AN: This is first CLIMAX 1 of, like, 4, GET READY Y'ALL

Jasmine did not mean to cross her arms as if to guard herself but there really wasn't much more she could add to the discussion.

The four princesses were seated in Ariel's private parlor; it was a little circle of a room that piled up and over the palace's water-cascading gardens and cherry trees, facing the western shoreline of the ocean and always in view of the sea. The walls were a light periwinkle, with minute starfish and bits of coral lingering in intricate designs. It was a cute, quaint little place—freshly cleaned, lush with lounging pillows and couches for nearly all of the women to try.

Their body language looked much the opposite; restless, uncomfortable, and a bit annoyed to be sitting, once more, doing little of anything. Besides the uneventful conversation at hand—made only worse between Jasmine and Tiana. It wasn't that they were arguing, so to speak, as much as offering the bittersweet idea that their husbands wouldn't share whatever had happened this morning over the docks. Jasmine having been the one to go with the men, she had now found herself choice suspect to fill them in.

"No, I really don't know what Aladdin and Naveen fought about. And I doubt Adam could tell you, either." Jasmine recounted once more.

"I've just never seen Naveen come back to me so upset." Tiana replied. She made sure to keep her tone light. She wasn't sure what was said or if there was a fault at all, but Naveen had always made a point to never let words hurt him so. However, this day would be one missed in his mantra. Naveen had appeared at the door of their bedroom wing with his jaw clenched so tightly, looking so furious, that it was Tiana who appeared all the absurd in her own confusion.

Jasmine raised a brow. "Did he tell you about it?"

"No," Tiana sighed. She glanced back towards Jasmine. She looked positively ripe in self-contempt. "Believe me, I tried."

"Maybe he's just tired of being thrown out to sea," Rapunzel suggested lightly. She was seated close to Ariel, her small hands working mindlessly through Ariel's fine red hair, weaving it into complicated braids. Ariel certainly didn't object to being doted on, if she objected too much of anything as of late. The other princesses' found it odd that her youthful energy seemed to diminish with every passing day. Particularly finding her this morning, withdrawn, tight, hardly a word to say to any of them. At once, they knew was it was the result of yet another fight with Eric. Or so Tiana, Jasmine, and Rapunzel reasoned. Odd as it was that she looked more...afraid...than concerned.

"I know Eugene is." Rapunzel continued. She sounded a little down herself but refused to enlighten why. "It's why he refused to go this morning."

Jasmine gave a short shrug of her shoulders. "Aladdin has been lacking any of tact lately. It's probably something he said."

"No, no," Tiana defused. "Naveen never knows when to stop. He probably cast the stone, picked it up from off the ground, chewed it up, then swallowed it."

"Maybe it's the both of them," Jasmine purred wisely. She up-turned her usual resting-pout-face, as Aladdin so endearingly called it, to make sure Tiana knew that she didn't really want to find out who said what or what was this or that. If Aladdin was so easily curt with her, she could only imagine the tongue lashing he must have given Naveen, deserving or not.

Jasmine had always found Naveen quite the delight. He was talented in many instruments, romantic to a doe-eyed fault, always moving in single-mindedly domestic way that never mattered to her own husband. Naveen reminded her often of a brother she wished she had growing up— and the bored fantasies of adventure and the inevitable trouble they would have gotten into together, slipping around in deer-lined slippers through her father's overly expansive palace, harrowingly avoiding guards, indulging in the tedious pretension of their lives. Naveen thought royalty to be quite a thrill ride, and oftentimes, quite the joke to be laughed at. She loved that he loved to mock it. So did she.

Jasmine carefully memorized the strict look over Tiana's face and wondered, with some stretches of elaboration, if Naveen was truly capable of anger. It didn't seem possible to Jasmine's idea of him. Everything was his plaything and his prank and could only be thoroughly unserious. So...what did Aladdin say to move Naveen to...feel?

Tiana shifted from her seat on the sofa. She collected the bottom of her shirt, a light blue color, dotted with tiny crystal up that rose and fell in the pattern of a wave- a gift from Ariel-but never quite loosened her grip to let go of it. The cloth blanched between her fist.

She opened her mouth for a moment more, before deciding against it. She cut her eyes to Ariel's before flickering them back to Jasmine, equally matched. Her heart sank. It just never felt like the right time to bring the question between her friends. How to bring up Adam and that night? Not to tell them of the curse, no, never, but to speak frankly about how Adam was clearly breaking down-bandages or not, pirates or not, she was uncomfortable at how easily Jasmine had taken to a patrol with him and not mentioned it once.

None of them, really. Jasmine had stood so close to him but didn't mind a word. Rapunzel seemed almost dismissive of any attempt at conversation regarding the king. And Ariel was perhaps the worst of all. When Tiana had mentioned the oddity of his injury, she looked, for a moment, too shocked to speak, before she spoke quietly and without her normal bubbly tone, that for all their penmanship, Adam had yet to confined in her anything strange.

Just that he missed Belle.

And God, didn't they all miss Belle.

Eugene was right, in what he said that in the bathhouse.

Everything felt a non-starter. Not their husbands or a plan for the pirates or anything of value.

Ariel, despite being in her parlor, in her company, in light of her husband's course, still had not spoken. She looked more distraught than she had been in days but nothing the other princesses suggested seemed to be the right question. She didn't want to talk about Eric. She didn't want to discuss her own ideas of the pirates. She only drifted her eyes about the room, somehow larger and more worried, blue cast back out into the sea.

The sound of a heavy weight hitting the floor made the four women jump. All eyes rushed to the doorway. To the person standing there, her blue dress and dark hair muted, and her eyes dominant over the room.

Belle.

Belle, quickly untying her coat from about her shoulders.

Belle, with a large book held tightly in her arms, and two others leaning out of the satchel at her feet. The full light from the morning sun sparkled the intricate patterns of walls into a strange, glossy film, like Belle's arrival was tinted with an air of unreality. And, even stranger still, Tiana stared on, slightly more convinced, at the women jerked back, stunned, at what Belle said next.

"I need your help," was all Belle said.

Belle wasted no time on greetings, pleasantries, or hugs. She stole into Ariel's chambers with eight other pairs of eyes to watch on in surprise and a bit of disbelief.

