AN: Whew. That was the second chapter to end up longer than I thought it would too. As for this one, all I want to say is that the opinions brought up at the end are in no way my own. I personally have no problems with same-sex pairings, but for the time-period I picture this taking place in, such things would be very much taboo.
As Flynn struggled to regain her breath on the bank of the river, she could almost wish the last several minutes hadn't happened. Because that was the only way in which the world would make sense once more. That way, she would still just be Flynn Rider. She wouldn't have confessed her real identity. And most importantly she wouldn't know that Rapunzel had hair that glowed.
She barely noticed as the blonde girl beside her grinned down at her pet and said, "We're alive." Jubilant, Rapunzel climbed out of the river (taking her frying pan with her) with a cry of, "I'm alive!"
"I didn't see that coming." Eugena muttered as she ran a hand over her wet ponytail and shook her head. She could not get over the fact that Rapunzel's hair glowed! Worriedly she thought, Am I dreaming? Could I have been knocked out when I hit that trough? But no, she could clearly remember everything after that, from the dam bursting to being trapped in that cave. Besides the throbbing cut on her hand proved that this was no dream.
"Eugena?" Rapunzel called.
Flynn ignored her. Instead she looked down at the frog-chameleon thing. "The hair actually glows." She told it. Pascal nodded in agreement as if this was a perfectly reasonable thing for hair to do. As if he had been witness to it hundreds of times before. And for all I know, he has!
"Eugena!" Rapunzel repeated more firmly. Again Eugena didn't respond. Instead she focused solely on Pascal.
"WHY DOES HER HAIR GLOW!?" she demanded sharply of him. Her voice was rising into hysterics.
"EUGENA!" Rapunzel shouted finally.
Suddenly remembering that that was indeed her name, Flynn looked up wildly at Rapunzel. "WHAT?!" she cried back, breathing hard and clutching her injured hand.
The blonde girl was standing a few feet away, dragging the massive length of her hair out of the water. She gave a slightly amused sigh and said, "It doesn't just glow."
As the girl looked at her, holding her hair like that, Eugena wasn't at all reassured by hearing that tidbit of information. She glanced down at the chameleon-frog worriedly and, to her dismay, Pascal merely grinned smugly back. No, no, no! You do not look at me like that you stupid frog! Flynn thought. You should be as freaked out as I feel, not looking like that! Don't make me seem like the crazy one here! She looked back at Rapunzel. In a strained voice, like she was about to start crying, Eugena asked "Why is he smiling at me?"
Rapunzel gave the chameleon a reproving look which he returned with an unrepentant one. She shook her head and looked back at Flynn. "I can explain everything, but first," she walked towards Eugena, offering her hand, "maybe you should get out of the river."
"Oh. Right, right." Flynn said absently, ignoring the help. Her mind was still running circles around the fact that Rapunzel's hair glowed and it apparently could do more than that, yet she couldn't think of what else that was. It could be literally anything! Frantic to focus on something simple, something that made sense, she looked down at the cut on her left hand. It hurt like Hell and there was still a little bit of blood oozing from it. She grimaced a little as she squeezed the edges of the cut together.
Rapunzel must have noticed her injury. "Oh my goodness! Your hand!" She gave an eager smile and reached forward to take it. "Don't worry. I can fix that."
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Eugena shouted, jerking away. She held her hands up just to get them out of the other girl's reach. She didn't even realize that she had taken a step back. For a moment there was no other sound on the riverbank except for the gurgle of water.
And then, Flynn wanted to kick herself.
Rapunzel didn't say anything, just looked at her like a scared sparrow. Her lower lip trembled and her expressive green eyes wavered with tears. Oh bloody Hell! Eugena thought. Good going, idiot. She was just going to help and you yelled at her. Get a hold of yourself and suck it up. That reaction of blondie's really bothered Flynn though. It spoke of her having bad experiences with someone shouting at her. And that someone could only be the mother, she-who-must-not-be-spoken-of.
Eugena took a deep breath, held it for a second, and slowly let it out again. "Sorry, sorry." She apologized. "I shouldn't have yelled. It's just…" she shrugged and waved her good hand around as she explained, "you don't get to meet someone with magic glowing hair every day! I'm still just trying to process it all."
As she spoke, Rapunzel brightened again. Her quickly recovery made Flynn feel even more of a heel. "I guess it is pretty surprising when you don't expect it."
