2. great nature

She wrote in her mental journal, touch. Just like the times she'd navigated her tower by feel alone, just to see if she could. The grain on the banister, the sturdy oaken stairs, the whorls of dried paint on the walls – textures she'd had memorized by the time she was six. With practice, she'd trained her hands to see as well as her eyes.

Now the world was exploding around her and all she could think of was touch. Tree bark. Thorns. The line of ants she allowed to march over her feet until Flynn bellowed for her to catch up. She should have brought her paintbrushes, because that's what this was about, wasn't it? Capturing the colors from the outside and smoothing them into her walls so she'd never have to leave again.

Seeing as they'd gotten things more or less sorted out, her natural curiosity eventually got the better of her. In between pointing out things that caught her eye – a bird's nest, a pawprint, the tremendous girth of a grandfather oak – she peppered Flynn with questions. Where was she from? What was her family like? Did she like to cook? What was her favorite meal? Did she like animals?

Flynn barely responded, grunting occasionally to a yes or a no question. She did respond when Rapunzel asked which direction they were going (southwest) and then offered to throw together some makeshift shoes, because seeing her stumble over the gouges in the footpath was getting on her nerves.

It was nice – the first nice thing Flynn had done, really – but Rapunzel wanted to feel the road under her feet. Every turn, every smooth rock, every tuft of roadside weeds. Things speaking of horizon, and soon, and the swell of lights over the treetops after the sun set.

.

Flynn's shoulders were getting tense. After consideration, Rapunzel decided that it had to be the talking. Mother told her several times a day that she talked too much. On the other hand Flynn wasn't talking, and someone had to fill the silence, because silences themselves were tense. Or maybe it was the skipping?

In the spirit of not pushing her luck, she forced herself to walk and toned down her observations (— really, she did, except for that gorgeous flower and would Flynn mind if she picked it, and were there any rules about picking flowers and did Flynn want one) and kept a grip on her hair so she could weave the train around obstacles.

She was in the middle of not necessarily saying everything she wanted to say about the sap on the side of the tree, because it really was fascinating, and could they perhaps eat it on toast, when Flynn finally spun to face her.

Startled, Rapunzel skidded to a halt. The woods tested the sudden silence with cautious spats of sound: a bird peeping in the canopy, a squirrel jumping from one branch to another overhead.

Flynn's mouth made several movements with no sound. "What?" Rapunzel said.

Flynn turned away just as abruptly as she'd stopped.

Baffled, Rapunzel watched as she started to bang the bushes around them. Low-hanging branches were next, followed by leaves on the ground. Pascal came out from under the curtain of Rapunzel's hair to watch. Standing back, Flynn began scanning the tree trunks, hands on her hips, looking cross and sweaty and not even slightly in the mood for anything Rapunzel had to say.

Rapunzel said, very cautiously, "What are you looking for?"

Flynn didn't respond at first. Then she said, shortly, "Twine."

"Um," she said. She'd read her text on indigenous flora from cover to cover one hundred forty and a quarter times, and though she was hardly worldly, she was fairly certain twine didn't grow in the wild.

"Or that is," Flynn said, "I'm looking for something that acts like twine, because my satchel has mysteriously disappeared. How, you ask? No, that would spoil the mystery. You want to know what else disappeared? I'll give you a hint. My blanket. And my long glass. And my food. And my rope, and my fishing hooks, and my map, and my twine."

Rapunzel wisely ignored a surge of guilt. "Why do you need twine?"

"Because," Flynn said, "because, I am not going to spend another second on this green earth with your hair dragging seventy feet behind us, giving us away to any head hunter or predator that wants easy booty. Is why."

Rapunzel glanced at Pascal, who flicked his tongue out at her in a chameleon shrug. "You promised—"

"Oh, yes," Flynn said grimly, eyeing the vines growing up the side of the tree. "I promised." And then she flipped her knife out of her boot and began sawing.

Pascal was making jerking motions with his tail, which had gone purple to match the color of her dress. The translation was easy. Run.

She nearly did. Her leg muscles tensed, but something didn't let her. Flynn, apparently satisfied with her find, briskly cut the vines into pieces the length of her forearm, then stuffed them all in a pocket and came for Rapunzel.

Out came the skillet. "Easy, Blondie," Flynn said, putting her hands up peaceably. "I'm just going to put it up."

"You stay away from me," Rapunzel said.

"Just want to get it off the ground."

Off the ground? 'Put it up'? "Oh, come on," Flynn said. "If I can't do at least this, I'm going to hang myself. That's all there is to it. I will really hang myself with your hair. And then you will have my mottled and purple corpse to lead you into town, and you can add me to the collection of live animals you've been dragging around in your hair for the last several miles, and you can give us all to the children in the city to play with in exchange for a tour—"

"Stop it," Rapunzel protested, taken aback by the casual gruesomeness. She lowered her skillet reluctantly. "I just… I don't know what you mean. That's all."

Flynn did stop at this. Her eyes met Rapunzel's, and for the first time Rapunzel noticed the color. Brown, but not the brown she used for definition on her walls. Brown like tea. "Wait," Flynn said. "You've never put up your hair? Not once? In your entire life?"