"Belle?" Ariel sprang up at once, her frame light and obviously happy to see the face of her friend. "You are here? When did you arrive, and how did you—" Ariel sped to a stop.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Different, somehow, and for a moment, Ariel could not help but to see an inkling of Eric within Belle. Her paleness, her wild, alarmed eyes, even her hair was a state of untying. Her arms shook. Ariel took in Belle's form with a shocked, worried look and tried to push away the impulsive thought that reared its ugly, unfeeling nightmare into her heart: was Eric's condition contagious? Did she bring her friends here to not just die by the hands of pirates— but by Eric's illness alone?

And what of Adam? His horrible horns and his curse? Was Belle finally here because of what had happened?

Did she have any idea how absolutely horrifying that night was for them both?

Ariel shook her head to rid herself of the thought. Adam seemed to be stable for now, even if she couldn't get close enough to ask or see much of his wound for herself. She had made the choice to stay away— not just out of respect for what he had said— but that her panic allowed revealed the worst of her: she couldn't say rational enough to control her own body. How could she go back to Adam to hope to convince him of the same?

She was just endlessly grateful that her friend had come back to the castle...relatively okay.

"What is it? Are you alright?" The others stood, all but Rapunzel, who somehow seemed to shrink into the floor, hands clasped over her knees drawn into her chest.

"You…." Belle faltered. "Am I alright?" She had come so far. So close. She would only pray this might work. "I know that I haven't been the most open with you." She met each pair of eyes with earnest remorse. "I just never knew how to express what I needed. But now, I need your help. Eric...Eric is right. There is danger coming but I think it is far bigger than this castle, Ariel."

Here, Belle swallowed drily. She struggled to move on from this moment. But she had to.

"I have searched for answers for a long time." Belle explained stiffly. She looked forlorn as she slowly pulled open the three books she had brought. "I hardly feel like I've found an answer. But I need your help."

"It involves," she bit her lip. "Magic." Her brown eyes looked to each face, noting every expression from anxiety to intrigue. "Are you okay with this?"

"Belle…" Jasmine murmured. She, too, looked unsure. "What are you asking us to do? Right now? In Ariel's parlor...would it work? Whatever it is?"

"I have something I need to do, somewhere I need to go. And this tome— it used to help me accomplish that but I've…I've ruined it. I don't know how. I don't know why. But it refuses me now. And I can't help but think that maybe...maybe it wouldn't refuse you all. I know that sounds insane but it is all I have to use."

A tome. Tiana studied the book with a suspicious, heated look. "I don't know, Belle. Messing with magic. It never leaves you the same."

A look of grief passed over Belle's features, tragic and pain filled. Tiana eased the book back down. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else I can do to…"

"Where does it go?" Ariel began. She had dissolved into the background of the questions but now she had arose bit louder. "Why do you need to go there?"

"There's someone I need to save." She closed her eyes. In her mind's eye, she pictured Meg. But in heart, she only yearned for Adam. But she couldn't say this now. "She's real. But she's...inside the book. I think it's like...a history."

"It takes you into the past?"

"Something like that." Belle added, bit embarrassed. "I've explored it as best I could but it's...somehow, almost impossible to explain."

Rapunzel glance at Belle and back down at the floor. Her words felt almost too fragile to respond. She knew exactly what she meant.

"I know I've come suddenly and without warning and there are so many other things to be done. But please. Please help me at least try. I've...I've brought this." At once, she tore into her dress's pockets and found what she had harbored.

Cool and deadly, its weight heavy inside of her hand. It almost hurt to hold. "It's a coin. A coin from that place. I think I can use it to help us." Belle closed her eyes tight. "I know I sound mad. But please. Please. You are all I have left to try. It's real. What I am talking about is real. I promise."

Someone you need to save. Ariel's heart hurt from skipping. Perhaps there was a way she, too, could help with magic. The sea witch had tricked her and taken her innocence. What else was she here to see that others could not? She turned her gaze to Belle's hand. That… coin.

Hadn't she seen such a thing before? A faint memory dripped into the back of her mind…Flounder always told me that there was something wrong about this coin. How, even in my collection of treasures from the human world, it felt wrong. Could it matter now? A skull's head...my father's reaction...a horrible place he forbid me to go...his fear of humans...was it connected somehow to what he was? What I was?

After seeing Adam's bloody transformation, Ariel could not help but to wonder if a small piece of the world's magic was ending.

The magic that held him in human flesh, like chains...the blessing of magic that allowed Ariel to move between two beautiful worlds: her people of the land and her people of the sea. Perhaps it was all ending soon. She had been twisted before at the edge of a hot knife, time threatening to doom her. Belle's sudden appearance only added to Ariel's evidence. Before, Adam had made assumptions about Ariel, but while she was younger than the rest, Ariel was not a fool.

Perhaps their waiting for pirates was coming to an unknown end. Belle, a message, a sign, a likeness of grow or raven or calling bird across Eric's forest. Ariel had sat and listened to the dry misunderstandings of her friends for what had felt like hours.

Perhaps the time was here and now and Ariel was the only one not going to fight it.

A battle had not once begun, and she was already so tired of the fight for it all.

Eric. Adam. Her friends' safety. It only mattered now.

She had to act.

After all, she knew of magic, too.

"Perhaps it is locked out because it doesn't belong here." Ariel suddenly spoke. All heads at once to her. She gave a small, nervous laugh. What are you doing? She wanted to scream at herself. Carefully now. Carefully. "I know what that is like to not belong, to feel locked out, away from someone you love. But maybe the book or whatever this is— it needs something else. Something like it. Not human."

"Okay." Jasmine's voice was a burst of hope. "I'm willing. What do you want us to do?"

Belle couldn't wait a moment longer. Weeks at sea and an opening so soon? No, nothing could wait now. She pulled open the great tome and held it aloft to her friends. "It's blank, right?"

"Yes," Tiana returned tentatively. "Belle, wait. Wait, we can't just leave now. Are you crazy?" Of course, Tiana's natural instinct to prepare was stomping over the instinct to jump. It made sense. And they weren't prepared— never when Belle had prepared she had not been prepared— but there wasn't a moment more to lose. Tiana collected the eyes, all wide and uncertain. "Dear Lord, am I talking to myself? We can't leave now!"

Ariel, the second smallest and shortest, pushed her away through the command. She moved with a startling pace to a small chamber outside of the parlor, and then dashed back inside, breathing less and strong. She offered her hand out to the book. "Yes. We are."

Her small hand opened. Inside, a golden coin. Its tiny skull and eyeless smile watched Belle with the patience of eternity. "It's the same. The very same that you showed us before. I got mine from the grotto...um, along the beach. I sometimes collect things that wash up from the sea."

