Title: Shalott

Author: Avelera
Prompter: whoelseknowsaboutme, for the Tangled Fic Exchange (Round 2) on Tumblr
Summary: We make prisons in our mind. Eugene searches for Rapunzel after she fulfills her promise and vanishes with Gothel. AU
Rating: PG-13 (for themes of suicide)
Word Count: 3,952
Author Note: The original title on the prompt was "Philomela", based on the myth, which is worth looking up. After thinking about it a bit though, I decided to change it to match the original prompt, which was based on the Emilie Autumn song "Shalott". I hope the prompter enjoys this fic, as well as all the readers!

Eugene's life, he realized in a rare moment of self-reflection, was a series of prisons. At a certain point you stop fighting it and just spend your time making sure that this is the last one. That was the point of the heist: one last roll of the dice, one last prison break.

But after a life of prisons you can't stop thinking in them, can't stop expecting them. Because that's all the island was going to be, wasn't it? An isolated place, with his face on every wanted poster, trapped there as thoroughly as if there were bars. At a certain point the prison is in your mind, and no amount of running will free you. Every road leads to another locked door, another tower, another island.

And when you accept the prison there's nothing left to do but wait to die.

But life, as Eugene had learned, doesn't really change as much as we think. We don't magically become different when we escape our prisons, we're not suddenly free. A part of him would always be in the orphanage, and when he closed his eyes he could still feel the cold steel of the bars under his hands, flimsy holding cells, the stone walls of dungeons, the hallway racing in to crush him when the Stabbington brother told him who had taken Rapunzel.

There was always one more prison break, he had thought as he climbed her hair. He had thought that one would be the last. He had been wrong.

And now he stared into the bottom of his ale tankard, the pale yellow fluid of the weak brew so clear that he can stare past to the reflection of his face to the bottom. That day his face had been bathed in the golden glow of her hair, the gut wound knitting beneath her hands, the pain receding with every verse. He had never loved her so much, or hated himself more, than in that moment.

But whether it was from the pain, or the blood loss, or the overload of too much healing all at once, he had blacked out. And when he came to, she was gone, dragged away by her mother, vanished as if she had never existed.

Afterwards he had wondered if there was something he could have done, if he had not been stabbed, if she had let him die, if he could have somehow cut her hair. Perhaps the woman would have lost interest in Rapunzel then, without her magic healing powers.

It had taken him hours to escape the heavy cuff, searching every available corner within the length of the chain before he had found a hair pin tucked in one of the drawers. He had found Pascal by the window, still unconscious, and carried the little guy out with him. They had been searching for her ever since.

We make prisons in our minds.

He could not leave the tower until he found her.

"Rapunzel, it's your birthday. What would you like, dear?"

There was silence within the shadowed corner of the room. Rapunzel's golden head leaned away, facing the wall. Her hair snaked behind her, wove around the room and through the wooden bars, its end trailing into the rest of Gothel's house. She has been staring at the wall for days, pausing only to sleep and tend to her most basic needs. A single panel was the focus of her attention, the sky full of stars that turn into shining lanterns, a sea of boats and golden light. At the center the blackened silhouette of a boat, and two tiny faces leaning together, a lantern between them.

Rapunzel had sketched it all in the first week of their arrival to the new cottage. She had not slept, only dragged the black charcoal in wide swooping arches and tiny scribbled etchings, until the entirety of her two days away from the tower (only two days, Gothel had reminded her, screamed at her while the girl remained mute) was a long mural around her tiny cell at the corner of the cottage.

After that she had simply stopped, staring into nothingness for a month. Would you like some paint, flower? Gothel had whispered across the room to the girl. I can get you paint, even the white kind made from the shells. Would you like that? Why won't you speak? A tremor, a tiny spark of light had flitted across the girl's dulled green eyes. Gothel had seized upon it, babbling promises, racing off into the village to buy any paint she could find. Rapunzel had accepted the gift without a word, without even a smile, and for the next week filled in the colors of that hateful mural until, like a clockwork doll, she had wound down and stopped.

On Rapunzel's side of the cage her hair grew tangled and unkempt, while on Gothel's side it remained smooth and shining as silk. Every day Gothel brushed it and sang, the yellow turning to gold as the healing rays rushed through her, smoothing flesh and removing wrinkles that now appeared after hours instead of days. Rapunzel would not sing. Rapunzel would not move.

I won't struggle or try to escape. Just let me heal him and you and I can be together, forever, just like it was. But the boy had been right, hadn't he? Before the blood loss had forced him unconscious, Gothel had heard him say that Rapunzel would die if she made that bargain. That room had been her grave, and the shadow that followed Gothel listlessly to the hidden cottage was no more Rapunzel than a distant star resembled the Sun.

