RAPUNZEL

send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it

send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it

"and these are all my father’s helping me with my abandonment issues but also helping me avoid them”

Lenore did this to him—to Emme, to their family. The more the trembling girl next to her talks, the more the color begins to drain out of her face. Hope can be a wonderful but terrible thing. With the idea that Arturo had died, there was an ending, a period on the final page of the book—his suffering was over, no matter how much their chests ached for him to be with them. But if he’s alive…

“When I was in Paris, I met Malachi. And he had a boy with him. He couldn’t have been older than ten, and his name was Elias.” When she finally lifts her head to look at Emme, she’s crying. Out of relief or sadness is yet to be determined. 

“Malachi barely told me what happened the night he came to the Menagerie, the night he lost his kid. Maybe our dad…” 

Her throat catches suddenly, a breath not taken, curled inward. “He’s alive. I don’t know how, but—” 

It’s too much. Too much. For him to be so close and not here with him. “Metzger said—” Said he hadn’t come back, said he was dead, said, you know what happens to people like you in this world. Lenore cuts herself off. Voice darker when she finishes, “—but… Metzger’s said a lot of things. He lied to us.”

She can’t look to Lenny beside her, can’t see her face. Because she’ll know the expression that’s already there. Knows the paleness of it. Thinks if she turns too, Lenore will resemble the Paris from a year ago, reflect white hair, a soundless voice, not having to speak around her anyway. But her heart can’t handle it. Can’t break for the both of them if they look each other in the eye. Thinks Lenny shares the feeling too. 

Hears tears before she sees them, before crying is harder against her cheeks, seeing her cry too, like a pull. Like feeling her pain too, like a well that makes her feel all of hers, if Lenore is crying. She doesn’t know about Malachi, only hears about the boy, didn’t know he was a father, never shared dreams enough, never visited the doctor enough. 

“It means he’s not alone, okay? For now, just for night, it means they’re not alone. Let it mean only that,” stumbling words, like they’re spiraling. “Metzger’s a showman,” she gives back, agreement in it, that they can’t trust anything from him, “He cares if something is a good show, good for the circus,” the circus being all that works for him.

he can’t help but to fidget, fingers pulling at hems and feet swaying as he stands, trying to distract himself with the brushes of colour mere meters away from him - masterpieces, things loved and seen by thousands. much like him, but in a different way. he wonders if he reaches out to touch it, if he would be able to feel death somewhere next to the ink, or if it would just be pigment. just be something of beauty without a withering.

one can only hope, he thinks.

cheeks are red when he turns back to the girl, hiding under hair, tucking himself inside lapels of suits, too bright for his comfort - ties long since loosened and makeup smeared messily and there is a comfort in that, reminding him of oil stains and funfair lights instead of those television circle-ring spotlights searching for bone when they turned to him. what is it like, unsaid, to be a certain kind of small death every day?

she smiles at him, and he back at her, shy. i could live with it, he would’ve said, with tradeoffs like this.

“why not? just a little peek - i’m sure you’re done, your pencil hasn’t moved in some time. i’ve been counting.” words still stumbling but grins easier now, tugging at sketchbooks lightly. “and what would convince you? will i have to wish on another field of stars for that? i think i’ve used up all of mine from last time, so we’ll have to find another.”

it’s easy, like this. to be art, moving. he believes so when she moves, pulling out his own sketchpad and paper, eyes bright. “hey - hey, stay there. like that, if that’s okay? just - just for a moment. i’ll be quick.”

Maybe there were always meant to be something like this, only a cryptid and only an art. Only art. Only smeared blue and black across their faces, skin made to look like stars, skin made to look like oil stains. Does it fit them better than their own skin? Does it seem like they were made to be things seen as masterpieces? Do you find them beautiful now? As much as she could have told you before, how beautiful a person can be? How beautiful the world can be? 

Do you see the way bright visions hold their own drops of light and color?

If they always must wonder if what they experience is real - how long is will last, if she must choose which dream of theirs to live in, she thinks she might choose this one now. Awake and alive. Cheeks all red, her’s turning a brighter shade when she sees his own shades. “Yeah?” Laughter in it, hiding the pad still close to her chest, like hiding there herself, “Stop counting then, for a second, pretend we’ve paused. Or they have outside,” the camera crews. “I still have a few things to finish, and yes. And let it be the same thing I can do for you too,” think of streets they’re lost in and nervous words, “What would convince you - to forget to count?”

