DISCLAIMER: As usual.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you again to all of my lovely reviewers! Now, here's the big scene you've all been waiting for! However, this is NOT the last chapter so hang around to see how Without A Stair is resolved!
Also a warning: this chapter gets kind of graphic towards the end so watch out.
Rapunzel's POV"Agrona, what are you doing?" I gasped. With each pull Christian made on my hair I felt the jerk down to my scalp. Tears began to well in my eyes from the pain.
With the tip of the knife blade still pointed at my throat, Agrona never took her eyes off the young man ascending my tower. "Only what must be done," she murmured distantly. "Now stop your crying. I'm doing this to protect you. You'll thank me once he's gone."
"But you're the one who's hurting me!" I pleaded, pulling at my hair and eyeing the knife.
She snorted. Amusement flickered over her eyes. "Don't worry my pretty little bird. This is for your own good."
Christian was now over halfway up the wall. While he usually scaled the tower so quickly, this time the howling wind and blinding rain had hindered his progress. Every couple of minutes I felt him slip and clutch my plait even tighter. I dug my fingers into Agrona's age-spotted skin, slick from the rainwater, as the pain intensified. But she didn't seem to feel it. Her eyes never left Christian's flailing form and began to burn bright green as he came closer to the windowsill.
My own eyes were flooded with the rain, but I could not wipe away the water for the tearing pain in my scalp that caused me to bite my lower lip 'till it bled. All I could see was Christian's blurred form below, and the twinkling torch lights moving towards us far out into the forest.
"Not a word," Agrona hissed in my ear as Christian climbed the last few feet. "Say nothing and this will all be much less painful."
Christian's POVThis was turning out to be the worst day of my life, and I have known my share of bad days. When I was five, I fell asleep on a pile of hay one evening and got locked in the sheep pen overnight. At 12 I spent a miserable month seasick on one of my father's whaling expeditions, and at 16 I got bested by a girl in front of the whole kitchen staff.
But today topped it all. Aside from rising at the ungodly hour of 5am, I had been insulted in every possible manner, knocked unconscious, chased by a homicidal horde of hooligans, and now I was trying to scale a 20-eel-high wall during the middle of what was probably the worst thunderstorm in recent memory. Just peachy.
This probably wasn't the type of romantic elopement Rapunzel had counted on. Seeing as how I was sopping wet and rather bruised, and being chased by murdering mercenaries. But it would have to do. I sure hoped she was packed.
Aside from trying not to fall and kill myself, I tried to figure out what to say to Rapunzel once I finally got inside. Hi honey, there's a mad king on his way to burn the tower down. Sorry we have to rush. Or, On the bright side, you don't need to worry about your hair!
Finally reaching the top, I threw my arm over the windowsill and was just about to ask for a hand when—
Rapunzel screamed.
The flash of a knife.
A violent wave of the braid.
My hands slipped.
Rapunzel's POVThe weight was gone from my hair! I thrust my head out of the window just in time to see Christian's fall broken by a rosebush. And somewhere, someone was screaming in a horrible, high-pitched voice. I think it was me.
Agrona clutched at me from the floor. She gasped and grabbed for my hair but I backed away in terror and tried to remember what had happened. Everything had been so fast! All I knew was that at the moment Christian reached into the window Agrona had plunged the knife downward towards his back, but something…someone?…had knocked her back.
It couldn't have been me. No. No, I wouldn't do that. Not to her. Not to Agrona…would I?
I took a few shaky steps back and watched, horrified, as Agrona crawled towards me, her hands still clutching for my hair. Her eyes boring into me and her mouth open in a choking cry. She gasped for breath and clawed the floorboards as she reached for me.
"Ra-pun-zel…please…" she panted.
I couldn't find the breath to speak.
"Hair…give me…your hair…"
Stepping backward, my foot slipped on something hard and smooth. The knife.
Agrona's POVHer hair was so close. Just a few inches away. But my body was weak without the golden threads of life and I could hardly manage the strength to crawl. Even my breathing was labored, coming in short heaves and gasps.
Foolish girl. Just like her mother holding out that pathetic piece of silver, Rapunzel took the knife in her hands, holding it with a look of absolute bewilderment. She kept looking from it to me with those wild blue eyes, confounded by the strange situation. But she would never hurt me. I knew that as surely as I knew that I could regain my strength if only I could get a hold of her hair. Why I had raised her! She knew nothing of this world except for me! Me! I was her universe! I was her protector, her guardian! I was everything!
At last she backed into the wall. Her hair within my grasp. I reached out to take the golden life-force into my hands when—
Smoke.
Clouding my eyes and stinging the back of my throat, smoke poured into the room. Amidst my hacking and desperate grabs for the braid, I could vaguely make out the glow coming from Rapunzel's bedclothes. The sharp smell of burning feathers from the pillows. Somewhere outside the whooping and hollering of several men drifted up.
Rapunzel darted to the window and as she ran by a length of her golden plait fell into my hands. Through the murky darkness of the smoke I held on for dear life.
Rapunzel's POVOutside there were over a dozen armored men touting torches and yelling obscenities as they rode off into the night. I had no idea who they were or why they had set the blaze to my tower and fled. But worse, I couldn't see Christian anymore.
