Game Changer {1/3} {Eugenia/Rapunzel}afterandalasiaFebruary 21 2014, 15:38:50 UTC
Her side still aches, sometimes. Eugenia isn't even sure whether it's just her imagination, knowing that she was stabbed there, or whether there really is some lingering memory of the wound in her body. Sometimes her hand rubs over the faint scar there, not even thick and raised but just sort of golden-tinged and smooth.
Rapunzel fits in so well in Corona. She loves talking to people, still full up with the novelty of conversation and interaction. Children bring her flowers, women want to hug her, men just want to look at her adoringly, as if she is their daughter as well. She is everyone's daughter in the city, everyone's sister, everyone's friend.
Eugenia's friend, too. She really wished that could be a good thing.
She catches Rapunzel's eye from across the courtyard, and smiles. Three damn books. Rapunzel takes to the world so naturally, interacts with people as easily as she dances. Has she even heard of romance? Does she know love when she sees it, or does Eugenia imagine the look of envy, of hope, when Rapunzel looks at a couple arm-in-arm or dancing closely together.
Kissing one of the girls on the forehead, Rapunzel slips down from the wall where she was sitting and weaves her way through the crowd. She still hates wearing shoes, and forgets them as often as not. Technically, Eugenia could remind her, but she figures that she'd rather let Rapunzel be happy and barefoot.
"Good afternoon," says Rapunzel, stepping close and kissing Eugenia on the cheek. Does she do it deliberately? Eugenia can't even be sure most of the time.
She slips an arm around Rapunzel's waist in return, feeling like her heart is aching. "Did you have a good morning?"
Rapunzel wrinkles her nose. "I sat in on the K- my father's work." She still stumbles on it sometimes, but it's worth it for the smile on her face when she remembers that she has a mother and a father now. "Then I came out here to see people. How about you?"
"Eh," says Eugenia with a shrug. "Stole a noblewoman's jewellery, broke into the royal vaults. The usual."
Okay, so she had been feeding apples to Maximus and having a one-sided conversation with him as to what she should get Rapunzel for Christmas. But Rapunzel laughs at this version. "Of course. And you plan to invade a small earldom this afternoon?"
"Psh. A country, at least. Gotta think big."
Without even caring for the direction, they start wandering, arms wrapped around each other. It's so easy like this, swapping jokes and plans for the afternoon, until somehow they wind up down at the waterfront again.
Even the fishermen know Rapunzel, wave to her and call, "Your Highness!" but don't feel so uncomfortable in her presence as to bow or anything. After one of them fell off the boat a few months back, Rapunzel has done her best to dissuade them from that sort of behaviour.
But Eugenia sees the smile faltering on Rapunzel's face, and when they reach a quiet bit of beach where they can sit down on the driftwood and draw patterns in the sand with their feet, she finally asks. "What is it?"
"There was an envoy from the Summer Isles," Rapunzel says. It sounds almost like admitting something, which worries Eugenia all the more. "They invited my parents - and me - to visit some time. As a celebration, they said."
For a moment, she doesn't say anything more. Eugenia reaches up and gently pushes back an escapee wisp of brown hair - just starting to grow out now - behind Rapunzel's ear. It never feels right to see her without some sort of smile on her face.
"My father said that he doesn't see the point in keeping things from me. So he explained that they've got a lot of princes - and I mean a lot - and most of them aren't married, and some of them..." she turns concerned eyes to Eugenia. "Are my age. Father says that he doesn't want to push me into marrying, but that other Kingdoms might try to... 'encourage' me, he said."
"And what do you think about marriage?" Eugenia is actually pretty amazed that she manages to say it so calmly, while her heart is in her mouth and there is a pounding in her ears.
Game Changer {2/3} {Eugenia/Rapunzel}afterandalasiaFebruary 21 2014, 15:40:05 UTC
Rapunzel wraps her arms around herself, and hell, no, she looks so fragile for a moment. Without even thinking, Eugenia pulls her into a tight hug, and Rapunzel freezes for just a moment before sliding her arms around Eugenia in return.
