Chapter 7 Rapunzel
Rapunzel
Brannock has been with me for three days now.
That’s seventy-two hours of awkward glances, almost-touches, polite distance, and the shared agony of dwindling food supplies.
I’m not sure what’s more painful: the gnawing in my stomach or the ache that blooms every time I catch him watching me like he’s memorizing my face.
Because I may be innocent in body, but I’m not oblivious to sexual tension.
And there’s enough in my little tower to power Fable Forest.
Three nights ago—the night the roots brought him crashing into my world—he kissed me. And I kissed him back. An orc I’d known for less than a day.
I can still feel it—the press of his mouth, the rumble in his chest that answered something fated in mine. But since then—nothing. Not a brush of fingers. Not a lingering touch. Just restraint so noble it might be illegal.
During the day, he keeps a respectful distance.
He makes tea. He fixes things that aren’t broken so he can be useful—tightens the loose screw on my wobbly chair, re-hangs the mirror that has tried to leap to its death three times, turns my ruined sheet into a very dignified rope.
Sometimes, our hands almost meet when he passes me a cup.
Sometimes, our knees almost touch when we both reach for the same worn book.
Almost. Almost. I’m going to start a shrine to the god of Almost and demand reparations.
At night, he beds down on the rug. He says it’s because the floor is cooler there, or the window can be drafty, or he doesn’t want to crowd me. I suspect it’s because if he gets within kissing range, we may spontaneously combust.
The first night, I lay as stiff as a board on my too-small bed and told myself I would not move. I was dignity. I was willpower. I was… creeping across the floor like a burglar eyeing a stash of gold.
He was already asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other curled near his chest as if guarding something fragile. I hovered beside his shoulder, and then the tiniest sound came out of me. Not a word. A whimper I didn’t authorize.
He didn’t even wake. He just reached, found me by instinct, and pulled me in. I landed against the warm plane of his chest with a surprised oof. His arm banded around my waist. His breath found the crown of my head. The stove ticked as the last ember settled. The tower… quieted.
I lay there and didn’t move for a long time. My pendant warmed at my throat as my heart thrummed in my chest. His heartbeat was a slow drum under my ear. When he exhaled, it moved the fine hairs at my temples. When I inhaled, his chest rose with me, as if we were already practicing being one being.
The second night, I tried to be subtle about it.
The floorboards creaked as I approached him, and I froze.
But he didn’t wake then, either. He tugged me close, tucked my hips into the curve of his, and made a noise that was half contentment, half warning, and entirely ruinous to my composure.
I slept. Real sleep, not the gray, heavy kind the tower drags me into.
The kind with dreams that didn’t end in bleeding hair and dying sunlight.
By last night, the pattern became a ritual. We exchanged soft goodnights and retreated to our separate stations: me to the bed, him to the rug. I waited. Counted heartbeats. Then tiptoed over on bare feet.
He was on his side, one hand tucked under his cheek.
The scars on his knuckles caught the light from the oil lamp.
The shirt I mended was twisted up his spine to reveal a strip of ink-dark green.
I stood there far too long, thinking about all the things his body and his actions were telling me without words.
I eased down. He didn’t even pretend to be asleep this time.
He opened one arm without looking, and I fit myself there like I was made to, as if I’d waited my whole life to learn this simple choreography: shoulder, cheek, palm, peace.
He dropped a sleep-slurred kiss into my hair, which landed somewhere between my crown and the place where I keep all my foolish wishes.
But despite our physical closeness at night, he doesn’t touch me when the sun is up.
I tell myself I don’t mind. I absolutely mind.
But I think I understand. He’s trying to be good.
To keep me safe—from himself, from this place.
But at night, his sleeping body forgets to be noble and remembers to be mine.
And every day, he—
“Maybe if I stack all the furniture and climb it like a ladder, I can reach the roof,” Brannock says, pulling me from my thoughts as he drags my tiny table on top of the stove.
Every day, he concocts a new, ridiculous escape plan.
The first day, he made a rope from my only bedsheet.
“That’s a limited-edition cottagecore bedsheet,” I whined as he tore it in half.
“This isn’t a fashion show, Rapunzel. It’s a prison break.”
The “rope” made it out the window.
He did not.
The roots yanked him back through the window like a judgmental mother catching her son sneaking out.
The following day, he stacked my wooden chair on top of the stove.
“Maybe I can make a ladder and find a way out through the roof.”
“You weigh three times more than that table,” I pointed out, biting back a laugh as he balanced one foot on the wobbly chair.
“I’m agile,” he replied.
“You’re an orc.”
He fell, crashing to the floor.
And this morning? He’s rambling about stacked furniture and talking to the roots.
“You and I both know she doesn’t belong here,” he mutters, crouched in front of the gnarled floor where my hair merges with the wood.
He’s dressed in his leather pants and the shirt I stitched back together, now a charming blend of rugged brown fabric and dainty flower print. And somehow, he still looks edible.
“You’re bargaining with sentient hair now?” I ask, arms crossed.
He looks up, unbothered. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Did it talk back?”
“It twitched.”
“That might’ve been me sneezing.”
He sighs and stands. “I’m running out of ideas.”
The kettle hisses on the stove, and Brannock crosses to make us both tea. He moves with surprising grace for someone so massive. I watch him lean against the wall as the water boils, arms crossed over his chest, foot braced casually behind him.
My breath catches.
He’s unfairly attractive. Tall and broad and scarred and green. He should be terrifying. But when he looks at me, he feels like safety.
I glance away, flustered, only to notice the roots curling along the base of the wall. They move slowly. Rhythmically.
Like breath.
Like…
“Pulsing,” I whisper.
Brannock shifts, looking guilty. His hand darts to the front of his pants. “Pardon?”
“The roots,” I say, already walking toward them. “They’re pulsing. Like a heartbeat.”
I kneel and press my hand against one thick coil of root. It twitches beneath my palm, alive and warm. Not like a plant. Not like something separate.
Like an extension of myself.
My other hand flies to my chest, fingers splayed over my sternum. I hold my breath… and feel it.
The thrum of my heartbeat matches the pulse in the root.
“They're synced with me,” I breathe. “My hair... It’s not just connected to the tower. It is the tower. The roots are growing from me.”
Brannock crouches beside the root, frowning. “I’ve never seen magic like this.”
I have. Bits and pieces. Little clues I didn’t want to fit together. The way my hair tangles when I’m upset. How the roots swell and writhe when I’m lonely. The way the floorboards creak and tremble when I cry.
All this time…
“Oh, gods,” I whisper. “Why didn’t I see it sooner?”