A/N- To add on to the rising fanon trend of pairing Jiminy Cricket with Rapunzel, I've decided to write my own version of their story (hoping to raise awareness of this idea in the hopes the writers see it and get inspired). This has been partially fueled by the 'Once Upon A Time' roleplay that I'm in (I play Archie Hopper, of course) and some of the story lines we've made up. Some of it has been inspired by various depictions of Rapunzel in the media and some has just been made up by yours truly. My goal here is to make this story feel like it could be an episode of the show, so you might notice a re-work of various fairy tales and their characters to fit that set up. We'll see just how successful I am when all is said and done. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer- Not mine.
In the lowest cellar of a rather greedy King's castle, a young peasant woman was thrown and locked inside with endless mounds of straw, a spinning wheel, and one, single window to shed the light of the full moon on her work.
She was in trouble, for her father, desperate to marry her off to a King that was desperate for a wife, made the very outlandish promise that his daughter could spin straw into gold. It was enough to get the King's attention, for he had her summoned to the palace and announced that if she could turn the entire room of straw into gold, he would make her his Queen. If she did not, however, both she and her father would be promptly executed.
The truth of the matter was, the girl could not spin straw into gold. She knew her father to be a foolish, impractical man, but she could say nothing to convince him not to tell the lie.
"Aren't riches beyond our wildest dreams worth the risk?" he had asked. "Wouldn't you rather die than live the rest of your life in poverty?"
No, she wouldn't, but it was unfortunately not her decision to make. Thus, here she was, faced with the problem of somehow spinning straw into gold or being executed at dawn. She began to cry, knowing this would be the last night of her rather short life, as well as the most agonizing.
But it was when she felt that things were most hopeless that a voice joined her in the room.
"What ever is the matter, dearie? I can't imagine what a lovely young thing like you would have to cry about."
She looked up to see the strangest man staring back at her. He was rather short and slim, with dark, oddly-colored skin that seemed to glow like gold in the light of the moon. His eyes were piercing, almost snake-like, and they surveyed her as a predator does before striking its unassuming prey. Despite this, however, he wore an unsettlingly pleasant, fox-like grin.
"W-who are you?" she felt compelled to ask.
"Who I am is not important, I assure you. What is important is how you're going to spin all of this straw into gold before the sun rises tomorrow morning!"
She stared at him a moment, at a complete loss for words. Who was this man, this creature? He gave her an unpleasant churning in her stomach and something intuitive told her he was a thing to be avoided.
"How did you know that?" she asked.
He shook a finger at her and tsked playfully.
"You're asking all the wrong questions. Who I am and why I know is my own business. Shouldn't you be looking for ways to save your neck and become the next queen?"
"Well, yes, I suppose..." she agreed, unsure. "But how? Straw cannot be spun into gold, much less by some peasant girl like me...and even if I could, I doubt I could finish this whole room in one night."
"That's where you're wrong," he grinned. "Where there's a will, there's a way, dearie, and I happen to have a way...for a price, of course."
She blinked, disbelieving.
"You could spin all of this straw into gold?"
"That I can!" he confirmed, triumphantly. "And make you Queen. You and your family will want for nothing."
She took a moment to survey him, mulling over the prospect in her mind. This man was certainly not normal, and probably not in the least bit trustworthy. Why did he want to help her? Why would he be capable of doing something as fantastical as making straw gold? Part of her said not to worry about any of that. If she did not accept his offer, she'd be killed for sure and certainly whatever deal he wanted to make could not be as detrimental as losing her life.
But then again, she knew there were some things far worse than death. It was for that reason that she continued to question him.
"What would you have me pay? I have nothing."
"Ah, but you will," he corrected, slyly. "Not long after you become Queen, you will have something very precious, indeed."
"What, specifically? Jewels? Money? Power? What do you want?"
"You are a clever one, aren't you?" he marveled. "Or, perhaps, very foolish, depending on how you look at it. I think most people, if faced with your position, would have agreed to my proposition with no questions asked."
