______________________________________

Poofy hair was poofy.
This, Rapunzel thought, in addition to being one of the fundamental truths of the universe, was the one problem with her poofy hair. It was too poofy. It dried in real fast, but when it dried in it seemed to expand into big frizzy masses. A huge bulb of hair surrounded her head now, bigger and wider even than her belly. She was combing it, but it was a rather long term endeavour.
As she combed she began to sing.
Unlike the Prince, Rapunzel's songs did not require large imaginary accompaniments, nor did they really have lyrics as such. She didn't know much about singing, which is why she was so good at it. She just noticed that sometimes when sounds came out of her mouth, they were nice sounds, so sometimes when she was bored she would line the nice sounds up together, and then do them all in a row- occasionally rearranging them to make them nicer.
The one annoying thing she had noticed about singing was that it had a terrible tendency to attract pests- like moths to a flame. Lots of little bluebirds would show up and start tweetering over her song, and it was most annoying. Unless she was low on supplies, then it was great. Nanny Witch had taught her blue bird stew, and blue bird soup, and lots of other tasty dishes involving bluebirds.
"Hello? Hello up there? Could you come down here and sing?"
Rapunzel blinked.
Someone was calling her.
It must be the Prince!
She waddled to her window and looked out, grinning towards the ground. She was so excited for forgot all about the blue birds and accidentally knocked a full chorus off her window sill.
"Aww, thanks lady. You're a real star."
Rapunzel frowned. That did not sound like the Prince.
There was a figure standing at the foot of the tower. It was a very odd figure indeed. Rapunzel frowned as she tried to think of what the person was. She had read in books and heard from Nanny Witch about all sorts of people. There were boys, and girl, and bakers, and smiths, and witches, and hunters, and princes... But she wasn't sure which of these categories this person fit into.
"... are you a Prince?" she asked.
The figure grinned. What they did have was lots and lots of teeth. They laughed.
"Do I look like a Prince?" they said.
Rapunzel shook her head, flopping her poofy hair around.
The figure had snatched up the blue birds that Rapunzel had knocked off her windowsill, and was now stuffing them into that great big tooth filled mouth, gulping them down whole.
"Oh no!" Rapunzel said, "Don't do that!"
The figure looked up at her. "Sorry girly, but I gotta eat."
"Yes, but they taste much better in stew," Rapunzel said.
They stood looking at each other for a long moment.
"... really?"
"Mmhmm," Rapunzel said, nodding. "Umm... are you, by any chance, a..." Rapunzel thought for a moment. Not a Prince. Baker? Butcher? Witch? "Are you a Boy?" she asked. Lots of people were boys, or so she had heard.
The figure laughed.
"Do I look like a boy?"
Rapunzel scratched her head, "I don't know, I've only ever met a Prince before. You don't look like him."
"I'm female," the figure said, "I'da thought this would make that obvious."
She pointed to the big round belly growing out of her waist.
"Ooh!" Rapunzel said, "I have one of those too!"
"... really?" the figure asked again.
"Mmhmm!" Rapunzel said. After a long moment of careful shifting about, she managed to poke her belly through the window. "See?" she called. Then, after pulling her belly back in, and her head back out, she said, "So did you eat too much lettuce too?"
The girl on the ground did not seem to have any response to this.
And then, because she was getting a bit peckish, Rapunzel added, "... do you have lettuce? I'm really really hungry for lettuce right now." She paused before attempting a whisper. It should be pointed out that Rapunzel, who had lived alone in a tower all her life, had never really gotten the idea of whispering, and thus managed a whisper that was easily audible to the girl below, "The belly makes me hungry for lettuce."
The girl nodded slowly.
"I think I'm gonna go now..." she said, slowly.
"No! No don't go!" Rapunzel said, "Hold on, I can make bluebird stew!" she said, and sung a few short bars. Just as the bluebirds were beginning to gather, she snatched the closest out of the air and stuffed it into her pocket.
"Well... okay," the figure said, "But how am I gonna get up? I don't see a door."
Rapunzel giggled.
"You'll just climb up my hair, silly..."
________________________________________

Wash on... wash off.. wash on... wash off...
This must be Heaven. He must be dead, and this must be Heaven. The golden sun warmed all from above, and the sea gently carressed the shore, while someone gently carressed him. He was cushioned in a world of wonderful softness.
Being dead was not so bad after all, then.
The Prince opened his mouth to say something, and instead found himself throwing up a mouthful of seawater.
Eyugh! That was decidedly unheavenly! And come to think of it, he was soaking. And he felt all grimey and gritty. Ugh, and his hair.
Oh no.
No please no.
It couldn't be, could it? He had been so good, he had been the best. He had tried so hard, he had always, always done what he had thought was right, but... there were a few... minor indiscretions. But no. Surely... surely not... surely he hadn't gone to...
The other place
Someone giggled near him.
Maybe it was one of those succubuses of temptation he had heard about. Actually, come to think of it, maybe hell had some advantages too. He spat the last of the horrible salty sea water out of his mouth, and turned, grinning, to the sultry young-
Oh.
Not Heaven, or Hell.
He was alive.
Briefly, he contemplated suicide. He dismissed the idea, not out of a deep and endearing love of life, but more out of a crippling lack of ingenuity- he couldn't really figure out how to kill himself right at this minute. There were no stabby things nearby to plunge into his heart.
She giggled, and smiled at him.
One of The Prince's few notable talents was his memory for faces. Well, faces and... other things. He remembered this one. Bright sparkling blue eyes that, if he'd bothered to look, could probably have spoken volumes, an almost omnipresent grin, and long, wavy, curly strawberry blond hair. It was currently soaking wet but managed still to look rather pretty. He also remembered smooth, pale and perfectly moisturised skin, an unremarkable chest, and legs that seemed to go on forever.
Which was why he was rather confused by what he was seeing now.
Okay, one or two details were explained easily enough. His memory for faces neatly correlated with his memory for dates, and this particular young maiden had been about... eight months ago? Yes. That explained why a pair of tiny clamshells were now clamped over endowments several sizes too large for them, and why there was a gargantuan pink globe swelling out of her middle.
It did not, however, explain the long pink fish tail that her thighs seemed to melt into.
For the sake of narrative convenience, it shall be explained; she is a mermaid. The Prince, however, was not at all a fan of literature, fantasy, bestiaries, or anything that might furnish him with such knowledge. As such, his mind was currently screaming FISH GIRL at the top of its mental voice. Nearby psychics were very confused.
"O-oh," he said, "Hi..." He forced a chuckle, "Fancy meeting you here."
The girl nodded enthusiastically, and started shuffling towards him. She seemed to have trouble shifting her considerable mass along the shore using only the long, sleek tail. She wrapped her arms around his chest and scootched up so that she could rest her head upon it.
"W-woah, now, hold on there, milady!" the Prince said, carefully slipping out of her grip, "No need to, to go getting any ideas now..."
The mermaid sat up, and shot him a confused look, raising her eyebrows. Then she pointed at her belly and, with a terrible smile, pointed at him, and then made a cradling motion with her arms. A few moments later she put a finger to her chin, and became deep in thought. She shook her head, and repeated the gestures, belly, him... only this time she mimed cradling a seperate child in either arm, and even curled her tail up around further phantom children. When she was done she grinned at him and rubbed her belly.
The Prince understood (barely).
"J-just a minute, now, d-dearest, I... I, hm, let me see..."
He was a Prince Goddammit. He would not be sat here quavering and stammering because of some, some silly Fish Girl.
He stood up.
"Now, look here, you," he said, "I happen to be a Prince. You can't just go kidnapping Princes all willy nilly," he went on, having by now completely and utterly forgotten about the witch, "I do understand that you may perceive some hypothetical grievance on your part but- Wooaaah!"
The mermaid had wrapped the narrow end of her tail around one of his feet and yanked it out from under him. She carefully dragged him back towards her, until she could get her hands on him, and pull the adorable little man up to her face. Before he could mount a protest, she had grabbed his head and brought it up to her own and locked in a very passionate embrace.
Oh.
No.
This different. This was definitely different. Her mouth did not taste of fish before.
The Prince broke free of her embrace and managed to crawl a little away before being violently sick.
The mermaid crawled after him. She turned him around, looking positively dismayed, and started patting his stomach and giving him pointed looks.
"Ugh, ugh, would you stop that?" he said, batting her hands away, "I'm perfectly fine, I just don't need a mouthful of icky fish breath. Eyugh. Would you stop looking at me like that? What? What is your problem? Could you just speak up for five seconds? God, you'd think it'd kill you... you realise I don't even know your name?"
The girl frowned at him, and then pointed at her long, smooth neck, and made a cross gesture with her arms.
The Prince rolled his eyes.
"No necking, I get it, you're not in any danger of that, trust me."
She shook her head, and then opened her mouth a few times silently, then shook her head again.
The Prince glared. "I will not shut up! I happen to be a Prince you know?"
The mermaid paused.
She was suddenly very, very worried that her school of children were all going to be idiots. Her choice in mates had not been nearly as fortuitous as she had thought. Oh well. At least he was good in bed.
She wrapped her tail around his middle and started tugging him off. The only sounds she had been left with were giggles, and it was at times like this that she decided to make the full use of them.
The prince gulped.
Just what was this fish girl up to?
________________________________________

"Hmmm..."
"Do you want a clue?"
"No!"
"Well, I'm just saying... we've been here for ages..."
Rapunzel shook her head. "No! I'm gonna figure it out proper. It's all fun, too, anyway."
The girl chuckled. "Well, okay."
"And you're sure you're not a boy?" Rapunzel asked.
"Very sure."
"Hmmm," Rapunzel dove back into thought. She had actually made progress. She had established that the girl was Big- as evidenced by her belly- and that she was Bad, mostly because this was near the top of her vocabulary. The girl didn't have much truck with names, so Rapunzel had just started calling her Bad, which worked quite well.
Bad was not a baker, a butcher, a candlestick maker, a yeomon (which was good, because Rapunzel had no idea what a one of them was), a boy, a Prince, a Princess, a witch, a sailor, a king, a queen, a knight, or a cloud. She had most emphatically not been a cloud, which was annoying, because Rapunzel really thought she'd been onto something there.
"Are you a tree?"
"No," Bad said.
Rapunzel scratched her chin. "Are you a pine tree?"
Bad laughed, "That's a kind of tree."
"... so are you one?"
"No! I told you I wasn't a tree, didn't I? If I'm not a tree, how can I be a pine tree?"
Rapunzel smirked. Being raised by a witch for seventeen years taught you the answer to questions like these.
"Magic."
Bad sighed. "Well, I'm not a pine tree and wasn't turned into one by magic, okay, Goody?"
Goody was her own nickname for Rapunzel, because 'Rapunzel' was too long and confusing and had one of those weird ziggy zaggy letters in it that she didn't like. Rapunzel thought this was very silly, but she indulged her, because she had taught to be kind to those less rational and clever than herself.
"Okay," Rapunzel said.
Hmmm. Not a tree or a pine tree. Tricky, tricky.
"Are you a hunter?"
Bad scratched her ear. The strange thing was she did this with her foot.
"Well," she said, "I hunt. But I don't know if you'd call me a hunter per se."
"No, no, no, no, no," Rapunzel said. She had to put her foot down now, this was getting silly. "You can't say that. If you hunt, you're a hunter, right? Or a hunter Percy, like you said. It's like treeses, like you were just saying. If you're a tree, how can you not be a pine tree?"
Bad frowned at this. Rapunzel's logic was difficult to follow. Finally, she settled on, "Magic."
"Ahhh," Rapunzel said, nodding sagely, "That makes sense. Hmmm. So you hunt, but you were magiced so that you weren't a hunter. Must be tough. Hmm. But what does that mean you are...?"
Bad picked some of the bones out of the bluebird stew and started sucking them.
"You are cheating," Rapunzel said.
Bad blinked. "... I am?"
"Yes," Rapunzel said, "You are."
"... how am I cheating?"
"Because," Rapunzel said. This was an argument in an of itself- really Because should have been enough, but Rapunzel was feeling in rare form today, so she decided to go all out and back it up with a whole reason to boot. "I can't figure out what you are, so you must be cheating."
Bad laughed again, "Look, look, I'll just tell you okay?"
"No!" Rapunzel said. She had just had an idea. "You're a... a... a big bad cheaty cheat. But I can cheat too! I bet I can cheat better and everything."
Bad's ears picked up at this. Even though she didn't really think she was actually cheating right now, it was one of her preferred past times. And she respected a talented cheat. If Rapunzel was going to cheat, she wanted to see how. Especially how she was going to cheat at a guessing game of her own invention."
"Ohoh? How?" she asked.
"Magic"
________________________________________