Life at the Menagerie has always been a life behind the curtains. As much as she is expected to allow others to be awed by her cryptid form, the beautiful white swan that has been a part of her for as long as she can remember, Yara neither yearns nor expects to be put in front of the public for anything else. Performance arts, that’s something the woman had never found an interest in. It would imply being drawn to the arts, to spectacle and to be seeing seen, and Yara has always been more inclined to the opposite. Books, studies, keeping to herself – that’s what she’s always cared about. She can understand others preference for the spotlight, but it’s definitely not what she wants for herself. So this, the event at the Louvre, being turned into art to be exposed not in their cryptid form, but as the human being they all are, is nerve wracking. There’s not a single part of Yara’s body who hasn’t gone through the shaking process from the moment the information was shared with all the cryptids, anxiety crawling under her skin and making her wonder, above all else, if she’s even mildly capable of entertainment.

At least she had Emme. The younger’s offer and availability to help her get ready proves to be more than just simple aid. It’s the crutches Yara needed to lean on, at least for a couple of hours, before she can go outside and do what’s expected of her, what she’s contractually obliged to do. “Would you, sweetheart? Do you think blue would be good? Or should we go with silver?” She asks, putting down the pencils and taking a seat on the chair for the girl to be able to better reach her. The girl’s presence is comforting, perhaps due to how long they have known each other. From the minute Yara had joined, Emme had been one of the ever-present members, always there, always sweet. “Another oracle like you? No, I have not. My grandmother used to read cards, taught me how to, but it was more – I wouldn’t call it a science, but it wasn’t natural. It was just something she learned how to do the same way I did, nothing like what you have,” it no longer hurts, to think about the grandmother she hasn’t seen in years. Yara doesn’t want to think about the fact that she doesn’t even know if she’s alive. “I’m a veterinarian, my main focus when studying cryptids is on anyone who can shift into an animal – any sort of animal.” Brown eyes met the other’s, her head tilted slightly back. “I wouldn’t normally focus on someone like you but it’s just – it’s too fascinating for me to pass on it.”

A laugh in it, something light, “Nothing ever wrong with both,” appreciation in her features when Yara sits down for her, Emme standing above her, but at a distance too, for herself, for the other woman, for all the way dreams can be born. There’s something familiar about this, even if new, something familiar in helping turn someone into art, familiar in colors, familiar in seeing someone as all shades of pigments. She wants there to be white across Yara’s face, something like watercolor, something like feathers across cheeks, like eyes hiding behind them, like a dream.

There’s something claustrophobic (even if familiar too) in the way she moves, waiting for Yara’s words, elbows kept tight against a body, no where to move, before there’s a quiet following the first words, a static in the minds. (She did hope, someone once known, someone that could understand, some kind of story, she’d take a story besides oracle women of myths, only there to tell the tale, only there to warn and never be listened to.)

But this kind of story is nice too, in a different way, in a way that expands Yara, in a way that the world becomes wider, in the way Yara speaks, in the way she remembers, wants to keep that look on her face. “Tarot cards, she read them?” And then a smile, asking if she heard right, wanting her to keep talking, “When do I ask for a reading, you could do my job for me, or with me, whenever the animals get to you - or they join us. No. We read their fortunes.”

Hands grasping, and Ata pulls Emme down to sit next to her, wraps arms between each other, to send some of that security that only flight can give you along, to press security in with her hands. 

“It’s called exercise. You should try it sometimes.” Ata laughs off the concern, never knows how to let it sitting along her bones, to consider mortality an issue for herself. She pauses, silent, watches with fondess as Emme lies down next to her, gazes down at the reflection of stars in her eyes. “I don’t fall.”

The world happens, she flies through storms, she can get her heart ripped out of her chest - but she won’t fall. She can only rely on herself, and she won’t let herself down.

Ata leans back, arm under her head, watches the stars perform pinwheels across the sky. “For the blankets?” Her tone is teasing, she knows the sound of Emme’s shriek as she changes in mid air, having tried it before. But tonight isn’t the night for that, so her voice becomes serious as she looks at the sky and says, “Of course.”

Flying is something precious, something intense, and she wonders what it must be like, to live limited to the ground. Pilots, gymnasts, thrill seekers, they all chase after what she has, intrinsically. Is the search for flight something within human nature? Or a calling of something greater?

What does it mean if she has achieved it?

“Where do they keep the blankets? We can fly there, grab them, head off. What do you say?” She props her head up, to look over at Emme, at the possibility of a night unfolding infront of them.

