Yugioh presents: Rapunzel
Includes commentary from Marik and Bakura
A long time ago in a faraway land there lived a man and a woman who longed for a child, but it seemed as if their wish would never come true. At length it appeared that Ra was about to grant their desire.
These people had a little window at the back of their house, with a view of a beautiful garden, full of the most fabulous flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a mighty wall, and none dare cross the wall because the garden belonged to a great enchantress, whose prowess and dreadful might were feared throughout the world.
"I thought it was meant to be a witch?"
"Marik, no-one cares what you think. Now be quiet and listen to the story."
One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a beautiful apple tree. The apples were large, red and juicy, and the woman longed to taste them. She became very unhappy, and stopped eating.
Her husband, Akeifa, was alarmed, and asked, "What is wrong, dear wife?"
"Oh, if I cannot taste just one of those delicious looking apples which grow in that garden behind our house, I will die." She replied.
The man, who loved her, thought, 'I cannot let her die, so I must go and get some of those apples myself, no matter what.'
At midnight, he clambered down up the wall of the garden, quickly grabbed a handful of apples, and took them to his wife. She ate them up greedily. They tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for another apple three times as much as before.
If he was to have any rest, her husband knew he must go back to the garden. Therefore, the very next evening he climbed back up the wall, but he lost his grip and plummeted down. When he looked up he was terrified, for he saw the enchantress standing before him.
"How dare you come into my garden and steal my apples like a thief? You shall suffer for it!" The enchantress shouted.
"Be merciful!" He pleaded, "I only made did it because I had to. My wife saw your apples from the window, and felt such a longing for them that she would have died if she had not got some to eat."
The enchantress calmed down somewhat and said to him
"If it is as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as many apples as you can, but you must give me your child when it is born. It shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother."
The man agreed to this.
"I never knew Akeifa was such a wimp!" Marik interrupted.
"Will you shut up!"
When the man returned, he took his wife and all that they owned, and they fled together. For Akeifa would rather die than give up his child.
"There, you see? He never meant to keep his promise. Now that sounds like Akeifa." Bakura said smugly.
However, when Akeifa's wife gave birth, the enchantress appeared by her bedside, and took the child, naming it Marik.
"What the hell!?! I am not a baby! Nor am I female! This is not fair!"
Bakura merely laughed in response.
Marik grew up to be a beautiful child. However when he was twelve years old, the enchantress shut him away in a room at the top of a tower, in the middle of a forest. The tower had nether stairs nor door, but in the room at the top there was a large window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she stood beneath the window and called out,
"Marik, Marik, let down your hair!"
Marik had magnificent long, golden hair, and when he heard the enchantress calling, he unfastened his braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks above the window, and then let his hair fall down out of the window. Once it had reached the ground, the enchantress climbed up it.
After three long years, it came to pass that a local prince rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. It was Marik, who in his solitude passed his time by singing.
"Well, I wouldn't say his song was charming…" Bakura grinned.
"Hey! I object to that. My singing is beautiful!" Marik retorted angrily.
The prince wanted to climb up to find out who was singing, so he looked for the door of the tower, but could not find one. He rode home, but the singing was so beautiful that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it.
Once when he was listening from behind a tree, he saw the enchantress approach, and he heard her call out:
"Marik, Marik, let down your hair!"
Then Marik let down the braids of his hair, and the enchantress climbed up, disappearing through the window.
The prince, who now knew how to get up, went away for the night, vowing to return in the morning. When he did, he called out,
" Marik, Marik, let down your hair!"
Immediately the hair fell down and prince Bakura climbed up.
"Wait, what was that? Prince Bakura? Prince Bakura! No way in hell would I be stupid enough to do that!" Bakura spluttered.
"Hey, you're not the only one who has an objection! You think I want my handsome prince to be you? Guess again, Fluffy!"
At first Marik was terribly frightened when a man, especially one with such a fierce face, appeared in the window; but prince Bakura treated him kindly, and told Marik that his heart had been awed at his singing, and he had been forced to see who it was singing. Then Marik lost his fear, and when the prince asked if Marik would take him as a husband, and he saw that the prince was young and handsome, Marik thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Ishizu does'; and he said yes, and laid his hand in the prince's.
"Sod off, I don't want your bloody hand."
"Come on Bakura, it's just a story."
"You were complaining a second ago!"
"Yeah, well maybe we should just listen. It isn't real, after all."
"Fine, whatever."
Marik said to Bakura "I will happily go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you can take me on your horse."
"…"
"…"
They agreed that from now on the prince should come every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress knew nothing of this, until one day Marik said to her,
"Tell me, Dame Ishizu, how is it that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than prince Bakura?"
"Ah, you wicked child," cried the enchantress. "What did you just say? I thought I had managed to separate you from the world, and yet you have deceived me!"
In her anger she seized Marik's beautiful hair, wrapped it around her left hand, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off all that beautiful hair. And she was so crul that she took poor Marik to a desert where he had to live in great grief and misery.
"Noooooooooooo! Not my hair!" Marik wailed, falling to his knees.
"So you don't care about the 'great grief and misery'?" Bakura smirked.
"Of course not you fool! I grew up like that!"
"Don't worry Marik, I'm sure you can get a wig. Maybe a nice camel-hair one, as you're in a desert" Bakura taunted him.
On the same day that she cast Marik out, however, the enchantress fastened the hair which she had cut off to the hook of the window, and when prince Bakura came and called out:
"Marik, Marik, let down your hair!"
she let the hair down. The prince climbed up, but instead of finding his dearest Marik, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks.
"Oh please, like that's going to scare me!" Bakura snorted.
"Aha!" she cried mockingly, "you would fetch your dearest Marik, but he sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got him, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Marik is lost to you; you will never see him again."
The prince was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.
"Why the bloody hell did the fool do that?" Bakura asked.
"He was in love, Bakura!"
"What's your bloody point?"
The prince wandered blind through the forest, eating nothing but roots and berries, and cried for his dead wife.
"He sounds like Pegasus, doesn't he Bakura?"
"If you're comparing me to that camp idiot, I'll-"
He went on in this way for some years, at eventually he came to the desert where Marik lived in misery. After a while Bakura heard a voice that sounded familiar and when he approached, Marik recognised him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of his tears wetted Bakura's eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as well as before. He led her back to his father Yami's kingdom where they were joyfully received, and they all lived happily ever after.
"Wait a second, Yami is my father? Kill me now, please!"
"Hey, at least your character was a guy!" Marik protested. "I'm almost willing to swap!"
Thoughts, comments…want to say hi? Click the review button!