But what did it matter to her? After eighteen years of raising the girl Rapunzel had become an ungrateful wretch, lying and stealing off with that rogue. Not Gothel's daughter anymore, no, she did not deserve the name. She did not deserve the little gifts and hugs, the hazelnut soup and pink silk for her dresses. She did not deserve Gothel's forehead pressed against the bars as she begged her flower what did she want?

But Rapunzel would not speak, and the tiny faces of the mural, the barbarians and the horse and the handsome rogue glared down at Gothel without pity.

Eventually Gothel bought thread, and a small loom, small enough to fit in pieces through the bars. "Here. You know how to embroider. Tapestries are just paintings with thread. It will keep your hands busy." When Rapunzel would not take the basket and loom, Gothel slipped them through the bars and ran away, back to the village. Back to other people who were kind to the dark-haired young woman all alone in her cottage at the edge of the forest.

Behind her cell door, Rapunzel assembled the loom and began to weave.

It was another stinking tavern in another godforsaken village miles away from the capital. The sort of place where everyone worked the same fields, drank in the same taverns, and was buried in the same communal cemetery. It was the sort of village so small it could be wiped out by a single plague, like his had been eighteen years ago when the sickness had swept the kingdom, almost killing the Queen, and laying waste to every man, woman and child in his home village. In the end, all that had remained was the orphan Eugene, without even distant family to raise him. He had been shipped with dozens of other children in a cramped, dark wagon to the overcrowded orphanages of the capital.

Eugene hated towns like these, but they recognized a stranger when they saw one, and remembered one even a year after she had disappeared down the darkened road, a blonde girl dragged behind.

At first, he had begun to work in circles around the tower, drawing a net around all of Gothel's escape routes. But so far not a word. Pascal chittered mournfully from his hidden place inside Eugene's hood, as if sensing his darkening mood. There had been few jokes between them in the past year, and few pranks. Without Rapunzel, Pascal's smug attitude had melted away, and though he would not admit it, Eugene would not have minded if the occasional prank had remained. He had begun to like Pascal, maybe, a little, even started to talk to him. Even worse, he had begun to understand the frog's body language, a sure sign that the search for Rapunzel had driven him crazy.

"An old woman, and she would have had a blonde girl with her with long hair, like really long hair. She would have needed a cloak or something to cover it up, it goes
to her ankles when it's braided, it's the craziest thing you ever seen," he realized he was babbling and the bartender's eyes were drooping. The tavern was emptying, only a few drunken farm boys and an old woman in the corner remained besides Eugene and the bartender.

"She from the circus or something?" the bartender drawled, placing one tankard out to dry and grabbing another, wiping the rim with measured motions.

"No! Well, yes, kind of. She talks funny sometimes, and she gets excited about little things. She might have been quiet though, the old broad probably had her gagged or something."

"Haven't seen any strange old ladies 'round here, least not new ones with blonde circus girls. I would have remembered that," said the bartender and turned back to his tankards in a manner that left no question that the conversation was over.

Eugene barely stopped himself from slamming a hand on the bar, shouting at the man to turn around and listen to him, damn it! But the anger was old and it had burned away everything inside him so long ago there was nothing left except exhaustion, and determination, and maybe just a bit of madness.

"Ain't heard nothin' about any old ladies," a voice croaked at his elbow. Eugene whipped around, almost falling from his bar stool. Then he looked down at a woman so old and wrinkly it look like a puff of air would blow her away. She squinted at him through glasses as thick as the bottom of his tankard that magnified her eyes until they ate half her face. She stared at him owlishly, not that there was any other way she could look, "But when you get to my age no one looks old to you."

Eugene found himself wondering how she could see anyone at all with those glasses, but bit his tongue rather than voice the thought aloud. "But you saw them? A woman and the girl with the yellow hair?"

"I saw somethin' 'bout three seasons ago. Woman barged into my house with a knife. No respect these days, telling me I'd give her food or she do somethin' awful to me. And I tol' her, dearie you put that down, all you had to do was ask. Now she calmed right down and I brought out the vegetable stew I had made for myself and my no-good grandsons. See they didn't want any even though it's the family recipe passed down to me from my mum, down from her mum, and long before that. Y'see it's made with…"

"Granny, you were saying about the woman?" Eugene said.

