Roused 056 Be With Your True Love

- Roused
- Chapter 056
~ Be With Your True Love
- The boys climb the tower to be with their girls and spend time with the moms.

Prince Phillip and Eugene come up the stairs to visit their princesses. They pause and take in what they didn't bother to look at before, having been too concerned about their princesses. The queens are sitting quietly, just being near their beloved daughters, in case they need anything.

Queen Leah and Queen Rebecca are talking quietly, by candlelight.

Queen Leah puts a finger over her pink lips to indicate the need for quiet, the princesses are asleep again. The exhaustion has claimed them for now; the pain will wake them again later. Pascal is sitting quietly next to Rapunzel's head between them, watching anxiously, one independent eye on each princess.

Eugene and Rebecca move right into a hug and after a moment so do Phillip and Leah, when she nods. They take comfort in the love of that embrace.

They move to stand out on the balcony so they can speak without disturbing or losing sight of the princesses, the last rays of light from the sun illuminating the kingdom and the columns of smoke rising in the distance. Storm clouds are covering most of the sky. Rain can be seen in the distance.

"How are they?" Eugene asks quietly.

"They are exhausted and in pain, so they wake up from pain and then fall asleep from exhaustion," replies Queen Rebecca in a whisper.

"Can't we offer them brandy or something for the pain?" asks Phillip quietly.

Queen Leah looks pensive, "We did, but they are afraid of it. Rapunzel says she felt the bindings on her mind loosen when she tried it once, and she is afraid of her mind unraveling. Now Aurora is terrified of it, because her mind did unravel before," she finished in hushed tones.

"Her mind what!?" Phillip asks loudly.

"Shh!" go the queens, looking back to the girls. Aurora's head moves slightly, she mumbles Phillip's name, but she continues to sleep.

They return to their conversation.
Eugene is looking deeply concerned.
Phillip's look is beyond anxious.

"After we sent you to fight the goons, Aurora fell into what we thought was melancholy, but it was much worse then that. We were trying to introduce her into our family and kingdom much like Rapunzel was, but we ended up stepping on a bunch of her snakes, and nearly unravelling her mind." Leah begins to explain.

"Snakes?" asked Phillip confused, his tired mind trying to assemble all this new information. Rapunzel had snakes from the kidnapper, how did Aurora have snakes? The good fairies were good and had protected her, didn't they?

"Snakes in the grass of her soul." Eugene tells Phillip, "It was a phrase Queen Rebecca came up with to describe the traps left in Rapunzel's mind by the kidnapper. For example, she can't tell us 'I love you' in those words because of how that phrase was twisted by Gothel in her mind."

"Yes, you did say that in your letters," said Phillip remembering. Not being able to tell someone you love that you did would be so hard.

"We have found ways to work around it for now, but it's one we will be working on for as long as it takes to charm," finishes Eugene decisively.

"We just charmed that one," says Queen Rebecca triumphantly to Eugene, a smile as big as all outdoors on her face. "The next time she sees you, she will tell you she loves you. They had a ritual of love and it messed everything up in her head, but we've overcome that one, finally."

Eugene looks like he's going to let out a whoop, but a quick gesture from the queens' silences him, so he picks up Queen Rebecca and spins her around, her long brown hair flying, to release the happy energy he suddenly has.

"That's wonderful," Eugene whispers excitedly.

"It is. We'll be working with Aurora. She can't say I love you, either," says Queen Rebecca.

"Okay. But how did 'snakes' cause her mind to unravel?" asks Prince Phillip, trying to think if she had ever said I love you to him, he wasn't sure if she had ever said it out loud, but he knew she did love him. The look in her eyes told him that and so much more. Rapunzel had snakes and she wasn't in that kind of pain, was she? Now, he wasn't so sure. So much going on and he was so tired. It was hard to keep it all straight in his head.

"I take it you didn't get my letter from …was it only last night? It's felt like years." Leah said in wonder. "Okay, to bring you up to speed, after Aurora left you in the forest she ran home to tell her aunts, the fairies, who told her she could never see you again, and revealed that she is the Princess Aurora, that they are fairies, that she has parents and a kingdom. They gave her new clothes and they brought her home."

"Then Maleficent came and took her from her room— which we now know she's afraid of, that's why she's up here, you woke her here and this is the happiest place we know of for her in the castle —and made her prick her finger on the spinning wheel. We served venison, rabbit and pheasant at meals and she considers those friends and not food. Nothing is familiar to her here and she was in terror of Maleficent coming to take her from her room again. Lots of bad things happened all at once and we couldn't see them happening. I'm sorry," Queen Leah puts a hand on Prince Phillip's arm.

"I should have come back, you urged me to come back." Prince Phillip said, looking at his beloved.

"You said yourself, you couldn't, because you didn't have enough men to make the trip, and you would have left villages undefended. You were in a terrible dilemma, no choice was a good choice," said Prince Eugene.

"I know." Phillip says frustratedly.

"But Rapunzel and her family came and helped her braid her mind back together. She was going back to the cottage where she grew up to get her clothes and other things, but then they ran into the goons. You know the rest," finished Leah.

"Yes," he said grimly.

"Right now, there is not a lot you can do. We've treated their feet and now they are resting and healing. We will be here, taking care of them. You need to be out there protecting them and everybody." Leah gestures out over the balcony where they see columns of smoke in the distance, lit by the last rays of the sun.

"You are here now though, I want you both to get in there and be with them and hold their hands. They may be asleep, but they will know you are here and that you love them."

"Yes, ma'am," say the princes in unison. They move to the chairs next to the beds and take the hands of their true loves, who sigh and slip into a deep restful sleep.

They stay until Queen Rebecca notices Prince Phillip nodding off in his chair, and they send them off to bed, there will be more goons to fight in the morning, but they helped their princesses tonight.
- End of Chapter 056