HI! I did this on a whim. It is the bleach version of Rapunzel, because I don't believe I have seen any of those... Anyway, I hope you like it. Tell me what you think, good or bad.
Long ago, there lived a king and a queen, who yearned to have a child. For the longest time, it seemed the gods were unwilling to grant them such a wish, until one day, the queen fell ill. A healer was called immediately, and announced to the king and his closest friends that the queen was with child. They rejoiced, and the queen began to glow in the way all pregnant women did. She spent her days sitting by her window, watching the world outside, and speaking to her unborn child, telling it of the wonders of the world that he will one day be a part of.
The happy illusion shattered when the queen fell ill a second time. This time, when the healer was called, she gave a less happy answer. The queen was dying, but hope was not lost. To save her, they needed a special potion, only created by the lone sorcerer in the kingdom.
At once, the king set out to find this sorcerer. He found his residence at the very edge of the kingdom, where the hilly plain met the wood. He knocked on the sorcerer's door once, then twice, then thrice, but there was no answer. Desperate, the king opened the door, only to find no one was home. He searched the small cottage for the potion he needed, found it, and returned home to give it to his wife. The queen immediately regained her health, but it did not last. Three days later, she was ill, and the king had to set out once more. This time, when he knocked on the door, it opened to reveal the sorcerer. He looked at the king with anger.
"You come here asking for help, when last you came you stole what was mine?" he accused. The king apologized and explained the purpose the potion was to be used for. The sorcerer's face softened. "Fine, young king. I will give you some more of that potion, and I will even tell you the secret on how to make it last. However, in return, I want you to give me the child your queen is due to give. I will raise it with care, like any father would."
The king hesitated, but agreed. The sorcerer smiled and gave him a vial of the needed portion, and a basket of strawberries. He told the king to mix the strawberries with the potion to make the effects permanent. He also warned that, once the potion was consumed, there was no way to go back on his word. The king hastened back to his queen, and did as he was instructed. He fed the strawberries to her, unable to tell her of the deal he had made to the sorcerer in exchange for her health.
When the time came, the child was born. The queen was delighted, holding her newborn son close to her chest, her husband standing proudly above them. There was a bolt of lightning, and the doors to the chambers flew open to reveal the sorcerer.
"I am here to collect what was promised," he announced. The king tried to stop him, but his body could not move. The sorcerer looked at him and said, "I told you, there was no way to go back on your word." Then, he tore the baby away from the new mother and was gone in an instant. It was said that the whole kingdom could hear her wails, as she mourned the loss of her only child.
For years, the child grew up happily under the watchful eye of the sorcerer he called Papa Aizen. The child, named Ichigo, after the strawberries used to seal his fate, became a happy child with hair as orange as the sunset rays. Aizen thought it a shame to cut his hair, beautiful as it was, so they tied it in a ponytail and Ichigo passed as a girl among the village children.
Aizen taught the child everything, even as he went to school. Ichigo learned to read and write, just as he learned to cast spells, mix potions, and fight. He learned the names of plants and animals by their common and scientific names, as well as how to identify them at a glance, or by ear. He was a prodigy, if Aizen ever saw one.
But Ichigo's days under the bright sun were numbered. On his tenth birthday, the sorcerer moved the boy into the wood, where a tall stone tower stood. Ichigo was locked in the highest room, where he continued his studies away from the influence of the outside world. Every day, Aizen would come to the tower, and call out, "Strawberry, Strawberry, let down your hair." The boy would release his hair from its ponytail, or braid, to allow it to fall the twenty stories down, so that Aizen may use it as a ladder.
For years, the boy was locked away. He hardly noticed the passage of time, and he became well versed in every sort of fighting, magical or otherwise, and his book learning progressed splendidly. One day, it dawned on him that it was his thirty-second birthday, but he still looked the same as he had when he was eighteen. Puzzled, he asked Aizen about this when next he came.
