PACHANSU'S ART

Summary:  After the battle with Zhan Tiri, Cassandra finds herself dealing with the aftermath. She learns to accept and move on, as well as love and be loved.

Pairing: Rapunzel & Cassandra.

Word count: 2k words.

Chapter:

“It can’t end this way…”

It was all like a distant dream.

These past few months have taken their toll. She was tired, exhausted even. Her life was in shambles, and everything was fading away, like dust, waiting to be forgotten.

“You can’t leave.”

But then came a light, warm and familiar, pulling her back.

Rapunzel’s light. A light she did not deserve.

They beat Zhan Tiri, and everything after that was a blur.

“I won’t let you.”

She died, and Rapunzel brought her back. After that, her body quickly gave in, and she slept for days.

When she finally woke up, she woke up to the sight of Rapunzel, sleeping on a chair and holding her-no longer burned- hand.

She did not know what to make of that.

Now here she was, in new clean clothes, waiting in her destroyed room. She sat on her bed, running her thumb on her healed hand.

The burns were no longer there. She was able to freely move her fingers. It was all gone.

But somehow, the ghost of the pain lingered.

She heard the door opening, and she clenched her hand into a fist. She will be on trial.

“Are you coming with me, or do you wish to sleep for another week?”

Cassandra groaned out loud. Of course he would be the one escorting her.

“Eugene.” She looked up, rolling her eyes.

“CasANDra.” Eugene was leaning against the door, smirking. “You’re forgetting that you have a trial?”

“I’m sure the idea of putting me behind the bars fills you with joy, captain.”

He frowned.

“Hey, where is this coming from?”

“You know where.”

“No I don’t. Because you never tell us anything.”

Do you know it was nearly three weeks before I heard you laugh for the first time ?  …I guess there wasn’t much to smile about. Y'know, after being put in charge of a… free spirited flower child who painted smiley faces all over your things.  But that first laugh was so remarkable…  because I knew you meant it.  You had this… look in your eyes. I don’t know— It was like seeing you :  The REAL you… for the first time. And THAT’S the Cassandra I became best friends with.

You can’t leave

Cass can’t “control” Rapunzel at all because she’s the servant. That’s what she is. The most she can be is a friend and adviser, and even then, those aren’t Official Titles. Cassandra’s not the Captain of the Guard with the power to put Rapunzel under lock and key if she’s worried about her safety, she’s the foster daughter of an officer who can literally be cast out of the castle at any time if Rapunzel’s father wants it to happen. There’s no equivalence here. 

Cassandra isn’t manipulative, either. She is very much a hammer–there’s no cunning plans or manipulative ploys that she’s executing. Every time she stares at Rapunzel with those big, sad, “Please think about my well-being” eyes, it’s because her well-being is in Rapunzel’s hands. This isn’t some sort of “well, it’ll make me feel upset and won’t YOU feel upset then?” thing, it’s “I like having a job and a home”. 

During the second season, though, they both began to forget about that because they were on the road together (honestly, I don’t think Rapunzel ever really realized the power she wielded because she spent the first eighteen years of her life without it, but that’s also her theme overall), but around the midseason…that’s when the harsh realities snapped back into place and everything began to fall apart.

Leading, of course, to the third season, where Cassandra did run away and quit her job and is now living out in the middle of nowhere eating rocks and probably being rained on all the time, but she’s doing all of this because she can do it. And she really has no idea what she’s doing.