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It was true that they lived happily ever after.
And in the years that followed Eugene and Rapunzel’s final return to the Corona, new legends and stories rapidly wove themselves around the princess and her lover, radiating out around them like the rays of the sun
It wasn’t surprising that the most popular of these stories tended to focus on the few days of madcap adventures that had brought their princess home to her people at last. Curiosity was so strong that the people, and the children especially, had no qualms about flocking to Rapunzel whenever she made one of her frequent visits into the town. Bunched around the princess in excited circles, formalities forgotten, they begged her to tell them stories about Maximus and the Stabbington brothers, or to sing the song she had used to save Eugene’s life.
But there was one request that seemed to come more frequently than all the other ones combined.
“The hair,” her people would whisper almost reverently, their eyes opened wide and shining. “Tell us about the hair!”
Rapunzel never faltered when she heard the demand, but she also couldn’t stop herself from heaving an inward sigh. Ah, yes, she’d think, her fingers unconsciously brushing at her short brown locks. The hair, the hair, the hair.
My hair.
To tell the honest truth, it was usually extremely hot.
And always heavy.
In fact, the hair’s weight— the feeling of it slipping through Mother’s fingers, or the way it cascaded down her own shoulders, longer and longer with each passing year— was one of the earliest sensations that Rapunzel could recall. Light and dark, warmth and cold, even satiation and hunger were all fleeting experiences. The hair was beyond it all. It had been, she reflected, her only constant companion, more consistent than Moth- than Gothel had ever been, and a more steadfast presence than even Pascal was. No matter where Rapunzel was the hair was with her, whispering softly as it snaked its way across the floor. It even curled up in bed with her at night, its heaviness draped over her like a lover.
Rapunzel never talked about was how she had often felt that the hair was the only thing about her that was beautiful. She’d look at herself in the mirror, on one of the frequent days or nights when she was alone in the tower, eyeing her thin, pale body and its host of flaws that ‘Mother’ was always so careful to point out (eyes too large and far apart, toes much too long, hands too small, wrists bony) until she couldn’t take it anymore, and would shake her bangs forward to hide the imperfect form. The hair, she thought wistfully, was her only clear saving grace.
Her insecurities were only confirmed by the way Gothel treated her. No matter how desperately Rapunzel tried to convince herself that Gothel returned to the tower out of genuine love for her daughter, she never quite managed to miss the way the older woman’s eyes would skip over Rapunzel’s face to linger on the golden strands that surrounded it. She could never quite forget the rapturous way Gothel would run her fingers through all of that living wealth as she demanded that Rapunzel sing for her.
And that was the truth, Rapunzel might tell herself as she watched her people try to imagine that rich fountain. But it wasn't the whole story.
The other thing Rapunzel never discussed were the moments when a small, and then not-so-small lost princess had fancied her hair to be some kind of shield or guardian; a protector, she imagined, that would keep her safe from whatever wicked worldly things might try to sneak their way into her tower.
However, as Rapunzel grew, she learned that not all threats were external, and that there were some things that even the hair, it seemed, held no power to protect her from. Occasionally, Rapunzel found that the loneliness that dogged on most of her nights was replaced by a low and troubling heat that pooled honey-heavy in her bones. On those nights, fearful solitude submerged itself in the sensations wrought by uneasy dreams, full of sounds and movement that spiraled through her body until she wondered if her wildly beating heart could burst. On those nights the hair became a malicious thing, as it snagged and dragged against her every toss and turn, determined, it seemed, to check the growth of every fleeting fantasy before it emerged, and add to her torment in the perilous dark.
“Oh, the hair was nothing special”, the lost princess lightly concluded to the citizens of Corona, and reached down to ruffle the bangs of a protesting youngster. “You know? I eventually got used to it. Tired, even.”
*
What Rapunzel did not realise was that she wasn’t the only one the people sought out for a story. When the young princess was too busy, or too tired, or (a rare occurrence) too cross to humour her inquisitive subjects, it was inevitable that a few would turn to seek out the Royal Consort, one Eugene Fitzherbert. He never minded when bushels of children sat crowded around him on the floor, or fought for space to perch themselves on his knees, so they could ask him to recount the events that had led him to the slim-hipped, doe-eyed, best thing that had ever happened to him. He told them gladly, though he did tend to gloss over the moment he got his first real look at her, citing the blinding headache that came after one too many encounters with a frying pan as his excuse. It had been, he would confess with a laugh, rather startling.
In moments of honesty (and, usually, solitude), Eugene could admit that startling wasn’t the only thing it had been.
The truth was, that in their strange first days together, Eugene would often catch himself wondering what it would be like to make love to her. It was just— the idea of all that hair. It would have to be slow, he had reasoned, as he tried not to watch the way Rapunzel hiked her skirt up higher and higher as she waded across a stream, troubled not-at-all by things like modesty or self-consciousness in her effort to keep the fabric dry. It would be slow and sweet by necessity, not only out of consideration for her inexperience. And he’d need to be careful with it, sweeping as much hair as he could up and away so it wouldn’t catch or pull on anything and hurt her. He imagined that excess of hair pooled beside the bed, rippling in the firelight that always seemed to be present in his bizarre fantasies.
All of this teemed in his mind for the briefest moments before he forced it out. Stop that, he would order himself sternly; remember that she’s never even spoken to a man before, let alone gone to bed with one! He watched her giggle and splash at Pascal, who promptly turned an affronted shade of orange. The thought has probably never crossed her mind.
The reminder was enough to make him fight back his flush, and swallow down the desire beginning to lurk in his bones.
*
There are no solitary nights for the once-lost princess now. And even on the rare occasions when business or travel or some other obligation forces them apart, the phantom memory of her husband’s body beside hers is more substantial, more real than the hair that coiled about her like a noose could ever be.
And as for that dizzying desire, the same prickling heat that had plagued her in her past isolation?
Well, she knows what to do about that now.
And Eugene, she is glad to learn, is more than happy to help.
“Rapunzel,” he groans from above her, leaning down to graze his lips along the tender skin behind her ear. He combs his fingers through her hair, keeping his touch light, so that it sends frissons of electricity through her body.
She moans in answer, and he plants a kiss against her temple. Sweat-damp strands of hair graze his lips, making them tingle pleasantly, but Eugene scarcely has the mind to notice things like colour or length as he moves with his wife. All he knows is the scent of her, the feel of her beneath his hands. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel.”
All he sees is her.