Note: Hope you don't mind a touch of surrealism in your fanfictions.


Twelve hours. Rapunzel gave her exactly twelve hours down to the minute. That was what she said, and after all the trust she was putting in this woman, she was not in the mood to put things to chance. Rapunzel had been staring at Max for what felt like hours, long after the sun had set and another day of the curse had come and gone. He hadn't shown any sign of turning back to normal, despite the assassin's promises. The Psychopomp herself was sitting by the door of the inn, resting her hands on her palms as she watched Rapunzel standing around in the mud. She herself was being eyed closely by Cassandra from two feet away, who herself was being stared at by Adira directly next to her.

And thus, the chain of people standing around just staring at each other was complete.

It had been for hours.

At a certain point, Delilah got sick of waiting. She knew everything would be fine no matter how much the Princess sweated over it. If she was going to devote a portion of life to keeping that woman safe—however temporary and bad faith—she was going to at least somewhat entertain herself. She glanced up at Cassandra, whose arms were crossed firmly over her chest, still holding onto that magical lightning rod that she stole from her possession.

"So, like…what's up with you?"

"What about me?" Cassandra responded disinterestedly.

"You and the Princess," Delilah clarified. "You're acting all buddy-buddy with her, but she told me earlier that you two had some serious drama. What's up with that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Uh, yeah. I would like to know. That's why I asked."

"None of your business," Cassandra said firmly.

"Come on," Delilah whined. "She was willing to talk about it."

There was a subtle shift of shock in Cassandra's face that she hoped the assassin didn't notice. Rapunzel was telling this random stranger about their past? That was…well, actually, what was she supposed to be so mad about? Rapunzel probably had a good reason for doing it. She wouldn't go blabbing personal information if there wasn't one. Still, the thought of the woman who literally tried to kill them a few hours ago knowing things about her personal life didn't sit right with her.

And then, because of course, Adira noticed her discomfort and decided to speak up. "Actually, I was wondering that as well. You've turned around awfully quickly."

"Wha—stay out of this," Cassandra grumbled. Adira, unphased as always, nodded toward the Psychopomp.

"She tried to destroy the world a few months ago. She also mind-controlled me to do her bidding," Adira stated calmly and reasonably and not at all like someone who was still holding a grudge. Cassandra growled at her, but the assassin just let out a laugh of amusement.

"Dear Lord, woman! Isn't one of those things enough?" the young girl joked. "I mean, maybe I should be hunting you down."

"I…" Cassandra grumbled, trying to choose her words carefully. "I was going through some problems back then."

Adira rolled her eyes. "That's one way to put it."

"Girl, you need therapy," the Psychopomp snickered.

"Or a prison sentence."

"Or an execution."

"Or—"

"Hey!" Cassandra snapped, holding up the lightning prod to both of them as a threat. "H-How about we drop this and focus on our actual work. When is Max going to return to normal?"

"Any second now," Delilah sighed. "But anyway—how exactly did a woman like you end up palling around with a royalty? She seems like a sweetheart, not the kind of lady who'd go hanging out with a person like you. If I was her, I would have—"

Cassandra grumbled something to herself and walked away, leaving the assassin waffling as her insults hit the dead air.

"And she's gone," Delilah murmured. "Guess that's a sensitive spot."

Adira watched Cassandra stomp away through the mud, and couldn't help but agree. She was half-inclined to tell Delilah what she had noticed of Cassandra's behavior during their earlier battle, assuming that the assassin hadn't recognized it herself. That relationship—the Princess and her former Lady-in-Waiting—was built on something that she couldn't quite get a hold of yet. It was still ethereal, floating just out of her reach, yet clear enough in its shape that she could understand its consequences. She tried to think back on her previous encounters with them while they were traveling to the Dark Kingdom. Cassandra was certainly protective back then but to this degree? Not only that, but she seemed to remember Rapunzel and Cassandra fighting a lot more back then, too. They fought in front of her, and the tension between them grew so thick and vicious that it led to them going their separate ways. It was a little strange: after actively trying to kill each other, after committing crimes and atrocities that would have tarnished her in the eyes of anyone else, somehow, someway, Cassandra wormed her way back into Rapunzel's heart—and more than that, she seemed desperate to do so.

Adira sighed, lost in her own train of thought. She hated to admit it, but she didn't understand people all that well. Never did. She was trained to dodge swords and arrows, not navigate the tangled web of the heart's connections with others. Something had awoken in Cassandra that was pushing her forward, and she needed to know what. Not simply because she could use it to press Cassandra's buttons—okay, fine, a little bit of that. But if they were traveling together from now on, she needed to know Cass's weaknesses and learn what could exploit them before they ended up exploiting her instead. Adira noticed the studious frown on the Psychopomp's face. That young girl was probably doing the same math in her head. Just another reason to stay focused.

