Chapter 13

Cassandra plunges her hand into a bucket of freezing water on the table in front of her. She scrubs at her palm with her opposite thumb as she stands in front of it, washing away the blood on her skin and watching the water turn red. She winces from the pain, the large cut in her hand still fresh and oozing blood from the fight that had just occurred less than half an hour ago.

Her head is pounding. Her entire body feels heavy. Her muscles ache. Her throat is sore. The skin on her neck has turned red. She feels dry blood on her face that itches her nose, though she doesn't bother to scratch at it. She's so weak and exhausted yet she ignores the underlying urge to faint.

She continues to scour her palm, probably more aggressively than she needs to, hurting herself and not much caring, until Rapunzel appears over her shoulder.

The princess gently places her fingertips on Cassandra's arm, stopping her. Her own hands are still stained with blood, painted red. Her muscles still seem to tremble from everything that had just happened.

"Here," Rapunzel mumbles. She guides Cassandra's hand out of the water, and sits herself down in a nearby wooden chair.

Cassandra only watches her, letting Rapunzel take her by the wrist. Then without protest, Cassandra finds herself with no choice but to pull up another chair from beneath the table and take a seat opposite Rapunzel.

As they sit in silence across from each other, Rapunzel reaches over to grab a dry cloth from the table next to them. Cassandra leans forward in her chair, her hand still held in between Rapunzel's own and practically resting in the princess' lap.

Then Rapunzel focuses her attention downward and slowly begins dabbing the cloth against Cassandra's palm, soaking up the water. Her touch is much more delicate than Cassandra's would've been, but Cass would be lying to say the feeling of it doesn't immediately soothe her.

They don't speak as Rapunzel reaches for a bandage, and slowly begins to wrap it around Cassandra's palm.

In a way, the motions are like routine to both of them. It wouldn't be the first time they've been in a similar situation. Cassandra has been in more than enough fights than she'd care to admit, though the circumstances this time are a little different.

Rapunzel focuses on what she's doing. Cassandra watches her the entire time. An eerie silence hangs within the cabin, considering what had only just happened. The recent memories of it linger in both of their minds.

Cassandra doesn't understand how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly. Then she realizes that she should have expected it to happen. A part of her did. It seems her suspicions were accurate. The bandits were watching them. But there had only been two, when Cassandra knows there's a whole band of them out there. Something tells her that what happened today won't be the last time, and there's no telling how long it'll be before the rest of them find out their friends have been killed.

They mentioned something about their boss. Someone who was searching for Rapunzel. Someone who the bandits are working for. Cassandra wonders who that could be, and why they might be so determined to find her.

Then her mind trails back to Rapunzel, and all Cassandra can see anymore is the way she had stabbed a knife into that bandit with all the fire and rage that Cass would never wish upon her.

To say that Rapunzel has never killed would be an understatement. She's never even held a weapon before. Never learned to fight. Never had somebody else's blood on her hands. Never witnessed death so close in front of her like that. The girl who vomits at the sight of blood, who cries when animals are skinned, whose innocence has left her oblivious to the violent parts of the world, somehow took no hesitation in killing that man as if a pent-up anger had at last been unleashed inside of her.

Cassandra doesn't understand that either.

"Why did you do that?" Cassandra finally asks.

Rapunzel doesn't answer at first, and she doesn't look up. She continues wrapping Cassandra's hand, though her motions seem to slow. It shakes her to the core just thinking about the answer to that question. "I didn't have a choice."

"I told you not to come out. No matter what." Cassandra's words are stern, overpowering Rapunzel's small and innocent voice.

"I know... I'm sorry."

A silence grows between them again, before Cassandra breaks it once more, "You should have stayed put—"

"If I did, you would be dead," Rapunzel snaps, interrupting her. Her hands come to a halt as she finally meets eyes with Cassandra sitting in front of her. Then her voice softens again as she remembers just how close Cassandra had come to dying, and it makes her chest crumple with emotion all over again. "I couldn't just sit there and listen to you getting hurt."

