The Gingerbread Dungeon (4 page)

“You know…” Rapunzel rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I’ve heard people complain that their hair had a mind of its own, but this is completely ridiculous.”

The curl whapped her gently on the nose.

“Great, not only a mind, but one without much of a sense of humor. That witch is going to pay.”

Her hair seemed to agree with that remark, since the curl switched to stroking her gently on the cheek, and the long fall that was now curling around her ankles started to vibrate like a purring kitten.

“I guess you didn’t really have any choice in this either.” Rapunzel sighed. “Sorry if I hurt you. I thought you were just hair.” She looked at the strands that were growing so quickly she could almost see the ends creeping across the floor. “I wonder when that changed.”

Rapunzel buried her face in her hands when she realized she was waiting for her hair to respond. “I need to get out of here. I’m losing my mind.”

Feeling a tugging on her head, she looked out and saw her hair crawling towards the window. “It won’t work. I’ve tried it. I’m trapped.” But she walked over to gaze out at the surrounding forest anyway.

Suddenly she felt her face smack against the shield.

“Ow!” Rapunzel said. “I told you it wouldn’t work!” However, when she looked down she saw something surprising. She might not be able to pass through the window, but her hair could.

“At least one of us can be free!” she sighed, but, although her hair let her pick up the knife and cut one of the tendrils away, when it fell to the ground it came apart into  strands of quiet gold.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried.” Then she curled up on the floor and cried as her hair took the knife gently from her hands and put it back on the table.

As the days passed, Rapunzel and her hair slowly began to develop a comfortable relationship. She learned that, early aggression aside, her hair was a creature of simple wants and desires. It seemed content to purr and curl about her lovingly as long as she brushed it regularly and occasionally let it hang out the window to soak up the sun. It was even, she discovered one day as she looked longingly at the blackberry bramble in the woods below her tower, willing to respond to simple commands.

One moment she had been wishing she could pick some berries for her table, and the next her hair had crept down and done so for her. That’s when they started to train.

Rapunzel found that, as they practiced, her hair was willing to respond to more and more complex commands. Not only could it pick things up for her, she could use it as a rope, a whip, or even a staff. During the day they worked together until they were exhausted, and then at night it would wind itself into a thick braid, curl around her body, and vibrate gently until she fell asleep.

Their practice served them well when the princes started to arrive in the spring.

After the initial shock of his death wore off, Rapunzel realized that it wasn't her fault that she'd dropped the first one on his head. She'd been so surprised to look up and see his face at the window, clinging with both hands to the hank of her hair he'd climbed, that she'd instinctively asked it to fling him away.

With her hair's help, she buried him at the base of the tower, but Rapunzel couldn't help wondering why he'd been there in the first place. Fortunately, it was less than a week later that her questions were answered with the arrival of the second prince. This time, when she felt the tugging on her hair, she didn't assume it was just her curls being playful and went to the window to see who – or what – had arrived. A few moments later, her patience was rewarded when a round, red-cheeked face topped with a thicket of unruly black curls appeared in the window and said, “Princess! I am here to save you from the evil witch!”

The owner of the voice was so enthusiastic about his mission that Rapunzel allowed him to climb into the tower room before she realized what he'd said. “Did you say princess?” she asked as she handed him a goblet of water and watched him dust himself off from his journey.

“Yes! I have heard of your plight, and I have come to save you and bring you back to my kingdom to wed.” He gulped down the water, and brushed his hair off his face in what Rapunzel assumed was an attempt to look dashing. “You are just as beautiful as the stories described.”

“Are you sure you have the right tower?” Rapunzel raised an eyebrow and looked at him quizzically. “The last time I checked, my parents were just vintners. There are no princesses here, unless I am one of the kingdom of the vine.”

“But you're in a tower!”

If Rapunzel hadn't known better, she would have said the young man standing in front of her was pouting. “Well, yes. And, if it makes you feel better, an evil witch did trap me here. Margaret.” She growled.  “You've probably heard the bards singing about her ageless beauty potions.”

“The magic of youth, you'll see the proof, with only one drop, their hearts you will stop,” the prince sang. “I love that song!”

Rapunzel threw an apple at his head and heard it connect with a satisfying
thunk
.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“I was just so pleased to see that the witch who imprisoned me in this tower has an effective magic marketing plan that I had to fling things in excitement.”

“Oh,” said the prince, as her sarcasm, unlike her apple, flew right over his head. “So, you're not a princess then?”

“Nope,” Rapunzel replied.

“And if I rescue you, I don't earn half a kingdom and a pile of gold?”

“Since I strongly suspect that my parents set this whole thing up, I doubt you will win anything at all.”

“Well, I'll be going then,” the prince said, and he climbed out the window and started down her hair before Rapunzel could do anything but stare at him in astonishment.

The pace of visits started to pick up after that. Most of the princes, who seemed to have been led to her by a truly awful bit of bardic verse that they'd frequently start singing to her as they climbed her hair, left as soon as they realized she wasn't royalty herself. One particularly aggressive fellow was so upset by the failure of his plan to win a kingdom that he decided to take it out on Rapunzel and actually managed to rip off her bodice before her hair picked him up and flung him out of the window into the forest.

There were, however, a few nice young men who didn't leave right away. They would last for a few days or a week, and Rapunzel would try to fall in love with them, but it was never any use. No matter how much they laughed and joked and promised eternal friendship, it was never love – or at least not true love in a way that satisfied the spell.  When they tried to leave, she was always left behind.

On the day Rapunzel wrote out her 172
^nd
plot to hunt down and destroy the witch who had imprisoned her—she had started numbering them in order to keep track of time—she was shocked to hear a familiar voice calling out her name from the base of the tower.

