"People come for you in life. My mother said that," Rapunzel tried to reason. "You even said that."
"Yes," Cinderella admitted. "In Troyale and in Naxos, people came, because without meaning to, even through no fault of our own, we had enemies. Why did something come for us in the kingdom of Hansel and Gretel? We had no enemies there."
Breath trembling past her lips, Rapunzel did not respond, and Cinderella knew it was because she could not deny such logic, even if she desperately wanted Rapunzel to contradict.
"You feel as if someone is trying to change back your destiny, that is what you said," Cinderella reminded her, and watched tears press against Rapunzel's eyes. "I did something, Rapunzel, when I left my kingdom. I changed something somehow. I can feel it. You can feel it. Even the seasons are wrong. It is as if I angered fate, as if it wants to undo us."
"Do not say that!" Rapunzel sat suddenly taller, her hands on Cinderella's knees lightly connecting them. "I do not care, Cinderella, what fate wants. I am glad you broke through barriers to get to Naxos. I am glad you found my tower. I am glad you had such an unusual gift to get me down. And I am glad that I came with you. The life that was headed for me, it would never have made me happy."
"Are you happy now?" Cinderella countered.
"Yes." The simple statement was heart-wrenchingly sincere, and Cinderella dropped her gaze from the honesty in Rapunzel's eyes. "Is that really so hard for you to believe?"
"Yes!" Cinderella shot back, turning quickly away, but not quickly enough. Feeling tears trailing down her cheeks, she was powerless to stop or conceal them.
"Well, I am," Rapunzel replied. "So, we live in a cabin with little thieves, one whose bottom is out of his pants more than it is in them, and one so handsy you would think it is girls' virtue he specializes in stealing, but at least I am free to leave whenever I please. Perhaps Tater and Chauncy snore so loudly they make my eardrums vibrate, but it is better than the constant silence of always being alone. And, perhaps, I would be living in a castle right now with servants and wealth..."
Reminded of all she had stolen from Rapunzel, Cinderella wanted desperately to escape, but Rapunzel's arm was just as desperate against her knees as it pinned her firmly in place, and the hand on her chin was determined as it pulled her around until her eyes locked on Rapunzel's and the truth was all she could see.
"But I would rather be here, with you, and die tomorrow than live a thousand years anywhere else."
"Do not say that." The tears unleashed in a torrent down Cinderella's face. "You may just get it."
Thumb moving to catch the falling drops, Rapunzel looked so lovingly at her, Cinderella was certain she would shatter beneath the gaze.
"I will take my chances," Rapunzel whispered, and it felt too much to bear.
She did not want to hear such truths. She did not want Rapunzel to risk anything to be with her. Yet, it was everything Cinderella was willing to risk for the way Rapunzel looked at her, for the way she saw things within her no one else could see, for the feel of Rapunzel's skin against her fingertips as she raised them to a pale cheek and watched Rapunzel's eyes close at her touch.
Back in Troyale, every time she had gone to fetch her family's bread, Cinderella would listen to the bakerwoman rant her crazed poetry - It is my lot in this life to be covered in flour. My lot is to feed as I starve. - and decided then, if the bakerwoman could accept her lot, she too could accept her place in the world.
She never had, though, truly accepted it. She had run from it, and, now, it was coming after her, coming after them both. All because she wanted more than what was given to her.
"Do you not miss your kingdom?" she questioned gently. "Your mother?"
"Of course," Rapunzel returned, eyes opening into Cinderella's. "Those things were all I knew. It did not make what my mother did to me right."
"Perhaps, she truly was protecting you."
"From what?" Rapunzel argued. "This world is not as she said, for there are many good things in it."
Glancing away from the hypnotizing eyes that somehow always made her believe, Cinderella's gaze locked on the coffin and Snow White's unmoving form inside. "Nor is it that different than she said, for there are many bad things in it."
Directed once more by Rapunzel's hand, Cinderella could only meet her eyes. "You," Rapunzel stated firmly, "are not one of them. Why, I would not be a bit surprised if the sun followed you out here."
