The heavy beat of hooves echoed off the trees as Flynn Rider rode through the forest. The Stabbington Brothers were at his heels, and he could practically feel the heat of their horses' breath on his neck. His heart hammered in his ears.
Arrows whizzed by, narrowly missing him before slapping into trees as he passed.
One found its mark. It slammed into his side with a sick "thwack!" and he tumbled off his horse. He tucked himself into a roll to break the fall, remembering too late the arrow in his side. It dug deeper into him with a sharp bite as he crashed through the underbrush, his momentum carrying him down a sharp incline in the mossy ground. He struggled to stop, and only barely managed to get his feet underneath him, still unable to regain his balance as he staggered through a curtain of ivy and found himself standing in the shade of a cavern.
Fern and moss and mushrooms lined the cave's floors and walls as it ran deeper into the stone. A tunnel.
Flynn looked behind him to make certain no one had followed him into the cave. When he was sure he was alone, he whipped out his satchel.
Good. The crown was still there. He had gone through too much trouble stealing it to just have it fall out in the chase.
He put the crown back and set the satchel down, sitting beside it to tend to his arrow wound.
The bolt slid out easily enough. After he had cleaned and dressed his wound he held the arrow up to the light of one of the glowing cave mushrooms. It was sturdy with a well-weighted arrowhead and a thick ironwood shaft. He turned it over in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship. It'd be a shame to waste an arrow like that. So he decided to keep it.
The sound of running water and songbirds coming from deeper in the cave invited him to follow the tunnel to its end, where he found another thick curtain of ivy. He stepped through and into a lush valley hemmed in by high and steep cliffs.
Flynn looked around, confused. He knew the greenwood like it was his own backyard, but he'd never seen this place before. The trees looked unfamiliar and the undergrowth was greener than he was used to, with a stunning array of exotic flowers. The air was cool, heavy with the flowers' pleasant scent, and despite Flynn's confusion he felt oddly at ease.
A sapphire waterfall plunged down into an azure pool shrouded in the mist it kicked up. A rainbow arched over the valley. It was so storybook it could have been a painting.
A tower rose from the earth before Flynn, tall and majestic and covered in vines. It looked like a giant wizard had plunged his staff into the earth and forgotten it. It resembled a cottage set atop a pillar, like a treeless treehouse, as if its designer had just wanted a cottage but needed it to be as far away from the earth as possible. Its tall, dark spire stretched into the clouds. The wonky concave construction of the the tower's conical spire reminded him of a witch's hat.
It looked old, but not in disrepair. It had to be abandoned; there was no way anyone but woodland creatures still lived this deep in the forest, except maybe outlaws like him, and given the golden trim of the roof, Flynn was sure it would have been stripped long ago if any of them had ever found the picturesque valley.
In any case, this looked like the perfect place to hide out and recuperate from the heist. He just had to find a way in.
Unfortunately, there was a problem: the tower didn't have a door. He circled the base of the tower looking for one, but as far as he could tell, the tower's tall pedestal was only there to hold the more homely cottage part aloft.
There was a way in, of course. The tower had a couple windows. The only problem was they were at the very top. He'd have to climb.
Where the vines were sturdy enough he used them as footholds, and the rough stones of the tower stuck out enough that he could climb them with some effort and a little leverage from plunging the Stabbington Brothers' spent arrow into the mortar.
Vines poured through the open window and crawled along the walls and floorboards inside the tower. Their flowers opened as he tumbled over the sill. The soft magenta petals of the rapunzel flowers unfurled with the grace of a ballerina stretching after a restful slumber. Visible swirls of pink fog danced lazily in the soft shafts of light that filtered through the tower's windows, and a sweet, fruity-floral scent surrounded Flynn. He felt his muscles relax, and inhaled the pleasant aroma.
A woman lay in the center of the room, the sunlight falling over her soft porcelain skin. Yards and yards of beautiful golden waves washed over her breasts with a mesmerizing shimmer and swirled through the room before pooling in the verdant moss she lay in. Rapunzel flowers were tucked into the entire length of her blonde hair, only adding to her beauty. She wore nothing save the long golden ribbons of her hair that covered only the absolute bare minimum of her body. The firm but soft curves of her perky breasts and petite form was still visible under all the gold.
Flynn was transfixed. He had never seen so much gold, not even in the royal palace. Nor had he ever seen beauty as exquisite as hers.
The beautiful blonde creature before Flynn didn't look surprised to see him, though she did look sleepy, like she was still lost in between waking and dreaming. Her cheeks flushed with arousal. She smiled and gazed up at him with her emerald eyes, thick lashes fluttering like butterfly wings. And it was butterflies that swirled in his stomach as he gazed back, sinking into her sparkling eyes.
"Oh," Flynn said. He blushed, trying—and failing—to avert his eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't know there was..."
"... anyone in here?" she said, and she batted her long lashes innocently. She stretched, her back gracefully arched as she sighed.
He tried to nonchalantly lean on one of the wood beams to regain his cool and relaxed persona, but he was so distracted by her beauty he misjudged the beam's placement and nearly fell over in the process. He winced at the pain in his abdomen.
He wasn't normally this bad around beautiful women. His suave demeanor and roguish charm made him irresistible—at least, that's what he liked to tell his friends at the Snuggly Duckling. But something about her made it hard for him to focus, and it wasn't just that she was naked.
"I... I didn't mean to disturb you," he said as he slapped dust off his slacks. The woman giggled.
"Disturb me?" she said, and she rose to her feet.
"Y-yes," he stammered, "I didn't know there was anyone who lived in this tower. If you don't want me here I can..."
