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“Rapunzel, stop singing that, You’re going to get it stuck in my head,” Cass grumbled into her chin, angling against the howling wind. Rapunzel’s tune of Oh Christmas Tree fizzled out without further comment and a moment later stark, puffy clouds of snow billowed into the frigid air, showering Rapunzel in a fine dusting of powdery-white snow. Her boots shifted as snow crunched flat under her heels. Behind her, there was a muffled cry, followed by a string of curse words.
“Cass?” Rapunzel spared a look over her shoulder and let loose a loud bark of laughter before she had the brains to stop herself. The same white shower had befallen Cassandra, and she was covered in snowflakes as she leaned against a tree, balanced on one foot while she knocked the clumps of snow out of her boot. “Oh, Cass, I’m sorry did I ambush you?” Rapunzel retraced her steps and set her mittened hands atop Cassandra’s shoulders. “Here.” In big, sweeping gestures she brushed the snow of Cass’s wide shoulders. Most of it stuck to the wool of her coat and only nestles in further the more aggressively Rapunzel tried to eradicate it.
“Raps, I got it,” Cass assured, stepping into her boot and shifting her weight onto it before removing her other boot.
“No! You’re all covered, look at your hat!” Rapunzel reached out, subdued fingers splayed to snatch the knit hat pulled low over those scarlet ears. Cass dodged her first attempt and pushed back with her free hand.
“Raps, I’m serious I—” Rapunzel’s hand darted forward and retracted a moment later, Cassandra’s hat in its grip. Cass made a strangled cry of protest as she snatched for it, wobbling on her one foot with arms splayed.
“Cass!” Rapunzel shrieked as Cass toppled face-first into the bank of crystal snow shouldering the road. Arms flailing, one of her hands latched onto Rapunzel’s arm and with a grunt of her own, pulled Rapunzel down to icy hell with her. Rapunzel landed on her butt, on the bunched-up tail of her massive coat to be specific. One look to her left sent her giggling again. Cass, flat on her stomach, face buried in the snow, feet, one sans a boot sticking clear into the air. She lifted her head, clumps of thick, wet, snow clung to her eyebrows and the hairline of her black mess of curls, thrown into a barely passable knot at the nape of her neck. There was snow on her lips and she coughed and sputtered to dislodged the chunks.
“Would you just give me my hat back Raps?” Cass muttered, pushing onto her elbows, and then her side as she stretched for her abandoned boot.
“Cass,” Rapunzel sighed, climbing to her feet and dusting off her coat. “Let me get it.” She bent down to retrieve the boot, but Cass had already retrieved and was jamming it unceremoniously onto her foot. Rapunzel rolled her lips into her mouth to hide her smile and instead extended both her arms and locked hands with the fallen woman, pulling her to her feet. There was absolutely no inch of her that wasn't covered with gloppy and powdery snow alike. Rapunzel felt a surge of guilt and wordlessly tucked the knit cap over Cassandra’s ears, thumbing snow off of her hairline as she did so. “Cass! You’re an icicle!” She gasped, snatching Cassandra’s fingers in her own and huffing hot air onto them. Cass was still, motionless for just a moment, the corners of her lips twitching in a smothered smile. Then she pulled away and returned her icy fingers into her pockets.
“Come on,” she declared, sending a cloud of snow into the air with the tip of her boot. “Let’s hurry up and pick one out before we freeze solid and Lance and Eugene wreck the place.”
They set off again, and soon the shoulder of the road sloped into a field that glowed blue with trees, their needles matted with snow that blurred the edge of the forest. Freely, Rapunzel skid down the hill on her heels like a child running to her mother. Again, her melodic tune of Oh Christmas Tree leaving her lips to dance with the snow. Cass followed with her arms crossed, tiny steps in contrast.
"I mean it, Raps, don't get that stuck in my head," Cassandra tisked. Rapunzel didn't seem to hear her, or if she did she didn't stop, continuing to hum as she rummaged through her satchel, finally pulling out her journal after copious amounts of digging. She flipped with her massive mittens to the center of the book then repeatedly glanced from the pages to the tree line, green eyes scanning, analyzing. Cass blew air through her puckered lips and picked up her pace. The air froze on her mouth and the snow chaffed around her shins, bogging each step with the effort of walking through snow, and pulling the sled behind her too. She came up behind Rapunzel, who was seldomly looking where she put her feet, and tapped a hand against her shoulder.
