The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Sleeping Prince, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Epilogue
"True Thomas lay on Huntlie Bank,
A wonder he spied with his eye
And there he saw a lady bright,
Come riding down by Eildon Tree."
Thomas the Rhymer
o.o.o
The pleasant clearing, deep in the heart of the forest, was a peaceful-looking place. Birds twittered, rabbits hopped about, and the quiet was broken only by the sound of a girl's voice as she sang a sweetly melancholy tune. She sat in the window of a tall tower, and she had been lonely for a long time.
So intent was she on her song and on her seclusion that she did not hear the sound of a horse's hoofs on fallen leaves, or see the young man who was leading it through the trees. He stopped when he reached the clearing and stood for a moment, listening to the sound that had drawn him here. Then he finally snorted in derision and called up, "Give it a rest, will you? My dad can sing better than you."
The girl gasped in surprise and leaped to her feet, staring down at the young man. "Wh-Who are you?!"
He bowed, his form rather sloppy. "Himura Kenji. And you are?"
"Rapunzel," she said stiffly. "And if you're not going to rescue me from this dread tower, I must ask you to leave at once."
Kenji's face lit up, and his hand fell to the (steel) sword at his waist. "What's up, you got a dragon in there with you?"
"No!" she said indignantly. "I have been imprisoned by an evil witch! I cannot leave this tower."
"What, the door's locked?"
She frowned. "There is no door, fool."
He narrowed his eyes, but then circled the tower several times before satisfying himself that she was right. "How the heck did you get in there, then?"
"My captor is a witch, remember? Obviously she bespelled the door into stone like the rest of the tower."
"How do you get your food, then?" he challenged. "Lure birds to your window with your not-enchanting siren call and then bash them over the head?"
"I would never do that!" she cried, horrified. "The birds are my friends! They are my only company in this lonely place."
"Huh. That sucks," Kenji commented. "What do you eat, then?"
Rapunzel answered huffily, "The witch brings me food, and must climb up the rope of my hair to deliver-"
"She climbs up what?"
"My hair," Rapunzel said impatiently. "Look." She gathered up her long braid and tossed it out the window.
Kenji dodged, narrowly avoiding the heavy loops. "Watch where you're throwing that stuff!"
"I apologize," she said unrepentantly.
Kenji eyed the braid, and his eyes widened at the sheer length. Then he frowned again. "You're telling me some fat old lady is able to climb that thing? While carrying up a basket of food? Doesn't it hurt?"
"I tie my braid around this hook," she muttered. "Look, are you coming up or not?"
"Doesn't look much fun to me. Why don't you come down?"
"Fool," she said in disgust. "I cannot climb down my own hair."
"Well, yeah, not if it's still attached to your own fool head," he said pointedly. "So detach it."
Rapunzel stared down at him. "You're telling me to cut my hair?"
"You said you're sick of it here," he pointed out. "And I'm sure as heck not climbing up a girl's braid and then carrying her dainty self back down. You want to be free, you do it."
"Do you realize how long my hair has been growing?" she shouted down at him. "It will take ages to get this long again! I will not cut it!"
Kenji shrugged. "Suit yourself, I guess. Bye, Zel." He went after his horse, picked up the trailing reins, and started to leave.
"HEY!"
He glanced over his shoulder. "What?"
"You are going to leave a fair maiden in distress, you false knight?!"
"Not distressed enough, apparently."
"How dare you!" She seized a pair of sewing scissors and hacked at her hair, near the shoulder where she could best reach. It took her so long to cut through that she was afraid the rude young man would have left, but when she looked frantically out the window again, there he was, watching her.
"You really did it," he said wonderingly.
"I will not forgive you!" she shouted down at him. Furiously, with tears smarting her eyes, she tied her shorn braid to the hook. Then she gathered together what few things she wished to take with her and came back to the window.
"You should probably tie the braid around yourself, too," he advised. "So you don't go splat if you lose your grip."
"Silence!" she shouted. Then she paused. "Thank you."
"No problem," he said coolly.
It was so hard. 'How does she do it?!' Rapunzel thought desperately. The witch must use magic. As Himura Kenji had said, there was no way a fat old woman could do this so effortlessly every day. Rapunzel's hands were slipping and she was heavy; how much farther?!
"Use your feet, too!" Kenji called. "Brace against the wall to take some of the weight off your hands." Biting back a sharp retort, Rapunzel followed his instructions and was glad to find at least a little relief.
It seemed to last forever, the tense set of her body, the agonizing awareness of every movement, every inch closer to freedom. She shrieked when something unexpectedly touched her.
"Easy, Zel. You made it."
She was frozen for a moment, feeling his hands on her waist. Then she let go of the braid and tumbled back into him; his arms closed around her, warm and comforting. "Great job, Zel," he murmured, his face next to hers, though she couldn't see him. "You're free."
"No thanks to you!" she retorted, and suddenly burst into tears. This was all wrong.
"Aw, now don't be a wimp," he complained, letting go of her.
"I am a maiden! Such behavior is expected!"
"By who?" he said in annoyance. "If Mom acted like you, I bet Dad would never have married her." Then, changing topics with such a lack of transition that she was confused for a moment, "Hey, you need a lift or something?"
She glared at the ground and pushed her toe around in the grass. Her arms ached and the feel of the short, ragged ends of her ruined hair was heartbreaking.
He sighed. "Get on the horse, then."
"I did not say I needed transportation. Perhaps I planned to walk," she said defiantly.
He shrugged. "Whatever. See you around, Zel." He turned back to his horse, but she shoved him aside as she stomped past and climbed up, where she stared down at him defiantly. He came up and studied her, then suddenly grinned. "Two of us on one horse. You'll have to be in my lap."
She folded her arms. "You plan to take advantage of me, then?" she challenged.
He frowned. "For your information, I am not completely despicable."
"No. You are simply rude, and refuse to follow protocol, and force me to rescue myself."
"Good," he said in satisfaction, "we understand each other, then." He mounted and settled down behind her, reaching around to take the reins. Then they sat there for a while.
"Are you planning to move, or to wait until the witch gets back?" she finally asked with nervous sarcasm.
"Sorry for being rude," he said abruptly. "That's why girls are always falling all over Dad, 'cause he talks sweet even when they don't deserve it. I'm not like him."
"I find it difficult to believe you could 'talk sweet' even if you tried," she grumbled. "And for your information, I would deserve every bit of it."
To her shock, he chuckled and kissed her cheek. "Is that so, Zel? You're not very nice, either."
"I...know," she finally murmured. "That's why my aunt locked me up - because I tried to stab her with a spindle." She found his reaction insulting, even as she shivered at the pleasant sensation of him laughing into the remains of her hair.
"Excellent!" he said gleefully. "Maybe you'd be good at kenjutsu, too."
"It is not funny!" Rapunzel insisted. "She turned my puppy into a frog!"
"Well," he said, still laughing, "what do you say I get you a new puppy when we get home?"
"I would like that," she said stiffly.
He kissed her cheek again. She giggled a little, then frowned and elbowed him in the chest, and at last they rode away.
To be continued in "Immortality."
Author's Notes: I wrote this looooooong before the Disney movie Tangled came out. Kenji/Zel is such a random ship, but it seems to have worked for me so far.