"Oh, Ichigo," he said, in the manner that told him it was about something that was not his fault, but the fault of someone who he will never know. Aizen had once, briefly, told Ichigo that he was not his real father, but ended the discussion there. Since then, Ichigo had been afraid to ask more about his real parents. "You are paying the price of your parents' mistakes. I am afraid you will never look older than you do now, even if you live to be a thousand."
"But, why, Papa Aizen? Why must I pay for my parents' mistakes? Why will I not age?" Aizen flashed Ichigo a warning look, and the boy shrunk back.
"You would do well to keep so many questions to yourself. I will answer your questions, but only because I wish you to learn! Not because I feel you deserve to know. Your parents stole something very special from me. Can you guess what it was?"
Ichigo thought for a moment, considering all the possibilities. If Aizen was anything, it was possessive. Besides himself, Ichigo had only seen people take interest in one thing the sorcerer had. "A potion." It was not a guess, but a statement, firm and confident. Aizen nodded.
"Correct. Your parents stole a potion. One that I had been planning on giving to a fellow sorcerer. The potion was designed to reinforce his longevity. As a result, your mother drank the potion, was cured of her sickness, and you were given an extended life. Then, when next your parents came, I gave them a second potion and told them how to make the effects last. Can you tell me what I told them?"
Ichigo's mind was reeling. His parents stole a potion? What if it had been the wrong one? What if the potion they stole was needed and Aizen's fellow sorcerer had suffered because he did not have it? As for the question posed, Ichigo knew that certain foods, when coupled with a potion, can either enhance an effect and make it permanent, or cancel it altogether. He ran down his mental list, until he arrived at the foods enhancing longevity. There, he found pomegranate, an unlikely solution since that fruit was only found in faraway lands and sometimes held nasty side effects, blood oranges, which sometimes also caused what Ichigo called the "ghost effect," a condition that causes the affected to turn transparent at random, and look extremely pale when solidified, and his namesake.
"Strawberries," Ichigo answered. Strawberries were perhaps the kindest of the three choices. He knew that, though they enhanced potions similar to longevity, they could be used as an adhesive, tying a man or woman to his or her words in an unbreakable vow. Ichigo liked to think of them as "selectively friendly," picking and choosing who they'll be kind to, and who they will damn.
Aizen nodded in approval. "Your parents took the potion and the strawberries, and had them consumed. Your mother regained her health, and your father was bound to a promise he knew he did not want to keep. In return for the two longevity potions, your mother's health, and my friend's suffering, your father promised me you."
"Me?" Ichigo was shocked. Why would his parents promise him away?
"You. I would normally not be so cruel as to take a child from its parents, but the longevity in the potions would not stay in your mother, Ichigo. It flowed into you, a double dose of agelessness while still in the womb, and you have yourself a child who will be immortal." Aizen left Ichigo not long after, and Ichigo was left to think about this new discovery. Aizen had done the right thing. Leaving an immortal child to mortal parents would have only brought him pain. But, then again, he was alone in a tower with no one to talk to.
The days passed, then years, and soon enough, Ichigo was one hundred. True to Aizen's word, Ichigo still looked as he did when he was eighteen, only his hair was longer. Aizen frequented the tower every day, but his visits had grown short and cold. Ichigo knew that he no longer wished to have anything to do with the child he had taken, and the boy kept to himself.
One day, Ichigo decided to pass the time by singing. He had learned from the birds how to create to notes, and was soon putting words to the song. He sung of the grass, the sun, the trees, fanciful creatures, such as fairies and elves, and the loneliness of being locked away. It was on this day that fate came calling.
A sorcerer's apprentice was scouting through the wood for ingredients, when he heard the most beautiful song. He searched everywhere for the source, determined, but found not a trace. The next day, the apprentice continued his search, but with the same result. On the third day, he found the tower in which Ichigo was hidden. He leapt with joy, but soon found that there was no way to get to the top, where the lone window was located. His joy fled, only to be replaced once more by determination. He lay in wait by the tower for someone to come or go, and soon his labor came to fruition. He witnessed the sorcerer approach the tower, and call, "Strawberry, Strawberry, let down your hair." Immediately, bright orange locks fell to the ground, and Aizen climbed up. From his vantage point, the apprentice thought to himself, "if that is how one is admitted into the tower, then that is what I shall do."