“So what kind of tree have you been dreaming about?” She asked, looking over the brunette’s shoulder. “Cause I’ve done some research of my own and if we find one with the right sap content it should retain its needles the longest and—”
“Ooh, look at that one!” Rapunzel was off in a blur, zooming through the trees into the thick of the woods. Cass stumbled after her to keep up, the untrodden snow was up to her knees, but her feet had long since gone numb, so what did she care anyway? Rapunzel ran up to a tree and immediately began circling it, holding her journal aloft, eyes flicking back and forth.
“This one? You sure?” Her voice was flat, unimpressed. “It’s not exactly the ideal fur, see? Its needles are all puffy and drooping. You won’t be able to hang many ornaments on it?”
Rapunzel sighed scuffing her boot against the trunk.
“I suppose you’re right...it’s too fat anyways—what about that one!?” And she was off again, bounding through the snow like a frisky husky pup. Cass followed Rapunzel with her eyes and groaned.
“Raps, we have to drag this tree home, it needs to fit on the sled.”
Rapunzel slinked away from the mammoth-sized fraser with her head down. If she were a dog she would have vanished beneath the dinner table with her tail between her legs.
“What about this one?” Cass called out, her inquiry catching on the wind. She dug her heels into the ground to steady herself against the draft and pointed towards a lean elegant tree. It was shapely, with evenly spaced boughs full of emerald needles and heavy white snow. She stepped closer to inspect it and found sap in massive globs frozen vertically to the bark. Vaguely, she heard snow crunching in big, aggressive leaps. She held her breath, baited for the squeal of excitement and a rapid journey back to the warmth of the castle, specifically Rapunzel’s room and that massive fireplace and the squishy sofa and—
“This one just doesn’t feel right…”
“What?” Cass felt her face harden, but she ignored it. “Raps, this a beautiful masterpiece of a Christmas tree if I ever saw one, and it’s facing northeast which means—”
“I’m sorry, Cass, it doesn’t match what I had in mind.” Rapunzel lifted her journal high, displaying her array of doodles, Christmas trees, squat and fat, tall and lean, short, but full.
“Well, enlighten me, then,” Cass grumbled, huffing hot air against the scratchy wool of her mittens. Her fingers were solid bricks of ice, she was sure of it. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“I can’t really describe it, I’ll know it when I see it”
Cass sighed and double-checked that her halbert was still firmly on the sleigh, its sharp metal tip pointed inwards out of the path of unsuspecting feet. It was, so she took to watching Rapunzel from afar flitting from tree to tree, spouting off a barely discernible assessment, all of which ended in the specimen’s inadequacy.
“Rapunzel, this one’s nice,” Cass tried for a fourth time, patting the branches of a nearby tree, and instantly regretting when snow flew up her sleeve.
Rapunzel awarded her with a brief glance, then a second take, and widened eyes before half-heartedly replying she imagined something fuller. The Neutral expression Cass had worn the whole time sours. She can feel it in the way the muscles in her face start to sting. But rapunzel doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does she doesn’t take it to heart, because she keeps her rapid pace stringing from tree to tree. Finally, she stopped in front of a skinny-trunked, full-branched extravagance not much taller than Cass. Most of its snow appeared to have been knocked off by some wild creature. Cass startled at the gesture, instinctually reaching for her halberd.
“Is this it? Is this the legendary tree you’ve been envisioning for the last two hours?” her fingers itched the indentation of her halberd’s handle. Rapunzel tisked, drumming her fingers on her hips.
“Not just hours, Cass,” she scolded, giving her a disparaging look. “This my Christmas dream I’ve had for months—no, years!”
Cass was unimpressed.
“Raps?” She gestured towards the elegant little tree. There was silence for a moment, then:
“I suppose it’s a contender—”
Whack.
Cass dropped to her knees and without another word sent the curve of her halberd into the base of the trunk.
“Oh!” Rapunzel mumbled, smirking as it faded into a giggle. “Okay, I’m sure this one will work beautifully, thank you, Cass,”
Cass grunted in response and kept on hacking.
“Cass, can I help? What do you need me to do?”
There was a moment of silence while Cass lined up the edge of her blade to the dwindling trunk.
“Hold onto it in the middle,” she finally responded, climbing to her feet. Using her teeth, she bit the tip of her soaked mittens and pulled them off, shoving them into her pocket. The hands beneath were a fierce shade of scarlet, but it seemed not to bother her, or not enough to acknowledge. “Don’t let it fall when I make the final chop.” Rapunzel’s hands found their way around the trunk between the many branches. She squeezed as much as her bulky mittens would allow and held fast to the sappy wood.