Rapunzel had just been standing under there, within that dark hatch beneath the cabin for what had felt like an eternity. There had been nothing but rays of sunlight seeping between the cracks of the floorboards above her. She could only see shadows through them, sensed footsteps walking around somewhere across the ceiling. But she heard everything - the muffled voices of unfamiliar men, swords clanging, furniture crashing, Cassandra making pained noises that Rapunzel is certain she never wants to hear from her again.

She'd held on to Cassandra's voice in her head telling her to stay put, to not come out until she told her to. Rapunzel tried to listen. But then she heard him hurting Cassandra, tormenting her, demanding to know where the princess was. It was torturous.

Everything seemed to be getting worse and worse, and Rapunzel just couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't stay there any longer and do nothing, not when Cassandra was about to die, because of her, when Rapunzel had been the only person that could stop it.

In a split-second decision, she'd climbed out of there, her limbs quivering with fear. She ran, grabbed Cassandra's knife and… then the rest of it went black.

The next thing Rapunzel knew, she'd been standing there with a dead body at her feet, and a bloody dagger clutched within her shaking fist.

It had just made her so furious – seeing him pin down Cassandra like that, threatening to take away everything that matters to Rapunzel and leave her with nothing. She refused to let him. So, she'd reacted in the only way that felt right at the time.

As the horrid memory hangs in the back of her mind, Rapunzel ties a knot in Cassandra's bandage, finishing her handiwork. The fabric is already stained red, but it should stop most of the bleeding.

"You revealed yourself to them," Cassandra chides, "If he or anybody else had seen you, you would've gotten yourself killed."

"But I didn't," defends Rapunzel, irritation reaching her tone.

This is not what Rapunzel had expected Cass to say to her, after all of that is finally over. She can't believe this. She saved Cassandra's life, and rather than thanking her, she's scolding her on what she did wrong? Isn't she glad that Rapunzel stepped in when she did?

Far from reassured, Cassandra exhales softly. "If anything like that happens again, you save yourself. Not me. Your life is far too valuable to be put into danger like that, especially over me."

"And what about your life? Doesn't that matter too?" Rapunzel asks, her eyes pleading.

But Cassandra doesn't look up at her. She only stares down at her own hand in her lap, absently brushing her thumb along the rough fabric now wrapped around her palm. Her shoulders fall. Her eyes become distant. Her voice is emotionless as she says, "I'm worth nothing."

And that breaks Rapunzel's heart. Somehow, Rapunzel knows there's a lot more behind those words than Cassandra makes it to be.

Because Cass has always looked down on herself. Always acted like she didn't matter, like she was nobody. Always brushed off everything that pained her even when they both know she is hurting. Rapunzel has never understood it, but she could never ignore it either.

"That's not true." Rapunzel leans forward in her chair, the wooden legs creaking from her movement. She dips her head down in a failed attempt to get Cassandra to look at her. "I know you, Cass. You mean so much more to me than you allow yourself to believe. You always have been... You just don't know how to see it."

Cassandra doesn't react to Rapunzel's words. Rather, they seem to pass right through her ears, because somehow, she knows that Rapunzel doesn't mean it in the way that Cassandra wants it to. In the way that she feels for Rapunzel, if it were the other way around.

She convinces herself that Rapunzel says it because that's just the kind of person she is, not because she has spent endless nights dreaming of Cassandra, pining over her, aching for her, wanting her. Not like Cassandra has only ever done for her.

So, she knows that Rapunzel is right in saying that she doesn't know how to see it. Cassandra hates that Rapunzel is right. But it's true - Cass refuses to believe that she might actually mean something more to the princess. Because believing it and ending up wrong is far more painful than denying it in the first place.

But if Rapunzel had saved Cassandra in the way that she did, and ended up getting herself killed as a result, Cass would never be able to live with herself. Not when it's her job to protect the princess. That's the way it's always been, and the way it always will be. Not the other way around.

Rapunzel notices that her words seem to silence Cassandra, but she still doesn't meet Rapunzel's eyes. Rather, Cass' expression remains hard, brows creased softly together, gaze lowered to her lap in longing thought.

