A/N: This one is a Tangled AU, a request by Amazon28 on tumblr. The song "When Will My Life Begin?" belongs to Slater and Menkin, not I. Tangled is the property of Disney, and Soul Eater is Ohkubos. Figured I was overdue for a disclaimer.
Stuck in the same place I've always been.
And I'll keep wonderin' and wonderin'
And wonderin' and wonderin'
When will my life begin?
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said primly from her place in the shadows, overlooking the window he was now climbing through.
The man paused, features shadowed by his cloak, and looked around warily. "Do what, exactly," he answered cautiously to the looming darkness.
"Come in here. Mother won't be happy, and you wouldn't like Mother when she isn't happy," she said sweetly.
"I'll keep that in mind—whoever you are—but just now, I have more pressing issues." He was searching the shadows with his eyes, trying to pinpoint her voice, but the echo from the high ceiling made it nearly impossible.
"Such as?" her voice was laced with amusement and something like curiosity.
"Such as not getting skewered by angry guards and an insane hor—"
He never got to finish because Maka had made a decision and acted; swinging down behind him suddenly by her own impossibly long hair, she thunked him over the head with a thick tome, causing him to crumple to the floor. He was dangerous, clearly, which was exactly why he would be the perfect person to help her. It didn't hurt, of course, that he was the only person she had ever seen aside from her mother.
She was about to tie him up when she realized that her mother was returning, and so, she hastily spoke the words that would bring back the light and stuffed him into the broom closet. Praying to the gods that he wouldn't wake before her mother left, she sat herself on a favorite chair near the fire and began to read, trying to look as normal as possible amidst her mounting excitement because she had seen another person! She didn't even know what he looked like, but he was real, and she wanted so badly to question him and to maybe get him to help her that she could feel the anticipation writhing under her skin.
With luck, Mother wouldn't notice.
The woman who entered was impossibly elegant, impossibly beautiful, with long black hair, deep purple eyes, and a figure that looked like it had been sculpted by the gods themselves. Not for the first time, Maka wondered how a woman like her had produced someone as plain as she was, but she supposed that it really didn't matter. Men were all cheaters, liars, thieves, and murderers, and she would never have anything to do with them anyway. Only, she recalled, there was one in her closet even now, and she would definitely have something to do with him just as soon as her mother left. Well, her looks shouldn't matter for this, so she supposed it was irrelevant.
"So, Maka darling, I trust you've had a good day? Mine has been just dreadful. I'm in dire need of your special touch, I fear."
"Of course, mother." She stayed obediently still and let her mother sing to her and brush her hair, just as she'd been taught to do from her earliest days. When that was through, the other woman rose and smiled down at her almost fondly as she stroked her golden hair.
"Well then, child. Your eighteenth birthday is a few short days away. Is there anything you'd like?"
"To see the lights!" she blurted, unthinking. Her mother frowned down at her prettily.
"Oh Maka, I think not. I wouldn't subject you to the cruelty of the world for anything. There are men out there, and they are brutal, nasty sorts—no—banish the thought!"
"But—mother!" she argued, standing to face the other woman. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it, her recent triumph against the stranger giving her a newfound sense of agency. "I'll be an adult, and I'm strong! I could handle—"
The dark haired beauty laughed. "Oh, child," she reached across and stroked her cheek softly, "you simply don't know the way of it. Trust Mother when she says it's best this way. I keep you here, away from the cruel world, for your own good. I face it for the both of us because I love you. Do not spit on all I do for you by pushing this silliness, my dear."
The younger woman nodded hollowly, her voice small. "Yes, mother." She knew that much of what her mother told her was not quite true, knew it from what she could see in her soul. She had never told her mother she could see her soul, read it like an open book, but she could, and she knew that there was more to the world than what she had been told. She wanted to know what she was missing, what was being kept from her, wanted it desperately.
"Good," her mother smiled widely, satisfied. "Now, then, perhaps there is something else you would care for?"
Maka thought fast. "I would like the next book in the Shinigami Rising series."
