This is a one-shot challenge for FernClan. Enjoy!

*Note* May or may not be poorly written because this is not my usual writing style and I've been really busy.

Warriors Fables: Rapunzel

Based (loosely) off of the Disney version of the story seeing as I do not reliably know the original.

"What are you doing here in the Dark Forest, traveler?... Never mind. Seeing as you aren't going to leave me alone, I may as well tell you a story. Oh, you don't want to hear it? Too bad! I'm telling it anyway. Before you ask, no, this is not one of those "happy-ending" stories you were told in the nursery."

"My name is Ashfeather, and this is the story of how I lost my daughter, of how she was stolen from me!"

My daughter, Lightpaw—or was it, Lighteye now? I forget—had been pacing restlessly across the stony floor of the cave for some time one day. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth for so long that it soon became an aggravation. "Stop pacing," I had meowed quite bluntly, rising from where I had sat against a wall of the cave which we called our home and moving slowly towards her. "Why can't you just sit still and act your age?" In all honesty, I knew that this would happen and already could tell you her answer.

'I want to go see the lights in the sky, mother,' she would always say. Of course, soon enough, she said just that. "No, Lightp-"

She flicked her tail dismissively, "Mother, it's almost Lighteye now."

I purred, "Silly me." I bared my teeth not long after, remembering suddenly what she wanted. "You are not going to see the lights in the sky. That is final!" Without another word I moved deeper into the shadows of the cave to a small yet comfortable nest. I could hear Lightpaw's hurried paw steps trailing me.

"Mother," she meowed with irritation in her voice. "I have a name just like yours now. I'm not a kit; I'm not going to be a 'paw for much longer; so why won't you let me go and see them?"

I turned to her with narrowed eyes. "Because I am your mother. I have told you hundreds of times that those "lights" of yours are just your imagination. They. Are. Not. Real. All they are is stray light from the moon, Lightpaw, nothing more. Now, please stop bothering me with your daydreaming." Then I waited for her inevitable response.

"I know they're real! Every night on the day you've changed my name was when they've shined their brightest. I believe that means something. I have to see them!"

I turned on her, hissing. "We are not going to go through this again!" I watched her leave, a tumbling storm of anger and sadness. I know it irritated her, but I was only doing it to protect her. She was all I had...

A new dawn had arrived, and the forest came alive with the familiar sounds of birdsong the next morning. Unfortunately, this meant another day of listening to my daughter speak incessantly of those accursed lights. They were what had stolen her from me. You thought different? Thought it was a handsome young tom that had stolen my Lighteye away?

You'd be wrong. It occurred to me not long after the first appearance of this conversation that she mostly likely would continue to ask about. I had even tried to stop her at one point, telling her of all the dangerous and life-threatening horrors that would await her beyond the sanctuary of the cave...

Then, one day, she did not heed my calls.

I made my way hastily through a path which she would have had no knowledge of, and stormed into the wide depths of our home. "Lighteye! Lighteye, where are you?!" Bounding back down the path and out of the glade surrounding the cave, I raced off in the direction I believed her to have gone, seeing for but a moment my daughter's golden pelt in the light of the sun and the darker fur of a cat who was walking beside her. I lost them among the trees not long after.

Eventually, I came upon a small collection of dens. It was pathetic, I tell you, absolutely pathetic. Yet, I had the sense that I would find her within. Would you believe that I had turned away and left? I assure you there was a purpose to this. In this time, I had recruited several of the nobler wandering cats to assist me, informing them that there was a thief loose in the area that it would do them good to apprehend.

I took them back with me to the dens, but found nothing of my daughter. Minutes later, I had worked out of them her direction and set off after apologizing to my companions and saying farewell. During my travels I had run across two brutish cats who had stopped me. "What are you doing out here?" they had asked.

"I have something to say that might interest you," I said, describing to them the slight glimpse of the cat I had seen. Unsurprisingly, they agreed on the condition of reward, and so I caught them a large rabbit.

When the matter was settled, we set off...

Soon, we had entered a sandy beach, moving like shadows across the gloomy shoreline. I turned to my companions, "Find the cat I described to you and make sure that he appears to be leaving, no questions." The pair nodded and set off in search of the cat, which allowed me to search for my daughter.

But you see, that wasn't what I was going to do; not in the slightest. The two rogues who I had recruited would find both of them, my daughter and her kidnapper. When they had done so, they would leave, and I would arrive in their place. It was brilliant...

They had done it! Oh, I can't possibly tell you how happy I was to have Lighteye run to me! "Don't ever leave me again, darling," I meowed gently. Imagine my surprise when she pushed away from me.

"No," she responded forcefully. "You're not my mother! You never were!"

"No?" I asked, quite shocked at her response. "So, you know what's best for you, after getting attacked by those rogues?! I think not! What if you'd been killed?!"

"No. I don't even want to hear it. You are coming back home with me." I growled and led Lighteye back to our home in the cave, and there we stayed for a period of time until the fateful day arrived when he came back to us.

He called for the vine to be let down that would help him to the cave, only to find me standing above him when he found it.

And soon there he was, standing beside my daughter, and I myself across from them. "You will never be with her!" I launched myself at the tomcat, tearing a gash along his side, watching gleefully as he fell to the ground and struggled to stand once more. Lighteye had rushed to him, her eyes screwed tight from sadness.

The tomcat flung a cloud of dust and grit into the air in my direction, blinding me. Through the blur of my vision, I saw him cut Lighteye free. I had then stumbled towards them only to slip and fall to why I would soon realize to be my end.

That was the last I saw of the world I once knew.

All I hope for now is that she is happy...