"You probably have no idea." Eugena replied. At that moment she noticed that the sunlight had gone from bright golden to a ruddy orange. She was a little startled that it was already sunset. Flynn took another deep breath. "Look, it's getting late. We should make camp before it gets too dark. Come on." She helped pull the rest of Rapunzel's hair out of the river before leading the way into the forest again.
A short time later, just as the last of the light faded away from the sky, they set up camp. Rapunzel spread out her hair so that it could dry and Eugena set about getting a fire going. It took several tries and much cursing, but the small pile of wood finally caught flame. Flynn sat back on her heels with a pleased look. "There. That should do." She stretched and took a seat on the same tree root Rapunzel was perched on.
The blonde girl held out a hand to her. "Good. Now give me your hand."
Eugena gave her a wary look, she had been able to forget about the fact Rapunzel had other tricks up her… hair. She really didn't want to be reminded about that fact, though a part of her was starting to want to know. Cautiously she held out her right hand.
"Your other hand." Rapunzel favoured her with a look equally mixed of amusement and annoyance. Flynn actually felt her cheeks heat up.
"Oh… Yeah… Right… Sorry…" she said sheepishly and held out her left. Rapunzel took it and picked up the end of her hair. With a look of intense concentration, she began to wrap it around Eugena's palm. She focused tightly on her self-appointed task. Silence stretched between them as the fire crackled and popped. Finally Flynn couldn't take it anymore. "So… You're being strangely cryptic as you wrap your magic hair around my injured hand." A sharp sting shot up her arm and Eugena hissed.
Rapunzel winched and looked up from her task. "Sorry." She said and let out a breath before giving her a worried look. "Just don't… Don't freak out."
Flynn looked down at her hand and then back at Rapunzel. That sort of warning, given like that, wasn't reassuring in the least. Still she was pretty sure that the blonde wasn't going to hurt her hand further.
Mostly.
With a sigh and taking Eugena's silence as agreement, Rapunzel closed her eyes and did the strangest thing Flynn had ever seen. She began to sing. "Flower, gleam and glow. Let your power shine. Make the clock reverse. Bring back what once was mine."
Seeing that glow as Rapunzel's hair lit up for the second time that day left Eugena just as unnerved as the first. Entirely unbidden, Flynn's eyes followed the light as it travelled down the length of the hair. A part of her wanted to yank free and go running screaming into the forest, but a larger part couldn't even move. She lifted her free hand from the tree root as a loop of hair beside her lit up. Turning her head around to keep watch on the moving light, Eugena happened to see Pascal.
The chameleon lifted his forepaws, pointing at one of them.
Flynn looked down at her hand just as the glow reached the hair wrapped around her palm. And to her amazement, she could actually feel it. It had a presence against her skin and it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Warm like a summer sun, cool like a forest stream, soothing like a healing balm. A strange tingling slowly crept up her arm, originating from the cut on her palm. No way, she thought. Mouth dropping open Eugena looked up from her hand to Rapunzel.
The girl was still caught up in her song. "Heal what has been hurt. Change the fates' design. Save what has been lost. Bring back what once was mine."
Flynn looked back at Pascal, not that she really expected he would be able to give her an explanation. It was more that she hoped he could confirm that what she was seeing, sensing was actually true. And just as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Pascal nodded knowingly back at her.
"What once was mine." The song over and the light faded once more, Rapunzel opened her eyes and looked up at Eugena's face nervously. It was like she fully expected Eugena to run off screaming into the forest.
Suspecting what she might find, Flynn pulled Rapunzel's hair away from her hand. A whimper escaped as she took in what she saw. It's gone. The cut is gone! The cut is GONE! She thought hysterically as she turned her palm to show Rapunzel. Without realizing it, Eugena started breathing heavily, a scream building up in her throat.
"Please don't freak out!" Rapunzel cried desperately, holding up both hands just as Eugena took a deep breath.
Flynn froze, mouth half open. Okay, note to self, trying to swallow a scream doesn't work, she thought irreverently as a wheezing strained gasp escaped. Rapunzel was just as frozen as she was, only looking like she was just praying she could keep the other girl from screaming blue murder just by force of will. They remained like that for nearly a full minute. Finally Eugena broke the impasse.
"I-I-I-I'm not freaking out. Are you freaking out?" she blurted in a rush. She needed to find something to do with her hands. As long as she could actually see the now healed cut, she was just going end up further into screaming hysterics, which was something they both didn't need at the moment. "No! I'm just really interested in your hair and the magical qualities that it possesses. How long has it been doing that exactly?!" At first she tried to just nonchalantly put her chin in her hand, but she suddenly remembered that was the hand that had been healed by Rapunzel's hair. Getting more than a little freaked out; she folded her arms, tucking her hands into her armpits. Eugena tried to cover her panic with a strained grin that tasted far too much of hysterics for her liking.
