http://clampfix.fanworks.net/others/rapunzel.txt </head><body><pre>Hi all, Speaking of things in the spirit of fairytales--this is not precisely AU, nor is it precisely not AU, but I'll leave that for others to contemplate. Feedback is always welcome. - Kristin Warnings: Spoilers for Clover 1-4. All characters are copyright CLAMP and Kodansha. This is a fanwork written for entertainment purposes only. Comments to Kristin Olson at kolson00@yahoo.com. * * * * * Rapunzel * * * * * I lived in a tower, but I had no braid to let down. That was my mother's design. She never needed to climb: she would merely witch herself straight into my garden, a lush, glass-walled arboretum cleverly tailored to look wild. With crinkled eyes she would watch me at my games, sometimes creeping near enough to rake a clawed hand over my short-cropped hair. "Less risk of princes," she always muttered, and then, in a wavering croon, "You will stay here, won't you, dear girl? For always?" Another caress, and nails like pins prickled my ear. "You know what would happen if you tried to leave." I did know; I had been told a thousand and one times why I must be kept in this strange glass tower, surrounded by lethal guards in the guises of playthings. If I were not, there would be disaster, destruction, and ruin. "The world outside is too fragile to contain you," my mother had once whispered, when I pressed her for details, trying to understand what lay behind the fear that hushed her. My magic was too strong, she said. If I crossed beyond the shielded walls of this turret, my strength would snap the very cords that bound reality. Even in my separation from it, I cared for the other realm that I had never seen or touched. I could not bear for it to shatter at my fingertips, so this threat always cowed me. "I will stay here, Mother," I promised. The old woman clucked again, calling me a dutiful daughter. Perhaps I was dutiful, once upon a time. It was lonely in the tower, but I had toys to amuse me, mechanical birds and creatures for company. My mother gave me fine clothes and plenty of delectable things to eat. I was not miserable. In those days I did not know misery any better than I knew happiness. As I grew, I began to notice that my tower was not the only one. There were others, and other children kept hidden within; I could sense them even without willing it. Those others were real to me, but distant, ever-present in the background of my mind without intruding into the fore. They did not act, but simply existed, never interrupting the unchanging wheel of my days. Then, from one of those far towers, a boy broke loose and fled. He was weaker than I, so the world did not crumble when he entered it. I am not sure the world even noticed him at all. That was when I began to wonder if what my mother had told me was true. Although I could not see the boy, I could tell by the smallness of his voice that he was no prince, merely a desperate child. I never tried to speak to him--that was forbidden me--but I hovered and watched him with the sight that needs no eyes, and I listened. I heard his footsteps as he wandered lost in the rain, full of dread, until he was caught in gentle hands. Later I heard him sighing over a song, and then over the one who had played it for him. Soon he had a new name, and like a match to a wick it set him afire, until he glowed like a lantern lit. He changed, he became something new. Feeling that rebirth, feeling the bursting warmth within him, I wondered at it. Was it happiness, that transforming flame? Or was it love? Were they one and the same? I tried to ask my mother. Her eyes went distant at the question, but she offered me no answers. "Happiness, love. No one can tell you of these things. No one can explain them. There is no single flavor called 'happiness,' the way the taste of an apple is always apple, regardless of who eats it." Her voice grew sibilant, curling like snakes in a snare. "Love, happiness--the taste is different for every soul." When the boy who ran away found his sweetness, I felt it, and was not even jealous. Or perhaps only a little. I didn't suspect how near I was to discovering my own. For weeks after that, I was haunted by a tune. That song the boy had sighed for--like ivy it began to twine into the confines of my breast. Its tendrils gripped my heart, squeezing until the red lobes throbbed to the rhythm's pulse. It spoke of things I had never known, of joy and pain wound together, twin strands woven into a braid so tight that no human hands could unbind it. I never knew such things could be found in a song. My mother, with all her precautions, had never warned me away from music, although a song is like love, like happiness: it is different to each ear that hears it. Perhaps to my mother it was harmless, empty. Too pleased with herself for shutting me away so tightly, for clipping my hair and my wings, she failed to see the peril in listening to a song. Perhaps if she had forbidden me to listen, all of us might have been safe. When I listened hard, I could sense the singer. She dwelled in the world outside, far from towers and walls of glass. Her tiny magic flickered, a firefly in the palm of a child, and that feeble beacon lured me. She, too, was no prince, merely a minstrel. She sang in a tavern and laughed at the jokes of ordinary men. Wrapped in the tendrils of her song, my heart cared nothing for princes. All day, all night I listened. The ivy in my breast tightened until I feared its grip would crack me like stone. Forbidden or not, I ached to speak with her. Whatever my mother had said, I was certain that this singer could tell me of the impossible things--of happiness, of love. At last I called to her. I did