Of Shadows & Light

Part 1

It's All Tangled Up in Knots

"Look, lady," Pitch let out an exasperated sigh as he tried to squeeze out of the tight coils of golden hair that currently encased his whole body, trapping him to a chair, "much as I occasionally enjoy being tied up by a beautiful blond... I really do not have the time for this."

The lady in question, of course, was not having this excuse. This man - guy, thing, or whatever he was - had just entered her tower, without announcing himself, and was quite possible there to steal from her and cut off her hair. She could not risk anything by setting him free. So instead, as one does in this sort of situation, she narrowed her eyes at the intruder, aiming her frying pan at him.

"Yet, you clearly had the time to sneak up into my tower in an attempt to take my hair," she retorted, looking him over.

He looked looked away, frowning, and pondering over her peculiar words, before averting his gaze back towards her, looking into her blue and green eyes. "Your hair?" he asked. "What would I even want to do with your hair? I hardly have any need for a wig, and asides from, perhaps, using it to tie ones enemies to chairs with it, I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would ever try to take your hair... of all things."

The girl in front of him blinked a couple times, at first at a loss of words. "You... did not come here for my hair?"

There was an eye-roll from the spirit. "As difficult as this may be for you to believe, Goldilocks, the world doesn't revolve around your golden locks," he nodded. "Though, I would quite like to know how it is that you can see me."

Now it was the blond's turn to frown. "Why would I not be able to see you?"

Well, then. At least he knew that she did not, in fact, hold any faith in the boogeyman, or Nightmare King, or any related entity. Now that left him with a very long and complicated explanation as to why she should not be able to see him. Thankfully, it could be condensed down to a much shorter response. "In all technicality, I am dead." Queue the deadpan.

"Dead? You seem alive and just fine to me - well, except for that skin colour of yours, that doesn't look very healthy."

"Yes, and if I were mortal, my skin would have been much more like yours. But alas, I have been dead for a good few billions years now, and really, had it not been for my "luck", I would not be wandering around even in this skin. As it happens, I had been granted an afterlife by some greater supernatural force, that goes with all the perks that regularly come with such a life. Including being invisible, watching all your mortal friends die and rarely being able to do anything about it and spending the rest of your eternal existence doing the one and the same shitty, thankless job."

"How is it that I see you, then?" the mortal heard him out but remained incredulous, not about to budge. Really, he would have thought it smart not to trust him, if at this precise moment it wasn't creating such a miserable inconvenience for him.

"Now that... I have no idea." If he had, he wouldn't have asked her the question in the first place. "And since I have answered life's biggest questions for you, I believe you may release me now?"

"Right..." the female considered it for a moment, "sorry, but I can't do that. I have no idea how to know that I can trust you."

Letting out a louder, and even more exasperated sigh, Pitch muttered a few curses under his breath. Great. Now what-

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a crudely drawn head in the middle of the floor of the tower, and raised an brow at it in question. "Does this mistrust of my word by any chance have anything to do with that flattering sketch over there?" he nodded over to the drawing. An angular head, with an angry expression plastered over the face and sharp teeth did seem to be like a good way to inspire fear in others. He wondered if she had drawn it, or if perhaps some parental figure had instilled this fear of strangers in her. To be fair, if it was the fear of strangers the person had tried to instil in the young lass, then it was a bright thing to do.

That being said, he only came here because he needed a hiding space at the time. Some shady spot to disappear in, to avoid confrontation with the Guardians. Those pesky creatures seemed to be multiplying with each day and limiting his freedom more and more. It was not as though he posed a threat to her, or indeed wanted anything to do with her. She was, after all, a neutral party.

"Actually, it mostly has everything to do with you breaking and entering into my home... but yes, Mother did warn me of your kind. She just didn't tell me you were all dead too."

"What kind are we talking about, exactly?" he inquired, "you know, just so that you and I are on the same page with regards to all of this..."

"Mankind. Men," she informed him.

His jaw dropped at that. That was supposed to be a drawing of a regular human being. He really wasn't sure whether to laugh at that, or feel rather insulted by the idea that other males could ever come anywhere near to his level of intimidation. "Your mother thinks this is what men look like?"

