Rapunzel

Posted on Mon Sep 30th, 2024 @ 11:41am by Commander Amaya Lance & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Didrea Zade

Mission: Into the Qniverse
Location: ??
Timeline: After 'Goldilocks'
2381 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Finn groaned as she sat up in the room where they had been placed. She lightly rubbed her head as though that would magically solve the headache that lingered from the hirogen knocking them out before dragging them from the cabin in the woods. As her eyes adjusted to the low lighting, she noted a modern looking door with a panel next to it that seemed out of place amongst the stone floor and walls. The singular window was about waist height and just large enough to possibly fit a person through and a small table sat in one corner with a pitcher and two glasses. That was it, except, what was that dark shadow?

“Commander Lance?” Finn somewhat recognized the shape, but the low lighting made it impossible to be sure until she moved in closer.

"Nnngh..." Amaya blinked as the disembodied voice broke her out of an enforced darkness. She squinted up to see Finn's face peering at her. "What happened...where are we...?" she murmured, pulling herself upright. "They moved us?"

"Looks like it. Some sort of tower," Finn noted. "There isn't much in here. There is a window, without bars..." She strolled over to take a look outside. "We're still in the middle of nowhere. Just a green field, a forest in the distance and a road in between. No way to climb down that I can see. Wait...I think a see someone riding by...HEY, HEY UP HERE!" She did her best to yell out, hoping that either their captors were away or wouldn't hear it from where ever they were tucked into the tower. In reality she had no idea if the person riding by would be friend or foe, but things couldn't get much worse than their current predicament right?

In the grassy field below, a white horse galloped, its rider swaying in unison with the moves. The metal armor sparkled in the daylight. The horse slowed, then turned toward the tower, the rider heeding the cry of a damsel in distress. The pair stopped just short of the tower, and the rider hopped off his steed. Reaching up, he removed his helmet, giving a delicate swish of his head to give his brown hair volume after being trapped under that metal dome.

Looking up, the knight raised a hand toward the window, as a poet speaking before a theatre would. "My fairest maiden, I heed your cry!" He shouted back. "For I am Sir Reginald Dumas, and save thee I shall try!"

"Okay, whaaaat?" Amaya queried, eyebrow raised. "You can't be serious. Another stupid fairy tale thing?" She squinted. "What is it this time?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm fairly certain this dude just said his name was dumbass? That doesn't make any sense, does it?" Finn leaned out of the window to ask the man to repeat his name, but was suddenly distracted as the golden locks framing her face seemed to grow. "What the..." she leaned back inside only to find that her hair magically transformed into its previous shorter state. She repeated the movement, leaning outside of the window, only to witness the same phenomenon. "Why is my hair growing when I lean out outside" She said, frustrated. "And why do we keep getting put in stories with stupid hairstyles?!"

The knight below looked at the tower, trying to find a way to get inside the help the damsel. He may have imagined it, but perhaps there were two maidens needing rescue. He walked around the base of the tower before stopping back under the window. "A perplexing conundrum for a lady so fair," he shouted up at the window. "Pray tell, how might I reach thee up there? I see no door, nor ladder to climb, I must find a way to save thee in time."

"Rhyming? Seriously?" Amaya sighed. As if this could get any worse... "Put your head out of the window again. I think I know where this is going."

Finn raised an eyebrow, confused but then put her head back out the window and watched as her hair grew once more. "No...you don't think..." A sigh of exasperation escaped from Finn's lips as she realized what this meant. "He's going to climb my hair to get into this tower isn't he? This is humiliating."

Amaya cringed visibly. "Whoever is orchestrating this has a weird sense of fun. This is one of those old stories my mother used to read to us at bedtime. I think the knight is supposed to climb up your hair...don't ask me how that works, I have no idea."

"Aha!" The knight below exclaimed, as he watched her hair grow. "An excellent plan, dear maiden, let down thy hair! If this is how I must rescue thee, then I shall accept this dare!" Eventually, the golden hair was long enough to reach, and Sir Dumas gently grabbed it with a hand, squinting up toward the window. It would be terrible if his efforts to save her ended up hurting her. "Brace thyself for my climb, and I shall rescue thee in due time!"

"Want me to help?" Amaya asked, wondering if that was even possible. The knight below was wearing plate armour, after all.

"I think I can handle the shiny dweeb climbing my hair." Finn braced her feet at the window and held her hair at the side so it didn't pull at her head. "You can help me by promising not to utter a word about this to anyone once we get out of this mess. The last thing I need is for anyone to know about these stupid hairstyles I've had to endure, let alone someone climbing up them."

When Finn signaled that she was ready, the knight got a firm grip on the hair and carefully stepped onto the wall of the tower, his helmet abandoned beside him. He took a couple seconds to make sure the hair wouldn't break before he started to climb, settling into a rhythm. Foot, hand, foot hand. Steadily, he worked his way up the tower, his white steed below appearing smaller and smaller. After about a minute of climbing, he got close enough to the window that he could grab the ledge with one hand, then the other. The change in leverage shifted enough to make his feet slip, and for a few seconds his legs flailed around before finding narrow ledges in the stone to get some support. He pulled himself up and into the tower, an effort that would have been more graceful if he weren't in metal armor and didn't splat onto the floor upside down.

Finn helped the poor man into a sitting position. "This armor seems a bit bulky...and noisy. You're going to have to get rid of it before we get out of here. I'll be shocked if the Hirogen didn't hear the ridiculous amount of clanging when you came in the window. What weapons did you bring up? We should be prepared just in case they did hear you."