"I don't know," says Rapunzel, voice muffled. Is she crying? She had better not be crying. Eugenia is trying to think exactly how many things she can steal to really piss off the Summer Isles. "I just... so much has happened." Her head fits so comfortably into Eugenia's shoulder that letting go just really is not an option. "Some people say that it's just an alliance, but I don't want to marry someone that I don't love."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Is this what being a good person feels like? Because Eugenia really doesn't like it. "You'll find someone you love who's good for the kingdom as well, right?"
"Sometimes I wish I could just marry you. It would be so much easier."
For a moment, it feels like Eugenia just can't breathe. Like Rapunzel isn't just hugging her, but her arms are iron bands. Because Eugenia wishes that too, more than she really cares about her freedom or the fact that her life is good and non-crime-related now. She's not going to cry, because she's Eugenia Fitzherbert and used to be Flynn Rider, but she feels pretty close. She wants to say, Yes, I will marry you, to hell with those princes and dukes and earls who want your hand.
If Rapunzel notices that Eugenia buries her face in her hair, she doesn't say anything. "I can't think of someone that I'd want in my life that would be better than you."
"I feel the same," Eugenia replies, because for once she's allowed to say something like that.
It isn't just that Rapunzel's a princess. Or just that Eugenia really doesn't want to risk their friendship Or even just that really, a thief being friends with a princess is bad enough, but declaring yourself in love with her was a good way for the King to conveniently remember all those charges that he had dropped. But putting them all together made it... too much.
She was a sap. She really was. This was part of why she'd folded up Eugenia Fitzherbert in the first place: the fearlessness. (Although the swashbuckling and the money and the women certainly hadn't hurt.) Eugenia had gotten herself hurt too easily.
Rapunzel smells like sunlight and summer. It aches when she drew back, and Eugenia had to let her slip away.
"I'm not even sure what I'm looking for," Rapunzel admits. "For love, I mean."
"Someone you want to be with," says Eugenia, almost instinctively. "Want to spend the rest of your life with. Someone you look forward to seeing, who makes you smile just by thinking of them." There is a stray leaf on Rapunzel's shoulder, and Eugenia picks it off delicately. "Someone who lights up your world. Who you'd do anything for. Give up anything for."
"You've been in love." Rapunzel says it slowly, like a realisation.
Eugenia shrugs, as if she is trying to push it aside. "Well, when I was six I fell in love with the orphanage owner. Does that count?"
They laugh, though she isn't sure that either of them mean it. Eugenia doesn't add how true it is, that she was entranced with the woman who came to the orphanage in her fine clothes and gave them little presents for Christmas. For most of them, it was the only present that they ever got. It certainly was for Eugenia.
"Maybe," says Rapunzel. She takes Eugenia's hand without looking down, and Eugenia can't help wondering whether she's even aware that she's doing it. "Did you give anything up for her?"
"Gave her my last chocolate at Christmas."
That really makes Rapunzel laugh. It's true again; at least, Eugenia offered her last, her only, chocolate, and the lady had refused so graciously. She had said that it was far more important that Eugenia have something nice that Christmas.
"Maybe you should tell me when I fall in love. You'll probably recognise it better than I will."
Game Changer {3/3} {Eugenia/Rapunzel}afterandalasiaFebruary 21 2014, 15:40:42 UTC
Eugenia wants to kiss her. Well, she always wants to kiss her, but the urge rises to lean in and do so now. From time to time she has these moments, aching to know what it would be like to press her lips to Rapunzel's, to run her hand over that cheek or across that hair without holding up the barrier of it being just friendship between them. There are so many things she wants to do.
"I don't know. I'm not that much of an expert on love."
"More than me," said Rapunzel, with a grimace.
"Maybe not." Eugenia strokes her cheek again and wants to blurt it all, to say, I love you, and I have for so long that I'm starting to forget what it feels like to not be in love. "Everyone loves you."
This time, Rapunzel gives her an impressively dubious look. One which she probably learned from Pascal, or Maximus. Then her expression softens again. "Even you?"
"Even me."
It comes out soft and sincere and without a moment's hesitation, and makes Rapunzel blink like she is saying something for the first time. And hell, she has gone and said it finally. She thinks. Maybe. The little line appears between Rapunzel's brows when she frowns, like it always does, and Eugenia wants to reach up and smooth it away with her thumb, has to work not to.
After a moment, Rapunzel sighs. Her bare feet kick against the sand, which comes up in sticky clumps. "Sometimes, I think it would be easier if you were a man."
"It wouldn't be awkward, those times we fall asleep on each other?" Eugenia raises an eyebrow.
"If you were a guy, I could just be in love with you," says Rapunzel, as if that is the most obvious thing in the world.
Wait, what? Now it's Eugenia's turn to look utterly bewildered, and Rapunzel's to smile.
"If you were a guy, I could just be in love with you. But you're a girl, so..."
"So..."
For a moment, Eugenia really isn't sure which one of them is asking the question as they look at each other. Or which one might have the answer, for that matter.
"I could pretend to be a guy, if you want," Eugenia jokes weakly, mostly just desperate to break the silence. "Cut my hair, bind my chest."
Rapunzel bites her lip at that, and Eugenia isn't sure whether that's a good reaction or not, and her laugh is a little nervous. "I think you look better as you are."
"I don't know." Joking is easier, so much easier. That was part of why Flynn Rider always treated life as such a game. "I think I'd look good with a moustache."
And Rapunzel laughs, carefree and unable to hold it back, and Eugenia is so glad to see that the tension has gone out of her. For a moment, it's perfect. Feeling Rapunzel's hand on her cheek makes it better and worse at the same time, because she wants this in a way that she can't have.
"Sometimes I wish you were a guy," she says, just quietly. Like she didn't really mean for it to sleep out.
Eugenia reaches up to cradle her hand. "I could be your guy," she offers, and hell, it is an offer. If she can go from being Flynn Rider to being Eugenia Fitzherbert again, then this is nothing.
Rapunzel looks up, and there's a confused, uncertain sort of hope in her eyes. "What?"
"I can handle a sword. Ride a horse. Wear pants. Why can't I be man enough for you?"
"But you're..."
A shrug. "And you're a princess, but you didn't used to be. We could change some rules."
Slowly, achingly slowly, Rapunzel smiles. "Yes. I suppose that we could."
Rapunzel fits in so well in Corona. She loves talking to people, still full up with the novelty of conversation and interaction. Children bring her flowers, women want to hug her, men just want to look at her adoringly, as if she is their daughter as well. She is everyone's daughter in the city, everyone's sister, everyone's friend.
Eugenia's friend, too. She really wished that could be a good thing.
She catches Rapunzel's eye from across the courtyard, and smiles. Three damn books. Rapunzel takes to the world so naturally, interacts with people as easily as she dances. Has she even heard of romance? Does she know love when she sees it, or does Eugenia imagine the look of envy, of hope, when Rapunzel looks at a couple arm-in-arm or dancing closely together.
Kissing one of the girls on the forehead, Rapunzel slips down from the wall where she was sitting and weaves her way through the crowd. She still hates wearing shoes, and forgets them as often as not. Technically, Eugenia could remind her, but she figures that she'd rather let Rapunzel be happy and barefoot.
"Good afternoon," says Rapunzel, stepping close and kissing Eugenia on the cheek. Does she do it deliberately? Eugenia can't even be sure most of the time.
She slips an arm around Rapunzel's waist in return, feeling like her heart is aching. "Did you have a good morning?"
Rapunzel wrinkles her nose. "I sat in on the K- my father's work." She still stumbles on it sometimes, but it's worth it for the smile on her face when she remembers that she has a mother and a father now. "Then I came out here to see people. How about you?"
