Twisted: A Rapunzel Story

Up in a Tower

Velma and the baby girl went about ten miles into the forest, all in one stretch at top speed. Needless to say, Velma was absolutely exhausted when they got that far in. She slowed down in order to search for shelter. She found a dry cave that seemed uninhabited and fell into a deep sleep cuddling with her retrieved baby as the sun was rising on the new morn.

Having a sense of unease settling over her because of the prospect of royal search parties, she awoke two hours later. It wasn't much of a rest at all, considering she had been running for twice as long, but it had given her renewed energy and will of heart.

Velma discovered that she hadn't eaten in quite a while, neither had her baby. She opened her runaway supplies and took out some bottled milk for her child, kept cold by the freezing temperature outside. She let the baby drink first, and then pulled out an apple. She gorged herself on the apple, juice dripping down her face. When she was left with an apple core, she took her sleeve and wiped her sticky face. She repacked the empty bottle from the baby's meal, shouldered her bag, picked the little infant up and ran out again.

This time she ran almost fifteen miles from the cave. Velma reached the tower that she recognized from visits here. It was a piece of Engel property, left to her as the only survivor of the Vixen Killers' attacks. The surrounding feudal lords do not dare touch nor sell it, for they knew one day it would be reclaimed by her.

She strode up to the tower, looking up at her new refuge. She pointed her fore and middle finger together and circled the target area on the ground, where there was an eerie deep green glow and snaking vines, clinging to the tower in ladder-like pattern. Velma took a long and broad strip of cloth out of her sack and created a sling where her baby would lay as she climbed. She took her time getting up, careful of bumping her baby's head or even worse, dropping her.

When Velma reached the top, she surveyed her new residence. It was quite dark, damp and dusty. She set her sleeping child on a soft chair and went to the loft. She opened the upward angled wooden hatch doors, letting in the bright sun.

She proceeded down the loft steps forming a right hand pose close to the vine hand pose with the fore and middle finger, but added on the ring finger. Thinking of her ring finger, Velma glanced at her left ring finger, where a beautiful gold band and gold ring with a glossy white pearl set in the middle. She restrained her tears. Her husband had married her not even two months before he set out for the war. He never came back, leaving only his belongings, these two pieces of jewelry and his last name to her: Baier.

"Stop dwelling on the past and start cleaning, Velma. You don't have time to be dawdling," she chided herself. She resumed the hand pose and swept out in front of her from her nose down and up again in a U shape. This created a gust of wind that took care of all the dust, taking it out the window she had climbed into the tower through.

She went around the main room and loft, taking off the tarps that covered the furniture. She climbed back up the loft stairs. There were two main areas of the loft, separated by the stairway entrance and the horizontal strip leading outward from there. There was a bed in each area, along with a nearly unused candlestick on each bedside table. Velma put the crib in the room directly in front of the stairway, at the foot of the bed. Velma would sleep in this bed, close to the baby. The little girl would move into the other room when she grows out of her crib.

Velma went to the entry window. She stuck up her middle finger, the finger of attack. When she pointed it at the vine ladder, it shot a stream of flames and burned down the temporary entrance route. She wasn't going to have ANYONE disturb her or her child. She took and unwrapped her blooming rampion plant and planted it in the flower box on the windowsill. The nearby girl saw it and went into a bubbling giggling fit.

"You like the purple flower, don't you?' Velma asked the baby, not expecting an answer. She didn't get one, just more laughter.

"Well, I hadn't thought up a name for you yet. I didn't know what your father would want you to be named." She glanced longingly at her ring. "But now I've decided, your name will be Rapunzel, after this here flower."

Rapunzel seemed satisfied with this and fell into a deep sleep. The trip must have tired the poor girl out. Velma put her into her crib in the loft and covered her up with the blanket she had been covered in practically her whole life.

She closed the wooden doors on the loft window and entrance window. She made her way up the loft stairs and collapsed in her new bed. She was asleep before she even hit the mattress.

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Rapunzel grew up in that tower. She went outside occasionally, but always with her mother's supervision.

She also grew up with witchcraft and spells. She learned the fore finger by itself would be nothing. Good thing too, she points a lot. The fore and middle finger combo is for green magic, used for plants by drawing a circling pattern. Those two plus the ring finger was for clear magic, which was wind created with a sweeping gesture towards the direction the caster needs it to go. Those three plus the small finger was called manipulation magic, where the object, person or other living thing would be picked up and be at the caster's mercy. (Similar to Star Wars' The Force.) All five fingers was nothing, because just like with the single forefinger, it would be too common and dangerous. The middle finger alone was red magic, fire. The caster merely points at the object of the burning and focuses.

Even with all these cool, supernatural abilities Rapunzel had. she also had the questions that anyone would have in her situation. Even she saw the dads in the markets, or even just couples that consisted of a man and woman. Rapunzel also knew of other kids' grandparents and aunts and uncles. And wondered why she had none, just her mother.

Rapunzel asked this one rainy day as they were out in the marketplace when she was twelve. Velma stood there, quite perplexed at this. She had planned on telling her, just when she was thirteen, just a bit more able to handle it... But she decided Rapunzel was ready.

"If you can wait just until after we are done shopping, I'll tell you everything when we get home. It's a very long story. Okay, 'Zel?" Velma asked her child using her nickname.

"Okay, Mother!" Rapunzel exclaimed and splashed ahead of the taller version of herself.

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Thanks for reading! I'll update every day I can! Don't worry about me getting writers block, I already have a pretty lengthy plot in mind... >:D