mother knows best

[powershines]

Rapunzel doesn't sleep well, and she does wind up wrapped up in her hair overnight like a golden-cocooned butterfly. She's still dozing fitfully when the sun comes up.

Comments

[powershines]

Mmm-hm.

And here is some kind of messenger, knocking at the open doorframe. "Princess. It's nearly time to release the first lantern," he says. "If you would follow me, please."

"Oh - okay," says the princess. And she extricates herself and follows the messenger, and the guards follow her.

[hisowninvention]

Rolan comes along too.

[powershines]

The guards close ranks around the door to the balcony - Rolan may go so far and no farther if he doesn't want to cause a scene.

Rapunzel steps out to join her parents.

There is audible murmuring - even from this distance - from the crowd with their own lit and ready lanterns below.

[sundayfish]

"People of Corona," calls Cearl, and the crowd quiets. "After eighteen years, at long last, after waiting that has been nearly as hard on you as it has on myself and my wife - home again, Princess Claribel!"

[powershines]

On impulse, Rapunzel sings a low note, barely opening her mouth, just enough to light up her hair.

The crowd goes insane.

She accepts her lantern from Ranae, feels it trying to rise out of her hands - and raises it over her head and lets it go into the night sky.

Thousands more follow it up, the crowd still screaming with excitement.

She sings her note until she runs out of breath and lets her hair dim.

[hisowninvention]

Rolan declines to cause any scenes. He's happy just to watch from behind the balcony.

[powershines]

Rapunzel's parents each take one of her hands - she flinches, but not enough for anybody on the ground below to notice, and recovers her equanimity - and they all raise their hands and Ranae murmurs bow, darling and they all bow in unison.

The crowd continues to be out of its mind with joy.

[hisowninvention]

Well of course they are.

[powershines]

The royal family stands there, watching lanterns, waving occasionally to the screaming people below, until the majority of the lanterns have gone out, fallen to the water, or been blown to the other side of the hill and rendered difficult to see.

They bow again, they wave again, they go back inside.

Rapunzel instantly hugs Rolan.

[hisowninvention]

Rolan hugs her right back.

[powershines]

Hug hug hug.

"They were so excited."

[hisowninvention]

"Yes they were," he says. "Wasn't it nice? I think it was nice."

[powershines]

"It was intense."

[hisowninvention]

"Yeah."

[powershines]

"I guess they - missed me."

[hisowninvention]

"Yeah. Not you personally, but - what you represent to the kingdom, and your parents' happiness. And you are a magical glowing flower princess and that's very exciting."

[powershines]

Rapunzel giggles and hugs him again.

[hisowninvention]

Hugs! So very hugs.

[powershines]

Eventually Rapunzel lets him go - mostly, she hugs his arm - and goes back to the guest room.

[hisowninvention]

"Want some time alone to do your thinking?" he asks when they reach it. "Oh - although I thought of a way to narrow down my imprecise description of that guess from earlier, if you want to hear it."

[powershines]

"I do want to hear it. And then I want some time to think."

[hisowninvention]

"Well - it's just a guess, mind you - but it seems like your weird and inexplicable feelings might belong to the category of liking that relates to Things or marriage or both. It's hard to narrow it down any further than that, because different people approach those kinds of feelings very differently. But it at least probably isn't something you already knew."

[powershines]

"...There's an entire category of liking for that?"

[hisowninvention]

"You could think of it as one kind for the one thing and one kind for the other, often but not always happening at the same time and related to each other. And people use 'love' to refer to either, more usually the marriage kind. It all gets fairly complicated, although you might not think so from the way people talk about it."

[powershines]

"It sounds impossibly convoluted."