( 004 )
THE SNUGGLY DUCKLING
❝ THAT'S YOUR DREAM? ❞

"YOU COMING DOWN THEN, BLONDIE?" HOLLAND CALLS UP TO RAPUNZEL, WHO WAS ON THE EDGE OF THE TOWER WINDOW AS HE HAD ALREADY MADE A HEADSTART ON THE LONG CLAMBER DOWN. Rapunzel was freaking out, her heart in her mouth as she stared down at the summers afternoon,  the sun staring at her with its warmth, urging her to leave the tower she hasn't left since the day she was born.

Gripping onto her hair that was already hooked ready to descend on, Rapunzel felt her heart beat loud and fast in her chest, the echo ringing in her ears like some drum.  This was really it. She was actually going to leave the tower. Of course, her whole journey being a success relied on a list of things. Firstly, she needed to get to the lanterns. Then she needs to get back before Rose comes back, and make sure she never finds out about this. Never bring back any souvenirs that can't fit under Rapunzel's drawer or pillow, and swear Holland to absolute secrecy about this and make sure he never comes back to the tower in his living days.

So one could see why Rapunzel probably looked a little stressed right now.

"Are you gonna just stand there? The lanterns aren't going to wait for you, love." Holland calls up to Rapunzel once more, now about halfway down the stones of the tower. He had a point, she needed to do this if they were going to make it to the kingdom before tomorrow night.

Taking a big breath, Rapunzel puts all her weight on her hair, her feet finally rising from the window ledge as the teenager finally found herself freefall abseiling down the side of the tower in the shortest amount of time possible, passing Holland within seconds.

All she could feel was euphoria. The wind ferociously swept through her hair, the world passing her by as she got closer to the ground every single second she fell gracefully from the tower. It was utter bliss.

"Sugar!" Rapunzel cries out as she abruptly stops mere centimetres before the ground, the fear coming back as quick as the felt like she was on cloud nine seconds ago. Her feet just needed to stretch, and they'll touch the grass she had longed to touch on her toes for so many years, and she could do it. Her left leg extended from the curled position it was in, and the grass blades tickled her toes as she landed in the world. The earth, the plants.

"Hey- Blondie! Wait up! I haven't got the world's longest hair"! Holland calls out to Rapunzel, who ignored him to focus on something so much better. The world.

She ran like a child through the grass and mud, studying flowers that were red, white, yellow and blue, smelling the pollen and their fragrances, rich and just how she always imagined summer to be. She spotted a small pond a few feet away, and jumped into it like it was the best thing to do. Her feet up to the hem of her dress were soaked, but it was such a feeling Rapunzel couldn't possibly resist. She was free.

"Are you coming or not? You're not getting out of this, you know." Rapunzel screams at the top of her lungs to reach Holland, who just had a few more seconds of pointlessly sticking arrows in and out of holes in the stone of the tower. He rolls his eyes, immediately regretting any decision to do whatever Rapunzel wanted. Being wrapped in her hair was better.

"I would be there, if you offered to give me a ride." Holland mutters under his breath, finally low enough to just let go of the hold he had of the arrows, landing solidly on the ground, taking the arrows and putting them in his back pocket, making sure the arrow wasn't going to stab him in the ass.

Rapunzel laughs in pure excitement, grabbing Holland's arm and dragging him, to his surprise, pretty successfully, towards the sheet of vines that Rose placed to conceal the tower from guards and any other person ever. Holland takes notice of it, despite it being the second time going through it.

"Did you...decorate...a stone?" He asks, and Rapunzel looks at him like she doesn't understand what Holland just asked of her, and he shakes the vines, and Rapunzel sighs, shrugging.

"Always been there. I don't know."

And all at once, Rapunzel was revealed to the open forest for the first time in her life, not like Holland knew, but he knew it would take her a while to tire herself out from all her excitement.

FIFTY MINUTES LATER, AND HOLLAND HAD OFFICIALLY GIVEN UP. He couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't stand Rapunzel's switching moods all the time, and he certainly couldn't put up with it for three days. In the short amount of time they've been in the forest, which still felt like an eternity to Holland, Rapunzel had cried ten times, fallen three times, and gotten Holland involved in hide and seek four times, to which he always lost because he wouldn't move.

If he needed to shorten this trip, he needed to scare Rapunzel into going back home and giving him back the Princesses' tiara. He really, really, couldn't stand her.

"Say Blondie, you hungry? All that running about must have left you with not much walking energy, that's for sure!" Holland heartily chuckles, approaching Rapunzel with a hard slap on the back, to which she forced a cough as a response.

The two were finally walking on a path that would have taken ten minutes to find if it weren't for her messing around, and Rapunzel nods her head, "But where? This is an open forest, I seriously doubt there's any nice bakeries or anything."

Holland ticks his tounge, shaking his head as his hand guides Rapunzel on her back to a brown and run down building a few hundred feet in the distance, pointing at it with pride. "You see my dear, that's where you'll be wrong for once. This is the finest establishment in the whole kingdom, I must say. The Snuggly Duckling."

Rapunzel lights up into a smile, her naïvity kicking in. "I do love ducklings. Especially when they're snuggly!"

"Of course you do!" Holland mockingly replies in the same tone as Rapunzel, wanting more than anything to roll his eyes and push her into the bar, but he had to keep the act up if he were to successfully scare her away from the kingdom.