The rain was still pounding my walls, but the wind fed the fire and the inferno continued to rage. Smoke seeped into my nostrils and I choked on the bitter air. All around the room my furniture was catching fire. My bed had nearly been reduced to ashes and the precious pages of the books I had packed in my pillowcases were fluttering about in their final moments of golden glory.
Agrona was struggling to her feet, now embracing my hair for all she was worth.
"Rapunzel?" she croaked, "Rapunzel come to me. Pretty bird, I need more of your hair."
"What?!" I shrieked and bent down to pick her up. "Agrona you can't be serious! The tower is burning! We have to get out of here!"
She flailed her arms, reaching for my plait and gasped for fresh air like a fish on the sand. "Please…hair…I must…have more of…hair…"
Her strength was returning. She grasped my braid and pulled me down to her, staring wildly into my eyes. The fire licked the hem of my skirts and I could feel the skin on my legs singe.
"Agrona, please! Let's go!" I cried, half weeping now. Partly from the smoke and partly because I was so frightened.
"Stay with me!" she shrieked, clutching wildly at me, her fingers tearing out parts of my plait. Yards of golden threads loosened from their careful braid and began to cook in the blazing room. "I am your protector!" she screamed. "You need me! You will stay!"
My mind flooded with so many different images I could hardly see strait. I saw myself the day Agrona left me in the tower, looking down on her retreating form. I saw the countless hours spent waiting, waiting, for the only face I had seen for 17 years. I saw Christian's lopsided grin when he assured me he would not have me for lunch. I saw the ocean as I had seen it for the first time and I saw the warmth in Christian's eyes when he told me he loved me.
"NO!"
I threw myself back, and yanked my hair from Agrona's grasp. She clutched at me but I shoved her back and turned to knot my hair to the hook at the window. She lunged at me and tried to wrench the knife from my hands but I threw her off and sliced through the blonde curls at the base of my neck.
Agrona crumpled to the floor and screamed as though her body was stabbed by a thousand knives.
I threw the knife across the room and just as a fiery timber from the roof crashed down I lept out the window and began crawling down the long golden braid.
Smoke was everywhere. And it wasn't without serious effort that I managed to avoid most of the snarls of flame. I say "most" because nearly halfway down my braid caught fire, singeing my hands and nearly causing me to lose my grip. But I held on as best I could and finally, finally could see the ground through the haze of smoke and flames below me.
That was when the burning hair finally snapped.
For a moment I seemed to hang in mid-air, weightless, bound upwards by the pillars of smoke rising from the ground. Then falling, for what seemed an eternity. Covering my face with my hands to ward off the smoke and flames, I could feel my skirts catching fire.
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps the sickening crunch of my neck snapping as I hit the ground, or the blinding pain of my legs shattering…but not the white-hot jabs of a thousand thorns as I collided with the burning rosebush. Hands still covering my face, I rolled down onto the earth and let the soil beat the flames out of my clothes and cropped hair.
As soon as I had thrashed out all of the flames on my person, I struggled to my feet and shielded my eyes to stare up at the blazing inferno that had once been my home. The roof had nearly collapsed by now, and the blackened cord of my braid flailed like a snake in its throes of death. Then, high up from the blackened stone window, a piercing scream struck me. The agonizing shriek cut deep into my body and I threw my hands over my ears to block out the sound of Agrona's death.
Running from the tower, I dove into the protective cover of the woods…and collided with something soft. Christian. He moaned and rolled into a ball, curling away from me.
Relieved to see that he hadn't been burned, I dropped to the ground and began feeling his body for broken bones. Everything seemed fine. Except that he was covered in blood. I glanced down at my torn, burned hands. My blood. I was getting it all over him.
"Christian?" I whispered, giving him a light shake. All I got in return was another moan. He wouldn't roll over to face me.
"Christian please turn over. I need to know you're okay!" I pleaded and tried to rotate him myself by pulling on his shoulder. "Please!"
At last he let me pull him onto his back…which was when I saw it. It wasn't my blood that covered his body. It was his. Pouring out from between the slats of his fingers covering his face, blood came from his eyes. As gently as I could I coaxed his hands away and took a look at the injury.
I threw up.
What had once been his sparkling hazel eyes was now a mess of flesh and blood, a few thorns still protruding from the soft pulp. My stomach heaved again and I turned away from the sight.
His moans softened to whimpers and after a moment I felt his hands reach for me. "Rapunzel?" he whispered.
I steeled myself and turned back to embrace my love. Taking his poor, beaten body in my arms I shushed his cries and whispered reassurance. "It's all right my love," I murmured. "I'm here. Everything will be okay. I love you." Ripping a stretch of fabric from part of my skirt which had not been burned, I removed the debris from his injury and bound his eyes.
At last his cries quieted and he could talk. "What happened? How did you get down here?"
I related the story from up in the tower and received his explanation for the soldiers who had burned down my home…with Agrona trapped in the top. Somewhere during the conversation, I felt the warm nuzzle of Phillip's nose against my back. The sweet horse had found us.
"Christian, can you stand?" I asked gently.
He considered the question and replied in the affirmative. I took his hands and helped him to his feet. Wrapping my arms around him, I guided Christian towards Phillip and boosted him up onto the horse's back. Then I swung myself up after him.
"You say this man will make the engagement with your parents at midnight?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied.
Reaching down to gather Phillip's mane into my hands I gathered my courage and whispered, "Then I sure hope this horse knows the way home." Kicking his sides, I goaded Phillip into a gallop and we took off into the night.