Granny was not having a good day.
It didn't help that mother nature was rubbing it in. The sun was shining outside, and she could see a light breeze dansings amongst the flowers. They were in full bloom now, around the cottage, and she'd bet a farthing on her vegetable garden being ripe for the harvest now too. And on top of everything, the bluebirds were singing again. If only she could get outside she could have made a delicious pie.
But no.
She was dying.
Just her bloody luck, stuck in bed dying on a lovely day like this. If it'd been winter at least she could have died in the comfort of knowing that everyone else was feeling just as miserable as she was.
Death was such an arsehole too, now that she thought about it. She'd spent years looking over her shoulder for the grim reaper, seeing him standing amongst the toadstools or walking with the wolves in the forest, but now that he actually had a job to do, where was he? Nowhere to be bloody seen. She'd be here for weeks at this rate, waiting for him to bloody well get round to her.
The door to her cottage opened, and closed.
This was not, in and of itself, a fundamentally strange occurrence. She had kept the door well oiled, and never bothered with locks. What was weird was that she couldn't think who would be visitng her.
"... hello?" she said.
Ugh, even her voice was small and weak.
Ooh, maybe it was Death!
"Hello, Granny," said a little girlish voice.
Oh, bugger, that wasn't death.
... who was that?
Footsteps crossed the room purposefully, and then dragged a chair across over to her bedside. Then a little girl sat down in the chair and looked boredly at Granny. Granny had never seen her before in her life. She did, however, feel an immediate dislike for the child. She was dressed in finer silken clothes than she had ever seen, with golden embroidery and silver buttons. A cascade of deep red curly hair fell in lazy beauty around her shoulders.
The girl tilted her head his way and that, frowning.
Then she cleared her throat.
"My, Granny, what big eyes you have!"
"Err... do I?" Granny asked. She had not examined her eyes recently. Were they particularly big? She had never thought so. "Umm, excuse me little girl, but who-"
The girl cleared her throat.
Granny just looked at her in incomprehension.
The girl sighed.
"My, Granny, what big ears you have," she said, with the sort of emphasis used only when addressing the especially stupid.
"Oi!" Granny had had just about enough of this. She knew her ears weren't that big, "I do not have big ears. In fact, when I was a girl I had stream of suitors right outside that very door who would tell me how lovely and small my ears are, girl! Now, I demand you te-"
"MY, Granny! What big TEETH you have!" the girl said, shouting out the sentence.
This left Granny absolutely bewildered. She didn't have any teeth, let alone big ones. Was this girl just trying to make fun of her now? Was this how they treated old women these days? Burst into their houses and start making fun of their missing teeth? Oh, it was too much for an old woman.
"I- I- what?!" she spluttered.
There was a long pause, and then the girl sighed. Then groaned. Then stood up.
"I try, and I try, and I try..." she said, pacing up and down the room, running her hands through her hair, "But this is what I've got to work with. Really. What can anyone expect of me with things like this?"
"I..." Granny said, still at a loss for words.
"All the better to eat you with," the girl said, "How hard is that to remember, really? Ugh, but I suppose some things are too much to expect from a wolf..."
"Wolf? I don't understand..."
The girl looked at her in disbelief, and then strode across the floor and grabbed the old woman's skull. She manhandled her, prodding and pulling terribly at her old withered skin, twisting her head this way, turning it that, peering at the whites of her eyes. Finally she released her and let the woman's old head thump against the head of the bed. She ignored her yelp of pain, and just growled in frustration.
"You're not a wolf at all."
"Of course I'm not!" Granny yelled, "Are you blind?"
The girl glared at her, and sparks flashed behind her eyes. She reached out and for a moment Granny thought she was going to strike her, but instead she clawed the air, then waved her hand. Light sparked in the air, and suddenly Granny felt the breath squeezed out of her. She coughed and spluttered, gasping just to breath let along speak.
Ignoring the old woman's protests, the girl walked to the backdoor of the cottage and opened it. She looked around outside.
There was no sign of the wolf anywhere.
That stupid moronic beast. It had gone and gotten distracted by something, hadn't it? Why did simpletons ruin everything? This was supposed to be a nice little story day, but now it was spoiled because she couldn't even get a wolf to come along and eat an old woman. Oh well. The lumberjack had already turned her down since he didn't believe anyone could survive being eaten by a wolf and being chopped free. She'd have to go and deal with him later.
But for now, she had a story to end here. Ridiculous the things she ended up cleaning up just because some people were too lazy to bother coming along and eating an old woman themselves.
She walked back into the cottage and closed the door.
"Stupid wolf," she said, stamping on the floorboards. A puff of fire rolled out from under her heel and scorched a big black mark on the floor.
Had Granny not currently been spluttering for breath, she might have given a yell of surprise.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Granny," the girl said, reaching into the air and fiddling with a little bit of simple magic, "And I'm going to have to be brutally honest here, Granny, I think your performance today was pretty terrible. In fact, you're boring me half to death," she said.
She completed the spell, drawing a long silver knife out of the air.
"Well, err, you're certainly boring one of us to death," she said, "But come to think of it, it's probably not me."








________________________________________

Rapunzel frowned. She was not quite as sure about this as she had been to start out with.
She was still confident that magic held the answer. Magic could do all sorts of things. Anything, really. Nanny Witch had told her that magic did lots and lots and lots of things. Like when Rapunzel had asked her where babies came from years and years and years ago, Nanny had said from Magic. Which made it really silly indeed that she thought babies were coming from her belly.
"Silly, isn't it belly?" she said, pausing in her studies to rub her stomach, "Isn't it? Isn't it?" she asked. Her belly thumped in agreement. "Aww, who's a cute belly?" she said, cradling it. It really was such an adorable belly, for some reason. When it wasn't making her eat all that lettuce, anyway.
No! No distraction belly. Magic. She had to do Magic.
The problem was, she had only figured out what a handful of spells actually did, and none of them were liable to tell her what Bad was. There was the one she used to heat up the water tank, the one for making gusts of wind, and one that made things curl. This was really the most useless she had found, although it was amusing to make her door curl up into a big curly wood roll.
But the rest of her scribbled magical notes were still a mystery to her. Would this spell tell her what Bad was? Or maybe it would make a chicken pop out of thin air? Maybe it would turn chickens into thin air. You could never tell, really, and she was a little worried to test things out.
"Goody? You still doin' magic?" Bad said, knocking on her door.
"Yes! Go away you big cheater!" Rapunzel called.
She had locked herself into the tower's little store room where she hid her copied spelly notey things. She didn't want Bad spoiling everything by just telling her what she was. And that would be dreadful.
"Aww, c'mon! I wanna see!" Bad said.
She really did. It was not every day you got to see genuine magic going on. And got to live through it, too. Bad scratched at the door, but Rapunzel was impervious to her plight. The sound of rustling paper followed.
Bad thought to herself.
Then she remembered the hair. Rapunzel's hair was everywhere in the tower. She had locked herself into the little store room, but she had by no means managed to get all her hair in with her. A big poofy trail lead straight out under the door, as if a fantastic sort of snail had trailed by earlier. Bad grinned.
Rapunzel was briefly aware of a rustling around her as something snaked about the floor, before she was yanked backwards and straight off her feet by her hair. She gave a yelp as she tumbled to the ground.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" she squealed, as Bad yanked on her hair. "Stoppit!"
The other girl giggled.
"Will you let me in now?" she asked.
"Nooo!" Rapunzel protested, grabbing at what little of her hair remained on this side of the door and tugging back. Despite the big voluminous bunches her hair naturally fell into, it slipped through the crack under the door easily- like a cat magically seaming to become liquid to pour through any gap. Not that Rapunzel knew much about cats. If she did, she'd probably have said that they acted a lot like her hair, and in fact suspected them of being pretty creatures made entirely of hair.
"Ow!"
Her mind had wandered, and her grip upon her hair had loosened. Bad was tugging again, and giggling.
Rapunzel winced and tugged again. It was a losing battle- Bad was much stronger than her and wasn't wincing whenever she lost an inch. She could only put up a fight at all because the other girl was giggling so much she lost her grip occasionally.
But Rapunzel knew about hair. At least her own.
She drew up all the length she was going to get and quickly looped it around the doorhandle to the room. It closed tight as Bad tugged, but did not move. Bad grunted on the other side, and pulled harder. The handle rattled but did not give. Rapunzel was left with about a metre and a half of hair between her and the handle. This was roughly what she did to let people climb up the tower anyway- her skull couldn't possibly take the strain of someone climbing up her hair, so she knotted it around a hook. Bad could tug and tug as much as she wanted now, but the door would give before the hair did. Rapunzel's hair was like spun steel.
"What'd you do?" Bad asked from the other side of the door.
"None of your business, meany," Rapunzel said. "I'm not lettin' you in 'til I'm all magicked out."
And with that she set about investigating the spells again. That is, whatever spells were within a metre and a half of the door.
Bad gave a few more experimental tugs, but was not getting anywhere. She sighed.
Oh well. If Rapunzel really did know magic, the ultimate spell she would come to cast probably wouldn't be that impressive anyway. Perhaps a few glowy words appearing in mid air to explain the answer to her question. Bad didn't know how to read, so such things didn't really interest her. But the problem was that, when you got down to it, the answer to the question really wasn't that interesting.
She was a Wolf.
... well, more or less, she thought, scratching the large, pink, round protruberance of her belly. With her pink, bald hands (albeit with long, pointy yellow fingernails). In fact, her number of wolfy bits was very, very low recently. They pretty much boiled down to teeth, tail, ears, nails, and eyes. And brain. Brain was the important bit. She was still all wolfy inside, she was sure. In fact, she was so wolfy she was even thinking of eating Rapunzel later.
Probably not, actually. She was so sweet. She probably tasted all of sugar. And there would be no more pies then.
Bad rubbed her belly some more, since it seemed to be what you did when you were so big and round.
She'd probably have to explain to Rapunzel what a wolf was after she'd cast her spell. That was going to be tricky. When you were a wolf, even a wolf who walked on two legs and was full of babies, you didn't really put lots of thought into definitions. A wolf was you. Or possibly other wolves, but those were either things to mate with or things to beat up. Often both.
Just as she was getting metaphysical, Bad heard the door rattle behind her.
"Goody?"
"Umm, Bad," Rapunzel said, "I think you can come in now."
She got to her feet. Oof, that was difficult with two legs. Why humans did it she would never understand. She opened the door.
Rapunzel gave her a big, wide, and incredibly nervous smile.
Bad looked past her at the huge swirling purple maelstrom that was sucking everything else in the room into it.
Rapunzel cleared her throat and tented her fingers over her belly. "I think I might have had an accident."
________________________________________

Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Gothel was one Prince short.
She briefly contemplated finding another, but decided against it. It was probably wrong to punish another prince for this one's misgivings, and besides, one had been trouble enough. She did not want to deal with a whole other one.
For now, it was back to the tower. Rapunzel would need some very important life lessons soon, or there would be trouble later. And she'd probably scoffed her entire supply of lettuce already... Yes, she'd swing by her lettuce patch, pick up a fresh batch, and then fly b-
"Hello..." she said to herself, "What have we here...?"
Maybe she wouldn't go back home just yet after all.
A casual descent brought her hovering in front of the traveller.
"Hello, miss," Boyle said. He bowed his head, "Begging your pardon, but are you the witch who kidnapped my lord the Prince?"
Gothel nodded, slowly and cautiously. She had not expected this reception. She had expected something more in the vein of 'die, die foul beast!', or at least a scream of terror. Even the horses didn't seem to protest her presence. She noticed that the little man was now riding the Prince's white charger, and not the overladen packhorse he was using earlier. "Yes, I am. And you are his squire?"
"Oh, no, mistress," Boyle said, "I am but a humble and lowly servant in the service of the Prince. That is, I am in charge of food and accomodations- by way of setting up the tent- laundry, security- by way of guardin' the tent- transport, and whateverelse 'is highness needs. Not nearly so honoured a Squire, mistress," Boyle said, and started picking his nose.
"... I see."
"So, 'ave you got 'im, mistress?" Boyle asked.
"The Prince?" Gothel asked. She was still rather disarmed by the sheer brutality of the honesty emanating from Boyle. She had heard people being 'brutally honest' before, but it was a tap on the shoulder compared to this. This was brutally-raping-and-pillaging-entire-villages level honesty.
"Yup," Boyle said, "Didn't quite expect you back so soon misstress. Usually, an' I mean no dishonour to your person mistress, nor am I meanin' to be castin' any aspersions on your character, bein' that I am only jus' speaking of expectations as derived from previous experiences, marm, but usually when someone kidnaps 'im, 'e doesn't come back until 'e's shagged 'em, begging your pardon, mistress."
Gothel laughed.
Well, okay, she cackled. It was a witch thing.
"I don't think I was quite his type," she said, carefully bringing the broomstick around to hover level with Boyle's horse.
Boyle nodded, "I reckone you was one of 'em ancient sorceress types what could transform youself into a sublime beauty for the purposes for vile seduction," he said.
"Hmph! No such thing!" Gothel said, waving a hand.
"Yes there is, madam!" Boyle said, "He got kidnapped by one not two months ago. I'm expecting terrible trouble seven months down the line, but the Prince doesn't seem to be bothered."
"I see..." Gothel said.
"Hopin' that you don't mind me asking, miss, but I am sort of wondering where the young master is, if it's not too impudent a question?"
Gothel coughed and straightened up on her broom, "Well, that is where I was hoping you may be able to help me, lad. I was flying over the ocean when the little bugger tried to get away from me, and then something jumped out and grabbed him."
"Aaah," Boyle said, nodding, "Yes, that'd be the mermaid."
"... mermaid?"
"Yes. He was seducin' her about..." Boyle counted on his fingers. In this area he was at rather a disadvantage, having an odd number, "Seven months ago, miss," he said, although he had possibly just settled on the number because he had ran out of digits, "Well, I say mermaid, she had legs then, and he didn't think anything was odd about her, but I 'ave never before seen someone who likes shellfsih so mucn, and is so interested in brushing their teeth afterwards."
"You know," Gothel said, "I am getting an impression that he is a rather... busy young man."
"You mean he sleeps with a lot of girls?" Boyle said.
Gothel blinked.
"I would not have put it in quite so few words," she said.
"Well that, mistress," Boyle said, turning around in his saddle and waving his hands mystically in the air, "Is because of the Cuuurse!"
"Curse?"
Boyle shook his head, "The Cuuuuuurse."
"Right. A Curse," Gothel said, nodding. "What sort of curse?"
"Well, one with a lot of Us in it," Boyle said, "At least that's what the Prince said."
"I see. Well... what does it do?"
At this Boyle sighed, and looked off towards the horizon with a dreamy look in his eyes. A long moment passed as the servant sat still in the saddle, watching the clouds go by. Gothel followed his gaze, but couldn't see anything of interest. She cleared her throat.
"So," she said, "This curse?"
"Oh, sorry," Boyle said, "Usually when the Prince is around we'd start using our imaginations around now to do thingmajigs. Flash backs. You know how it is."
Gothel nodded. She did not, in fact, know how it was, because she was not in the habit of dealing with insane monarchs. But she found that it was good to agree at times like this, otherwise things started to get awkward.
"Well," Boyle said, "This is how it is. Years and years ago in the mysterious past..." he said, waving a hand in the air, "The Prince's grandfather, the King, was, well, the Prince. And he was going around Princing, as you do, but he sort of fell afowl of this woman."
"I can't possibly imagine how..." Gothel said, rolling her eyes. How indeed might a Prince offend a member of the opposite gender.
"Yeah, 'e was a really nice old geezer too, could never imagine myself," Boyle said, "But anyway, he was trying to rescue this woman 'cause she was a Princess and she says, oi, that's the fifteenth bloody time somebody's tried to rescue me this week alone! I 'aven't been kidnapped and I don't hate my father. What's wrong with all you bloody Princes that you've got to go around carrying Princesses out of towers and things. And the Prince- that is the old Prince, not the Prince Prince- said, Give us a break sweetheart I'm only doing the bloody job. Got to have those heirs, don't I?
"And that is where he made a sort of, what you might call blunder," Boyle said, scratching the back of his head, "See, turns out, she wasn't a Princess in the traditional Princessy sort of way what with tiaras and engagements and things. She was a Witch Princess."
Gothel groaned.
That explained it.
Legends abounded about Witch Queens and Witch Princesses. A lot of stuff about bathing in the blood of virgins, mostly. But the thing was, most people thought that all you needed to be a Witch Queen was to be a Queen and also happen to be a witch. This was not true. That made you... a witch who was a Queen. In fact, the Witch Royal Family was an single ancient bloodline of complete and utter lunatics. They supposedly ruled over all witches secretly, but the problem was they had gotten a bit too good at the secret bit. Their rule was so secretive that most witches didn't have any idea it existed. In fact, Gothel suspected it was a secret even to some of the recent Witch Dutchesses and suchlike. She, a professional witch for a good hundred and twelve years, knew just enough about them to steer clear.
"So, this Princess says, if tha'ts the way it is then you should never have any bloody sons ever again, and puts the Cuuuuuuuurse on him. Which, come to think of it, was pretty lucky, because apparently she killed all the other Princes who tried to rescue her. But anyway, since then the Prince- that is the old Prince- and the new Prince actually- was cursed so that he could almost never ever have a son."
"... almost never?" Gothel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, he kept trying, of course," Boyle said, "You could say it was a bit of a hobby. He figured that the magic would wear out eventually."
"Did it?" Gothel asked, resisting the urge to grin. She knew the answer already; Witch Princess curses were the real deal, they would wear out alright, but only after a good couple centuries.
Boyle scratched his ear again.
"Well... it's sort of hard to say, really."
"Why's that?"
"The King wore out first. Died in the throws of passion, as it were, with his fifty ninth wife. You should have seen the funeral, very impressive. All three hundred of his daughters showed up. Wasn't a lot of crying come to think of it, but that's probably on account of the fact that he hadn't actually talked to most of his daughters, what with being busy trying to make a son."
"... three hundred daughters?" Gothel said, her jaw dropping. Of course, she disapproved of such blatant misogyny, but at the same time... three hundred. There was something admirable in there, along with all the gittishness.
"Yes," Boyle said, "We're now the number one producer of Princesses in the Continent. Sort of ironic, really. And, well, anyway, you see the curse sort of thing carried on. The King, God rest 'is soul, now has five hundred and seventy two grand daughters. Well, that was last time I was at court, I expect Princess Mimsy has had hers now, and I wouldn't be surprised if Princess Trixy is expecting again... Oh, sorry about the names, they exhausted everything reasonable after about the first hundred princesses."
Gothel nodded, slowly. "... so, where does the Prince fit into all of this?"
"Ah!" Boyle said, "That's the important bit, isn't it? Well, see, the Prince is the four hundred and twenty second grandchild of the old King, you see. After that long the curse had started to wear a bit thin, and Queen Lilian had 'im."
Gothel stroked her chin. She was beginning to wonder if the Prince's rampant girlishness was a latent quality of the curse. Certainly, she didn't expect any particularly mannish Princes to be born into the bloodline for at least another five generations.
"And when 'e was fifteen 'is good old great aunt- the King's favourite wife- she said to 'im, Prince- she wasn't to good with names, see, what with all the babies and other wives and nieces and things to keep track of- Prince she said, Prince, you've got to go and father lots of children. 'Cause of the Cuu-uuuu-uuuuuuuurse, see?"
Gothel was almost certain that this queen had not in fact said "See?" at the end of every sentence, but she did not complain.
"And so the Prince has been on a quest now for years. 'E takes 'is royal duty very seriously too. I 'ear 'im tossing and turning in the night sometimes, worrying that 'e's not doing enough to find young girls to bear the next Prince with."
"I can imagine," Gothel said.
Ugh. She had a horrible feeling sinking down upon her that she was going to wind up doing something she hate.
"So, he's bound to keep on searching for more fair maidens to bear children with?" she asked, grimacing as she said the words. The expression went unnoticed, since her face looked pretty hideous even when she was smiling.
"Yes, mistress, of course," Boyle said, "'E says getting married and settling down is time wasted. Much smarter than 'is old grandad like that."
Gothel felt like she might be sick now. She was decidely allergic to the prospect of doing anything so generically... "Good".
"Well, come on then," she said, kicking her broom into gear.
"Mistress?" Boyle said.
"We'd better find your Prince," she said, "I've got to bloody well cure him, don't I?"
________________________________________

