AN~ Edited. A lot. Like all I kept was the theme and the characters.
"What am I going to do, grandma?" Rapunzel asked, staring out the window of her new house at the woods.
They had just come to Ferryport Landing, and Rapunzel, the last of William Charming's long line of princesses, was realizing that she would have to support herself now, on her own. Without her ex-husband. And she had no idea how to do it.
Her grandmother had built the two of them a house, and for now, her twins were living in it with them, but this would only work for so long- it was a small house, and the twins had lives of their own. And where would the food come from?
Nobody had expected her to move back in with her grandmother- the woman who had 'kidnapped' her when she was a child. After all, she'd kept her shut up in a tower for two decades. But to Rapunzel, the old woman was family. And a better family than the one she'd been born into, as far as she could tell.
Besides, given how Charming had turned out, Rapunzel could see what the old woman meant about the outside world not being worth the trouble.
The problem, of course, was that now they had to live in the outside world. And Rapunzel had no idea how to do this.
"Why don't you try hair styling?" her grandmother suggested, handing her a cup of tea.
Rapunzel took the tea and sipped it, thinking this over. The tea was nice- not too warm, and with just enough sugar that it pulled out the flavor without becoming too sweet. Just the way she liked it. And the idea wasn't so bad, either.
"I could... do people's hair for them?" Rapunzel asked.
"Why not?" her grandma said. "You have plenty of experience, after all. And I'm sure with a little practice, you could do as well with short hair as you do with long hair."
Rapunzel grinned at her grandmother. The longer she thought about it, the better the idea sounded. "All right," she agreed, "I'll do it." She paused. "But... will people pay to have their hair cut? Don't a lot of women do it themselves or have full-time servants?"
"You're thinking of Europe, dear," the old woman said. "This is America. They do things differently here. And nobody in this town has servants."
That settled it, then. Rapunzel would begin working on the business tomorrow.
Her grandmother handed her a pair of scissors as she began planning things out. "I think you'll need these to get started."
Rapunzel stared at them. She hadn't been allowed scissors, when she was younger. And then, after she'd been kicked out, scissors became a symbol of what she'd lost. These scissors, too, marked a turning point in her life. But this was different. This time, the scissors meant her independence.
"Oh." Rapunzel finished.