Rapunzel was lost in thought, too, so much so that she didn't notice when Cassandra walked up behind her and lightly jumped at her presence.

"Hey, Raps."

"Oh, Cass! I didn't hear you," Rapunzel stammered. "I'm just waiting for Max to be unfrozen."

"I know. I've been watching," Cassandra groaned. "I just had to step away from the others for a bit. They were getting on my nerves."

Rapunzel seemed genuinely upset by that, resting her hand on Cass's shoulder. "I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully, we won't have to work together for long."

"Yeah. Hopefully," Cass sighed. "I just don't like them talking about…actually, no. Let's not."

"What?"

"Forget it."

"Cass—"

"Forget it," Cass said sternly, and Rapunzel's lips tightened into a sneer. She examined Cassandra closely. In the twelve hours since their fight, she had gotten around to cleaning herself, at least roughly. The dirt and the mud and the rainwater were scrubbed away, though she was far short of pristine, Cassandra at least looked somewhat healthier. But her face was sunken in and even paler than usual, and her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Her shoulders were slumped. Her pace was sluggish. Rapunzel turned her grievance into motherly compassion and prodded Cassandra where she knew her sister did not want to go.

"Cass, did you sleep at all today?"

Cassandra just shrugged.

"I don't know. Did you?"

"I was unconscious all of yesterday," Rapunzel noted. "I don't need to sleep. You do."

Cassandra glanced away, dismissing the point out of hand. "I'll sleep when someone isn't actively trying to kill you."

"Cassandra, please," Rapunzel scolded her. "How many days has it been since you've gotten any rest? You didn't sleep when you traveled to Corona. You haven't slept since we've been together. This isn't healthy. I mean, you look like you're going to collapse at any minute."

"So, it's been a few days. So what?" Cassandra said, frustrated. "I can still fight."

"It's not a matter of fighting, Cass. I'm worried about you. I understand that you want to keep me safe. I get it. But you can't just neglect your own health."

"I'm not neglecting anything."

"Yes, you are."

"I am…" Cass said, trying to refocus herself. "I am trying to work as hard as I can to make sure that you make it to Madrid unharmed. There is literally an assassin ten feet away from us who tried to kill you this morning. Someone has to stay on guard and make sure she doesn't try something."

"And that person's name is Adira," Rapunzel said firmly. "Look, I know we talked earlier about this, and I don't want to keep bothering you. You clearly don't want to talk about it. But can you just promise me that the next time you're able, you'll at least try to get some rest? It will be really hard for me to stay in the right state of mind if you collapse on me."

Rapunzel normally hating framing things through herself. The last thing anyone should ever do was act for the sake of her instead of themselves. But unfortunately, that seemed to be the only thing that Cassandra really cared about anymore. Adira and Delilah were still trying to figure it out, but Rapunzel already stumbled upon the answer. She had assumed earlier that Cassandra's obsessions and her rage were the products of grief, and to some degree that was almost certainly true. But she was slowly realizing that there was another thing spurning her sister on to protect her. Cassandra had rushed halfway across the country to be by her side when she heard of her collapse at the dinner, and that was before she ever knew of the curse. Grief couldn't be all there was. The only other logical explanation Rapunzel could think of was—

A sudden crack tore through the air, and Rapunzel was ripped out of her thoughts by the bursting and breaking of stone. All of her attention was turned to the statue of Maximus, and with fear, and shock, and awe, she saw cracks appear on the surface of the rock, one after the other, just like the ones in her skin. The statue began to rumble, and Rapunzel and Cassandra stepped back to avoid the shrapnel from what came next. All at once, the stone that encased Maximus ruptured and turned to dust, and from the thick cloud of stony ash, Max roared back to life, rearing back on his hind legs and neighing. He jumped back, frantically whipping around in sheer panic, but before he could get too excited, Rapunzel was there to wrap her arms around him and bring him back down to earth, soothing him the best she could.

"It's okay, Max. You're okay," she whispered sweetly to him. "I'm right here by your side."


"All right, so how is this going to work exactly?"

Delilah looked around the circle of her former enemies. They were all looking at her expectantly, some with a particularly more notable gleam of distrust in their eyes. The horses and that goddamned owl were glaring hard, ready to pounce on her at any moment if she dared to cross them again. A very long piece of rope was coiled around her shoulders. In her palms, she held an object that none of them recognized: an old piece of volcanic stone, laced with dazzling, rainbow colored crystals that erupted from its ends and glittered even in the dark of the night. The Psychopomp sighed, thinking about how she would go about explaining the concepts that would go over the head of any regular person.

"Okay, so Madrid is really far away, right?" Delilah stated carefully. "We could rush there on horseback, but that would still take too long, and I don't want to risk traveling with the curse. My sandals can let me travel at fast speeds, but I'm not carrying you. The problem is that we are going to have to travel across a lot of space in a very long amount of time. So, this tool of mine is going to allow us to bypass both of them."