“If I’m running, it mostly means you should be too, there’s no exercise,” she gives back, voice like Ata’s for a moment, like forgetting worry, but only barely, but only barely something only full of laughter, because the back thoughts are still there. 

And she believes Ata words that she won’t fall, believes in that hope of an eternal flight and only wind, but there’s still some sheepish worry there, something in the gut that wants to tell her that she can’t always know that, even if she wants to too.

There’s something hesitant in her voice, to speak at all, “I, I don’t know where Volkov and the others keep theirs, but I brought some for the train, they’re in the sleeper cars now - somewhere in one of the further rooms.” Speaks slow, as if to build time, as if to think of things that will happen when she stops speaking. 

Call it a survival instinct, or maybe an inability to trust the notion of safety. But the boy feels unusually… optimistic tonight, and his first response to this is doubt. Optimistic that they might get to do this again much more than once; the laughter, the warmth of baked goods from a new country, the bubbles of laughter at Puppy skipping ahead of them. And a man who seemed to hear their struggles, or at least attempts to. Was he stupid to be so absorbed in all this?

Carter blinks at Emme’s observation, though a smile ghosts across his lips, knowing there’s a truth to what she says too. “I’m that obvious, huh?” he inquires, humour lingering at the corner of his mouth. But see, tonight is different. The two are different. Less secrets kept between them now, and more whispered truths instead. So he allows himself to talk, starting with a lengthy sigh and fingers raking back locks of hair.

Brows knitted together again, he murmurs, half to her and the other to the night as if searching for an omniscient guide ( so far it hasn’t been listening ), “I don’t know if I’m paranoid or if things are legitimately too good to be true lately.”

“Like..” he begins, popping a piece of croissant into his mouth. “Is it naive to think Volkov’s got our back or are we just getting desperate?” By we, he means him, and it’s telling by the way his laughter carries a wry edge. All he knows is he trusts Emme’s opinion above all else ( even if she has as an equal likelihood of placing her beliefs in the wrong place, just as much as he ).

“Very,” dramatic, match the same feeling they have watching Puppy jump across cracks in the sidewalk, but truth in it too, more than they need to say between each other; truth that will outlast Metzger and Volkov in their life. Truth that will someday outlast a Menagerie. (Does she truly look at Carter and think of a life outside of everything she’s known, look at a friend like life is a promise. Look at a friend like she’s dreamed new lives for them, knows he’s wished them too.)

Then it’s all silence, her waiting for him to speak, waiting while his words linger in the air in front of them, waiting for the night to answer him first, because he asked them both. And maybe she says too what she wants to believe, needs to believe, because anything else is more than she wants to face (even if she must, even if she does, but chooses the other path until she can see both before her, but if she looks too long in another direction, she knows she’ll collapse.)

“It’s okay, Carter, it’s okay to want to believe in a person, it’s okay to let times be good,” and then something quiet, “There’s no weakness in that, in hoping.” (Think of Shanghai, are you strong even if it’s only for you, even if someone else wins in the moment?) 

“It’s good to trust in something,” and then a laugh in it, but it sounds too much like his too, “It’s what normal people do, you know.” She thinks he’s afraid to trust, or that the two of them are desperate, in their own ways, now for the same thing, but her not for Volkov. “Maybe it’ll happen, something new because of him.” Maybe there’ll be no cages.

this should have been something safe; starlight made with flashlights and holes poked through with fingers, giggling. safe, like fur making a nesting, making a warmth that isn’t a burning. safe, like the corners of a lopsided grin saw first when five, then twenty. safe, like a home, or the closest thing to one we can find in a place like this.

put trust in his hands, believe he’ll know what to do with it, think he’ll know better than to try to stomach it with acid and burning. does anyone talk about how you love something, and it’s still not enough? how love makes you wicked? my dear, he’s still only teething.

“is my couch ever safe to sleep on? or my bed, for that matter, even? might wanna be careful with the windows and the washroom too, while we’re at it - “ a wry grin, raised eyebrows. “i can get you a clean blanket and i’ll take the couch, if that makes you feel better.” don’t talk about how he knows how she can’t sleep any longer in beds next to him, leaving when his eyes are closed. “or the floor, even. or on the other side of the door, hm?”

he sits behind her on the bed, cross-legged, almost licking her fingers when she reaches out for cheeks. nimble hands work on unlacing hair trailing down backs, softly ghosting spines. takes his time, humming. something she used to sing, before -

“you sure the lipstick’s mine?” jokes, showing teeth still. probably shouldn’t. “hm, now there’s that. will our tent be on the mountaintops or on the canopy of the forest this time?”