If anyone noticed the shaking of her little lie, no one pointed it out.

Next, Jasmine moved, her dark eyes aglow with something swimming beneath its cool depths. "No...way..." Her own hand moved into a sewn pocket of her silk gown, cut through with patches of nettle cloth, rough and layered. "You have one, too?"

Ariel looked taken back. "Where did you get yours?"

Here, even Jasmine seemed to blush, her façade suddenly shy. "I like ghost stories." She replied tentatively. She glanced to Tiana, Rapunzel, Belle. "I know it's foolish. But with the night coming, I thought I'd tell you all a scary story and use the coin as…" She blushed, the true color now appearing through her kohl'd makeup and onto the apples of her cheeks. "I...thought it would be fun but...if you have to know, I buy curios at the markets that make me…" She paused. "Shiver."

Jasmine thusly stopped speaking. She would never bring up the true source of her coin, the Cave of Wonders and Aladdin's near death within it.

"Wow. And I just thought I was a sucker for shiny things." Ariel said, her voice kind.

"Same," Jasmine agreed with a small smile.

Rapunzel, her voice hoarse, asked: "So...we've got to bring it back?"

Belle barely shook her head. She wasn't sure of anything now. "Or...maybe bring them together…"

"Whatever it is, I can't do it." Belle declared at once. "I've tried. Over and over. I need...I need one of you to try now."

At once, Belle took the three coins from her friends. She held them for a moment more, a physical choice within her palm. She had battled for so long to not let others in...Quasi, her papa, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth...even Adam...to let go of what she so desperately wanted to do alone…but she couldn't. Not anymore. What was once a cold, near-painful weight in her pocket, together the coins almost felt...warm. She dropped them into Ariel's palm.

"Are you ready?" Belle breathed, hardly feeling the air fill her lungs. Her grip on the tome tightened with an anger so pure, she felt invulnerable. Ariel carefully laid her hand over the page, coin beneath her palm. She glanced to Belle. Then, she nodded.

"What next?"

"I'm sure you've heard of The Underworld, yes? Like in the Greek legends."

Ariel's face paled. A hesitation in her eyes. "Yes. I'm familiar with the stories."

"Then picture exactly that." Belle replied, her voice firm and direct.

"Belle," Tiana said at once, her voice a rough edge of panic. "Belle!"

Tiana grasped Belle's arm and in that same moment, the rest of the girls reached out as well.

And at once, without warning— the parlor was gone.

At once, Ariel opened her eyes and knew exactly where she was. On a beach, back towards the forest and edges of the eastern shoreline. Nearly four miles from her private sandbar. And she wasn't alone. Tiana was tangled alongside her, face first in the greying sand. She sat up and wiped her face with a single, clean movement, clearly well practiced from her serving days.

"What on the Good Lord's green earth just happened?"

"Is everyone alright?" Belle called at once. She was the first up and collected.

"Shhhhh!" Ariel squeaked. Her blue eyes held her friends ransom. Not a sound, she nearly screamed inside of her mind, don't make a sound!

For just beyond the high rocks, there was the sound of loud talking.

The women froze; coiled together in a mess of limps and bright, blinking eyes, owled through the cracks of the raw sand-stone.

Two tall figures stood just a few meters down the shore. One was rather large, his body sharp and his voice loud. The other, shorter and thinner, was nodding along with every word.

Ariel felt as if her chest had burst through their magical free-fall from parlor to shore. Here, the threat was finally, finally real. Pirates! At once, Eric flashed in her mind, how tired and willful and scared he looked. How badly he wanted to kill every last pirate that threatened them. How much he needed to feel in control.

They were finally here. He was right all along. Even in his mania.

The group looked. And Belle...Belle stared with perhaps the hottest of hatred and pain she had ever felt in her entire life. For the tall figure was burning through the dwindling twilight. The entire shore pulled away, waves unwilling to come closer to his person. He moved his large arms sporadically, exaggeratedly, and his hair flickered with the unearthly pulse of blue flame.

For He was there, living and breathing before her mortal eyes. The beast. The God. The immortal.

Death.

Hades.

What do you want with my husband?

For a heartbeat, Belle nearly shrieked. She imagined flying out from behind the rocks and hurtling herself at his form, desperate and hungry and willing to die if it meant he'd never appear to Adam again. Until the thought changed. Until she envisioned the sky opening up in darkness, swallowing the world whole, and Hades yellow eyes being the last form of light her friends might ever see...

Belle let the want go.

She let the heartbeat pass.

From her left, she felt a soft prodding of fingertips. Ariel. She waved her hand quickly towards a space in the rock that allowed her to see the men talking. Slowly, pressed tight against the cold hard skin of the rock, Belle peered through.

At once, she understood Ariel's confusion.

Megara stood with her hands bound tightly behind her back. Her head was hung low. Her purplesque eyes narrowed at the ground around her, how Hades very presence seemed to spoil the light of day. The sand turned hard and grey. The sea pulled out in low tide, as if afraid of Him. Belle felt her throat run dry.

It was almost too perfect. Hades had brought Meg with him! A new plan unfolded within Belle's mind, almost too fast to understand, but the answer was clear: what she had promised to save was ever closer, and now, her friends could see Meg as clearly as Belle had. Bit by bit, Ariel brought the others over to peer through the cracks so they could see.

"Who's the girl?" The stranger motioned to Megara, not far beyond the men. Her back was pushed hard against the dark obsidian stone, rising high and wide over the beach, as if the ocean spat back out the terrible taste of a piece of Hades' dark world.

"No one of importance," Hades replied. "But you know what is of great importance? You. You've found the girl. The one I've searched for oh so long. A daughter of the sea."

"Yes," the man agreed but his tone sounded dismissive. "This 'mermaid' you've talked about. How'n you think I'm meant to capture her without a tail? If she had legs, how can I tell her apart from any other?"

At this, Hades gave a shallow little laugh. His yellow eyes flickered, as if pained he had to explain himself over again, or perhaps it was a more humanly gesture, like a blink of his eyelids. "This. Your compass. It will point only to what you want most; We are extremely close to finding it, Sparrow."

"Captain." The ragged stranger corrected at once.

Hades' eyes flickered in with red sparks before he settled on exhaling. He turned to the man, calm once more. "Captain Sparrow." He drawled lavishly. "My mistake."