"Eh," says Eugenia with a shrug. "Stole a noblewoman's jewellery, broke into the royal vaults. The usual."
Okay, so she had been feeding apples to Maximus and having a one-sided conversation with him as to what she should get Rapunzel for Christmas. But Rapunzel laughs at this version. "Of course. And you plan to invade a small earldom this afternoon?"
"Psh. A country, at least. Gotta think big."
Without even caring for the direction, they start wandering, arms wrapped around each other. It's so easy like this, swapping jokes and plans for the afternoon, until somehow they wind up down at the waterfront again.
Even the fishermen know Rapunzel, wave to her and call, "Your Highness!" but don't feel so uncomfortable in her presence as to bow or anything. After one of them fell off the boat a few months back, Rapunzel has done her best to dissuade them from that sort of behaviour.
But Eugenia sees the smile faltering on Rapunzel's face, and when they reach a quiet bit of beach where they can sit down on the driftwood and draw patterns in the sand with their feet, she finally asks. "What is it?"
"There was an envoy from the Summer Isles," Rapunzel says. It sounds almost like admitting something, which worries Eugenia all the more. "They invited my parents - and me - to visit some time. As a celebration, they said."
For a moment, she doesn't say anything more. Eugenia reaches up and gently pushes back an escapee wisp of brown hair - just starting to grow out now - behind Rapunzel's ear. It never feels right to see her without some sort of smile on her face.
"My father said that he doesn't see the point in keeping things from me. So he explained that they've got a lot of princes - and I mean a lot - and most of them aren't married, and some of them..." she turns concerned eyes to Eugenia. "Are my age. Father says that he doesn't want to push me into marrying, but that other Kingdoms might try to... 'encourage' me, he said."
"And what do you think about marriage?" Eugenia is actually pretty amazed that she manages to say it so calmly, while her heart is in her mouth and there is a pounding in her ears.
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"I don't know," says Rapunzel, voice muffled. Is she crying? She had better not be crying. Eugenia is trying to think exactly how many things she can steal to really piss off the Summer Isles. "I just... so much has happened." Her head fits so comfortably into Eugenia's shoulder that letting go just really is not an option. "Some people say that it's just an alliance, but I don't want to marry someone that I don't love."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Is this what being a good person feels like? Because Eugenia really doesn't like it. "You'll find someone you love who's good for the kingdom as well, right?"
"Sometimes I wish I could just marry you. It would be so much easier."
For a moment, it feels like Eugenia just can't breathe. Like Rapunzel isn't just hugging her, but her arms are iron bands. Because Eugenia wishes that too, more than she really cares about her freedom or the fact that her life is good and non-crime-related now. She's not going to cry, because she's Eugenia Fitzherbert and used to be Flynn Rider, but she feels pretty close. She wants to say, Yes, I will marry you, to hell with those princes and dukes and earls who want your hand.
If Rapunzel notices that Eugenia buries her face in her hair, she doesn't say anything. "I can't think of someone that I'd want in my life that would be better than you."
"I feel the same," Eugenia replies, because for once she's allowed to say something like that.
It isn't just that Rapunzel's a princess. Or just that Eugenia really doesn't want to risk their friendship Or even just that really, a thief being friends with a princess is bad enough, but declaring yourself in love with her was a good way for the King to conveniently remember all those charges that he had dropped. But putting them all together made it... too much.
She was a sap. She really was. This was part of why she'd folded up Eugenia Fitzherbert in the first place: the fearlessness. (Although the swashbuckling and the money and the women certainly hadn't hurt.) Eugenia had gotten herself hurt too easily.
Rapunzel smells like sunlight and summer. It aches when she drew back, and Eugenia had to let her slip away.
"I'm not even sure what I'm looking for," Rapunzel admits. "For love, I mean."
