𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚜 - 𝙵𝚕𝚢𝚗𝚗 𝚁𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛 x 𝙵𝚎𝚖! 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

↣ 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟷𝟶 - 𝙷𝚎𝚛 𝙷𝚊𝚒𝚛 𝙶𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚜 ↢

Water starts rushing in and we run up the cave only to realize it's a dead end. It hits our feet when Flynn dives into it, to try and find an exit. I take one of my arrows and try to break something, anything in the stone wall out of desperation. Flynn comes up for air, and once he submerges, Rapunzel starts doing the same as I am, except with the handle of the frying pan.

Flynn emerges once again, and rams himself into the wall. He then climbs up the other side across from him and tries to move a stone, only for him to cut his palm open with a sound of pain. He dives under again, as I stopped hitting the wall realizing it was pointless. Rapunzel kept trying, but she was becoming exhausted. Flynn emerges for the last time.

F: "It's no use. I can't see anything."

Rapunzel takes a big gasp of the limited air and dives under. Only until, Flynn pulls her back up.

F: "Hey, there's no point. It's pitch black down there."

Y: "Thanks for trying though."

I said it so softly that they almost didn't hear it. I couldn't believe this is how my story will end. We all back up against the wall with Flynn to my left and Rapunzel to my right. Rapunzel is in more despair than I am and speaks into the enclosed cave with limited air.

R: "This is all my fault."

Flynn takes a deep breath in beside me. I quietly grab and hold his hand under the water. He looks at me with confusion and sadness while I offer a sad smile and squeeze his hand. He smiles back and returns a light squeeze. Rapunzel touches the bottom of her palm to her forehead in shame and guilt.

R: "She was right. I never should have done this."

Flynn hugs himself to try and rid the cold water that seemed to be seaping into his bones, as it rapidly rose higher and higher. All I could do was look into the water in front of me and face death in front of me. I thought of the happier times. I thought of meeting Flynn, or Eugene, for the first time. I thought of the day we ran out of the orphanage to live a life of crime. I thought of the day Flynn stole my crossbow for me. I thought of the days I would need to treat Flynn's wounds because he would always do the more dangerous parts of the mission. I thought of earlier this morning when we stole the lost princess' crown. I thought of earlier when we met Rapunzel and ran off on an adventure with her against our will. But, after everything, we ended here. A dead end.

R: "I'm so... I'm so sorry."

Rapunzel sobs silently and covers her eye. She turns away from us to avoid seeing our faces as if we would look at her like an angry parent. Flynn and I look at her and then each other. I look back to her and wrap my arm around her shoulders. I pull her into my side in an attempt to comfort her, while Flynn takes a deep breath.

F: "Eugene."

Rapunzel takes her hand off her face and turns to look at him as do I. He gives a soft smile at us and I give one back. I'm proud he's finally told someone else his real name.

R: "What?"

F: "My real name is Eugene Fitzherbert. Someone else might as well know."

Once he says the last part, he looks at me and smiles. I give him a proud one like a mother would give her child after graduating middle school.

R: "I have magic hair that glows when I sing."

F: "What?"

Y: "I knew it had something to do with the hair."

The water rises to our throats as Rapunzel experiences what can only be described as a revelation.

R: "I have magic hair that glows when I sing!"

The water rises so much that we float to the top of the cave. I grab onto Flynn as he and Rapunzel grab onto me. With her last few breaths, Rapunzel quickly sings a song while Flynn and I take ours.

R: "Flower gleam and glow
      Let your power shine."

As the water fills to the top all I know is darkness and soon to be death. I can still feel my arm hooked around Flynn's. A soft yellow glow slowly gets brighter and brighter until it lights the entire cave. Flynn and I stare in shock and he screams underwater, but he quickly closes his mouth and covers it with his hand to avoid losing his breath. As we look down to see where the hair was heading, it was getting sucked into a hole in the rocks. All three of us look at each other before swimming down to the small hole and quickly start ripping the rocks apart. As we tear the rocks away from each other, Rapunzel's glowing hair starts losing its light, leaving us in darkness. Eventually, before we drowned, we were able to push the rocks away and out we spewed into a river somewhere in the forest.

We swim to the riverbank and lay down on the grass. We cough spit and gasp to rid our lungs of the water and receive more air. Rapunzel lets out a breathless sigh.

R: "We made it."

Flynn looks up in shock with the whites of his eyes looking like saucers.

F: "Her hair glows."

Y: "We saw the same thing."

R: "We're alive. I'm alive!"

Rapunzel gets up and runs off to the side to wring her hair dry. I'm struggling to breath still. I do not know how this girl can move around so much.

Y: "Rapunzel we are not, hold on."

F: "I didn't see that coming."

R: "Eugene?"

Y: "I knew it was something to do with the hair."

R: "Y/n?"

F: "The hair actually glows."

Y: "That's not normal."

F: "Why does her hair glow?!"

Y: "I don't know!"

R: "Guys!"

Y and F: "What?!"

R: "It doesn't just glow."

Y: "What other secrets are you keeping from us, blondie?"

F: "Why is he smiling at me?"

I look at Flynn and see Pascal smiling smugly at both of us. I don't know if I like where this is going considering where we ended up last time, in a cave with us almost dying. But, I didn't really have a choice.

We have already come so far, so why stop now?

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