"We talked of the lass, 'course, but you know what it is that I want. What I've always wanted."

"Yes, your precious ship, at the bottom of the ocean. Yes. We are working on that. But how do rise the sea? We need the right tool...Poseidon's scepter."

"How d'you so much about this impossible sounding dream o' yours?"

"Because I lost it, just once. A long, long time ago. He escaped me and drowned himself and his people at the bottom of the sea. We need to get his attention. You, my dear stupid boy, are that plan."

The ocean was ominous and still. "It feels like he's already mad."

Hades' sharp teeth slithered out knowingly. "I have a way with my brother."

"N' be needin' me to lift the sea, O lord of Terror? With a rinky bit of metal?"

"See?" Hades asked, his voice dripping with vindication. He snapped his long bone-like fingers and collected the compass in between them. The dial spun quickly, almost supernaturally, in tight circles without any beginning or end, an infinity of want pulled in a thousand directions. "I can't do a thing for myself. It's not my magic."

"N' whose is it then?" Jack asked lowly. He was still staring at his empty palm, as if a bit bothered that what was once safe in his hands had now been so effortlessly taken from him.

"An old friend." Hades smiled slowly. The compass had materialized back into the pirate's hand, and again, it spun wildly, before deciding on a final direction.

Until, slowly, the dial turned. Backwards. Pointing back towards the large rocks behind the pair.

Towards where Belle and her friends watched, breathing muffled and eyes staring into the dark.

Ariel turned, smaller and smaller, as if she wanted to disappear. The compass did not move. It merely stared straight, its arrow pointing to her, and her alone. Her heart shriveled inside of her chest. Her lungs burned as if rejecting air. She held herself tightly. She would not change. She would not be so useless as she couldn't help her friends if they needed to run.

The pain of watching Adam, helpless and weak, his form wisping into shadow as she had swam away from him...it was a blessing that human tears and the ocean both tasted like salt.

It's me he wants. Ariel thought. It's because he wants my father.

"She's here, just like we wanted. She's on this island. Your search for her is over. No tail required. Just follow to where it points, take the right girl, and bring her back to me. Alive, obviously."

"Obviously." Sparrow returned, his tone short but clear in the night air. He stretched laboriously, clearly done with the wheel of conversation. They had their goal. They had their plan. And Jack Sparrow was never good at waiting for anything. "When do we make our move?"

Hades turned to the sea. His arms seemed to still for a moment, then another, as if he had suddenly turned to stone.

Belle stole the moment. She peeked over her side of the stone, her dark eyes boring into Meg's. She shifted just a bit of sand with her fingers, just enough, anything to get Meg's attention to her.

And…Meg looked. She raised her head so suddenly, as if frightened, and found Belle. But her face did not look happy. There was a look of unspeakable fear, her lips tightening and hardly prying open, as if she had wanted to speak but couldn't. She didn't even bother to struggle. She just looked at Belle, watching Belle watching her back. Then, Belle saw Meg's eyes move to spy those of the women behind Belle…and her expression changed. At once, her face turned empty.

Belle struggled not to call out.

Her eyes said all she could have hoped to tell Meg: I'm coming for you.

But Meg only looked down again.

A low sound forced Belle to hide once more. Then, Hades' face finally twitched. His teeth sharpened into an icy smirk. "How would you mortals say it? Soon?" His face curled with dark anticipation. "Soon."

A short sound, like the snapping of a branch. Hades had moved so fast that none of the watching pairs of eyes could have possibly seen it. Half a human blink, the figures there, and then, the men had disappeared. In their place, the ocean at once rushed back, joyous over the sand.

Belle had been holding her breath. She dared to peek back through the hole that had shown her Meg. She had been so, so close. But it was already too late. Meg had seen her. Meg knew what was going to happen. Meg had watched Belle do nothing...powerless...and now…

Belle glanced through the hole once more.

Meg was gone and the ocean, sand, and the sudden return of night-gulls rejoiced for it.

They stayed still and quiet for what felt like hours. Breathing seemed to be the only necessary movement they each could make.

"Belle." It was Tiana's careful, indistinct whisper that captured the night air and made it feel safe. "Take us back. Please."

Panic was clear and wild in her eyes as they stared back through the setting sunlight. Belle's own voice felt frail. "I don't know if I can."

A look of disbelief traveled across Tiana's face, leaving her entirely lost for logic. "What?! What did you do before to get back?"

"Meg usually threw me out!"

"And who is that?!"

"The woman I'm trying to save! She— she usually helps me leave. I go alone and she throws me back out."

"Well isn't she so helpful," Jasmine snapped.

"We have legs," Ariel said slowly. "We can walk."

"I really don't think I can right now," was all Rapunzel added. She sounded close to tears. Jasmine reached over to rub at her arm. Another movement to remind them that, regardless of what madness they had each seen, heard, witnessed, they were still together.

"No. Ridiculous. I've seen enough magic. We can use it. We can go back to Ariel's room. I don't want to walk through the forest so close nighttime. I'll do it."

Jasmine opened the tome, placed her hand, and offered the coin. At once, it dissolved in from solid metal to crisp, wet earth...and then disappeared into the book.

The collective moan from each of the princesses, having been dumped back onto the plush flooring of Ariel's home, was enough to make them lightheaded out of sheer relief.

However, Jasmine was the one at once to take the situation in her own hands.

"Belle," Jasmine was careful in collecting the attention of the others. "Can this tome, this portal, can they see in? Could they see us?"

"I...I don't think so." Belle murmured but she appeared doubtful. "I don't know."

The weak look of dread across Tiana's face spoke volumes. "Then we have no choice but to assume they saw us. We know that woman saw us."

Ariel looked as ghostly as painted glass. Her blue eyes were soft and breakable.

Jasmine looked guarded. "How do we know what we saw was real? I've seen the illusions of magistrate. And that's all it ever was, really." She said this with a small twitch of her lips, as if remembering a terrible memory. "An illusion. It wasn't real. Right?"

"Megara is real." Belle said at once. She now collected the storming eyes of her friends but she refused to be afraid. "That I know for certain. I've felt her hand. I've heard her voice. I've—"

The coin! "I've taken it back with me. From her, uh, world. From her time. And you each had one, too! They're from the same mineral, the same gold. I think that's how the tome worked again. It's like a connection."

"A coin?" Rapunzel's small voice seemed loud in the wayward silence. "That stupid coin is proof that she's real?"

