Take the Lively Air

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femme!Flynn/Rapunzel movie rewrite: response to the prompt "what if a girl had climbed up Rapunzel's tower instead?"

Title and chapter names taken from Roethke's 'The Waking'.

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1. learn by going

She was getting good at this, actually. It was mostly in the wrists and a little in the hips. The clang the skillet made when it hit the intruder's head was a lot more resounding than the one it made when Rapunzel accidentally dropped it on her own foot, and was, from the sound of it, a lot more painful. "I think you knocked out my eyeball," the intruder said. "It must have rolled under the table. You're all sideways."

"Your chair tipped over," Rapunzel said. "Do we have a deal?"

"You know, I thought about being freaked out by the hair," the intruder said, "but mostly, right now, I'm mad as hell. It's weird."

"Do we have a deal."

"My eyeball."

Rapunzel couldn't figure out what 'simpatico' meant, but whatever it was, the woman (Flan? Faline?) wasn't budging. "This is your last chance," Rapunzel said. "Say no one more time, and I'll beat the right answer out of you."

"Your negotiation skills need work," the woman said. "Also, I can't hear you very well when your dragon's tongue is stuck in my goddamn ear."

"Just so you know? It was the tongue that convinced me," Flynn Rider said, and disappeared over the windowsill.

Rapunzel anchored her hair in the hook and tried not to faint. Flynn was picking her way down the stones with a cross call of you coming Blondie and didn't seem all that sympathetic to the fact that this was momentous, this was ruinous.

The drop she'd been staring at all her life loomed in front of her. Her idea was stupid and reckless and this would kill Mother. She could never… but Pascal was anchoring himself in a tendril of her hair, smiling his chameleon smile at her, and suddenly Rapunzel realized, yes, she could.

She took a deep breath, gripped her hair hard, and launched herself out of the tower.

She got grass stains everywhere.

The second thing Flynn did at the beginning of their journey was to try to cut Rapunzel's hair. The first thing she'd tried to do was lose her over the side of a ravine. "The answer is no," Rapunzel said.

"As much as I've enjoyed watching your mood swerve from one extreme to the other for the past twenty minutes," Flynn said, "it's cost us some time. The festival's tomorrow night, in case you haven't invented calendars up in your tower yet. We've got a lot of ground to cover. In the meantime, your hair is dragging seventy feet behind us and is probably bringing half the forest with us."

She was still out of breath. She'd been swinging from a tree giant enough to block out the sky and then weeping inside a cavern that her mother would hate her, would hate her forever, and also the world was glorious and that was almost worth her mother hating her forever.

Flynn's expression was stirring up something else. Neck prickling, Rapunzel closed her hands into fists gently, willing them not to start trembling. "That wasn't part of our deal," she said.

"I'll be honest, I don't remember much about our deal except it hurt a lot," Flynn said. "I'll make it quick. Like pulling a tooth."

"The answer is no."

"Listen, do you want to get to the city or not? Because at this rate we'll get there in time for your next birthday, and trust me, your mother's bound to notice something's up by then."

The rest of her was beginning to shake. She had to turn back. If this were any other day she'd have turned back twice already. Except that the sunlight felt too hot on her skin and her legs were hurting and she didn't know what to do anymore, because today wasn't any other day, and her hurts were good hurts. Hurts that she needed to feel more of before her life went back to being not a life.

Unable to move, unable to think, Rapunzel stood still, gripping the earth with her toes.

To her surprise, Flynn abruptly threw up her hands. Without a word, she spun on a heel and stormed down the path.

Not believing her luck, Rapunzel stood there for a while. Flynn's back started to get smaller.

On her shoulder, Pascal nudged her cheek and flicked his tail questioningly. Back or forward.

Rapunzel let out a breath that hitched slightly, then bent to gather up her hair. Before Flynn could round the bend, Rapunzel was running to catch up. She didn't let go of her hair even when the muscles in her arms began to burn.

… the forest was beautiful.

Flynn's knife made a second appearance twenty minutes later.

Somewhere around the point where Pascal began pantomiming dismembering Flynn and hanging the parts as markers to guide them on their way back, Rapunzel had recollected herself. She decided that while she'd reached her quota of physical violence today, suggesting violence was something else entirely. Clearly the problem wasn't going away on its own. It was now or never. Back or forward.

She planted her feet, dropped her hair, and heaved her skillet up in front of her, two-handed.

Flynn performed a remarkable acrobatic feat: she spun around and at the same time leapt back, putting a sizeable amount of distance between them in one movement. On cue, Pascal started hissing on Rapunzel's shoulder. "Here's the deal, Flynn Rider," Rapunzel said.

"Ah, okay, wow," Flynn said.

"You caught me off-guard before, but let me remind you that the location of the satchel is something only I know, and if you ever want it back—"

"Okay, okay, okay, shh," Flynn said. "Is there any reason we aren't discussing this calmly? Without weaponry? Without your dragon giving me the stink-eye?"

She could feel her knees already beginning to lock again. "I am calm."

"You're holding a skillet in my face."

"You're holding a knife."

"Your skillet has made a lot more contact with my head in the last couple of hours than my knife has made with yours."

She lifted the skillet higher and forced herself to think critically. This was too much to handle. Too much of a risk. The whole idea had been stupid, but the grass under her feet had felt like a prayer and she'd lost her head. "I don't even know what I'm doing," Flynn said. "I'm still half-convinced I'm knocked out. This is the strangest standoff I've ever been in. Where are your shoes?"

"I don't wear shoes."

"Why is your frog glaring at me?"

"He's a chameleon."

"Why do you not wear shoes and why is there a chameleon glaring at me?"

Lose Flynn in the forest, maybe? Something needed to happen here. She needed to go back to her tower and… except Flynn would come after the satchel. Maybe knock her out first, and then gather up her hair, and then go to the tower, and then she…

… and mostly she was just getting confused, because it didn't really seem like Flynn was angry. All in all, it seemed like she was just as puzzled as Rapunzel.

Looking at her, Rapunzel realized that this was a point of contention that couldn't be settled without divulging dangerous truths. Her hair was simply a part of life, as much a non-negotiable appendage as her arms and legs. Never mind explanations. She needed to get to the heart of the matter, or risk losing everything.

She said, "I want your solemn word."

"On what?" Flynn looked wary, but at least she was no longer flipping the knife.

"I want your solemn promise that you won't try to cut it. Today or tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Promise me."

Flynn didn't look thrilled at the prospect. "What about the day after that?"

"The day after that, you and I will be strangers," Rapunzel said tightly.

Flynn glanced at Pascal.

"Look at me." Rapunzel straightened her elbows. The edge of the skillet nearly touched Flynn's nose.

For nearly a minute neither of them moved. Rapunzel could hear the sounds of the forest all around them, all-encompassing and smothering and dense. Everything was dazzlingly green.

Flynn said, "Fine."

"No. You have to mean it."

"Fine. I mean it."

"Promise me," Rapunzel said between her teeth.

"I'm not going to cut it. I promise. Today or tomorrow. Geez."

She slowly lowered the skillet. "Dream or not, you sure have a lot of trust," Flynn said. "You know that? The word of a thief doesn't mean much in civilized society."

"Promises are forever no matter who you are." Her heart was still pounding, but she'd done it, hadn't she, she'd done it and now she and her hair and Pascal had survived and that was more luck than she deserved. "If you promise something, you mean it with your heart. It's more binding than chains."

"Well, it's not more binding than your hair, that's for sure," Flynn said. "Now that we've wasted valuable daylight, you want to eventually, you know. Get to your city?"

Rapunzel thought, somewhat dazedly, well, yes.