Tangled - l.s

Chapter 26

Stuck in his own head, Harry laid flat on his back on his bead, staring up at his ceiling, tears falling down his face. He didn't know anything anymore and it was driving him insane.

He'd always loved his mother and trusted her above all else. She was reliable and loving, she cared about him when no one else would and he never needed anyone else. But then he grew up and he needed to know what was outside just as much as he needed his mother, so he betrayed her and escaped. Then he found someone whom he started to trust as well, maybe even more than his mother. Louis. He loved Louis, and he was nearly convinced Louis loved him back. But then... he stole the crown from him and left him on the shore to be kidnapped, just like his mother said would happen. That should've been enough to make him see the truth, but it only made him more confused.

      
        
              
Louis left him, and his mother came back... so why did he want Louis back, and not his mother? Why did he still have to feel this way, and why did it have to hurt so much? Even his new handkerchief, beautiful and soft, was painful to see and feel.

Nevertheless, he held it up and stared at its golden sun, trying to forget all else. But then something just behind the cloth, out of focus, caught his eye.

He lowered the handkerchief and sat up, staring more intently at the ceiling. He'd seen those paintings a million times before, he'd painted them himself when he was young, but now there was a new sight to behold... He gasped.

The sun.

The kingdom's emblem was depicted on his ceiling, put there by himself. How... How did he put it there? How did he not notice he made that design?

And there were more, hundreds more, all over his walls, hidden among his other drawings, incorporated into the other designs and repeated a million times over.

Harry stood and moved to the center of his bedroom, spinning in a circle as his balance was disrupted by this epiphany. That sun was with him his entire life, it had been with him since before he could remember. Where did it come from...?

Harry sucked in a breath as his earliest repressed memory hit him like a ton of bricks, forcing him back to the beginning of his life.

Back then, he was small, inside a soft, confined space. There was something above him, something round and bright and spinning, with the same sun in the center of it. Then his gaze shifted to the side and showed a man and a woman, who looked like the royals depicted in the mural back in the kingdom... the king and queen.

What was happening? He didn't know anything- He was so confused-

He fell over backwards, slamming into the vanity as he was dragged back to the present reality, coming down off the high that came with the realization of who he was and what he wanted. And what she did to him...

"Harry? Harry, what's going on up there?"

Yolanda was calling him from the stairs, having expected him to have come down for dinner by then.

Harry slowly left his room, standing at the top of the stairs. "I'm the lost prince..." he mumbled.

"Harry, speak up, you know how I feel about the mumbling."

"I am the lost prince," he said clearer and louder, staring her down. "Aren't I?"

His 'mother' scoffed. "Harry, listen to yourself. Why would you ask such a ridiculous question?"

"Because it makes sense! It finally makes sense! You- you stole me from my family when I was a baby and you kept me away from everything and everyone, you hid me away for yourself! It was all you!"

"Everything I did was to protect you, Harry, I've always said that-"

He pushed her out of the way and paced down the steps, rage brewing. "I spent my entire life hiding from the people who would use me for my power, hurt me for it, when you've been doing that my entire life! I've been cultivated to be a tool for you! I should have been hiding... from you."

"Harry!"

"I'm getting out of this tower," he said firmly, stepping even further away from her.

"Where will you go? Hmmm? He won't be there waiting for you."

Harry faltered. "Well- no, but... if I go back to the kingdom, I- I can find him if I try, maybe someone else will know where he is... it doesn't matter, I'm getting away from you and I'll find him somehow."

      
        
              
Yolanda snorted. "No, no you won't."

Harry's eyes widened. "What happened to him? What did you do?!"

She smiled. "That criminal is to be hanged for his crimes."

"No..." He stumbled backwards, his equilibrium seriously off-kilter.

"Now, now. Listen to me. Everything is as it should be." Yolanda moved towards him, almost reaching out for a hug.

"No!" He grabbed her wrists and wrenched them away from him, monitoring his strength carefully so that he wasn't really hurting her, but she would feel some pain. "You were wrong about the world, you are wrong about Louis, and you were wrong about me! You've always put me down but I deserve so much better, and I will never let you use me again!" He let go of her, shoving her away, and walked over to the window.

Yolanda growled, rubbing her wrists. "You want me to be the bad guy? Fine. Now I'm the bad guy."

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