The Prince ran.
It was an unfamiliar experience- usually he paid other people to do it for him- and strangely pleasant. It had a good solid rewarding feel to it. He felt confident that every step he took, every meter he sprinted was definitely good. It was taking him far, far away from that crazy fish girl.
Funny, really, the swimming just hadn't had the same satisfying feeling.
Eventually he became aware of a strange and utterly unfamiliar sensation of displeasure spreading across his body. Particularly in his lungs. What... what was that? It was weird. Actually, he had felt a little tiny bit of this sometimes after a particularly busy heiring session. Tired! That was it! He was beginning to feel tired. Those things that were aching were probably muscles.
He ran a few hundred yards further before remembering that probably, the thing to do now would be to stop running.
He did so, and promptly fell flat on his face, panting and heaving. Oddly enough, stopping hadn't made him feel any better at all, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to start again. After a long moment, he pushed himself up out of the mud.
And found himself face to face with... a face.
The Prince blinked.
The face did not.
"... hello?" he said.
The face cleared its throat.
The Prince pushed himself up a little further, and confirmed that the face was, in fact, very close to the ground. Now he could see six other faces spreading out behind it, and they were all beneath him. Well, actually, that wasn't fair- a lot of people were beneath him, he was a Prince after all- but these were also below him. A lot below him. He rolled backwards into a sitting position and was very relieved to find a tree behind him to lean on. Even sitting he was still taller than the... collection of beards, hats, and rosey cheeks that sat before him.
"I'm... I'm a Prince, you know?" he said. He felt it needed to be said.
They nodded.
"We know," a low, gravelly voice said.
"We remember," another, higher voice said. That is to say, another ever so slightly less low and gravely voice, which was 'higher' in the same sense that a caterpillar is heigher than a tapeworm.
"Oh, good," the Prince said, "Subjects or something, are you? Well, make yourselves useful and draw me a bath, and I could use a clean set of clothes, although..." he looked from tiny figure to tiny figure. Their size was not his concern, so much as how horribly soot stained their clothes looked, "Probably best just to wash these while I'm in the bath- err- that's a herbal bath I'm meaning, by the way, it'll need some lavendar or it'll wreak havoc with my skin, and while I'm waiting I'm getting a bit peckish here so I wouldn't mind a couple of toasted buns, some sweetmeats, maybe a little mead- nothing before eighty nine, though, the flavour went totally to pot after the second monestary- and my feet, well, all of me if you must know, have started to get this terrible sort of, well, aching I suppose you'd call it, all over, so a little foot massage- we can work our way up from there- wouldn't go amiss. And I know it's a little bit indulgent, but I can never really enjoy a meal without a little entertainment- you know how it is- so if you could send a bard along while you're at it- no lyre players, though, please, they give me a headache. So, umm... if you could just..."
The Prince waited.
"... go? And do that?"
They did not move.
"... do you speak English?" he asked a moment later, "Err... Sppeeeeaaak-ay the Eeeeeengliiiiiish-ay?"
Very slowly, the little people turned from one to another and exchanged solemn looks. Finally one of them said;
"Diamonds."
"Pardon?" the Prince said.
"Diamonds," the little figure repeated. "We can do you for Diamonds. Bu' that's about it."
The Prince scratched his chin. "Well, I don't know. Call me old fashioned but I'm not really one for diamonds for tea, chaps."
The little men nodded.
One of them spoke again, his voice micro-octaves higher than those of the rest. "Not very good at small talk," he said, "Usually got her to do it."
There was more nodding.
The Prince thought for a moment, and then his face lit up.
"DON'T WORRY, THEN," he shouted, "WE CAN TRY BIG TALK INSTEAD THEN. HOW'S THIS?"
While this is the sort of behaviour that, according to ancient cosmic laws of physics, is liable to get your head kicked in in any number of countries across the Universe, the Prince was in luck in that the group he was talking to now were practically deaf to begin with and thus actually appreciated his new and especially idiotic away of addressing them. They started to nod again.
"Better," the slightly more highly pitched one said, "Don't remember us," he said. Personal pronouns were not a strong suit, "Dwarfs," he said.
"They don't?" the Prince said, "Rotters to a man, I expect. Well, come along, I suppose we can at least see about that bath and get around to the rest of it later," he said, pulling himself awkwardly to his feet.
The Dwarfs didn't seem really to understand much of what was going on with the Prince, even though they had confronted him with rather specific intent, and found themselves leading him back towards their cottage.
"Ho."
"Ho."
"Hi."
"Ho."
"Hi."
"... what on earth are you doing?" the Prince asked.
The dwarfs made a low sound, sort of like a croak, as they moved. Each seemed to have a set sound and pitch, which they blared out at regular intervals. It was about the least melodic thing he had ever heard.
"Dwarf marching song, Ho," said the talkative Dwarf.
"Hi, ancient mining tradition, Hi," another added.
"Can't, Ho, stop. Tried. Ho," a third added, in decidedly miserable tones.
The Prince stuck his fingers in his ears and ignored the incessant ho-hiing.
They reached the cottage.
And then suddenly everything came rushing back to the Prince.
December.
He had been riding around with Boyle getting lost in the middle of a bloody snowstorm when he found the place- totally bizarre little cottage filled with, oh... dwarfs- and had stayed there for a couple of nights. Boyle had been interested in negotiating some sort of lucrative contract between the Kingdom and the Dwarves- who had apparently mined diamonds their entire life, but had little concept of what to do with them. It wasn't to be, though, or at least, it wasn't ever since the Prince discovered that they had a beautiful young girl that they kept in a glass cabinet in front of their cottage. She'd been covered in snow when they arrived.
The dwarfs explained to Boyle, and Boyle explained to the Prince something about a curse, and her being in a state of eternal sleep until oh, something or another boring happened. He hadn't really been listening.
He had, however, decided that the very next morning they should get up and leave bright and early, forgetting all that silly negotiation nonsense.
And now he was back, and there she was, still in the cabinet. Only, now she filled it out rather more considerably. Her stomach was pressed against the pane.
December. Really, how the months do fly when you're having fun.
"Ohh, Dwarfs! Yes, err, hello again! Dwarfs, my, my oh my, Dwarfs..." he said, looking at the seven little men around him, and wondering if they could beat him up as thoroughly as seven ordinary sized people.
"Didn't work," one of the dwarfs said, walking over to the girl's glass cabinet and sighing.
"W-what didn't?" the Prince said.
"Plan," another dwarf said.
"Thought she'd wake up," the more talkative dwarf said.
"Bloody stupid bitch!" another dwarf cried.
"... pardon?" the Prince said. He wasn't sure he had quite heard that right.
But the other dwarfs were all nodding in approval. They launched uncertainly into a narrative, each offering a sentence before the next picked up. Combined, all seven managed one half of a conversation. "Only one thing to fear is bloody evil stepmother. So what she do? Say, oh, what nice old apple selling woman, of course you are not evil and trying to kill me. I will have lovely apple, yum yum yum! Oh no! I am stupid and now also dead! Bwaa! Now who do all our cooking, cleaning, mending, talking, shopping? Dwarfs only mine diamonds. Not know how to cook! Bloody stupid bitch!"
This devolved into a rude chorus.
"I, err... I see..." the Prince said, nodding.
The little gathering was interrupted by whistling.
The Prince looked across the little forest clearing to see a girl walking casually towards then. His mind automatically began to trawl through its seemingly endless database of faces- was she that girl who'd been locked in the dungeon? No. The one from the pumpkin coach? Nope. That poor girl from the farms? Hmmm, no, it did not seem so. When his mind had finally finished with her face, he got a look at the rest of her and concluded that she wasn't pregnant, nor carrying any babies, and so was probably not a past acquaintence.
Something about her nagged him, though. Like when you see someone you think you might recognise, when a hint of something ancient and half forgotten enters your mind. But not quite. Maybe just some detail of her that was... odd or off putting.
Oh, oh, wait.
It might have been the knife.
The knife and the blood. That was probably it. She was carrying a foot long knife that was dripping in blood. Her clothes were similarly stained, which, he noticed, co-ordinated rather nicely with her hair.
In the Prince's defence several generations of monarchy had bred out the ability to easily identify threats in favour of a really smooth chin.
The dwarfs bunched up around his feet. They seemed scared of the new arrival. The Prince, on the other hand, having identified the source of his unease, was beginning to feel better. In a few minutes the impulse to be scared might make its way through his brain, but it was no no particular hurry. He was beginning to feel positively affable. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping what mud he could off his face.
"Hello, there," he said, as the girl approached.
The girl stopped whistling and gave him a slightly sleepy look.
"Hello," she said. She twirled the knife around her finger, spattering the Prince ever so slightly with blood. "You're not a wolf, are you?"
The Prince's brain- which was fine tuned for this sort of thing- immediately offered him a list of witty comebacks. Well, that's what they call me... in bed, sounded like a winner. For some reason though he found himself drawn towards the altogether vanilla option of "No." He said it.
The girl nodded.
She continued walking down along the path until she was a few metres away from him, looking for all the world like she was going to pass him by. This had never happened to the Prince before. But, then, she stopped rather suddenly and sniffed the air.
"... you're cursed, aren't you?"
"Who, me?" the Prince said, "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do bear a deep, dark secret within the fathomless depths of my deep, emotional heart, and-"
The girl sniffed at him. She wandered up to him, sniffing all around him. She ended up with her nose inches away from his chest, and her knife point casually held even closer to his stomach. The fear reaction was still working its way slowly towards the Prince's brain, though, so he didn't mind. He did, however, finding himself wondering just what he smelled like, what with being dunked in the sea, dragged off by a fish girl, having run cross country and then fallen over in the mud. His natural rosey scent might be beginning to fade.
"You're a Prince," the girl said, finally, "You're a Prince who cannot have sons."
"Y-yes," he said, "How did you-"
The girl sighed and an ugly expression of distaste crossed her features. "Another unfinished story. Wonderful. And I suppose she didn't even tell you the cure?"
"Wh-who? What cure?"
The girl waved her arms around in fury, and in so doing, the knife, "Her! The one who cursed you, the Witch Queen."
The Prince thought. Witch... Queen... Had he slept with her? No. Not that he remembered. There had been Sorceresses, but no Witch Queens. Wait, what had they told him about the curse? Was there a Witch involved there? No, wait, they hadn't said anything about where the curse came from. They'd just said he ought to get his leg over as many maidens as possible. Not that he'd needed told, he was working his way through the palace maids already.
"Fascinating," he said, "I don't suppose you'd like to discuss it further over dinner?"
He couldn't really go against his nature.
The girl tapped her hip.
"You," she said, "Don't look right. You don't look Princey enough."
"I don't?" the Prince said.
"No," the girl said. She held hout a hand towards him. The knife in it disappeared and she extended an open palm. For a brief moment her eyes glowed red.
Then the Prince felt dizzy all of a sudden. He stumbled slightly on the spot, almost tripping over dwarfs. He almost didn't notice. He was trying to figure out why his mouth tasted of soap.
"Oooh, much better," the girl said, as he regained his footing, "... you look dishy."
The Prince looked down at himself. The mud, sweat, sand and seawater were all gone. He was wearing a dazzling white outfit trimmed with gold and red, and absolutely spotless. It literally hurt his eyes to look at. Actually, his eyes just seemed to hurt for some reason. His eyeballs itched. He tried to scratched them but found that he was wearing fine white gloves.
"Hmm, well, you know what?" the girl said, "I'm a happy ending down today, so..." she grabbed his hand away from his face and tugged him over to her, "I'll take you."
"... you will?" the Prince said, blearily.
The fear impulse was just beginning to arrive.
"Yes," the girl said, "I'm your one true love, I've decided," she said, "You see, what with that silly curse and everything, you can only have sons if you meet your one true love. And that's me. Oh, my, look, there we go already!" she said, looking down.
The Prince looked down rather drunkenly to see the girl's middle steadily expand out of her figure as if- as if she were pregnant. It was a rather sobering sight. Her dress seemed to retailor itself as she went, seams shifting and frabric expanding naturally to match her new proportions. The growth stopped before she was huge, but left her rather decidedly pregnant looking.
"And look! It's a boy! I'm certain," she said, "Well, seventy percent sure. I like girls. But I'm sure I can have a boy. Now, come along, we've got a wolf to catch."
She tugged the Prince. Her grip was like nothing he had ever felt before. That is a rather broad statement, since the Prince had never felt things like crab claws, vices, thumbscrews or the like, and any number of these might have felt a lot like her fingers locked around his arm. But her touch was like nothing inside his limited field of experience. He gulped and allowed her to pull him along.
Someone cleared their voice.
The girl stopped.
She and the Prince looked around at once to see one of the dwarfs standing at their feet. The other six were keeping their distance. The lone dwarf standing beneath them with his hat in his hand was a pathetic sight. The Prince couldn't escape the feeling that it was like a deer approaching the hunter to ask where all its friends went.
"If'n please, ma'am," the dwarf mumbled, "We's simple folks 'n'... our maiden..." he nodded towards the girl in the glass case.
The girl groaned.
"Wolves to kill, weddings to plan, babies to have, and still you are all moaning on at me to fix your little stories? You'd think two happy endings in the one day would be enough, but fine. Let me see. Girl, cottage, cottage, girl," she said, looking from the girl in the case to the cottage behind. "Ahhh, I see, yes. I remember. She ate all your porridge and now you're angry because she ate your porridge and dozed off. If I remember correctly," she said frowning as she thought, "This story ends with everyone getting eaten by a bunch of bears, is that right?"
The dwarfs said nothing.
A huge, horrid roar rose up from the cottage- and then suddenly was joined by two more. The deep chorus of bellows rolled out, rattling the windows and making the ground beneath their feet shake.
"There we go," the girl said, "Another happy ending served out. I should think you're all pleased now."
The dwarfs were all looking in horror at their cottage.
"I said I should think you're all pleased now," the girl said.
They all turned and nodded very quickly.
"Good," the girl said, "Come, my love. Three happy endings in one day... my, I am good at this, aren't I?"
________________________________________

