Night 58: Chapel

[broodings]

[from here]The room he walked into was larger than he'd expected, but it wasn't hard to guess its purpose, not with the very deliberate arrangement of long red pews. A chapel. Stefan's grip on his knife still didn't relax as he wandered further inside. He'd been in a few churches in his time - what faith in God he'd possessed as a child had

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[doctor_voodoo]

Facilier had never felt so swept up in such a rapid succession of events before since his near demise at the hands of the Loa (or that dance competition with a certain man in a dress...)! He barely had a moment to reply to Rapunzel when yet another dramatic episode unfolded over the institute's speakers. Before Facilier could scoff at the little temper tantrums going on for both rebellious radio men and totalitarian Generals, Rapunzel's reaction of shock barely registered to him when she suddenly took off like a shot.

The Bokor could only blink confusedly and stammer out a protest. Now just what was she doing?! And here Facilier thought he may have been rude earlier! Rapunzel's sudden dash with barely any explanations was quite unbecoming of a lady! Facilier's benevolent mood just about snapped in the opposite direction, when something soft yet surprisingly strong whipped out from the darkness and wrapped itself around his waist--

A soft gasp escaped the bewildered doctor. Then, with a good, strong tug from the strange rope embracing his torso, Facilier was forced to comically scamper behind Rapunzel, almost tripping over his own feet and losing his hat from his unwilling ride. As the darkened halls raced past him, Facilier could only hold onto his hat and flashlight whilst keeping his cane tucked beneath his arm. His Shadow materialized, streaking down the walls close behind as its master fumbled for some control over the situation, its face just as confused as the doctor's.

"Just what is this all about?!" Facilier cried, his back arched against the bizarre rope that pulled him past the Main Hall and up the stairs. Rapunzel's replies brought no coherency to the crazed situation, but what stunned the witch doctor even more was what he found wrapped around his waist once he had it illuminated by his flashlight...

"Mon dieu!" he thought to himself, his eyes bulging at the sight of the impossibly long hair that was forcing him up to the final series of steps. "Her hair wasn't that long when I last saw her! How could it have gotten to such lengths...?!"

Could the anxious girl with the golden hair truly be The Rapunzel from the story Facilier had known of since he was a little boy? Was he in the presence of a real life character from a fairy tale? How could that be?!

Once again Facilier's mind fell into a surreal state, unsure if he had just stumbled into another strange dream like the night before. He just couldn't accept what was going on! This wasn't real! Yet there he was, forcefully guided by a mythical girl's hair that was long enough to wound around his entire body and then some! Just what was the military putting in that pink gruel?!

Then, just as suddenly as it all started, Facilier's bewildering journey with Rapunzel abruptly ended once they both arrived at the entrance of the chapel. The golden hair that had tied itself around Facilier gently fell away, and he was left to pant quietly on the spot as he watched Rapunzel approach a soldier. The revelation of Rapunzel's remarkable hair still left Facilier in a bit of a daze, yet once he heard the soldier's greeting, the doctor regained awareness of his unexpected situation and stood alert with his hands upon his cane.

"Good evening..." Facilier replied, his face nonplussed and his low voice but a rumbling echo throughout the spacious chapel. With his Shadow merged with the darkness, Facilier's mind was rapidly catching up with Rapunzel's motives. "I believe this young lady here has something very important to tell y'all. Believe me, she's been quite excited about it..."

[hairraising]

It took Rapunzel a moment to get over the minor shock that the man was talking to them so... cheerfully. Then it dawned on her that she had heard the name "Harrington" before. This was the man that had been doing the daily announcements from the ceiling lately, right? The nicer one. Even though she knew she ought to keep her guard up, Rapunzel felt her shoulders loosen up somewhat. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

Facilier, thankfully, was being a lot more agreeable than he had been on the way up (Mental note, she thought, bring him along more often. He knows how to roll with the weirdness!) With him backing her up with his deep, imposing voice, the task of speaking to Harrington became all the easier.