Rapunzel knows that she is upset with her – for not listening to her, for revealing herself to the bandits when that's the one thing that she's always been told not to do. But she hopes that Cassandra will learn to forgive her for it.

As Rapunzel stares at her with a heartbroken expression, she notices the amount of blood that remains on Cassandra's face. She grabs the cloth bunched up in her own lap, hoping to will it away.

"Just… let me help you." Rapunzel slowly extends her arm out toward Cassandra.

Just before the cloth touches her face, Cassandra turns her head away.

The princess freezes. Cass avoids her eyes. Rapunzel blinks in surprise at Cassandra's dismissive reaction, as if she is somehow annoyed at the fact that Rapunzel is trying to take care of her.

Silence stretches between them. The room fills with tension.

Then Rapunzel's chair scrapes along the floor as she angrily bolts to her feet and throws the cloth down onto the table. Why does she even try? Frustrated and upset, she begins to storm out of the room.

Immediately, Cassandra regrets it.

Rapunzel whips around beneath the doorframe to the bedroom, stopping herself, "You know what, Cass?" She raises her voice, "You take care of me. I take care of you. That's the way it works. But just when someone shows that they might actually care about you, you push them away."

Rapunzel can't imagine how saving Cassandra's life could possibly be her fault. She can't imagine what she could have said or done wrong to cause Cassandra to react this way towards her, to refuse to let Rapunzel touch her, to take care of her in the way that Cassandra has only ever done for her. Instead, it's like she just wants Rapunzel to go away. Like she didn't want Rapunzel to save her in the first place.

But what compels Rapunzel to say this now is not just about today. It's the past three months since they'd left Corona. It's all the dismissive answers that Cassandra has done nothing but give to her. The shortness. The avoidance. The arguments. Telling Rapunzel what to do and what not to do. Not listening to what Rapunzel wants. Pushing her to do things she's not ready for then making her feel like she's helpless for it.

Rapunzel knows better than anyone that Cassandra has always been hard, hot-headed, and stubborn, and Rapunzel has dealt with it for two decades. But never has it bothered her as much as it does now.

Rapunzel's voice softens with disappointment as she remains in the doorway, "You've changed, Cass. You hurt people... and you have nobody to blame but yourself."

Without another word, she shuts the door to the bedroom, leaving Cassandra sitting alone in silence.

8 years ago

A twelve-year-old Rapunzel lays on her stomach on her bed, burying her nose in a sketchbook. The deep violet blankets atop her mattress practically encase her like a purple cloud, along with the sheer lavender curtains of its four-poster canopy hanging above her.

Sunlight beams through her large floor to ceiling windows, with the door to her balcony left wide open and allowing the warm summer breeze to flow through.

With her brows creased in deep concentration, the young princess scratches her quill along the page in front of her for hours. Nothing can be heard but the soft and peaceful tweeting of birds outside, until a voice snaps her out of focus.

"Hey, Raps."

When she looks up, Cassandra is standing in the open doorway to Rapunzel's bedroom, wearing her training uniform and an uneven grin on her lips. However, what catches Rapunzel off guard is the black eye that has somehow appeared on Cassandra's face when it definitely hadn't been there this morning, and with apparently no explanation of how it got there.

Despite it, Cassandra greets Rapunzel casually, as if she doesn't have a giant bruise on her face right now that almost sends the princess into a heart attack.

"Oh my gosh, Cass!" Rapunzel scrambles to her feet in a mild panic, disregarding her drawings and rushing directly over to the other girl. However, she stops a few feet away as she notices the deep purple colour of the wound up close, framing Cassandra's eye. "You look terrible!"

"Yeah? you shoulda seen the other guy," comments Cass, slowly sauntering into the room.

Rapunzel turns, following her with her gaze, "What happened?"

Cassandra awkwardly scratches the back of her hair. "I… may have punched Eric Lunden in the face during training today?" Her face contorts into a wince as she turns over her shoulder to peek an eye at Rapunzel.

