Work Text:
This is Rapunzel by Grimm's, I think anyway
Title: Cordelia
Author: Wereleopard58
Verse: A mixture of BTVS and ATS. It starts in Buffy, ends in Angel LOL
I have no idea why I did this and how it came about. It just happened.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rapunzel nor the characters from Angel
There was once a couple who wished for a child and money. The woman hoped that God would grant her desire. At the back of their house was a window from which a stunning garden could be seen. It was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was surrounded by a high wall. No one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, called Lilah who had great power from the company that she worked for and was dreaded by all the world.
One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion - rapunzel, and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some. When she knew she could not get any of it, she began to look pale and miserable.
Then her husband was alarmed. "What is wrong?"
"That rampion in the garden looks wonderful and if I can't eat some of it I will surely die."
The husband loved his wife so much and was terrified at the thought of losing her was determined to get the rampion no matter what it twilight, he climbed over the wall into the garden of the enchantress Lilah. As quick as he could he grabbed a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife.
She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before.
Her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening he let himself down again. But when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress Lilah standing before him.
"How dare you come into my garden and steal from me." She said with an angry look. "You shall suffer for it."
The man stuttered. "My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat."
Lilah smirked at the scared man. "If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, but there is a condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world. The child shall be treated well." Lilah new that is she just let this man get away with it she could never hold her head up at work.
The man in his terror consented to everything.
When the wife finally gave birth, Lilah appeared at once she gave the child the name of Cordelia, and took it away with her.
Cordelia grew into the most beautiful child under the sun.
When she was twelve years old, Lilah shut her into a tower, anger at how beautiful the girl was and made sure that no one would see her face again.
The tower lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried out, "Cordelia, Cordelia, let down your hair to me."
Cordelia had magnificent long hair and when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she undid her braided tresses and then enchantress would climb up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son Angel rode through the forest and passed by the tower. It was late at night, as he could no longer travel by day and he was attacked by a bewitching fair haired and skinned woman who had changed him. He now believed he was lucky, then he did not, when he was taken by a clan and they forced his soul back.
Angel, heard someone singing, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. This was Cordelia, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound.
Angel wanted to climb up to her, and he looked for the door of the tower, but there wasn't one. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it.
One day when he was standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried, Cordelia, Cordelia, let down your hair. He watched as Cordelia let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her.
"If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune" Angel muttered to himself.
The next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried, Cordelia, Cordelia, let down your hair." Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up.
At first Cordelia was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her. She held a pointy piece of wood in her hand.
Angel began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her.
Then Cordelia lost her fear when she saw he was a little bit of a dork, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband, she saw that he was young and handsome.
"Yes," and laid her hand in his. "I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a piece of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it and when it is ready I will climb down and you can take me away from this place."
They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for Lilah came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until one day Cordelia said the first thing that came into her mind after she had pulled the other woman up.
"Tell me, Lilah, how is it that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son Angel - he is with me in a moment. Ah." The young woman quickly placed a hand across her mouth.
"You wicked child." Lilah screamed. "I separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me." In her anger she clutched Cordelia's beautiful tresses, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut them off. Lilah was so full of hate that she took poor Cordelia into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.
On the same day that she cast out Cordelia, the enchantress fastened the braids of the hair to the window.
When Angel arrived and cried, "Cordelia, Cordelia, let down your hair."
Angel climbed up the hair but instead of finding his dearest Cordelia, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks.
"Aha," she cried mockingly, "You are a very handsome man, I have heard of you. Come work for me."
Angel growled, his eyes changed to an amber. "Never."
"Cordelia is lost to you. You will never see her again."
Angel beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns, which he fell in pierced his eyes.
He wandered about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and brooded over his lovely Cordelia. Angel roamed about in misery for some years. He finally came to the desert where Cordelia.
Angel heard a voice, and it seemed so painfully familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Cordelia knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where they were joyfully received. They lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.
The End