Rapunzel shrugged. "Well, it is what you look like. Sort of."

The spirit scoffed. "I am not part of mankind. I may be male, but I am not human, I assure you," he corrected her. "Human men do not usually look like that - unless something somewhere has gone terribly wrong during their conception -, and I still have no idea why they would want your hair."

"Conception...?"

She continued to evade the question. Clever, but not clever enough.

"Really, why would they want your hair?"

"Men are..." Clearly, she was dead-set on getting answers without providing any of her own. And if he could use it to distract her and wriggle out of her locks somehow, then he was probably better off doing that, Pitch concluded.

"Well, yes. As a matter of fact, all humans - wait... do you still believe that infants are delivered by storks?" Because if she did, there was no way he was about to correct her on that. Not a chance. Pitch Black was the spirit of fear. Not a sex education teacher.

"Storks?" Rapunzel frowned. "Mother said that children come from flowers..."

'Well, that isn't so terribly far from the truth,' Pitch thought to himself, 'it could still be worse. She could have told her she was modelled out of clay, or that some deity spoke her into existence...'

Clearly though, his disbelief must have been quite clearly expressed on his face, for she raised an eyebrow. "So... where do men... and I-"

"- You mean, men and women -"

"- Where do we come from...?"

"The complicated, long winding explanation behind your species' existence is likely going to be called something along the lines of "adaptation, survival of the fittest and generational changes that over millions of years add up to form entire new species...", but if you want to know in the mean time where you specifically come from, it's called reproduction." When she didn't seem to respond, and didn't seem to notice that he'd been working on stretching out her hair, he continued his explantion. "It happens when males and females of the same species get together in an act of sexual intercourse - basically, phallus meets vaginal canal, both parties get all lovey-dovey and excitable, tangle up in the sheets and if they do it right, the woman ends up pregnant, and carries a child inside her for around 9 months, before giving birth to it. It hurts, but apparently - I have no idea why - people think it is worth the screaming, crying infant that comes out of it. Good thing is though, infants are actually pretty easy to scare."

He hoped she wasn't going to ask for diagrams and examples, because by Moons, he was not paid enough for what he had to do in the world already. Well, actually, Moon McScrooge wasn't paying him anything to begin with.

Clearly all those terms he'd listed had, however, served to confuse the poor mortal, as she stared at him, not comprehending. 'I am not drawing that!' He insisted, hoping there was some other topic he could use to distract her with.

"Anyway, your hair-"

"So you do want to cut off my hair!"

"What?! No!"

Glowering at him, she gave her hair a harsh tug, pulling him closer with a surprising amount of strength. Then again, Pitch had never been much of a heavy weight, to be honest, so it wasn't an impossible, or even improbable feat. Unfortunately, as she gave the chair and him another harsh tug, it toppled over and he ended up crashing face down against the ground.

"I swear, if you are lying to me, you fiend -"

Letting out a pained groan as he collided with the hard flooring, he remained there, unable to move. It didn't help that her grip on him had only tightened.

"OH! Sorry about that!" She exclaimed, looking sheepish as she managed to raise the chair back up on its legs. Her cheeks were coloured red in embarrassment as she looked at Pitch with guilt in her eyes.

Scowling, Pitch forced himself to ignore her pleading gaze. He wasn't going to be manipulated into forgiveness just by her looking at him with doe eyes.

"I hope you're not hurt," she murmured softly, checking him over a few times. As she pressed her hands against his forehead he winced, visibly in pain. It was clear to her, as it was to him that this would hurt later on, but even that didn't bother him so much as the fact that he was still trapped inside her hair and tied to a chair in a tower, with seemingly no hopes of getting out.

It was then that he could hear a voice calling out, and he could see the girl perk up suddenly, before tensing. After a few moments of confusion, he watched her pick something up, and before he could put two and two together, realising that it was the frying pan, a dull pain shot through the back of his head and all the lights went out inside. He could hear his mortal captor scrambling even a few seconds after he'd fallen unconscious, but saw nothing.