“Ready?” Cass lifted her hand-held halberd above her shoulder and locked eyes with her through the barrier of needles. Rapunzel gave a single, violent nod. Grinning, Cass brought her blade against the thin wedge of the trunk with a woosh and a thud.
“Timber!” Came her shrill exclamation as she tipped under the weight of her esteemed tree. She pushed back with equal force and held steady under its pressing weight. A moment later a second set of hands wrapped around the base and wordlessly, the tree was hoisted into the air then lowered onto the sled. Cass fiddled for a few moments with the straps, then handed one to Rapunzel while she tested her own knots.
“Cass?” by the time she looked up, Rapunzel was pulling and yanking on her rope, tightening the loop that had somehow knotted itself around her wrists in the five seconds Cass had looked away. She looked away, angling her face to hide the flash of teeth in a private, pleased grin. With a smile that began and ended in the corners of her eyes, she stretched out her hands and as soon as Rapunzel shuffled into range, began working at the knots restricting her.
“There,” she said, squeezing Rapunzel’s liberated hands. “Freedom.” a sprinkling of snowflakes clung to her full eyelashes, a few hit her cheeks and melted instantly from the warmth blasting off of her flushed face. They trickled down her face like tears. The corners of Cass’s lip twitched, the pads of her thumbs lifted hesitantly to brush the trails of water away. The moment her fingers connected with flesh, Rapunzel jumped in surprise, grabbing Cass by the wrist.
“ Brr! ” she trilled. “Your poor fingers,” she clucked then inhaled a deep lungful of air and pressed Cassandra’s knuckles against her lips. Cass felt her blood thaw instantly, her cheeks were already scarlet, thankfully.
“Come on, Raps,” Cass declared, not exactly pulling her hands away as she spoke. “Let’s just hurry up and get back where it’s warm, okay?”
Rapunzel’s smile melted into something reluctant but not upset.
“Okay,” she breathed. Then she placed her hands on either side of Cass's cheeks and kissed Cassandra on the lips.
And there it was: an exquisite moment of suspended existence. Momentarily, Cassandra's brain systematically shut down. Forget the blistering wind or the biting veil creeping down her neck, Rapunzel, pressed against her was a shield and a furnace of warmth that bleed straight to her bones. She could have stayed like that, suspended in bliss for who knows how long. But rationality cut through her wishful thinking and she pulled back, expecting a cry of protest in return but Rapunzel simply brushed her lips against her forehead and murmurs a polite, “thank you for my beautiful tree.” Grinning, Cass slid their entwined digits into her pocket and grabbed the sleigh’s coil with her other hand. Rapunzel did too and they set off to make a second track of footprints through the snow.
❄❄❄
“About time you two slinked back in, it's been hours.” Eugene was seated on Rapunzel’s bed, legs tucked with a book on his lap and Lance at his side. His gaze flitted up from the book for a few sparse seconds then returned to his reading. Cass peeled out of her coat and mittens, pulling her hat and scarf off in one fell swoop. In response, her hair puffed up like a startled cat. Her shirt was damp and stuck to her skin like weak glue. She parked herself in front of the fire blazing in the grate and released a thick sigh of contented relief. Eugene finished his paragraph and snapped the book shut in a fluid movement.
“Blondie, come with me on a little errand.” He left his book on the bed as he hopped down from the cushy mattress, landing on his socked feet with a dull thud.
“Eugene?” Rapunzel tilted her head to one side as she shimmied out of her coat. “I just got home, can’t I sit down for a mo—” His hands dropped onto her shoulders and directed her wordlessly for the door.
“Oh, trust me, you should come with me.” and with that, the two vanished down the hall.
Cass sighed and pulled her shivering form from the fireside and ambled towards the tree, in a puddle of melted snow by the doorway. The sooner she could get it up the sooner they could begin decorating and the sooner she could take a nice, warm nap.
“Here,” Lance said, gripping one end of the trunk. “You go change into something dry, I’ll work on getting this bad boy cleaned. Cass shot him a sincere smile and made her way over to Rapunzel’s wardrobe. She pulled open the bottom drawer and retrieved a pair of trousers. Over the past few months, with so much time spent in that room, Cass’s wardrobe had slowly mixed and commingled with the princess’s things. She could almost always find something of her’s in the spotless clutter the princes kept orderly and neat. More to her point, she found a sweater of her’s on the bathroom floor. After kicking out of her wet clothes and into the new ones she joined Lance, who had spread a spotless sheet on the ground and had already begun whittling an indent in the base of the trunk.
