Don't You Fret, My Dear

The Rift

After my nightmares about Rapunzel going dark and trying to kill me, we went to the king and queen to get some answers.

Sitting on the couch in the study, with Frederic and Arianna sitting at the desk, we told them what had happened. I began describing what I could remember in great detail, as hard as it was. The choking, the paralyzing feeling, the incantation that I had never heard before.

As soon as I started repeating it from my dream, their expressions turned dark. 

"Where have you heard that before?" Rapunzel asked.

"I've never heard it! It just appeared in my dream, I thought it was something my brain made up, something to scare me..." I gulp,"Have you heard it anywhere? Is it a real thing?"

Rapunzel nodded. "It's the wither incantation...I used it when we fought against the dark kingdom. It's like a spell, you sing it and it stuff starts to, well wither..."She looked worried. I started to worry, too. How did a song I never heard but Rapunzel knew so well end up in my dream? when she never even mentioned it?

Frederic cleared his throat and began to speak. "Well, Katt, it's possible you weren't having just a nightmare, I think that's another vision. Have they ever been that vivid before? Have the figures in them ever been that familiar before?"

I chew my lip, trying to recall all the visions I've had before. "No, none of them have been like that before. It's usually shadowy figures and shapes of light, they're really blurry and I can't figure out who or what they are. This time...it was her, it was Rapunzel; I don't know how, or why, she was there but it was so clearly her doing those things to me."

Things were quite for a moment. Eventually we began to talk things over and try to come up with an explanation as to what the dream meant. It was clear by now that there was some type of connection between Rapunzel and I; we'd discovered that after the visions surrounding her birthday party; but now it seems they were trying to to use that against us. 

"You and Rapunzel have grown rather close in these last few weeks," Arianna began, "Perhaps they're trying to hijack that. Present one as a threat to the other, weaken that trust,"

"Therefore weakening our defenses..." I finish, "Oh, sorry for interrupting, your majesty, it's just, we read about a tactic like that in our classes during training for the mental aspect of fighting. What little we were taught about it, at least. It's familiar to me so I do believe the Crulesians would try that means of attack."

Everyone in the room chews on this for a moment. After a bit more discussion we all go about the rest of our day; Arianna to her meetings, Frederic to his, and me and Rapunzel left to our own devices since the last night had left us both rather shaken and her parents decided we deserved a break.

Rapunzel and I decide to go to the garden to get some sun. The warmth against my face and neck warm my body and improve my mood significantly, but there's something bothering me at the back of my mind, and I can't quite place it. 

Eventually, Rapunzel sits on a stone bench and instructs me to sit at her feet while she braids my hair. I let her, sitting on the warm ground while she runs her fingers through my hair, twisting and weaving, as the sun shines on my face. I feel us fading into that bubble again; that special space for just the two of us. Calm, serene, warm and beautiful. 

Suddenly, as she reaches for a stray piece of hair that falls out and onto my face, I flinch. I never thought she'd ever hit me. And she didn't, all the was doing was reaching for the stray hair. But this action set me off in a way I did not expect. She notices, and puts my hair down.