Her mother frowned. "Oh, but pet, it will take a week to get to Vegasport and back, you know that's the closest town with a real book store, and then I'd miss your birthday. Perhaps—"
"Oh, but mother, I know you've been wanting a new dress, so you could see to that as well, and I'll be fine knowing a new book is coming, I promise! Please?" She gave her mother her widest puppy dog eyes, which never actually worked on her, but which showed she meant it—and hoped the enticement of a new dress would actually do the trick. Her mother was notoriously vain.
"Well… I suppose it couldn't hurt. Alright, then." The woman replaced her cloak and made for the window. "I'll be back in a week, less with luck. Happy birthday, child."
"Thanks, Mother. I'll be waiting."
And with that, her mother said the words to float from the window to the soft grass below and disappeared into the night.
Waiting several minutes to be sure she was well and truly gone, Maka decided it was time to see to the stranger. Making her way to the closet cautiously, she opened it, the light streaming in. He was still crumpled on the floor, but as the light hit his face, he began to stir.
"What the…?" he mumbled as his eyes slid open. Red.. his eyes were red, and those teeth—and was his hair white? Mother was right! Men really were demons. Oh no, and she hadn't had a chance to tie him… Thinking fast, she grabbed her book up and whapped him over the head again, causing him to stop stirring. She backed away for several moments, eying the closet warily, before creeping up again. Oh, he was out alright. Time to tie him up and see if maybe, just maybe, she could get this demon to give her some answers.
When he awoke, it was to a splitting headache and a sneaking suspicion that he was in way over his head. He blinked once, twice, trying to gain his bearings, trying to remember exactly where he was and how he had gotten here. He remembered running, remembered the precious cargo he carried, that he had managed to swipe, remembered narrowly avoiding the guards and that damned black horse with the weird white markings on one side of its head, then he'd found that weird tower in the middle of nowhere and nothing and figured it was a perfect hiding sport, climbed in, heard that sweet, dangerous voice from the shadows and then—darkness. Utter darkness. And now, he appeared to be tied to a chair in the middle of the same room he'd entered, just as dark, just as ominous.
Fuck. What had he gotten himself into this time?
"So. You're awake," that same high, dangerous voice said from somewhere in the shadows.
"You're not gonna hit me again, are you?" he looked around, trying to figure out where she was.
"Not unless you give me reason to," the voice said too sweetly.
"Wasn't plannin' on it," he grumbled. "Look, if you just untie me, I'll get outta your hair, and we can forg—"
"I don't think so," she said softly, menacingly, and she sounded near, maybe just behind him. "You're a demon, and demons lie. But the thing is, I can always tell when people are lying, so you'd be wise to stick to the truth. I have questions, and if you give me honest answers, we may be able to come to an accord, and then I'll free you."
"And if we can't—come to an accord?" he said vaguely to the shadows behind him.
"I'm not sure yet," she sighed. "But it won't be good for you. As I already told you, Mother would be far less kind than I am if she finds you here."
He let out a sigh of his own. He really didn't need to lie to some shut in anyway—may as well hear her out, seeing as he had no choice. "Alright, what is it you wanna know?"
"You can start by giving me your name," the voice was behind him still.
"Soul Eater," he said easily. "At your service."
"Soul…Eater?" She sounded puzzled, and this time, the voice was at his side. He whipped his head about to see who he was dealing with but all he saw was a blur of green. "What manner of name is Soul Eater?"
She was right in front of him now, leaning towards his face to study him, though not close enough that he had any chance of lunging to head butt her, not that he was planning on it. He was too stunned for that. She was—well—to say beautiful might have been an understatement, with her wide green eyes and pale yellow hair, draped over her shoulders in two braids. Two impossibly long braids. He tried to follow them to their ends with his gaze, but they disappeared off into the shadows.
"Hi there," he smirked. "It's only the name of the coolest guy in all of the Lands of Shibusen, that's what."
She made a face. "Even you don't believe that, but it's unimportant."
Her face then became very serious for a moment, and she muttered a few words, causing the lamps in the room to flare to life, almost blinding him. He slammed his eyes shut involuntarily before finally venturing to squint at her, only to find she had disappeared. Within moments, she came back with a chair in her hands she set across from his and sat down.
"May as well be civil, I suppose," she said with a sigh. "It's enough I've had to tie you up—it won't do at all to treat you badly, even if you are a demon. Aside from which," her eyes moved to the thick tome in her hand. "I have this should you get out of line."
