Campfire

CAMPFIRE

   Flynn Rider stands in frigid water reaching his waist. He's frantically running his hands through it. The bottom is dotted with a colorful mosaic of river stones pricking his palms more than shrill coolness. If he's hunting for them, he can say he's the winner.

   "Shit, shit, shit," he moans, eyeballing in the turquoise darkness. He hasn't moved an inch in his seeking.

   "Eugene?"

   That odd girl sits there, petite, pale like ghost – and until recently quiet. Her sparkling green eyes look like two sapphires in the snow. Just now he remembers her unspoken presence.

   Angrily, he hits the tact with the top of his hand and barely stops a scream of pain. On his wounded hand, which he's been unconsciously clenching, a clout has been made, but now it falls, because he opens his fist. A fountain of blood exudes immediately by a sticky, thick brook.

   "I lost... my map," he drawls slowly, trying to keep the mask of self-control on his face. He almost feel as the teeth perforate his gums.

   Rapunzel laughs with her livid from cold lips.

   "Map? But you know the kingdom perfectly."

   He clearly heard she made a dot at the end of that sentence. As she was as sure of it, as of the fact that her frog is a chameleon, actually. Flynn finally steps at the ground and shakes out the water, like a dog.

   "Dam it!" he curses, seeing a rumpled paper ball adhered to one of his boots. He bends and tries to straighten it with his left hand, numb with cold. Ink tears drops on the ground, and he isn't able to read anything from it, besides a vulgar word, a former 'Kingdom of Corona'.

   "I can draw a new map for you, if you want," Rapunzel suggests shyly, between one click of teeth and another. She bits her lip, maybe because of confusion, or maybe just to stop her jaw, shaking a little. "Oh! But I don't have my paints with me..."

   She's so honest in her simplicity and naivety. Flynn smirks; his smirk is small and a bit constrained, and pulls her sleeve. Wet folds of her dress constrain her moves, sticking to her body tightly as a bandage.

   "Undress." She immediately crosses arms on her chest, firmly pushing her elbows to the sides, as he's able to see through her corset's fabric. There is something from a hounded animal in her now. He instantly takes his hand away. "You will catch your death from cold," he adds, trying to sound less roughly and imperatively than a moment ago.

   "I never get ill," she answers. She raises her head, but quickly lowers it, as if it was something to be ashamed of. She becomes silent, lost in thoughts.

   Flynn has no time to think about it. He feels his wet shirt is going to burn out his entrails if he doesn't take it off right now. He quickly pulls of his vest, but he can't manage unbuttoning his shirt with only one hand. Then the girl looks at him again, even more scared than before.

   "What are you doing?!"

   He waves his hand lightly and turns his back to her.

   "I'm going to get dry. And maybe I'll find some wood."

   She wants to remind him of his wounded hand - how does he want to get the wood? - but she can't say a word. She only watches as he disappears behind the verdigris curtain of leaves. For a moment, when he finally manages to unbutton his shirt with teeth, she sees only his naked, sunburned back, decorated with chessboard of scratches.

   Rapunzel nervously looks down. She stares at her feet, so dirty, scratched and swollen because of wandering – and it only the first day yet. She wonders how long Flynn had to collect his grazes and cuts.

   Thoughtlessly, she starts to draw his face with her finger, then faces of all of those she met at 'Snuggly Duckling'. The sand is rough and dark, there's a lot of little pieces of glass and pebbles among it, it sticks to her still clammy hand. Something sparkles from under clump of sand, golden, just like Flynn's crown. She scrambles out a small coin, slightly jagged on its sides. She hides it in her hand.



   "Oh, look." Rapunzel straightens like a marionette, which string has been just pulled. "Thievish habits are taking over you?"

   She smells the syrupy, choking breath of her mother on her cheek. She drastically turns her head, her hair hits her cheek, but behind her lies only quiet, mint freshness of the forest. She feels dizzy.

   'Rapunzel!' She finds Pascal's bulging little eyes, but can't focus on them, because she's still followed by the gaze of one of the faces from sand, grimacing furiously now.
   "Yes, I'm fine," she reassures - not sure if the chameleon, or herself.

   She's lying. She hears her mother's voice with a thrilling clearness. Pieces of sentences echoes. 'You're so naïve, child… Don't you see he's using this? What do you know about him?!'


   "Pretty good." Flynn sniffs and throws a pile of branches against his feet. He doesn't have boots, but he's dressed up already, his clothes seem to be dry, only a tiny trickle of water flows down from his hair. He tries to comb it back, irritated.

   For how long he has been standing there?! Rapunzel jumps to her feet at the moment and tries to cover the sketches, but he's not looking at her anymore.

   After a while of hesitation, she stretches her clenched fist.

   "This... you lost, too, I guess." She opens her hand and holds one golden crown in front of his face. "Because it's your plan, isn't it?"