"I must say," Boyle said, "This is a spectacular way to travel."
"Ah, yes," Gothel said, smiling, "I remember my first flight... wonderful memo-"
"No, I mean, spectacularly uncomfortable, mistress."
"Oh," Gothel said, "Well, they say that too. You get used to it, eventually. They say it's why only women can become witches. Men just can't stand the seating. Give a man a broomstick and he'd put a saddle on it."
"Wouldn't be half a bad idea mistress, I've got a bloody terrible case of piles back here," Boyle said.
Gothel winced, "Why didn't you tell me that before we took off? I'd have made you walk."
Boyle said nothing. He didn't think it would be prudent to mention that he'd been held at wand point and forced to mount the broom. Gothel had said that it would just be more convenient for everyone if he didn't waste time and got on.
"Doesn't help that it's crowded," he added.
Someone tapped his shoulder.
He turned on the broom to see the mermaid's big cheery face looking at him. It was, fundamentally, a cheery face. Even now that she was frowning at him, he seemed cheery to him. She was rubbing her arms and miming shivering.
"I think the mermaid's cold," he said.
"Serves her right," Gothel said.
"... for evolving in a sub-acqueous environment?" Boyle asked.
"Yes!"
"Are you sure we should have brought her along?"
Gothel shrugged. The truth was that she was not absolutely sure. The broom was not really a three seater to begin with. She was now perched upon the tip, with Boyle practically piggybacked behind her, and the rotund mermaid on the end with her tail coiled several times around the bristles of the broom. But it didn't pay to show uncertainty. "Yes I'm sure," she said in her best withered old crone voice, "She's got a claim with this Prince of yours too, she has as much right as anybody. Says she was in the running to get a soul if he'd loved her back."
At this the mermaid did a passable impression of the Prince and then held her hands to her heart.
Boyle was not fluent in mermime language, and thought this meant something to do with soulmates. It was in fact the mermime for "He's so dreamy!"
"Oh, look, there," Boyle said, "That tower thingy. He slept with a girl up there, why don't we put down there, he might have gone back."
Gothel frowned. "Yes," she said, "Lets go there..."
She did not, in fact, think that the Prince had returned, but had noticed a large purple swirly thing on one side of the tower. She was fairly sure that hadn't been there when she left. Oh dear.
"Err, what's that?" Boyle said, as they spiralled slowly down towards the tower.
He had noticed it too, now. About an eigth was missing from the top of the tower, and in its place was a, well, a big purple swirly thing, to put it in technical terms. It was eating away at the wall and the roof around it.
"I'm sure I have no idea," Gothel said.
Unless, she added mentally, it's a magical vortex cast with Hect's qualm of scrying from the twelfth circle, like the one in my bloody spell book. Only cast by a complete novice who had no notion of how to control the power she had unleashed. A novice like, perhaps, Rapunzel.
She tried very hard not to be proud.
This required some explaination.
Rapunzel was, in a manner of speaking, like a daughter to Gothel. Maybe a grand daughter or a niece. She had, in fact, locked her up in a tower to keep her way from all the nasty creepy Princes in the world, in a rather misguided attempt to protect her. She had always had hopes for Rapunzel's future career and, well... ignoring the fact that she had just torn a hole in the fabric of the world which, if left unattended could rend all of creation in two, she had managed to pull off some very tricky magic. There was hope for the girl next.
They landed on the opposite side from the swirly thing, and Gothel led the way into the tower. The mermaid crawled after them.
She knew immediately that Rapunzel was gone.
It was not the slight coldness that came to the tower without the girl's presence, it was not the silence, nor the fact that the place nolonger smelled of lettuce. It was not as a result of a deep psychic bond. It was quite simple; her hair was not lying around everywhere anymore.
She hurried to Rapunzel's room, just in time to see the last poof of hair fall over the window sill.
There was a note left on her table.
Dear Nanny Witch

I made a new friend today! She's nice, but a little weird. I do not know what she is (not a boy or a Prince!) but I am trying to figure it out and I think I will know any day now! Decided to take a little walk in the outside because the tower happens to be falling to bits. TOTALLY DON'T KNOW WHY (Very Honestly!) Incidentally, magic may be involved. This is a hunch but I think someone might have said Eritas Snubi Veri Khas and waved their arms about in the store room. Just a guess! Can't think who, though, because that would be a very bad person to do such a thing.

Oh, wait, I just remembered. An evil wizard stopped by the tower after you were gone, and he said Muahahaha I am an Evil Wizard. And then he made the big purple swirly thing in the store room. I just remembered. And then I felt like taking a walk so I went out (with my hair).

With Love and kisses and hugs and eskimo kisses, Rapunzel.

P.S. DO NOT TELL ME WHAT BAD IS! I AM GOING TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR MYSELF!

Gothel sighed. It was just going to be one of those days, wasn't it?

________________________________________

Outside was weird.
Like, the floor, which apparently they called the ground here, was all messy and covered in dirt, like nobody had swept it up for years and years and years. Rapunzel thought that whoever lived outside must have been a total slob, because even when she didn't sweep the tower for weeks it never got this messy. And it hurt to walk on and was all... weird. And the walls, they were, well, they didn't have walls, they had trees. And if you put enough trees together they were sort of like walls, but really they just put them here and there ally higglety pigglety, so everything ended up being one great big room.
And the absolute worst thing about it was that there was lots of it. Lots and lots of it you had to walk through. Bits of her were beginning to hurt and ache from all this waddling. Bits she didn't even know were there to ache in the first place.
"Outside is funny," she said, "I don't like it."
Bad was resisting the urge to walk on all fours. Her belly would be on the ground if she did and that would be terribly embarrassing, even for a wolf.
"You don't, huh?" she said, "I kinda figured you'd be all like, ooooh, look, flowers," she said, gesturing to the nearest flowers.
Rapunzel wrinkled her nose. "Those are just Cyanoccus of the genus Vaccinium. There's nothing interesting about them."
Bad looked at her, an eyebrow raised.
"What? Nanny taught me all about flowers and things, is all. I had a book. With paintings," she said, "... actually, the paintings looked prettier than these. Anyway, they're boring old common planty things. When they go into fruit you can use the berries to make preserves and pies, and also in a couple of secret witch ointments that Nanny taught me. Boring, boring, boring."
Bad sighed. This was not going to be a fun trip.
Or so she thought, until only a few seconds later, they reached the edge of the forest.
Rapunzel gasped.
"This is the best outside ever!" she declared, before charging forwards, hobbling over the wall and diving straight into the field.
Lettuce. As far as the eye could see. Well, if it were an eye very low to the ground. Row after row of the stuff filled a big, carefully kept field. People said that Dame Gothel kept her impressive vegetable patches with little work due to her secret evil witch magics. This was sort of true. In reality, she had just invented crop dusting a couple of centuries early, thanks to the use of the broom.
Rapunzel rolled around amongst the rows, taking bites straight out of the plants and giggling.
"Shh, shh!" Bad growled, "Someone's gonna hear you!"
Rapunzel ignored her. Stealth was a completely alien concept to her, and besides. The belly wanted lettuce, and it was really delicious lettuce and everything. Maybe this was heaven? She had heard that that was somewhere outside. She just never realised it had been within walking distance.
"Goody!" Bad said, sounding as reproachful as a wolf could.
She heard voices, and gulped.
Thinking fast, she spotted Rapunzel's hair. Now the whole train of it just extended off into the forest, possibly all the way back to the tower. Bad grabbed it and started pulling again. Rapunzel just giggled. Seconds later she had been dragged back into the forest, wrapped happily around a head of lettuce.
"... you know it really would be more romantic if you carried me..." a voice echoed towards them.
Bad shifted Rapunzel behind a tree and tried to stop her from giggling.
"W-would it?" another voice replied.
"Yes. Very," the first voice said. It was a sweet, melodic female voice that, nevertheless, sounded as if it was being used by a bloodthirsty maniac. Sort of like an exquisitely tailored dress being worn by a ravenous lion. Bad knew that voice.
Oh... dung. Had that been today? It had, hadn't it? Oh dear. She had gone and forgotten. She didn't think that that was a very good thing to have done. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...
"Only... I usually have servants to do that sort of thing," the second voice said. It too was girlish, but with the distinct pompous sort of girlishness of a very rich man.
"Very unromantic, my sweet," the first speaker said.
"I don't have much in the way of upper body strength. Or lower body strength," the second voice said. Bad was fairly sure that the speaker was a complete idiot. She didn't think too poorly of him, however, since she herself hadn't exactly done the smartest of smart things recently. "And... you look pretty heavy."
"James Edward Archibald!" the first voice said in astonished, outraged tones.
"... who?" the second replied.
A ringing slap followed this, along with a shout of "Ow!" from the man.
"I'll have you know I'm as light as the day we were married!" the girl said.
"We- err- we aren't married... precious?" the male voice said, although now it seemed to have at least a dim understanding of what its situation was.
"I'm as light as a feather," the girl said, "Now Carry Me."
This was followed by much oofing and grunting, which gave the impression that the feather in question must have been a very fat, heavy feather, possibly made out of depleted uranium.
"There, see?" the girl's voice said, now sickeningly sweet, "I hardly weigh anything at all, do I?"
"Nnngghh," the male voice responded.
"Good."
"Mmmm, tasy," Rapunzel said.
Bad, who had been pressed up against a tree trying desperately to remain quiet, looked down in horror. Rapunzel had finsihed her head of lettuce and was getting up and rubbing her tummy.
"Did you hear that?" the girl's voice said.
"Hh... hear what? Oh... sweet?" the male voice said, still under pressure.
Rapunzel gasp, "That sounds like the Prince!"
"There! Coming from the woods!"
Bad motioned furiously for Rapunzel to be quiet.
"Priiince!" Rapunzel called, getting to her feet and waddling out towards the path, "Priince? It's me! Rapunzel! Do you remember me?"
Oh well. Poor Rapunzel. It was nice knowing her. But this was their acquaintence come to an end. On the bright side, probably nobody would complain too much about the rotund girl with the massive amounts of hair waddling about the woods. She'd probably attract pity. Bad would just hide and wait until everyone had left. A great big naked pregnant wolfy girl was much less likely to inspire pity.
Especially not out of that girl.
So long, Rapunzel, I hardly knew ye.
"Bad! Bad come on out, come and meet the Prince!" Rapunzel called, "Prince! You can meet my new friend! She's all Big and Bad and has pointy ears and things, and a great big belly. Like me! Oh! Hello miss, you have a belly too! Nice to meet you, miss!"
"... Goddammit," Bad groaned.
The Prince stood stock still, quite aghast by the appearance of yet another old flame. How many months had it been since he'd met her? She looked a little bigger than he had expected. But that was neither here nor there. His mind had compared the idea of Rapunzel with his latest bride to be, and found a universe with both of them existing in the same place at once to be a very painful place to live indeed.
The girl in his arms, however, was very interested in what Rapunzel had to say.
"She's Big, and she's Bad, and she's got pointy ears?" the she said, "My, how interesting. Tell me, little girl, does she have great big eyes too?"
Rapunzel almost giggled at being called 'little girl' by someone who looked no older than she was, and a little bit smaller in the belly department. Her belly was a big silly annoying blob, but she felt a little bit of pride about it being one of the bigger sillier blobs around.
"Hmmm," she said, "Well, now that you mention it, she kinda does! Yeah, they're all big and yellowy."
"And a great big mouth?"
"Wow! Do you know her? Yeah! She's got all these big pointy teeth," Rapunzel said.
"What did you say she was called?" the girl asked, "Bad?"
Rapunzel nodded. "Well, that's what I call her, she sa-"
"Bad!" the girl called, "Why don't you come out now... Bad?"
Bad could not hear her. She could, however, hear the scream of rage that came several seconds later. She gave it no particular heed, and kept on running. She had not lived this long by doing anything silly like hanging about to hear what people had to say.
Meanwhile, Rapunzel had done the positively suicidal by walking up to the red haired girl and patting her gently on the head until she stopped screaming with rage. Then, when the girl looked up at her in confusion, she smiled.
"There, there," she said, "I'm sure it'll be alright. My name's Rapunzel. What's yours?"
The girl was momentarily stunned. No one, no one had ever approached her like this at all. If she had charged at her with a sword, that would've been simple, lightning bolt to the face, but this... this was perfectly bizarre. She was defenceless when faced with the prospect of... politeness.
Finally she said, "... well... they call me Red."
Rapunzel grinned and shot a hand out towards her. Red very nearly incinerated, until she realised it was not meant as a blow, but a gesture.
"Nice to meet you, Red," Rapunzel said, "Lets be friends."