Confusion kept her rooted to the spot. "The stuff stretches from yesterday to next week," Flynn said. "You mean to tell me you've never tied it up? Gotten it out of your face? Ever?"

… oh, that. Rapunzel relaxed a little, but didn't let go of the skillet. "Mother didn't like me to."

"Well," Flynn said. "Far be it from me to question the wisdom of a mother who kept you locked up in a tower for eighteen years. Now that that's all cleared up, turn around. And get that demon off your shoulder. It looks like it wants to eat me and I've got enough to worry about right now."

Rapunzel slowly moved her hands onto her hips. It didn't seem like an unreasonable request. In fact, it almost seemed… nice, in its own way. All the same, she said, "I'm warning you. If you try to cut it… if you even make a move to cut it, I'll—"

"I said I wouldn't, didn't I? Turn around."

She set her skillet down on the ground, easing Pascal off her shoulder. Then she stood, rigid, as Flynn worked her fingers through the hair over her neck.

Strangely, the touch served to calm her down more than anything else. She shivered involuntarily as fingertips brushed the back of her neck, and then again when her hair was being divided into three parts, parted at the nape. "Don't laugh," Flynn said stiffly as she worked, misinterpreting the movement. "I haven't had to do this since I was a kid."

"I wasn't."

"And don't move."

She stood still as Flynn began to move away, hand over hand, parting the hair foot by foot.

A minute later she said, "Flynn, have you ever—"

"No talking either."

"Hey, Flynn—"

"No," Flynn said, somewhere behind her. "I told you, this is not an excuse for us to get cozy, Blondie. This is strictly business. Also, because I know you're going to keep asking anyway, I don't do back-stories. I also don't do stand-up comedy and backward dive rolls, but only because I'm afraid of getting my neck broken. That goes for all three of them."

"I was just going to ask you about your hair."

"I thought hair topics were off-limits."

True. Other off-limit topics involved her mother, Pascal, and whether she went around nude in the tower when she was alone. The last one was on the list only because Flynn had asked first. "For you. Not for me."

Flynn grunted, but without seeing her face it was hard to tell what it meant. "Did you used to have it long?" Rapunzel asked. "I mean, to know how to do this."

For a minute Rapunzel thought she wouldn't answer. When she did, she sounded distracted. "For a while. Almost to my knees."

"What happened? Did someone steal it?"

"Steal it? What is it with you and… people do not steal hair. For your information, I cut it myself."

"What?" Rapunzel twisted her head around, drawing an exasperated noise from Flynn some thirty feet behind her. "Why?"

"It was in my way. Turn back around. This is hard enough without you squirming around."

It was in her way. Rapunzel turned her head, blinking into empty space. Of course hair got in the way, that's what it was for. That's why you learned to work around it, to include it in your chores. "But didn't your mother braid it for you?"

Flynn didn't respond, but that could have been because she was now thirty-five feet away and getting further, working down the long column of hair, separating it foot by foot by foot.

Despite the instructions, Rapunzel turned her head again to watch, not moving until Flynn curtly called for her to turn her head forward, for god's sake, do you want me to hang myself with your hair, and she turned back, staring at the copse of trees at the end of the clearing. She didn't ask any more questions.

The task ended up taking a full two hours. Flynn's knees were dirt-caked and she kept massaging her hand, but in the end Rapunzel's hair was securely roped and twisted and looped together in a single, graceless column ending an inch above the ground.

Her head felt strange. Feeling like she was going to tip over, she steadied herself against a tree and waited for her body to adjust to the new center of balance. "Finally," Flynn said. "You take that out while I'm with you, I'll shave you bald."

"Thank you." Oddly, she meant it. She moved her feet cautiously, felt the feathery tip of her hair brush her ankles, and an incredulous laugh bubbled up inside her. Well. At least she could run better now, couldn't she, and she could…

And then there was the realization that no, never mind running. She could dance. She could twirl and spin and fly and jump and fall and cartwheel and pop into a handstand without anything getting in her way, for the first time in as long as she could remember, and nothing could stop her at all.

Ignoring Flynn's raised eyebrow, she let go of the tree, wobbling a little, and took a few cautious steps. She lifted her arms to balance herself, took a few more. Then she took a few skips, and a few experimental spins, and her hair soared out behind her like an exclamation point.

Flynn said, "If you're done remembering how to walk, we need to make up some time. Let's go."

"Wait." She was laughing. She was breathless. "Wait, I just need to—"

Flynn kept moving as if she hadn't spoken. There was a fire under her feet. She wanted to dance so badly she almost risked everything just to say wait again,but Flynn was getting further away and they did have to make up time. Later, Rapunzel promised her feet giddily. Later, and we'll make it count.

She forced herself to move forward instead, catching up to Flynn and settling behind her, trying to match her longer strides. The woods moved by on either side for another mile, before opening up into the fields, into sky.

A half hour later her neck felt better. She was adjusting – but that's what she'd promised herself, wasn't it. To adapt, and to change.

As they walked, color began to flash at the corners of her vision - yellow, vivid purples, whites and roses.

Every once in a while Rapunzel bent, plucking the flowers deep down on their stems, and replanted them in her hair one by one, letting it absorb the color of the meadow until she could no longer tell where one stopped and the other began.