purpose again.
The End