Entangled In Plague

Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224

SUMMARY: Flynn Rider is tasked with disarming a dangerous plague device that threatens to unleash a Bubonic Plague on Corona's Capital City. Story is told as a flashback to his five-year-old daughter Daphne.

PRIMARY CHARACTERS featured from the Tangledfilm: Rapunzel, Flynn Ryder, and the Captain of the Guard

STORY STATS:

- The story is set after the events of the Tangled film

- The fanfic work heavily borrows ideas from The Hurt Locker and Valkyrie

- The names of the King and Queen of Corona (Harold and Julia) were derived from the Tangled fanfic "The Princess, The Queen, and The Thief", written by "LoveBroadway1510".

PROLOGUE

Daphne was lying on the ornate living room rug, flat on her stomach; her face pored over a crudely illustrated woodcut picture book telling the tale of a chivalrous knight engaged in heroic exploits of long ago. Even at five years of age such stories had the potential to evoke a keen sense of charm inside her, simply because the gist of the story was digested in a way as to allow her to comprehend what was going on in the picture book. It was at this point that Daphne started wondering whether anyone in her family was engaged in such heroic exploits.

Then Daphne had the brilliant idea of asking her father to tell her a story, perhaps one about his life, if it was in any way possible. So she got up from the rug and went up to her father.

"Daddy, please tell me a story," she pleaded.

Flynn Rider steadily put down his paper. "What story?" he asked his little daughter rather quizzically.

Daphne's right hand was already under her chin. It was her customary habit whenever she was nervous to ask her parents something of them. "I dunno," she replied. "Any story."

Flynn wondered whether he should be charmed over the way Daphne was asking such a favor of her father. It really did remind him of the many times of when his wife Rapunzel would ask him to take him to various places throughout the kingdom of Corona after she had her own little taste of freedom from the confines of Mother Gothel's tower, before they were married. And now little Daphne was doing nearly the same thing. In fact, much of the time, Flynn would be constantly reminded of his wife doing that same thing, because Daphne really resembled her mother, not just in her looks, but in her actions. Every time he saw his daughter, he would usually see a bit of Rapunzel in her.

He quickly glanced at the clock before heaving himself up from his chair. "Okay," he answered. "Let me head over to the bookshelf and pick one." After making his brief heading over to the family room bookshelf, Flynn put himself to work on sifting through the shelf, searching for a story that would be of some interest to little Daphne. But then Daphne had another bright idea.

"Wait, Daddy!" Daphne called, finally grabbing his attention, much to Flynn's annoyance. "I have an idea!"

"What is it?" asked Flynn.

"I want you to tell me a story…about your life," said Daphne.

Flynn shoved the last book into the living room shelf. "Well, Daphne," he had to inform her, "That would be a helluva long one. You'd fall asleep by then long before I'd be able to finish the story for you."

"No, I won't, Daddy," Daphne tried to assure her father in earnest. Her hands were clasped together, and her face held together an innocent grin. "Pleeeeease? Please, Daddy?"

Daphne seemed to think that by playing innocent, she could sway her father to acquiesce to her request. Flynn knew she would assume that, but he's quite willing enough to do it for her. However, his wife would not allow herself to be easily swayed in this matter.

Rapunzel perked her head up from her clever sketching. "Well, Daphne," she began. "The last time your father read a long chapter from one of his journals to you…you fell asleep!" she said with a small laugh.

"That's 'cuz I was borrred," said Daphne, facing toward her mother.

She had a tendency to get bored whenever storytelling is prolonged past a ten-to-fifteen minutes span. At best she could stand an hour's worth of storytelling, but overtime her focus would eventually diminish. Call it short-attention span, but that was how much Daphne could focus on when it came to word-of-mouth storytelling. Oftentimes, Flynn had to divide up his storytelling in small chunks just so that his little daughter could mentally digest the contents.

"To tell you the entire story of my life would take…I dunno…a year…" Flynn estimated rather wildly.

