Voyeur

Rapunzel never would have pegged him as an artist; he himself stated he wasn't much of one. Then again, there were plenty of things he claimed he was poor at, but was secretly fairly decent. Things like singing, poetry, telling the truth, baking, dancing, finding Pascal, public speaking, sewing, being nice to Maximus; the list is actually quite long. As she thought, Rapunzel was suddenly annoyed with herself. She really shouldn't be so surprised. Flipping through his (borrowed without permission) sketchbook, she had to hand it to him. Eugene had some skill with a pencil.

Settling down against her headboard, she opened it to the beginning. The first several pages were mostly random doodles, and filled 98% of the page, front and back. There were crude depictions of toys, children playing, an imposing building, and food, round discs she assumed were coins and little comments scrawled out in any available space. In all honesty, Rapunzel had a hard time reading anything he wrote, his handwriting being atrociously poor. She could make out some words, though: munny, mom, dad, never, cook, devil, home, never. It all started to leave Rapunzel feeling pangs of sympathy. They certainly were a match made in Heaven: him coming from a home with too many to care for to actually attend to their developmental needs, and her coming from a home with a psychologically abusive kidnapper.

Sighing herself out of these thoughts, she continued through his book. Patiently, she took in all the details she could, and made note of the gradual improvement in quality and penmanship. After several pages, the doodles began to spread out, leaving a bit more blank space in between them. Soon the toys and children playing were replaced with expensive looking clothing, trinkets, and pretty girls. Next to one of them were the words: Girls are pretty, tell NO ONE. That one had Rapunzel giggling loudly.

She wasn't prepared for the next page, and it took her by surprise. It was the first fully colored, full page sketch, and it looked like an illustration for a book. The border color was a dull teal, and in the center was a roguishly handsome man in a fighting stance and a cutlass in his hand. Surrounding him was a provocatively dressed noblewoman, and evil looking man with a handlebar mustache and a cloak, and treasure chests at his feet. Underneath this scene, in an ornate banner, was the title The Tales of Flynnagin Rider. Rapunzel appreciated the amount of care and devotion spent on this little masterpiece. It certainly must have taken him a long time, and she didn't even want to think about what he had to do to get the supplies to color it. Again, she felt the pang of sympathy.

A sharp knock at her door had her nearly falling off the bed in surprise. She stashed the book in her secret hiding place behind the headboard and fumbled for another book. Grabbing the first one on her bedside table, she settled herself back on her bed, and tried to look as casual as possible. "Come in!"

"Hey, there you are." Eugene gave her warm smile. "I just got done with training. Thought I'd escort you to dinner."

"Dinner?" She set the book on the bed next to her, and stood. "I didn't even realize it got so late…"

"Hmm, you usually have a pretty good internal clock." He glanced behind her to the book on the bed. "What has you so involved you ignore the call of food? Did you finally find your mother's secret stash of romance novels?"

Eugene reached over and picked up the thick book and read the title. Rapunzel's eyes widened at the title and she internally groaned. This ought to be interesting…

His dark eyes blinked slowly, glanced back at her, and back to the book, and back to her. "The 101 Joys of Wearing Shoes," he stated flatly. He regarded her fully, cocking an eyebrow. "Now, while I know you like to try new things, once to see what it's like, twice to see if you like it, and three times just to make completely sure, I was under the assumption that, no matter the size and type, you abhorred shoes with every fiber of your being. You tried them ten times."

"Well," she began. "It was a gift from my etiquette tutor (totally true). She said that even though I'm fairly certain in my vehemence for foot attire, I should consider giving it another go (again true) I told her I would really give them another try after I read the book (This was only somewhat true. What she actually said was that she would burn all the shoes in the kingdom in a heathen bonfire if Madam Greta ever mentioned shoes again)."

"…right…" Eugene kept a blank face.

She smiled nervously. "So, you said something about dinner?"

Eugene looked into her eyes with a small smirk on his face, seeming to run something through his mind. "Yes, dinner. I'm sure you can't wait to get back to the amazing thrills of open toe heels and fur lined boots, so the sooner we get the better."

Linking her arm through his proffered elbow, he led her down to the dining hall where her mother and father were waiting for them.

If Rapunzel was being completely honest with herself, she'd say she made a pretty good show of not coming off as preoccupied. All throughout dinner, her mind kept wandering back to the sketchbook, and what else was in it. More importantly, she wondered how she was going to get it back to his room without him missing it.