1
" Gothel had told her that cutting her hair would kill her. The Goodwife said that was nonsense; it would only affect her powers, if anything at all. And come to think of it, Rapunzel did lose the occasional hair when it caught on something, or when she was combing it out. The dead hairs turned a dull brown, and it used to panic her when she was little. Did it take a day off her life? A month? A year?
She thoughtfully wrapped a lock of hair around her fingers. Biting her lip, she brought the shears up....
"Rapunzel? What are you doing? No!"
Flynn had quietly come in (and had paused at the door, preparing to say something theatrical) but immediately dropped all playing. He ran over and grabbed her hands, holding them away from her.
"What... oh," Rapunzel said, confused and taking a moment to figure out what he was doing. "You thought I was going to hurt myself. You didn't hear what the Goodwife said? Cutting my hair won't kill me."
"Oh. No, I did not hear that," Flynn said, collapsing against the edge of the workbench. But he didn't let go of her right hand. "Maybe when the group learns something important like that, you could let me in on it? You know, keep me in the loop?"
"Sorry," she said, a little chagrined. "I guess this looked really bad, didn't it?"
"You have no idea, Rapunzel, I... I think I died a little when I saw that."
He opened his mouth, trying to say something else.
Was he going to go into full funny Flynn Rider mode? Or was he actually going to say something serious?
Rapunzel could hardly breathe, waiting to see.
And then he kissed her.
It wasn't like the night before, when there was a pause and a feeling of expectation. He took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers. With desperation, maybe as if she really had almost died.
Rapunzel shivered-- and for the slightest moment panicked that it was her magic activating. But it wasn't...
When he stopped, she reached up and touched his lips gently. She didn't want the moment to end.
"I don't want to lose you," he whispered. "But if I have to... I'd rather it be to your happy ending than to..."
"Brigands and mercenaries, or a hair-related death, I know. You do care, Flynn Rider! "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
3
" Without knowing why, she brought her hair up to Pascal again. She knew he wouldn't be hurt. The little lizard was intrigued by whatever was going on; he nosed into her locks like a curious kitten.
Immediately the sparkles that pulsed through her hair danced around him, falling and flickering. Soon they completely covered the little lizard like snow. Rapunzel watched, enchanted.
Then he sneezed. Embers of magic flicked and faded as they fell to the earth.
Rapunzel gasped.
Pascal was perfectly fine.
He just wasn't-- Pascal.
He was an entirely different lizard. A lizard Rapunzel had never seen before, in books or anywhere. His eyes were now two balls that perched on the sides of his head and looked around independently of each other. His back was a graceful arch. His feet had two pairs of strange toes that opened up in the middle like claws. And his tail! It curled around and around and clasped onto her arm- prehensile and grasping, not a limp thing that just hung there to help with balance (and to occasionally break off and confuse a predator).
And he was looking at himself! Holding his feet out one at a time and admiring them, thwacking the tip of his tail and snapping his mouth in satisfaction. Like a... person. He thoughtfully gazed back at his body, considering it.
His skin suddenly started to change color: a wave of brown, and then red, pulsed through him from nose to tail.
"Pascal!" Rapunzel cried. "You're a dragon!"
She only wished he had turned into a slightly larger dragon so she could ride and/or hug him. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
4
" She opened the satchel.
And honestly, fate couldn't have provided a better prize at the end of a scavenger hunt.
She pulled out a beautiful, sparkling crown.
Her large green eyes grew even larger. Despite the hour and lack of sunlight, its jewels still managed to shimmer and twinkle in a magical, expensive way. Rapunzel might not have had much experience with royal gems or any kind of precious stone, but it was very clear that these were those. The thing was straight out of a fairy tale, what a princess would be wearing when she was turned back from a swan. The giant diamonds were even shaped like swans' eggs. Under each was a round pink ruby, and threading between them was a strand of perfectly round pearls.
She turned it over in her hands, tracing the tiny, intricately wound gold wire that held it all together.
And there, in a small flat patch of smooth metal, was the artist's mark-- and a multi-rayed sun symbol.
The same one on her bracelet clasp.
The same one that she constantly painted and dreamed of. The one that meant life and happiness and energy in the personal vocabulary of Rapunzel's soul. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
6
" You haven't even asked what I'll pay you," Rapunzel said innocently.
"You don't have enough," Flynn promised. Then he turned to Gina and said in a theatrical whisper, "This is where she offers her necklace, or a bracelet, or some other rich girl trinket I couldn't pawn even if I wanted...."
"How about a crown?" Rapunzel suggested.
Flynn grew very, very still.
"Uh-oh," Gina said with a wicked grin.
"What, um-- what crown?" Flynn asked casually.