   Flynn frowns.

   "Plan?"

   "Your own island, money..."

   On the sound of those words an empty laughter wells up inside of him. He shakes his head.

   "It's only an old, stupid dream. You see what it brought me to. And now is probably a bit too late…" he stops and looks at the sky, at dying sun. It casts last beams at their little islet in the center of the forest, coloring it with a palette of scarlets and oranges. "Helios' chariot is leaving," he states melancholically, not saying it to her at all. But Rapunzel asks anyway,

   "What?" Silence.

   He stands in front of her, his mouth opened, suspended somewhere between the reality and daydreams. He's looking at the brushwood at his feet, but he can't see it.

   "Never mind," he cuts off and eventually kneels. "Help me."

   Rapunzel gathers armful of dry branches and helps him to make a pyramid of them. Making a fire with an open, burning wound on the hand is painful like hell. She would like to help him with that as well, but she can't. And he doesn't expect it, anyway.

   When the first flames start to lick gently the pile of wood, Flynn breathes deeply and sits on a tree broken by storm, straightening his legs and placing his bare feet in front of the fire. Water doesn't slop in his boots anymore, so he decides to put them on.

   "You said it's too late now," says the girl after a moment of silence, broken only by a quiet hissing of campfire. "Why? Just look at me! I'm going to see the lanterns after eighteen years of only watching it." She smiles gently. She has a broken smile, always wider at the left side. In the light of the fire her hair seem to be less golden and more pink. The shadows slither on her round, full moon-like face. She seems to be so small and fragile.

   "You know, Rapunzel..." He realizes it's probably the first time he ever uses her real name, and how oddly tartly it sound in his mouth.



   Suddenly, Flynn grips his temple. Pain is so sudden he can't stop the unintentional grimace.

   "What happened? Eugene?" The girl gently touches his arm. "Hand again?"

   He shakes his head.

   "It's nothing... just an old scar. Sometimes it aches." His eyes are closed, but he feels as she comes closer to him. Later her palm tightly takes his hand away. "Want to see it?" he eventually asks senselessly and brushes away the hair from his forehead. A long, silver, crescent-shaped scar runs over his left arcade. Rapunzel runs her finger across it. It's strange, how soothing this touch feels.

   "It seems to be deep," she announces. "Who did it to you?"

   "I drank... uh, well... I was drunk. I don't remember exactly what was it about... anyway, I joined some fracas - I guess I has stolen something again," he tries to smile, but can't. She's not laughing also. "Stabbingtons pulled out the knives."

   "You could have lost your eye."

   They could've killed him.

   "Well, I'm not gonna pretend that's not what they were hoping for."



   Rapunzel wrinkles her nose, her little freckles gleam. They aren't scattered only on her nose; she has some on her cheek as well, and one in the right corner of her mouth.

   "Eugene," she says. She's serious to death. "Give me your hand."

   Flynn stretches his left hand in front of her.

   "No, the other one."

   "What for?" He looks in her eyes. A strange, green fire flares inside them now. She doesn't look like someone who brings wound dressing with him, and particularly not for someone who knows how to use them.

   "If you don't want another scar, just do it. Trust me."

   He peeps at his palm once more. It's dirty, puffy and pale. Only place around the wound is red and pulsating. He feels a little dizzy; he's lost a lot of blood.

   "Trust me," the odd girl repeats. She's still waiting, holding her hands in front of her. Flynn Rider would pull them away lightly. He would prefer it to become infected. But the thing is, he doesn't feel like Flynn, handsome, brave thief with pockets clanging with gold anymore.

   He has nothing, except rough, mangled palms with a lot of splinters under nails, and companion of a girl who stubbornly calls him by his real name, and whom he would pleasantly sink himself not longer than a few hours ago, before they stepped to the '"Snuggly Duckling'. But she seemed to trust him anyway. All this time.

   Maybe he should trust her, too - only this one time?

   At last he holds her his hand, trying to stop its trembling. Rapunzel's palms are so petite that she could barely close them around it. A flash of smile brightens her face for a fraction of a second.

   Trust.

   Flynn deceives himself for a moment that she just wanted to look at the wound, like at the scar. But she pricks hair surrounding her feet and starts wrapping it around his palm.

   "So, you always smile so shifty, while wrapping your hair around someon-" he starts, trying to cover his nervousness with a bad joke. Rest of the sentence drowns in a moan when her fingers gently scuffs the wound.

   "Sorry..." She immediately takes them back. She breathes deeply. "And now just... just don't be scared..."


   Flower, gleam and glow
   Let your power shine
   Make the clock reverse
   Bring back what once was mine

   Heal what has been hurt
   Change the fate's design
   Save what has been lost
   Bring back what once was mine
   What once was mine

   The young thief thinks that this song is a prayer for the lost childhood. But then her hair begins to glow and he's not able to focus on anything anymore.

