Chapter Text
Rapunzel’s face was a mask, her facial muscles felt like rocks the entire walk to the garden. They had taken the longer walking route to give Cassandra time to set up and clear out. Once they arrived it was empty. Pete and Stan who always tailed the princess waited outside the entrance as they got settled on the stone bench. Rapunzel sat in between Paulette and Arianna; they each rested a hand on the shoulder closer to them.
Rapunzel finally makes a noise; she laughs a humorless and empty laugh. “I don’t even know why we’re here. I’m fine. I was being sensitive. Really all of this was silly of-“ Arianna stops her, “Rapunzel, you didn’t make up your emotions. This was my idea, I wanted to talk.” Their eyes connect and Rapunzel feels an overwhelming surgence of light burst in her chest cavity. It’s almost painful how alien the emotion was. She has to look to Paulette to calm herself and bring back the familiar solidity she’s used to. “I’m here for you Princess, you wanted me here, so here I am.” Her statement was said with some warmth, but the words themselves implied a sort of obligation to follow Rapunzel’s every command. This brought a deep cavernous stab of guilt to the girl. “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to… You’re dismissed.” She mutters, the matron doesn’t budge. “Not until I say so. I want to be here for you.” Rapunzel nods and returns to silence as the two older women wait.
“It really is beautiful out here.” Arianna looks up at the exotic weeping tree above them, the shadows casted a beautiful, speckled pattern overtop the bench and ground around them. “You know, before you came home to me, I never spent any time in the garden. There wasn’t a point. Until this became your favorite place in the castle, this was just a bunch of plants. You make the flowers special my dear.” The overwhelming light in her chest shone again, she tried to swallow down her reaction again. Something about this statement was foundation-cracking for Rapunzel. To ignore her feelings, she just explains why she likes the garden “It just feels fresh and open and free, it makes me feel like I’m outside.” Paulette responds before Arianna gets the chance to “Of course it feels that way, you are in fact outside.” Rapunzel forces a casual laugh. “Oh yeah, silly me.” doing this drained the soul out of her, to the point of comfortable emptiness.
Rapunzel had sighed, and Arianna took a hand to hold. “Are you ready to talk about it sweetheart?” Paulette followed suite by taking Rapunzel’s other hand. “You might want to start now if you plan to make it in time for the Jewler’s meeting this afternoon. Keep in mind we are on a time crunch.” The queen suddenly looked at her with an expression you’d almost describe as shocked “She can take all the time she needs Matron, you can’t rush things like this!” The matron dropped Rapunzel’s hand to point at Arianna. “No. You don’t have to rush things like this. But I’m responsible for her. You don’t know how tight her schedule is, how hard I’ve been working for her. This jeweler can only be seen for when I scheduled the appointment. I’m trying to keep her best interests in mind just like I did with you. Try not to make this time harder on me too Arianna.” This makes Rapunzel pull her hand from Arianna’s now, so she has both to bury her face in and hunch over on her lap. “Stop it. Stop it please. I’m sorry! Just stop. Please stop.” The older women both look at Rapunzel whimper out these words. Arianna’s heart breaks. Paulette starts patting her back and glares at the queen “Now look what you’ve done”
The Queen did not feel like a queen in this moment. She looked her own hand; the one Rapunzel jerked her hand away from. She couldn’t bring herself to attempting a reconnection with Rapunzel, not after she had already ruined this moment. Even apologizing was fruitless, the matron had already pulled Rapunzel onto her lap while she patted her back. She stayed silent.
“Let it out Princess, tell us what’s wrong” Paulette returned to her soothing voice, Rapunzel broke down in tears. “There’s something… wrong… with me. In my soul. I don’t feel human. I’m always doing something wrong, or being too different, too difficult. Nobody else is like me. The one person who has ever understood me isn’t even like me. And now he’s- he’s somewhere, alone. And it’s confusing me even more. And I know it’s only been a day, but I can feel something changed, something happened, the air is different. he’s gone. And I’m alone again. I don’t even get to know what I did wrong this time.” She was a surprisingly fast talker for somebody who was crying into their matron’s lap. “I can’t even apologize to him” she shakes now. Paulette rocks and shushes her.
The display is painful to watch for Arianna. She finally gets her baby back, after all this time, and Arianna doesn’t even know how to mother her correctly. She needs to outsource raising her to the woman that is basically her own mother. She craves nothing more than to be the one cradling, rocking, shushing, patting, loving her. But She’s broken too. She’s wrong and inhuman just like her daughter. Maybe this is her fault somehow. Can somebody inherit brokenness?
“Silly girl, how many times do I have to tell you, you have me. I understand you.” Paulette reaches over and grabs Arianna’s hand, which she places on Rapunzel’s back aswell. “Your mom is here, Cassandra will be back with us tomorrow and who knows, maybe by then Eugene will return and you’ll feel silly for overreacting. Everything’s alright princess. This is just normal pre-coronation jitters. You know your mom had them pretty bad too.” The matron giggles. “She nearly canceled the whole thing. But she knew I had her, and that I’d always be there for her. So she went on. And now she’s the queen of corona.”
