A short chapter. I tried to make it longer, but I really liked the ending, and couldn't think of anything to add. I'll try to update soon to make up for it.

Anyone who had read anything written by Beatrix Potter, will probably be able to tell that I got a lot of animal headcanons from her.

Chapter 7

Rapunzel was surprised to find that the forest was alive, despite the cold, and the previous night's storm.

Her tower's isolation, nestled in the valley formed by two cliffs, had meant that the wildlife that made it into her view was limited. There had been birds, mostly. But not very many mammals. From the reading she had been allowed to do, she had assumed that the cold season would be still and lifeless.

Instead, birds sang cheerfully as they flitted between the trees. Small animals skittered across the branches, and through the underbrush. Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of a fur covered back just before it darted into a hole almost the roots of an ancient pine tree. A couple times she saw a squirrel sitting on a branch, its bushy tail twitching as it watched her and Jack pass.

Once, she gasped as she saw movement on what she had thought to be an expanse of snow. She had just been able to make out the shape of a white fox, before it scampered off into the trees. Jack had looked over at her intake of breath, and his chuckle told her that he had seen the fox as well.

Whenever there was a fresh burst of chatter among the trees, Jack would look towards the sound, his expression intent.

"Can you understand them?" she asked, when she could no longer deny her curiosity. Her mother had always said that animals could talk, and Rapunzel had reluctantly accepted the fact. But Jack seemed to be listening to them.

"Not the words," he said. "But I can usually interpret the mood."

"The mood?" she asked, a little excited. Because, as far as she was concerned, that counted as talking to animals.

Jack chuckled, apparently picking up on that excitement.

"They talk a lot," he said. "Sometimes it's just chatter – claiming territory, or whatever. I'm pretty sure they gossip. But I can tell if they're agitated."

"Why would they be agitated?" The way he said it told her that it would be bad if they were.

"Predators, usually," he said. "The smaller animals seem to have some kind of warning system. Or if a storm is coming."

"Is that how you knew the storm was coming yesterday?" She tried to remember if there had been any animal chatter while he had been up in the tree. If there had been, she hadn't noticed it.

Jack shook his head. "No."

But he didn't answer the unspoken question of how he had known.

"Will there be another storm tonight?"

He looked up, to where patchy grey-white clouds drifted slowly across the sky, occasionally letting some blue shine through. "Probably not. The clouds aren't low enough."

They were quiet for a few minutes, before Jack spoke. "Okay – my turn to ask a question."

Rapunzel cringed. She had almost forgotten that this was coming. "Yes?"

He chuckled. "Don't sound so scared."

"I'm not scared," she said. Too quickly. How could she not be nervous? She tried not to think about all the stories her mother had told her about what would happen if anyone found out about her hair.

"So, your hair," Jack said. "Were you born with that ability?"

"Yes," she admitted.

When he didn't respond, she went on.

"Mother said that why I had to stay in my tower – because a gift like this, it needs to be protected, so people can't misuse it." She touched her hair absently.

He glanced back over his shoulder. She had been watching a snow bunting as it hopped along a branch, so she almost missed it. She looked just as he turned back again, so she only caught a flash of something in his eyes. It might have been suspicion, but she wasn't sure.

She didn't want it to be.

"I thought you said she wasn't your mother."

"She's not." She looked down at her own knee, where Jack's cloak draped over the light brown fabric of her dress. "I don't know what she was."

"So you had a very isolated upbringing in a tower, with a crazy lady who claimed to be your mother, and you have magic hair that glows when you sing." He ran his free hand through his hair. "How did you find out she wasn't your mother?"

"I…" Rapunzel bit her lower lip, not wanting to say it, but knowing that she had to. If only because she needed to admit it to herself once and for all. "The other night I couldn't sleep, and I heard voices coming from downstairs. It's always been just moth—Gothel and me," she corrected herself. "No one else had ever come into the tower. So when I heard her talking to someone, I when downstairs. They were in her room, so I couldn't see them, but they were arguing. He- he said something about how he had helped her kidnap me."

She felt Jack tense.

"Rapunzel, how old are you?"

"I'll be eighteen this spring," she said.

He hesitated. "On the solstice?"

"Yes!" she said, almost jolting in surprise. "How did you know?"

He hesitated. "I may know who your parents are. Your real parents."

Rapunzel stared at him – or rather, at his ear – in stunned silence.

"I'm not promising," he said. "But there was… a girl… from Spring, who was born on the Solstice. She was kidnapped when she was a baby."

She still didn't know what to say.