"What is it?" Rapunzel asked inquisitively.

"A gift from the gods. I call it a Void Portal," Delilah stated, holding the crystal aloft. "This is hard to explain, but our earth is located on a specific plane of existence. There are others that exist as well, different dimensions that operate under different rules of reality than we are used to. One of these planes of existence is something I call the Void—a world where our metaphysical concepts of time and space are compressed in on themselves in a manner for us to be able to walk over them instead of through them. We'd basically be able to move across the entire earth in minutes rather than hours. This is probably a little hard to wrap your head around, so um…think of it like this. If you have, like, a sheet of paper or whatever—"

"That's okay," Rapunzel said sheepishly. "I get it. Instead of walking to Madrid, we'd essentially be folding spacetime so that we're bringing Madrid to us. Right?"

The Psychopomp blinked.

"Uh…I mean, yeah. It's…it's kind of hard to explain. Like, other dimensions—"

"Oh, we know all about other dimensions," Rapunzel said with a flick of her wrist. "One time, we tried opening up a dimensional portal in order to entrap a thousand-year-old demon monster before she destroyed humanity."

The Psychopomp blinked again.

"Wait, what—"

"Yeah," Cassandra said bluntly. "Traveling across time isn't really that weird either. I once stepped through a random doorway and got teleported into a vision of my past. Honestly, magical trans-dimensional doorways aren't just that special at this point.

The Psychopomp stammered. "I…wait—"

"And I was once trapped inside an alternate reality within my mind where I lived a utopian life," Rapunzel added.

"And we all got once sucked into a mirror dimension full of our evil clones," Cassandra nodded.

"That was all in the same house actually, now that I think about it."

"That house sucked."

"It really was not a good house. Oh, but speaking of time travel, Cass, did I ever tell you about that time I got sent ten years into the past and had to help Eugene escape from the law?"

"Was that before or after we got turned into birds?"

"Way after. You weren't there."

"Thought so. I feel like I would have remembered that."

"It was fun. Like the time we—"

Delilah threw down her arms and screamed in anguish. "Okay, you know what? You can reminisce about your weird freak lives some other time. Right now, we got shit to do, so here's the gist. It's a magic world that let's us travel quickly. Explanation over. Now, here's how this is going to work."

She slung the long piece of rope off her shoulders, and without waiting for any of them to give their consent, she immediately began wrapping it around Cassandra's waist. Cass jumped back at the sudden, harsh tugging at her midsection, and the fondness of her memories was snuffed out by her annoyance.

"Hey, what are you—"

"I'm tying us all together," the assassin grumbled, hurriedly tying a sturdy knot around the warrior's body. "Here's the deal. When we are in the Void, we are going to be crossing over huge swaths of space and time. A few feet in there can be equivalent to a few hundred kilometers out here, and unfortunately, there isn't a lot of consistency to its layout. If you don't know how to navigate it—which you don't—you might stumble, get lost, and wind up in China two hundred years in the future. We want to avoid that, so I'm tying all of us together so you idiots don't wander off."

Cassandra scoffed as Delilah finished tying her up and moved onto Adira, who embraced with the binds with the same cautious sarcasm that she embraced everything with.

"I'm sure we're going to be tempted to wander off in another, unknown dimension," she quipped.

"Oh, yeah. That's another thing," Delilah remembered, awkwardly shrugging as she worked on finishing the knot. "That place does things to people. See, the human body is made within the bounds of space and time. A lot of parts of your anatomy sort of depend on those things to function. Entering into a dimension where those things don't exist might have some…well, side effects."

"What kind of side effects?" Rapunzel asked worriedly.

"That's the fun part," Delilah sighed. "It can be all sorts of things. Hallucinations, strokes, heart attacks, stomach cramps—"

"Whoa, whoa!" Cassandra suddenly screamed. "Those aren't side effects. That's just listing ways to kill us! That's something you should have led with before telling us to go along with this."

Rapunzel nervously shuffled in the mud. Cassandra had a point. They were playing with forces that were far beyond anything they were used to. Should she really have been pushing them to go along with this? Getting to that Coven was important, but if something were to happen to them because they rushed things…

The Psychopomp just rolled her eyes. "Eh, don't stress too much. I've been in there plenty of times and I always come out fine. It's just hypothetical consequences. As long as we don't linger in there too long, we should be good."