When he came to, he could feel something poking and prodding his mouth in a deeply discomforting manner. Biting down hard on whatever was in his mouth, he heard someone yelp loudly - cursing as the sound attacked his ears and then his head which was still sensitive from the hits it had endured - before he released them, and they pulled their hand away from his oral cavity. Meanwhile, Pitch slolwy opened his eyes, to again be face to face with his golden haired captress from earlier, who was currently nursing her injured hand.

"What the fuck?!" the spirit exclaimed, indignant. What the in the bloody hell had gotten into that young woman?

"Ah- sorry for the extra pain... and well, this... I just needed to hide you from Mother," Goldilocks explained herself, appearing more sheepish by the minute. Not that it made up for all the suffering he'd endured in just the last couple moments of his life. "I don't think she would like it if she found you in this tower..."

'Good, because I don't want to be in this tower, anyway!' He narrowed his eyes at her. "And hiding me from your mother also required a dental check-up because...?"

"Oh... you mean, me looking at your teeth?" She looked away. "I might have been a little curious. You know, I wanted to know if you looked anything like what mother had described men to be..."

"And the verdict is?" he drawled out, feeling pissed by the less than pleasing explanation that she had to offer.

"I mean- you have the sharp teeth... but your nails are more or less fine," she looked back towards him. "You don't look quite as scary-"

'I what?! Don't look scary?!' Oh, he would show her, later. It wouldn't do for him to be "not quite as scary" as a primitive sketch.

"And you have nice eyes, you're dead, you-"

"Woah, there - hold on a minute - did you just say my eyes looked nice?" Alright, now she crossed a line.

Eagerly nodding, she seemed to be completely oblivious of the fact that she'd really just insulted the King of Nightmares. "They're a very pretty colour," her cheeks flushed pink, before moving on from the topic, leaving Pitch feeling very conflicted. A mixture of a warm fluttering sensation and nausea spread through his torso and throat. "And you have grey skin, and you wear very strange clothes..."

At that she reached out inquisitively for his robes, as if to feel them. Pulling away as much as he could, he glared at her. "Oh, no, no, no no. No more touching." Next thing he knew she'd want to play dress up with him and he was not about to let that happen. "Look, as much as I enjoyed this conversation with you, Goldilocks, I really should get going."

Though she reached out for her frying pan then and there, looking as though she might hit him with it again, she actually took a step back. "Under three conditions," the mortal eventually gave in.

"Alright..." Pitch was well aware that he probably didn't have much of a choice, "what are your conditions?"

"First, you call me by my name: Rapunzel. Second, you vow not to cut my hair," she began fairly reasonably. He nodded off those two conditions, finding them fairly simple to keep to. "And thirdly, you remain here even after I untie you at least until you tell me everything you know about men, women, reproduction and that weird inter-something-or-other-you-mentioned, storks, maybe those strange lights that always appear in the sky on my birthday..."

"Everything-Everything?" he asked, paling considerably, even before she could finish her long list of questions he needed to answer. He could be stuck here for the rest of his life, this way! Or in the very least, a full twenty-four hours, which - surrounded by a lunatic lady with very long hair, and a frying pan - was a terrifying thought. And the idea of talking about sex... was absolutely mortifying.

"Or you could show all of those to me-"

"-On second thought, I can tell you all about them!"

"-I mean, showing would be easier than telling-"

"No, really, I have no trouble talking you through it all..."

"- So, you know all about the lights?"

"-Lights...?" In all of that, he completely misheard her mentioning any lights.

"Yes. The ones that always show up on my birthday," Rapunzel exclaimed, before walking up to a wall oddly enough covered by curtains. She parted them, revealing a rather surprisingly good painting of a girl looking up at a sky filled with colourful lights. Lights which looked vaguely like...

"You mean, paper lanterns?"

"That's... what they're called?"

"They are used, sometimes hung, and sometimes levitated during festivals and celebrations," Pitch found himself explaining. Finally he'd managed to wriggle himself out of the worst of it, so this was a breeze, really. Maybe he could even dodge those other questions if he played it carefully.

She unwrapped her golden hair from around him, pulling them away. "Really? I only see them at that one time in the year."