When Aizen was gone and well out of sight, the apprentice approached the tower, and called, "Strawberry, Strawberry, let down your hair!" Ichigo let his hair fall, and the apprentice climbed up.
"Papa Aizen, did you forget something-" Ichigo's eyes widened when he realized the man standing before him was a stranger. He went to scream, but the apprentice clamped a hand over his mouth and pleaded for silence.
"Please do not scream." When it was clear Ichigo was calm enough not to do just that, the apprentice removed his hand. "My name is Grimmjow, and I am a sorcerer's apprentice. It is an honor to meet the one whose voice fills the air with such beauty."
Ichigo blushed and returned the introduction. "I am Ichigo, son to the sorceror Aizen. I would say it was an honor to meet you, but you are not supposed to be here."
Grimmjow did not hear any of the boy's words after he said his name. Ichigo was perhaps the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Deep brown eyes were framed by long lashes, and paired with pink lips on a tanned face. He stood several inches shorter than Grimmjow, and was muscled in a way the the apprentice found very appealing.
Ichigo, on the other hand, waited for the man to be done staring. He had to try very hard not to grab his comforter from his bed and wrap it around himself. As it was, his face was probably as red as his namesake. However, Ichigo could not find it in him to wish the apprentice gone. He was lonely in his tower, and Grimmjow was not at all bad looking. He had curious blue hair, intelligent blue eyes, and a devilish grin as attractive as it was smug.
It was a long time before either spoke.
"May I ask why you are up in this tower?" Grimmjow inquired.
"Look at me. How old do you think I am?" Grimmjow looked, and made a quick estimate.
"Eighteen? Perhaps Nineteen?" Ichigo nodded.
"I appear that old, but really I am a little over one-hundred years old. I cannot leave this tower, because I am never to age past this point." Grimmjow nodded.
"That's understandable, but I disagree. You could very well leave this tower if you chose, you simply do not choose." Ichigo shrugged. "So if you do not choose to leave, I will choose to stay." Grimmjow flashed Ichigo a smirk, and his eyes grew wide. The apprentice thought the look of shock on the other boy's face adorable.
Ichigo's mind was in an uproar. He knew Aizen would be much displeased if he found out about Grimmjow's visit, but the thought of having someone to talk to was too great to pass up. In the end, Ichigo sighed and told Grimmjow to do whatever he wanted. The result was not what he expected.
"Whatever I want, huh?" The apprentice's face grew serious, and Ichigo nodded, not realizing what he was saying.
"Yes. Whatever you want. I cannot control your actions, nor do I have any right to do so." Ichigo shrugged and turned to his bookcase to decide what to read next, but was spun back around and greeted with something pressed against his lips. His face turned all sorts of red as his mind slowly came to realize what was going on. His eyes met Grimmjow's extremely close ones, and he moaned, involuntarily. Grimmjow's eyes crinkled with glee and darkened with unmasked lust.
The apprentice drew the immortal into his arms without breaking the kiss. He marveled at how well the beautiful creature fit into his frame and the warmth of the soft skin. Ichigo moaned again, and the sound shot straight through him like an arrow through a paper screen. He answered it with a moan of his own, and rewarded the boy with a soft grind of the hips. Ichigo gasped, and the apprentice took advantage, dipping his tongue into the immortal's mouth. The boy tasted of strawberries, mint, and something entirely irresistibly intoxicating. Ichigo's fingers curled into Grimmjow's shirt, acting as an anchor for support as his mind went completely blank. He had never been kissed before, and the feeling of Grimmjow's skilled tongue claiming every inch of his mouth was heavenly.