"I don't care if you don't believe me," Belle bristled, and although she meant to cast this into the room, she locked eyes with Rapunzel with a hard, unflinching look. At once Rapunzel dropped her gaze, clearly upset to have voiced her mind. In that same instant, Belle felt her heart sink. "Meg is my friend. And she's in danger. And now Ariel is in danger. And Hades is coming for us."

"You've come here at the risk of everything my husband fears not being true." Ariel suddenly began. It was if the mentioning of her own name had spurred her back to life. She looked pale and small. The blue of her eyes somehow deeper and sadder than ever before, even after her worst fights with Eric, like the one of the night before. "You've wasted time, resources, your own husbands, wanting or no, have spent countless hours waiting for an attack." She took a small breath, met Belle's gaze, and steeled herself. "To me, seeing that woman, and the coin, and the pirate, Hades, it is all the same. We've known a threat was coming; Belle has simply shown us that it has finally arrived."

Belle slowly exhaled. She blinked respectfully at Ariel, a small gesture to convey how hard and fast she had been internally free-falling just moments before. Jasmine was nonplussed, Tiana distant and thoughtful, and Rapunzel, meaning to or no, had said her peace to wish yet another danger into impossibility. But what Ariel believed was true. Her faith in Belle felt ever stronger.

She wasn't alone anymore in this fight.

Jasmine considered this with her usual grace and tact. One of her dark brows skittered down, clearly thinking hard. "And how precisely are we to stop our husbands from ruining our new found plan? I don't know about you ladies, but I certainly do not wish to explain to Aladdin that I'm going against an ancient god while he's chasing Eric about."

Rapunzel swallowed thinly. Then, she nodded. "I've been thinking." She turned her gaze towards Ariel, soft but determined. "Ariel, you've been distant about what you really think is going on...with Eric. I just want you to know that I'm here for you, and if I can do anything to help how he's feeling, I am willing to try."

Ariel rose up. She almost looked dazed to Rapunzel's suggestion. "I...I don't know what to even ask, Rapunzel. I'm sorry. He just gets in this hyper mood and it doesn't stop until…" She trailed away gently, clearly uncomfortable with finishing. "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't want to talk about it, in light of clearly more dangerous things, but I don't know how. I don't think it's…fixable."

"Fixable?" Tiana prompted. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Are you tellin' me something is wrong with Eric? Ariel, honey, why didn't you come to me? Listen, I know I'm not a real doctor but…"

"It's not that!" Ariel blurted at once. She looked at the resigned eyes of both women and flushed. "It's...so hard to describe. I don't even know if I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm pushing my own needs on to him. I know I can be...clingy." She gave a sad giggle. "I don't want any of you to ever think differently about him. He's the best part of my life."

Jasmine softened. "No one is saying anything like that. It's just... I mean, did you hear me just bitch about Aladdin? I love him, but he's a lot right now, and I'm super done with it. And I don't want you to think that you have to put on some show for us. Issues are issues. It happens."

Ariel shook her head again. Her red hair tangled at her shoulders. She looked even smaller than Belle could remember seeing her. She brought the palms of her hands to her cheeks and sighed. "Eric has a kind of mental illness. Or bad humors or whatever terrible thing some quack doctor wants to call it. It's like a mania that possesses him for a time and then leaves him. I don't know. It seems to be danger driven. He's unshakable when he's like this. He won't listen to any reason I say or stand still just to be with me. It's like he thinks he's invincible. It…" She closed her eyes. "It scares me so much."

"Aladdin often seems restless," Jasmine offered hopefully. "And he's been concerned, too. It's not just you, Ariel. Aladdin has talked endlessly about how Eric seems…different." There was a familiar look in her eyes, a look that spoke of conclusion and understanding, like she had been vastly anticipating this outcome. A game only Jasmine could see and conquer. "I could ask Aladdin if—"

"No. Please. I don't want to...I don't want him to know I told...anyone else. He doesn't believe he's...different." Ariel shifted her hand to rub at her shoulders, clearly vulnerable to even be having the conversation aloud.

"What about...me?"

Their eyes turned to the small figure, seated on a plush stool. Rapunzel once more took the stage. Her green eyes looked as stormy as the night she and Belle had fought. Belle raised her chin up just a nod, as curious as she was cautious to what plan Rapunzel might be tempted to play. Her short brown hair hung loose to the sides of her face and she brushed it away carefully to make sure she couldn't hide. "I want to help. I know how I can help. "

Tiana chewed on her bottom lip. "Without talking to him about it directly? How?"

Slowly, Rapunzel stood. She took a deep breath and looked at Belle, not Ariel, and said her words with great conviction: "I helped Adam when he was very sick during his visit in Corona. I'm sure you know, Ariel, that Adam gets a travel sickness." Here, Rapunzel's eyes jumped to meet Ariel's and then moved back to decidedly to Belle. "And I don't regret having made him better. I want to do the same for Eric."

While Jasmine and Tiana took note of exactly who Rapunzel was speaking towards, it was who Ariel peered at Rapunzel in no small wonder, if a bit skeptical. "You mean…through magic?"

Jasmine's dark gaze widened. "Wait, wait, wait. You're telling us—there's more magic? That you're magical?"

Rapunzel flinched, her pixie-like face scrunched as if caught red-handed. "...Yes...I mean…" At once, Rapunzel's tiny lips flittered quickly, almost without pause for air. "It's from a flower but my mom drank the flower and the flower is also a physical part of me, like my hair, but it's also in my hands, I think it's me but it's like a gift and a power and sometimes I have to sing but mostly I cry and…" She mumbled most of these words, and hardly much of her reasoning was made clear at all.

Tiana stopped her. A calm, compassionate gesture as time was wasting and, unless she heard the plan at hand, it didn't much matter to Tiana the 'how' of it all. It was the most Rapunzel had seem to be of herself since arriving and Tiana welcomed it. It also meant, Tiana hoped against hope that if Rapunzel was willing to help Eric, maybe she could help Adam in spite of her limited abilities to heal. "Relax, hun. We get it. And it sounds like you're pretty convinced you can do…" She moved her hands in a small wave as if she could pantomime all Rapunzel was struggling to say. "I heard you want to help Eric. That's all I care about. Ariel, I'm sure, feels the same."

Ariel nodded, enthusiastic at first, but then she slowed, her animation waning. "That is so kind of you, Rapunzel, but...what Eric has...I don't think it's just a passing sickness. Can your healing magic...heal...minds?"