"Oh she was rude! But she calmed right down when I got out the stew and that's when I saw that little girl crouched in the shadows behind her, quiet as a mouse and thin as beanstalk. Didn't say a word the whole night, and then the two left as soon as I fed 'em."

"But the girl, did she have blonde hair? What about green eyes, could you see her eyes?"

"No I don't remember nothin' about her eyes, sorry boy but it's the truth. But at some point she let her hood slip and I remember clear as day, the most beautiful golden hair you ever saw. As straight and shiny as corn silk, let me tell you."

"And then what?" Eugene urged.

"Then they left, right then in the middle of the night," said the old woman.

"But where did they go? Please," he said, reaching forward and grasping the old woman by the shoulders, "You have to tell me."

"Shouldn't it be obvious, boy? Ain't no other road but the one you came in on, and it only goes in two directions. Now don't you go rushin' off now. I did you a good turn its now you did me one. Tommy, there's a good chap, now don't you go givin' me the evil eye. I know you's not closed yet. I want your largest flagon of beer, and the boy here is payin'," she said, giving a sly glance at Eugene, "Information isn't free boy, and an old lady has to get her fun somewhere."

The trail was warm again. Not every village knew them, they had traveled at night and kept away from crowded places. But some knew the dark-haired woman and the quiet girl who followed her like a ghost.

He was gaining on them.

"Rapunzel, darling, Rapunzel. Say something won't you, for mummy? Sing for me like you used to? Are you even there, anymore Rapunzel? Are you even there?"

This time Gothel did not let the thread run out. Still Rapunzel did not speak, but she no longer sat motionless, unsettling and corpse-like within her cell. Oftentimes Gothel wondered if she should remove the door and let the girl walk free, if maybe that would bring it all back the way it was. But then another wrinkle would appear, only hours after the last song and the thought was banished.

Rapunzel was weaving something different than the mural this time and, though Gothel did not study it too closely, she saw Rapunzel's favorite subject, her only subject, the girl with the golden hair that trailed as the border of the tapestry. At the beginning an infant, cradled in arms with two green eyes peaking from the swaddling, a tiny tuft of blonde hair atop her head. Gothel did not look too closely at the figures holding the baby. She knew, and Rapunzel knew, who they were. A foot down the length the tower, a tiny child gazing wistfully from the window at lanterns in the sky.

Rapunzel was telling her story, the only one she knew.

Gothel looked away.

It took another month…

It took another month…

…but eventually he found it.

…but finally Rapunzel finished the tapestry. Gothel found her asleep, wrapped inside it as if it were her hair, as if she could wrap herself in her own life, the two days outside the tower held close to her heart. Only the end lay within Gothel's grasp without disturbing Rapunzel's slumber and she gently tugged it through the bars to stare at the final panels.

There was Gothel, and there was Rapunzel in the tower, the rogue wrapped in her embrace, the her hair that made the scrollwork at the bottom of the tapestry curled around his unconscious form as she healed the wound from Gothel's knife. Her tears had been picked out in vivid blue, but there was no other color in the panel but for the hair and her tears. The rest was washed out, woven all in grays and whites. There was no black. There would not have been enough if there had been. There was no scene of their harried flight, no villages drawn against the evening.

The last panel held only blackness, and a girl in the center, her hair a chain that bound her to the scrollwork, to her life.

It was frayed and broken.

Gothel looked down at Rapunzel's tiny, curled form, wrapped in the burial shroud of her own making, and screamed.

The villagers had never seen the girl with the blonde hair, but they knew the young woman with black hair who had just taken residence at the old abandoned cottage at the edge of the forest. Of course they did, and wasn't she a looker? Young as spring, and hadn't aged a day since she arrived. Nothin' else could have brought a young man like Eugene to the edge of nowhere, except tracking down the fine lady who got away. He had nodded and smiled humorlessly to himself, fingering the knife at his hip. Pascal made no protest when Eugene explained his plan, and as far as he was concerned that was tacit approval.

But there was no young woman with black hair in the cottage when Eugene banged his fist against the door, dagger at ready. Instead an old woman appeared, so old as to make the woman in the earlier village appear fresh and youthful. Eugene did not recognize her, but followed her as she beckoned him wordlessly into the cottage. The few windows provided a dim light, but the corner was shadowed and covered by a thick curtain.

"I made a terrible mistake," the old woman's voice rattled like dry leaves in the wind. But Eugene was hardly listening to her as he stepped closer to the darkened corner and the tiny form curled up in the center, wrapped in some sort of blanket. His movements were slow, but Pascal would not be held back and skittered down his leg to figure's side in the few seconds before Eugene had crossed the room. "She needed sunshine and I kept her to myself, locked in… locked in…" the voice grew fainter.

