Abusing Hair Power - Tangled Alternate - The Mirror That Didn't Break
"And I will NEVER let you use my hair again." delivers Rapunzel as an ultimatum.
Gothel wrenches herself free from the suddenly strong arm of her flower.
Catching herself on the stand mirror.
Rapunzel turned her back on Mother. She had meant it, she would never let her use her hair again. Mother had lied to her, betrayed her and had sent Eugene to die.
"You want me to be the bad guy? Fine, now I'm the bad guy." says Gothel quietly her eyes scanning the room quickly.
Rapunzel swept back her hand to gather her hair to take her away from the tower forever. Maybe there was a way to save him if she went back to the kingdom.
There was a flash of light, followed by darkness as Gothel knocks Rapunzel out with the frying pan.
...
Rapunzel comes to, laying on her side in front of the bathroom. Her head aches. Quickly she sings the healing incantation, healing herself as she has done so many times before.
Her hands are chained behind her. Looking around she sees Mother is throwing things into a pack. Preparing to leave.
"Mother, what are you doing?" scared of what the answer might be.
"Oh, good you're awake. We are leaving. We are going somewhere no one will ever find you, and we will be together forever." says Gothel.
"No! I'll never go with you." Rapunzel shouts defiantly.
Gothel continues to stuff the pack, moving around the tower.
"They'll destroy you, like they did last time. They always destroy. Why do they always destroy? I nurtured you for centuries. They stole you, I had to get you back. I almost died, because they stole you." She puts her hands down on the table, holding herself up, looking down, panting, remembering how close death had come.
Gothel turned to Rapunzel, her face stricken. "I would have been happy if I could have had a piece that would have kept me alive, but it didn't work. I needed you, I had to take you back. I'm sorry."
"I love you. I took care of you, I nursed you. You can't leave me. I won't let them take you, not again. That was so horrible. I must have you. I need you." Gothel pleaded.
"Mother, please, don't do this!" begs Rapunzel from the floor in her chains.
"Enough, flower, we are leaving! You Must Be Kept Safe!" shouts Gothel, she pulls out a handkerchief and gags Rapunzel, just as they hear the sounds of hoofs in the canyon outside the tower.
Gothel grabs the knife off of the table. Rapunzel's eyes fill with fear.
…
"Rapunzel I thought I'd never see you again." said Eugene happily, seeing Rapunzel's gagged face. Wait, what?
"Meumee, moom, moum." screamed Rapunzel through her gag.
"Schlunk," answered the knife as it went into Eugene's belly.
Thud went Eugene as the pain took him.
"Now look what you've done, Rapunzel. Oh, don't worry, dear. Our secret will die with him." Gothel steps over the dying Eugene, the knife dripping in her hand. And moves to release the chains holding Rapunzel to the stairs.
Rapunzel fights to drag herself next to Eugene. Why couldn't he have fallen the other way onto my hair? she thinks desperately.
"And as for us. We are going where no one will ever find you again." dragging Rapunzel to the trapdoor.
Pascal charges out from the shadows to bite the hem of Gothel's dress, she notices him and kicks him across the room.
"Rapunzel, really!"
"Enough already!"
"Stop fighting me!"
"No, I won't stop! For every minute of the rest of my life, I will fight! I will never stop trying to get away from you! But if you let me save him, I will go with you." she begs, in chains, from the floor, at the feet of the woman she calls Mother.
"No! No, Rapunzel." grunts the dying Eugene from by the window.
"I'll never run. I'll never try to escape. Just let me heal him and you and I will be together, forever, just like you want. Everything will be the way it was. I promise. Just like you want. Just let me heal him." It was the most terrible promise ever, Rapunzel knows that her hair keeps Mother young, it will keep herself young, it really will be forever. But she has to save Eugene.
Gothel considers and accepts the promise, Rapunzel kneels docilely as commanded as Gothel removes the chains and waited impatiently as she chains Eugene to the stairs. "In case you get any ideas about following us."
He coughs as his his punctured lung is irritated by the imprisonment.
"Eugene!" cries Rapunzel racing to her true love. Stroking his hair and examining the wound. "I'm so sorry. Everything is going to be okay, though."
"No, Rapunzel." begs Eugene, he couldn't let her keep that promise. She never breaks her promises. And he didn't even know just how awful that promise was.
"I promise. You have to trust me. Come on. Just breathe." she begs him.
"I can't let you do this." he tries to resist her help.
"And I can't let you die." she says desperately.
"But if you do then you will die." he tries to explain to her. Gothel was killing everyone who knew about Rapunzel. She had to be next. There had to be something he could so to keep her from doing this. His strength was fading fast.
The guards had emptied his pockets, there was nothing on the floor.