“Thanks,” she supplemented, bending to peer at the base of the tree. With his added muscle, they hoisted the tree into the intricate stand Xavier had made specially for them. They had clipped nearly half of the candle holders onto the thick branches when Rapunzel returned, holding something behind her back. Eugene was nowhere to be seen. Rapunzel locked expressions with Lance, her head angling sharply towards her door.
“Ooh, right, got it,” he said, dragging his sap-coated hands down the backside of his trousers. “Make it pretty, girls.” He clapped Cass on the back, snickering as she grunted and braced herself on her arms as she tipped forward. Her right hand gave an audible click, and she gasped slightly but he was already gone, too far to notice.
“Look what I managed to snag from the kitchens, Eugene and Lance made them, they’re up to par, I did check.”
Cass looked up and through her squint of pain saw Rapunzel holding a tiny tray decked with two clay mugs and a small dish of pale cookies dusted in cinnamon. Her lips pushed through the grimace in a smile. So long as it was something warm in those cups, Cass would drink anything. Rapunzel followed the tension in the muscles of Cassandra’s face and her eager smile melted.
“Hey...what’s wrong?” She sank to her knees, abandoning the tray. Her hands found their way around Cassandra’s cheeks, fiery thumbs pressing gently into her chilled cheekbones. Cass shook her head slightly, lifting her arm, cradling it with the other.
“I’ve just been using it all day...it doesn’t like that.” She met Rapunzel’s intense gaze and felt Rapunzel’s radiating heat on her cheeks. “But I’ll be fine...it’ll calm down eventually.”
That comment, meant to assure, seemingly did nothing. Her face remained unchanged as she removed her hands from Cassandra’s face and reverently picked up her arm, hands strategically placed at the wrist and elbow to ensure a gentle passage. Cassandra’s bottom lip rolled inside her mouth but she otherwise remained motionless, stoic and silent like stone. Rapunzel’s fingers were light, barely discernible against the hardened flesh cooked nerves. The potent black shade of her cracked flesh had faded with time, as had the pain. Coming on a few years of re-trainings the muscles beneath the fried limb had managed her this far, but every once in a while it came spitting and hissing back to the surface in flares of pain and abject uselessness. It was sensitive to extremes, hot and cold made it fussy, Rapunzel knew that but Cass had insisted. She had a nasty habit of disregarding her limitations, despite how debilitating they became. She never liked it when plans were canceled because of her, but slowly she had gotten better at prioritizing her pain, and Rapunzel was proud of her, truly.
Rapunzel took a deep breath and dug the pads of her fingers into the flesh of the arm she held a priceless artifact. Like she was taught, she rubbed circles across her arm, pausing, flinching at every twitch Cass made. A sharp gasp spilled from Cassandra’s lips, and Rapunzel froze solid.
“No,” Cass grunted, shaking her head stiffly. “Good.” Her lips stitched back together again and Rapunzel sighed, continuing the movements she had practiced so hard to perfect. Sometimes this was all she could do in terms of washing away Cassandra’s pain, and she had slaved over the action to make it as useful as possible.
“Still so cold,” she mused, feathering a kiss against the blackened fingertips.
“They always are,” she murmured as a smile licked her lips. Rapunzel shifted and when prompted, Cassandra let her head drop onto Rapunzel’s shoulder. Rapunzel’s hand strayed for a moment and returned holding one of the mugs. It smelled richly of chocolate. Cass felt a dumb smile tugging on her lips and let it loose.
“Here, drink up.”
Cassandra held the mug in her new dominant hand and took a large sip that tickled her throat with its heat as it ran its course down her throat.
“And your favorite—cinnamon cookies.”
There was a pleasant purr from her throat and without opening her eyes she opened her mouth. Moments later a vaguely warm biscuit slid between her lips. She took a bite and melted at the sugary glaze that coated her tongue.
“Better than mine?” Rapunzel inquired, resuming her rubbing. Cass grinned, nestling the back of her head deeper into Rapunzel’s soft, warm neck.
“Absolutely not.”
Cassandra continued to sip her cocoa, allowing Rapunzel a sip every now and then despite her having her own glass not three feet away, it kept Rapunzel’s hands free and busy soothing the ache biting at Cassandra’s arm.
“What’s this?”
When Cassandra opened her eyes Rapunzel had laid Cass’s hand gently on her lap holding a small wooden horse, crudely carved with a knife. It’s nothing special, but Cass knows she’s likely blushing all the same.
