THRICE Upon a Time...

EAST: The Princess & the Frog ~1~

A trail of golden hair snaked around Aurora's legs and tightened.

"WOULD YOU QUIT IT?" Aurora snapped, picking herself up from the dirty path.

"But I'm not DOING anything!" Rapunzel insisted, widening her eyes innocently. 

"It's YOUR locks. CONTROL it." Aurora scowled. She wiped her hands on her tattered dress for the fourth time and turned to Snow White. "You saw that most unfair incident, did you not?"

Snow White blinked. "What incident?"

Aurora sniffed. "Rapunzel, your hair is acting most obnoxiously. What, exactly, are you up to?"

"I SWEAR I didn't do anything! My hair tripped you up by itself!" Rapunzel argued.

"Well, that seems far-fetched." Aurora cocked her head to one side and snarled.

Rapunzel frowned. Her hair had been acting on its own accord for many times during the past day. She couldn't seem to control it at all. 

Suddenly a thought hit her, and Rapunzel snapped her head up.

"The East-Wind Witch cursed my hair!" she yelped.

Snow White dropped her basket. 

"No, really!" Rapunzel folded her arms. "The East-Wind Witch, she was bald as an egg, mm? And-and the reason she forbid my parents to cut my hair was that she wanted to practise her spells on my hair! Right, because she herself was bald! Yes, I remember her screeching on about that!"

"...." replied the other two girls brilliantly.

"Oh. Oh crap. I have cursed hair." Rapunzel groaned.

                                                **********************************

And so the girls continued on their journey, with yet another worry added to their list.

They walked carefully through the dark, musty forest. The ancient trees stretched their branches high over their heads, blocking out the sunlight. Peeled bark littered the ground, and every time they took a step the sharp crackling of dead leaves cut through the cold air. Occasionally they would hear a heavy thump, or the running footsteps of little critters which would make them scream out loud in fright.

They walked on in silence, each girl enveloped in her own thoughts.

Snow White cleared her throat. "Um, we're in the East-Wind Witch's territory now." she clasped her compass tightly. Snow White swallowed. There was a twisting, churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Are we now?" Aurora replied coolly, in her slow, matter-of-fact way. She raised her own compass to her eyes and gave a satisfied nod.

Rapunzel didn't reply. She had refused and fought viciously against Aurora's suggestion of cutting her cursed hair, and she was outraged at Aurora for even the thought. Rapunzel loved her hair, the thick, golden river, and she would never cut it, even though she knew that Aurora's advice was the most sensible thing to do.

Suddenly Snow White gave a cry of delight and pointed in front. "Look! Look! We all must be dead!" 

The other two followed her finger. The bush in front of them was slowly thinning out, letting in a frail trickle of light that was rapidly growing larger.

Rapunzel lifted her hand and slapped it across Snow White's head. "Oh my god, are you STUPID?" she scoffed. "Wait, oh yeah, you ARE." Snow White blinked.

Aurora sighed. "Girls, girls, violence is never the answer."

But before Rapunzel could slap Aurora too, they had emerged from the forest and found themselves standing at the edge of a winding pebbled path. The bright sun shone wonderfully on the girls' cold, clammy skin. Lush evergreens rose proudly on either sides of the road, and little puffs of cloud floated in the vivid blue sky.