"We made it." Rapunzel's breathless words followed desperate gasps of air to revive her starved lungs. Acknowledging Pascal's indebted glance, she took another gulp of oxygen. The realisation that they had escaped the flooding cave was the greatest relief Rapunzel had ever felt. A grin began to spread across her dazed expression.
Beside her, Flynn lifted his head abruptly. "Her hair glows."
As the awareness of their miracle sunk in, her amazement wiped away the confusion across her brow.
"We're alive," she murmured suddenly. Grabbing her frying pan, she lifted the rest of her body over the bank. "We're alive!"
In her newfound elation, she gratefully hauled her hair from the river in sodden clumps, eager to progress with their journey now that death was no longer imminent.
"I didn't see that coming," Flynn croaked to Pascal.
Entertained by his incredulity, Rapunzel called his name, making no hesitation to address him by his true identity. "Eugene."
He had confessed his birth name to her under their initial hopeless circumstances – a valuable secret he hadn't shared with anyone else before. That alternate side of him had been vulnerable, genuine and honest. She decided she preferred that man more than the bandit who had snuck into her tower.
"Her hair actually glows." Eugene looked at Pascal as if for reassurance that his reaction was perfectly sane.
"Eugene," Rapunzel repeated impatiently, her hands firmly gripping onto her golden tresses.
Oblivious to her, the hysteria rose in Eugene's voice. "Why does her hair glow?"
"Eugene!"
He turned his head to her sharply and she noticed that the front locks of his wet hair were sticking up at wild angles. "What?" he cried, his eyebrows twisted over the crazed look in his eyes.
Rapunzel brought more hair towards her. "It doesn't just glow."
To her amusement, Pascal smiled knowingly at their guide, who responded with an uneasy expression. "Why is he smiling at me?"
With a roll of her eyes, Rapunzel knelt down and held her hand out to the mischievous chameleon. "Come on, Pascal."
Before scaling up her arm, Pascal shot a fountain of water from his mouth at Eugene's face. Rapunzel resisted laughing at the droplets spattered on his cheek, instead gently scolding the chameleon when he came to perch on her shoulder.
Blasé to Pascal's behaviour towards him, Eugene wiped away the provocation with an apathetic flick of his hand and hopped onto the bank with his travelling companions. His boots squelched as they hit the ground and he grimaced.
"If it doesn't just glow," he asked, kicking off his boots, "what else does it do?" He tipped the murky liquid from his shoes and reluctantly shoved them back onto his feet. "Dance?" Stepping over to her, he tentatively picked up the end curls of her hair which she had finally retrieved from the river. "Make origami? Or can it, say, I don't know... detect which way is north and point us in the right direction?"
Rapunzel, who had been wringing the water from her hair with dexterous fingers, paused at the task at hand and looked sternly at her guide. "Are we lost, Eugene?"
"No," he answered in a raised pitch, swattingthe idea away with his hand as if it were a negligible insect. "Just a little... side-tracked, thanks to a few friends." After closely examining the golden locks in his other hand, he gathered more into his arms. "I happen to know a great place where we can rest and get this dried."
Rapunzel's stern look changed to one of uncertainty. "Didn't you say the same thing about lunch?"
"Ah," he replied awkwardly, meters of her hair already piled around his shoulders. "That was a mere misunderstanding. A mistake on my part - won't happen again. Unless, of course, my intuition of our whereabouts is wrong."
"A mistake," Rapunzel repeated, sensing the suspicion in her own voice. She caressed the hair bunched in her palm with fond, thoughtful strokes. "How do you know it won't happen again?" She turned her head down to Pascal, who tilted his head affectionately towards hers. "Maybe it was a mistake to come out here."
"Don't say that," Eugene said softly, coming towards her. "We'll get to those lanterns - I guarantee it. Besides, you don't even need me to watch your back; from what I've seen, you can fend for yourself."
"You really think so?" Rapunzel asked, hope filling her heart again.
"Let's see, Blondie: you pacified a bar full of ruffians and thugs who wanted to turn me in; you helped me escape from a demonic horse and his men; and then you saved our lives with your weird but wonderful hair. Mostly weird, though."