it in secret, in slyness, when my mother was far away. We spoke in quiet voices. She was kind. She told me her name and asked mine. She said I might speak to her again. A little after that, I began to sing. The next time my mother came to the garden, she heard me, and walked slowly to stand beneath the tree in which I perched, swinging my legs from the branch in time to the music. "A lovely tune," she said, after a little pause. "Did you make it?" "No," I answered. "I heard it in the air, in the world outside. I thought it was pretty." At that my mother seemed satisfied, and bid me to sing on. I think she deemed such a small rebellion against silence and solitude to be forgivable. She may even have liked listening to me. I was not a bad singer, if untrained, although to my own ears my voice sounded thin and reedy compared with the rich, full curves of Oruha's. Every night I dreamed of her. I had no hair to let down, but I dreamed she came to the foot of my tower, and her tresses were long, long enough to reach the window where I waited. It was she who would fling them up to me, wait for me to secure them, climb up toward me as I leaned down to her with my hand and all of my being outstretched. We would sing together, then, and loneliness would dim to nothing. Sometimes I woke with my tongue dry from whispering verses in my sleep. Every day I thought of her, of the things I longed to say. /Come away with me. I would scratch out my eyes, tear off my wings to be with you. We can live anywhere--in a desert, in a wilderness circled by a thicket of thorns--I will make a garden there for your sake. No one will find us, no one will trouble our idyll. We will lie in shade by a silver-tongued stream while I rest my head in your lap, until my hair is grown long and thick, long enough to tie a thousand love-knots. Come with me. Come with me. Teach me the taste of happiness./ But the next time we spoke, my lips were timid, and I could bring myself to ask her only, "What do you love?" In answer she told me two things. One of the two I knew already. The other, I did not. Neither was my name. Even that night, I continued to sing. Sometimes singing is just crying without the tears. We made a song together soon after that. Each of us wove into it our deepest yearnings: I for a thing I would never grasp, she for a thing she was bound to lose. In that creation, at least, our longings were wed to one another. I wish I had realized then that in my desperate reaching for happiness with her, I was as near it as I would ever be. I should have known that my mother would find out. When she did, she wasted no time. She did not slit my singer's tongue, rip out her velvet throat to silence her. No, my mother may be a witch, but still, there is no predicting the moments when her cruelty will fail. It may be that she is most horrible in her mercies. A single bolt, aimed sharp and true, and like a black swan pierced to the heart, my love tumbled in a cloud of feathers. She was singing as she died. I have grown wiser now. I do not believe anymore in the fairy tale that the world will crack. Perhaps the world will scarcely notice when I set foot in it, as it once ignored that little boy. It is only my mother's rule that will break open when I leave this place. If only I could thank him, that boy. He was the one who first led me to Oruha's song. In spite of everything, I am grateful to him for that. Tomorrow I will make a bargain with the witch. I will not wait for her to come, but will fly straight to her lair, into the darkness of her chamber, as unwelcome and sure as death. "There is a prince," I will tell her. "I want to meet him. I want him to take me away." "That is impossible," she will cry. She will be terrified; she has lived in dread that this day would come. I will speak calmly, with certainty born of the absence of fear. "Let him take me away, only that, and then I will die by my own hand. You will be rid of me forever. You can destroy my tower and pretend it never was, pretend that you never tried to force a child to live imprisoned there, fed on lies and kept always alone. Just grant me this one thing, before I die." She will cringe, for I am stronger than she is--I always have been, although I did not know it--and I will have my bargain. "Who is this prince?" she will croak. And I will tell her the name, the name my love once spoke instead of mine. My mother the witch will summon him to my tower, and I will go away with him. He will be all the things a prince should be, brave and strong and handsome and kind, if a little roughened by pain. I will see at once why Oruha loved him, but when I look at him I will never stop thinking of her. I will hold his hand as he leads me, the hand of the one whose happiness I stole--for what? For the price of a song that echoes in emptiness. I should apologize to him for that, although I fear my courage will wither before I can do it. I do not think I can bear to tell him much. We will go together to the place I have chosen, a place far from the desert garden of my dream. There I will send the prince away from me. Perhaps he will be puzzled, but I will be grateful, because in meeting him I will touch the second thing, the other thing Oruha loved. Just knowing that--and knowing that I did love, loved her foolishly, more than my life and hers--just that will be a kind of happiness. Then I will fall. Like her, I will be singing. * * * * * * * * * * Notes: Inspiration credit goes to Natalie Baan's retelling of the Grimm tale, which can be found in the Spring 2001 issue of Parabola magazine. Thanks as always to Jonna and Nat-san for making it better. * * * * * * * * * *</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>