Opening the door to the bar, Rapunzel no longer felt comfortable with eating or even stepping foot in the so-called establishment. Thugs and dangerous men and women filled the bar, all large, wearing helmets with tusks on the end. Axes, swords and hammers all accessorised their looks, along with snarls that were making Rapunzel tear up.

"Your finest table please, kind Sir! This young woman only knows the classy things in life. So of course, I suggested here, I mean why not!" Holland laughs as he pushes Rapunzel through the crowd. The frying pan that she used to knock Holland out with several times was now being used to point around the room threatingly, but was useless as Rapunzel was shaking to the core in fear, Pascal hiding in the colours of Rapunzel's purple dress.

Rapunzel begins to start to step back, but couldn't while Holland's hand firmly remained on her back. She struggles more, her panic growing by the second, heart in her mouth as she begins to stamp on Holland's foot, barging him with her elbow. "Holland, please, let me get out of here." She pleads quietly to him.

One of the thugs stands up at the mention of Holland's name, grabbing the skinny man by the collar of his shirt and lifting him up to the thugs' eye level. "So you're the wanted criminal, huh? Someone fetch a guard, I'll cash in my sweet find."

"Hey now, maybe don't be so rash, eh mate? It'd be much better if you didn't say anything, and let me go on my way." Holland gulps, hands up in surrender as he looks at Rapunzel for help, with her hair preferably, but she stands there instead, a smug smile forming on her lips as she folds her arms.

Another thug snatches Holland from the original one holding him, "He's mine! I was the one who saw him first!"

A third pipes up, "No, it was me!"

"Says who?"

"Says me, dumbass!"

Soon enough, a riot had begun over who would get the cash for finding Holland in their designated hangout, and Rapunzel started to worry. Holland was being practically torn apart, his muscles stretched and his head hit and stomach kicked. He was in a lot of pain, and he did deserve it to an extent, but she still needed him to take her to the lanterns tomorrow.

"You're paying for my funeral if you let me die, Blondie!" Holland cries out, his voice strained as he was also trying to keep his body as one piece rather than ten. Rapunzel sighs, noticing a loose wooden panel at the roof of the Snuggly Duckling, lassooing her hair to reach it and pull it on it until she could let go, which in turn hit the head pretty hard of the original thug that started fighting over Holland's body.

"Stop! I need him! I need him," Rapunzel uses her frying pan to point at Holland, who was still in a comprising position. "To take me to the lanterns tomorrow night, and I have dreamed of that moment all my life! Don't you have a dream? Some humanity?!" She releases all her stress at the top of her lungs, exhausted when she does stop talking.

The thug that first grabbed Holland hung him up on a nail on the wall of the bar, walking slowly toward Rapunzel, who now regretted ever speaking up, and she backed up against the bar, eyes clenched shut as she felt the warm and unpleasant breath of the thug against her cheek.

"I do have a dream, miss." He says surprisingly in a low tone, and Rapunzel uncovers the frying pan from her face, the thug looking downcast. "We all have dreams here."

"What is your dream then, mister?" Rapunzel grabs a bar stool, sitting on it as the thug sat next to her, staring into the distance where a black ivory piano lay. "To be a world famous pianist."

Another of the men stepped forward, sitting on a chair. "I just want to be loved."

"And I love interior design!"

"I collect antiquities. I wanna open up a shop full of 'em."

In less than a minute, everyone from the bar was gathered around Rapunzel and her hopeful spirit that gave them something to talk about for the rest of the year - maybe they can get her to become a new regular.

"Then do you see why I need him? I need to see those lanterns, I need to live my dream!" The first thug smiled sympathetically, his hand gently supporting Rapunzel's shoulder, nodding in agreement.

"Uh, what about me! Nobody asked me." Holland crosses his arms, his body still hanging on the loose nail of the wall of the bar, feeling his back get drafty as his shirt was ripping from the weight.

Everyone scoffs, and Rapunzel lights up in hope, asking someone to help Holland down so he could come closer to her. "Tell me your dream!"

Sticking out his chest, one leg propped up on a chair, his ineffective charm switched on once more, looking around the room. "To be rich, beyond any man's dreams. Then, with that money, buy a private island where I can be all alone until my dying day."

All at once Rapunzel's hopeful glimmer in her eye and her smile fades almost instantaneously, crossing her brows. "...That's your dream?" She says in a sad tone, and Holland looks at her as if she was a mad woman.

"Of course, it's better than your stupid dream anyway." He dismisses, and the pain in Rapunzel only grew bigger. She really thought she could meet at least one friend or pick someone decent to come to her tower, but that was not in Rapunzel's control. It was no more than a few more days.

Suddenly the door slams open, and a neigh of horses had also entered the bar, along with several high-ranking soldiers from the King's guard, all holding a wanted poster of Holland's face along with a reward price. The slogan below it: "Wanted dead or alive."

"Come on, Holland, I know you're here!"

Rapunzel and Holland really needed to get out of there.

INDIA TALKS!

its been AGES anyway heyyyyy, its been a weird few weeks for sure. i'm cured of corona, i've had a rollercoaster of a week, and school is honestly killing me!

pls vote and comments loves, i'll hopefully update before monday again xx