"Again, Cass? Are you crazy?" Rapunzel exclaims.

"What? He started it!"

Rapunzel throws her head back with a groan, as if she has heard the same story a thousand times. Suddenly much less concerned, she makes for the hallway with determination. "I'll get mom."

"No—Don't!" Cassandra chases after her. She grabs Rapunzel by the arm, stopping her from leaving the room. "She'll freak out if she sees me like this." A somberness overcomes her voice as she stares down at the ground, rubbing her arm, "And… I'm not in the mood for a lecture from her right now."

Rapunzel only observes Cassandra in front of her, pursing her lips in thought. She knows it's true - Her mother does worry a lot, and the pleading look in Cassandra's eyes right now somehow convinces her to want to avoid that conversation too, at least for the time being.

"Fine. Just… stay here," Rapunzel decides. She begins to leave, then faces Cassandra once more to jab a finger in her face. "And don't. Move. I'll see if I can find some ice."

Cassandra almost protests, wondering why Rapunzel is making it seem like she has a hard time following basic instructions. Before she can, Rapunzel disappears into the corridor of the castle and closes the bedroom door behind her, leaving Cassandra in the room alone.

When Rapunzel returns a few minutes later with a makeshift bag of ice wrapped in a brown cloth, she finds Cassandra laying on her back on Rapunzel's bed, staring up at the ceiling and looking bored out of her mind.

She merely looks over at the sound of Rapunzel entering, followed by the clicking of the door closing behind her. Cassandra doesn't sit up though. She stays on her back with her head against the pillow as Rapunzel sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping down next to her.

"Let me see," Rapunzel leans forward to closely examine Cassandra's face. Hoping to get a gauge of how swollen or hot to the touch the wound might be, she gently presses her thumb to the bruise beneath Cassandra's eye.

Cassandra winces in pain at Rapunzel's touch, softly hissing through clenched teeth.

Then Rapunzel retracts her hand and places the bag of ice on Cass' face with absolutely no warning.

"Ow!" Cassandra jerks, slapping the other girl's hand away.

"Oh, stop. It's not that bad." The mild act of abuse does nothing to stop Rapunzel from pressing the ice to her eye, having grown used to Cassandra's violence by now. She merely shoves Cassandra's flailing hand away like a fly buzzing on her shoulder, as if Cassandra is always this dramatic. "You did this to yourself, you know. Now, will you stop squirming and just hold still? You're making this harder for yourself!"

Eventually, Rapunzel finds no other choice but to pin Cassandra's arm down on the pillow just to get her to stop fussing. Eventually, Cassandra does, though she's sure to let out an annoyed groan and an eyeroll before doing so.

Though it's apparently the hardest thing in the world for her to do, Cassandra manages to lay still as Rapunzel continues to lean over her, gently holding the bag of ice to her face. Her wrist remains held captive by Rapunzel's hand, pinned down by her head, though the princess' grip has softened.

"You know I can do this myself, right?" comments Cass.

"Shh," Rapunzel hushes.

Eventually, Cassandra gives up on arguing and the room goes quiet again. She lets her eyes fall closed for a few moments in an attempt to ignore the pain, though her eyebrows are still pressed together in discomfort.

When she opens them again, she notices how close Rapunzel's face has become to hers. She watches Rapunzel silently, just hovering above her – her piercing green eyes slightly squinting, the freckles on her nose, the occasional twitch of her lips.

But Rapunzel is so concentrated on what she's doing that she doesn't notice Cassandra's lingering eyes.

The princess adjusts the ice to rest on Cassandra's brow. When she speaks again, her voice holds an amount of genuine concern and softness that it hadn't contained before, "You can't keep getting into fights like this."

Rapunzel doesn't know exactly what had happened, but she doesn't have to ask.

Cassandra changed after her father's death last year. It took a toll on her after that day at the docks, when everyone else's fathers had returned from the war except for hers. It still does. She'd stopped eating, stopped talking. Buried herself in her room when she wasn't making her own fists bleed in the training yard, then insisted she was fine whenever Rapunzel would come to check on her. She grew up that day. Lost a part of herself, and lost her innocence along with it.

