Snow White/Rapunzel

 

I am no beauty, that is for sure. Many words they use to describe me. Lively. Wild. Adventurous. But never beautiful. No, not with my ink-black hair and pale complexion, my sharp, distinctive nose and my blood-red lips. My eyes were the only feature anyone ever complimented me upon. They were misty gray, a sense of grave justice to them. They were my father's eyes, the father I have never met.

He died a few weeks after I was born, at war. I day-dreamed about him, thinking that if he had been alive, he could've prevented mother from casting me out. To speak the truth, it was my father's death that drove her over the edge. It wasn't completely my horrendous features.

When I was still young, when my mother and I passed by the streets, she would weep at seeing a beautiful little girl or a graceful young woman. There would be no end to her shame, she realized, until I was gone from her sight.

And so it was that they sent me away. I was to be kept, I was told, from all the world. And so I was. Locked away in my tower with no one to talk to except the godmother who christened me, the fairy Gothel. Gothel was nothing but kind, and she gave me her undivided attention as I grew up, satisfied my need of attention and love. To me, she was a mother and a father, a sister and a friend.

And yet nothing was ever enough for me. I blame my curiosity. The first time I ever strayed from the safety of my tower was when I was six years old. I had been enchanted by the butterflies that surrounded the only window of my tower, and I pushed the glass back, and flung myself outside with help of my already long grown hair, which I used as a rope, and I chased the butterfly around the forest. It wasn't very long, however, before the world found me. I was hiding beside a brook, marveling at the world about me, when suddenly an arrow flew my way. I jumped up, frightened. There were men. Men with bows and arrows, calling me an imp child, a malicious fairy. So I ran. I ran like I never did before, fast as the wind. And when I got back to my tower, Gothel was already there, waiting for me.

She scolded me soundly, and told me never to do it again. I didn't need any persuasion on her part. It frightened me, how vicious the men were toward me, for no apparent reason. My voice was small as I protested to Gothel about how I wished for a friend my own age. And so, Gothel, in her fairy glory, granted me a magic mirror. “What ever you want to see,” she told me, “You need only ask. A rhyme would be nice, but simple words will do.”

So I watched the world from my little tower, never once taken from the safety of my home, fairly aware of the cruelty of the world and content where I am.

Author's Note

I've recently taken to using strange fonts, if you've noticed. :D This is sort of a mix of a Snow White/Rapunzel story. :DDD Except there's no stepmom and Gothel's a fairy/she's not a bad guy. This should be interesting to see which plot wins out. Right now, the Rapunzel plot. Maybe Snow White comes later, eh?