"You've got to be joking!" cried Rapunzel, shocked at a statement that she thought was absurd to her. Her pet chameleon and loyal friend Pascal jumped up at being startled by her outburst. "What makes you think it'll take a year?"

"Well, there's quite a lot to tell," said Flynn. "And given that Daphne is…well…"

Daphne took advantage her father's pause by reiterating her request for storytelling. "Daddy, please start," Daphne pleaded again.

"Oh, all right," said Flynn, deciding to settle this matter squarely. "How 'bout instead I tell you the story of a heroic exploit I performed a long time ago…right here in this town?"

It was at this very moment that Rapunzel was starting to show some pretty serious concern about Flynn's stories. "Flynn," she asked her husband, "Does it involve telling your life stories that mostly involve your horrific life experiences?"

Flynn conveyed a very frank answer to Rapunzel, seeing that her sixth sense could penetrate his thin veil of feigning innocence. Pascal shot a long glance at Flynn, and Flynn could tell that Pascal's gaze was penetrating him. "Yeah," Flynn answered quickly.

"Little Daphne is only five years old!" cried Rapunzel in protest. "We simply can't have her listen to such nightmarish stories that occurred in your lifetime. Don't you remember? They gave her the creeps just after you passed on your story about having your encounter with the toxic potion…and describing the horrific effects of that potion on its victims!"

Being an easily scared, sensitive, little girl, Daphne started retreating to her mother. Flynn knew better than to interrupt his wife, much less ignore her pretty legit concerns about their five-year-old daughter listening to such stories at her age.

"Tone down the details, at the very least," Rapunzel instructed her husband. Since she knew that Flynn seemed to have a tendency to spare no details when it came to his own style of storytelling, and with five-year-old Daphne present, there was quite a legit concern of giving rise of many nightmares that Flynn knew throughout his life.

Flynn nodded in agreement. "All right, Rapunzel. If I do tell a story like that, I'll give you my word that I'll tone down on the gritty little details."

"You'd better, 'cause if you break that promise, I'll hit you with my frying pan." Rapunzel warned Flynn rather sarcastically.

"Ouch," replied Flynn, wincing. He certainly didn't look forward to being hit by Rapunzel's frying pan…just like what she did when they first met. That was a hell of a first encounter. But it was his way of returning Rapunzel's sarcasm. He knew Rapunzel wouldn't do something like that, but then again, you never know.

He sat back on the couch. Daphne jumped off her mother's lap and onto her father's.

Rapunzel started looking up from her sketching, keeping both eyes on the two. Pascal relaxed his gaze, as well his own chameleon body.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Despite the fact that I'm a retired fanfiction writer, the idea to write this fanfic work of literature sprung up from my mind after I first watched Disney's elegant yet tasteful Tangled film. I also watched the film The Hurt Locker, which involved U.S. Army specialist disarm bombs during the Second Persian Gulf War in Iraq, and I had the idea having Flynn rider disarm a bomb; only this time, it's a device that threatens to spread plague across Corona's Capital City.

I began this story about three months ago, but I was so caught up with schoolwork that a short story with a handful of chapters that would normally take a few weeks to finish began to take a few months. Almost every aspect of the story had to be thought out thoroughly as it could, the mechanical aspects of the plague device had to be thought out, and the flow of the story had to be smooth. I think the story could use a little more improvement, but the editing should make it easier for you readers out there to read and comprehend.

As a final note, this story is sort of a continuation of my previous Tangled fanfic, A Dangerous Treasure. Much of the time this story acts as a stand-alone to the previous fanfic, but if you have the time, I recommend you look into reading that fanfic, simply because there may be some aspects in this story that have a connection to Dangerous Treasure (e.g. Rapunzel's mention of the "toxic potion" was derived from A Dangerous Treasure). It's a very short two-act fanfic work that takes place between the Tangled film, and it shouldn't take a whole lot of time to read through.