Rapunzel would never say it out loud, though.

Deep down, Cassandra knows it too. She closes her eyes briefly and exhales through her nose at Rapunzel's words. She avoids the princess' eyes as she admits shamefully, "He was talking bad about you… So I hit him."

Rapunzel sighs softly at that.

Whether she feels disappointment or a sudden understanding, Rapunzel doesn't know. Of course, that's what this had been about. She knows Cassandra has never exactly gotten along with the other knights in training. Rapunzel doesn't blame her though. It's no surprise that they would have pushed her buttons like that, but whatever those dumb boys may think is not something Rapunzel would ever pay any mind to.

Cassandra, on the other hand… well, she tends to have a bit of a temper. She doesn't let go of such things so easily.

"You didn't have to do that for me," Rapunzel murmurs.

Yes, she did.

Cassandra would like to think things are that simple, but all she hears are the teasing voices in her head that started this whole thing in the first place. She sees the group of boys that had approached her after training today, snickering in her direction as if her mere presence was somehow funny to them. The sound of the thirteen-year-old boy's voice managed to catch the attention of all the other kids too.

"Hey, Cass! Got a question for ya. Does being the princess' new pet mean you get to share a bed with her too?"

Everyone laughed.

"I mean, you two are inseparable, right? But if you ask me, being appointed knight is a man's job, after all. And with a beauty like her, I'd be sure to keep her reaaaal safe and protected at night."

So. She hit him.

Word had inevitably travelled around the castle that Cassandra was recently chosen to be the princess' appointed knight once she reaches eighteen years of age.

Cass assumes the whole thing to be out of jealousy, considering she knows every other knight in training would do anything to jump at the chance to prove their worth. Not because they care about the princess' well-being or safety. Not because they know her, but because it helps their ego. Makes them believe they are the best fighter there is, and being appointed knight somehow proves that. Not to mention the fact that they get to gloat about being the princess' bodyguard, like they have some sort of special connection to her. Like Cassandra does.

It's been bad enough for her having to train with these pubescent boys on a daily basis that are only in it for the glory. She gets made fun of enough being the only female knight in training, but that just gives her more reason to show them that she's stronger than all of them. She's tougher, more skilled, more agile, and has been in training longer than any of them because her father was Captain of the Guards.

Everyone knows him as the man who died a hero in the war, and everyone knows Cassandra to be his daughter. In some ways, her relation to him was a blessing. In others, it's a curse.

But Cassandra never asked to be chosen. Rapunzel's parents selected her not only because of her potential as a fighter, but because of her unique relationship to the princess.

They've known each other since they could crawl and have been best friends ever since. The captain had been loyal to the royal family for decades, and after he passed, the king and queen took Cassandra in as their own daughter. Not only was it important for them to choose somebody that they could trust, but also someone that Rapunzel could trust. And Rapunzel has never really been one for having other friends.

So, they picked her. And that just didn't seem fair to the other knights.

Rapunzel notices Casandra's silence, convincing her that Cass is still bothered by the whole thing. She removes the ice from the other girl's face, wanting to see her eyes again, "Hey. Boys are stupid, right?"

Cassandra scoffs, "Insanely stupid."

"And we're gonna be best friends forever, right?"

"Right," she nods.

"So, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. As long as we have each other."

For a moment, Cassandra's lips tug into an uneven grin at the sound of that. Then she rolls her eyes playfully, "All right, no need to get all sappy on me." She pushes herself to a sitting position so she can shove Rapunzel in the arm, though there's a smirk on her lips as she does it.

"Ow!" Rapunzel clutches her arm. She sways to the side from the force of it but catches herself before she can fall over on the bed.

"Yeah, that's what you get," teases Cass.

Reminded of the supposed 'pain' she had caused Cassandra earlier, Rapunzel giggles wholeheartedly, "Okay… Maybe I deserved that."