The Gazelle (A Rapunzel Retelling)

Chapter 1

Tabeya slipped a flower behind her ear as her face dissolved in an onslaught of ripples.

She blinked at her distorting reflection, at the afternoon sunlight sparkling off the little waves laying waste to it, then plucked the bright blooms from the water before they floated away.

Cradling them in her cupped palm, she turned to the large golden cat crouched beside her. "Ishtar, do you mind?"

The lioness lapped at the edge of the water, each flick of her tongue meaning death for Tabeya's art. Her ears pricked ever so slightly at Tabeya's words, but she gave no response.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." Tabeya scooped some water in her empty hand. It slipped between her fingers, cool like the late afternoon, sparkling like jewels when Tabeya tilted her hand over the lioness's head.

With the first drop that touched her fur, Ishtar retreated, a golden blur of motion. She lingered out of Tabeya's range, her amber eyes watchful, her gleaming fangs bared.

When the last of the water dribbled from Tabeya's palm, Ishtar swiped at the water with her massive paw, sending a wave Tabeya's way. It drenched the front of her red woollen dress, leaving a dark mark that looked like blood.

"Not fair!" Tabeya held the cold stain away from her body. "Your hand is bigger than mine."

Ishtar inclined her head to the water as if saying, 'That's not my fault. Besides, you started it.'

"Fine." Tabeya stood. "I'll go somewhere else, then." She wiped her wet palm on her dress and pretended she didn't hear the tufted tail brushing against the grass or the paws padding after her as she followed the winding course of the river, her sandalled feet sinking into the wet clay.

Tabeya knelt beside the river upstream. Ishtar reappeared in her line of sight two steps away, lapping at the water as casually as if she found herself here by chance and not because she was a born stalker.

"Ishtar, please. Can I have a few moments for my flower portrait? The river goes on for miles. You're welcome to drink wherever you want, just not here."

The lioness didn't falter in her drinking. Tabeya may as well not have spoken, but she knew Ishtar was listening.

She was always listening, especially when Tabeya called her from her tower window or screamed across the hanging gardens, but she always had a will of her own.

Tabeya gave a dramatic sigh. "Surely you can humour me, just this once. It's my birthday, after all."

Tabeya expected Ishtar to continue drinking water as if she hadn't heard her plea. Instead, she looked up at Tabeya with a strangely human expression in her eyes.

Maybe she wasn't as immune to Tabeya's excitement over the past week as she had pretended. Maybe she did understand how important today was.

It was Tabeya's eighteenth birthday.

At first glance, it was no different from the birthdays Tabeya had spent wandering the gardens with Ishtar or sitting up in her tower with Nungal, her guardian, but it felt different.

It thrummed with unrealised potential. It was a rosebud days away from bursting into flower, a caterpillar concealing itself in a cocoon in anticipation of its transformation.

Tabeya wanted to bloom. She wanted to discover who she would be in a world of other people. She wanted to be a butterfly, spreading her wings against the wind.

She wanted to be many things—a warrior, a princess, a legend—but she was just a girl living in a tower at the edge of nowhere with only her mysterious guardian and her lioness for company.