"Do not be ridiculous," Cinderella replied, but, as ludicrous as the declaration was, it still lightened her chest.
"I am being nothing of the sort," Rapunzel uttered, standing at once and reaching for Cinderella's hand. "Come now. Let us go for a walk."
Pushing aside the guilt and frustration that held her hostage where she sat, Cinderella took the hand, allowing Rapunzel to pull her up. Watching the sunlight lighten Rapunzel's hair to near-white and brighten her already impossibly bright eyes, she wanted only to keep her safe, to give her everything she deserved, to see her happy.
"I am sorry," Cinderella whispered, "that this is happening. But I am not sorry that I have you."
Eyes filling, even as a smile pulled at the corner of Rapunzel's lips, Rapunzel wrapped both arms around Cinderella's neck, her kiss so sincere when their lips met that Cinderella allowed herself to feel safe inside it, if only for a moment.
"Which way should we go?" she asked, pulling back just enough to look at Rapunzel, watching those soft, perfect lips purse in consideration.
"Well, when the dwarves left they went that way." Rapunzel tilted her head, hair falling away to reveal a smooth expanse of neck. "So, I guess if we want to avoid them, we should go the other way."
"Orrrrr," Cinderella extended the word until Rapunzel's eyes returned to hers. "If the dwarves have left, we could simply return to the cabin."
Smile slowly spreading over her face, Rapunzel needed no words to agree.
· · ·
Midday sun dwindling into afternoon and then into evening, Cinderella and Rapunzel stayed as they were, rising only for the most necessary of reasons and returning to the loft.
Cinderella's body pressing against hers, as desperate as Rapunzel's to be closer, Rapunzel gave no thought to dreams and past destinies and traps that seemed to be set just for them. Cinderella's needy breaths falling over her lips, Cinderella's hands moving over and inside of her, Cinderella's mouth hot and hungry against her skin, Rapunzel knew she could never feel such things with another. From the moment Cinderella's hand met hers over the ledge of the tower window, she felt things she had never imagined feeling, things she could not have imagined if she tried.
Cradled in Cinderella's arms, the steady beat of a heart that did not belong to her, yet somehow did, beneath her ear, she was exactly where she was supposed to be. If only she could make Cinderella believe it.
At some point, she fell asleep, waking later to a raucous cacophony of voices she loosely recognized as an attempt at song. Hand curving around a muscled shoulder, she shook Cinderella gently awake and tossed her a sleeping gown, watching Cinderella pull it on with haste as the singing came near enough for Rapunzel to make out its words -
I stumble in a pub so new
I drink some ale and burp on cue
They give me free food when I do
Oh, what a life
Pulling her own gown over her head as the door opened into the cabin below, Rapunzel looked over the loft's edge with Cinderella, watching the dwarves stagger in, sacks empty, the smell of ale wafting all the way to the loft.
"Hey!" Baby G shouted upon seeing them awake. "They built up a new town in the kingdom. Iz not the town town. Iz another town and iz that way." He pointed off one way, then switched direction. Finally determining he could not find the town if he wanted to at the moment, he shrugged. "Iz outside," he said, clumping toward his bed and falling face down onto it.
"They did not build another town in Aulis," Cinderella informed them, a grin turning her lips. "You walked through to another ki
ngdom."
"Another kingdom?" Big Papa put his hands on his hips in a display of command, but it served only to make him look more drunk, for what he thought was standing upright was actually standing at a precarious angle to one side. "Don't be prepos-et-et... presentor... posteriator." He finally came to the wrong word, and Esteban burst into a fit of laughter beside him.
"Yes," he hiccupped, returning to his laughter and waggling a joyful finger up at Cinderella. "Posteriator. That is exactly what she is. A posteriator."
"Well done, Esteban," Cinderella said approvingly. "Too bad you did not come up with it yourself."
Laughter ceasing abruptly, Esteban's mouth lifted in a furious snarl as he crossed his arms and fell back onto his own posteriator on the floor.
"Was the ale less expensive at the tavern in this new town?" Rapunzel asked.
"How did she know?" Chauncy looked up at her in awe.
