Chapter Text
The sun bled gold across Corona's horizon. Rapunzel stood at the meadow's edge. Her hair spilled down her back like a cascade of sunlight. The grass whispered secrets between her toes. She breathed in wildflowers, exhaled exhaustion bundled in frustration.
After eighteen years of stone walls and only a tiny window overlooking the rest of the world, every moment outside felt stolen, borrowed.
The landscape stretched before her, green and wild and hers, but cold twisted in her chest still. Freedom, it turned out, had its own prison bars.
Eugene's footsteps barely disturbed the earth behind her. He moved as shadows did. Old habits, though he'd never admit it. His arms circled her waist, chin finding the hollow of her shoulder. "Penny for your thoughts, Blondie?"
His breath tickled her ear, warm and real. She leaned back against his chest. His heartbeat drummed against her spine.
"Just thinking how different everything is," she said, her words thin and insufficient. "Sometimes I wonder if I'll blink and find myself back in — ..."
She stopped. The tower had no power here. She wouldn't give it any.
"Hey." Eugene's arms anchored her to this moment, this life, this choice. "This isn't going anywhere. We're not going anywhere."
He turned her to face him, those ridiculous brown eyes dancing with mischievous kindness.
"Besides, your imagination, limitless as it may be, could never conjure someone this handsome."
Her laughter rang out, light and melodious. She playfully swatted his chest, grateful for his ability to lift her spirits.
Even as she smiled, Rapunzel remembered the proposal. The ring was hidden somewhere in his quarters, beautiful and terrifying; a golden cage all on its own. He wanted forever. She wanted... more time, more world, more of everything she'd never had.
"Where'd you go?" Eugene's voice pulled her back. He studied her as he'd once done vaults' blueprints, as if she were a map to treasure he couldn't reach.
"Nowhere." Her lie tasted bitter. They didn't hide things from each other. Well, except for the hair situation, but that was on Cass's explicit request.
"Rapunzel." Her name from his mouth sounded like a prayer.
"Just contemplating the future," she said.
His thumb traced circles against her palm. "Whatever comes next, we face it together. Deal?"
"Deal."
But even as their fingers intertwined, a lead blanket of unspoken words settled on her.
Life moved on. Had to.
She threw herself into royal duties with the fervour she'd once reserved for painting the walls of her tower. Council meetings morphed into diplomacy lessons, state dinners, and charity functions. A flurry of faces and names and responsibilities and never-ending lessons. She collapsed in bed each night with her mind still spinning. Her dreams were full of tax reforms she was barely comprehending, even after reading thick books on the subject, which, incidentally, her Dad explained were outdated yet required reading because they covered the basics.
Eugene was willing to weather the storm of disappointment and doubt that accompanied her refusal. He tried to hide it, not wanting Rapunzel to see what was in his heart. This was a first since he had met her; they had never had to keep secrets from each other before. Well, except for that whole magical-hair-growing-back situation, but that was beside the point.
This was similar to some of his old heists when doubt crept in at every turn. He knew the trick: never face uncertainty on an empty stomach, and when all else fails, remember to smile. And boy, did he have a dazzling one.
He attended every function, charmed visiting dignitaries with stories that skirted close to his criminal past, and learned which fork to use for fish courses.
"Palace life, baby!" he'd joke, straightening his formal jacket. The irony wasn't lost on him. He'd spent years dreaming of this: wealth, comfort, respect. Everything Flynn Rider had ever wanted, handed to him on a silver platter. So why did it feel as if he was wearing someone else's skin?
Because it wasn't about the palace, it stopped being about the palace a long time ago. It was about Rapunzel.
The refusal sat heavy in his chest. Every day she didn't bring up marriage was another day the silence grew thicker between them. Another day he wondered if Flynn Rider's greatest heist had been convincing himself he deserved this kind of happiness.
Cassandra's annoying voice from their conversation during "the gopher grab fiasco" echoed in his mind.
What did he want?
Easy answer: Rapunzel.
But what did Rapunzel want?
That answer was as distant as the tower she'd escaped, and twice as unreachable.
He stared out his suite's window at the kingdom sprawling below. All those people looking to their Princess for guidance, for leadership, for a future he wasn't sure he fit into. Maybe that was the real problem, not that she'd refused him, but that he understood why.
Some cages, he realized, were made of gold and good intentions.
And some were made of love itself.