Once Upon A Tome: Rapunzel

There is very little of this written so far, but here is the (unedited!) bit I have:

The ruling members of the kingdom of Derdel have come from my family for the last thousand years.  It’s all because of King-the-First Ryllion, my many-greats grandfather.  Before his time, there were uprisings, civil wars, political assassinations— all sorts of bad things.  King-the-First Ryllion brought peace to Derdel.  He just also ruined my life.

                My name is Rapunzel.  You may have heard of me—probably you think you know all about me.  But there are many versions of my personal history.  This book is the only place that you will find the full, true tale.  Because this is the only place I’m telling it.

                As you may have guessed, the story begins with hair.  As you may not have guessed, that hair is blue.  Yes, blue.  Well, really more of an aqua color.  Like a watered-down version of the color of the sky.  Not that the specific shade is important to the story.

                What is important is this: when King-the-First Ryllion came out the victor of the Great Civil War, he immediately summoned any magicians that would come to his aide.  Many of the people feared that he was hunting immortality or a way to strike down any that would attack him.  But Ryllion was a man of peace.  What he wanted was a way to identify the best ruler for Derdel.  And not just for his days, but for all time.

                The magical maneuverings of the magicians have been explained to me, but they are simply beyond my comprehension.  Not that I’m dumb; I just don’t have one smidgeon of magic, so I don’t really get it.  What I do understand is this: the magicians found a way for the kingdom to magically choose its own ruler—and turn his or hair blue.

                I’ve thought a lot about this blue-hair thing over time.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s actually not too bad of an idea.  Natural hair color can’t be changed, even if you use dyes to conceal it.  It’s always going to grow the way it’s meant to.  And for some reason—again, I don’t really get it—hair color is apparently very hard for most magicians to change by magic once it has been established.  Something about fighting the laws of destiny.  Regardless of ancient magical law, the point is that the kings and queens of Derdel have blue hair.  It’s just a fact.

                Which brings us back to my family.  See, Ryllion may have been a good man, but he was not perfect.  He persuaded his magicians to add a caveat to the ruler-choosing spell: the selected person had to come from his—Ryllion’s—family.  A little selfish, maybe, but he placed a great deal of trust in his descendants.  And it actually worked out pretty well.

                There was a bit of trouble, though.  See, I think Ryllion expected his kingship to pass on to his son, Cade.  But Prince Cade was, well, a selfish, whiney moron.  Not king material.  So when the blue-hair spell was cast, the kingdom didn’t choose the prince.  But Ryllion’s good-hearted cousin, Tella, suddenly had vividly turquoise locks.

                Well, there was uproar in Derdel, but not for long.  Tella was a good candidate for queen.  And when her second son was born with blue hair, the people shrugged and went on with their lives, unperturbed, by then, by the concept of another blue-haired ruler.

                So as I said, about a thousand years passed.  The Derdelians became accustomed to peace.  And with just and clever rulers chosen for them, they were fairly prosperous.  The kingdom was, I hear, a very nice place to live.

                I say “I hear” because the kingdom changed shortly after I was born.

                Unlike many of my ruling relatives over the years, I was my parents’ first child, and born with the blue hair.  The nation sighed in relief at the promise of a next ruler, a queen that they were sure, after all of this history, would be a good monarch.  There were celebrations in the streets, from what I’m told, and the festivities inside the castle walls went on for weeks.  People were happy.  People were grateful.  People were robbed of their future queen by an evil witch.

                I should explain.

                The witch’s name was Eden.  An unfittingly Biblical name, in my opinion.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Biblical names, of course; I just don’t think that “Eden” suits an evil witch.  But that’s beside the point.

                The thing I’m trying to convey here is that Eden was one bad lady.  I know that my perception of her may be skewed, as she was my captor for seventeen years, but maybe that gives me a clearer vision of her.  She was convinced that she should rule the kingdom, and determined to take the throne somehow.

                That’s why she got into magic.