   She said that he has to keep calm but she looks terrified herself – she's not sure of his reaction. Her voice, silent anyway, trembles and almost drowns in a sound of the roaring fire. A clinker sneaks into the song.

   Flynn barely hears it. He sits straight like a chord, hypnotized by her hair, which golden flood spills all around. He ducks his legs, as if he was scared of getting burnt. He would gladly take his hand out, but he isn't able to.

   He tried to tell himself that what he saw in the cave was only a cause of the defect of oxygen. But it's happening again. Balsamic twilight is filled with wavy fog of heat coming from the camp fire. Flynn's face burns, just like the wounded hand. It's a pleasant king of heat, which seems to ray somewhere from the within of the wound, hidden in a soft saffron cocoon of her hair, and slowly spread out around his whole body.

   He suddenly realizes that the pain is gone. The last verse of the song fades. Rapunzel slowly opens her eyes and looks at him unsurely, still holding his wrist. Her hair fades to blonde again. The pain is gone.



   Now they sit on a worm eaten trunk, an ineffectual thief, for who's head a price had been appointed, and a bizarre girl with God knows how long hair. Both are silent, looking blankly at the starlit sky. Everything seems to be perfectly normal.

   Then Flynn sets his palm free from a saffron grip. He still can't believe it. But the wound is scared up. On his hand left only a slight cut. He hears only his own whistling breath, terror rises somewhere in his throat.

   "Just don't panic!"

   A scream withers until it even left his mouth.

   Heal what has been hurt...

   He breathes deeply. He inhales into his lungs a harsh, salty smell of blood and puss mixed with the dirty smoke from campfire, and looks at his hand once more. Could the happiness smell like that?



   Rapunzel would like to think about her mother. But she can't force herself to do. Not now, when she met his gaze, oddly warm, what was contrasting with the steel nonchalance emanating from it previously. She feels guilty because of it. Se knows that when she returns home, tired and mendacious, sick from disgust to herself, she won't be able to look at her face.

   But pangs of conscience and shame disappear for a moment, when she rises her head to see his honest look, deprived of even a shadow of dissimulation, and brushes her hair off from her neck. She tells him her secret.

   "A gift like mine must be protected!" She gulps. "That's why mother doesn't… doesn't let me... that's why... That's why I never..."

   "That's why you've never left the tower," he ends for her and just then realizes it himself. "And you still... want to go back?" he whispers, speechless.

   He feels as if someone slammed him right into the face. He knows he has no right to judge her, but the though he would never even think about going back under the wing of overprotective mother bites him like a malignant insect.

   And she's still fighting with herself. Going out from the tower was the first step to make her dreams come true, but still, she's ready to get imprisoned there again, just to not hurt her mother.

   He tries to understand her, but he can't. He can only look as she covers her face with hands, wanting to hide her tears from him.

   Flynn shakes his head. She's much better human than he could ever be.



   Flynn hits himself with an open hand in clavicle, where sits a mosquito, lured by the smell of fresh blood, which hasn't completely disappeared yet. Under the stiff fabric of his vest, he feels some globular shape. He pulls out a little silver hip flask, a bit tarnished. Inside it, something bubbles happily.

   He sights. A map would be much more welcome. When he's about throw it away angrily, he feels as his stomach shrinks from hunger. He can't despise its content anymore.

   "When did you eat something for the last time?" ask Rapunzel unexpectedly, looking at him carefully from under squinted eyelashes.

   "About… two-three days ago, a loan of bread I st- bought." Weird, but for some reason he doesn't want to mention his thefts, while being with her.

   "I bet you paid through the nose for it," says the girl, smile brightens her face. There isn't any trace of previous hysteria on it. Flynn prefers it like it is now, so he answers,

   "You don't even imagine." He winks at her from bangs covering his eyes and lifts the bottle to his mouth. But until he takes the first swig of it, something stops him. "Don't you want to drink?"

   Rapunzel barely visibly shrugs, but she can't stop from unintentional licking her chapped lips. She points the hip bottle.

   "And what's that?"

   "Wine."

   "It's kind of... juice?"

   "Sorta. From grapes. Just fermented.

   She takes the bottle from him, looks into its within and wrinkles her nose again. She hates her ignorance.

   "It means... it's not good?"

   "On the contrary." Flynn grins, encouraging her by a gesture to try.

   Slowly, still shifty, she lifts it to her mouth and takes a little swig. She weights the drink on her tongue for a while, keeps it in her mouth. It's a harsh, a bit sweetish flavor, but it definitely doesn't resemble any fruits she's eaten ever before. At least, she swallows.

   Suddenly, a fire flames out inside her throat. Hot blushes crawl onto her cheeks, then onto her neck, and eventually she feels as if she's burning. She starts to choke and stifle, trying to split out the rest of the alcohol. The bottle falls down from her hands.