"The one that you stole. The one that the Stabbingtons want back. The one that you hid, rather obviously, in a tree hollow," Rapunzel said smugly, crossing her arms. "Diamonds, pearls, about my size... You know, that crown?"
"That's my crown! Give it back! I stole it fair and square!" Flynn, cried, leaping up.
"You mean you stole it from the castle, or you stole it from the Stabbingtons?" Gina asked interestedly.
"Doesn't matter," Flynn said, crossing his arms and setting his jaw childishly. "It's mine now."
"Well, no, it's mine," Rapunzel said. "At least until you take me to see the lanterns, and home again. Then it's yours."
"You must have seen me hide it! In the tree!"
"Déduction très brillante," Rapunzel said archly. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
7
" You're a liar, and worse-- you broke my heart. You're not a mother. You're a villain."
Gothel's eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and hung there as though even she was a little curious as to what she would say, what words would come and bring the situation back under her control.
"I would rather take my chances with an honest villain like Bathory!" Rapunzel hissed. "Get out of my sight and never let me see you again!"
"Or what?" Gothel asked, a knowing, nasty tone in her voice: her real voice. "What could you do to me, Rapunzel? I am your mother, and besides that I control all of these sword-playing idiots."
"Did you forget that I'm a crown princess? And a powerful witch who can control her hair now. Or did you think the castle just fell on its own today?
"Either way, your time with me is over, if you know what is good for you."
The two women glared at each other.
And after a minute, Rapunzel realized that's what they were: two women. Despite being younger and shorter than Gothel, she wasn't a girl anymore. She had power and will and a stubborn disposition.
"Go. Now," she ordered. "Never approach me again."
Her mother started to growl something--
"What's that? I can't hear you. All that mumbling," Rapunzel said airily, and walked away, turning her back on the woman forever. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
12
" Rapunzel woke up to the dazzling, sparkling, gently chiming display with more cheer than anyone really should who had spent the last six thousand and approximately nine hundred days in a lonely tower.
"This birthday is going to be great. I just know it!"
She only really knew about birthdays because she had read about them in one of the thirty-seven books she owned: Book #3: Stories from Rome and Other Great Empires. Marc Antony apparently had splendid birthdays, and Cleopatra gave him the most cunning gifts. Anyway, they seemed like a marvelous idea, and she had adopted this time of year as her own.
Had there been anyone around, they would have been amazed at the hermit's beauty. For one thing, her cheeks were surprisingly rosy for a girl who had been indoors her whole life.
(This was because on sunny Wednesday and Saturday afternoons she carefully followed the window-shaped spot of sun around her room, lying down and soaking in the warm rays.)
Her eyes were large and green because of parents she had never known.
Her lips were usually set in an expectant smile because she was Rapunzel; good-natured, lighthearted, with a quick mind that constantly refused to be crushed by her circumstances. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
19
" Wondrous..." was the last thing Captain Tregsburg ever said.
When Rapunzel wearily opened her eyes, there was a magnificent white horse where the captain had been.
There was dried blood on its pure white flanks, what looked like an old, healed wound on its belly-- and an ecstatic look in its eye.
It rose onto its feet, trumpeting out a whinny of triumph, kicking its front legs and tossing its mane back and forth.
"Oh," Rapunzel said, dismayed. "I didn't-- I'm sorry--"
But Justin "Maximus" Tregsburg, captain of the royal guard and now shining white stallion, gently nuzzled her cheek. He was... happy.
"I'm glad you're all right," Rapunzel said, hugging him. "I'm sorry we never got to talk."
The stallion rolled his eyes and tossed his head: What's the use of talk, he seemed to say. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine
20
" It was summer, so the sun appeared in the bottom left-hand corner of the big window at quarter past six.
Ish.
It was hard to tell exactly until the sun rose just a little bit more, enough to send his beams through the holes carefully bored through a piece of wood, above which the hours were marked off in beautifully painted flourishes. This simple timepiece hung from the ceiling off a stick hammered sturdily in, because a string would have let it spin and therefore fail its task of tracking the sun.
The wind chimes, however, assembled from more bits of wood, and pieces of metal, and shaped and dried bits of pottery, were free to swing and tinkle as they pleased. These were surrounded by celestial bric-a-brac that also dangled from the ceiling and spun with abandon when the breeze found them: paper-mâché stars, comets of hoarded glass shards and mirror, a very carefully re-created (and golden) replica of the constellation Orion, a quilted and embroidered cloth model of the sun, and several paintings on rectangular panels hung such that they faced straight down. So that the viewer, in bed, might look up at them and pretend they were windows or friends, depending on whether the subject was landscapes or faces. "
― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine