[Tangled] land on your feet

[storypaint]

Title: land on your feet
Fandom: Tangled
Length: 927 words
Prompt: What if a spell turned Pascal and Maximus into people? for esotaria
Pairing: Flynn/Rapunzel; mostly Pascal gen
Other: AU as per prompt.

Excerpt: The story didn't seem half as romantic if you added in Pascal, so usually they left him out when they were retelling the tale of how Rapunzel's tears brought Eugene back to life. The witch was vanquished, the young thief bleeding out upon the floor, and then suddenly there was a ten-year-old butt-naked on the floor, interrupting the tender moment with his crossed eyes and flailing limbs.

The story didn't seem half as romantic if you added in Pascal, so usually they left him out when they were retelling the tale of how Rapunzel's tears brought Eugene back to life. The witch was vanquished, the young thief bleeding out upon the floor, and then suddenly there was a ten-year-old butt-naked on the floor, interrupting the tender moment with his crossed eyes and flailing limbs.

Rapunzel had felt Pascal tumble back off her shoulder, but she'd hardly noticed in the confusion. She might not have noticed his shapechange at all if he hadn't started speaking in a scratchy voice that, somehow, would have been the voice she'd imagined for him, if she ever had imagined him with one.

"Is he going to be all right?"

Rapunzel was pulling Eugene's shirt open, hands shaking as she tried to be gentle. It was stuck to him in places and she didn't want the bleeding to worsen if the wound gaped. The wound, the wound that looked worse by the moment, and she didn't have her magic and -

And there was someone else here. She turned her head so fast that it hurt. The child blinked at her. He had dark-hair slicked down to his head and seemed to be looking in two opposite directions at once.

"Who are you?" Her tone was harsh. She'd lived in this tower for years with one other person, spent three days in the company of several, and all she wanted now was just one person whose breathing was slowing.

"It's me." The child coughed. "Pascal. I think there was a spell on me."

"To turn you into a chameleon?"

Pascal shrunk back. He seemed to be trying to blend himself into the wallpaper, but his skin wouldn't change anymore.

"I don't know! I think maybe I offended - I'm going to go get help!" he declared, scrambling toward the cavity of the hidden stair. He was half-crawling, stumbling about on his new legs uncertainly.

"You need clothes, Pascal!" Some part of her was amazed at the way her mind adapted so easily to the unexpected transformation. She suspected that it was partially that she had found herself to be immensely practical in difficult situations, and partially that her mind was full of the shallow breather in her arms. Her hair was gone, its familiar heaviness absent from her life for the first time that she can remember, and her thoughts feel light and panicky, as if they could float away. At the same time, she knew that Pascal wasn't going to get very far without something on his skin.

"Uh, right!" He paused and looked back at her and she didn't have time for this, so she pointed toward her bedroom and went back to trying to help Eugene. Eugene, Eugene, not Flynn Rider, and she was the only person who knew that besides him.

She didn't listen to Pascal as he clattered clumsily up the stairs, and she was already singing under her breath when he came back down and started down the ladder. She didn't even hear him go, though he heard her shout of joy as he neared the bottom. He looked up, considered, and decided that it wouldn't hurt to bring some more help. Maximus was here somewhere, wasn't he?

He rushed out the door and looked around wildly, trying not to stumble and fall down the bank, because the only way to make wearing one of Rapunzel's old slips worse would be to get it all wet in the river.

"Maximus! Maximus, where are you?" he called out, listening desperately for the whinny. "Rapunzel needs our help!"

There was a rustle in the bushes and then a tall man unfolded himself from behind them, blonde and pale-eyed and muscular, with a large nose and prominent front teeth. He also wasn't wearing any clothes.

"I hope you didn't need a ride," he said. "My name is just Max, by the way." He lifted a hand to his head and scratched without separating his fingers, as if he were still unused to not having hooves.

Pascal took a step forward and stumbled over a cloak. He fell backward swiftly when he realized that it was Mother Gothel's cloak, but there was nothing in it but dust. His newly human stomach heaved, but it was empty.

"What does she need?" Max's forehead creased in concern. "I can run if she needs me."

Pascal opened his mouth to explain but a torrent of laughter poured out the tower window and Rapunzel said, her voice squeaky, "Maximus, is that you? You too?"

There was laughter from a deeper voice, then, and words that Pascal couldn't quite hear; something about horses that made Rapunzel gasp and smack Eugene. Well, they sounded - a lot better, really, than they had just a few minutes ago.

"Rapunzel," Max said, absurdly dropping into a deep bow and mumbling, "Oww!" when the bush pricked him.

"Are you guys all right?" Pascal asked, craning his neck up at a painful angle.

"We're fine. We're better than fine," Eugene called back. Pascal sagged thankfully. Without a horse or shoes, the journey back to the town would take a long time.

Of course, it was going to anyway. But it would be easier to go in a group of four without need for panic.

"Bring some clothes for Max!" Pascal called, his heart now light. "I'm not going to climb that ladder again."

"And you're not sitting on my shoulder, either," Rapunzel answered with a giggle.

Pascal thought he could live with that.