The apprentice pulled back, allowing for them both to fill their lungs, while he admired the half lidded eyes, the parted lips, and the endearing blush the orange-haired mystery sported. Ichigo was still recovering when Grimmjow's lips found his again.
Soon, night had fallen and Grimmjow knew he had to go. His master would skin him alive and leave his bones out to be eaten by coyotes if he remained away any longer. With one final kiss, Grimmjow left the boy, promising to return in the very near future.
Several weeks passed, and Ichigo neither saw nor heard from the blue-haired apprentice. The feeling of loneliness grew tenfold. Aizen had not seemed to notice any change in his ward's mood, and for that, Ichigo was grateful. He did not know how he would be able to explain his way out of the mess that were to surely follow, had he been questioned.
On the day of Ichigo's 150th birthday, a great commotion was heard. He peeked out the window and saw Aizen backed up against the base. Around him were two adult hooded figures and a child. The redhead could hear nothing of what was being said, but he heard the clap of lightening, and crackle of fire, and the shouts of the men below. His eyes widened as he witnessed his guardian fight in a real sorcerer's battle. To him, it looked to be that Aizen was able to defend both himself and the tower easily, and Ichigo felt no fear. Aizen was protecting him. He would not fail.
Then, the earth seemed to shake as a spell exploded. Ichigo was thrown away from the window, and he lay where he landed, afraid to move, afraid to look down at the ground to see two dead hooded figures, and a dead child. He did not want to see death marring the beautiful scene he was blessed and cursed with every day.
At the call of "Strawberry, Strawberry, let down your hair," Ichigo finally moved. He let his hair fall to bring Aizen up. What he was greeted with was not Aizen's usual calm, stern face, but with two hooded figures and a child, clinging to the arm of one of the figures. Ichigo froze, then collapsed, as his knees gave way to the realization. The blast had not killed Aizen's three attackers. It had killed Aizen. Ichigo's body shook and tears fell, unbidden. Though Aizen had been cruel, Ichigo could not forget the man's kindnesses and all that he had taught the boy. He had locked him in a tower, yes, but Ichigo would not have wanted to grow up in a village where people would question his unchanging appearance. No, Aizen had done right by his ward, and deserved the tears Ichigo shed for the sorcerer.
The intruders said and did nothing as the boy cried. One of them looked away, toward the child inspecting the multitude of spell tomes in Ichigo's collection, each bought and given to him by Aizen. The other stared at the sobbing immortal, his face hidden by the hood. After an hour or so, Ichigo's tears had dried, and his head felt full of cotton. He gave one last snivel, then turned to the intruders, rage shown clearly in his puffy brown eyes.
"If you are going to kill me, do it already!" he shouted at the intruders. Neither moved. "Tch! Fine! Then step aside!" Ichigo started to make way to the window. The intruders, realizing his suicidal intent, only stepped closer to one-another, effectively blocking the window. "I don't get it? WHAT DO YOU WANT?! What could you possibly want?" The last sentence ended in a whisper, but the intruders heard it. Ichigo sat heavily on his bed, and stared at the ceiling. If the intruders were not going to go away, not going to kill him, and not going to let him die, then he was going to give them the biggest cold shoulder they had ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
Minutes passed, and the two adults conversed in hushed tones. They seemed to be arguing, until one of them finally nodded. The other approached the depressed immortal wearily. Not getting any sign of acknowledgement, he reached out to touch the boy's shoulder, only to hiss and retract his fingers. He could have sworn they were nearly given frostbite.
"OK, bad idea," he thought. He then decided a different approach. He knew it was risky, in light of what had just happened, and the past fifty years, but he had to take the chance. He did not think, he just used a gloved hand to force the boy to face him, then closed his mouth over the other's. The result was instant. Lightning coursed through his body in waves and Ichigo jolted free of his grasp.
"Asshole! Who do you think you are?! Just let me die, already! I don't WANT to LIVE! Let me die!" Ichigo emphasized his demands with flashes of black lightning.
