The Protagonists

Chapter Twenty-Two - Joel

The boy and the girl, Joel Potter and Maya Rhodes, stood in the center of the Rapunzel tale, a fountain to their left and the stairs leading up to a castle on their right. Loads of people passed by them, ignoring the two, strange people standing in the center of their land. Maya shook her head like a child shaking water out of its ear. "I haven't travelled in a full year," she told Joel, continuing to "rid the water". "I've completely forgotten about the ear-popping thing."

Joel nodded, laughing slightly at Maya's childish attitude, despite her being locked in a hut for such a long time. "So where exactly are we heading to?" Joel asked, looking around the village they were standing in.

"Flynn and my meeting place," Maya told him, grabbing his hand. She led him through the village-people and towards the castle; instead of turning right to reach the staircase, however, they took an abrupt left and walked down towards to what seemed like, to Joel, the castle's "jail"-metal bars were placed at the entryway instead of a simple door and tally-marks were engraved into the stone wall, just like the prisoners would do the count the days. "It's not used anymore," Maya reassured him, squeezing in through the metal bars.

"Hey, Maya?" Joel asked, sucking his breath in and pressing in to fit through the metal bars as well. "You know how you said that the characters could fade away if Iris doesn't check the tales regularly?" She nodded, looking at Joel confusingly. "Well, what if Flynn faded away?"

Maya froze, looking down at her cold, bare feet. "I didn't think about that," she said quietly, ashamed of how idiotic she made herself seem to Joel. "I didn't think about that at all!"

"I-I'm sure he's fine," Joel reassured, guilty that he had brought up the quite-sensitive topic. "I mean come on, he's Flynn Rider for goodness' sake-he's the toughest prince! How many times did he ride away from the goons?" Maya smirked halfheartedly at his use of the word "goons". "Exactly." Joel sighed in relief, as his small, meager plan to somehow cheer Maya up had worked.

"Thanks, Joel," Maya said, flipping on one of the lanterns on the wall. "I really need that. You are correct though-I'm sure Flynn is perfectly fine. Like you said, he is the Flynn Rider, the best of the best."

"It's not like Iris would do anything to him either," Joel chimed in, also picking up a lantern from the stone wall. "He is her boyfriend, after all." Maya froze in her steps, swiftly turning to face Joel. Her look was no longer a toothy grin or twinkling eyes; it was rather a solemn look, topped off with a dejected frown. "How long have they been together?" Maya questioned, surprising both Joel and herself with how jealous she was of the two.

Joel shrugged, wanting to change the topic to avoid an outburst from Maya. They walked in complete silence after that-the only sounds detectable were water gradually dripping down from the aged, stone walls and their own, careful footsteps against the paved floor. Maya, walking a few yards ahead of Joel, seemingly became more and more dispirited and crestfallen as they passed by the primitive cells. "If this was your meeting place," Joel questioned to break the awkward, unnecessarily-long silence, "how do you know that Flynn will be here? How will he know to meet us down here at this time?"

Maya did not turn to face Joel when she spoke, "He always knew when I arrived."

Joel refrained from asking any other questions-Maya seemed to know what she was speaking about, so he didn't bother questioning her any longer. The two had reached the end of the dungeon at last when Maya and Joel both came to the conclusion that Flynn was not planning on meeting up with them. Maya, completely dejected and upset, faced Joel with a somber look. "We have two options here," she suggested, running her fingers through her hair. "We could go and save ourselves, moving somewhere else on Earth and maybe even legally changing our names if we're desperate. Or," she sighed, knowing what the truly-better option was, "we could go look for the others by ourselves, which would put us at risk, since we're both despised by Iris."