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This is it, Cassandra thinks to herself. I can see the Sundrop floating toward me. Finally, I’ll get what’s rightfully mine.
The wait is maddening. Even a few seconds more seem intolerable. The only thing that makes it more palatable is seeing Rapunzel’s pained face in front of her as she steals all her power away. Yes, Cassandra is feeling on top of the world.
With this, no one is going to forget me anymore. Everyone is going to know my name, because I’ll be on their minds every second of their pitiful existences, as they dread the very idea of crossing me again. It’ll be glorious.
So close. The sundrop is right in front of her now. Cassandra extends her hand to grab it…
And that’s when she feels teeth sinking into her head, and clawed hands scratching at her face. The sundrop falls to the ground, but Cassandra’s mind can barely process that, because she’s too distracted by the sensation of her power waning. Someone’s removed the Moonstone from her chest. No. No, no, no, no… this can’t be happening!
Cassandra drops to the floor and finally gets a look at the person who assaulted her. Zhan Tiri. Of course. Another so-called ‘friend’ stealing her thunder.
Cassandra tries to keep it together, but inwardly, she’s panicking. Without her power, she is nothing. She is less than nothing, she realizes. She’s burned every bridge she passed. All she could do to keep herself sane was keep moving forward. But now Zhan Tiri has burned the bridge that was in front of her. She’s denied her the destiny she had chosen. There’s no place else to go anymore.
She notices Rapunzel standing up and trying to fight Zhan Tiri, who’s now transformed into a humongous behemoth with the power of both the Moonstone and the Sundrop.
‘Why? Why does she even bother? We’ve already lost. You have no power now. Where do you find this much courage, Rapunzel? Why do you have to keep making me feel so small?’ Cassandra thinks to herself.
She had always thought the difference between her and Rapunzel were all the chances the latter was given. Magical powers, a kingdom, so, SO many friends… That was the difference between them. That was why Rapunzel was so strong and resilient while Cassandra was constantly doubting herself.
But now that she looks at them both, powerless and without any allies, she can’t deny it anymore. Rapunzel was always a better person, and always would be. Nothing Cassandra could do would ever change that. That was why she would never give up on her no matter what, while Cassandra gave up on her so easily. Rapunzel could be bent, but never broken.
Whereas I was broken from the very beginning…
Zhan Tiri grabs her with her gigantic hands and lifts her up to talk to her. “You lost before you even began”, she says. “Just like your mother. Felled by your own ego.”
“Leave her alone!” Rapunzel cries out. Zhan Tiri flings Cassandra across the room in response. She feels so impotent. All she wants to do is cry. She doesn’t remember how.
Rapunzel goes to her and holds her in her arms, but that only works to her disadvantage, since Zhan Tiri uses that opportunity to trap them both in a prison of golden stone. A literal ‘gilded cage’.
This is the worst situation imaginable. Cassandra has just unwittingly given a power-crazed madwoman everything she wanted, and now she’s locked in a prison with her worst enemy. Somehow, that last part seems so much worse.
Because now, Rapunzel is going to want to talk her, to reason with her, and she doesn’t have the power to push her away anymore.
She can hear the sounds of fighting from the bottom of the tower. It’s probably Eugene and his band of merry men trying and failing to rescue Rapunzel. Must be nice to have friends. Reliable, loyal friends. Ones who don’t try to force their friendship down your throat.
Or ones who try to hurt you and everything and everyone you care about, she thinks to herself, while staring mutely into the wall. It all seems so pointless, looking back. Rapunzel was right. She had no endgame, no actual goal. She just wanted to make everyone else feel as awful as she felt. She desperately tries to remember all the moments that justified her hatred, all the moments Rapunzel and the people in the kingdom mistreated her, but her mind replaces them with all the moments she stared into Rapunzel’s face, pitiless, as she declared her desire to make them all suffer. The entire kingdom she once wanted to protect, destroyed by her hand. She’d repaid a few wrongs with a thousand wrongs.
But even so, there will be no one to judge her, because Corona is going to be destroyed for good now. It’s at least better than living to regret her actions. Lord knows there’s plenty to regret. Of course, she only realizes that now, when her ambition has been ground to a halt and all she can do is wait again. No pesky ‘destinies’ to distract her from what a horrendous excuse for a human being she is.
She stares at the the hole in her chest, vacated by the Moonstone. ‘What a perfect metaphor’, she thinks. ‘There’s nothing there now. Just a hollow crater. Just the way you wanted it’.
“Snap out of it, Cass!” Rapunzel exclaims while holding her by the shoulders. “We gotta stop Zhan Tiri before it’s too-“
“Too late?” Cassandra cuts her off. “Raps, look around. We’ve failed – I’ve failed.”
“No”, Rapunzel replies softly. “You can do-“
“I can’t do anything! Why won’t you just give up on me?” Cassandra yells back, almost pleadingly. Rapunzel’s kindness feels painful. It’s a reminder of how much she doesn’t deserve it. “Can’t you see what I’ve done? Look around you! This is all my fault!”
Cassandra can feel her eyes watering, but the tears still don’t come. She walks toward Rapunzel and lets her hold her in her arms. It still feels painful to feel so small, so dependent on another person. But, Cass has decided, she might as well stop trying to act strong now that Zhan Tiri is going to destroy everything. “All this time, I’ve tried so hard to prove that I was more than everyone thought, but they were right!”
“Raps… I am so sorry.” There is nothing more to say. It’s not like she can make up for all she’s done. She pulls away from the embrace, and gives Rapunzel time to respond.
“Cass… I was thinking about when we first met”, she finally says. “Do you know it nearly three weeks before I heard you laugh for the first time? …I guess there wasn’t much to smile about after being put in charge of a free-spirited flower child who painted smiley faces all over your things.” Reminiscing about happier times does provide some comfort, and a short laugh escapes Cass’ throat despite herself. But she quickly suppresses it.
“But that first laugh was so remarkable, because I knew you meant it.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you laughed… you had this look in your eyes… I don’t know, it was like seeing you, the real you, for the first time. And that’s the Cassandra I became best friends with.”
Cassandra sighs. “Why are you telling me this?”
Rapunzel gets closer to her and puts her hand over Cass’ own. “Because, even when I look at you now, after all that’s happened, no matter what we’ve done to each other… I still see that look in your eyes.
‘So… even after everything I did, you can’t see anything but your best friend when you look at me?’, Cassandra thinks. ‘You never once considered me your enemy? You never hated me?’ And that’s the biggest difference between her and Rapunzel, she thinks. Rapunzel would give even a wretched person like her a second chance. Rapunzel, she’s realizing, never considered Cass as beneath her, or as someone who was replaceable, or anything. That was just her own paranoia and self-hatred speaking.
Cassandra meets Rapunzel’s smile with her own. ‘You’re always giving me a second chance. Maybe it’s time I gave you one, too.’
“You’re my best friend, Cassandra. And I will never give up on you.”
Cassandra gets up from the floor along with Rapunzel. “Then I’m not giving up either.”
No more hatred. No more lashing out at the people who love me.
I’m following this girl to the end.