"That's probably because the tradition is not quite as popular in Corona and most of Europe the way it is in the East... the idea must have been liked by the king and queen of Corona and adopted by them to celebrate something special... maybe a birthday, anniversary or some other important festivity." He himself didn't really know the answer, though he had come across the display a few times. And now that he thought about it... "Actually, I think they light them as more of a symbol of hope," he added.

"Hope? Why?"

"The first time I saw those lanterns being lit up was several months after I'd heard that the queen had gotten terribly ill... maybe seventeen or eighteen years ago. She'd recovered from her sickness, as did the child she was pregnant with and to celebrate their child's birth they lit up the sky with lanterns, encouraged music and dance in the streets and ate and drank merrily. But then their daughter was stolen away in the night. No one could find her, never mind bring her back. The king and queen still cling to their hope though, and as she was and still is their only child... they're hoping that someone will find their daughter and bring her back. They send out these lights to remind everyone of the princess they are looking for and in hopes of her perhaps spotting the lights and finding her way home... but... back then she would have been too young to remember. Really, it's a terrible way to try and get one's daughter back. All it does is intimidate the kidnapper, as opposed to encourage them to give the child back..."

Pitch shook his head, as he concluded his explanation. After nearly eighteen years, it was unlikely the two would get their daughter back. Wherever she was, and whatever reason she had been kidnapped for, it was unlikely that she would be able to escape her kidnapper if she hadn't managed it sooner. Not that it made much sense. Why kidnap a member of the royal family and not ask for ransom instead. Why hide her for eighteen years... unless the child was killed. Why...

"What is so special about your hair, if I may ask, Rapunzel?"

Recovering from the pity that she clearly felt for the king, queen and their lost child, the human found herself playing with her hair instead. "It's just that... as long as it remains uncut... it has magic in it and is blond," she explained, much to the scepticism of the boogeyman. Still, magic did seem more solid reason than none for kidapping and not giving back a child for ransom. To prove it, she brushed some of the hair at the side of her head aside, revealing a strand of brown hair. "When it gets cut... the hair dies a little, or that's what Mother said, and it loses it's magic. People think it will last, which is why someone attempted to cut my hair when I was little- but all it did was, well - this."

The boogeyman frowned. The strand wasn't dead. It was, however, neglected, and could use a few snips just to keep it growing right, but otherwise, it seemed far more natural than her blond hair and perfectly fine as it was.

"Your magic... is it powerful?"

Rapunzel nodded. "Well, I don't really know how to judge whether it is or isn't powerful, but it can do quite a lot. It makes my hair glow, for instance," she explained, beginning to hum. He wasn't sure what she was doing at first, but then her hair did genuinely lit up and literally glowed from the roots to the tips. It freaked him out of course, making him move several feet away from her in shock, but eventually he camed down.

'Alright. So she's a mortal. A mortal with glowing hair. That's not so strange,' he tried to reassure himself. 'A mortal with glowing hair that grows miraculously fast and can tie down a spirit. That can't be cut or the wearer turns into a brunette. And loses her glowing powers, presumably.'

"But that isn't all," she continued, noting the look of unease about him. "I can also use it to heal wounds," she added, "and restore youth."

'Restore youth. It could give someone potential for immortality. If someone were to stay young forever, then...'

"It's also pretty hard to break unless you cut with a blade, which is pretty useful."

To this, Pitch didn't pay much attention, already thinking back to his time in and around Corona in the past. To the day he crossed an old woman who'd made herself young with the power of a magical flower. A witch that didn't want to part with life or her youth. The mysterious kidnapping and a search that lead nowhere. Rapunzel's obliviousness under the tutelage of a mother figure who clearly didn't want to prepare her child for a life out in the real world. The lost princess of Corona, with her oddly golden hair, despite both her parents being brunettes and the mosaic of a little girl with one eye more blue and the other more green, looking just like the golden haired young woman in front of him, so ignorant to it all.

Gothel had been a genius. And he'd underestimated her ambition and intellect all those years prior when he denied her an alliance.

"You need to get out of here," he breathed out, when it all seemed to click.

"I know! I haven't been out, since... well, forever... but Mother doesn't want me to go out."

