Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

"You know what I think?" I finally whispered, gently touching Ezu's arm with my fingertips. "I think we should forget the book. Nothing has gone according to plan so far, has it? Screw the stories, the rules. We'll get you a story of your own, even if we have to write one ourselves." I promised.
Ezu's gaze met mine, and we looked at each other for a long moment.
Ezu's lips parted, he was about to speak-
And then the grappling hook hit the ground with a heavy thud! right in front of us, sinking a good two inches into the soft ground and making us jump backwards, startled.
We looked up, and saw Jack sitting in the window, waving furiously and grinning so widely we could see his smile from all the way down here.
He'd made it.

*********************************************************************************

After the fact that the grappling hook part of the grappling hook-plan depended upon said grappling hook being hooked over the edge of the window and not sitting sadly in the dirt was carefully explained to the author and thus remedied, Ezu and I were ready to begin our own treacherous ascent up the side of the tower wall. Though Jack had made it look like child's play, I most certainly wasn't very optimistic about my own ability to climb the wall via a single rope, trusting only my own dexterity and motor control functions to keep me from a very long fall.
Ezu, obviously sensing my discomfort at the prospect- possibly noticing that my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't actually grab the rope in my twitching fingers- came up behind me and started doing his best at awkwardly reassuring me.
"Trust me, I'll be right beneath you the whole time. If you let go, I'll be there to break your fall and cushion the impact." He tried valiantly.
"Have you any idea how to effectively communicate with people, or do you say things like that on purpose?" I glared at him. "Besides," I added, looking back up at the very, very distant window set high in the tower above us, "It's not so much that I think I can't do it- I'm actually pretty good at climbing. As long as I'm not on my own two feet. It's just that, if I do fall, it's a really, really long way down." I swallowed. "And this time I don't have mommy to catch me and kiss my boo-boos."
Ezu patted me heartily on the shoulder, trying to look like he had confidence in me.
"Don't worry. I'll happily oblige to take her place." He laughed nervously, then frowned. "Now please just get climbing. The apprehension is worse on my nerves than the actual dangerous part. This was your plan in the first place, don't back out on us now. There's a princess who needs saving up there."
I sighed and grabbed the rope tightly in my hand, pulling on it half heartedly to make sure it really was anchored.
"If you don't mind me asking," I began, glancing over me shoulder at the increasingly impatient Ezu, "How exactly do you plan on climbing up this thin with your bum arm?" I pointed out. Ezu glowered at me.
"You name it, I can do it one handed." He growled.
"Clapping."
"Shut up and start climbing, would you?"
"Fine." I huffed. I wasn't about to get into a petty argument while someones life was on the line. "For the princess, then." I grumbled.
"For the princess." Ezu said, patting me awkwardly on the shoulder. "And remember, I'll be right behind you the whole time."
No more stalling. With a deep, steadying breath, I grabbed the rope in both hands and heaved myself up, planting my feet firmly against the side of the tower wall.
With a lot of effort, sweat, and grunting, I slowly began my ascent hand over hand up the tower, nearing the postage stamp sized square of light that was the only window in the tower inch by straining inch. Beneath me, Ezu followed slowly, matching my agonizingly slow pace without difficultly, and overall seemed to be having a far easier time than me, even one handed. It wasn't fair- did I mention it wasn't fair at all?
But even as I took a tiny pausing in my gasping efforts and glanced down at him, I could see the beads of sweat glistening on his brow. This was quite a workout for all of us.
Well, except for Jinx, of course.
You haven't forgotten about him, now have you?
The little bugger had accompanied Jack in his own initial climb, but now seemed quite happy to buzz incessantly around Ezu and my heads, s if to remind us how he could fly, and thus had no problem whatsoever doing pretty much anything.
As he landed on my head and twitched his feelers at me pleasantly, I grit my teeth and gasped out a very unlady like word at him, to express exactly what I thought of him and his cute little smart ass bug-ness.
Call me petty, but I had been a tad understandably stressed for the past few weeks.
"Come on, Rikki, almost there," Ezu grunted below me.
"I've got this!" I defended myself needlessly, hoisting myself another inch of two higher up the tower.
Jack was leaning out the window, his face white in the pale moonlight, and he bit his lip anxiously as we neared him agonizingly slowly.
"Hurry up!" He hissed, casting a glance over his shoulder. "We're running out of time- the sun will be up soon!"
I grit my teeth, and dug my heel into the crumbling tower wall.
"Don't rush me," I growled, propelling myself a little farther. I was close already; I didn't know how long we had been climbing- one tends to lose ones sense of time suspended a hundred feet above the hard, unforgiving ground- but even as my muscles ached and screamed for rest, and my breath came out on loud, short pants, stinging my raw throat, Jack leaned as far out the window as he could without falling out and reached down for my grasping hand.
I grabbed his wrist, just daring to take my hand off the rope for a second, and Jack hoisted me up the rest of the way and pulled me back into the little window, tripping backwards and sending us both crashing to the stone floor, safe inside the tower.