Rapunzel blinked mindfully. Her small mouth opened and then closed. She was still staring deep into Belle's dark eyes. She had hoped that saying what she couldn't, would never reveal to the others was made clear to Belle. She didn't want to be selfish anymore. She could show she could share her gift and help those in need...indiscriminately. She sharpened her gaze into Belle's and tried to appear...brave. Just as brave as Belle was that night, while she could barely leave her parents' bedroom. Belle was just a kind, amazing, powerful person. And she didn't even have powers or the protection of healing.

Belle didn't need them.

She had brought her entire plan to them, without fear, without hesitation, and they had traveled through time, or maybe distance, Rapunzel couldn't be sure, but...Belle was willing to risk anything for a chance to make things right.

And Rapunzel...what did she have to show for it? She was just...herself. Just like Rapunzel had seen that night, and what did she do?

She decided to hurt. She needed to stay safe. She needed them out of her life, like Gothel, like her nightmares and her attacks and her desperate need to not be alone. She had healed Adam at the cost her friendship with Belle and then had condemned Adam for a crime he couldn't even remember.

She knew she was in the wrong. She wasn't so cruel, so poisonous that she couldn't see the reflection of her fear echoed in Adam's face. She knew it long before Eugene had told her of Adam's abuse. She could see it, she could feel it through her hands, the way the magic felt...haunted. He's been hurt by someone long, long before the curse and he would be forever changed because of it. Just as Gothel had changed her. They would never be the two perfect people they might have been when they were just babies. She had been stolen and lost…and Adam, just the same. Changed. Irreversible. She could see it in the pale, tear filled fear as Adam stared at her through the dark of that prisoner's cot, both saved and damned by her magic. People were so vulnerable through her power. Easily manipulated into secrets and truth by her will alone.

Gothel wasn't insane to think she could live forever with Rapunzel's gift. But what she lacked was the foresight of a ruler. Rapunzel's magic couldn't just save the body—she could perhaps, in some limited way, unravel the mind….

No. Rapunzel pushed that lone thought away. She had no business toying with the mental energy of others. No, I can't help Eric's mind. That was the very sad answer to Ariel's very important question. Her magic couldn't heal those sick of the mind. It was hard to accept all at once, like the rising of the sun too painful and huge and necessary to grasp once its light had poured glossily over the surface of the ocean. She didn't want to consider the alternative to what she couldn't save. She could heal the sick and the dying and the wounded.

But nothing, Rapunzel was slowly learning to accept, would heal her from the past.

And in that, there might be nothing that would stop Eric, nothing so preciously holistic or masterful that she, pathetic and selfish and terrible as she felt she was, that would cure Eric of such a fate.

Just like she couldn't save Adam.

…..Could she?

Her gaze was for Belle and Belle alone. But, regardless of her body language, her obvious plea for Belle's forgiveness in a meaningful look, Belle was unreadable. Perhaps, it was too late.

When would she finally be allowed to understand and not be too late to learn from her own mistakes? When? When?

"My magic...it doesn't work in that way. It's far more about the body than the spirit." Rapunzel had thought herself to wise and brave to voice herself as openly as she could when it was clear there was little other choice. The pirates and the demon Hades and...the curse...dare she count Adam as well...was coming all too soon. Adam was dying, regardless of what Eugene said, and she still felt too scared to move. But she knew what she had to do.

And she could only guess how little time he had left as well. But she had to try.

She couldn't just give up. Not again.

Not in front of Belle.

"However," Rapunzel continued without a moment to give pause to doubt. "I wish to try. I want to try." She then nodded respectfully towards Ariel. "If you'll allow me. I have a small plan; really, it isn't much of a plan. But I won't alert him that anything is different. And...if it works…maybe we can keep him safe while we work with Belle's tome to...save Meg. To stop the pirates from taking your...home."

"Atlantica?" Belle asked quietly. Now it was her turn to appear nervous. "I...I didn't want to presume but...the compass...it very clearly is pointing to you. And all Hades could do was talk of a city under the sea."

"Yes…" Ariel turned away from their faces. "I'm human. Now. I am human. I...didn't used to be." She raised her eyes to meet Rapunzel's, a shared look of vulnerable relief between them. "There. Now you aren't the only one with secrets."

Rapunzel only offered her a small smile back.

"Well then," Jasmine began at once, although the wide, clear look in her eyes said a lot for how much she had absorbed in all the confessing in the room. "Half of my stuff is made of fake fur. And by half, I mean, like, all of it."

All the eyes turned to her at once. She blushed, just a little, and her lips smirked upwards, clearly amused to take the mood out of the room. "What? Everyone has such juicy secrets and it's so sweet and I just felt like I should confess something too. I own a pet tiger. I don't like killing animals even if their pelts make skirts to die for."

At this, Belle gave a tiny laugh, which trickled into a chuckle, and finally Jasmine joined in a well, followed but Ariel and the rest. Eventually, Tiana said, "Naveen and I got turned into frogs!" And while the room continued on in laughter, there was a short moment where Tiana laughed and then made a disgusted face, a clear sign that her confession was a story she wasn't quite ready to share.

Belle was the first to speak, the laughter bringing much needed color back to her face.

"Ariel. Rapunzel. Tiana. Jasmine." She looked at each princess in turn. Her throat felt tight. For a moment, she thought to tell them of the curse, Rapunzel excluded, but she couldn't form the words. Instead, she merely opened her hand to reveal the coin. "It's decided, then. We will work together and hopefully aid our husbands in the oncoming attack. But for us alone, I will need your help to move against Hades-both for Ariel and Eric's sake. And."

Belle had turned towards Rapunzel. Her insides felt tight but she knew she had to move forward from her wounded pride. She needed Rapunzel. And if Rapunzel was so determined to help Eric, to save Ariel, and she kept her promise to not reveal Adam...then Belle did not need to say a single word.

For Rapunzel was already hugging her.

"M' sorry. M' so, so sorry, Belle." Rapunzel half whispered, half mumbled, her face pressed hard into Belle's neck.

Wrapped tightly in the slender arms of Rapunzel, Belle couldn't help but to hug her back. She still felt cross. She still felt the hurt of months before. But now, for a moment, she had to push her feelings aside. Clearly, Rapunzel was trying to be forward and open, trying to use her power for something other than herself and her people. Rapunzel looked up at Belle and smiled, her freckles more apparently up close, her cheeks pink with uncertainty. Belle smiled back. She reached up and pushed Rapunzel's hair just a bit behind her ear.