But Jack broke her out of her reverie.

"The man she was talking to—"

"I didn't see him," Rapunzel reminded, since he was obviously going to ask questions she probably didn't have the answers to.

He was quiet for a minute. Thinking, she realized.

"Were you scared of him?" he asked. "Just… was there something about him that…that made your skin crawl?"

"Yes." She said, nodding vehemently. She hadn't wanted to mention it, since it sounded childish. But just the man's voice had made the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end. Like the feeling she got when she woke up from a nightmare, only to open her eyes to a room that was completely flooded with shadows. "His voice… the way he talked was, I don't know, he sounded…"

"Refined?"

"I think so," she said. "I- Before the I met you, I'd never met anyone other than mother. So I don't know."

"Trust your instincts, Rapunzel," he said.

She swallowed, trying to find what her instincts were telling her, in spite of her lack of social experience.

"Yes." She nodded, trying not to play back the man's voice in his head. Unintentionally her arms tightened around Jack as she shivered.

He pressed his free hand over hers, and the reassuring touch relaxed her a little.

"How did you know?" she asked.

Jack didn't answer at first.

"You remember that letter I got at the inn?"

"Y-yes," she said. Another shiver shot down her spine, but she didn't know why. "You think he was the one in my tower?"

"I hope not." But something in Jack's tone implied "probably".

#

The journey was uneventful – at least until near sunfall.

She had asked Jack what Spring was like, and he was trying to satisfy her curiosity. "Warm wasn't enough of an answer for her.

He described the capital city, with its cobblestone road winding through the bustling city, up to the gates of the castle at the top of the hill. And the ships moored in the docks, while gardens bloomed almost year round with explosions of color that filled the air with their sweet perfume. He was just trying to describe the forest outside the city – how it was different from the one they were currently riding through. (She refused to accept "greener" as an adequate answer.)

But then, as he tried to explain sunlight filtering through green leaves, he stopped mid-sentence.

"Jack?"

"Shh."

The horse came to a stop, and Jack looked around, as though searching for something. The severity of his expression made her stomach clench. She looked around, searching for whatever had caused Jack's sudden shift.

But nothing seemed out of place. Not to her untrained eyes, at least. The ground was blanketed with white snow that sparkled in the dimming light. Nothing moved. And it was easy to imagine that they were the only people left in a world that seemed to have frozen over.

And then she realized what was wrong.

The animal chatter that had been going on in the background all day had come to an abrupt stop.

There was no bird song. No scampering of small animals. Even the breeze had come to a stop, so the air was deathly still.

"What's wrong?" she asked, in a whispered.

Jack frowned, his eyes still searching. "I'm not sure."

That did not make her feel better.

The horse shifted, and she clung tighter to Jack to avoid falling.

"We should probably keep moving," she suggested. Maybe they could leave behind whatever was wrong.

Jack nodded slowly. "You're right."

Rapunzel couldn't ever remember being told that she was right. The words send a warm, pleasant flush through her, in spite of the situation.

At Jack's command, the horse started moving again, walking a little quicker now. It seemed to sense their tension. Or maybe it could sense for itself that something was wrong.

But they didn't make it far before the horse came to a stop. Snorting, he tossed his mane as he tried to look around.

"Yeah, I feel it too, bud," Jack murmured, rubbing the horse's neck. "But what…"

She had thought that his "I don't know" was bad… but she decided that the way his face paled suddenly was worse.

Then she heard it.

High and cold, cutting through the approaching twilight like the blade of a knife.

Rapunzel had heard wolf howls before. They had scared her as a child – especially when Gothel had started leaving her alone in the tower for days at a time. But she had learned to enjoy their song. Especially once she was convinced that they were nowhere near her tower. But this howl, and the ones that responded to it, sent a shiver down her spine.

Without thinking, she wrapped her arms tighter around Jack's waist, burying her face in his back. Terror shot through her, but she wasn't sure if it was hers, or his. Or both. Jack rested a hand over hers, the touch comforting.

Another howl.

The horse stamped in agitation.

"Yeah, let's keep moving," he said.

The horse didn't need to be told twice, and took off at a brisk trot.

"I'm normally not afraid of wolves," she said, feeling a little ridiculous. For some reason, the howls scared her more than they had in years. Maybe it was because she wasn't in her tower, and didn't have any walls to protect her. But it felt like more than that.

"These aren't Winter wolves," Jack said, through clenched teeth.

She decided she didn't like that, and almost didn't even want to ask. But her curiosity got the best of her.

"What do you mean?"

"They're nightmare wolves."