"Tricky," Gothel said, "It's going to be Tricky."
"Not that I'm not fascinated by this and eager to find out whatever it is that does indeed happen to be 'tricky'," Boyle said, "But I can't help but notice that there aren't any stairs down here. So, um, you couldn't possibly give us a lift out before, I dunno, that purple thing tears us all to bits?"
Gothel stroked her chin and ignored him.
The energy vortex had swollen, grinding half the tower away as it went. Now it was a big purple spherical mass of... purpleness, cloaked in dark mists and shadowy clouds that twirled and spun around it like a hurricane seen from orbit. Great black holes would open into nothingness occasionally, at the heart of a swirl, but then they would melt away back into the chaos. Occasionally things like lightning bolts would crack across its limits.
Bricks and mortar would crumble away from the tower and then fall not down, but sideways, spiralling into the vortex and disappearing inside it. This had happened to the bathroom, the water tank on the roof, the guest bedroom and half the corridor.
"Need to stabilize it," Gothel said, finally.
"Err, you do?" Boyle asked.
The mermaid punched Gothel in the leg. Gothel scowled at her but said nothing- this was the mute equivelant of shouting for attention. The mermaid scowled back, pointed at Boyle, Gothel, and then herself, and then held one hand out flat in front of her. She lifted her other hand over it and twiddled two fingers across it twice, like a person running, and then maid a squirmy wriggly motion that presumably meant her own method of locomotion.
Gothel shook her head, "No, we're not going to run away! That'll be no good."
The mermaid shook her head and waved her hands around for a moment before giving up in frustration. It seemed that she was attempting to say, No, sounds pretty bloody good to me!
Gothel shook her head again, "If the spell isn't finished this could just get worse and worse and worse. It's like having a tear in the knee of your-" she started, but then looked at the mermaid. No, that metaphor certainly wouldn't work. In fact the whole area of clothing metaphors seemed like a lost cause, since her preferred garment was a pair of clam shells. "It won't go away on its own," she snapped, hoping that forcefulness would fill the gap where her poor imagery could not.
The mermaid folded her arms over her chest and frowned. Then after a moment's thought, she mermimed something swimming along the sea, and then something coming out of it. Gothel chose to pretend that she did not understand the meaning of the phrase "whaleshit".
There was a sound like distant thunder from the vortex. Another of the black swirling holes appear and yawned open. The sound of air whirring and gusting around filled the tower, and then more lightning crackled around the great black aperture. For a moment it seemed as if something was going to happen, as if the whole world might be sucked into the hole, or else the hole might belch out some other world. But then it dissolved back into the shifting mists.
"It's trying to do something," Gothel said, stroking her chin.
"Very interesting," Boyle said, "Very interesting I'm sure. But what do we bloody well do about it? Call me old fashioned but I 'ad 'oped to die in bed surrounded by lots of bloody children who would do all the hard work for me, not being swallowed by an effin' big... thing."
"I need to finish the spell. Rapunzel must not have done the whole thing. It's power without direction- fire with no ball, lightning with no bolt," she said, feeling quite pleased with the little explanation.
"So stick a bolt on it and call it even?" Boyle said.
The mermaid nodded enthusiatically.
Gothel shook her head, "I need to figure out what it's supposed to be before I do anything."
There was a cracking, crunching sound, as the roof over their heads gently lifted from its position and lazily hovered into the vortex, crumbling into pebbles on the way. It disappeared inside.
For a moment, red crossed the vortex. It did not flash so much as... pulse. Beat.
An evil grin crossed Gothel's features.
"What're you smiling about?" Boyle said, frowning, "We're gonna get killed by that bloody thing and you're sitting here grinning your arse off!"
"I'm smiling, dear fool," Gothel said, standing and cracking her knuckles, "Because I know what it wants to be, now."
________________________________________

Friend.
It was a strange word, what with the F and the R crammed up together, and then the I and the E... and you didn't even pronounce it like it was an I and an E either, it was more like Frend. A strange, strange word, and an even strange experience.
Red was actually enjoying the company of someone that she had not broken into indentured servitude. It was a new sensation.
"Mmmm, lettuce is tasty," Rapunzel said, as she peeled another few leaves off with her teeth.
Red found herself nodding, and then eating some more of her own lettuce. It was strange to eat it raw, but it had a sharp, crunchy texture to it, and a pleasant coolness to the leaves. Not to mention there was a certain deeper tangier taste dancing across the buds that really livened it up. It was- as Rapunzel said- positively yummy. She didn't know why she hadn't realise it before.
She rubbed her belly as she gulped down another couple leaves.
"Does your belly make you want lettuce too?" Rapunzel asked, as the two waddled alond.
The Prince was following behind in mute terror. Both girls seemed to have forgotten about him, but he didn't like to think what might happen when Red remembered, especially if he wasn't there.
"My belly?" Red asked, cocking her head to one side, "Don't you mean my adorable little baby?"
"Oooh, you have a baby? Like a little pink person? Where is it?"
Once again, Red found herself not striking Rapunzel down with a blast of magic, even thought it seemed like the natural response to such a situation. Surely the girl was joking with her? But, well... this lettuce was far too yummy to risk ruining with a fireball.
"It's in here of course," she said, placing a hand upon her middle.
Rapunzel scratched her head, "In your belly? Huh, my Nanny said that's what was in my belly as well, but I thought that was silly. How would a baby get in there? And how did everyone make castles and things if they all started out as babies? It doesn't make any sense," Rapunzel said, "Does it belly? No it doesn't, does it?" she said, shoogling her stomach gently, and enjoying the chorus of thumps that came in response.
"Oh, well, that's simple," Red said, "The baby gets in when it's very small, and then grows bigger when you eat, until it's the size of a great big belly," Red said.
Rapunzel thought about this. It seemed reasonable. It still didn't explain how babies had gone about building castles and things if they all started out as babies, but she would get to that in a minute.
"How does the little baby get inside?" she asked.
Red rolled her eyes.
"Isn't that obvious?" she said, pointing to her stomach, "Magic."
"Ahhhh!" Rapunzel said, a big understanding smile spreading across her face, "Magic! Now it all makes sense. Nanny said it was because I had had sex!"
Both of them laughed about this.
"Oh, you are a naughty belly," Rapunzel said, "Why didn't you tell me you were full of babies?"
Her belly thumped in response.
"Awww," she said, rubbing it. This was going to take some thinking about, now that she was full of babies. The belly was a big bad annoying belly that made her waddle around and want to eat lettuce, but now she was beginning to like the old thing. After all, it had just shown her how yummy lettuce was in the first place. And she'd never seen any of these baby things, but she had a growing suspicion that they were adorable. And of course, she was in favour of things that were adorable.
"Pregnant," Red said.
"Pregnant?" Rapunzel said, "Preggin... Aunt? Preg Nant. Preeeeegnnnn Ant. Pregnant?"
"It's a word," Red explained, "That means what we are."
Rapunzel thought about this. Pregnant meant what they were. They were girls. Did that mean Pregnant meant girls? Rapunzel is a Pregnant. The Pregnant? Rapunzel is the Pregnant? Nono, that was just silly. What else were they? Friends! That was it! Rapunzel and Red were Pregnants. It must have meant super best friends ever!
"Aww, I love being Pregnants," Rapunzel said, hugging Red.
Red grinned, "It's beginning to grow on me, too."
As she spoke, there was a slight tingle across Rapunzel's belly. She looked at it with interest as it, quite of its own accord, decided to double in size over the course of a few seconds. It was fascinating, really. Her waddle slowed slightly and widened in gait as she marvelled at how her body swelled and changed into new, interesting changes. It was so interesting that she didn't notice the extra weight at all. Her clothes grew with her, which seemed perfectly logical to Rapunzel, after all, when a cat grows its fur grows too, doesn't it?
Her belly seemed very happy with its new size, and began to thump approvingly.
She looked over to see that Red too was bigger and happier. In fact now they looked as if they were about the same.
Rapunzel smiled.
"We are the best Pregnants ever."
Red agreed.
________________________________________

Bad was having a bad time.
She was a lot less wolfy than she had remembered, and it was making it difficult to get around the forest. For one thing, the silly humany hips that humans had were all bad for walking or running for a while. For another, her humanny womb did not seem as well designed for carrying litters as her wolfy one had. Nor, for that matter, did her humanny litter seem as good for fitting into a womb as her wolfy one had.
Her senses were the worst of all.
To a wolf nose, the natural world is covered in signs. A casual sniff could reveal volumes; wild boars had been through here last night but hadn't stayed long, deer inhabitted the area in large numbers, men had not been here for months and months. These were just the basics. To a wolf, urine was an amazing wellspring of knowledge. A few drops could speak volumes; tell you what wolf owned this territory, what sort of territory it was, how many wolves were in the pack, how strong the leader was, how well fed. All these were subtle variations within the urine.
Now she just smelled pee.
"Come on, come on..." she said, sniffing at the base of a tree.
Ugh.
It smelled horrible, too. How did humans get anything done when pee smelled so nasty to them? They must have found it so hard to communicate...
She sniffed again. Was this Greyfang's territory, or Threepaw? She had to know- she was getting bloody lost out here.
But no. It was still just pee.
She sighed and waddled on, further into the forest. She wasn't even sure whether she was backtracking or not, now. Normally this would be the easiest thing in the world for a wolf to tell- ou de Bad was a very distinctive aroma- but now she couldn't smell herself at all. She was beginning to worry that she was getting all clean and humanny. A snort of her armpit convinced her otherwise, and almost dazed her, but didn't help in the navigation.
Maybe if she ran into that girl she'd change her back into a wolfy wolf.
Yeah, she probably would, before she killed her and roasted her on a spit.
Bad didn't know quite who the girl was, but her combined wolf human brain told her that she was not to be trifled with. She had turned her all humanny and then given her a job. Two jobs, actually. She had mucked the first one up, but the girl didn't mind- apparently if the pigs were too stupid to lock the door on their brick house, they deserved to get eaten. In fact she'd been positively amused by that outcome. And then she'd asked her to eat the old lady, and, well... she'd gotten distracted by all those tasty bluebirds, hadn't she?
She had a feeling that the girl who enjoyed the thought of her eating three stupid pigs for their idiocy would not take kindly to her disobedience.
But how to get away from her if she had no sense of direction? That was the tricky bit.
And then she saw them.
Somehow she'd managed to circle back around and saw the girl, Rapunzel, and that silly looking human man all walking through the forest, perpendicular to her. They hadn't noticed her.
Wow, did they used to be that huge? They were very huge. And seemed to be enjoying themselves. Maybe human wombs were good at stuffing in bigger litters if you knew how? She stared after the two huge waddling girls, jaw slack in wonder.
There was something odd about them walking away, she noticed. Beyond all the hustling and bustling required for them to even take a few steps. In fact, not to do with them at all. What was it? Oh, that's right, where was the other one? The male one?
She looked back, and straight into the eyes of the Prince.
He was standing dumbstruck, looking at her and pointing. He began to open his mouth and raised up a hand to get the girls' attention.
"Oh no you don't!" Bad snarled, hopping over a bush and charging towards the Prince. Her legs were human legs, but they still remembered being wolf legs, and new how to spring an attack. Her huge pregnant bulk soared through the air and fell upon the Prince before he could get a word out. He collapsed on the ground, pinned under her body. She clamped a hand over his mouth and held one finger over her mouth to shush him.
The Prince's eyes went wide with horror, but then seemed to slacken slightly. And then they- no, they couldn't, could they? They began to... yes, to grin. Under her hand he must have been grinning.
There was something decidedly wolfy about the grin.
He nodded to her left, the opposite way from the two waddling girls. Then he nodded at her.
Very slowly, and tensed to reverse the motion, she uncovered his mouth.
"Shall we... go?" he whispered, nodding sideways again.
Bad nodded. Maybe he had a better sense of direction. Oh, he had a really powerful smell, at least. He stank of soap.
Very slowly they got to their feet and crept back.
"Prince, we want carried," Red said, "We are two very big adorable Pregnants and we think it is simply terrible that you have allowed us to waddle along unassisted for so long."
Rapunzel giggled.
"... Prince?" Red said, "I don't feel carrying."
She looked back.
The Prince was not right behind her, as he ought to be, but in fact almost out of sight, tiptoeing away between some trees, along with-
The Wolf
Red's eyes glowed.
It was Fireball Time.
________________________________________