Unconcerned with the answer, most of the dwarves stumbled to their beds, falling carelessly into them, and Esteban rocked back, asleep the moment he hit the floor. Looking around, Chauncy decided the floor a good choice as well, and, with a dramatic bow, fell face first onto it, his instant snore vibrating the loose floorboard beneath his nose.
"They are back," Rapunzel whispered with a smile.
"Indeed," Cinderella gave a soft sigh. "All safe. All drunk."
Light laugh drowned out by the snores, Rapunzel watched Cinderella gaze down at the mess of drunken dwarves below. "Better be careful," she warned. "Your affection for them is showing."
"I have affection for only some," Cinderella argued.
"Of course, you do," Rapunzel said. Inhaling the sweet scent of Cinderella's skin, she pressed her lips to one high cheekbone and grabbed the front of Cinderella's sleeping gown to pull her down.
"You know we will never sleep with this racket," Cinderella murmured, allowing herself to be situated back against the blankets.
"Well then, I guess we shall not sleep," Rapunzel whispered, capturing Cinderella's lips once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Crows
Waking to the feel of Rapunzel bolting upright in their makeshift bed, Cinderella was seized by a fear as real and present between them as the emotions had been the night before. Sitting up beside her, she eased closer, hand on Rapunzel's arm gently drawing her attention.
"What is it?" she asked carefully, knowing Rapunzel's eyes, still lost in dream, did not recognize her.
At a sharp snort from the cabin below, Cinderella thought it a miracle they had slept at all.
"There was a woman," Rapunzel began in a frantic whisper. "I did not know her. She was... she was beautiful, but she was... Oh God, she was cruel. She..."
Tear-filled eyes turning her way, they locked on Cinderella's throat, and Rapunzel raised her fingers to the delicate skin, a sob breaking from her chest.
"She did nothing," Cinderella said, wrapping Rapunzel's hand in her own. "I am here. You are here. It is all right."
Gaze still uncertain, Rapunzel turned it beyond the railing. "They are still here," she forced through the breaths falling rapidly from her lips. "Snow White?" she questioned, eyes moving back to Cinderella.
"Let us check," Cinderella returned, a tremor rolling down her back as they moved at once to the ladder.
· · ·
Everything on the rise behind the cabin was the same. Snow White remained as they left her, the glass case protecting her from all that was outside of it, the surrounding trees protecting her from prying eyes.
"No change," Rapunzel uttered, and it might have been relief or disappointment.
"No." Cinderella placed her hand atop Rapunzel's on Snow White's coffin, and Rapunzel turned instantly into her, arms circling Cinderella's waist, head nestling into her neck. Hands spreading across Rapunzel's back, they quaked in time. "You are shaking."
"I am frightened," Rapunzel whispered.
"Of what?" Cinderella queried, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Of losing you."
"You will not lose me," Cinderella said, though she could not make it a promise. Where once she felt as if she had some control over events that happened to her, with Snow White in the glass box and the threat that had come between them, she felt less power to control anything.
"Sometimes," Rapunzel raised her head, eyes gentle and pleading, "I believe you feel as if you should be lost."
Opening her mouth in protest, Cinderella realized protest would be a lie, for there were times she felt as if Rapunzel, if everyone, would be far better off if she had not interfered in their lives.
"Not when you look at me like that," she whispered.
"Then I shall always look at you like this," Rapunzel replied, hands tender, but insistent, on the back of Cinderella's head drawing her into a kiss, the truth of which Cinderella could not deny. For each time Rapunzel's eyes were upon her, each time Rapunzel touched her, Cinderella felt as she had never felt. Wanted. Worthy. Loved.
"Sister, what is the best news with you today?" A voice much too close pulled Cinderella from Rapunzel, and she looked to the surrounding forest.
"What is it?" Rapunzel asked her.
"Oh, if men knew what we know!" another voice said. "Our world descends into chaos and mayhem."
"Cinderella?" Rapunzel breathed.
"Oh, indeed," a third voice chimed in. "If men did but know what we know."
Raising a silencing hand to Rapunzel's lips as the voices tittered in unison, Cinderella stepped away, following the strange laughter to a patch of trees.
