Hanging Words
A sad fic in which Max and the guys from the Ugly Duckling didn't come to the rescue in time.
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Tristan was new to the prison guard regiment. Some of the older, more hardened guards had snorted when they saw the gangly, beak-nosed newbie in their midst, quaffing their beer and betting on how long before he broke. The odds were not in his favor, Tristan knew, and he was not surprised. Back in his home village, a tiny suburb of the capital of Corona, he had always been known as a quiet, sensitive youth, thoughtful and empathetic. He himself would not been serving on the guard of Corona's biggest prison, if his widowed sister hadn't needed the income for her children. Hopeless at fighting, prison guard had been his only option.
It hadn't been so bad at first. Sure, he saw some pretty sick people, but they had already been subdued and could do no more than curse at him from behind iron bars. In fact, he was kind of relieved at seeing them in their cells. At least then he knew they were no danger to any citizen of Corona, not to Elise, his older sister, not to his nephews, mischievous Herbert, shy George, and romantic Arthur.
That thought helped ease his conscience as he locked them in cages like beasts, helped him get past his wondering of "Who's firstborn was he?" "What did she look like under the scars?" " Who did those killing hands touch with love?"
He had survived his first two weeks, when they brought the thief in.
Corona's most wanted man. Personally, Tristan could not fathom why. The man was a common thief, not a rapist, a murderer, an anarchist. A thorn in Royal Guard's side was all. The only striking thing about him was WHAT he had stolen this time. A theft of a dead princess's crown was the same crime as the theft of a merchant's watch. It was irrational of the king to put such a fuss over something that, as valuable as it was, just a theft. But Tristan would then stroke his mother's faded Bible tucked under his armor, and remember the stretch of his sister's smile over the booties she had sewn for his stillborn niece, and understood.
James had gone off to get married, so Tristan was standing at his post at the late night watch, when a boat sailed in, Corona's most wanted man himself tied to the wheel. Shocked, the captain had frozen stock still for a second, before snapping to life and hurriedly ordering Tristan to help get him out of the boat.
Tristan had gone to work on the cords, when the man began to wake, and rip to get free.
"Rapunzel!" he shouted, eyes desperate like raging flames. "Rapunzel!"
Tristan froze at such a strange greeting, his mind whirring trying to decipher it, before the captain hurriedly heaved the now prisoner out of the boat and behind the prison's walls, and Tristan had to scramble to grab his other arm. All the while, a constant cry of one word rose in impassioned screams from thief's lips.
"Rapunzel! Rapunzel! RAPUNZEL!
The guard on his cell was double that required for a thief, and the guards were twice as well trained. Tristan was among them, and although, like his fellow guards, he stared straight ahead, behind them his mind hummed endless thoughts.
"Rapunzel." Rasped the prisoner. "Rapunzel."
What is Rapunzel? Who is Rapunzel? Why, of all things that could pass those condemned lips, curses, prayers, pleas, why does he, on his last night on earth, say Rapunzel?
Tristan's eyes were groggy, his back stiff, but he was not granted reprieve in the morning, but told to be one of the guards around the prisoner. The order was given so coldly, like the word of the groom to a stable hand to walk the prize horse. But this was a man Tristan was walking, walking to his death, a man whose skin was warm, whose muscles twitched as he walked down the stone hallways with a guard on each arm, a man whose heart beat the same rhythm, whose blood was the same red as Tristan's own.
A hard jerk that knocked him to the ground jolted Tristan from his musing. The clang of his helmet on stone rung in his ears, rung, blocking out the furious words the prisoner had said to the fellow convict that he had grabbed by the shirt.
"It was the old lady!" the cryptic phrase shouted in protest did not clarify much of anything, and Tristan numbly rose to help subdue the prisoner, now fighting for his life.
As they got closer and closer to the noose, burning into Tristan's chest was the conviction that this convicted man should not hang. He was not evil, or cruel, or shiftless. He had something to live for.
Rapunzel.
Who is Rapunzel? The question died in his mouth, died as the executioner took the prisoner, died as the noose was slipped over the stubble that had not been shaved, died as the cart was rolled out from under the booted feet, died as the body hung, struggling to breathe. It died with the final choked whisper of a name, from the mouth of a good for nothing thief who died the way everyone knew he would one day die.
"Rapunzel…"
Who?
The name was written in the prison record, and Tristan in later years, after the king had died and no heir had been found and all the royal cousins had fought until the most unsuitable person for the throne had been set upon it, he would sometimes look back in the faded pages and read it.
Eugene Fitzherbert, otherwise known as Flynn Rider, sentenced to death by hanging.
Age, twenty-two. Crime: Theft.
More and more people flooded into the prison, not thieves or murderers, but political enemies of Lord, now King O'Donnell. Old advisers of the court, Ladies of manors, young heirs to lands the king wanted. Tristan hated his job more than ever.
One cold night, a young woman was brought in, for claiming to be the lost princess. Her hair was ragged and short, a dull brown, her pixie-like features and green eyes changed by pain and loss. He ushered her into a spare cell, and stood guard.
"Eugene." His heart stopped at the soft whisper from the cold corner of the stone cell.
He had not asked last time. He would not hang on another dying word.
"Miss." She started, looking surprise to be addressed. " What do you mean by calling that name?"
Her head lowered and a few tears glistened in those green orbs. "Oh, Eugene…" The name was said with such fondness and regret. "Eugene was someone who changed my life."
"For the better." She added decisively, after a pause.
Tristan pondered this answer, before deciding life was too short to have any loose ends.
"Are you referring to Eugene Fitzherbert, otherwise known as Flynn Rider, sentenced to death by hanging, age twenty-two, crime theft?"
"Eugene? That's my Eugene! I had hoped… " The tears were now running freely. " I had hoped the only person who had ever really loved me was alive.'
"He loved you?"
Another pause. "Yes. Yes, he did."
The word echoed in the cell, in the heart of a woman robbed of her crown, heart and love, and in the mind of a man wondering where the world had gone so wrong.
Tristan licked his lips, for one last question.
"Are you Rapunzel?"
So, what do you think? Did you hate it, Do you have any tips? Did you cry?
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