"I can't let you do that, Ichigo." Ichigo whipped his head toward the one who said that. It was the same figure that dared touch him. He scowled.
"Why the hell not? And how do you know my name?"
"Because you are immortal. You would only end up living in pain if you tried to die." Ichigo knew that already, but he HATED that this perverted intruder dared tell him that.
"That still does not answer how you knew my name." There was a long, drawn out silence. The figure in question took a few careful steps toward the immortal, testing the waters. With each inch, Ichigo released more black lightening, happy to have someone to take his sadness, his grief, his rage, and his frustration out on.
"Don't you remember me, Ichigo?" The intruder bent so their eyes were level with each other's, before pulling back his hood. The boy's eyes widened at the sight of blue hair and even bluer eyes.
"Grimmjow?" Grimmjow smirked at the boy's shocked expression and nodded.
"The one and only."
"But-" Ichigo stopped, knowing what he was about to say sounded stupid, even in his head. "Why are you here?"
"To rescue you, of course. Sorry it took so long. I did not realize how much I had to train to be able to match Aizen's skill in magic. But, I am here now." Ichigo suddenly released a gust of wind at the apprentice, former apprentice, if the robes were anything to go by. The wind tore at the man's clothes and cut his exposed flesh, leaving gashes along his face and ungloved hand.
"Get out!" Ichigo was ready to do murder. He did not see the child approach him from behind, but felt her wrap her small arms around his leg. Instantly, he calmed down.
"Lilynette, stop meddling in a lovers' spat," the nearly forgotten intruder ordered. The child stuck her tongue out at the man, but obeyed. Grimmjow took the window of opportunity to close the gap between him and Ichigo, hugging him close and burying his nose in the orange hair. It smelled exactly how he remembered. That brought a small smile to his lips.
"Ichigo, please. I know you are mad, and I probably deserve it-"
"There is no 'probably.'"
"-but hear me out. I had every intention of returning the very next day, but Master Starrk knew where I had been, and warned me not to go back before I was prepared to deal with Aizen. He also told me I should become as immortal as you are, if I were to have any hope of being with you. I trained every day until I was a bloody mess, the thought of being able to just hold you again being the only thing that kept me going. So please, Ichigo, would you forgive my lateness?"
For a while, Grimmjow heard no response. Ichigo made not a peep, nor a shift, as he mulled over the speech. Only one he had formed a proper response did he open his mouth.
"Grimmjow," he said. Said man's ears perked at the sound of his beloved's voice. "Get your filthy hands off me."
Pain erupted in Grimmjow as Ichigo kneed him in the stomach. He went down with a cry of surprise, releasing Ichigo to clutch at his abdomen. Just as quickly as the pain came, it went. The feeling, all feeling, and thought, for that matter, were replaced by the sudden sensation of Ichigo's lips against his. Grimmjow responded greedily, drinking in the boy's scent and taste like it was his wine and nectar.
A cough sounded in the room, and Ichigo broke the kiss. He rose, not bothering to help the other immortal to his feet, and faced the other adult figure.
"I apologize for having to meet you under such regrettable circumstances." the figure said. Ichigo blinked, then remembered. /Aizen is dead/. "I am Coyote Starrk, and the girl is Lilynette. I am the sorcerer who trained Grimmjow."
Ichigo nodded. "Nice to meet you, Master Stark, even under such circumstances as these. I am Ichigo."
Introductions aside, the four decided it was time to leave. For the first time in 140 years, Ichigo was going to leave his tower. With Grimmjow by his side, he descended, never to go back ever again. At the sight of Aizen's corpse, he only felt minor pity, not the overwhelming grief he had been subject to only hours ago. He had not realized he was staring until Grimmjow squeezed his hand and lead him into the world, the same world his mother had promised he would one day become a part of.
Well? Leave a review and tell me what you thought, or if there is something I need to improve on. If there is another fairytale you really want to see, shoot me a pm, or leave it in the review and I'll see what I can do.
Thanks for reading!