(Grimm Tale #1: Rapunzel)
 

Here is the way it went. They wanted the child, they did, but before she was born there was this incident, see, involving a sorcerer who lived beyond the back garden, and some... lettuce. Don't ask. And the upshot of it was that Hank ended up pleading for his life, in terms he really shouldn't have used in that kind of company: "oh, please let mercy prevail over justice". An interesting notion to bring forward into a malevolent world, but there you are, at the time Hank was as green as the lettuce. And he made a deal with the sorcerer, Mr Born to be Absentee father, to give up the child.

So when the Council of Watchers happened along and claimed her, when Buffy was fifteen, it didn't truly come as a big surprise to Hank, though he kept that quiet. Did he ever ask himself later, I wonder, though, what kind of mercy his art of the deal played out when it came to his Only Girl? It's not recorded. But anyway, he left Joyce with the problem(atic) child, there was a succession of Secretaries, he just let go of his lettuce family and made a lot of money out of, good ironic bit here, the business of justice. After all, didn't the sorcerer, in loco parentis, promise to treat her as a daughter? He told himself  'You can't do business in the world if you don't keep your bargains'. It all made sense. To Hank.

The sorcerer, in his view, fulfilled his end of the bargain also. He began by explaining to her carefully that when she was Called, she must obey. He told her often how important she was to the world. What more could any girl want? He hadn't a single qualm about taking her from her mother, and the world, and locking her away, in a tower in the forest. And the training he gave her taught her to deal out justice rather than mercy. She was a good girl, and studied hard, and learned to slay the beasts, and always tried to do her duty. He was proud of how far she'd come, under his guidance. He'd thrown away the manual, and she'd proved him right. And he was fond of her, in truth. It seemed pretty clear he'd feel really bad when she died, though dying is what he brought her up to do. It's angsty, you know, being a Watcher. And every night he Called her down from the tower, so she could hunt and slay. And every day she returned at dawn a maiden. Innocent, and sheltered. Green.

But there was an odd incident one night, quite early on. She went to hunt a beast she knew, to save her mother. And most unusually, he had a soul, and that seemed to make a difference somehow, and as a result she didn't slay that time. Mercy, see, instead of justice, and wherever she might have learned about that was very unclear. And so the monster lived to fall in love with her, which seemed poetic at the time. Until one night, out hunting, she lost her maidenhead to him, and a curse kicked in, and he went evil. She had to kill him, and it almost seemed to kill her too. She escaped from the tower and ceased to slay.

But in the end she returned, still Called, you see. No longer maiden, but wiser and sadder somehow. It wasn't logical, because after all what she did was clearly right. She always knew that part, how to save the world. But between the sorcerer's desire to protect her, and the girl's desire to be done, the tower grew noticeably taller, and there was no access in. She was beautiful, that girl, but every year she became still more remote from everything that tied her to the world. Her mother died, and she could not feel her heart. One night she went to the top of the Tower, and jumped.

But that wasn't the nature of the original deal. Mercy was all used up, and justice had been explicitly rejected. So in the end she came back from the grave, still Called by the bargaining, torn out of Heaven and forcibly reinserted in the world. And she took it hard, the night she was returned against her will to climb the Tower again, wanting the end she was denied. And the sorcerer, who was already in pain because he sent her out to die, then chose to invent an urgent engagement Elsewhere, and left her alone. And she could not find a way to live in the world again. The Tower grew once more noticeably taller. When she was Called, she went, and did her duty, but in herself she was gone.

And only one beast, unsouled, remained. He came originally to try his luck, with her, but fell in love instead. He stood unmoving at the base of the Tower, after she jumped, and cried for her. He understood her suffering, and he suffered for her when she was gone. Though unalive, he wanted her to live. Although alive, she wanted still to die. She knew he called her out to love, but love just wasn't what she needed. And so she cut her hair, snip snap, and chose to treat him as a Beast, to warm her body, even though she could not warm her heart. She took what she needed, destroying him a little every time she did, until he could take no more and live, and then she made the choice to stop. But he could not leave it alone, because she called him too, out of himself, and in that remembered what it was like to be human. And one night he could not stop, and then he knew the monster in himself indelible, and could not live that way, and could not stay, and could not help.

He went away, and got a soul, and then returned, because he wanted to keep her safe, but it was unbearable to leave her alone in the dark. In this she knew at last there was one who would not leave her. She made no bargains, but he stood beneath her Tower and waited for her anyway, to guard her back and give her comfort. "I want to go with you very much," she said, "but I don't know how I can get down. Every time you come, you must bring a skein of silk with you, and I'll weave it into a ladder. When it's finished, then I'll climb down, and you can take me away on your horse."

But the sorcerer appeared once more with plans of battle, expectations. Her life was his, beyond death, according to the bargain. She did not always meet those expectations, giving sometimes mercy and not justice, and he blamed the Beast. "I thought I had made sure you had no contact with the outside world, but you've deceived me."

When the right moment came, he set a trap, to separate his daughter from the beast. He sent her to a barren shadowland, and chained her to a rock. He chose another Slayer, one who wanted to be Called. And he caught the beast in his net, and then gouged out his eyes, and left him to wander through the wilderness. But when the beast found her, knowing her voice, and she knew him, then she cried, and this restored his sight.

And in the once upon a time they went to live together in his kingdom. It is not known if she was ever Called again. Nevertheless in the story they are spoken of as husband and wife, even in the days when she still dwelt in the Tower. And it is recorded that they had together children, and much joy.

The End

macha
macha@ntl.sympatico.ca

written, for Tea at the Ford with macha, 17 Aug 2003
revised slightly 18 Aug 2003