"Nearly there..." Gothel groaned.
"Err, not to put you under pressure or anything," Boyle said, "But it would be a real treat if you could wrap up some time within the next sixty seconds or so, as I am quite fond of my legs."
Gothel ignored him. This was tricky magic she was doing, did the simpleton have no comprehension of that? At least the mermaid had the common decency to stay quiet. Oh, wait, she was mermute. That was why.
The vortex had grown. It hadn't quite doubled in size, thanks to Gothel's careful use of magics, but it had swollen quite a bit. That is, it had swallowed the entire roof of the tower, and all of the inside except for the floor and outer wall of Rapunzel's room. Her bed was currently sliding lazily through the air towards the swirling black mass. Gothel stood in the middle of what was left of the room, focussing on her magic.
Boyle and the mermaid were at the window. They weren't standing or sitting there anymore, they were, to be precise, clinging there. They had their arms wrapped around the sill while their legs (and tail) whipped out behind them, sucked skywards by the growing blackness.
"Any time you're ready!" Boyle shouted.
Nearly there... Gothel thought. Nearly there but buggered if I can't bloody finish it. It was embarrassing but... it looked like the whole thing might have been for nothing. She had done good work, located the seven focal points of energy around the sphere and sewn magic amongst them. And she had helped too, guiding the magic, filling things in from her side. They were close, very close to completing the spell, the matrix was in place, the points charged, but...
Someone had stopped them.
Someone had put another spell, a powerful seal, between them and completion. She didn't think the seal had anything to do with Rapunzel's little spell- Rapunzel had just tapped into something more powerful, but the seal was a roadblock. It would have taken months of work, research and spellcrafting to break it.
She hadn't brought this up with Boyle or the mermaid, since her broom had fallen into the vortex some fifteen minutes ago.
Currently she was just taking care of one of the witch essentials; staring death in the face, and looking wicked doing it.
A boom of thunder, plain old normal thunder, not weird purple vortex thunder, sounded from the forest. Gothel looked over in time to see a huge red orange sphere of fire rolling across the forest, reducing everything in its path to molten cinders, and bowling straight towards the tower. The whooshing roar of the flames whispered towards them, accompanied by a very womanly scream.
That was just typical, wasn't it? Here she was about to die because of an evil magical whirlpool, and the bloody Prince was running right back into her lap. That was fate for you.
The fireball rolled into the clearing. It was smaller now, a white dwarf of searing light, but no less dangerous. It tumbled through the base of the tower, turning solid brick to magma. It cut a wedge out of the tower as if it were made of butter. Grey, stoney, horrible looking butter, but butter all the same, and then rolled on.
Another womanly scream went up, and she saw the Prince running down the ashen corridor towards the tower, arms flailing around him. He was followed by an odd creature that looked like a big pink pregnant woman, except for a shaggy mane of black hair that fell over her back and was joined by another from above her rear. She had a strange hurried waddle that sprung her along. She hit the Prince over the back of the head as they went.
"Come Back Here, Wolf!" a voice screamed.
Gothel blinked.
Was that?
No, it couldn't be.
Could it?
A figure was floating along the burnt out forest corridor, suspended in mid air by sheer rage alone. Her red hair had darkened to blood tones, and was matched by her eyes. She was also rather obscenely pregnant, which made Gothel sure she was going crazy.
And there, waddling along behind her in confusion was Rapunzel, who was also obscenely pregnant. Gothel would have to have a word with her about hanging out with strange friends who were a bad influence on her. Big, bad, heavy round influences.
A Prince, a wolf, and a couple of crazy pregnant girls.
Well, it just had been one of those days, hadn't it?
________________________________________

Tree oozed and crackled under Rapunzel's feet. This was a very strange and rare phenomenon that she really ought to have been thrilled to see. Few people realised that trees, or wood in general, could melt, since it just loved to burn so much. But given the right conditions just about anything will melt, and a searing fireball of nuclear heat rolling over a forest will just about do it for most things.
The ground was a sea of liquefied ash, streaming, pooling, cooling, setting, and then crumbling as Rapunzel stumbled over it. Steaming hot red rocks somewhere between stone and magma formed boiling islands in the black sea. The ground on either side of the trench was higher; the fireball had melted the trees, the grass and even the earth. Fire spread amongst the bows alongside the gulch, creating a corridor of flames.
Common sense would have indicated that it was strictly speaking impossible for a girl to exist in such a horrible hell of heat, much less waddle along and tiptoe over the more liquidy bits. Common sense is, however, wrong. It is a little known fact that the Universe loves pregnant women. Many would have you believe that the Universe is a cold, harsh, unforgiving place where in space nobody can hear you scream, and bad things happen to good people. Well, it is, but it happens to have a soft spot for the ridiculously pregnant. It quietly arranged for Rapunzel's feet to find the cool patches, and for the columns of roasting air to drift away from her by chance.
Her hair, on the other hand, needed no protection. The long golden tail trailed through the trench, unburnt by the fires, unsullied by the ash. It really was good hair.
"Um, Red, I'm not sure this is such a good idea..." she said, hobbling along as fast as she could.
Red was really nippy now that she was flying and everything. Despite her huge bulk she hovered along at jogging pace.
"You cannot escape me, Beast!" she roared, throwing one hand back, uttering something eldritch, and then hurling her arm forwards. For a moment it looked like she was trying to hurl a dozen pencils at her fleeing prey, but as the little wooden objects soared through the air they grew bigger and bigger until they were arrows then spears, and then, finally, the huge tree trunks of fallen oaks, with sharpened ends that would have made short work of even vampire elephants. They crashed into the ground near the tower, forming a solid wooden wall, right in front of Wolf and the Prince. They skidded to a halt and started running back towards the trees.
"Only, Bad's really quite a nice girl when you get to know her and-"
"Fools!" Red bellowed. She clenched her fists and dark patterns danced across her skin. This time she through her hand up skywards and screamed a single word of power.
The ground in front of the fleeing pair exploded, brown earth erupting from beneath the trees. But it was no mere explosion- the earth was leaping up, clotting together and crashing back down again- in the form of a massive brown earthen bear. It snarled at the wolf and the prince, dribbling mud from its gemstone fangs.
"And I really think you might be getting a teensy bit too peeved?" Rapunzel said.
"Eruda Karola Ginsay Uradi!" Red chanted, swirling her hands. Violet mists coiled between her fingers and formed a sphere, "Elhala Virnu Ex Iskeb-"
"Downsie-daisy," Rapunzel said, sticking her tongue out over her lips and biting down on it ever so slightly, just to show that she was really taking this seriously. She had hopped up into the air- no small feat considering her condition- and grabbed onto the hem of Red's skirt.
While the powers of dark magic older than time itself and vast enough to bring entire nations to their knees was easily enough to keep one giant pregnant girl aloft, it didn't quite have the arcane potential required for two. Red gave slight yelp and plummetted down.
The two crashed into a crust of solidified ash. The magic leapt from Red's hands and exploded a small sappling some distance away. Both girls were left struggling to sit up in half a foot of ash.
"Why did you do that?!" Red barked, shooting a red eyed glare at Rapunzel. Or trying. Her belly was in the way.
"You were being silly! You were all muahaha and fireballs and lightning. You were mean."
"I'm not mean! I'm- I'm- People should do what I say because I say so!" she shrieked. Tears were beginning to stream down her face. They were the ordinary, clear kind, although the face they were streaming down was now considerably redder. This too was the normal kind of redness.
"No!" Rapunzel said, "Bad Red! Being mean is mean. And nasty!"
"NO IT ISN'T!" Red screamed, her voice growing hoarse. She flailed out through the ash and shot bolts of incoherent magic into the surrounding forest. Her breath became faster and heavier and her actions even angrier, "YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME MEAN! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!"
Rapunzel had not managed to get to her feet, and was actually debating whether not that was possible given the advanced level of her condition. She had, however, managed to crawl her way along the ground. Red had not noticed, having gotten so worked up.
Rapunzel was not sure about how things were going. This morning she had been worried about how silly her belly was getting, now apparently it was full of babies, and here she was crawling along the seared remains of a forest, feet away from a girl who had been tossing fireballs and lightning not two minutes ago. But, she was fairly sure of something and, well, maybe she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but she was very sure of this, and of what she had to do. She just hoped that people would understand when she got her head blown off for being silly that she had been very very sure about being silly at the time.
She wriggled up behind Red and grabbed the girl's hips.
"You," she said, "Are a Very. Naughty. Girl."
With every word she landed a short sharp spank upon Red's rear.
Red froze and went quiet.
That had never happened to her before.
She blinked.
It hurt.
Rapunzel had hit her, and it hurt. She had hit her bottom! That was- that was- It hurt. It hurt so much she wanted to just cry. And Rapunzel had called her a very naughty girl! And she'd said it while she was hitting her. Did that mean... was she hitting her because she was a naughty girl? Was she really naughty? Oooh, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. But maybe if she stopped being naughty it wouldn't happen again, and Rapunzel would be nice to her...
Maybe she should stop fireballing and lightning bolting people? Maybe she should stop killing old grannies just because that's how the story's supposed to go? Maybe she should just try and and be- what was the word... Nice! Maybe she should try and be nice to people and then they'd be nice to her and they could be Pregnants! Friends! They could be friends and...
... Nah.
"I.." she said, finding a cold, hard rage like tempered steel, "Am the Witch Princess. And you have just hit me."
"You were being very naughty," Rapunzel said.
Red's eyes flared. She summoned forth her power and channeled it, letting the anger power it but not misguide it.
She hovered up into the air.
They would pay for this, they would all pay. The Wolf, the Prince, and that stupid girl! They'd all see what they got for mistreating a Princess! She rose higher and higher into the air, feeling her power well up inside her. She'd wipe the whole forest, no the whole country off the face of the map! A single massive bolt of lightning would flatten the whole place like a burnt pancake. She summoned up her power and sent it skywards!
...
That was funny.
She was 99% certain she had summoned up her power and sent it skywards. Why, then, was it going sideways?
________________________________________

Sweat slid over Gothel's warts. Her yellow teeth pressed so tight against each other that they might have shattered from the pressure.
This was it. Gods only knew how they'd gotten the little bint to do it, but she'd gone right into position and flared off enough power to sink a small continent. Now it was just a small matter of making it go sideways instead of up.
A small matter that, nonetheless, was taking up her entire essence to achieve.
The feeling of channeling such intense amounts of magic is hard to put into words for those who have never weaved the threads of the arcane before, but for Gothel, it felt something like standing before the tidal wave of a burst damn as it roared down towards you, and trying to divert its course with your body alone. It was not a pleasant feeling.
But it was working. The stream of lights, every colour in the rainbow, arced out of Red, towards Gothel and then bent around into the vortex.
Calm had settled around Gothel; Boyle and the mermaid were on the floor again, the masonry had halted in its attempts to fly. The mists around the vortex had vanished, leaving a perfect purple sphere of stillness, like glass or gemstone. There was but one gaping black hole in it, into which the massive flow of energy poured. Gothel alone stood, panting, sweating, and straining every muscle in her old whithered body as she tried to make sure the magic went where it should.
"I don't have any idea what's going on," Boyle said, "But it's bloody impressive, I'll say that much."
The mermaid nodded.
"No. No! No you can't! I won't let you!"
Red had turned in the air and was staring in mixed rage and horror at the great sphere that her power was now flowing into. Her arms stretched out towards it, out of her control no, tugged along by the force of the power leaking out of her body. She tried to move- her shoulders flinched and her body shuddered, but it was no good.
A crack formed in the sphere. Golden light poured out from inside.
Gothel gasped. It was working. She was almost having a heart attack, but it was working.
Another crack exploded across its surface, with a sound like an iceberg being broken. Then another and another, all spidering out from the hole at the centre.
"No! No! Stop! STOP! NOOOO!" Red shrieked. Her eyes were red no more, but her face was burning almost as bright. She struggled violently against her invisible bonds, but she could not even change her position in the sky.
Crack
Five had formed now, spreading out almost at even intervals
Crack
They were wide now, a circle of light streaming out from underneath the dark hole, smaller cracks spreading out between them like a huge web. The sphere was crumbling, threatening to shatter an-
Crack
The seventh crack shot straight up, and it was done. A shower of purple glass fell to the ground and exploded into tiny fragments. The flow of power through Gothel's hands had stopped. Red was sinking slowly back down to the ground.
Wondrful, warm yellow light shone out from where the sphere had been, like a tiny sun. But not like Red's fireball which had all the anger, the flames and the burning of the sun. This was light, and warmth, and wonder. It was beautiful.
And then it was not. The light vanished, leaving everyone almost blinded for a moment.
In its place was a rather angry looking woman.
Everyone did a double take, staring from Red to the woman. She looked... well, she looked like Red, only taller, with longer hair, and less pregnant. And maybe a few years older. Yes, definitely older; in some indefinable way it was clear that Red was a girl, and this was a Woman. Her expression was worlds apart; while Red wore childish fury, hers was righteous.
She sailed through the sky towards Red, glaring.
"Well?" she said, "What have you got to say for yourself?"
Red looked around wildly, "I- I-"
"Nono, come on, out with it," the woman said.
Red began to breath in and out through her nose rapidly. "I- I- I- I didn't do it! It wasn't meee!" she wailed.
The woman sighed. "And you're a liar," she added.
And with that she drifted over to where Red was and scooped the girl up as if she was not so overly laden with children, turned her over and spanked her.
Rapunzel knew immediately that this was a proper spanking. Hers, she realised, had failed, because she had not done it proper. This woman rolled a sleeve back, held her hand up in the air, and brought it down in a full powerful arc that looked as if it were intended to shatter bones. Red wailed in pain.
"You are a very naughty girl," she said.
Red wept. "Maamaaaaaa!"
"Don't you Mama me young girl!" she said, "You didn't Mama me when you were sealing me away, did you?" she said, landing another blow upon her daughter.
Red just blubbered.
There was a long, strange silence, but for the noise of Red crying, and the occasional thump of her mother's hand upon her skirt. The others, Rapunzel, Bad, the Prince, Gothel, Boyle and the mermaid, stumbled to their feet and watched the bizarre proceedings with a superb feeling of uncertainty. That an a certain amount of... anticlimax.
"Right," the mother said, setting Red back down on the ground, tears now streaming freely down her face. She slapped her hands together and looked around, "Now," she said, "What do we say to the nice people?" she said, giving a tired smile to all around.
Red mumbled something.
"So they can hear, dear," the mother said.
Red sniffed loudly, and then, bawling, wailed, "I'm Sorry!"
"There we go," the mother said, "Now, that makes it all better, doesn't it?"
Looks were exchanged between the very pregnant humanoid wolf, the singed Prince, the exhausted witch standing upon the broken tower, and the very, very pregnant girl standing in the ruins of what had once been a quite nice forest.
Someone said;
"Not Quite."
________________________________________

And they all lived Happily Ever After*

* More or less.