Rapunzel must have found this all a little amusing for she gave a little giggle. "Umm… Forever, I guess." Her expression changed to a very serious one as she continued. "Mother says when I was a baby, people tried to cut it. They wanted to take it for themselves."
Knowing full well the extent of human greed, a sinking feeling formed in the pit of Flynn's stomach. It wasn't hard to imagine why people would want such a power. And the extent they would go to just to obtain it. And she could suddenly understand why Rapunzel, and by implication her mother, was so protective of it. And the blonde's next words just cemented that.
"But once it's cut," she reached behind her head and pulled back her long blonde hair to reveal a short brown lock just behind her ear, "it turns brown and loses its power. A gift like that, it has to be protected. That's why Mother never let me…" she ran her fingers through her hair as she looked back at Eugena. Rapunzel trailed off for a moment and then continued. "That's why I never left and…"
She looked away and sighed, grimacing.
"You never left that tower." Eugena finished for her slowly. That grimace disturbed Eugena more than she was willing to admit. It spoke to her of pain and loneliness. It also spoke of the fact that Rapunzel knew the danger she putting herself in just coming out of her tower. Yet she still did it. Rapunzel just looked back at her. Finally Flynn asked, "And you're still going to go back?" Somehow, now having experienced the wide world for the first time in her life, Eugena just couldn't see her going back to live in such a place tamely.
"No!" she said firmly and then paused before saying in unsure tone, "Yes? … Ugh! It's complicated." With a groan of frustration, she buried her face in her hands.
Eugena felt surprisingly sorry for her. And a little bit ashamed of herself. The truth of the matter, most of the danger they had just gone through had been Flynn's fault not Rapunzel's. The thugs of the Snuggly Duckling hadn't been interested in Rapunzel's hair except for the oddity of it. They had been more interested in turning Flynn in for the reward money. And the Guards, they would likely have ignored Rapunzel if it hadn't been obvious that she was connected to Flynn. The same could be said for the Stabbington Brothers.
And if they hadn't been trapped in that cave and about to drown, she herself would never have learned about the magic that resided in Rapunzel's hair.
Finally Rapunzel peeked through her fingers. She sat up and ran her hands over her hair, letting out a heavy breath, as if by doing so she was lifting the weight of her problems away. She looked sideways at Eugena with a sly grin. "So… Eugena Fitzherbert, huh?"
Eugena blushed a little and looked away. When she spoke next, it was once more in her real voice. "Ah, yeah. Well… I'll spare you the sob story of Poor Orphan Eugena Fitzherbert. It's a little bit of a…" She made a face before continued, "Well, it's a little bit of a downer." As a pleasant surprise, instead of looking uninterested or bored, Rapunzel scooted a little closer, crossed her legs, and put her chin in her hands. She looked for the entire world like she was incredibly interested in hearing about Eugena. Eugena chuckled a little. "There was this book. A book I used to read every night to the younger kids. The Tales of Flynnagan Rider." She waved her hand across the air as if showing off a banner as she explained. Then she waved an imaginary sword. "Swashbuckling rogue, richest man alive, big adventurer. Not that he'd ever brag about it, of course." She sort of whispered the last part as an aside to Rapunzel.
"Was he a girl in disguise, too?" Rapunzel asked with a chuckle.
That brought Eugena up short. "Uh… Well, no. And he wasn't a thief either." She admitted shame-faced, shoulders dropping. She turned back to Rapunzel, putting renewed enthusiasm into her words. "Actually he had enough money to do anything he wanted to do. He could go anywhere he wanted to go." She turned away again, looking down at her clasped hands. "And… and for a kid with nothing… I don't know, I…" She trailed off for a second, "Just seemed like the better option."
Rapunzel chuckled softly. But to Eugena's surprise that chuckle didn't sound malicious. In fact she actually doubted that Rapunzel could ever be malicious. It was more of a friendly understanding chuckle. Eugena looked at her and saw that she looked just as interested as she did when she started telling Rapunzel about herself. Still there needed to be something to lighten the mood, so Eugena had to say, "You can't tell anyone about this, okay?" Dropping back into her Flynn voice, she continued "It could ruin my whole reputation."
