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Introducing some protagonists across the ocean, a pretty picturesque mansion and a Disney guest star who just got a live-action adaptation... so much for this chapter.
Characters might be slightly OOC in their way of speaking to match the overall spacetime context... complain in the comments!
Disclaimer: I still don't own anything but a weirdish universe and a handful of plot points.
"A dream is a wish… your heart…"
Raindrops were heavily drumming against the bay window. In a just as rubato fashion, Miss Ella Ashcroft vocalised a high trill, followed by a chromatism, another nightingale-like trill, followed by a series of virtuose jumps…
"Your heart… Ahahahaha…Ahaha… what on Earth?"
At the glass harpsichord, her accompanist had placated a thumping cadenza and stared right at her, mortified. Visibly the endless notes had brought her juvenile patience to an end.
"It is a plagal cadenza," she said accusingly.
"And I am a soprano," sharply retorted Ella. "Starting back from three bars before figure E, one, two, - "
"Ella!"
"Rapunzel!" the soprano mockingly echoed.
Miss Rapunzel Corona was hastily tuning up a glass string. As she rotated the little tuning key, the set of elegant little cogs and intricate mechanisms inside the translucid instrument extended the glass fibre ever so slightly. Miss Ashcroft let out a dramatically sighing rolled 'r'.
"Punz. Be ready. Three before E, one, tw- "
This time, she was interrupted by the shrill bell that called both girls to the manor's office. A youthful smile immediately broke her haughty operette mask.
"Last one there washes the parrot cage!" she yelled merrily as she ran across the music room, her light blue organza skirts fluttering behind her.
"Yup," smirked Punz.
With a swift gesture, she threw some music sheet pages gliding onto the monochrome marble floor. Slipping on one of them into a heavy fall, Ella let out an outrageously unladylike curse. With a clear shatter of laughter, the other girl ran past her, past the mechanical instruments and collection gramophones, towards the heavy red door.
The race was their secret ritual. The Crownworth Manor of Camford was not the grandest Rapunzel's family owned, but it was large enough for the two young women to run until their pump-clad-feet started to mirthfully burn. In a life full of corsets and conventions, this was their little spark of freedom when no one was looking. Miss Ella Ashcroft was a recently orphaned maiden, whose father, deputy head of the Company of the Eastern Isles of Extremesia, had been a trusted trade partner and close friend of Mr. Jerome Vincent Corona. It was therefore a natural decision for the Corona & Sons' generous hegemon to invite her to share roof and rooms with his only daughter Rapunzel. While the girls were held to the vacation house of Camford in the East of the flourishing Isle of Cornucopia, prowd crown jewel of the Old Continent, he was occupied pulling the strings of his empire from across the ocean, amongst the wilderness of the Extremesian Colonies.
Both girls were still giggling as they dashed across the old oaken-panelled library. Rapunzel's golden court shoes clattered loudly on the wooden floor, making the elderly librarian turn around from atop his ladder, amongst the scent of the old collection volumes and their ornate leather covers. The golden frills of her purple crinoline, assorted to her thick fair braided hair, rustled across the floor as she flew past.
As soon as she opened the door, the earthly smell reminded Punz of the heavy rain outside. The yellow limestone arcade, between the bright green, perfectly tamed grass court and the Crownworth Park, shielded both girls from the chill drops. Briefly catching her corseted breath, Rapunzel slowed down to stare out the massive ogive door, towards the rain-beaten quasi-Arcadian landscape outside. The gentle hills carried the refinement of the centenary oaks.
"Ha!" yelped a victorious Miss Ashcroft, pushing the other woman as she ran past her. Rapunzel tripped onto the steps outside the door, ending up immediately soaked.
"You cheater, you'll never beat me!" she shouted back with a laugh, speeding up to catch up with Ella.
The soprano was the first one to cross the covered bridge, leaving a crystal-studded pump behind. With a sigh, Miss Corona paused to pick it up, before racing down the slope that curved like the back of a purring cat. She reached the other woman by the time they crossed a red-carpeted corridor, bordered with an eclectic collection of paintings and luxographs. Some were genuine family portraits, while others had been left from the previous owners, the Crownworths, some broke noble family from whom Rapunzel's father had bought both title and lands. Global expansion objectives in mind, he had simplified their name to Corona, for convenience of pronunciation and spelling for all nationalities across Centralesia and Extremesia. Both girls joyfully waved back at the automaton suits of armour in the hall as the constellite-powered mechanical double-helix stairway brought them to a higher floor.