   "Hey, hey, easy," says Flynn quietly, trying to stop his amusement. He hasn't seen such reaction for a long time. He leans over her and taps her back, what doesn't help at all.

   When Rapunzel straightens, a red trickle gutters down her chin. Her face is in similar shade. She quickly rubs it with her hand, and then runs her finger across the hair.

   "Sooo... is it what Flynn Rider actually drinks, huh?" she says with a skittish smile. There isn't even a trace of mock in her voice, but… interest? As if the answer was important for her.

   He could expect that she would, sooner or later, star cross-questioning. He hasn't opened his mouth yet, though, but he already feels as if he's said way too much. He looks sorrowfully at the silver globe bleeding at his feet, but quickly frowns. He needs something much stronger than wine anyway.

   He's never talked about his past. The Stabbingtons weren't the best people to talk to. No one he knew was.

   And now, a girl with God knows how long hair appears and just wants to get nearer and deeper to the truth about the infamous thief than anyone.

   He feels uncomfortable, forced to rub salt into old wounds. And in the same time he has a feeling no one, but this crazy person talking to the frogs can actually understand him.

   He hardly stops himself from covering his mouth when he realizes he exactly wants to tell her.



   He treats it as some kid of absolution, a way to get rid of sense of guilt, which floods him every time he looks at her. As if he wants to be warrantable. She's an epitome of innocence, and he... well...

   He was a kid from the street, then from the orphanage, and later - again from the street. Ha had nothing, and what he has now – is stolen. He tries to not think how upsetting it is.

   He doesn't want to talk about the details, just as he didn't want to life like that someday. But he does it anyway.

   "But you can't tell anyone about this," he whispers in confidence. "It'd ruin my reputation."

   "Ah! It would be a great loss."

   "Hey, the fake reputation is all a man has."

   Rapunzel giggles. Her laugh is so clear and gentle it's almost unbelievable that he's caused it. He smirks. A tight strand of understanding between them had started to take on the features of a ship rope.

   She's looking at him intensively. She's his little, lonely miracle. Her eyes aren't completely green - there runs a slight golden ring around the pupils. Flynn sees himself in them - much better than he actually is, such he couldn't be. He's got a feeling they're boring into him, almost reaching his soul. He quickly looks down and rises with fear, so she can't see how dirty it is.

   "So I'll... well... bring some... those, you know... yep."

   He goes toward the pitch black forest, although the campfire doesn't seem as if it was planning to stop burning anytime soon. Her voice stops him.

   "I wanted you to know... I like Eugene Fitzherbert much better than Flynn Rider." – And she's not talking about the name.

   Flynn peeks at his palm. Even the slight scratch has disappeared. As it's never been there. Smiling unconsciously, he touches it with his finger.

   "Then you'll be the first, I guess...," his voice starts to sound oddly, so he quickly clears his throat, "but thank you."

   He turns his back to her and starts to go faster, still looking at his hand, as if it was the cause of the muddle inside his head.

   He doesn't feel like Flynn Rider anymore.

   It's possible that he feels more and more... Eugene Fitzherbert again.


   Flynn's talking something to her, but she can't hear him. She's looking at her wrist, five red prints of her mother's nails she hammered onto her arm, trying to force her to go with her. 'We are going home, Rapunzel!'

   But the forest, even if something dangerous was hidden there, seemed much better place than the stony prison now.

   "Everything's okay?"

   She turns back, nervously brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

   "Yes... I just... was lost in my thoughts."

   Flynn shrugs. It really is not his problems. He wonders why he still has to remind himself about that. He decides to ask the question once more, if some longer contact with her hair would give him a superpower. Rapunzel replies: 'No, it doesn't work like that.' Nothing more.

   Her face looks like sculptured in marble now, almost without any emotion. She pulls up her knees to her chin and sits near the campfire. When he was absent, all of her impulsiveness and liveliness has left her like the air lefts a broken balloon. She pushes her back to the sear steam, trying to disappear.

   'Just look at you! Why on earth should he be impressed?'

   She counts all of her imperfections in her thoughts. He covers her mouth with her hand, so Flynn couldn't see her squirrel-like front teeth, while asking; "Haven't you ever wanted to run away?"

   "I've been doing nothing but it for the last ten years," Flynn answers with honesty he's never even thought he has.

   He expected that her next question would be the question about his age, but she's stubbornly silent. Rapunzel wants to prove she knows enough about him and doesn't need to know his age for any reason. He can't be much older. And even if he is... she doesn't want any bounds to be build between them because of it.

   Flynn looks at her carefully. The shades under her eyes start to look like bruises.
   "I think you should go to sleep. Tomorrow's a great day." He doesn't even try to smile. He knows she won't give it back this time.