A Window, No Door

Written by WickedSong

Disclaimer : I do not own Tangled and neither do I own the soundtrack of the movie, in particular the song "When Will My Life Begin (Reprise 1)" which this is based off.


Rapunzel sat doing nothing in particular since there was nothing in particular or anything very exciting happening in her tower.

It was quiet, quiet like it always was up there where herself was the only person she could speak to. Well, besides Pascal but she wasn't sure if he counted.

The outside world was a mystery, something she would read about in those three books Mother allowed her to have, until they would be exchanged with another three books that Mother would bring her.

It was a world she longed to see and in the quiet of the tower, when she wasn't keeping herself busy, reading, painting, baking, playing with Pascal, she would look out the window and imagine what it would be like.

Mother had told her stories. She had said of a world of men with pointy teeth, ruffians, thugs but she had never believed it. Even the dangers of poison ivy and quicksand couldn't halt the thoughts of the world outside the window. It seemed such a beautiful place, the lush green grass which she could only imagine feeling between her toes, the puddles of water, even the dirt.

It was all so close and she was literally halfway to it. If she wanted she could drop her hair and go. That thought sometimes came into her head, until she would stop herself and actually think about what that would do to Mother.

Mother who had done so much for her, given birth to her, raised her. Her Mother, who had to go to these lengths to keep her safe because her hair was just too precious, because she was too precious if anyone knew what the hair could do.

If Mother said that the world was too dangerous then Rapunzel would have to just believe her even if the beauty she could see and Mother's insistence that it was a dark place were so conflicting she wasn't sure what to believe.

Rapunzel stopped thinking about it now and went on to grab one of her paintbrushes and a set of her paints, walking up the stairs, finding a small part of the wall which she hadn't already painted, a rarity in the room which was full of murals, products of her life inside, of the boredom she continually endured no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that she was happy inside, that she loved her life when it was all a lie.

Stop it, she told herself sternly, you have Mother, you have her love, so many things, who cares if you don't have a door?

She put the paintbrush down, continued telling herself these things as she looked out of the window, resting her elbows on the windowsill, humming under her breath, not the special song that she and sometimes Mother would sing while Mother brushed her hair, but another one, a sad one.

She was nearly eighteen now and she realised that no amount of reassurance that the world was not a place to go to, that she was safer in the tower would ever satisfy the need to see more, hear more, feel more than she did.

She hummed a little more, finally finishing, the song with the question she thought would never be answered.

"When will my life begin?"


I was not intending to write this little fic but while I was studying I was listening to the first reprise of "When Will My Life Begin" and I just love that one, especially the line 'I have everything except I guess a door' and I don't know why but I was inspired.

So here's just a little Rapunzel one shot.

Hope you enjoyed :)

WickedSong x