Delilah tugged sharply on the rope around Adira's waist, ensuring that it was secure, and then she quickly moved onto Rapunzel. She approached the Princess with fervor, motioning for her to raise her arms. Yet, Rapunzel hesitated, consumed by the sudden wave of guilt that crashed into her out of nowhere. The one thing she always promised herself was that she would never put anyone else in harm's way for her sake. When Cassandra asked to come along, she pleaded with her not to. She tried to leave everything she could behind so that they would stay safe. But somehow, despite her efforts, everything just kept becoming more and more dangerous. They were about to step into…what did Delilah call it? The Void? Just the name sent a shiver down her spine. How was she supposed to keep everyone safe when she was putting her life in the hands of a woman who tried to kill her earlier that very morning? She had half a mind to order the others away, take Delilah herself to Madrid and just deal with whatever consequences came her way and hers alone.

But…that wouldn't exactly be fair, would it? Cassandra, Adira, Max—they all came for her because they cared about her. They wanted to protect her. No matter what kind of hell she might put them through, they were determined to stay with her until the end. Who was she to deny them a place in her life? They were soon going to be venturing into a new world—quite literally. There would almost certainly be hardships; if even a single one of Delilah's "side effects" came true, it would be a tragedy. But she needed them by her side. There was no dancing around that. She would let them fight by her side, through thick and thin, until the very bitter end.

"You promise us that you'll keep us safe?" Rapunzel asked the assassin genuinely. The young girl seemed taken aback by the honesty of her question, and for the first time since that morning, she responded not with a jab, or a tired groan, or a pitiful protest—but with a somber, painful nod.

"I'll do what I can until we see the Coven," Delilah said truthfully. Rapunzel raised her arms, and the Psychopomp made quick work of tying the knot, linking the four women together in a chain. She tugged on the rope to make sure it was secure, and then met Rapunzel with a dour grimace. "And once they say that they can't help you, I'll make sure you don't suffer when I put you down."

Rapunzel didn't react. Delilah didn't need her to. The point got across.

"Okay, let's do this," the Psychopomp sighed. "Hop on your horses, ladies. We're going to get this over with quick."

There was still a heavy doubt lingering over the road when they decided to follow the assassin's commands. They rode two-by-two: Rapunzel and Cassandra on Fidella, while Adira kept Delilah close to her sword on top of Max. Delilah linked the rope through the horses' reins, and soon, all six of them were linked together by the rope, huddling close and ready to travel. Before they left, Cassandra summoned Owl to her forearm and rummaged around in her pocket for something she hadn't the need to use in quite a while. She retrieved a small clip and apologized as she wrapped it around the bird's leg, connecting it to her glove so that he wouldn't fly away. Normally, she'd trust him to follow commands, but if the Void was really as unsafe as the young assassin claimed, she wasn't taking any chances. With all parties secured to each other, Delilah held out the strange crystal in front of her and took a deep breath.

"Okay, sweetie. Time to do your thing," she muttered under her breath.

Rapunzel watched with bated breath as the Psychopomp aimed the crystallized rock at the ground, concentrated, and then…she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then, all at once, the crystal erupted in a beam of light, and with a booming crack of thunder, a beam of pure energy shot out of the front of the crystal, striking the ground directly in front of them. Max staggered away in shock. Cassandra was forced to shut her eyes from the blinding lights. Rapunzel just gazed upon the swirling events in front of her, enamored with the impossible visuals. The entire night sky seemed to light up in a display of vibrant, ever-changing colors, reds and greens and violets and pinks and oranges all swirling around each other in a kaleidoscopic dance. The air in front of them rippled and bend like folding paper, and strange bursts of electricity shot out of thin air and ricocheted off the muddy road, deflecting into the nearby trees. From near the building, the innkeeper staggered outside, lured by the display of lights and sounds outside her window. The volume of the air was lifted by a constant, exuberant hum, a low, angry groan that sounded as if reality itself was struggling to pull itself apart.

Finally, out of the darkness, it appeared. Tearing through the air like a knife cutting through flesh.

A doorway into constant, overwhelmingly blinding pure white.

The Psychopomp looked on ahead, undeterred. "Come on. It's open. We should hurry."

The Void cackled and whistled, and Rapunzel felt something dark stir within her heart. She had seen all sorts of magical things in the past few years. Artifacts, worlds, curses, monsters. This…this was something new entirely. Something that reached deep into her chest and squeezed the very life right out of her. This…this was wrong…

And she knew she had to step inside of it.

"Let's go," Rapunzel ordered. Cassandra, still trying to comprehend the bizarre sight of reality literally unfolding in front of her, reluctantly shook her fears away and decided to follow Raps's orders. She instructed Fidella forward, and after glancing at Max for approval, the mare approached the white door to another reality. Cassandra clenched the reins tightly, and Rapunzel wrapped her arms around her friend's waist for support. Whatever they were going to face, they would do it together.

Fidella stepped one foot through the doorway when the Psychopomp called out from behind them. "Wait a second, I probably should have also mentioned the—"

It was too late for her words to reach them—the assassin's voice was drowned out as Rapunzel and Cassandra were summoned into the Void.