Having never received such compliments before, Rapunzel couldn't help but blush. Whilst Eugene - or at least his alter ego, Flynn - revelled in attention, she was a stranger to deserved praise and tried to conceal her embarrassment with a modest shrug. "It was nothing."
Convinced to continue, she let Eugene guide her. They followed his hunch of their location, travelling parallel to the river; both of them shared the hope that his intuition was right. With the afternoon behind them, the sun had started its descent and the air was becoming cooler. The weighted dampness of her clothes and hair prompted involuntary shivers and Pascal huddled closer to her neck. Tired from the extraordinary events of that day, they spoke little as they walked, craving food and sleep increasingly with each step taken through the forest.
Although the journey seemed long, little ground had been covered before they entered a small clearing, surrounded by several small trees and overgrown bushes. The secluded patch gave them a vivid view of the sky above. On their left, just before the entrance to the clearing, there was a tall mound of stone boulders, damp and covered in furry moss. A large oak tree had claimed part of the ground before them, with long thick roots that stretched out from the base of the trunk and had pushed through the cracks of the rocky mound beside it. The widest of them extended across the diameter of the clearing and pointed to a gnarled, broken tree stump. In this far corner there was a shaded exit which appeared to lead to another part of the forest. Leaves on the long branches overhead offered a sheltered canopy, altogether creating the prime setting to temporarily reside.
"Aha," Eugene exclaimed, startling a squirrel with russet fur that had been hiding at the base of the oak tree. Rapunzel watched its scurried departure, learning to realise that wildlife often feared her more than she had originally thought to fear it.
"Are we here?" she asked, surveying the natural enclosure before them.
"This is it," Eugene confirmed. He folded his arms proudly and nodded at the tree. "If you climb to the top of that you can see the kingdom."
Rapunzel gasped. "You mean where the lanterns come from?"
"From the castle and the village it rules." Lifting the hair layered on his shoulders, he spread the tresses along the lowest branches of the tree. "Go on! Take a look."
As she reached for the nearest branch, she called to Eugene. "Tell me about the lanterns again."
Eugene leaned against the trunk and looked up at Rapunzel, who was swinging from the tree's arm with Pascal clinging precariously from her foot. "What about them? They're burning paper balloons - nothing special."
"I think there's more to them than that," said Rapunzel wistfully, now sitting on the branch with her legs dangling over. "You said they were for the princess."
"Something like that," Eugene said airily. "I tend to not get involved with the kingdom's affairs; I've never really been welcome there."
"Maybe if you didn't steal their crowns they'd show you a little more compassion," she said observantly.
Eugene sighed and turned his head away, hiding his face from her. "There's more to it than that."
Rapunzel looked at him expectantly, her chin resting in the cup of her hands.
"It's a long story," he stated simply as he slouched away from the sheltering tree. "Anyway, I'm off to find food." He pulled off his boots and tossed them towards the oversized root, along with his blue, worn waistcoat. "I hope you like fish."
"I think I'd eat anything," Rapunzel admitted ravenously.
"Perfect, because if worst comes to worst we'll have to eat the frog."
Pascal squeaked in alarm. "I'm joking," said Eugene. As he made for his leave, Rapunzel saw him hesitate and turn back around. "Hey, will you be okay while I'm gone?"
She tilted her head coyly. "I can fend for myself, remember?"
"Right!" Eugene agreed mirthfully before dropping his tone to a more serious level. "But try to keep a low profile; you don't know who could be on our trail."
After watching him walk back through the forest, Rapunzel looked down at her chameleon who was sat patiently in the frying pan on her lap. "Are you ready, Pascal?"
He nodded excitedly.
Scooping him onto her shoulder, Rapunzel tucked her frying pan under her arm and began her climb. Each limb that lifted her higher made her heart pump faster. Her hair snagged on the thinner branches, only making her more desperate and impatient. Leaves blocked out most of the remaining sunlight yet, after much perseverance, she located a golden opening to the leafy canopy.
Approaching the very top at last, her foot missed a platform. Before Rapunzel could scream, however, her hair caught itself in the twigs behind her, allowing her enough time to regain her balance. Mustering all the strength and determination she had left after that day, she made the final push to the top.