“That? I made it with dad. My first Christmas with him. I didn’t know what it was and when he asked me what sort of things I did with my mother during the season I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.”
Rapunzel laughed, just slightly and wrapped one arm tentatively around Cassandra’s middle. She did not pull away, something that assured Rapunzel further.
“I didn’t celebrate Christmas with her either.” A few years ago she would have been petrified to make such a remark, that was territory not dared tread. But now she could run her fingers through Cassandra’s choppy bob and whisper a deprecating joke about the woman. And Cass would laugh, barbing back with some sharp retort. But that time Cass didn’t chuckle or even smile at the statement, and Rapunzel gave a deep, sincere flinch for stupidity.
“No. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know the word...I—It hadn’t been five months since he took me home but I didn’t remember anything . I asked him if he was the one who’d forgotten, because, surely I wouldn’t have any memories of her, I was just a baby and babies don’t have memories. That’s when I realized how upset he looked and that’s when he told me he found me all alone in the countryside one day. That he wasn’t my biological father, that never saw my mother...that he never knew what happened to her or anything about her. That’s the first time he lied to me I think, it wouldn’t be the last.”
“Cass…”
“It’s only bitter in retrospect. After contenting me with the lie he thought would help me he told me we were going to make some traditions of our own. And he went to the woodpile and grabbed a log then pulled out his knife and started whittling. He made a little horse then he made the worst mistake of his life and handed me the knife.”
Her shoulders shook with sudden laughter at herself or for Rapunzel’s expression she didn’t know. She splayed her palms open wide; it was buried beneath the scar tissue of her right hand but there was a small jagged line poking through the dead flesh.
“So that went about as well as you’d expect, I sliced my hand open, started screaming, dad panicked and after he patched me up declared I wouldn’t be carving just yet, but he had already put the blade in my hand, I’d already tasted the wonder drug. An hour later he gave in to my pleas and he taught me how to whittle...that was the result. We’ve made one every since…” her face went slack and her eyes grew dark with some old, remembered pain. “Well...we did anyway. We haven’t gotten a chance too since I left for the black rocks trip.” She went still, so motionless Rapunzel wondered if she was even breathing. Then she sucked in a scratchy breath and Rapunzel can feel her pulling away without moving a muscle. Rapunzel repositioned her arms and nestled Cassandra further into her chest. She said nothing, words were just air; useless after a tale like that. So she turned her chin into Cassandra’s cheek and brushed a kiss against her cheek. It was warmer now, so were her hands. The gesture seemingly zapped her. Cassandra twitched, then twisted to look at her, and a smile, genuine enough streaked across her face. She bit at her lips distastefully and made a dramatic show of gagging. “Yikes, that’s so sappy my throat’s gonna close up.”
Rapunzel stared a t her for a moment then let out an explosive breath. Cass groaned, plastering a hand over her eyes. “No. Do not make this a big deal.”
“But Cass!” She protested, spiking her voice up an octave. “It is a big deal. This is your history and I wanna be a part of it. I wanna make things with you, things that are ours, traditions between…just us.” She shifted Cassandra off her lap and reached inside a dish on a footstool a few feet away, from which she withdrew a delicate, silver hook, engraved with the likeness of boughs of pine. She looped the hook around the string fastened to the little horse. She turned to face her tree, beautiful in its bare, ebony green beauty but lacking light entirely. She strides forward and places the sad, misshapen horse on the tip of a branch in the very center of their special tree. Cass blanched, shielding her face further into her forearms.
“Right in the front?”
Rapunzel stuck her tongue between her lips, then promptly ran around the back of the tree. If she thought Cass would follow after her, she was mistaken. Cass sighed contentedly and shifted against the back of a sofa Rapunzel had set up in front of the fireplace. She looked up at the ceiling to watch the flames dance on walls, but along the way she saw a blur of color in the doorway. A quick glance saw Lance, holding a tray that looked suspiciously like cinnamon cookies and two mugs of hot cocoa. The two met eyes and she smirked viciously as he pumped his fist in the air, winking at her in the process. She watched him go then turned her attention back to the tree Rapunzel was enthusiastically bestowing ornaments upon. Cass drummed her fingers rhythmically against her knee, trilling an open-mouthed hum of the damn song Rapunzel had sung all day long. It filled the room like the warmth of the fire and the light of the tree. By the time she realized what she was doing, Rapunzel had already joined in, and despite their best efforts, it was thoroughly stuck in both their heads.