(Maybe it doesn’t make him safe anymore, but perhaps these developments still make him home. Perhaps him more like the home she’s always known, grown used to, thought of home more than anything where she didn’t live in fear. Children that naturally learned that home was a place of bruises - how do you turn away when it’s there again and you’ve convinced yourself you’re stronger than you were then? Can face it this time?)

The look on her face know is natural, natural in its laughter, natural in its fake disgust toward him (though real too in thinking of some of the people). “What happened to our rule that we can only sleep in my room? Yours is still quarantined,” but doesn’t move from her spot, and perhaps she doesn’t because she doesn't plan to sleep a place he is, would leave her own room if he was there, she knows, doesn’t admit it to herself in this moment, let it be a feeling. “You’re not sleeping on a couch if I’m here.”

And laughter fades away with the sound of a song, when she’s not looking at him, and she becomes all frozen, all goosebumps along spines, feel like something stolen when she gave it to him, sang them to sleep with it. “Maybe it’s mine - did I kiss you on the cheek today, or yesterday and it’s just showed up now. Maybe it’s a year old.” She can’t look at him, doesn’t have to with braids being pulled out - thankful. “Neither, we’re still in stars, still have tents on every moon of Jupiter. Maybe this one on Europa.” Think of blackout trains, but she wont’ fall asleep.

A smile curves her lips, head shaking but not in resistance, fingers tightening around the other’s. “ You’re the boss, ” She’s looking forward to it, to time spent wandering around art that she will never understand the nuances of, but with Emme by her side, maybe this time she will.

( There is something about this, two figures surrounded by many pieces taller than them, scenes full of meaning and words to be interpreted as they will. )

She follows the words, trying to see things as she does, but it is one gift she does not have, the ability to see flow and hidden messages. But seeing the excitement of one who does, a bright light shining from eyes that discern so much, she thinks that the girl herself is a work of art, that people themselves are the true masterpieces to be appreciated.

“ I won’t lie to you, I don’t understand art the way you do, ” A sense of wistfulness, wishing that she had her eyes.

( And if you did, if your abilities were swapped, perhaps she wouldn’t have had so much to suffer, that there would be more peace with her, more ability to rest. )

“ I can appreciate you appreciating them, and am flattered that you think so highly of me, ” Raises her camera to snap pictures, their own version of art that she will be able to understand, that tell a story she can listen to. “ Point out ones that remind you of our friends especially, and don’t leave yourself out. ”

Something theatrical in it, her hand her chest, the false surprise, fill of laughter even before there a sound to match it. “The boss? No, I’m not the boss. If I was a boss, they wouldn’t call you prodigy, or nothing of that altogether, this is just viewing, we can just enjoy things as they are. Your eyes matter too, in what you find beautiful.” A pause as she turns, still held hands, but takes steps back for Xue to step forward, “Lead the way, what catches your eye?”

There is still excitement in the surroundings, in the feel of it, for art on walls, for beautiful things, until the world is too, until the world is because of it. She stands to the side of paintings, not in the front as one just viewing, but to study, to appreciate, to see the layers and layers of paint until she can see each scratch. The goal of art is to create something someone looks at longer than you painted it, and she wishes she had the time for it.

“What’s not to understand? You see light, and you could see it even if blind, because you can feel texture. What do you see? Tell me anything” And perhaps that too sound close to a dream, sounds close to girls that see a world in watercolor, understands it in colors.

A laughter in the words, something fond, remember bright dotting lights, while shadows still seep through, focus on light. “Purples are Carter’s color, and sometimes reds mixing into it all, off-white for you, pearl colors. Soren is a yellow, think suns, but more of the shades. Ceydran is always in water, not true blue, more green.”

It happens in a span of seconds, she’s sure, but she perceives it all as if they were encased in amber, bodies slowed almost to a halt as they made their escape. Josephine feels as if any moment, the amber will harden, preserving an act of kindness…the smallest act of trust. 

And suddenly she’s three years younger, in her mother’s garden, her new life in one small suitcase, as the old returns to ashes. There’s a feeling of fear that wants to paralyze her, one that works its way through her veins, and waters the guilt that’s flowering in her heart. She wonders if she was right to run. To run away, was to give her brothers’ actions meaning.

