14 November 2022
Whenever I get ready to do something official, I really need to study up and plan out better how to portray all the issues Gothel’s got going on. I tried to show a hint of her delusions and hyper-fixation on Rapunzel, but I don’t know if those are actually symptoms to anything real. And I’d rather not handwave everything off as “she’s a fairy, they don’t have to work the same way”. That just feels cheap.
Also, now that I’m writing the events that take place around that time, the scene with Aurora running from the dragon is very much outdated. None of it wound up happening that way. I’d still like to keep pieces of it, though.
…down the blue fairy.
Gothel glared at the two as she approached them in the room they’d booked at the inn. “You were messing with my spells; you tried to get to Rapunzel. Why?”
Both Lena and Frieda vehemently shook their heads as they cowered in the corner. Frieda said, “N-no, we weren’t there for Rapunzel! It wasn’t our fault, anyway! We opened a tiny pathway, sure, but as soon as we recognized it was your magic, Gothel, we put it back and left!”
Lena nodded. “And we only did that much because the prince forced us to!”
Gothel looked confused when Frieda said her name, but as soon as Lena mentioned the prince, her eyes narrowed. “What prince?”
Lena and Frieda exchanged glances. Did the two boys manage to slip past her somehow on the way in, then? “Prince Isaac. You know, from Loweveil? He was looking for his sister Aurora.”
For a long moment, Gothel just frowned at them, her brow furrowed. Then everything clicked into place, and her eyes went wide. “They’ve come to take her away from me!”
She turned and rushed out of the inn, and all the butterflies she’d used to track Lena and Frieda vanished. The two fairies looked at each other, and couldn’t do anything except laugh weakly as they lay there on the floor.
As soon as he got back to the tavern, Isaac sent letters to both his father in Lowenveil’s capital and his mother, who’d gone to Venwald to visit Queen Maleficent. Over the next two weeks, he visited Aur… Rapunzel every day. Some days he brought Phillip with him; other times he didn’t.
Frequently, they chatted about whatever came to mind. Sometimes he (tried) to help her take care of the animals; other times, he watched her paint in silence. He was awed by her talent with a brush; she might be one of the best painters in the world soon, if she wasn’t already.
One day, however, as they chatted in the lake room, a tiny pillar popped out of the ground with a blinking yellow light atop it. Rapunzel’s face went pale, and she turned to Isaac. “You need to hide! Now!”
“Why? What is it?”
“Mother’s back!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind her up the stairs.
“Shouldn’t we just talk to her, then?”
Rapunzel shook her head. “Even on a good day, she doesn’t react well to mentions of my old family. She was already unusually agitated when she left; who knows how she’d react if she actually saw you.”
She opened the door to the paint studio. “Stay in here. Mother doesn’t typically come in here unless I’m working on something.” She knocked on the wall and addressed the Tower. “Once the coast is clear, please help sneak him out of here.”
She turned to leave, but Isaac caught her wrist. “When can I come back? I’m not leaving you alone here forever, and you still need to meet Mom and Dad.”
Rapunzel bit her lower lip. “I’ll give you a signal. Now, hide!”
When Aurora had rushed in on horseback, Isaac had just a split second to feel relieved she was safe before he wondered how she could attract so much trouble so quickly.
How else could you describe being chased by a dragon, after all?
Or, at least it looked like a dragon at first. When Isaac looked closer, though, it was almost as if he could see into the dragon to its center, where a blind woman in a blue dress howled and cried.
“Is that… Gothel?” he wondered aloud.
“Well perceived.”
Isaac spun around to find Maleficent with a grim expression on her face. He turned back to the draconic Gothel. “How is she able to track my sister’s location so well? Isn’t she blind?”
“There are other senses beyond just sight. I’ve heard dragons have quite the keen sense of smell, for example.” Maleficent made a wry smile. “I suppose that is proof the princess does not think the way I do. I would have taken everything and crippled her.”
Isaac didn’t reply. Instead, he ordered his men to arm the ballistae, and got ready to let Aurora in through the front gate.
Most recently updated draft of Rapunzel, the Sleeping Beauty (potentially including unposted content)