Below them was a man clad in metal from chest down, that looked cold against the skin and mightily uncomfortable as it clinged and clanged with his every move. Upon his head was a rounded piece of metal that had sharp prongs as if to stab unsuspecting birds to death, and he had in his hand a sword, which he waved to and fro as he shouted again and again,

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”

He sat upon a gawky, oversized white Barbary horse which hung its head and snorted a sad puff of air out its nostrils with every wave of the sword, averting its gaze towards the ground.

THUD!

The sight of this steel-clad man so terrified her that she fell right off Lily’s shoulders, and landed hard with her butt and thighs hitting the ground, only the poofiness of her black and pink butterfly swing dress breaking the fall. In her panic she grasped at Lily’s braids and pulled them, hard.

“Hey– wait– ow–”

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”

“Calm down, dear! Just what is the matter… ow! Stop pulling! Are you all ri–”

“Rapunzel! I am here to rescue you! Please! Let down your hair!”

“Love! Do you hear that? He says he’s here to rescue us! But oh, I do hate how he keeps calling me Rapunzel… hey you! CALL ME LI– mmph!!”

*struggling noises*

“Now why on earth did you do that for, love, don’t you want to get out of h–”

“Rapunzel! If you don’t let down your hair, I cannot climb up this tower!”

“What?! He wants to climb up this tower on my hair? Now what sane person would do that? Oh, my poor head couldn’t possibly hold the weight of a whole person, I’m afraid my hair would rip right out of my skull! Not to mention— oh, nevermind. Now I see why you were so terrified, my dear. You were absolutely right, I’m sorry, I should have listened…”

She tugged at Lily’s hair once more, gently this time, and tapped her upon her shoulders.

“You want to climb up for another look? Yes, of course you can— no, wait, you can’t even tell me what you see. Let me climb up this time.”

And so she did, but since it was impossible for the girl to stand on the floor without crumpling into a torn pile of pain and despair, she had to kneel on the floor, and because Lily couldn’t balance, she could not stand up fully, and so they could see nothing.

“You’re making this difficult, Rapunzel, but I will rescue you nonetheless! I suppose there is only one thing left to try, though it is a risk to my life.”

The two girls then spent an aeon of time detangling all the circle upon circles of Lily’s braids from around the wooden chest, then pushing the chest to the edge of the tower, and finally climbing upon the chest and one another’s shoulders again, so that they can see. When Lily finally put her eye to the small gap two heads above them, she looked down and this time what she saw caused her to lose her footing and fall onto the floor.

“YEEEEEEEEK!!”

THUD!

“No, no, this won’t do! We must… we must hide!”

They crawled underneath the bed for the first time since they had awoken in this foreign tower, elbows and knees getting dusty and cobwebby against the cold stone.

And that was when they discovered the trap door.