Once upon a time there was a pretty fir tree with soft, green branches who grew, graceful and proud, on a lonely hill. One snowy December day, strangers entered the forest, chopped down the fir tree and carted it away to be offered for sale in a shopping center parking lot.
"This will be wonderful as the center of my Christmas decorations!" a beautiful damsel named Rapunzel decided happily when she observed the tree, and so, after negotiating the financial details, she brought it home with her.
"It'll look so festive with the star on top and the presents underneath!" she exclaimed, pouring water into the tree stand. "Ooh, I hope Wolfy gets me that diamond bracelet I've been hinting about and HEY! Who are you?"
A slender young woman suddenly appeared in Rapunzel's living room, dressed only in a thick robe of forest green trimmed in white, with flimsy sandals on her dainty feet. Her toffee-brown hair, wildly disheveled but maintaining its loveliness for all that, was very long… or would normally be considered so, except she was standing next to Rapunzel, whose ash-blonde lavish locks surged down past her ankles.
"Who are you?" repeated Rapunzel angrily. "How did you get here? You didn't come in from outside, not dressed like that you didn't."
"I'm Aigle," she answered simply, gazing guilelessly with her round, olive eyes at Rapunzel who smoldered back quietly. "I'm the dryad of this tree."
"I knew that guy was passing me off defective goods, the way he kept steering me to this particular tree," grumbled Rapunzel. "He probably knew it was haunted and wanted to get rid of it quick!"
"I'm not a ghost," said Aigle defensively. "I told you, I'm a dryad and I live inside my tree. Since it's here, this is my new home, now. Wow, you've got it nice in here. Warm too. Could use with a bit of redecorating, though."
"Yeah, well, don't get too used to it here. I'm returning this tree and getting my money back!"
"Not without the receipt you won't!" announced Aigle, springing to life. She snatched the small bit of paper from the tree's packing and tore it into shreds with her fingers, small, agile appendages ending in long, sharp nails painted with sliver polish. She tossed the pieces into the air.
"I'll figure out something to do with you," Rapunzel promised. "In any event, keep this in mind: on New Years Day, this is going out into the trash and next year I'm buying an artificial tree to prevent this from happening again; don't try to tell me those have dryads as well and HEY! Come back here; I'm talking to you!"
But the dryad had disappeared back into her tree.
She reappeared later that night, as Rapunzel slumbered. Aigle crept into her hostess's bedroom and silently opened a dresser drawer, to discover an abundance of ropes and colorful scarves, for The Wolf was a frequent visitor and Rapunzel was always prepared should he be inclined to play, which he generally was. Aigle thoughtfully gathered an armload of the supplies and glanced at Rapunzel. "So, my tree gets tossed on January First, does it?" she murmured softly as Rapunzel's soft breathing continued. "Well, we'll just see about that!"
"Merry Christmas, Wolfy!" It was not Christmas yet, but it was the Advent season; Rapunzel had finished placing her holiday decorations and felt in a festive mood. She wore a large apron decorated with a cheerful winter scene of happy carolers and children sledding on hills, platform shoes with precariously high heels, and very little else. "Come on in! Would you like eggnog and something sweet?"
"Sure, baby," agreed The Wolf, comfortably settling himself onto one end of her couch, right next to Aigle, who was seated there awkwardly. "You doing okay, baby?" he asked her.
"Mpfff," the dryad replied unhappily, for a bandana, decorated with white snowflakes against a deep, blue sky, cleave-gagged her. Thick, off-white ropes circled her torso, binding her arms and holding her hands against her stomach. Her robe was drawn up high, revealing a great deal of her legs, which were circled numerous times by more rope. Her sandals lay forlornly to one side.
"That's Aigle, some kind of wood nymph, apparently," explained Rapunzel as she busily returned to her living room carrying a tray with two tall glasses and a pile of cookies cut into the shapes of reindeer and bells. "She showed up when I brought that tree home, and then tried to tie me up last night, but I was too alert for… HEY! Do you know her?" she asked briskly, not liking the way The Wolf was eyeing her uninvited guest.
"We've met a few times in the wilds," he explained vaguely, raising a flush to Aigle's pale cheeks.
"Well, you can stop staring at her," snapped Rapunzel, pretending her apron had slipped a bit in an effort to redirect his attention. "I don't think she's all that attractive; I mean, her hair hardly reaches her waist!"
Aigle gave Rapunzel a very hurt look and then turned to The Wolf, pleading silently for release.
"No problem, baby," he replied, understanding exactly what she wanted. Whisk, whisk, his quick hands moved up and down, slicing the ropes with his claws. Aigle leapt to her feet, snatched the gag from her face, hurriedly slipped her sandals onto the wrong feet, and darted into her tree.
"Wolfy! Why did you do that?" demanded Rapunzel.
"I rescue damsels sometimes too," he explained carelessly. "And you know, she can't be feeling too good; after all, she just lost her home."
"Yes, believe me, I am sorry about that." Rapunzel sat down thoughtfully. "I don't understand why she appeared here; I mean, I've bought Christmas trees before without anything like this happening."