"You haven't made a proposition yet," she said. "If I am to agree to this transaction I must know what I will have to pay. Barter and trade is not unknown to me, sir."
He nodded, smiling wider.
"What I ask for in return for sparing your life and making you Queen...is your first-born child."
Her mouth dropped open in disbelief, not certain she even heard what she must have.
"My first born?" she repeated. "I shall be killed in any case if I give you that! The King wants to marry specifically for an heir. If I give away his first, he shall behead me for sure-"
"And yet on the other hand," he interrupted. "You shall certainly die if the King comes in here tomorrow to find that you and your father are liars. So what will it be, dearie?"
She fell silent a moment as she considered her options, none of them seeming to be very wise or attractive. In either case, she risked death, but the latter option at least made her Queen beforehand. But how was she supposed to give the first-born heir away? How would she ever explain that to the King?
Perhaps she could stage a miscarriage? Maybe the child would be stolen in the night? She was young, anyway, and would be able to have many more children besides. Certainly the King would not fault her for something that happened accidentally.
"What will become of the child?" she asked after a time, needing to know that she would not be selling it off to a horrible life or death for her own sake. "Will she be safe? Will she grow up healthy and happy? Will you see to it that she's cared for all the days of her life?"
"But of course," he smiled, knowingly. "No one shall lay a finger on her, I promise you that."
She knew she would owe this child a tremendous debt. Perhaps she would live a nice life, be cared and provided for, grow up to be a successful adult...but she was nevertheless being denied the life of a royal for the purpose of saving her mother's. She hoped, above all things, that her child would have the capacity to forgive.
"Very well," she decided.
With a shake of their hands, the deal was complete. The strange man set to work spinning straw and she marveled at the sight of it emerging from the other end of the spindle as gold. Eventually she could no longer keep her eyes open, and she laid down in a corner of the room and went to sleep, attempting to dream of the new life she would have and not the child she would have to give up.
When she awoke the next morning, the man was nowhere to be seen, but the room shone as bright as the sun itself with mounds and mounds of golden straw. He really had done it, and all in one night! The King and his men arrived not long after she had awoke and he nearly doubled over at the sight, almost as if he suspected she had been lying all along. Nevertheless, he announced right there that they would be wed that very evening, for if anyone was worthy enough to be his queen, it was the young woman that possessed this magnificent power.
Her life was forever changed from that day onward. She was wed to the King, crowned his Queen, and given more lavish treasures than she could have ever imagined. Instead of walking everywhere she had to go, she was taken in a gilded horse-drawn carriage. She was showered in jewelry, clothes, and anything else her heart desired. And then one day, she became pregnant.
She was fearful everyday of her pregnancy, knowing that at any moment the strange man who had saved her life would come back demanding his payment. It was unfortunate that she had grown to truly care for the child growing within her and eventually decided she could not bare to part with it, because she knew the man would be back whether she wanted him to be or not.
She had expected him the night she gave birth, but he did not show. When he did not return for a week after her, she began to believe that he may never come after all. It was in this time that she lived in a blissful delusion.
It was ripped away from her the morning she and her husband, the King, awoke to find the cradle completely empty and no sign left of who might have taken the new princess or where they might have taken her to. She, of course, knew who the culprit was- but not his name or where he was from or any sort of information that could lead her to where he might be. Besides, she could never confess to her husband that this kidnapping was payment that she had agreed to so that her lie would not be discovered. He would never forgive her for that and likely send her to the gallows. Thus, it was a secret that ate away at her until she died not many years later.
The child, on the other hand, was indeed collected by the strange man and stowed away up into a single, high tower in the middle of a thick forest. There was no way up or down from this tower, outside of the usage of magic, and it was for this reason that the man felt she would be safest and most inaccessible here. He proceeded to name her Rapunzel after the rampion that grew fruitfully on the ground below and he claimed her completely as his own.
Sheriff Swan was on a mission, this early Tuesday morning. It was a rather unusual one, given that her job typically entailed patrolling or heading up business at the police department, not walking purposefully to bookstores at 7:30 am. Yet, here she was, doing just that.