He had no way to stop what was going to happen.
"Hey. It's going to be all right." she explains, gently wrapping her hair around her true love and begins to sing.
Her hair glows.
Eugene is healed.
Rapunzel gives him one last, first, only kiss, and her tears wet his cheeks.
Gothel commands, "Come Rapunzel."
"Yes, Mother." Rapunzel lowers her eyes and gets up and moves next to Gothel. She promised.
She has sold herself into eternal slavery for the life of her true love, who will now be able live out a normal life, and die, sometime in the distant past of her future and she'll never be able to join him even in death, because she promised.
And she's never going to meet her real parents, who send up the floating lights, because she promised.
Her soul is imploding within her, because she promised.
Eugene catches the hair that was on his belly in his hand and Rapunzel stops.
"Please, let me stay with her and you." Eugene begs.
Gothel grabs the hair and is pulling on it. "There is no way we can trust you."
"No, you can't, I'm a thief." Eugene concedes, the hair begins to slip through his grasp.
"Eugene." Rapunzel implores, she wants him to go away and be free. Knowing there was someone who loved her and was free would sustain her.
The hair stops in his grip. "Correction, Flynn Rider is a thief, but Eugene Fitzherbert isn't and he can be trusted."
Gothel looks suspicious, "And who is Eugene Fitzherbert?"
"I am." says Eugene.
"Like that is supposed to make me feel better about you." Gothel continues to tug on the hair.
Eugene kneels, chain clanking, "On my love for Rapunzel, I, Eugene Fitzherbert, pledge myself to you, to be loyal and to do everything possible to protect you and Rapunzel forever, I promise. Just let me stay with her." It was an oath of a vassal to a queen.
Rapunzel closes her huge green eyes she doesn't want to lose him again, but having him like this would be worse. It would be nothing more then an exercise wheel for a hamster, something to keep her entertained and docile and somewhat content, because she promised and now so did he and her soul died some more.
Gothel is impressed with the oath, but still has doubts. "How can we trust you?"
"I have to earn your trust. I know that. I also know that the palace guard are going to be on my trail, which obviously leads here. I can lead them away, but in case it doesn't work you should leave the tower anyway, at least for a while. Do you know where Weathertop Hill is?"
"I do." Gothel answers, wondering why that might be important.
"In two days, I'll be on top of that mountain or dead. Meet me there and learn that you can trust me, I'll be on top so you can see me, but I won't be able to see you. Get out of here, but watch the entrance and watch me lead away the guards. I'll try to make sure no one finds the tower, but I can't promise I'll succeed, so hide."
Gothel can see they love each other, she never fell in love with anyone, but this she should be able to use. Using one against the other to keep them both in line.
Gothel was going to leave the tower so he could never find her, but there were downsides to that.
Her food forest was doing well so another mouth to feed would not be a problem. Abandoning that would be the most painful thing. It would mean buying food and more exposure, more chances to be found out and her flower taken from her again.
Gothel agrees.
Rapunzel stays with Gothel, obedient, because she promised. Her hair in the backbasket that Gothel gathered wood for the fire in. Gothel appreciated that as they hide in the bushes beyond the entrance.
Flynn and Max looked like they were setting up a camp when the guards came, Flynn jumped on Max and they raced away. Gothel and Rapunzel waited for the rest of the day, but no other guards came. They went to Weathertop Hill and slept under the stars and the hair. It was a beautiful night but Rapunzel couldn't see from the tears in her eyes. It wasn't going to be just like it was, the promise was too powerful.
They waited and then Eugene came. Gothel and Rapunzel circled the hill making sure he and Max were alone. Satisfied, they went up together to meet him, Gothel and Rapunzel. Rapunzel heeling Mother like a dog on a leach, but a leach far stronger then leather or metal, she had promised, and it was draining her soul.
"So?" asks Eugene.
"You kept your word so far. It is a start. Follow me." She set off away from the direction of the tower, but circled around so they came up from the mountains around it, it looked undisturbed.
"I still don't trust you yet." Gothel told Eugene.
"Very smart," Eugene said. "I did lead them away, they are floundering in the swamp"
They went around to the entrance and after looking around for tracks and finding no new ones they went back to the tower.
As they stood by the arched entrance to the tower Rapunzel looked around one last time and said, "Thank you, Mother."
Confused Gothel asks, "What for?"
"For this time Outside."
Gothel nods, things are going to be different now. But she held out her arms and said,
"I love you, very much." Gothel said gratefully.
"I love your more." came the empty reply.
"I love you most."
They go up the stairs, and try to figure out a way to make a new arrangement work.
And Eugene was right not her body, but Rapunzel's soul dies, because she promised, to be a slave and not a daughter.