Author's Note: Hello and welcome! I was watching Tangled with my two year old daughter and had was struck by this plot bunny. It'll be a bit of an adventure, but I'm excited to get it under way.
This story is dedicated to the lovely authors who have inspired this story and my need to start writing E/C fanfiction. MulticoloredRosePetals, Batty Dings, VeroniqueClaire, Wheel of Fish— thank you for the thousands of words worth of inspiration and motivation. Each one of you has pulled me out of the abyss of my insanity—and didn't even know it.
Resources: the-dawn-comes*tumblr*com for all background and layout visuals.
Please leave me a review—I would love to know if this is something I should continue. Without further ado, enjoy!
Every year, I am asked the same question.
"What would you like for your birthday this year?"
The woman was tall, blonde, and blue eyed. I imagine I would have looked just like her, had my mother not been American and bestowed her wildly curling auburn brown hair. I liked to think of my hair as an act of rebellion. It would never be sleek enough for this woman who always demanded perfection. Regally dressed and eyeing her newest manicure, she was hardly acting like the loving aunt she used to pretend she was. After all, I had never given her reason to doubt me. Never given reason for her to think I was anything but the mousy girl, submissive and subservient.
In another life, I could have been an actress.
Eyes widening, I blinked up at her owlishly. I tried to look like the girl who had it all—what more could I want?
I learned early on that any request that required me to leave my 'home' was not acceptable. It had been over two thousand days since I had last set foot in the real world. Six years since I had seen another person my aunt did not especially invite into our 'home'. A lifetime since I had last felt free.
Aunt Camilla finally looked up from her nails when I didn't reply quickly enough, lips too full to be natural pulling downwards in displeasure. The gesture was accompanied by a flicker of color, it's meaning somehow known to me. Sickly green. Displeasure.
This year's offering to prove her love to me would be simple.
"Balloons. The kind filled with helium." Everything about me was meant to disarm her. Make her comfortable. Doe eyes that always looked too big, my posture insecure and attempting to make myself smaller. Even my soft voice, gentle and hesitant. I've had a lot of practice to look nonthreatening and meek.
The colors that constantly swirled around my aunt flickered. Every person was similar in this one regard—they had a solid color that seemed to stay with them always. I thought of it as their aura and the colors that swirled around in it were their emotions. It was the one way I truly knew a person. It was what I thought to be my greatest strength, and greatest defense—knowing a person's heart better than they did.
My aunt's aura was always orange. An ugly color. Ambitious. Prideful. It was consistently darkened by the swirls of vibrant green—greed—and, when dealing with me, musky red—annoyance.
"What girl asks for balloons for her twentieth birthday?" she protested.
A girl with one last hope. One last idea to gain her freedom. If this failed too… Then the chain would end. With me.
I simply smiled my 'naive girl' smile, not daring to show how important this was to me. I couldn't make her suspicious.
Her words echoed in my head, long after she removed herself from my sight. Another reminder of her cruel nature. I closed my eyes, drained from all the acting.
"Be grateful, Christine," she would tell me. "Most orphans don't have it as good as you."
Sure, my most basic needs were met. I was fed, clothed, and sheltered. However, most orphans were allowed to walk down the street. Most orphans were allowed to go to school. Most orphans were allowed freedom.
Just a little longer.
The morning before my twentieth birthday, I awoke to numerous balloons surrounding my room. Balloons of gold, rose, and white floated high above me. I found even more lingering on the ground when I slipped a foot out of bed. Ribbon danced in the overhead and for the first time in a long while, I felt optimistic.
My aunt, being the prideful woman she is, decided to present me with my balloons the day before my birthday celebration. A display of such a cheap gift would only embarrass her in front of all her high class friends she had no doubt invited to celebrate.
It suited me just fine this way.
Pulling my robe over my pj's, I leaned back over my bed to dig my hand into the pillowcase and drew out a few sealed envelopes. It only took a moment to attach them to a few balloons, silently praying over each one to who—or what—ever cursed me to live this way.
And then with more determination and confidence than I felt, I strode through my room, opened the door to my balcony and released the balloons into the air.
Help me, I silently pleaded as I watched them disappear into the distance. Save me.