How, for a single heartbeat, how much that small, desperate-to-please smile upon her face reminded her so very much of Adam.

"Thank you," they both said at once.

"You're looking for Eric, aren't you?" Aladdin asked all too quickly. He was leaning against the doorway, last light from the setting sun dotted tightly behind him. His face looked wind-burned. Grainy, beach-like sand slowly shifted out of his hair, from the insides of his sandals, and the pockets of his pants. Rapunzel approached him casually, trying to appear most surprised than she felt. It was all too obvious, both from his stance and the annoyed look on the prince's face that Eric was on his mind as well.

Rapunzel gave him a shy, guilty smile. "He isn't with you?"

Aladdin gave a rough scoff. "Nope. Not anymore. We just spent three hours setting traps along the bottom of the southern cove." He paused here to give a long, tired sigh. Rapunzel couldn't help but feel for him. When the boat party returned from its morning lull, Aladdin and Eric were the only ones not accounted for. "But now he's off somewhere, doing something, I'm sure."

Rapunzel knitted her brows sympathetically. "You're a much stronger person than me to spend that much time underwater."

At this, Aladdin's irritated scowl slowly lightened. He studied her with his dark, direct gaze and then gave a half-hearted shrug.

"Nah. Not even a little. I'm exhausted. I just wish I had any idea why we had to set traps under the water. Honestly, if you think I'm beat, you should see Eric. A few days ago I thought he was just impassioned; now I think he's just crazy from lack of sleep. Or maybe it's me, and I'm just too stupid to understand the bigger picture than traps under the water," Aladdin rolled his eyes quite dramatically. "But I'm hoping it's all going to plan. Whatever crazy plan it is. I mean, we haven't even seen a single ship. Not one! I just—" He stopped, clearly catching himself mid-ramble. "I just spent three hours being beaten up by the ocean and I'm really, really pissed off at Eric right now." He took a short breath. "Sorry. Not that you care about that."

Rapunzel nodded. "Believe me, I very much care about the possibility of pirates attacking." She leaned in a little to catch Aladdin's ear. "Honestly: picture Eugene with a sword. Who do you think is really going to do the fighting around here?"

Aladdin flatted his smirk. He wasn't in the mood to laugh but Rapunzel was pretty cute. She was just so tiny. The image was far funnier to imagine her taking a pirate down. Even if she could definitely do it better than Fitzherbert.

"So, sorry to chat and run but...I really do need to see Eric."

Aladdin held up a hand in resignation. "Sure." He then directed his hand smoothly down the opposite hall. "Follow the sound of sand and incoherent muttering."

Rapunzel gave a little flounce of a certainty before she bid Eric goodbye and moved down the hall.

Sure enough, Aladdin was right. Eric was just a few meters down the hall, his back straight and his fists strangely clenching and unclenching at his sides. She slowed down and thought carefully about how she wanted this to pan out. She didn't want to alert Eric to any kind of misdirection or scheming; honestly, was attempting to ease someone's pain truly any plan of real attack? She chewed faintly on the side of her cheek as she edged nearer. If this went wrong…would Eric react poorly as Ariel said he might? And, to be certain, Rapunzel had never seen Eric in this state so close before. Mentioned, sure, gossiped, of course, but in person…

She tightened her nerves. She crushed her fear deep into the pit of her stomach. This was Eric they were all talking about! Eric, who was sweet and kind and charming and, above all, courteous. It's not like you're facing Adam, she thought, a bit rudely, but it was the honest truth. She could trip and fall and make the biggest idiot out of herself and Eric would be the first to help her and jokingly pretend he never saw a thing.

"Excuse me!" Rapunzel called lightly. She sped up her footsteps, bare and soft over the smooth wood of the hall. "Eric, Eric, thank goodness, I've found you!"

Eric froze mid-step, his shoulders giving a little hunch as if he had been startled. Although Rapunzel could not see his face, she instantly felt sorry that she didn't approach him more normally, like from the front of the hall, instead of skirting around behind him like a tiny shadow.

"Rapunzel?" Eric turned on his heel in a soldier's stance to face the princess. It was rather impressive to see an about-face so smoothly. His hands dropped their movement, as if the change in direction was what allowed his body to focus on something else. At first, Rapunzel could only smile to see her friend's face after what felt like so many long days of coming to visit in his home and never once see him. But then, her smile faded, and the man that slowly walked back to her looked for all the world the most unlike Eric she had ever seen.

Eric was a mess. Even his fine dark hair seemed dull. His skin looked ever paler, popping the blue of his eyes into an unavoidable harsh focus. Gone was Eric's usual demeanor of grace. He looked just as exhausted as Aladdin but there was something about his eyes that seemed...redder, bloodshot and strikingly alarmed, although it was only Rapunzel, clad in her purple dress without shoes, per usual, and still, Eric looked as if he had prepared for someone far worse. Surely, Aladdin was just exaggerating Eric's lack of sleep but, staring at him eye to eye, Rapunzel couldn't help but feel miserable just looking at him.

She paused for just a second more than she should have before she spoke. "Eric...um. I'm sorry, I know you're so busy but I just wanted a quick moment of your time."

He blinked at her. Her words felt a blur.

"What do you want?" He said bluntly. He tilted his head, just a little, as if he couldn't understand her. There was a monotone to his words that made Rapunzel feel all the more distance between them. Is this how Ariel feels all the time when he's like this?

Rapunzel hesitated for a moment. Conversation between them usually felt so comfortable before. "Um. To talk to you?"

Then, his eyes widened. He blinked only to close himself off. He rubbed at his face in a rather boyish way, clearly taking a moment to compose himself. "I'm sorry, Rapunzel. I can't keep my head on straight." A tight grin over took his mouth, but it didn't change that strange look in his eyes. "Yes, what can I do for you?"

Okay. Okay. Rapunzel felt her breathing quicken but she held on. Polite. Friendly. Eric totally isn't acting weird. And neither are you. "Well," she glanced at the floor, his boots, and finally at his face, attempting to gather intrigue. Eric's expression seemed to be stuck. It wasn't an attractive look. "I know you're sick to death of pirates, right? So, Naveen, he's been talking to all the girls about a ball, and I was thinking…"

Here, Eric seemed to lose a bit of his rigidness. He dropped his eyes to the floor. It was such a strange scene to Rapunzel. Eric always was positive and headstrong and determined. Now, he was staring at the floor as if he couldn't bear to look at her, to see the doubt lurking behind one more pair of eyes. Did she think he was humoring him? That all of his friends were? That was so sad. Of course the castle believed in him; even Ariel believed something was coming. Hell, Rapunzel adjusted that thought quickly: Belle had brought proof and far more than any of that.