It was a Thursday. That meants visits. Rapunzel was positively ecstatic.
"Can you see anyone yet?" she asked, leaning over Nanny Witch's shoulder.
"No," Gothel said, "Calm down, calm down, you'll put yourself into labour if you keep bouncing about like that.
Rapunzel thought about this, and then bounced up and down on the spot.
"Stop that, stop that!" Gothel said, turning and waving her hands at the girl, "I was exaggerating. You won't literally go into labour. And even if you could you wouldn't want to. The babies would be all... underdeveloped... like... like when you make bluebird pie and you take it out of the oven too early."
"Ahh," Rapunzel said, slowing her bouncing down. She rubbed her belly, "So the babies are not done yet?"
"No," Gothel said, glad that finally the girl understood.
"Maybe I should heat them up some more?" Rapunzel suggested.
Gothel sighed.
At that moment a sharp knocking echoed through the room. Gothel waited until the fourth knock before she gave it the benefit of the doubt. She thought she'd been very clever putting the enchantment of volume on the door, but it had ended up giving them terrible trouble- any old chestnut that was blown against it or animal that wandered by to scratch at the door would fill the tower with sound. She waited just to make sure it was really a person this time.
"Ooh!" Rapunzel squeaked, "It's them!" she said, and bounced off towards the stairs leading down.
"Hold your horses, hold your horses..." Gothel said, hobbling after her. "You're not to take the stairs! Remember what I told you about humpty dumpty!"
Rapunzel paused to think about this, giving Gothel enough tim to get past her and take the steps spiralling down the tower.
"You wait here," she said, "It's probably not them anyway, it's far too early."
Rapunzel bit her lip and waited, peering down through the trapdoor to the lower levels of the tower, trying to catch a glimps of the door.
Gothel had decided, after most of the thing was demolished, that it was time for some home improvements to the tower anyway. The first had been a door and a straircase, because it was just terribly unbecoming for all your guests to enter by hair. A few more floors had been thrown in too to give the place a nice spaceous nursery and a little library too. But she was still confident the stairs were the best part.
She opened the door at the bottom.
"Is it them!?" Rapunzel called, her voice echoing down.
The Prince tried to flash Gothel a winning grin.
"Nope," she called back, "It's just the Prince and Boyle again."
"Pooie!" Rapunzel yelled. The sound of stomping waddles echoed for a moment after.
"We were expecting someone else," Gothel said, "Although I wasn't not expecting you either," she said, "Seems like every week you come back to hear the same explanation over again," she said.
The Prince frowned at this. Not at the part about coming back again. That was technically true. But he hadn't really heard that- his mind had folded in on itself at the mention of a double negative.
"You'd best come up, both of you," Gothel said.
"I was wondering if you'd be so good as to explain a few little details to me over again, dear crone," the Prince said.
Gothel sighed. She would have to beat it into him some day that 'crone' was not a term of respect. "Okay," Gothel said, "Lets see... first you'll be asking about Red and her mother?"
The Prince blinked. "My," he said, taken aback, "Your occult powers are truly something to be reckoned with, good hag. Why, I was just thinking-"
"Yes, yes," Gothel said, leading them up the tower and into what she was forced, begrudgingly, to call the Sitting Room. She objected to the name since she sat in other rooms too, but thought that in this respect it was at least better than the Living Room.
"I did try to explain it to you, sire," Boyle said, "And I did say she explained it before."
"Yes, yes," the Prince said, absent mindedly waving away his servant.
Gothel sighed. "Okay, well, Red is a Witch Princess, yes? Which is like you, only with phenomenal cosmic powers, and a girl. You follow so far?" she said, not waiting to see if he agreed, "And her mother is the Witch Queen. Who has even more cosmic phenomenal powers. But Red was very naughty when she was y- well, Red was very naughty period, really, and she didn't like being told off. Like your parents- err... like your nannies must have told you off... yes?"
This time she waited for the Prince to nod. He did, slowly.
"Okay," Gothel said, "So Red was very naughty indeed and created a rift in the space time fabric of the universe leading to a pocket realm of her own creation which she then imprisoned her mother in by using a surge of magical power and a modified ancient seal which required an equilibrium of power on either side to open."
The Prince continued to nod slowly, on autopilot.
"... by which I mean, she locked her mother up," Gothel said, "And went around being naughty for quite some time. Until we accidentally magically opened up the gate to her mother and, with some luck, managed to let her out, and she sorted her out. Do you understand?"
The Prince's face contorted slightly in confusion, "Err, yes, but... well... there's the other thing..." he said.
"About the curse?" Gothel said.
"Yes," the Prince nodded, "The Curse is the precise thing that I was thinking was the other thing that I'm quite confused about and would like you to clear up because I'm sure I've gotten the complete wrong end of the stick..."
Gothel rolled her eyes, "Your grandfather was a pillock so you can't have sons unless you find your soulmate," she said.
"Yes, and that bit, I thought that was a lie," he said.
"Nope," Gothel said, sighing. "As I told you last week, and the week before that, it is not, in fact, a lie."
"And... just to be completely clear..." the Prince said, "My, err, as you said, sort of, soul mate, to put it bluntly, is, err, who, again?"
Gothel gave him a tired look, and pointed.
Boyle flashed her eyelashes, and grinned.
"You're... absolutely sure?" the Prince said.
Gothel nodded.
"Only, I thought-"
"Well, I shan't keep you two lovebirds any longer," Gothel said, "Probably plenty of things to arrange, what with toasting nuptuals and the like. Always sounded dreadful to me. But do send us some invites, I should like to see the ceremony."
Boyle wrapped the Prince up in a bone snapping hug, "Oh, I'm sure you'll be the guest of honour, mistress," she said, "In fact, you could stand in for the Priest! Only the Arch Bishop always throws holy water on me whenever I go to church and shouts 'begone vile demon'."
"You too, eh?" Gothel said.
"Eh- bu- th- de-" the Prince spluttered.
"Oh, do try to ennunciate, sire," Boyle said, "It helps ever so much."
The Prince was dragged off.
Well, that was one thing done for today. Now to go and make sure Rapunzel isn't up to anything stupid before the visit.
She found her in 'the Study' with Bad, who was having difficulty.
"This is just silly," Bad said, "There aren't nearly enough breasts," she said, gesturing to her body which, unfortunately, was equipped with only two breasts. Currently they were being shared by two of the three little bundles she was juggling about her lap.
"Mmm, I see," Rapunzel nodded, "Not enough at all," she said, with a sound of deep seriousness in her voice. "Maybe we can fix it?" she said, taking up her wand.
"No," Gothel said, stepping into the room, "I'm not having you sticking extra breasts on things."
"But Nanny!" Rapunzel said, frowning, "You said that that's what you did with familiars." Before Gothel could object- she was fairly sure she did not say that you stuck additional endowments on them- Rapunzel continued, "You said you test spells on them and transform them and empower them and things, didn't you Nanny?"
Gothel groaned. She knew that formalising this whole witch training business would be trouble.
"Yes," she said, "But your familiar is a bit of a special case," she said, looking at Bad. She had managed to bundle her into a two piece loincloth in the end, but the top piece almost never seemed to be in place, due to the fairly rigorous feeding rotation she had for the children.
"I wouldn't mind," Bad said, "I'd like a few more boobs. I mean, ideally I'd like eight, you know, a full set, but six would work too- they say you should always have twice as many breasts as kids. I guess I could settle for three if I absolutely had to."
Rapunzel frowned, "Hmm. Then I'd need to have..." she started to count on her fingers.
"No," Gothel said flatly, "Nobody is having extra breasts, okay? Besides, they look as if they're getting along fine anyway," she said, pointing towards Bad's offspring.
Bad frowned, "They seem very bald. And their claws are teeny tiny and nubby. It doesn't seem right."
Gothel rolled her eyes, "Trust me, they're supposed to be like that, they're mostly human."
Bad went on frowning, while Rapunzel went on counting on her fingers.
Knock knock knock
"They're here!" Rapunzel yelped, shooting up from her chair far faster than a girl her size ought to be able to in the first place. Gothel narrowly got out of the way as Rapunzel barged through the tower. She didn't get far before there was a faint fwoomp and a puff of smoke filled the corridor outside the room.
Gothel tutted. They really hadn't gotten the point of knocking, had they? You don't knock if you're going to teleport in anyway.
The Witch Queen and Princess filled the hallway. Red was looking down at her belly and twiddling her fingers, the Queen was looking around.
"Ah, Dame Gothel," she said, spotting Gothel, "I bid you good afternoon," she said, bobbing a curtsey. Her daughter did likewise.
Gothel bowed- she had never been much for curtsies.
Rapunzel stood in the hallway, looking excitedly from person to person.
"Umm..." Red said, turning her head to look at her mother's feet.
The Queen smiled slightly. "What do we say, dear?"
"... do I have to, Mama?" Red asked.
"Yes, dear," the Queen said.
"Every week, Mama?"
"Yes, dear, every week until it's sunk in," her mother said.
Red sighed. "Sorry," she said.
"No, dear, say it properly," the Queen said.
Red, still looking down at her belly, said, "Sorry I used my cosmic magical powers to play with the lives of infidels in improper ways. I deeply regret abusing my powers and abusing those around me. I hope you can find it within your hearts to forgive me." The speach had the tired sing song voice of one that had been delivered countless times before and was going to be delivered countless times again.
"Can I go now Mama?" she said, looking up at her mother with the slightest trace of a grin.
"Okay dear," the Queen said, grinning.
She waddled over to Rapunzel, now grinning like a schoolgirl.
Rapunzel hugged her, after some careful manuevering, and then began to chatter.
"Red! Red! I found the coolest new spell you have got to see it it is soooo great!" she said, grabbing the girl's hand and tugging her off towards her room.
"Ooh, can you do fireballs yet?" Red asked eagerly.
The Queen cleared her throat loudly, and it seemed to boom down the corridor.
"I mean, um, can you... summon kittens?" she asked.
Rapunzel gasped. "How did you guess?"
Red tugged back on Rapunzel's wrist this time "Ooh, well come on, show me!" she said, leading them off.
Rapunzel and the Queen watched them waddle off around the corner, both smiling.
"Ah," the Queen said, "Truly friendship is the greatest magic of all."
Gothel thought about this.
"No, I'm fairly sure Fireballs are the greatest magic."
"Hmm," the Queen said. "Yes. But after fireballs, friendship is the greatest magic."
Gothel nodded.
And then, they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Thanks man! Much appreciated.