“Rapunzel!” the female voice shouted. “
Rapunzel!
Are you up there?”

Rapunzel walked to the window and looked out to see who was standing below. “Bettina?” she shouted back. “Is that really you?”

“The one and only…” Bettina’s words cut off in a choked scream as the torrent of Rapunzel’s hair came pouring down the tower walls, picked her up, and lifted her up into Rapunzel’s prison.

“How did you find me?”

Bettina whimpered and tried to cower in the corner as Rapunzel’s hair stroked her cheek and patted her clothing, as though to see if she was truly there.

“Why are you here? I’m so glad you found me!” Rapunzel yanked on a particularly rambunctious tendril that was trying to wind itself around Bettina’s wrist. “You stop that. You’re scaring her.”

Slowly, Rapunzel’s hair coiled itself into a neat pile around her ankles, and as Bettina watched it settle down she began to visibly relax.

“Is that really you under there?” Bettina stared at her friend curiously. “I’ve never seen you with long hair before. I didn't think it was your style.”

“It’s not.” Rapunzel glared at one curious braid that was attempting to sneak over and cuddle up next to the miller’s daughter. “But it’s not as though I have any choice in the matter.”

“Oh,” said Bettina.

“Yes,” said Rapunzel. “Oh.”

For a moment, they just sat there staring at each other, but then Bettina spoke. “So what happened to you anyway?”

“Margaret kidnapped me. She told me that I was stuck here until I embraced my femininity enough to make some man fall in love with me, and then she cursed me with this.” She gestured to her hair that was once again sneaking over to curl around Bettina's left foot.

“What is it?”

“Hair.”

“It seems awfully feisty for hair.”

“Well, it's magic hair. It was enchanted to grow faster every time I cut it and one day it turned into... this.”

“It's very pretty,” Bettina said, reaching down and petting the tendril that had snuck up to wrap around her thigh. It started to vibrate happily.

“Don't encourage it.” Rapunzel turned away and started pacing around the chamber. “How did you find me here?”

“After you disappeared, I asked your parents where you'd gone, but they kept putting me off. A few months ago, though, I started to hear stories of a princess trapped in a tower who sounded an awful lot like you.”

“You heard about a princess stuck in a tower, and you thought that sounded like me?” Rapunzel arched an eyebrow at Bettina in disbelief.

“No, I heard a 'violent, argumentative, opinionated blonde princess who refuses to quietly sit by and let a prince rescue her even though she's stuck in a tower' and thought of you... I figured that the princess designation might be a mistake. You know, hear that a girl is stuck in tower, assume that no one would have bothered for anyone less than royalty…” Bettina untwined Rapunzel's hair from her leg and went to sit on the chair. “So, I packed a bag and walked out into the forest. You're not that far from home you know. Less than an afternoon's walk. Once I tell your parents you're here, they'll come visit. Maybe they can talk Margaret into letting you go.”

“Doubtful,” Rapunzel said. “I'm pretty sure they were the ones who convinced her to lock me up here in the first place.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

For the next few minutes, the room was silent as Bettina took in the reality of Rapunzel's situation and Rapunzel took in Bettina. The miller's daughter was even more beautiful than she had been when Rapunzel had last seen her. Her hair was still straight and black where it hung down past her waist. Her eyes were still the same clear blue. But the year they'd spent apart had emphasized the strength in her cheekbones, filled out her bodice with creamy flesh, and deepened the curve of her hip.

Bettina smiled suddenly, in a way that made Rapunzel realize she'd been staring.

“I missed you,” she said, feeling herself blush.

“I missed you too,” Bettina replied, and she flung herself into Rapunzel's arms. 

The two women kissed passionately, lips together, tongues entwined, and soon Rapunzel found herself leading Bettina towards the bed.

“Gods but you're beautiful,” she said, unlacing Bettina's bodice so that her breasts spilled out over the top. Weighing them in her hands, she lowered her head to Bettina's right nipple and drew it deeply into her mouth to suckle.

Rapunzel felt Bettina's hands grab her head and hold her close as she slowly closed her teeth around the pink bud, biting slowly and deeply in the way she remembered Bettina liked.

“Yes,” Bettina moaned. “It's been so long. Do whatever you want to me. Make it hurt.”

Rapunzel felt herself going liquid at the thought of unleashing a year’s worth of passion and frustration on the beautiful girl she had so long adored. Taking Bettina’s other breast in her hand, she squeezed it roughly to feel Bettina gasp and moan. “Anything?” she asked.

“Just take me,” Bettina said. “Take me the way you used to.”

Rapunzel growled and threw Bettina down on the bed, yanking her bodice off the rest of the way and wishing she had something to tie the girl's hands with so that she could torment her in whatever way she pleased. Even as she thought it, two tendrils of hair curled up from the floor, and wrapped themselves around Bettina's wrists.

Bettina opened her eyes and gasped in shock at the feeling of the silken ropes of hair wrapping themselves like snakes around her wrists and pinning them to the top of the bed.

“You did say anything.” Rapunzel grinned down at her. She looked at the tendrils holding Bettina down. “Is this too much?”

Bettina closed her eyes and thought for a minute. Then she flushed. “It's a little scary,” she said, “but now I actually kind of wonder what else you can make it do…”

Rapunzel gave a dark laugh. “Why you dirty girl.” she said, untying Bettina's skirts and pulling them off her so that she could see the fluid beading between her lover’s legs. “I guess we'll have to find out.”

Without even a conscious thought from her, two more tendrils of Rapunzel’s hair roughly grabbed Bettina's ankles and spread her legs, pinning them to the corners of the bed and making her moan.

“You like that, do you?” Rapunzel said, running her fingers between Bettina’s legs to play with the slickness there.