She was running alone then, and the only thing her hands could find comfort in was the material of her suitcase, small and cold. If she focuses now, she swears that her hand is holding something warm, small in comparison to the piece of luggage in her memories, and this time, it’s enveloping her own hand. It’s trying to give her security. 

It doesn’t take much longer for Josephine to fall in step with Emme’s actions, the amber around them seeming to fall away in an instant. As the hand locked with Emme’s tightens its hold, the other reaches to grab her skirt to keep herself from falling. She doesn’t think about the parallels between then and now, doesn’t think about the breath escaping her lungs, or the familiar dulled feeling of heels hitting the floor. 

Leaving the cameras behind, she could almost cry. She feels almost as if she had wings, despite how childish it may all seem to onlookers. There’s a freedom that comes from running, a freedom that is not at all different to how she could feel if she were allowed to swim in an open body of water. 

When they stop she can breathe again, blinking once than twice, to the tempo of her breathing. 

Without thinking, she grabs her other hand, holding them both to her chest and saying nothing. Josephine herself can’t decide if they’re hiding or not, but if using the world with taint the smaller girl’s actions, it’s the furthest thing from hiding. “No, it’s okay…”

There’s a breathless way to her laughter, a breathless way she holds her body, like an emptiness that leaves you full, an emptiness from escape. And her cheeks are still pink from it all, from the cameras in their faces, for her’s is born of shyness,  of a heart in her throat and cameras always pointed somewhere else if Metzger invited them to the Menagerie. 

Because a child oracle isn’t the kind of horror someone wishes to see, but she’s grown now, despite always feeling too old for her body, for her mind, (how many lives has she lived?) there’s a childish wonder in the way she moves, the way she smiles now. 

Smiles with their hands at Josephine’s chest, something soft in it, something fond for person met so much by chance, we call it fate. Call it fate for fires to end up here, for homes lost, one way or another - nothing to return to. Call it fate to find her in crowds, to run. “Maybe, or maybe it’s not,” but a shift in her tone, a shift in what she’s speaking of at all. “I don’t think we’ve run enough, and if it’s still a good hiding spot, then all the better, just hidden long enough that we can be forgotten just for a good minute.

It’s silent here, hallways sneaked into when they’re meant to be in front of cameras. She can’t tell how long she’s been standing by the painting, standing as its side to view from an angle, the layers of blue against canvas, think her body would match it - all dressed to look like stars. 

“They did,” Lenore whispers to her, like a promise, “They made it back just in time. They gathered the blades of grass from their windowsill and pricked their fingers with a sewing needle, and they quickly prepared the items into a potion.”  She has to stop for a few moments, her chest threatening to burst if she doesn’t cry—finally, she does. The knot in her throat loosens.

She brushes her tears away with her coat and continues, “The children almost thought they were too late; when they finally saw their mother, she was thin and pale. She hardly looked like herself. Their father was overcome with grief, believing he had lost both of his children, and now his wife.” 

“‘Please don’t cry, father,’ they said to him, ‘we’re sorry we ran away. Here—give this to mother so she can be well again.’ He almost didn’t believe what they said; he had almost lost all hope.” (When she tells the story now, she imagines the father as their own. Tired. Weary. Like something had been taken from him a very long time ago, and so much time has passed, he’s almost forgotten what that was. All he remembers is the ache.)

“Their mother drank the potion, and when morning came and the sun broke over the horizon, the frozen sea melted and flowers began to bloom all around their home, and their mother was well again. Her pale cheeks turned rosy and her heart beat strong in her chest. She smiled fondly at them and said, ‘Why, my dear children, what took you so long?’” 

Her voice cracks finally. She can’t hide it from Emme; never could. “And the family was together again, safe and sound, never to be separated.” 

Imagining Arturo now, it was only through Lenore’s trip to Paris, or rather it’s return, that she knew of the sickness, knew of what happens in the selkie coat isn’t near, so she has to try, has to try and imagine the tired eyes of Arturo, has to try and imagine him with white hair, has to try and imagine him still alive, but having to try to be, having to try to be alive, with the last you have left. 

What she sees if she doesn’t try, is a man leaving the train car to sneak into town on Lenny’s birthday, the figure of him through the windowpane, shoulders something small, even for his frame. Man like shadow, man in grief. 

(She lives in grief too, but not like that. Not like losing someone that loved, to feel the grief each passing moment, better some days, worse the next. Still doesn’t know if she’s allowed to feel such things at all for Arturo anyway. He wasn’t her father, who can she be to mourn like Lenny can.)