The reception office, one of the late Mrs. Evelyn Rose Corona's extravagances, was on the hanging walkway atop the greenhouse. The scents of multitudes of vegetal and fungal species screamed at the girls as soon as they walked in. Below them bloomed a variety of tropical flowers the Corona family had billed the most eminent botanists to cross and select to produce the most extraneous forms, colours and perfumes. Tall palm trees and arborescent ferns from the New World rose almost to the level of their feet. The automatic vapour dispensers covered the breathless girls with a veil of fresh droplets. Rapunzel sneaked out behind Ella to push her aside against the thin balcony of the walkway. As she was about to reach the 'finish line', she felt something hard and cold fall onto her shoulder.
"Hey, Pascal!" she whispered at the small clockwork chameleon perched over her, a present her father had brought her back from one of his many trips to Eastern Extremesia.
"Miss Corona. Miss Ashcroft," snapped a stern voice, as both girls reached the hanging office at the same time.
Mother Gothel, the terribly beautiful Prussoroman governess, eyed them expressionlessly from head to toe. Both of them were stifling a most disgraceful chortle. Ella's hair and skirts were unkempt from her run and fall, and she limped on a high heel and a bare foot. Rapunzel was completely soaked, holding a shoe in the one hand and a robot toy on the other. This was bound not to go down well. The result would be cold hazelnut soup for Rapunzel and all the washing up for Ella. The Corona heiress felt a pang of pity for her friend. Mother Gothel always gave her the worse punishments, since her 'favours' towards Punz were consequence of her ambition to gain her father's heart and his hand.
The matron in red stepped aside to reveal the man sitting in the study. He sat at the solid wooden desk, a paper-thin, lily-patterned cup of steaming tea in his hand. He was clad all in white, a gold-buttoned waistcoat over his spotless shirt, completed with cream-coloured trousers and riding boots. The assorted pale explorer hat looked a bit out of place, indicating the colonial man in the rainy coldness of old Cornucopia. His skin was slightly darkened by his journeys across the ocean, and while it seemed to disconcert Miss Ella, Miss Rapunzel's face broke into a joyful smile:
"Flynn!"
Her childhood friend precipitantly put down his cup to return her soggy, heartfelt hug. Flynn Rider was the son of the late eminent preceptor who had once taught her. Her mother had arranged for him to be adopted by silver mine company head Mr. Fitzherbert, for whom Jerome Corona was the main shareholder. After sweet Evelyn's passing, Flynn – renamed Eugene by his adoptive father, a much more appropriate name for a man of his class – had rapidly become one of Mr. Corona's many associates, assisting him in his whirlwind affairs across the ocean.
"What is the new world like? Do the rivers really taste like chocolate?" she asked teasingly. "They look the right colour on the luxographs Father sent me. "
"Punz! You look so… grown up! A lady like you should know they don't," he replied with a playful smolder.
"Oh, you have to see the Wellis Pamphlet! That ink sketch of you had such a cringeworthy broken nose!"
Both chuckled softly. He smelled like honey and his favourite Southerninsular spicy tea.
"Flynn, I am travelling to Dovehaven on the morrow to greet a cargo on my father's stead, will you come w- "
"Of course not," icily mouthed the Gothel, "someone should keep company to dear Ella. But I forget my manners. Mister Fitzherbert, this is Miss Ella Ashcroft from Hexagonia."
Her hostile smile betrayed her pleasure to see Rapunzel ridiculed in such fashion before the confused Ella.
"Daughter of the late Mr. Charles Ashcroft of the Eastern Isles Company and a trusted friend of Mr. Corona," added the governess.
And then, in an undertone. "Peace to his soul, and to that of the monkey that must have been poisoned by biting him."
Rapunzel gave Eugene a deadly look as he repressed his snigger. Poor Ella had been enough humiliated by the lowly joke. He managed to give her a polite nod, his reassuring eyes meeting her anxious ones.
"Miss Ashcroft, meet Mr. Eugene Fitzherbert. Son of the late Mr. Octave Ryder, adoptive son of Mr. William Fitzherbert, and associate to Mr. Corona."
The girl in purple gave her friend her shoe and a sorry look, as the latter walked to Flynn-Eugene for him to customarily kiss her hand. She hardly liked the way the Gothel's world revolved around her father.
"It is a great pleasure, Mr. Fitzherbert. I have heard many things about your achievements in the New World from my protector and his daughter."
"Ella Ashcroft, you flatter me. The luxographs I have seen of you cannot do justice to your elegance and beauty. Just call me Eugene."
Punz admired her for her manners despite the disgraces the Gothel had forced upon her. Ella was kind and had courage, all could clearly see it shine through.
