Tangled 2 - My Story (I am Rapunzel and Eugene's Daughter)

18 Minutes

Summary of story:  9 Year Old Rapunzel makes a mistake that spirals out of control. 

It had been raining for three whole weeks, a steady, dripping haze that sapped the joy and happiness out of everything and everyone. Even with the shutters of the tower opened, it was still very dark in the tower. Rapunzel was sleeping later and taking more naps. Despite this, however, she still didn't have any extra energy for anything, and she just moped around the tower. Not even painting with bright colours helped Rapunzel to feel better (not that she could, as she had run out of paints to paint with, and Gothel couldn't go out for more as it was wet and raining).  It was cold. It was supposed to be spring, but it felt like the world was crying all of the time. Rapunzel did too, it was all she felt like doing to keep herself occupied. 

Gothel was just so sick and tired of all of this stupid rain. It never seemed to stop and clear up. Sure, it rained a lot during springtime, but this was just getting ridiculous. She would almost welcome a thunderstorm so that all of the rain would dump at once. But then she remembered the nightmare of the thunderstorm from a few years ago and how scared Rapunzel had been. They had wrapped the hair around themselves to keep themselves warm and they had sung the healing song. The thunderstorm had hung over the tower, with huge claps of thunder echoing around the canyon and the lightning reflecting blindingly around the canyon following the thunderclaps.    

Gothel was beginning to worry about Rapunzel. Rapunzel was moping about the tower and nothing brought her joy anymore. Oddly, she missed the bright, bubbly girl that drove her crazy, bouncing all over the tower. 

Today, she would try something different to make Rapunzel happy. She was going to brew a new and fresh batch of vegetable stew. Gothel hoped that it would dry out soon as they were running low on food supplies. Making this stew would use the last of the dried parsley, the last of the carrots, and the last of the parsnips. She had gone out close to the end of the last week, to the vegetable patch, but it had been very muddy and it had taken a long time to gather the vegetables. 

Climbing Rapunzel's hair had taken forever as well, as Gothel was soaked through and the hair was slippery. It had taken days to get the mud off of her boots, and they had had to wash Rapunzel's hair which had taken forever because of the mud Gothel had gotten on it when climbing it with her muddy boots. It still wasn't completely dry. 

Gothel wasn't worried about starving, the flower had saved her from that more than once. The hunger pangs, however, were something that the flower couldn't help.  Eating grass and mud pies helped, but it wasn't fun. 

Gothel hoped that getting Rapunzel to help her in the kitchen would make both herself and the girl happier. She didn't want Rapunzel to get too depressed, she had heard of people killing themselves after such a long period of rain and depression. She had heard of people doing stupid things such as jumping off roofs or cutting their wrists. The main window of the tower was kept shut, so as to not let in the rain, but it made it a lot darker in the tower. 

"Come along Rapunzel, would you like to help me?" Gothel's own mother had taught her how to cook. The only thing she remembered of her was the smell of the vegetable stew they were going to make. 

"Yes, Mother." Rapunzel dragged her feet along the tiles and mopped towards her mother. She shuffled across from her green chair by the fireplace, her 35 feet of wet sunshine hair slithering across the floor like a huge, blonde, wet, thick snake. 

They gathered the ingredients from the cubbies and the jars that were around the kitchen. Gothel filled the pot from the kitchen cistern and heaved the heavy pot onto the stove. She moved to the table to start cutting the ingredients when she realised she had forgotten to get the knife. "Rapunzel, I forgot the knife on the benchtop, would you be a dear and get it for me?" Knowing that Rapunzel would probably take a while, Gothel ordered the ingredients in the order that she wished to prepare them.