Rapunzel was pretty certain that pre-coronation jitters wasn’t what was causing her to feel like this, but she didn’t think it was important to fight on details of truth. What mattered was she was being cared for. Even through lies, the matron had good intentions. And she was able to calm her crying. This reality was much nicer anyways. Accepting the new truth of ‘jitters’ meant she didn’t have to face whatever was actually happening inside of her, that rotten disgusting core she couldn’t get rid of or fix. No matter how Mother tried, or how Paulette and the queen try now. The princess takes a couple of deep breaths and sits up finally with a dry face.
This sudden peace with having listened to Paulette’s words reminded her, that even with all the comfort she had received just now, there was still one thing she kept secret from her. Belle said tomorrow they may use the enchanted mirror to find Eugene. He was the one thing she couldn’t let go. In both realities where she was upset about her brokenness, and the reality where she simply had the jitters. She knew that she needed answers. She kept flip flopping between determination and guilt, there’s always a chance he didn’t want to be found, and that doing this was one of the worst acts she could do, or possibly keeping a secret from the matron at all would be damnable. The reasons went on. But so of course did the persistent need for him. The queen’s voice cut through the hazy busy mind of the princess.
“I love you very much dear.”
“I love you more, mother.”
It was an automatic response, it came from deep in her psyche, lept out like a frog. Or chameleon. And it shoved her deeper into this familiar haze. She gave up the desire to not be confused anymore. That’s just what Jitters feel like, right? That’s just what life is. Some people understand it, some people are confused. If you’re confused, just be grateful when somebody who does understand it decides you’re worth taking care of.
“I want to go inside now” Rapunzel says. This surprises Arianna, as Rapunzel almost never rushes going back indoors, but Paulette looks pleased. “You might even have enough time for a snack before your appointment, I’m so proud of you” she excitedly claps at the punctuality and stands up. Both Rapunzel and Arianna stand after her. And they make their way inside. They walk through hallways until they are stopped by king Fredric and Nigel calling out to the queen from some distance. The women watch as they catch up with them.
“Mein Schatz, es tut mir leid. There’s been some news.” He looked worried, and the informal term of endearment didn’t soothe the queen like he hoped it would. “Why? What’s wrong?” she responded. Nigel looked a nervous wreck. “Is it Eugene?” Rapunzel piped up. “No no no no no, nothing of your concern sweetheart.” King Fredric calmly patted her shoulder, then Nigel spoke like he was holding his breath the entire time his mouth was shut. “Urgently your highness! In the deliberation room!” he very obviously nervous glanced at the princess. If it wasn’t about Eugene, then it had something to do with her. “Is this another coronation secret?” she took a second guess at it. Nigel responded “Yes! That’s it! Another coronation secret that we must discuss with the queen right away. Now if you excuse us.”
With that, Paulette and Rapunzel returned to her bedroom, Arianna followed Nigel and her husband to the deliberation room where she would receive some mysterious news that was growing ever more anxiety inducing with every step.
Nigel held open the door for them both, once they entered the room Arianna noticed on their large wooden table in the center of the room were both dented helmets from the two guards Nigel was seen with earlier that day. She takes a seat next to them and reaches to examine with her hands before thinking better of it. Who knows what kind of energy was radiating off those helmets. Nigel shuts the door behind them. Fredric takes the seat next to his wife and turns his chair to face her directly.
“So what’s going on?” Arianna asks. “Eugene, he’s-“ Arianna cuts Fredric off “So it was about Eugene. Why are we hiding this from her? Where is he?” Fredric reaches out and is able to rest his hand on her kneecap, he rubs the fabric covered knee lovingly. “He’s on the run. Those two guards made a report that they had spotted him with an expensive microscope from an antique shop down in the south end of corona. Frightened half to death the poor old woman who owns the shop. He knocked out those two men to get away. Apparently, he had left them unconscious in an alley.”
Arianna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Eugene’s gone?” she brought her hands to her face and covered her mouth. “The wanted posters are being reposted as we speak, I have my best men looking for him. We won’t let him get away with this.” She was overcome with loss. He brought their daughter home to them, he had come to live in their castle and spend family breakfasts, lunches, dinners, game nights, official family meetings…. He was as present as Rapunzel was. They were together. She loves him more than anything. “We gave him- We gave him everything. All the gold he could ever ask for, a room, a family, food, everything. Why would he do this.” She was suddenly embraced by Fredric who knelt at her chair. “I know dear, I know” Fredric had already processed the news at this point, but it was hard not to get choked up at her tears.
Nigel watched the whole thing, he knew this would be hard on them. His deep-seeded paranoia was only made worse by this betrayal. Nigel had just begun to like the boy after his clever solution to their rooming issue, but now he is right back where he started. Thieving like a street rat. Nigel left the king and queen alone to console each other, he thought stepping outside quietly wouldn’t garner any attention, but alas the captain stood just outside the door. His little adopted daughter outside of uniform beside him. “Their majesties are not to be bothered at this time, I can take a message if it’s pertinent.” He spoke directly to the captain, as Nigel naturally had more respect for him. But it was the plucky shorthaired daughter that responded to him. “It’s a solution.”