At first the light blinded her.
There was a radius for miles long around her of innumerable trees, obscuring most traces of the earth's surface. Although she couldn't see the Snuggly Duckling, she could identify the wall of the dam where they had caused the deluge, and was almost able to make out the river they had followed along.
Eventually she pivoted her body so that she was facing the journey ahead of her. What she saw didn't make her heart miss a beat nor give her the desire to gasp; as she looked at the island sustaining the kingdom, she felt a sudden stillness about her. The castle was situated on the highest point of the land and she carefully took in its elegant spiers with their rusted copper turrets and the wide tower that extended from the roof, soaring skywards. A large dome sat on the tower, followed by several smaller turrets layered on top, all coated in the same green tinge. On the end there was a sharp golden point that glinted under the setting sun. The surrounding village was decorated with quaint buildings, the homes or shops perhaps which her mother had spoken of and there were several impressive boats which sat proudly in their port. A magnificent bridge, upholding purple flags, joined the forest to this civilisation, a gateway to a world which she now found herself yearning for. The ache in her chest was the same she felt when watching the floating lights on her birthday - the feeling of missing something precious which she had wrongly lost.
Rapunzel watched longingly until the sun had sunk below the horizon and the moon had come to replace it. Pascal snoozed on her shoulder and she patted him fondly.
"You coming down, Blondie?" Eugene called, making her head turn and lose the clouded vision that had started to form in her mind.
"Coming!" she replied. With light scarce, she relied on her hands and feet to feel her way down, grateful that she had her tangled hair to prevent her from a sudden fall. Advancing closer to the bottom, she saw a warm glow through leaves and the smell of cooked fish wafted past her.
She dropped lightly to the ground, bending her knees and landing on both her hands and feet for support. As she stood up, she tugged on her hair so that it all tumbled behind her.
"Bon appétit!" declared Eugene, gesturing to the set-up behind him.
Now that his clothes were dry, he had put his boots and waistcoat back on. Beside the thick tree root he had made a fire with two supporting sticks either side which held up a fish carcass on a skewer. The meat had been served onto two large leaves and Rapunzel's stomach groaned hungrily.
"This looks wonderful - thank you, Eugene." She beamed at him gratefully.
"Don't mention it," he said, sitting on the oak tree's root and picking up his helping. When she joined him, he nodded to an upturned rock just in front of them. "I found a few delicacies in there if you fancy a bit of grub, Pascal."
The delighted chameleon scurried to the spot and squeaked appreciatively.
They enjoyed their meal in silence; the sensation of food falling into their bellies gave little importance to anything else. When they finished, Eugene threw their leaves into the fire, along with the carcass and skewer.
"Listen," Eugene said, breaking the silence between them. "I haven't been the best of "guides" and if it wasn't for you, we'd both be dead." He swallowed. "So, what I'm trying to say is -"
"Can I trust you, Eugene or Flynn… or whoever you really are?" She gave him a sad, hopeless smile.
"Eugene," he clarified, opening up his palms to convey his honesty. "And yes, you can. We made a deal and no matter what happens, I promise you that I will get you to those lanterns."
Rapunzel looked carefully into his eyes. "A promise is a promise, you know."
"I know," Eugene said. "And I promise." He held out his hand to her. "Shake on it?"
As Rapunzel went to accept is offer, her newfound smile faltered at the sight of the wound on his palm. "Eugene, your hand!" She brought it closer to her to examine it.
"It's just a scratch," he said heedlessly. "Don't worry about it."
"It could get infected." Worry creased her forehead. "Let me help."
"Look, really -"
Before he could continue Rapunzel had grabbed hold of her tresses and started to wrap them around his hand, completely silent as she focused on attempting to heal him.
"So," Eugene said hesitantly. "You're being strangely cryptic as you wrap your magic hair around my injured hand." He winced and gave a small gasp of pain at the pressure she was applying to his cut.
"Sorry!" Rapunzel cringed at her carelessness. She sighed heavily, as if the extra breath would give her the courage she needed to overcome her nerves. "Just don't... don't freak out."
With a final sigh, she began to sing a healing incantation.