Soul already knew what she could do with that thing twice over and had no desire to become reacquainted, so he just nodded and swallowed nervously. She was an odd one all around. She wore a dress of deep green, knee length with half sleeves, not at all the floor length style in vogue among the ladies, and her twin braids were almost childish. And those braids! He swept his gaze around the room and saw them occupying the space all around them, seemingly never ending. It was insane. He knew he was gaping and managed to snap his jaw shut before mumbling. "'M not a demon."
"Hmmm.." She tilted her head to one side, eying him, studying him. "So you aren't," she finished with a nod. He noticed, for the first time, the little purple lizard on her shoulder, who nodded with her. "Crona agrees, too, and I am glad to hear it. It would have made things awfully difficult were you actually a demon. Mother informed me that all men are demons, in their way, but perhaps she did not mean it so literally as I had once believed."
He just blinked at her, because this entire scene was edging so far into the bizarre that he had no idea what to make of it.
"Look, Lady—"
"Maka," she interrupted.
"Wh-ha?" Was she choking or something.
"It's my name, idiot," she looked suddenly annoyed.
"Oh, right. Maka, then. Can you just get to the point? I'd rather not spend my afternoon bound to a chair, if it's all the same to you."
Anger flashed across her face, but she shook her head after a moment and it passed as quickly as it had come.
"Fine," she huffed. "What do you know about the lights?"
"What now?" he blinked at her, confused again. This one was so strange, so unaccountable. He made a mental note to avoid solitary tall towers in the future.
"The lights!" The exasperation was clear in her voice again. "Every year, a few days from now, there are lights in the sky to the north. What are they?"
"You mean the soul lanterns?" He thought everyone knew about those. Apparently, 'everyone' did not include shut ins with impossibly long braids.
"I guess?" she questioned.
"Well, those are the only lights I can think of," he said after a time, considering. "Every year, they release the soul lanterns on the birthday of the lost princess, hoping to call her soul back home."
"Oh," her face brightened. "That's beautiful! Soul lanterns! I wish to see them. You will take me," she announced suddenly, imperiously.
What now? Soul groaned, and shook his head. This was too much. "Whoa whoa whoa I don't think so. Got better things to do than to babysit some—"
"Not even to get your satchel back?" She was smirking at him in the most self-satisfied way. It was both endearing and maddening.
He looked around suddenly, frantically, because no, he did not have it with him, and groaned again. "You didn't," he grumbled.
"I did," she said sweetly, her smile like honey. "I have a feeling the contents were not honestly obtained—were they?"
"Define honest," he hedged.
"You stole them," she practically sang out.
He shrugged. "I prefer the term borrowed indefinitely."
"I don't care, really," she shrugged back. "Take me to the lights and return me here once we've seen them, and I'll give it back to you, you have my word. But if you don't take me to the lights or if you try to harm me in any way, you will never get your satchel back—and I will exact—" she glanced at the book in her hand and smiled viciously "—other payment. Of that, you also have my word. So. Do we have an accord?" All fierceness melted away suddenly into hope, her eyes pleading. She looked so desperate, so lost for an instant, that Soul couldn't help it, he almost wanted to help her, and he never wanted to help anyone. But he knew what it was like, to feel lost, knew it and hated it. Besides, he really did need his satchel back and it could be anywhere, she could have hidden it anywhere.
"Alright, tiny tits, I'll take you. But you're gonna have to untie me first," he said boredly, trying to reassemble his long lost cool after that whole exchange. He couldn't believe he was doing this, but really, there was no choice.
"Great!" she exclaimed, leaping from her seat to start to work at his ropes. "You won't be sorry!—wait—" she stopped just as she finished untying his hands and he moved them to his lap and began to shake out his wrists, trying to work back feeling. "Tiny—tits? What does that…?"
"You know," he grinned up at her, "Tiny—" he moved his gaze down to her chest, "—tits." It was true enough, she was not well endowed, though when he took in her whole frame, it could not diminish her beauty. Not that he was going to admit that at the moment
She let out an almost animal noise and before he knew what was happening, the spine of a rather large tome was being slammed down on his head.
Well, he supposed as he slipped into darkness yet again, at least the next few days wouldn't be boring.