tratie one shots, vol. i

[ tangled au ]

sorry it's been so long! i'm on new antidepressants, and they kinda drain my creativity. downside to feeling less depressed, huh?

this shot is dedicated to the amazing @Thatathenagirl who wrote the best fierrochase shot with this same concept, and i couldn't resist myself. she really sparked my creative mind in order for me to write this, so i really appreciate her. go read her stuff or i'll delete your kneecaps mwahaha ;)

it's super long, and basically just a copy of the movie, but uhhh here's whatever this is lol.

words: 2370

. . .

Katie wished she could leave her tower.

Countless days, months, years of being in the same tower had taken its toll on her. She didn't remember ever seeing anything past the small field surrounding her tower, except for the sky. The magical floating lights that filled the night sky on her birthday were her one escape. She didn't think of anything else.

So, she asked her mother to take her to see them.

That hadn't gone as planned.

Instead of listening to Katie's case, Mother brushed her off and said to trust her when she said the outside world was a dangerous place. She laughed at Katie's pleas and left to run her usual errands. Her mother gripped her hair after she told her she loved her. Conscious of it, she tugged her locks close to tighten the tie she had secured around the bottom of it. After lowering her mother down the tower, her hair always loosened from its enormous braid.

Stupid long hair. Stupid tower.

Not being one to sit around (even if she only had about five things total to do), Katie busied herself. If she got her chores done quickly, she could spend the rest of her day finishing her most recent project: the depiction of herself in awe of the spread of magical floating lights that never failed to light the sky every year, on her birthday. She wanted to finish it in time to watch them from her tower window, so she could compare how realistic her memory was to the real thing.

She wished she could see them up close.

Her day was spent gloriously, a splash of sunflower yellow and a smear of Phthalo blue highlighting her afternoon. She fed her mind with swirls of her brush, with highlights of the mysterious glowing objects. Soon, though, her stomach rumbled to remind her of the sustenance she'd forgotten about.

"I think it's time for some food, Pascal." Katie swung herself down from the ledge she'd been painting on, her chameleon on her shoulder.

Setting a frying pan on her wood-burning stove, Katie turned to grab some bacon to cook. But something caught her eye on her windowsill.

A hand.

And another hand.

They weren't Mother's hands.

Panic struck her as she scrambled to hide. At the last minute, she grabbed the frying pan that hadn't even had the chance to warm up. She needed a weapon if she was to protect herself from the savage person from the outside world.

Mother knew best, and she'd told her that men were dangerous.

With a grunt of effort, the man pulled himself over the windowsill and rolled to the ground. Katie's mind whirred, telling her to react fifty different ways. She could continue hiding and hope he'd leave, or she could wait it out and consider her options, or...

He unslung the satchel that hung around him, seeming to not care to look around before opening it and sighing. "Alone at last."

Thonk!