A fairytale told from both Rapunzel and Gothel's hearts, with original songs woven into the story.
Once Upon aTime…
They say she stole me.
That she was a witch with a cruel heart and a selfish hunger.That I was the prize — a child of gold, born with hair spun from sunlight and magic in her bones.That she locked me away for vanity, to hoard the power that grew in my strands like vines around her youth.
But truth is a tangled thing.
And this is our story — not the one written in books, but the one whispered by wind through ivy-covered towers and lullabies that echo in sleep.
GOTHEL'S TRUTH
I wasn't born wicked.I was born forgotten.
A healer's daughter in a dying village, raised with ash on my apron and hunger in my ribs. I learned the names of plants before I learned my own — and I watched my mother cure and comfort, until the world called her "witch" and dragged her from me.
They feared what they didn't understand. Magic. Women. Power.
I survived. I hid in the woods, tending to those too poor for princes, too broken for the palace.
One day, I found it — a glowing flower curled in the roots of an ancient tree. It whispered warmth into my hands, eased the aches in my bones, and for the first time, I felt young. I took only what I needed. I asked nothing more.
Then the Queen fell ill.
And the soldiers came, tearing the forest apart for my flower. My salvation.
They crushed it into a potion and fed it to the woman who had everything. And from her belly came a child — golden-haired, glowing, divine.
They had stolen from me.
So I stole her back.
RAPUNZEL'S DREAM
I do not remember the day she took me — only the song she sang as I opened my eyes in a tower wrapped in ivy and wind.
"Sleep, my blossom, sleep in light,The world is thorns, but you are bright.No pain shall touch, no storm shall break,While I breathe for your heart's sake."
She told me the world was cruel. That people hurt what they didn't understand. That my hair — long and gold and strange — could heal wounds, but would make others greedy.
So I stayed.
I painted the sky, read books she brought from towns I never saw, and sang songs to birds who carried secrets I couldn't yet name. The tower was safe.
But safety is not the same as freedom.
Each year on my birthday, I saw the lights. Lanterns rising like stars from the kingdom across the forest.
And I began to wonder if they were calling me home.
THE BARGAIN OF A MOTHER
Gothel wasn't cruel.
She combed my hair gently, her fingers trembling like someone afraid to lose something too precious to touch.
But there was fear in her eyes. Fear of age, yes — but deeper than that. A fear of being abandoned. Forgotten. As if losing me would shatter something inside her that had already cracked long ago.
"I held you when you were nothing but air,Spun your cradle from vines and care.I gave up sleep, I gave up pride,So tell me, child — have I not tried?"
She didn't lock me up because she hated me.
She locked me up because she loved me.
Twisted love. Fearful love. But love all the same.
THE ESCAPE
The day the boy came was the day the tower breathed.
He wasn't brave, not really. He was charming in the way that liars are. But he was kind — in the way that mattered.
He called himself Flynn. He climbed in through the window, saw me with shock and wonder, and asked why I was locked away like a storybook ghost.
He showed me the truth: the lanterns were for the lost princess — the child stolen from the queen.
Me.
I confronted Gothel, trembling.
"I'm not yours," I said.
And she didn't scream. She just… crumpled.
"Then go," she whispered. "But when the world breaks you, don't come crawling back."
THE WORLD
It was bigger than my dreams.
Villages blooming with color, people laughing, crying, dancing. Pain and joy in equal measure. I got wet in the rain. I danced at a fire. I touched stone walls with sun crests carved into them — my crest.
Everywhere I turned, the truth rose like morning fog.
I was the princess.
And Gothel had taken me not out of cruelty — but to keep me safe from the world that had once burned her to ash.
But safety without freedom is a cage.
-And love without truth is a lie.
THE FINAL SONG
She followed me.
I should've known.
She didn't want my power — she wanted me. Or the girl she thought she had created. And when she saw I was no longer hers, she wept the kind of tears no magic could mend.
In the final hour, when Flynn stood bleeding at her feet, I offered her my hair — the last of its magic — if she would let him live.
But she refused.
"I won't let you give yourself up. Not for him. Not for anyone."
And then she did the one thing I never expected:
She cut my hair herself.
With one stroke, it fell — and so did her youth. Her face aged like a crumbling statue, but her eyes stayed the same.
She kissed my forehead.
"I would've died for you," she said. "But I won't chain you."
And then, she let go.
Of me.Of her anger.Of everything.
AFTER
They say the princess returned, and the kingdom rejoiced.They say the witch was never seen again.They say the lights still rise every year — not to mourn, but to celebrate.
But I know better.
She lives in the woods still, maybe.
Or perhaps in some other form — wind through branches, song in a lullaby, shadow behind a tree when you think you're alone.
I forgive her.
I love her.
Because while she may have taken me — she also gave me something no one else could.
A voice.
A will.
A story.
"I once was lost, behind a wall,But now I rise, and will not fall.From tower stone to starlit skies,I learned to live, and say goodbye."