"No, I mean, you have to get away from this tower. You need to get back home..."

"This is home..."

"Not your home," Pitch insisted. He wasn't even sure why he was helping her. But for whatever reason, he pitied the girl and her upbringing, the way she was left defenceless without any real knowledge or experience of the world and any opportunity to actually live. "Your home is on Corona. In the castle. Your home is with the king and the queen, Rapunzel."

She refused to believe it though, furiously shaking her head. He could see tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. Yet, no matter how much she denied it, it was the truth, he knew now. "No..." she whispered. "You're lying. You're trying to trick me." Her voice turned cold, as she once more coiled her hair around Pitch. This time, it tightened even further, almost squeezing all the air out of his chest in the process.

"No," he wheezed out. Despite being immortal in that sense, he still felt an urge to breathe even though he really didn't need to, and thus he now felt like he was suffocating.

Realising this, Rapunzel once again loosened her hair's grip on him, but it remained firm enough for him to realise there wouldn't be any escaping it. "My Mother would have never kidnapped me. She would never use me."

"If you really are her child," he pointed out in a faint voice, "then who is your father? Who was the other person that got together with your mother to make you?"

She furrowed her brows, but clearly she was at a loss for words, as she managed only very few of them. "A man- maybe Mother doesn't want to talk about the man because he was cruel to her- maybe that's why she told me all those things," she insisted, but it was a losing argument really.

"Why would she hide that from you - she is your mother, you should know if someone hurt her that badly. She would warn you of the same fate - not of them cutting off your hair," he refused to believe it. "No, she told you they wanted to cut off your hair, because that is what she wanted to do - what she tried, but when it backfired, and that strand of your hair lost it's magic, she decided she had no choice but to take all of you. She didn't want to share everlasting youth or health with anyone - that had been taken away when Corona's soldiers had found her flower of youth, and she would never let that happen again - so she stole you, and locked you away from the world. Really, it was she who wanted your hair that badly."

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no!" Rapunzel moved backwards, looking anywhere but towards Pitch, unable to meet his eyes. It was a difficult thing to accept that the person who had been her guardian and parent for so long was a mere stranger, and a stranger who felt absolutely no love for her, only her magic powers. "It's not true," her voice broke at that, and slowly, the rest of her broke down too.

"No one else is looking for you because of your hair, Rapunzel." Pitch looked around, trying to figure out a way to prove it to her. If he could cut it perhaps, it would lose it's power and hopefully be enough evidence he wasn't here for the magic of it. Besides, it would ensure Gothel couldn't - wouldn't - keep the human locked up in a tower for the rest of her life. "Think about it. See if your mother cares about you the same way if you cut your hair. Besides, cutting it would keep you safe, in the unlikely scenario that there's a man out there searching for magical hair that would give him eternal youth. No one would bother kidnapping you, or hurting you if they had nothing to gain from it..."

She shook her head. "I can't do that. I need the hair. It keeps me safe. It let's mother up the tower quicker. It's very useful - for us both," she insisted through tears, hiccups and her runny nose. At that moment, she seemed so frail, despite all she had been capable of up until now, and it was hard not to feel sympathy towards his captor, even if perhaps she was currently still holding him. "My mother loves me- she would never use me! You would!" Sniffing back tears, she covered her face with one hand, not wanting to be seen crying. Clearly her mother hadn't even cared enough about her daughter to comfort her - perhaps she'd even belittled the girl when she was younger if she every began crying or sobbing, as she seemed deeply ashamed of her own state and forced her tears away, as opposed to letting them flow. It probably didn't help that there was no one there who could comfort her - except maybe the green lizard he'd spotted when he'd first entered the tower - when her mother was away, even if perhaps "Mother" were caring enough to respect her daughter's emotions and needs. That was, of course, highly unlikely.

"Look at me, Rapunzel," he pressed.

The blond was reluctant and refused to do so.

"Rapunzel," Pitch repeated her name. "There are ways to help people heal many wounds without magical hair. Lanterns can light your way in the dark. You mother could use a rope, a ladder, or maybe there are even stairs and a secret entrace somewhere in the tower... you don't need that hair of yours. What you need, is the truth. You need freedom and a chance to live..."