Sir Dumas appreciated the help to sit, but at the mention of someone threatening his damsel --now damsels, it seems-- pushed him to stand up. In his transition from floor to feet, he made sure to give his brown hair a little swish. For volume. "Weapons?" he then asked, giving her a confused look. "It takes great physical strength to scale such a tower. I would not be able to climb if my hand yielded my sword's power."

"I mean, you could've stored it in a sheath or tied it to your back or something," Finn waved her hands, exasperated. "So you mean to tell me you came all the way up here, with no weapons? Do you have anything of any usefulness with you?"

The hamster wheel that made up the knight's brain didn't see her logic. In fact, he seemed slightly offended by it. "If danger were here, dear damsel, wouldst thou not first warn thy rescuer before he scaled the wall?" Sir Dumas put a hand to his chest to refer to himself. He then raised his arms to either side and flexed, though with the armor it looked more like he was striking a pose. "Fear not, for Sir Dumas can use valor and strength to make the enemy fall!"

Amaya looked at Finn with a look that said 'is this guy for real?' and rolled her eyes. "Well, Sir Dumas. If you're here to rescue us, where is it you intend to lead?"

"Why..." Dumas paused, putting one hand on his hip while the other tapped his chin. "... why, down the wall, of course! Awaits us is my steed, the fastest and most loyal horse. Unless, perchance, there may be a door? A simpler strategy, and a lesser chore."

"He's not wrong, the two of you could climb back down my certainly magnificent hair and get away from here," Finn gave a not so subtle eye roll. "That honestly might be the best idea. We don't know who or what is behind the door if we do get out. We can only assume multiple Hirogen. I may be able to manipulate that panel to open the door, but one person might have a better chance of sneaking out than three. Especially with this doofuses clanking armor."

"Dumas," the knight said, correcting Finn on what he clearly thought was a mispronunciation of his name. He swished his hair, again. "Take pause, and consider the door. With my strength, and armor, perhaps I may strike thine enemy to the floor. My duty is to ye, o' creatures divine! My sacrifice won't be for naught, so long as thou reachest the freedom thou repine."

"So if I remember the stories, this magical long hair of yours - we can let it down and tie it to something in here so we can climb down together. That means we can avoid all the fighting," Amaya suggested.

"Worth a try I guess, as long as the hair doesn't revert back to pigtails when you pull it back inside," Finn reluctantly and with a long sigh, stuck her head back out the window and let the hair grow until it reached the ground below. Then, they pulled the long locks back inside the tower as Finn kept her head outside of the window for fear that if she moved back inside, her hair would revert back to the goldilocks pigtails as it had before. "Tying it off on the door seems like your best bet," she nodded across the room.

Dumas, seeing his chance to be helpful, took the end of hair and strode confidently to the door. It wasn't until he got there that he realized the armor protecting his delicate hands was too bulky to tie the hair, as evidenced by a couple of rather dull thuds of his metal-clad fingers hitting the door. He pulled off the gloves, giving the second glove a slight shake when some hair got stuck between the moving parts before it thunked to the ground. With both hands now free of the gloves, he tied the end of the hair to the door, giving it a good tug to make sure it wouldn't untie itself. Turning back to Finn and Amaya, he made sure to swish his hair valiantly. "Thy hair is secured and shall not spring loose. As I believe the young lads often say, shall we vamoose?"

"Okay, it's secured. After you, Lieutenant Commander..." Amaya said, invoking rank for the first time and ushering Finn towards the window, cradling a long bundle of golden hair.

Finn did as instructed and quietly exited the tower via her ridiculous long hair, followed by Amaya and Dumas. The two Starfleet officers were able to move stealthily and quickly, unencumbered by hefty armor. Dumas on the other hand sounded something like a freight train clattering off of a tall mountain. Either the Hirogen were hard of hearing or didn't happen to be in the tower, Finn thought.

"Hey!" Suddenly a alien face stuck itself outside of the window they had just exited. "They're getting away!"

I guess they weren't totally deaf after all, Finn thought to herself. "Hurry up!" She shouted at the other two as her own two feet touched the ground. Amaya was at least close to the ground, but Dumas inhibited by his armor was still half way up the tower.

"There's no time! We've got to go!" Amaya urged, grasping hold of Finn's arm and giving her a tug almost as soon as she'd landed.

Dumas looked between the aliens up in the window and down at the ground, where he saw the two. "Fair maiden! My sword!" He pointed to a spot near the tower, where a longsword sat in the grass. "Use it to cut thy hair, then take my steed and flee to preserve thy welfare! Worry not for thy knight, thy freedom grants my soul delight!"

Finn grabbed the sword and cleanly sliced through her hair. The blade was surprisingly sharp. She then threw it, hilt first towards their 'knight in shining armor'. As much as she hated to admit it, he was indeed saving their butts in this instance. "Thank you Sir Dumas," she turned towards the steed, but then stopped and looked back. "Your hair doth shimmer in the sunlight and accents your great might!" She felt like a total idiot saying it, but at the same time she felt a rhyming compliment was the least she could do for their dumb, yet brave, distraction.

A minute later she was on the horse's back, sitting awkwardly behind Amaya. "You know, I really wish that guy had brought two horses. As much as I enjoy sharing a saddle with you..."

"Needs must..." Amaya shrugged. "Could be worse. One day I'll tell you about sharing a room at the Academy with an insomniac Tellarite." She chuckled, digging in her heels. "Now let's ride outta here!"

And as the horse jerked them away from the tower, the sky flashed a spectacular white, and suddenly they were far, far away from either the tower, Sir Dumas, or their pursuers...