"If men knew what we know!" a voice said.
"If men did know," another agreed.
Stepping beneath a large branch, Cinderella spotted them, three crows, each fat with lustrous black feathers, looking haughty and amused with themselves.
"The sleeping beauty will take a lover's kiss to revive her," the one in the middle said. "And the one who awakens her will hence forth be her true love, whom she will stay with forever."
"Oh, if only men knew what we know," the first crow said.
"If only," another responded.
Then, in a flutter of broad wings, the crows flew off, the branch shaking leaves down upon Cinderella as she turned to watch them pass over Rapunzel, who looked to her with understanding. "What did they say?" she asked.
"They said the sleeping beauty needs a lover's kiss to revive her, and the one who wakes her will be her true love forever."
"The sleeping beauty?" Rapunzel questioned.
"A lover's kiss?" Cinderella uttered, eyes going to Snow White, enclosed in glass. "That is it? Snow White needs a suitor?"
"What if it is a trap?" Rapunzel asked, and, with a nod, Cinderella acknowledged it did seem too easy.
"What if it is not?" she still wondered aloud.
"Breakfast," Rapunzel suddenly declared. "First, we need breakfast."
Marching over, she took Cinderella by the arm and tugged her down the slope.
· · ·
When they re-entered the cabin, the dwarves still slept where they had fallen. As Rapunzel moved to the storage bins to find something to eat, Cinderella threw open a shutter and a stream of early-morning light poured in on Esteban's face where he lay prone in the middle of the floor.
"We burp on cue!" Esteban sat up in a solo, as if it was a spotlight, before grabbing his head on a moan and falling back to the floor.
"So we heard last night," Cinderella responded, looking out at the trees, wondering if the crows were friends or foe, if they guided them into hope or into danger.
"Hey, wha'sa big idea?" Esteban wailed as if the light was killing him.
Turning from the window, Cinderella snagged him by his shirt collar, hauling him up from the floor.
"Hey! Hands off, Witch!" Esteban cried, kicking around to fight, before giving another whine and grabbing his head once more.
"Your insults were better drunk and stolen," Cinderella returned, dumping him unceremoniously onto his bed.
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"You are better drunk and stolen," Esteban muttered, falling back against his pillow.
"Come on, Chauncy," Cinderella said, turning him gently to his back and lifting him into her arms.
"What is that?!" Esteban succeeded in waking the rest of the dwarves, who cast angry glares his way and held their aching heads. "You carry him like a baby. Why do you always carry me like a rat?"
"Because you behave like a rat," Cinderella responded, placing Chauncy in his bed and smiling as he reached up to pat her arm before his eyes fell shut.
"Hey." Cinderella felt a tug at her sleeve, and turned to find Baby G looking up from his bed, his eyes glazed, but warm. "We have something to tell you."
"All right," Cinderella said.
"The prince..." Baby G yawned and fell promptly back to sleep.
A jolt of panic going through her, Cinderella looked to Rapunzel, who froze at the announcement, the same fear in her eyes that Cinderella knew must show in her own.
"What prince?" Cinderella prompted, dropping to the edge of Baby G's bed.
"The prince..." Baby G cracked an eye open. "The prince at the pub. You 'member the prince at the pub? 'Member Mo? 'Member the prince?"
"Prince... yeah," Mo said, response half-muffled by his mouth pressing against his pillow.
"What prince?" Cinderella demanded.
"Yes, the prince," Baby G stated with finality and closed his eyes.
"G!" Cinderella clapped her hands in front of his face.
"Shuuuttttt uuuuppp," Tater groaned in his bed.
"Urr," Baby G rumbled, eyes opening in slits. "What?"
"You met a prince at the pub last night," Cinderella reminded him. "What prince? Was his name Salimen or Friedrich?"
"Alluring?" Rapunzel added from across the room, and Baby G shook his head.
"He is the Prince Marrrrvelous... He is a lady's perfectest," Big Papa sat up to sing, before dropping back to the mattress.
"Marvelous?" Cinderella questioned. "Prince Marvelous?"
Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (Black Forest Trilogy) Page 19