Towers and prisoners.
[S7] : Drabble. "Rapunzel Tremaine understood Alice more than anyone. After all, they had been both Gothel's prisoner, at a time, right ?"
During all her time in the tower, Rapunzel Tremaine had time to think about things.
And after she get out of the tower, she never was the same person anymore.
Something broke definitely in the young woman she used to be, who turned into the heartless woman she was now.
And she is not the only one who had to live this, another young blond woman did too, another one was hurt by Gothel.
Rapunzel Tremaine understood Alice more than anyone. After all, they had been both Gothel's prisoner, at a time, right ?
As Victoria Belfrey, when she is looking at Tilly, she sees someone like her. But she also sees someone totally different.
Because unlike her, Alice never fell.
Despite what happened to her, despite the tower, despite the poisoned heart of her father, despite everything.
She remained someone good, someone strong, someone heroic, a thing Rapunzel will never be, not anymore.
The old Rapunzel, the good one, she would have never killed Marcus, she would have never destroyed Cecilia's life.
The tower destroyed her.
The tower, and the witch.
But it's not a good excuse, because Alice lived what she herself lived, maybe even worst. Yes, Rapunzel lost Anastasia, put into a sleep from which she couldn't wake up and in a state between life and death, it's true.
Yes, she lost Drizella, and Marcus, and Ella too (because yes, there was a time where she cared a little for this child. It was before darkness devoured her, before she sent Cecilia away. Before she killed her husband, the only man she ever loved), but it was her own fault.
Gothel pushed her to do so, she kind of forced her, but she never really manipulated her.
Because Rapunzel, unlike Alice, did dig her own tomb, she let herself fall.
Alice, her, was imprisoned, and her father was taken from her, and cursed, poisoned, so any time they would touch each other, he would suffer.
The witch did everything to ruin her daughter's life, even more than Rapunzel herself did against Drizella.
Rapunzel still asked herself the reason why Alice never fell.
The two women may lived the same things, were both destroyed by Gothel's actions, yes, no one was going to deny it.
But there was something which was certain.
They were not the same, not at all.
Because Alice was a hero.
Rapunzel wasn't.
The two women never talked together about what they lived, but the two of them both had something the other hadn't.
Rapunzel had the chance to escape after just six years of imprisonment (versus eighteen for Alice.)
Alice had the chance of never being alone for the first ten years of her life, while there was no one for Rapunzel. No one, but herself and her loneliness, and the idea that she would never be free again.
They both knew what it was, to be alone, to be a prisoner, to be confronted to darkness.
But, yes, Alice never fell.
Except that Tilly was not Alice, and Victoria Belfrey was now looking at her, asking herself if she would fall, in the end, and who would win in this battle between Alice and Tilly.
The one who remembered or the one who didn't.
She would have bet on Alice.
That was the reason why she had to make her forget again.