It had occurred to her not long ago that Mary Margaret, who gave the book of fairy tales to Henry, must have gotten it from somewhere and maybe if she were to track down more information on who wrote the book or where it had come from she might get a better insight into all of the craziness going on in Storybrooke. She was beginning to think there was more to Henry's theories than just delusion, though how far into the outlandish she was willing to take that suspicion, she hadn't yet determined.
Strangely enough, there had been no information whatsoever about the book on the Internet, which she found especially odd. Even if it had been written by some local author and published by a lesser-known company in a small quantity, there should still be something about it, shouldn't there? Heck, even she was readily available to read about on google and she didn't fancy herself nearly as interesting as this book.
In any case, Mary told her she had gotten the book from the downtown bookstore and that's where she would go to try and learn something. Hopefully, it would be a productive venture and not a complete waste of time.
Inside, the bookstore was about how she had imagined it would look. Every open surface gave the impression that there hadn't been a good dusting in a while, though there wasn't much of that in any case given the mounds of books that only barely followed any kind of organization. Sure, there were genre labels above shelves as there should be in any bookstore, but Emma guessed that whoever had previously kept up this system had since let it go by the wayside. The lighting was dim, which she had to admit was rather pleasant, though it was somewhat outweighed by the heady smell of dust and age that seemed to linger around the store as a whole. She couldn't help but think that just being here was risking a severe asbestos poisoning.
No one immediately appeared when she came in, despite there being a bell on the door, so she called out,
"Hello? Anyone here? I have a question about a book..."
After a handful of minutes, there was the sound of rustling from a backroom that Emma could only get a small peek of from where she was standing. A young woman, likely around her age, soon appeared at the counter.
"Y-y-yes mam, what I can do for you?"
The woman was dressed in a rather tattered black hoodie and jeans, both of which hung off her wiry frame like a tent. She had very visible, vibrantly colored paint stains on her hands- blues, yellows, greens, dark purples- but they did very little to hide the evident scars that descended down her arm, from her wrist to her elbow. Her eyes, a light blue, were wide and blood shot, and her skin a rather pasty white, as if she didn't get an abundance of sun. Her tow-blond hair had the potential to be quite pretty, but being tied up in an unwashed, messy bun on her head didn't do it much justice.
The odd thing was, Emma hadn't seen her around the town before. She couldn't say that she knew everyone around here, but she had at least seen them all and gotten a rudimentary knowledge of what names went with which faces. This woman, however, was a total and complete stranger, and one that didn't seem too enthusiastic to be anything besides that to Emma as she avoided eye contact with her completely.
"Look, I'm sorry to bother you," Emma felt rather obligated to say. "I'm just curious about a book that a friend of mine purchased from this shop. We can't seem to find any information on it- no author, no publisher, nothing. I was sort of hoping you might have something on it to help us out."
The woman swallowed and fidgeted a bit, looking not unlike a child that is being scolded by a parent.
"Uhm...w-what was the name of the book?"
"I'm not sure," Emma confessed, cursing herself for having not gotten a better look at that before coming here. "It's a pretty large book of fairy tales, I know that. Mary Blanchard was the person who bought it, if that...rings any bells...?"
This seemed to only make the young woman more anxious and desperate to avoid any eye contact.
"This...this is a used bookstore, mam," she said softly, but not without a hint of irritation to her tone. "I...don't keep any kind of record or database..."
Emma, thankful for her gift, could immediately tell that the woman was not being entirely truthful. Then again, she wasn't very good at not making that rather unwaveringly apparent.
"What if I brought the book in?" she offered. "Maybe if you looked at it you would be reminded of something."
"I'd rather you didn't..."
Emma didn't say anything back to this, being at somewhat of a loss of what to do from this point. Her concern for this woman's well-being had only been increasing the longer they talked, as was her curiosity, yet it was painfully obvious that she could not hope to get her to open up- if that was even possible.