"You need to plant a new tree when you chop one down, so the dryad can move to it," explained The Wolf. "But don't worry about her; we can transplant a sapling from a nursery to the forest for her to live. Firs are tough trees, so doing it in the winter shouldn't cause it any trouble."
"I am glad," stated Rapunzel, who truly was. "I really don't have anything against her, but I'm not looking for a roommate." Or anyone to distract you from me, she added silently.
"We'll do it in a few days," decided The Wolf. "She'll be fine for now until we can get around to it."
"But in the meantime she'll be here, in my home, bothering me," objected Rapunzel.
An idea sprang into The Wolf's mind, but he spoke of something else. "Hey, weren't we supposed to play a game?"
"Ooh, yes, Wolfy, and look, I got this novelty rope that's red and green that'll be great, but HEY! What's the scenario?"
"It looks too Christmassy here," declared The Wolf, changing his voice so that Rapunzel realized he was playing a part. "I'm the Grouch who hates Christmas, so I'm going to steal everything away so you can't celebrate it!"
"Oh, no, that's terrible!" exclaimed Rapunzel in mock horror. "Only, you know, Wolfy, it isn't the Grouch who steals Christmas; it's the Grmpfff!"
The Wolf casually leaned down to retrieve Aigle's former gag from the floor and promptly placed it in Rapunzel's open mouth. He gave her a lingering kiss and then swiftly used the rope to first tie Rapunzel's ankles together and then to bind them against the middle leg of her coffee table.
The telephone rang, but he ignored it, continuing to truss his willing captive, using rope on her legs near her knees and then to restrain her hands behind her back.
"Mpfff," said Rapunzel, experimentally. The gag could be worked loose, with some effort, she realized, but freeing herself from those ropes would be very difficult. She leaned back into the cushions, waiting to see what The Wolf would do next.
"I'm going to ruin everything!" he informed her. "Like, all these decorations. I'll tear them all down!"Rapunzel giggled as she watched The Wolf wave his paws around dramatically, pretending to pull a wreath off the wall and some mistletoe from her ceiling.
"And then I'll smash up all these presents!"
Rapunzel's giggling stopped abruptly, as she remembered she had expected The Wolf to bring her gift. "But he still has time to get around to that," she told herself confidently, the bracelet shining tantalizingly in her mind. "I'm sure I'll be getting something special from him very soon!"
"And I'm taking this tree back home with me!" announced The Wolf.
Rapunzel's good mood disappeared completely. "The less attention he pays to that tree, the better!" The Wolf, however, gave it all his attention; first, he bent down and unplugged its lights. He then carefully removed the fir tree from its stand and, with the star still on top, cradled it across his long arms. Whistling softly, he carried the tree out her front door into the cold, cloudy afternoon.
"Problem solved, baby," he called over a shoulder. "Aigle won't be in your home anymore!"
"I'm going to show you that you broke into the wrong place, burglar!"
Aigle smiled happily. It was very nice up in The Wolf's penthouse, with her tree standing nearby. She sat on his couch, now, which was much more comfortable than the one in Rapunzel's house, with a much nicer coffee table in front of her with a very modern telephone, a few magazines about sports and cars that didn't interest her, and a newspaper with a headline announcing the daring burglary of an upscale jewelry store in downtown Syracuse that interested her even less. To one side there were numerous small packages neatly wrapped in colorful paper that interested her considerably, however. They appeared to be gifts for the various fairytale heroines The Wolf knew and, she observed jealously, there were very many of them.
She was tied up, of course, playing the part of the captured burglar for The Wolf, bound and gagged almost precisely as Rapunzel had been. "And I'm glad he left her like that too! She was really mean, but now I'm in a much better position and best of all, she can't do a thing about it!"
She jerked her bound feet suddenly as the telephone rang. "Hey, baby," said The Wolf, glancing first at the screen and then pressing the speaker.
"Wolfy, you've got to help me!" came Rapunzel's voice. "Someone very naughty tied me all up and then just left me here and it took me forever to get my gag loose and then I had a very hard time to knock the receiver off the hook so I could press your speed-dial button with my nose to call you because I remembered you sometimes come to the rescue when a damsel is in distress and I really need you to come to mine so HE-E-E-E-ELP!"
"You can't get loose? Hey, no problem, baby," answered The Wolf. "I'll be right over!"
"Mpfff?" asked Aigle. "You just left her like that!" she attempted to say. "You surely aren't going to fall for that, are you?"
"Gotta go to her, baby," The Wolf told her, sliding into his winter jacket. "I know what you're thinking, but I did get her tied so she couldn't escape and I can't just leave her like that, can I?" He pocketed one of the wrapped gifts from the table. "But don't worry; I'll be back in a flash!"
"He won't be back in a flash, either," Aigle told herself; "Rapunzel will see to that." She tested her gag thoughtfully, and found it just a tiny bit loose. She glanced down at the telephone screen, which still brightly displayed the telephone number of the last caller. She burned that information into her memory as she moved her jaw and pushed at the cloth in her mouth with her tongue. "So, she managed to call him despite being tied up? Well, two can play that game…."