"Someone you want to be with," says Eugenia, almost instinctively. "Want to spend the rest of your life with. Someone you look forward to seeing, who makes you smile just by thinking of them." There is a stray leaf on Rapunzel's shoulder, and Eugenia picks it off delicately. "Someone who lights up your world. Who you'd do anything for. Give up anything for."
"You've been in love." Rapunzel says it slowly, like a realisation.
Eugenia shrugs, as if she is trying to push it aside. "Well, when I was six I fell in love with the orphanage owner. Does that count?"
They laugh, though she isn't sure that either of them mean it. Eugenia doesn't add how true it is, that she was entranced with the woman who came to the orphanage in her fine clothes and gave them little presents for Christmas. For most of them, it was the only present that they ever got. It certainly was for Eugenia.
"Maybe," says Rapunzel. She takes Eugenia's hand without looking down, and Eugenia can't help wondering whether she's even aware that she's doing it. "Did you give anything up for her?"
"Gave her my last chocolate at Christmas."
That really makes Rapunzel laugh. It's true again; at least, Eugenia offered her last, her only, chocolate, and the lady had refused so graciously. She had said that it was far more important that Eugenia have something nice that Christmas.
"Maybe you should tell me when I fall in love. You'll probably recognise it better than I will."
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"I don't know. I'm not that much of an expert on love."
"More than me," said Rapunzel, with a grimace.
"Maybe not." Eugenia strokes her cheek again and wants to blurt it all, to say, I love you, and I have for so long that I'm starting to forget what it feels like to not be in love. "Everyone loves you."
This time, Rapunzel gives her an impressively dubious look. One which she probably learned from Pascal, or Maximus. Then her expression softens again. "Even you?"
"Even me."
It comes out soft and sincere and without a moment's hesitation, and makes Rapunzel blink like she is saying something for the first time. And hell, she has gone and said it finally. She thinks. Maybe. The little line appears between Rapunzel's brows when she frowns, like it always does, and Eugenia wants to reach up and smooth it away with her thumb, has to work not to.
After a moment, Rapunzel sighs. Her bare feet kick against the sand, which comes up in sticky clumps. "Sometimes, I think it would be easier if you were a man."
"It wouldn't be awkward, those times we fall asleep on each other?" Eugenia raises an eyebrow.
"If you were a guy, I could just be in love with you," says Rapunzel, as if that is the most obvious thing in the world.
Wait, what? Now it's Eugenia's turn to look utterly bewildered, and Rapunzel's to smile.
"If you were a guy, I could just be in love with you. But you're a girl, so..."
"So..."
For a moment, Eugenia really isn't sure which one of them is asking the question as they look at each other. Or which one might have the answer, for that matter.
"I could pretend to be a guy, if you want," Eugenia jokes weakly, mostly just desperate to break the silence. "Cut my hair, bind my chest."
Rapunzel bites her lip at that, and Eugenia isn't sure whether that's a good reaction or not, and her laugh is a little nervous. "I think you look better as you are."
"I don't know." Joking is easier, so much easier. That was part of why Flynn Rider always treated life as such a game. "I think I'd look good with a moustache."
And Rapunzel laughs, carefree and unable to hold it back, and Eugenia is so glad to see that the tension has gone out of her. For a moment, it's perfect. Feeling Rapunzel's hand on her cheek makes it better and worse at the same time, because she wants this in a way that she can't have.
"Sometimes I wish you were a guy," she says, just quietly. Like she didn't really mean for it to sleep out.
Eugenia reaches up to cradle her hand. "I could be your guy," she offers, and hell, it is an offer. If she can go from being Flynn Rider to being Eugenia Fitzherbert again, then this is nothing.
Rapunzel looks up, and there's a confused, uncertain sort of hope in her eyes. "What?"
"I can handle a sword. Ride a horse. Wear pants. Why can't I be man enough for you?"
"But you're..."
A shrug. "And you're a princess, but you didn't used to be. We could change some rules."
Slowly, achingly slowly, Rapunzel smiles. "Yes. I suppose that we could."
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