Five: The Escape
Rapunzel and I were shown a trap door behind the bar and quickly made our escape as the other bar thugs kept the guards busy. We walked in silence for a few moments, getting away from the trap door before speaking.
"Well, I've gotta say, I didn't know you had that in you back there." I admitted to Rapunzel as I inspected the walls we were walking past. "That was pretty… impressive."
"I know!" Rapunzel squealed, surprising me. I looked back at her. "I know." She said, collecting her cool and playing it off. I smiled. She was pretty cute.
"So… Flynn. Where are you from?"
"Whoa! Whoa! Sorry, Blondie, I don't do backstory." I said quickly. "However, I am becoming very interested in yours. Now, I know I'm not supposed to mention the hair."
"Nope." She said with a small mischievous smile.
"Or the mother."
"Nuh, uh."
"And frankly, I'm too scared to ask about the frog." I joked.
"Chameleon?" She gestured to the small reptile on her shoulder.
"Nuance." I brushed off her correction. "Here's my question, though. If you want to see the lanterns so badly, why haven't you gone before?" I stopped walking and looked back at her, lifting the lantern I was holding to illuminate her.
"Uh." She looked down nervously. "Well." She bit her lip. Suddenly, a small rock fell from the ceiling and hit her head. The walls, floor, and ceiling all began to shake. "Uh, Flynn?" She looked behind her where I was now looking. The passage we had just come from was now filling with light and the guards came into view, running to catch up to us. "Flynn!?"
"Ryder!" The head guard yelled, still running after us.
"Run!" I yelled, a little delayed. She gathered up her hair and started to run. "Run!" I yelled again, my hand grabbing her shoulder and pushing her ahead of me.
We came out onto a cliff's edge next to the dam. There was nowhere to go without taking a steep plunge to the hard stone beneath. We ran to the edge where a ladder was right as the Stabbington brothers busted through another entrance down below, both brandishing swords.
"Who's that?" Rapunzel asked, leaning away from the edge into my arm.
"They don't like me." I said, pointing down at them with my other hand.
Behind us were the noises of the guards catching up. Rapunzel moved to look around me as I turned to see them.
"Who's that?" She asked again.
"They don't like me either." As I was saying it, the guard's horse that I'd ridden and fought with earlier ran up behind them and whinnied.
"Who's that?!" Rapunzel asked for the third time.
"Let's assume for the moment that everyone here doesn't like me!" I said, moving her out from in front of me so I could see her face. She set her jaw and slammed her frying pan into my chest.
"Here!" She said as I grabbed it. She threw her hair over a wooden beam that was hanging over a different cliff.
What is happening? I thought to myself as she leaped off the cliff, hanging onto her hair. I couldn't help but smile as she flew through the air. I watched her land safely on the other cliff before the sound of the guard's malicious laugh brought me back to my own predicament.
"I've waited a long time for this." The head guard said, tossing his torch to the side carelessly. I looked from his hands, which were now grabbing a sword, to my own hands that were holding Rapunzel's frying pan. He came toward me and there was no time to hesitate. I swung the frying pan. There was a thwack as the frying pan hit his head. He crumpled to the ground as another guard made his way for me, brandishing his sword in a childlike way. I hit him twice before he went down. The third and fourth were the same.
"Oh, Mama, I have got to get me one of these!" I shouted, looking at the frying pan and weighing it in my hand with a few spins and tosses. The sound of a sword unsheathing made me hold the frying pan out, ready for my next victim. Holding the sword, though, was no man. The white horse held the sword in between it's teeth as it snarled. Taken aback, I didn't move until it thrashed its head, almost hitting me with the sword. I blocked every blow with the frying pan.
"You should know that this is the strangest thing I've ever done!" I called out loud enough for Rapunzel to hear. As I did, the sword in the horse's mouth made contact with the frying pan at just the right angle that it fell from my grasp and to the bottom of the cliff. Both the horse and I stopped, looking where the frying pan had fallen. "How about two out of three?" I joked, looking back to the horse. It immediately started to snarl again, revving up to attack me. I put my hands up.
"Flynn!" Rapunzel yelled. She'd thrown her hair to me. It wrapped around my hand and I grabbed on. She pulled and I let myself fall backward off of the cliff's edge. "Flynn! Look out!" She yelled as I flew over the Stabbington brothers and their swords.
"Whoa! Whoaaa!" I yelled as I got closer. Once I'd passed them I laughed, looking back at them. "You should see your faces because you look-" I slammed into a wooden beam from the suspended trench that led to the dam. "Ridiculous." I finished, wincing in pain. I climbed onto the top of the trench and unwound her hair from my hand. When I looked back, the horse and the reawakened guards were running toward Rapunzel via a fallen wooden beam that used to be holding up the dam's wall.