Eric wasn't wrong.

But he looked so tired of being right.

"I know that the entire castle thinks I'm acting insane for all the talk of pirates and not having seen one, but they are coming." He pressed the final word with a soft, sincere plea. Without thinking of it, Rapunzel and him had taken to whispering, even with no one else around.

This caught her off task. Slowly, Rapunzel softened her tone, less formal and more...concerned. She hoped it didn't sound as obvious to him as it did to her own ears. It reminded her of the soothing tone Eugene would use with her whenever her anxiety attempted to take her. The connection, how much she wanted to comfort him when the plan was much simpler. She felt a bit sick to think Eugene saw her as Eric looked all the time. "That's what I mean. We know they're coming but...well, we could use a break, right?"

Eric said nothing. He rolled one of his shoulders, a look of pain flickering briefly over his face. Rapunzel could only pretend she didn't see it. "I hadn't even considered the possibility."

"Well, I think that break should be the ball. Naveen keeps talking about it and, well, at first I thought he was just, you know, being Naveen, but I've got to thinking and wondering, if you weren't already asked, if you would partner with me for the Danse des Fleurs Fanées? It's my favourite dance and I really would love to dance it with you. I don't believe we've danced together before. You know how Naveen delights in switching all the couples around. Something about 'visual sycophantic rhythm"." She had moved her tone to attempt to be funny. It was an odd term. But Eric looked on listlessly. He blinked at her again, giving nothing away. Cringing internally, she continued on: "Uh. It's an artist thing, I think? Anyway. Any thoughts?"

Long seconds seemed to crawl by before Eric finally continued,

"Oh. The ball. Of course, right, right." Eric replied slowly. He looked a bit lost for a moment, standing in the hall of his own castle, bewildered at Rapunzel's casual request of an event that they frequently far too often. "To be honest, I don't think we'll have the time to throw one. I don't think it will work out."

Oh no. Rapunzel leaped to her back up at once. "Well, think of it-as just in case. Just in case the ball happens, will you be my partner for the fanées? You know, the dance where the two exchange partners' mid-way through? I would be delighted to have you."

His dark brows twitched bit. Clearly, a new thought had entered his mind. "Ah…" He then laughed softly. "I'm sorry, I can't keep up. Run that by me again?"

"Danse des fleurs fanées." Rapunzel began again, this carefully laying her emphasis over her ending question. "Would you dance it with me?"

He mumbled the French term sluggishly between his lips.

"The fanées is a French dance, right? Wouldn't Adam be more suited?"

"If you don't mind, I prefer just you." Rapunzel answered tersely. If her directness to dance only with Eric and not with Adam embered up any feelings of insult, Eric did not let on.

"That would be fine with me, then." Eric agreed. It wasn't the big event Rapunzel had imagined but the moment was soon at hand. She just wished she didn't feel so scummy in doing what he clearly needed. What Ariel needed.

"Wait, wait. Shall we shake on it?" Rapunzel moved her hand outwards, ready to take his own.

"A handshake?" At this, a little of the old Eric seemed to come alive within the body of the young man before her. He perked up, as if suddenly realizing where he was and to whom he finally talking. "Now who is being coy?" He opened his arms for a hug. "As if we'd be so formal for a handshake, Rapunzel." Here, he offered her a tired wink.

Okay. Her heart skipped. Hugs work too, Rapunzel thought, and she wrapped her arms around Eric's shoulders. Without waiting, too scared he'd pull away too soon, Rapunzel snaked her hand to rest gently over the back of his neck, perhaps too intimate for the causality she was going for, but she literally couldn't back out now. Under her breath, she began the healing spell, a quick, short verse of just a few words. The tips of her fingers sparkled that glossy, golden glow, and she forced her arms to tighten over Eric.

A moment. Another moment. She refused to panic. Nothing seemed to have changed. Did it work at all? Her thoughts flew together and apart like the movement of hunted birds. Was she again too late?

Until…Eric sighed. It was a simple, gentle sound to her ear, but it was unmistakably his own. All at once, his body relaxed against her. To check, Rapunzel's arms moved them apart carefully. Nervously, Rapunzel studied her friend's face. Here, she expected the worst of it: his scowl, his anger, his keen ability to know what she had done, to manipulate a vulnerable person against his will? Rapunzel felt her knees start to shake. But...it wasn't so.

Eric looked rapidly better. The paleness and tenseness of his shoulders loosened. The startled, anxious look in his eyes was suddenly calmed. She couldn't help but break into a wide smile. Eric didn't seem to mind her. With the heavy blink, he looked as if he had just been shaken out of sleep.

"Eric?" Rapunzel tested carefully. She had to grasp his arms a bit more to balance him. He had suddenly swayed on his feet, and Rapunzel had to be careful that he didn't drag her down with him.

He blinked heavily again. This time, when his head sagged down a bit towards her shoulder, Rapunzel gave his arms a tighter squeeze. "Eric?"

"Sorry…" Eric said thickly, his voice a weak murmur. He looked remarkably dazed. "I don't know what's wrong with me." He gave another laugh, but it sounded for once, genuine and open. He was laughing at himself. "I've just realized that I'm… so tired."

"Yes," Rapunzel agreed softly. "I can see that." She couldn't help but feel a bit proud of her own handiwork. Maybe, she could still help her friends. Maybe she didn't have to hide her gifts at fear of what might become of her. "Should I get Ariel?"

Eric gave a weak shake of his head. "Um...no, it's fine. Tell her I'll come and see her soon. Thank you, Rapunzel."

While the instruction sounded vague, Rapunzel nodded along. She watched Eric carefully, both curious to see if she didn't use a bit too much magic and to make sure he wouldn't just curl into a ball on the flooring to sleep, before Eric continued moving down the hall, and out of sight.

Rapunzel glowed. If that was all it might take to keep Eric out of their way, then everything was going perfectly to plan.

AN: RIP Eric next chapter, it was super fun and exciting writing your wild god-damn ride. No one is prepared for what hell Rapunzel hath brought upon us all.