Chapter 14
"Dinner time!" Gothel called to her two daughters. Usually, Rapunzel ate dinner with her parents, but since they were away for their anniversary, Gothel offered to have Rapunzel for dinner so she didn't have to eat alone with the chefs.
"We're coming!" the two girls replied while running down the halls.
The sisters were met with two bowls of dinner, one for each of them.
"Do you girls want to play a game?" Gothel asked the girls cheerily.
"Yes!" they both exclaimed, excited as ever for dinner.
"Whichever one of you finishes their dinner first, gets an extra cupcake for dessert!"
"But, mom-" Cassandra began to protest.
"Ready, set, go!"
The two girls devoured their dinner as fast as they could, with Rapunzel in a strong lead. They ate and ate until Gothel called time.
"Rapunzel wins!" Gothel declared, Rapunzel beaming with pride.
"But mom, Rapunzel didn't have as much food as I did! And you know I don't like spinach!" Cassandra complained dejectedly.
"I love spinach!" Rapunzel happily squealed in response.
"That's quite enough, Cassandra. Rapunzel is younger, and you lost fair and square," Gothel reprimanded her older daughter.
Gothel looked in the cupboard for the desserts, to find only two cupcakes left.
"Sorry, Cassandra, but I promised Rapunzel an extra cupcake, and since there's only two, she'll have both of them tonight".
Little Rapunzel took both of the cupcakes, but felt bad for her sister. It wasn't her fault she didn't like spinach! Rapunzel offered her second cupcake to Cassandra, but was reprimanded by Gothel for it.
"Rapunzel, honey. Cassandra lost the game. I need you to eat both cupcakes yourself, please".
So Rapunzel ate both of the cupcakes, feeling guilty the entire time. Cassandra, however, realized that if she wanted to survive her mother's attempts to destroy her, she'd need to be tougher. She couldn't be friends with anyone, other than Rapunzel, who'd need protection growing up. She needed to be competitive.
–
"I can't express just how much this time in Vardaros has meant to us," Rapunzel gushed to the people of Vardaros, who crowded around her in anticipation of her upcoming announcement. "We may have come here as strangers, but I like to think we're leaving as friends". Rapunzel could think that all she wanted, but that didn't make it true. Still, she tried to push the friendship narrative onto the Vardarans. "So, in the spirit of that friendship, we would like to share a Corona tradition with all of you. I am proud to announce the First Annual Vardaros Goodwill Festival!" Rapunzel, being the happy-go-lucky princess that she was, expected a more lively response than the one she got, which was dull and unimpressed. Needless to say, the people of Vardaros weren't exactly the 'celebratory' type of crowd that Rapunzel was used to back in Corona.
"Boo!" a townsperson sneered at Rapunzel. While Rapunzel could choose to be upset about these people's reactions, that wasn't the point of goodwill. Rapunzel was going to bring joy into Vardaros whether Vardaros liked it or not.
"Yeah, I got booed at last year's festival, too," Rapunzel laughed. "Don't worry. This is gonna be fantastic".
"It's great that you wanna do this, Raps, but this town isn't like Corona," Cassandra interjected into Rapunzel's fantasy, knowing better than anyone that happiness wasn't everyone's cup of tea. "They don't feel the need to celebrate something every six seconds".
"You should really listen to Cass. Vardarans aren't really the 'goodwill' kind of crowd," Vex backed Cassandra up. Now that Cassandra was the unofficial team captain, she got to call the shots. Sure, a Goodwill Festival took time away from what they were really doing, but this didn't seem like a hill Cassandra needed to die on. Maybe it'd be fun! Probably not, but Rapunzel sure thought so.
"I hate goodwill, ya clod!" an old lady ejaculated while warily moping by.
"I know people here are a little rougher around the edges," Rapunzel agreed with Vex. "but they deserve to have a good time".
"Are you sure everyone shares your idea of what makes a good time?" Cassandra asked her sister. "Look. Not one person has signed up for the Gopher Grab". Cassandra gestured toward the Gopher Grab sign up list, which sat isolated and nameless. "Which might not be a bad thing, since we don't have a gopher".
"Hey, hey, don't worry about that," Eugene reassured the group. "I've got my two best gopher hunters on the job".
Out in the forest, Ben and Anna were looking for a gopher with little to no success.
"Ow! Oh! Aah! You're pulling. You're pulling. You know how much I Aah! Aah! You're pulling!"
Eugene had bribed the sibling duo with another lump of money.
"I'm sure they're out there snaggin' a gopher as we speak. Probably. You know, we may actually wanna cancel the Gopher Grab?" Eugene suggested.
"It'll be tough finding a gopher out here. This is sneezeweasel country," Vex informed the group knowingly.