I struggled to my feet, disentangling myself from Jack's long limbs. I brushed my sweaty hair back from my face and heaved an exhausted sigh of relief.
"Thank God that's over..." I muttered, moving back to the window and leaning out of it myself.
Ezu was already at the top, his hand blindly gripping the window ledge as he tried to pull himself up. I reached down and despite his protest, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and helped heave him through the tiny window as well.
Once on his own two feet again, he cast me a dirty look and smoothed down his collar.
"Now that the cripple's here, we can get to work," Jack whispered, just loudly enough for his voice to carry around the tiny room. Ezu opened his mouth with a snarl to shoot a nasty retort, but I held up a hand to silence him before he could get a syllable out.
"Wait a minute- where are we?" I asked, looking around in confusion. Instead of being in the circular tower room filled with piles of straw and a sobbing maiden, we seemed to be in a broom closet of some sort.
"A broom closet, I think." Jack said, completely unhelpfully.
"Yeah, I'd sorta worked that one out." I frowned, trying not to panic. "But um... why? I thought-"
"Shh..."
Ezu had cut me off and was standing in front of a small wooden door, with his ear pressed against it and his face drawn in concentration.
"Can you hear that?" He hissed.
"Hear what?" I whispered back.
"Come listen..." He beckoned us over. Jack and I exchanged glances, but tiptoed over to him. Ezu moved out of the way and pointed at the door. "Listen, someone is crying in the other room," He whispered. Curiously, I pressed the side of me face onto the cold, wooden door, and listened. Sure enough, I could ear someone quietly sobbing on the other side.
"Do you think it's her?" I whispered in ill placed excitement.
"Who else would it be?" Ezu hissed back.
"We got damn lucky," I breathed, shaking my head in relief.
"Who would put a window inside a broom closest?" Jack said, wrinkling his nose.
"So what's the plan?" Ezu asked me, his mismatched eyes boring into mine expectantly.
"Plan?" I repeated, a tad stupidly.
"Are we going to burst in, swords unsheathed, and whisk her off, or is this more of a stealth and intrigue sort of mission?" He asked, crossing his arms over his chest in a very demanding sort of way.
"Well, I don't know!" I shot back defensively. "I haven't really had the time to formulate a complex and in depth rescue mission. Remind me next time to put that on the top of my 'to do' list."
"Why am I even surprised? Since when has anything been easy with you around?" Ezu groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"Would you two stop flirting and shut up for a second?" Jack hissed, his ear still pressed to the door.
"Wha- flirting?" Ezu squeaked.
"Shh!" Jack waved a hand frantically at him to shut him up.

"Wh-what? Who's that? Who's there?"

A girl's voice. The crying had stopped.
We froze. I looked at Ezu. Ezu looked at Jack. Jack looked like he could kill us.
"Well, I guess there's nothing for it now." He muttered, and opened the door.