"Miss Corona, would you mind accompanying me to our guest's quarters? It would be a shame if we did not make sure the servants have everything ready for Mr. Eugene's stay."
"Of course, Mother Gothel," precipitantly said a surprised heiress, running after the matron who stood at the doorstep of the greenhouse.
Both women left through the mechanical stairway, leaving the office to Flynn and Ella. Rapunzel picked up Pascal from her shoulder, the dim light of constellite powder shining through his translucid plastic scales between polariser layers, the fluid coloration patterns changing as she gently pressed her hands onto the automat's skin. Under the polarised transparent layers, the delicate steel structure, its tiny cogs and springs were just about visible. She slid the small automaton into her golden-lace-trimmed sleeve.
If she asked Gothel about what just occurred, she would be called stupid, and rightfully so. The deduction she had come to was somewhat unsettling.
"Has Father advised for Miss Ella's bethrothal to Fl… Mr. Fitzherbert's?" she enquired instead, in a curious and careful tone.
"Of course, Jerome approves," sneered the governess. "Do you not register that –"
"That Ella's inherited fortune would be a great asset for Mr. Fitzherbert and for our empire? That some Andersen, some Weaseltown or even one of those Horrendous Haddocks would claim her hand had Father not given it to F… Eugene? That the Ashcroft legacy may escape our hands if someone outside Corona & Sons married her? That Ella is the perfect reward for Father's associate's faithful service?"
Mother Gothel looked at the maiden in cold surprise. She was usually a docile child. She sounded imaginative and smart, as usual, but her words was too defiant to her taste.
"Well, Miss Rapunzel, it seems like your arguments are overwhelmingly in favour of this union. Your concern is therefore totally unfounded."
The heiress and her governess walked across the hall. Outside the immense window, they could see the dozen of collection sophisticated steamcars lined up on the beige gravel, facing away towards the sea of perfectly mowed grass.
"Well, Mrs. Gothel, I see things differently from what you seem to think. Eugene has forged himself a reputation in robbery, treason, escape and treachery, even the Wellis pamphlet knows that. He serves Corona & Sons in the darker and more lowly affairs such that Father may not get his hands dirty. He may well be my friend, but he has also become arrogant, self-centred and avid, I can see it even better than anyone else. Ella, by comparison, is patient and tender, courageous and kind… This cannot be…"
Mother Gothel was well aware the younger woman was feeling the flaw in her own reasoning. Despite her isolated upbringing, Rapunzel had the intuition for understanding human interaction.
"Cannot be what?" she asked with casual hostility.
"Fair! Right!" was the answer, sounding less convinced than it should have been.
Rapunzel was fairly surprised when the Gothel gave no answer. The long afternoon lights spilled over the empty boudoir as the two women walked through. The expensive porcelain projected eerie shadows onto the sun-patterned ceiling. Outside, the rain had calmed down. The clouds seemed about to burst with golden light, and the emerald glass was saturated with water and colour. A neo-gothic tower, covered in artificial cracks and carefully selected ivy and brambles, cut out a silhouette in the distance. Those old-looking fabrics were a furious fashion in the later days of Rapunzel's mother, before her passing of some fever caught in the damp hotness of the Southern Isles of Extremesia.
Mother Gothel stopped in front of the Murano glass mirror next to the boudoir door. Almost affectionately drawn towards the governess with a hand to her corseted waist, the young heiress contemplated their juxtaposed reflections.
A woman in the beautiful and difficult age, creases just forming either side of the deep onyx eyes and the proportioned dark lips, gray streaks just hinted in the luscious black curls, titanium spectacles hanging amongst pearl necklaces, a crimson mermaid dress emphasizing the full bust and the hourglass shape, a simple golden belt underlining the slim waist, at which hung a set of keys and a copper-coloured radiocommunicator, a studied and elegant pose.
By her side, a juvenile, round-faced, doe-eyed maiden, with abundant blond hair, slim shoulders, an corset embroidered with flower and clockwork patterns, a still slightly wet, elaborate purple crinoline, refined lace trimming and assorted jewelry, a golden pocket watch marked with the familial sigil, clockwork Pascal emerging from the trimmings of her left sleeve, a pretty and youthful stance.
"Look in that mirror," said the governess. "I see a strong, confident, beautiful young lady."
Rapunzel allowed herself a smile. Did Mother Gothel truly view her as such? Could she possibly finally observe her maturity and her weight in the balance of affairs?
"Oh look, you're here too," she finished with sharp humour.
