From Your Tower ➛ OUAT

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

As Peter lowers them to the ground, her feet touching the grass gave her somewhat of a clarity. The entire land gave her a sense of déjà vu, though she knew it not possible she ever been here before, for she has been trapped in her tower for her whole life.

"Neverland." She whispers, testing out the word on her lips. How could something sound so foreign yet so familiar at the same time?

"This is where dreams are made." Rapunzel looks over at Peter, cocking her head to the side and looking at him. He was a mystery to her, she wondered how he had came to be on this Neverland. He looked around her age, yet he had a sense to him that made her want to bow down to him. Though with the power he seemed to possess, he did not seem to use it for trouble making.

"What?" Peter laughs at her.

"Nothing." She feels heat rise to her cheeks. Was that- blushing? Rapunzel only read about that in books, she never had blushed before. It must have been because she never was very close to a boy before.

"Would you like a tour?" He asks her.

"Okay." She says quietly, and he begins to walk and she quickly follows after him, letting her hair drag behind her on the floor. "How big is this place?"

"It's an Island." He explains to her.

"Do other people live here?"

"A few." Peter jumps to the other side of a tiny river and holds his hand out for her to help her to the other side. She grabs it and jumps to the other side. "My Lost Boys."

"Lost... Boys?"

"You'll see."

"Okay." She whispers, keeping a steady pace alongside him. "How did you end up on this place?"

He didn't answer her, only kept on walking. Though she did not know much about people, she knew when someone did not answer a question it meant they did not want it to be answered. The girls in the stories would always press on, making the person answer. They usually get the answer they had originally wanted, but this... Peter Pan had just saved her from killing herself. He deserved to not be pressed on something he obviously did not want to be questioned on.

"Here we are."

When Rapunzel looks up, she can't stop her eyebrows raising in surprise. There is a camp fire, and around it is around 6 boys running around it and looking as if they are having the best time of their lives. Though there is no music, they are dancing to the beat of their own drum.

"Am I going deaf?" She asks.

"What do you mean?"

"There's no music."

Peter laughs. It was a nice sound, melodic, she noted. "They hear the music."

Rapunzel stays quiet for a minute, trying as hard as she can to hear music. She wasn't sure what she would have to do to actually hear the music, but whatever she was doing wasn't how to do it.

"Did you bring them here?" She asks him, looking at the boys curiously. All of them look like they are having so much fun, dancing around like there is not a care in the world. She suddenly wished she would be able to hear the music so she could feel like that.

"I did." He smiles sideways at her. "These boys are here because they have no one else. They are, as the name implies, lost. I aim to give them a home."

She had to hide her surprised look and whispers, "That is very kind of you."

He does not answer for a while, so she talks once again. "Why are there no lost girls?"

"Girls are much too clever." Peter Pan explains, then quickly adds: "Usually."

She got the reference to herself in his words, though she was sure he was not trying to hurt her intentionally. He just does not know anything about her, and she intended to keep it that way. It is not smart to just tell him her whole life story right away. She trusted him, true, but something inside her told her not to.

The feeling in her chest came back. She rubbed at it which only made it worse. "Excuse me," She quietly said and walked away from the campfire and into the dark woods. It did not scare her, Neverland did not scare her.

Behind a tree she let out everything from her stomach to the woodsy floor. She felt bad for puking on the Neverland floor, but she had no choice. Rapunzel felt a rush of depression wave over her once again, and she walked away from the disgusting she had just threw up, and found a tree around a hundred feet away.

She felt a need to be high up, so she hoisted herself up to the highest point of the tree and sat there. The tree seemed to be the tallest out of the lot of them, and the heights eased away a lot of the hurt.

Rapunzel did not understand the loneliness that had registered itself in her chest. Why, even though she was around many people, did it come back? It came back worse, almost as if it was mad at her for abandoning it.

So you don't think you need me anymore just because you found some boy that brings you to a new land and new people? The nagging voice whispered into her ears. I'm never going to leave you.

The voice sounded awfully like her mother's.

"You okay?" She looks down to Peter at the bottom of the tall tree.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

He sighs in relief. "Good. I'm quite afraid of heights."

"But you fly." Rapunzel says confused. She thought it would be sensible to go to the floor with him, but she still enjoyed the clarity the great height had given her.

"That's different." Peter shrugs. "Flying is when you're weightless. When you fly you just... let go of everything. All thoughts, all fears. But when you are just sitting at a tall height, you are just to sit there and think of all the things that you usually push away. People are mostly not afraid of the jump but of the fall."

She sensed a metaphor in the words.

"Don't you just need somewhere to think though?"

"Sure. But I can do that on floor level too." He grins at her, and she laughs at him.

Rapunzel decided to get down, so she begins to climb down. She stepped on the first branch, and heard a crack under her foot. The branch disappeared from under her foot, and suddenly she was flying to the ground. She felt the familiar to the situation; yet, this time she did not welcome death.

Those same arms were around her. She felt relieved, that once again she is still alive. She stands up out of his arms and dusts herself off. "You seem to catch me a lot, Mr. Pan."

"And you seem to fall a lot, Ms. Rapunzel."

The words feared her. She did fall a lot, it seemed. It scared her that one day when she would fall, Peter Pan would not be there to catch her.