That made Rapunzel grin. "Ah. We wouldn't want that." she teased back.
Her response actually pleased Eugena. It warmed her heart that Rapunzel would join in on the joke and so easily. "Well, a fake reputation is all a fake man has." She quipped, still speaking in Flynn's voice. Rapunzel laughed and Eugena found she liked hearing the blonde girl laugh. It was nice and Rapunzel looked so adorable when she did it. Especially when she looked at Eugena with those sweet green eyes.
What? Wait. Where did that come from? She thought startled at the butterflies that had erupted in her stomach. All of a sudden Eugena had the desperate urge to get away. And she needed to get away now! "Well, I should, umm…" Abruptly she lurched to her feet and took a few steps away from the fire. She scrambled for some reason she could use. Finally she had it. Stammering she said, "I-I-I should… I should get some more firewood." Turning she aimed to head into the night-dark woods.
"Hey." Rapunzel called out before Eugena could get too far. She turned back to face the blonde sitting next to the fire. Rapunzel smiled. "For the record, I like Eugena Fitzherbert much better than Flynn Rider."
For the first time in her life, Eugena felt touched. No one had ever said that about her. Not that anyone ever knew that Eugena Fitzherbert and Flynn Rider were one and the same. Point of fact, she was sure even the younger kids at the orphanage hadn't liked her all that much despite enjoying the stories she told them. Mostly because it was never a good idea to get too close to the other kids. You never knew when someone you were friends with was going to get adopted or otherwise leave.
She looked down at her left hand, running her thumb over the place that had once been slashed open on a rock in a desperate attempt to escape a cave filling with water. "Well, then you'd be the first." She said and truly meant it. "But thank you." She looked back at Rapunzel once more with a smile before walking off into the woods. As she did so, she took another look at her hand, marveling as she turned it over.
Before too long she was out of sight of their little campfire. While she was a little nervous about leaving Rapunzel alone, she needed to get away to think. And it had less to do with the surprise over the magic in Rapunzel's hair, and more to do with something far more nebulous. Something she wasn't sure she wanted to face.
Don't be ridiculous, Eugena, she thought as she gathered up a few fallen branches. She hadn't even realized that she no longer even thought of herself as Flynn. It's just friendship, this thing between you and blondie. That's all. Don't go seeing things that aren't even there.
Lying to yourself, I see, an amused voice spoke in her head, sounding very much like Flynn at that moment. Eugena gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it. The voice wasn't done though. That's not going to work, my girl. I am you. I'm not going to go away and I am not afraid to say what you won't. You've gone and fallen in love with that girl.
"I have not." She bit out without realising that she had spoken out loud. "She only said she liked me. She probably only meant as friends." She finally realized what she was doing and wanted to bash her forehead against a tree. "And now I'm arguing with myself."
And losing, the Flynn-voice put in helpfully. What's so bad about being in love with her? She's smart, clever, pretty as Hell. She can take care of herself and isn't afraid to put you in your place. About the only down-side was that she failed to respond to the Smolder.
Eugena snorted. "Oh, I don't know. How about the fact that girls can't be in love with other girls? That's a pretty big obstacle."
For a moment she thought that would be the end of the argument with that inner voice. There was silence in her head, but then the voice said, Ah. I think I see now. That's not the real problem here. The real problem is that you don't feel worthy of being loved. Because everyone who ever cared about you before has always abandoned you, haven't they?
As much as she hated to admit it, the voice was right. That was the crutch of the matter. She hadn't known anyone who she could say truly cared about her ever since she was a very little girl when her mother had died and her aunt had dumped her at the orphanage. Even at the age of four it hadn't been hard to figure out, not when you hear your only blood-kin say she couldn't afford to feed another mouth, especially not the unwanted brat of her sister's. And yet now, here was someone. Someone special and unique. Someone who might actually like her for her. Someone she liked back. Far more than she should.
And that absolutely terrified Eugena.
The Flynn-voice suddenly took on a wheedling tone. But why not take this chance? Who knows, she might love you back, you know.
But Eugena just couldn't do that. She couldn't ruin the first friendship she'd had in most of her life by confessing those kinds of feelings. No, better to keep this to herself.
If that's what you want to do, the voice said and she could almost picture Flynn standing in front of her shaking his head, but I think you're making a big mistake.
Well, if she was, it was hers to make. She gathered up as much wood as she could and headed back to the campsite. Just as she reached it, she called out to Rapunzel. "So, hey, uh… Can I ask you something?"
