TLC the Musical

Brick By Boring Brick

Rapunzel stuck her head out the window and looked down. "Oh my stars," she wheezed. "She's dead!" She tugged at her hair and spun around in circles, back and forth. "I killed her!"

Outside the tower, someone groaned out in pain. Rapunzel leaned out the window again and scanned the ground. "Are you alive?"

"I think so," the voice answered. It sounded like the thief, and Sunto wondered how he survived the fall if the witch died from it.

The thief groaned again and called up, "How long have I been out? I fell when it was light out, and now it's dark."

"Uh," Rapunzel rung her hands in front of her. "It's still day time. The sun is still out."

There was silence, and Rapunzel booked it to the thief's bag and took out the arrows. "I'll climb down to get you! I think I can do the thing you did with the arrows!"

"You need upper body strength for that to work!" he yelled back.

"That's not funny!"

"I wasn't trying to be!"

She tossed the arrows on the ground and screamed in frustration. She paced back and forth across the tower floor. Over and over, she mumbled, "How can I get down? How can I get down?"

One of the spotlight turned on and focused on a pair of scissors on the table. The light reflected of the metal and made them glint and sparkle. Rapunzel saw them and stopped in her tracks.

Her hands reached up to her hair, shaking as they brushed through it. She swallowed her fear and brimming tears, and raced over to the scissors.

"Hang on!" she called to him. She picked up the scissors and angled them towards her hair. "I'm coming!"

Just as she brought the scissors to meet her hair, the lights cut out. Sunto guessed why. No one wanted to see Rapunzel cutting her own hair. And the mess would only cause problems, so it was better to do it off stage.

When the lights came back on, the scene was the one showing the outside of the tower again. There was a lump of black that looked like the witch's cloak. Perhaps that lump was supposed to represent the dead witch.

How wonderful.

A few feet away, the thief leaned against the base of the tower, half of him stuck in the bushes he;d hidden from the guards in. The thorn bushes. He was so pale and only stared at the sky, almost lifeless.

From the window, Rapunzel's hair was tossed and settled like a rope against the tower wall. The end was so close to the thief he could have touched it. A girl with the same dress as Rapunzel climbed down the rope of hair and carefully got to the ground level.

But this girl had hair that was only as long as her jawline. It was short and swooshed everytime she moved her head.

She cut off all her hair to get down to him.

"It's me," she said, crouching at his side. She took his hands. "I'm here. I can get you back in the tower to help you."

The thief was dejected, hopeless. "I know why I can't see the light now. ... It's because ... the fall blinded me."

Rapunzel cupped his cheek and did her best not to cry. "I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you when you said we could. I shouldn't have doubted you."

He laughed, but it was bitter and short-lived. "No, you were right to doubt me. I was just trying to get the slipper back."

Rapunzel's breathing was so heavy and shaky. She urged him to stand and helped him up. "Grab the rope," she told him as she pressed his hand to it.