"A cage," Eugene breathed as he drew closer, placing a hand on the wooden bars. Her hair snaked once, twice, around the room too small to contain it. "What have you done?"

"I didn't know, I should have known. She was my flower, my little girl, I should have…"

Pascal reached her side, crawling to her shoulder and into the crook of her neck, nuzzling against her face like a cat. And froze.

Her head fell lifelessly to the side.

No, no, no this isn't real, not after all this time, not after we finally found her!

Eugene whipped around, seizing the old woman by the shoulders, "What have you done?"

"I'm so sorry," the old woman croaked, and Eugene jumped back as wrinkles snaked across her face like a spider web of cracks, her skin sagging against her skull as if it was melting away. Her hair was completely white, and he realized with dawning horror that it was falling to dust at the end. The decay crept up her hair, dissolving it from the outside in as if she were turning to salt an inch at a time. "I'm so…"

Eugene looked away, bringing his hand to his mouth convulsively as her flesh crumbled to powder, revealing polished bone that cracked and flaked away in seconds. When he looked back there was nothing left of the woman but dust.

Pascal chirruped from behind him and Eugene wrenched his eyes away from the empty clothes, the sickness not leaving his stomach as he stared at Rapunzel's tiny vulnerable, form curled up in the cell. The reality of the situation hovered about his brain, without really penetrating. An old woman crumbling to powder was somehow easier to accept than Rapunzel's still form, the delicate skin of her eyelids drawn closed.

The walls of her cage were simply made, but effective. The bars stretched from floor to ceiling in a corner of the cottage. A velvet curtain could be drawn around it, hiding the construction from sight. Eugene ripped it back, light from the door flooding the cell and he froze, staring at the colors that bloomed across the wall. His own face stared back at him, and the pub thugs, Max and Pascal. The fresco was framed at both sides by the tower, and at the center was emblazoned the sun of the center square, as well as the dancing citizens of the capital. He followed the story of the day across to the lanterns, the boats, and their tiny silhouettes. He hadn't kissed her that night. He had been too distracted by the Stabbingtons and that stupid crown. Why hadn't he kissed her?

His throat wasn't working and something was tickling his face. He scraped the back of his hand across his eyes, unable to register the dampness. He had to get her out of there, into the sunlight. It didn't make any sense, but she shouldn't be in a cage. She shouldn't be…

His fist slammed into the bars and splinters flew, the rough wood slicing across his knuckles. Pascal jumped back as the wood snapped, then dashed forward, pointing with his tail at the padlock over the door. The pain cleared Eugene's head and he pulled the lock picks from his belt. It was a simple padlock; so simple even Blondie should have been able to open it.

But she said she wouldn't try to escape. That was her deal, her life for yours.

He gritted his teeth and the lock opened with a snap. He threw it against the wall, pushing open the door and crouching at Rapunzel's side, Pascal perched his shoulder. There was something embroidered on the blanket (shroud, his mind insisted, but he pushed the thought away ruthlessly), but he ignored it, pulling her
into his arms. She weighed nothing and her head lolled back as he moved her, lips parted in death as if waiting for a kiss. He pulled her hair through the bars and lifted her out of the cell and into the sunlight.

We can lie to ourselves in a cell, in the shadows. We can tell ourselves all sorts of stories, that we will be free someday, that this will be the last prison, that the girl is still alive. But lies melt away in the sun.

Eugene fell to his knees as the first choked cry tore through him and he pulled her frail, cold body against him, rocking forward and back as he sobbed into the nape of her neck.

She wove her life, and she knew as she did so that she wove her death. Inside her heart beat in her chest like a baby bird trying to fly. Her heart wanted her to live.

It had been a good life, a short life, but a good one. She had Pascal, and for a little while she had Max, and the Sun, and the World, and Eugene. She had danced, climbed trees, splashed in the river and seen the lanterns. She had almost been kissed. She had fulfilled her dream and found a new one.

She didn't regret a single moment.

Really.

She was ready to die.

It's just… it would have been nice to see him one more time. And as she drifted, she could almost hear him calling her.

Some things die in the sunlight. Lies and stories and prisons of the mind.

Others live. Joy and hope and flowers.

As Eugene cried he did not see the point of light flicker like a drop of sunshine, and spread. But he did feel, he felt her skin grow warm, and his own tingle as the magic of the sun worked its way through him. He felt her stir, her eyelashes fluttering against his skin like butterflies as she looked up. And he definitely felt it when she kissed him.