That seemed to struck a cord in her.

"A chance to see the lights up close..."

Lifting her head up, looking at him through the tears, the sobbing slowly quietening. Her breathing which had previously been fast, as the crying had taken the air out of her, had returned more or less to normal. Wiping away the tears and sniffing some more, she now seemed to be patiently waiting for what else he had to say.

"A chance to know, if maybe... maybe those lights... are for you. Because someone out there cares and misses you, even after all these years. Someone would give anything to have their daughter by their side... Maybe that's why those lanterns are always lit up on your birthday. They're supposed to be for you," he spoke softly, watching her subconsciously reach out a hand to her chest. The sentiment had clearly gotten to her, and whether or not this was the real princess of Corona, it meant they both had a chance to get out of here. When she did, he'd be free. And if she followed his guidance, she could be free too.

"What if it's just a coincidence...? What if - if we get there - no one will recognise me? What if the people you claim are my parents... aren't my parents? What if it's Mother all along...?" she whispered, desperate to go, but clearly not wanting to take any risks. As if the disappointment should she find out that they aren't really her parents would shatter her.

"Would you rather never get the chance and risk never knowing your real parents, or risk mistake the wrong people for them, but get a chance to at least get out of this tower, for once in your life...?"

Fiddling with her hands, she looked towards the window of her tower, outside into the distance. The chameleon was lying on the window sill, watching them both, seeming distrustful of Pitch. That could be a problem potentially. Or would have been, if she didn't seem to have decided on what she had to do. Taking her go-to-weapon into her hands and releasing the spirit of fear once more, she nodded.

"Alright. We'll go. But a) you're coming with me all the way to the castle. B) You're telling me all about the things I wanted answers for whilst we're getting there-"

Great. He grimaced at the idea of it, but he decided to agree with it, for the sake of getting all this over and done with. Besides, as of right now, his energy reserves were low, and though he'd managed to get into the tower, he wasn't so sure he could get out of the tower, nor run away from her far enough to the point where she couldn't re-capture her again. And besides... something inside him wanted to right things, even if this wasn't his mess, or his doing.

"-and c) if you try to escape at any point, you're going back with me, I'll give you up to Mother and she'll decide what to do with you."

He shuddered at the idea, not wanting to walk into the woman. Given his rejection of her, he doubted she would be pleased to see him again, especially after he corrected all Gothel's lies.

"Alright, agreed," Pitch gave in. Not like he had a choice, especially not with the demonic green reptile glaring at him right now.

His answer seemed to elicit a positive reaction out of Rapunzel, as her tearful expression was replaced with a hint of a smile. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"

As she made her way up to the edge of the tower, the male looked toward the window. It was quite the climb, and well, right about now, he couldn't really afford a fall from this height. "Is there any chance you could help me with getting down there...?" he asked hesitantly, uncertain as to whether or not her petite frame and her hair could hold his weight, even if he didn't weigh much himself.

"Oh- sure!" the female chirped out, realising his situation and giggling slightly at her own air-headedness. She seemed to transform into a completely different person within seconds, and now let down her hair, leaving it to act as a rope. "Just hold onto my hair and you should be able to get down more easily - don't worry, it can hold quite a lot of weight, since Mother sometimes carries heavy things with her when I pull her up."

Blinking a couple times, the spirit finally decided to put faith in that creepy magic hair, grasping at it firmly, before climbing out of the window.

He had a feeling the journey to Corona would be a very long and interesting one.

A/N: Sorry for the cringe-worthy bits, but I hope I at least got the rest of this right.

Also, I doubt Mother Gothel would have actually bothered teaching her "daughter" much about the real world, as she would have assumed knowledge a dangerous thing, given that she constantly lied and deceived Rapnuzel in the movie. It's a wonder Rapunzel can read or do anything on her own, given there was no one who would teach her - Gothel was mostly out and I doubt that even if at Rapunzel's side she would encourage her to read. In her mind, it would probably inspire rebellion in the girl. Which baffles me greatly. Cooking, yes. Self-defence, Reading, Painting, etc... I wouldn't know about that.