"What's a sneezeweasel?" Cassandra asked the teenager.
"It's a mammalian omnivore, indigenous to this region, whose primary diet is gophers, foxes and voles," Rapunzel read aloud, leaving everyone with astonished stares.
"Wow," Vex applauded the princess. "How do you know so much about sneezeweasels?"
"I made a flyer for Vardaros," Rapunzel grinned proudly, holding up a glittery flyer with a purple front and back cover and golden trim. It looked like it had come straight from Corona! You'd think she'd put in the effort to at least use the Vardaran colors for a flyer of Vardaros, but I digress.
"Wow, blondie, this is... something," Eugene gushed over the princess's flyer, thoroughly impressed with all the tiny details that went into it, but not sure it truly represented Vardaros. Nevertheless, it earned his praise. "How did you find the time to make this?"
Rapunzel just smirked at him in response. "I had to do something while you and Cass were bickering," She shrugged, which earned her an irritated groan from Cassandra.
"Enough with the flyer!" Cassandra finally interjected. "Can we please just focus on the festival?" She was understandably getting annoyed that Rapunzel was getting distracted from what was already a distraction.
"Sorry, Cass," Rapunzel apologized before turning to see someone at her Gopher Grab signup sheet. "Look!" She cheered excitedly. "Someone's signing up for the Gopher Grab! And you thought the good cheer wouldn't catch on". Rapunzel nudged her sister in the side smugly. She was ecstatic to have her goodwill and cheer be spread throughout Vardaros.
"Actually, he's just stealing your quill," Cassandra corrected her sister before chasing after the thief. Finally, something fun to do during this cheery festival!
"Hey!" Cassandra growled while headlocking the quill thief onto the wooden signup table. "You want the pen so bad, then sign up!" Unfortunately for the pen thief, Cassandra wasn't playing games.
Okay, okay! I'll sign up!" the man whimpered, as he forcibly signed his name on the first Gopher Grab line.
"Uh, Cass?" Rapunzel asked. "We're celebrating goodwill, remember?" Rapunzel heard the man Cassandra had headlocked running away, sobbing, and she was arguably not impressed with Cassandra's methods of recruiting.
"Anyone else want to wrestle me for the pen?" Cassandra announced to the people of Vardaros, proudly holding up the inky quill pen she had just won back.
"You lose, you sign up!"
"Yeah!" one townsperson cried.
"Let's do this!" another agreed enthusiastically.
"Okay then, who's next?" Cassandra shouted with an angry smile smacked across her face as she punched the first contestant.
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"Captain, I know why you wanna see us, and I'm sure it wasn't Cass' intention to injure 16 people," Rapunzel defended Cassandra, looking back to see one of Cassandra's victims wailing over his newfound black eye.
"It was 23," Cassandra corrected proudly, also looking back at the man she had just wrestled, who ran away in fear upon making eye contact with the guard-in-training.
"It's just that, Rapunzel, I haven't seen folks that excited in years. Nice job," Captain Quaid applauded the teenage princess. "When you told me about this goodwill nonsense, I thought there's no way that this feel-good garbage is gonna fly here. But that's before I saw what Cass had up her sleeve". Quaid then looked to Cassandra, who wasn't used to all this positive attention. It was kind of nice.
Rapunzel chuckled nervously at Quaid's thoughts. "To be clear, that wasn't an official festival event".
"Well, it should've been!" Quaid argued.
"You should have Cass plan all your events," Vex agreed with her sheriff.
Rapunzel thought about it for a moment, and wasn't entirely opposed to the idea. It might be fun to work with Cassandra! Plus, since Cassandra was unofficial team captain now, it might be nice for her to have some authority under her belt before the group went back to looking for clues and keys.
"Huh. Actually, that's not such a bad idea," Rapunzel agreed with Quaid. "I mean, I know this party stuff isn't your strong suit, but it would be fun to work together. What do you say? You wanna be my co-planner?" Rapunzel asked her sister.
"Ha! Me? Co-planning a festival?" Cassandra laughed. "Why not?" she quickly agreed.
"Great!" Rapunzel cheered.
"Can I help?" Vex asked Cassandra.
"Of course you can!" Rapunzel replied happily.
"I was actually asking Cass," Vex responded, much to Rapunzel's displeasure.
"Come on, kid, let's go plan us a festival!" Cassandra patted Vex's back as the two began walking towards the caravan. Rapunzel just watched them, but wasn't discouraged. She knew that, with the help of Pascal, she'd come up with the best goodwill festival events ever. Even though it wasn't a competition, Rapunzel began feeling a lot of pressure to have the best events. Why did she feel this way? She wasn't sure, but tried to put it out of her mind.
What Rapunzel didn't know, however, was that Cassandra was feeling the same competitive pressure that she was.