It had been hours she had been staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror, standing still in front of it, frozen. Her expression blank, her gaze devoid of any kind of readable emotion a living human being usually posseses, she remained there, motionless, no sign of life emanating from her body.

(There was still something bothering her deep inside that she tried to hide away from others.)

They wouldn't understand, anyway.

Lies.

She couldn't count all the time she had attempted to convince herself she couldn't be happier with him, that her marriage was perfectly fine, and that her couple wasn't going straight into a wall.

Can you believe words spoken by somebody who doesn't even believe what he says himself ?

By the time she - at last - decided to move and to prove to whoever was staring at her from above that she was indeed still alive, the glowing sun was long gone, the silver moon up in the deep sky to replace it, with the stars shining all around and keeping watchful eyes upon the peaceful realm of Corona.

And Eugene hadn't come back yet.

What had she thought ? Had she truly been dumb enough to believe things would change that easily ? Had she really believed she would finally get her happy ending, that she would finally live happily ever after ? Things aren't that simple. Oh, if only they were...

Foolishness.

It only occurs in fairytales you read to your children in a futile attempt to make life appear blissful to their eyes, to allow them to think for the short time that childhood represents that life isn't this bad. Fairytales people tend to forget that last hardly two or three hundreds pages when they dream of having their lives looking like their favorite characters'. Fairytales you use to make younger people believe the words you don't believe in anymore, because, honestly, that's the least you can do for them. Words they end up not believing in either anyway.

Still they'll most likely be doing the exact same thing to their own children when the time comes. They'll be sending dreams to people before life gets the chance to rip it away from you and let you crawling in its proven cruelty.

And, as much as she wished it would, a ring around her finger couldn't erase the past to let her move forward to her happy ending. Joyful or painful as it may be, the past always remains.

Eighteen years had been wasted without she even noticed it, without anyone to notice it.

(And Eugene hadn't come back yet.)

All she had learned from her reflection that - like any other day she stared at herself like this - was that it displayed a woman - no longer a young girl - who looked utterly exhausted from the sleepless nights she and her husband had desperately spent awake trying to conceive a baby.

The baby Eugene thought that could save them.

The baby Rapunzel knew who just couldn't.

Because how could a newborn baby reconcile two uset souls like theirs ? How could an innocent human being repair the broken links between two grown-up individuals who once loved each other ?

(Had there even been true love here ?)

Her brownish hair did not shine in the sunlight, nor did it glow under the moonlight, it dod not fly along with the wind, it didn't grow a centimeter, and it did not own anymore power. It looked perfectly ordinary, and lifeless, just like she did.

Magic always comes with a price.

(Doesn't it ?)

Who knew, who could guess their beloved Princess felt ever-so-lonely in her castle albeit she had spent most of her time for the past months surrounded by her people, children who longed to speak to her, parents come for her to bless their newborn—

babies (that would never be hers),—

old people wanting for her powers to help them...

And those bastards, from the Council, who thought judging him was a wise solution...

Seriously, Your Highness, a thief ? A thief who stole the crown ? I mean, if he's to become King...

(A thief that had change for the better under the spell of love... wait, was it even supposed to be a problem ?)

Love knows no limit, she had replied. It can unite two people with different ages - after all it's just a number - interests, gender, social and geographic origins, and it doesn't seem to care slightest bit whether it's legal or not, pleasant or not. It is blind.

And Eugene (her true love ?) hadn't come back, yet.

He could be enlaced into another girl's arms, or lying almost dead in the corner of one dark back alley in town for all she knew. He always was so unpredictable.

Please forgive my forwardness, Your Grace, but people do not change. At best they show us their true colors, but their old habits always catch up to them and end up getting the best of them. And guess who gets hurt and disappointed in the end ? Keep in mind that a change for the better as you say, does never last forever.

(Had they ever given anyone a second chance ?)

Always and never are words you shall always remember never to use, Sir.

And they lived happily ever after, she mimicked in her mind. Such bullshit it was ! She had kept on believing in it at any cost for years, often awaking her "mother"'s wrath for being so childish. She couldn't even regret having a fervent belief in this famous ideal, because if it wasn't for it, she wouldn't even still be there to begin with. Who knew what kind of dark demons hid inside a young, naive, gullible and semingly light-hearted teenager ?

Sweetheart, you don't have a clue about what's truly giving you so much value do you ?

(What would she have been without her golden long blond hair ? A Princess living happily in her casle with her true family...)

She couldn't tell her "mother" how life seemed to be dark and not worth living at night !

And her real mother, the Queen, who thought she could replace the one whom she had lived with for eighteen years and who had raised although she was also the one who had built her whole life on a pile of lies that would obviously end up shattering, the one who had taken her away from her parents and the happy little life she would've lived, the one who had drained all life from her body little by little without having a single clue of it.

The one who had always been there had vanished into thin air and would never come back ! And her mother, The Queen, was so naive to believe she could really so easily forget it all and restart. At last she knew where she got that from.