She took another short breath. "I think Aguilar made a mistake, Mr. Harrington," Rapunzel spoke carefully, feeling a slight swelling of heat rising in her chest as she remembered the soldier whose life depended on her doing this. "There isn't any rogue soldier. Anything that went wrong with the mission last night was completely my fault."

A faint tremor emanated through her body, but she kept her poise. "I promise. No one else in your ranks is to blame."

[damned_soldiers]

An excited young lady was worth a great deal of consideration. Claude instantly brightened, though a part hardened at the prospect. Upon closer inspection, he knew her face from somewhere. Where was difficult to say; more likely than not, the man had seen her in passing. The girl was not part of the pair who had spoken to a red-haired woman, at least. This he knew with certainty.

"Oooh, now ain't that some luck!" the man exclaimed, careful to keep his tone sincere. "I thought I was gonna be stuck in this chapel all night." He leaned forward, gesturing the female to continue. "Go ahead, dear. Don't be shy."

When she finally spoke, however, Claude recognized the face. This girl had been paired with that other, hadn't she? Rapunzel and Tsubaki. If the length of her hair gave any indication, this one was probably the former. Furthermore, the guilt spilling from her lips and seeping from her pores indicated she and her partner had been responsible for the missing data. No, that wasn't quite correct. If the obvious denial meant anything, it was that there had been a sympathizer.

Which meant this discussion had to end now, before she ran her pretty little mouth off.

"Ah, hahahaha, no, no!" Claude replied, laughing. "If yer the kid I think ya are, ya got it all wrong. We're lookin' for someone else."

[doctor_voodoo]

If there actually existed an award for "Most Adaptable to Sudden Strange Situations", out there Facilier strongly felt he deserved first place for such a title. Hands down.

He was mentally sprinting to keep up with his new situation; his eyes darted about the chapel, resting on the uncanny fountain that bubbled in the shadows before flickering back to measure the hair that trailed from Rapunzel's head. What made it all seem even more like an odd dream was the chirpy attitude of the soldier whom Rapunzel was speaking with. Facilier had expected commanding barks and the ends of loaded guns to come from the stranger in uniform, yet he was awfully cheerful for someone standing in the darkness of such an unsettling chapel...

Despite the strangeness of it all, Facilier also recognized the obliviously blissful soldier to be that annoyingly happy voice that had made those grating announcements earlier during the day. "So this is Mr. Harrington...?" Facilier pondered to himself, eying the man with a raised eye brow, "He sure acts as silly as he sounds over the intercom..."

Putting what Rapunzel had to say at the top of his priority list, Facilier moved his focus on the girl and listened. She had mentioned being engaged in one of the military's "missions", this new set of information just could be worth the wild ride by hair to the second floor...

And yet--

Oh dear...! Rapunzel wasn't doing what Facilier thought she was doing, was she? Admitting failure to a higher power that could easily take her life away with a single swipe?! Facilier knew full well of just how foolish it was to confess a fatal mishap to those held the strings to one's soul... It was apparent that Rapunzel was not thinking clearly on the matter and was simply reacting with no regard for the dangerous consequence she was teetering towards...

If it had been anyone else, Facilier would have simply stayed out of the way for the military to swoop in and snatch away the insufferable fool. But this had to do with his Rapunzel, and he wasn't going to let anything happen to her if he didn't have anything to say about it! Besides, he still hadn't witnessed Rapunzel's power and figured out how to use it if it deemed worthwhile to him. Too bad he didn't just have a pair of scissors to borrow a sample of the girl's hair and be off on his own way to investigate its magic himself...

Immediately, the Bokor jumped into action. "Ah, not the right person you say? If that be the case, then this was all but just a harmless little mistake!" Facilier exclaimed, taking two long strides to Rapunzel's side and resting his hands on both of her shoulders. He gave Harrington a convincingly apologetic grin before attempting to direct his long-haired pawn out the chapel. "Please don't mind Rapunzel here! Clearly there must have been a misunderstanding somewhere in this conundrum of ours! We'll just be on our way out then...!"