"Listen," she said after a time, gentle, but firm. "Any information you might have or find on this book would be a huge help to us. I'm Sheriff Emma Swan, by the way. Let me give you my cell."
She scribbled it on the back of a random business card she found conveniently tucked in her back pocket.
"Will you call me if you find anything?" she asked, sliding the card across the counter.
The woman just nodded, taking the card and disappearing back into the back room without so much as a goodbye.
The young woman lounged in the seat of the sole window in her room while heavily immersed in a book of adventure on the high seas. She loved this seat out of all the furniture in her tower because it was closest to the outside. It was here that she could feel the warmth of the sun, the mild sweetness of the air, hear the chirping of birds. It was here that she would read, and the freedom of others, coupled with the slight sensation of it from the open window, made her feel just for awhile that she had it too.
The illusion would often be broken by the sound of one, single command:
"Rapunzel! Oh, Rapunzel! Let down your hair, dearie, father's come home!"
She was always excited when father came around. He only did once a week, if he were feeling up to it, but he always made a point of making his visits worthwhile for the both of them. They would typically spend the day talking, playing chess, reading to one another, sharing meals. He always brought with him fantastical tales of his journeys, of people he had met, as well as gifts for her from the outside.
It was nice having father to talk to, she would think, particularly when they lived in a world that was so dangerous and unforgiving. He had reminded her of this fact many a time.
"Why do you think I would put you in this high tower in the first place, my love?" he would ask. "The world is dark and cruel. Do not let the vision from your window deceive you, for it will, just as any fellow human would. You must trust me in this, my Rapunzel, for I have come to know the blackness of man's heart."
This was often why she felt guilty when she found herself yearning for the ability to leave the tower and explore. Her father loved her and he was wise. If he felt that the world was an unsuitable place for her to be in, she had to trust in that and obey him; she cared for him too much to do anything else.
So she wrapped her exceedingly long locks around the hook just beneath her window and allowed the rest to cascade down to where her father stood at the foot of the tower. He climbed up speedily, as he always had (rather like what she had read a spider monkey to be like) and joined her in the room.
"I have something for you, my dear!" he exclaimed, taking a small gold box out of his coat pocket.
"What is it, father?" she asked excitedly, accepting the box from him with great curiosity.
He smiled at her deviously.
"You must wind it, dear Rapunzel, to discover it's secrets."
This she did, heavily steeped in anticipation as she wound and wound it until she was sure she could wind no more. Thankfully, she didn't have to, as it was at that moment that a sweet, simple tune began to play and the lid of the gold box slowly opened. Inside was the tiniest, most beautiful dancer Rapunzel had ever seen. She twirled in time to the music, the wings that sprouted from her back dousing the inside of the box with a shimmering dust.
"How sweet!" Rapunzel marveled. "She is so beautiful, father. Are there more beings like her on the outside?"
She didn't miss her father's disapproving frown. He, of course, did not like it when she asked questions about the outside. He had expressed his concern for her overt curiosity about this on more than one occasion.
"Worry you not about that," he said, closing the box and proceeding to caress her hair. "I am sure you could find more like her in one of your books. I have provided you with a vast collection of them for a reason, my dear. In any case, you can always treasure her. She will dance for you whenever you like."
He then walked to a blank spot of wall. A great majority of the walls in her tower were covered in murals and various doodles that she had done in her spare time and one would have been hard-pressed to find a free area (she typically painted over old pieces when she wanted to do something new). But father knew where there was a spot, for he had returned to it many a time.
"And now that I have bestowed a gift upon you," he said with a grin. "It is time for you to return the favor."
She nodded obediently, knowing precisely what it is he wanted from her. She kneeled to the ground and drew aside a floorboard, taking out the wooden box from where she kept it safely hidden. From within, she withdrew the silver paintbrush, then went to fetch her paints, and then came back to where father stood, waiting.
"What will you have me paint, father?" she asked.
"A portal," he said simply. "I must be taken to the eastern kingdoms. In the countryside, if you don't mind. Come, dearie, you've seen pictures."