Rapunzel attempted with a mitigated success to hide her dropping smile. She was still beautiful, the Gothel, still young, still in age to court a wealthy widower like her father, and Rapunzel was but a tool for her purpose. A part in an engine no one asked the opinion of. Whether she was right or wrong, about Eugene and Ella or about anything else, hardly mattered at all.
In melancholic silence the pair walked through to the guest bedroom, the governess carefully checking that the fresh scented linen was all in its place. The ebony clock on the wall was ticking almost sadly, its little hands moving in their endless petty dance, its pendulum swinging from left to right and back from right to left, pretty oblivious of all the fuss.
"Oh and by the way, Miss Corona, do you truly believe in what is fair? Do you only believe in the headings of the volumes from the old library? Let me tell you one thing, Miss Corona. Preceptors may have simplified things for you to learn, but in the world there is no black and white. There are just different tints of sepia. There is your family, your friends, your fortune, your love, your dreams, and mine, and your father's, and Mr. Fitzherbert's, and everyone else's. But you're still a child, and your world still revolves around you like that little sun mobile your mother hung over your cradle."
For goodness's sake, she was a lady, she could not just storm outside the room and slam the door. That would just have proved the Gothel's mean words. She played with a loose strand of her long blonde hair to calm herself down. Be like Ella. Be kind and have courage.
"You must be right, surely. You are still young, and yet so experienced... Pardon me, I have been puerile. I guess there is no point for me to go to Dovehaven on the morrow then. I allow you to travel in my name to greet the new arrival of nacre from the Northern Isles. You may also choose by yourself which item of jewelry from the package Father sent me you would prefer. I am sure he would approve of a little gratitude for your faithful services."
The young woman had muttered the words in a stammer, in a shame that her manners hardly concealed. Little Miss Corona, docile Miss Corona, always trying to get on Mother Gothel's good side.
"Miss Rapunzel, be sure I am very glad to assist you and spare you the exhausting ironhorse trip down to Dovehaven. As to your offer, I shall not forget to mention to Jerome how generous and grateful his daughter has been raised to be."
The woman in red was triumphant, Rapunzel could hear it in every of her syllables. She was enjoying with some sadism how the young heiress was capitulating before her influence. As the Gothel took her leave to the kitchens to make sure the supper would be ready in time, Rapunzel lingered in the guest room's solitude. She opened the window and released Pascal onto the windowsill, watching with fascination as the automaton's tiny feet crawled up the vertical surface. Against the red brick wall the violet wisteria shone angrily. She could distinguish a rainbow sink into the earth at the foot of the fabric tower in the distance. Her eyes lit up with mirth, and she savoured her small victory.
It was like one of those races through the halls, or one of those spoonfuls of salt sneakily poured into the Gothel's coffee. It was nothing, and yet it was her everything. She had tricked the matron to her own game, and while the older woman was travelling back from Dovehaven on the roads with the Corona & Sons employees and their heavy cargo, she would stay in Camford, speak to Eugene and obtain from him a proposal and a zeppelin trip to the New World.
Oh, she loved young Miss Ashcroft certainly, as her closest friend, for her patience and gentleness. She thought she wanted to help, and had to help, to feel happy for her, the soprano deserved it. But it could not be all.
Of course, there was Flynn.
Punz did not love him for who he was. Regardless of what her father or the Gothel could have made him be. Punz loved him for what he could be, and how she could change him for the better. Punz loved him for the pain she would endure in the process, in her little ever so slightly tortuous mind. Punz loved him for the suffering near as much as for the outcome, and how much it was worth the effort.
Even if, in the grand scheme of things, it may not change much.
Even if, in its corner, the rythmic tick tock of the grandfather clock could not seem to care less.
Fun fact: I had to give names to some existing characters (not named on the Disney Wikia, for the reference). Cinderella's father got the first name of Charles Perrault, whose version of her fairytale is maybe the most famous. The same thing will happen to Hans Andersen from the Snow Queen/Frozen. Rapunzel's mother could do with something Genesis-like and something floral. As to Vincent Jerome, shout-out to... go figure it out ;) [hint: Eugene has something to do with this, and so does the staircase shape]. Speaking of shout-out, some more or less blatant nods to a brilliant play whose title is actually pretty much quoted in the chapter and capitalised...
Announcement: Ranting about my other fanfic projects. I have some vague idea of an in-extended-universe Spectacular Six fic, featuring Hiccelsa and politics and swords and sorcery (think aSoIaF meet Disney meet Dreamworks meet some LGBT+ characters!). Ideas on that are very welcome! And as before, read and review, follow and favourite! (Constructive) comments would be very, very, very appreciated, thanks :)