Twisted Destiny

Time

Rapunzel walked over to him. "...For what it's worth...I think, in time, Varian would be willing to forgive you."

He smiled a bit. "Do you think so?"

She nodded. "I only hope I'll have the same luck with Cass." She sighed, looking towards the window.

"Rapunzel..." He pulled her close and gently tilted her chin up to look at him. "Rapunzel, my darling girl, you have done nothing to be forgiven for. You didn't choose to be kidnapped and for that woman to abandon Cassandra. And we did what we could, but it's selfish and deranged of her to assume that we would ever take her as our daughter instead of you. I would sooner take in Varian as a son." He said firmly, then paused. "Don't tell him that. He would laugh."

"I won't." Rapunzel nodded.

He smiled and then rubbed her head before he went to open the door. "Well...I'm off to my office. Good night, Rapunzel."

"Hey, dad?" Rapunzel walked over to him, stopping him from leaving yet. "Do you think...if she had a friend back then, she might not be the way she is now?"

"I think that she had plenty of opportunity to make friends. It was her own choices that pushed the other children away." He walked out. "Good night, Rapunzel."

Rapunzel sighed and nodded. "Good night."

She walked over and sat on the balcony, looking out at the night sky. "Oh, Cassandra..."

--

With the morning came her Princess duties. Rapunzel met up with Eugene and Lance in the hall and they set off down it together. "Alright, Eugene," she said with a smile, "agenda me."

As part of her preparing to be Queen, just in case of anything happening to her parents, Rapunzel had taken on a series of tasks related to the job, which she had asked the two of them to assist her with. She asked Varian if he wanted to help, but he just held up the scroll she asked him to translate, asked her in a dead-pan voice if she wanted it translated or not, and shooed her out of his lab.

"Okie dokie." Eugene said, opening a scroll with today's agenda on it. "We're gonna start off with what promises to be tons of fun, the semi-annual wheat-crop report."

"Ah, as if we haven't had enough of wheat to last us a year." Rapunzel said teasingly.

"Heh, yeah." Eugene nodded.

"And that's already reviewed." She assured him, handing him a few sheets of paper. "And I know you were kidding but, believe it or not, it was fun." She said playfully.

"Hah, of course it was. Next, you've got to approve the design of the castle's new footbridge." Eugene said, looking back at his scroll.

"What's wrong with the one we have?" Lance asked.

"I did that before breakfast. In fact, while I was at it, I designed a few more footbridges." She pulled scrolls out of her satchel.

"Heh, you're completely on the ball, sweetheart." He kissed her cheek.

"I'm used to getting a lot done by 7:15 in the morning." She reminded him.

"What about breakfast?" Lance asked with an amused smile.

"Breakfast? I eat motivation for breakfast!" Rapunzel said, then caught a snack Pascal snagged for her from a passing tray being carried by a maid. "Well, and cherry croissants." She took a bite of it. "Thanks, Pascal!"

Eugene chuckled. "You know, I gotta say, Sunshine, even I-" He was cut off by bumping into Cassandra's old dummy, with his face painted on the "head" as a gift Rapunzel did for Cassandra before, back when they first met Andrew.