"Come on, Blondie. Jump!" I called, holding her hair in my hands. She set her jaw and leaped, the horse biting at her as she narrowly escaped them. She landed in a splash of water underneath where I was standing. She tugged her hair out of my hands so it fell to the floor where she was. I watched as the Stabbingtons immediately started running for her. I jumped into the trench and started sliding as fast as I could in the direction that Rapunzel was now running. The trench was falling apart and I could hear the dam cracking and busting behind me.
I jumped off and rolled as I hit the floor. I grabbed up the trailing end of Rapunzel's hair as we ran. Behind us was the sounds of wood breaking and water rushing. We wouldn't have a lot of time to make it to safe ground before the water would reach us. Ahead of us was a small opening in the rocks. It would have to do. One of the canyon's stand alone cliffs was hit by the massive amount of water that was now right behind us. The cliff made a cracking sound and suddenly a shadow appeared over us as it fell. We had made it to the opening at the same time as the water. The water brought the lost frying pan which I grabbed right before the cliff came crashing down, locking us into this miniature cave.
We both watched the water rising inside the cave that was looking more and more like a tomb. Rapunzel started to climb up and I followed her, trying to see any way out of here. It only took a second or two before we were both at the top and the water had reached our feet. I dove into the rising water to search for any way out that I possibly could.
Pitch blackness was all I could see and the water was so cold it was numbing. I bobbed back up almost instantly due to the cold. I gasped for breath before diving back in, bracing myself against the cold water. I swam to the bottom and hit solid stone before swimming back up.
Rapunzel was hitting the walls with her frying pan, trying to knock something loose. I joined, slamming my shoulders into the sides as hard as I could. I felt a spot that was two rocks jammed together. Hope. I gripped the edge of the rock and pushed with all my strength. My hand slipped and searing pain shot through my hand as my palm was ripped open. I clenched my fist to protect the fresh wound before diving back into the water that was now to my torso.
I couldn't see and the numbing from the freezing water wasn't helping any of my senses. I couldn't find a way out. I felt my heart sink, realizing we were going to die here. I swam back up.
"It's no use. I can't see anything." I gasped, wiping water out of my eyes. Rapunzel braced herself for a moment before taking in a huge breath and diving, just as I had. Nonono! I dove after her, grabbing her thin shoulder and pulling her back up. "Hey! There's no point!" I said, moving her now drenched hair away from her face. "It's pitch black down there." I brought my hands away from her beautiful and terrified face slowly as the realization of imminent death dawned on her, too.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the rocks that were trapping us. "It's all my fault." Rapunzel cried next to me. I opened my eyes to look out at the water that was still rising. "She was right. I never should have done this." A shiver ran through me and I brought my hands up to cover my shoulders against the cold. "I'm so… I'm so sorry, Flynn." She lost the rest of her composure and sobbed quietly into her hands, turning away from me.
"Eugene." I corrected. If we were going to die, we were going to know who the other truly was.
"What?" She looked back over at me in the dark.
"My real name is Eugene Fitzherbert." I confessed. She didn't say anything and my eyes fell to where the water met her arm. "Someone might as well know." I looked back up at her and offered a small smile. She smiled a little in response, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
"I have magic hair that glows when I sing." Rapunzel said with a smile.
"What?" I jerked away. It was one thing to kidnap someone and force them to be your tour guide. It was another to either lie in a moment of death or confess to madness.
"I have. Magic Hair that glows when I sing!" Rapunzel said excitedly, grabbing onto her hair. She really was crazy. The water was almost to our chins and rising faster now that it had nowhere else to go. "Flower gleam and glow! Let your power shine!" Rapunzel sang quickly as we both took in big breaths as the water rose over our heads.
Her golden hair began to gleam with light as bright as sunlight and spread from her scalp to the tips of her very long hair. It took me a moment before it registered.
"Whoa!" I screamed, letting most of my air out before I covered my mouth with my hand. She ignored my outburst and followed the light of her hair to a weak spot near the floor where water was draining and pulling her hair with it. We exchanged a quick glance before swimming for the spot and trying to pull the rocks away from the spot.
Her hair began to dim and I was becoming more and more frantic, pushing and pulling at rocks. Suddenly, I pushed one and it broke free, my arm pushing through the hole. I pushed another and all of the rocks fell, water and Rapunzel and I, falling with them.