"Yes, father," she said obediently, beginning to paint the drawing she had been shown in one of her books about the various places in the world they lived in- places that she would only know in between pages.
"Father," she said tentatively, as she drew her brush across the stone. "Why must you go to the eastern kingdoms?"
She expected him to tell her not to worry about it, but instead he gave her another sly grin and replied,
"There is a certain fairy godmother who will be there later this evening. I must depart to meet her at the end of the day, when I usually leave you."
She had secretly hoped for a more specific answer than that, but she knew she had been fortunate to hear as much from him as she did, so she held her tongue. After she nearly finished, the two of them enjoyed the rest of their day together, doing all of the things they typically did; she read to him from her book about adventure on the sea, and he regaled her with stories of the outside world (all of them ending with the main idea, 'this is why you must stay in your tower, my dear Rapunzel').
When night fell, she added the finishing touches to the mural and immediately it transformed into a literal window into the eastern kingdoms. She could feel the familiar sensations of the outside and, for a moment, it occurred to her that she could simply run through the image and go roll in the country grass and lay on her back and look up at the stars. Instead, her father kissed her on the top of her head and quickly slipped through the portal before she could even try, making it -and himself- disappear into the stone completely.
"Rough day?" Mary asked sweetly as Emma came tumbling into the apartment.
"Not particularly," she replied with a huff, setting down the rather hefty grocery bags she'd had to carry all the way home. "At least, no more than usual..."
It was the truth, though her new job as Sheriff was generally more demanding than being Deputy. There was a large amount of behind-the-desk work, and though Storybrooke was unsurprisingly low on any real crime, she was still called to just about any and every minute instance that someone might have considered worthy of police reinforcement (including opening a pickle jar. No, she couldn't make this stuff up if she tried).
"Did you make it to the bookstore today?" Mary asked.
"I did," Emma said, compelled to remember the strange occurrence all over again. "It was...kind of a weird experience. I didn't find out anything, of course. I could tell the owner didn't want to give something away."
Mary groaned in realization, causing Emma to look up at her from where had been loading a few cans in the pantry.
"I forgot to tell you!" she exclaimed. "That bookstore is owned by Mr. Gold."
"Mr. Gold, eh?"
"Yes! I'm sorry, that must have been his daughter, Rachel. She usually runs it for him. I should have told you she's a bit...reticent."
"Reticent's not the half of it," Emma scoffed, folding up one of the paper grocery bags. "I think there could be something seriously wrong with her. I mean, she had scars going down her forearm and I know that they weren't from a pet cat or something. Beyond that, she just seems...I don't know, out of it, I guess...maybe she's suffering from some kind of substance abuse?"
Mary just looked at her, puzzled, as if none of this had ever crossed her mind.
"You could always try talking to Mr. Gold about the book, I guess," she offered.
Emma laughed.
"Yeah, no way. Every time I agree to that man's help something blows up in my face. Besides, I know Rachel's hiding something. She knows something about that book that she doesn't want me to find out...but maybe I can...earn her trust, somehow? Get close to her?"
She realized the absurdity and dubious morality of the idea the moment it fell out of her mouth, but Mary pointed it out anyway.
"Are you saying you want to try to manipulate a possibly emotionally disturbed woman into giving you information...?"
"Not manipulate..." she corrected. "Maybe...maybe I can get her some help? Maybe if we could find someone who knew how to deal with people like her-"
The idea struck her like a bolt of lightning.
"Duh! Archie, of course! Why didn't I think of that sooner? We can get him to start treating her and maybe she'll open up a bit more to helping us out with this thing!"
Mary still seemed skeptical of the whole thing.
"Can she pay for that? Does she even have insurance?"
"Likely no," Emma sighed. "But I'll bet you anything her dad does. Look, I've got to give this a shot. It could help everyone."
Mary shrugged and returned to her book. Emma could tell she was still not entirely enthusiastic about the plan, but how else were they going to find out anything?
Now, of course, the challenge lay in seeing if Rachel's father would be willing to get her the help she needed.