She could not deny the happiness of being reunited with her family, the satisfaction of living with so many people around, so many children to read fairytales to until it was time to head back at the castle.

Fairytales.

But she found herself alone again, on her balcony, contemplating the deep night, her grip on the railing so tight that her knuckles eventually turned livid.

Eugene hasn't come back yet.

God only knew what he was doing right then, and oh how she didn't even want to know about it ! She had been used to it long before. Him promising her he would be back before diner, and ending up coming back home the following morning in the early hours, pretexting he had had some extra work and had to sleep there.

By then, Eugene should have come back, already.

Bring back what once was mine.

But who could have known things would have ended up that way ? She should have been far more clear-sighted. She should have know better.

(But "mother" had always known best...)

Fairytales.

Do you even still love me ? she had asked him once, fearing the answer though she already knew what it would be before his lips had even only parted to utter a word.

Why wouldn't I, Blondie ? but she knew what he thought deep inside, and it was the exact contrary.

Stop calling me that. We're no more lovestruck teenagers.

(Don't you know it's rude to answer one's queston by another question ?)

Fairytales, fairytales, fairytales...

They had married far too soon. His proposal was based on a few words spoken by young people with no love experience, who were firmly convinced the feeling was deep and mutual. She could only curse herself for having accepted. She should have thought of her own wellbeing before his. Yet he had seemed to be so crazy in love with her back then. And she was stuck with a man who no longer cared about her and that was definitely visiting other girls while she could only stare and watch, helpless. Perhapds was he trying to get the recomfort she could no longer provide him, or the baby she could definitely not give him either.

God kill them all.

While she was forced to attend to lessons in order to follow her parents' steps, he could wander freely all day around the kingdom and do whatever pleased him. He would never become King, anyway.

I deeply apologize, Your Highness, but in no way possible can we accept an orphaned thief to rule over a realm, especially one as prosperous as ours.

Perhaps it was for the better, finally, she thought.

The best he can look for is to become your personal advisor, but even married to you, wa cannot alow him to become King Consort, let alone the reigning King.

Eugene had never been fond of running a kingdom. She couldn't even call her advisor for he was never there when she requested his help. He missed official meetings with foreign dignitaries, slept during the meeting with the Council - and snored loudly -, he left the balls and parties way too early... She would have to rule alone when the time would come. It was a truth she would have to face, and the sooned she realized it, the better it would be.

They all rot in hell.

(She always cursed herself after thinking of such words.)

Truth to be told, it was much better that way. She didn't even want to figure out how bad of a monarch he wouldv'e made, especially for the sake of the people.

At least he'll be there to provide heirs for the Crown, Your Grace.

If they only knew... Their effort had been fruitless. They had tried countless times, and it had all been in vain. And they - especially Eugene, although he wouldn't admit it - were sick of trying.

What did she have left to hold him back ? What arguments could she use to make him wanna stay ? She couldn't even satisfy the both of them in bed. She hadn't even been able to look at him straight it the eyes for a while.

Rumors.

Rumors were the worst of all. She could hear the constant chattering of the maids, rambling about how the Prince hadn't come back into his wife's arms that night, nor the previous night, not even the night before... Rumors about how he spent all his time in town with friends and went to find other girls when night came. Rumors about how the Princess found herself hoplessly facing her current fragile situation. They were a sure source of informations. They had eyes and ears everywhere, always in the right place to be.

So did her parent, to which ears those rumors hadn't escaped. Every staff member of the palace had ended up knowing more about her personal life than she even herself did, so how wouldn't they ?

Are you okay, my darling ?

And the Queen was back with her failing attempts to comfort her and appear as the strong figure of a mother, trying to catch up on the years they had spent torn apart by some evil woman who knew Rapunzel better than her.

Eugene, however, could not care less about what they said and how it affected the wife he had willingly chosen to spend the rest of his life with.

And live happily ever after.

His love had proven itself to be futile.

She didn't have a single doubt he had loved her. Dearly, tenderly, genuinely, even. But it wasn't the kind of love to last forever like it does in fairytales.

Was love a strength or a weakness ?

She had tried to convince her cousins not to marry for love, when they had come to Corona for her 23rd birthday, because when you realize the love you thought existed doesn't, it's your whole world that comes crashing down. But noticing how Elsa was unhappy, married to a man whom she had been betrothed before she was even born - well, not exactly, but it was all like -, a man who only benefited the throne and who was most likely the reason why Elsa would never know what love coming from someone else but a family member was like, she felt glad she had gotten the chance to experience the joy his love had awaken in her, even if it hadn't lasted.

Better get a little bit than nothing at all.

Moreover, love seemed to be the two sisters' greatest strength that had saved both their lives and the value of family.

If it wasn't for love, we wouldn't be on earth anymore. Anna's love for me saved my life, and it also saved her. Love will thaw—

—a frozen heart.

(And love saved them.)

According to Elsa, Anna was love. A platonic kind of love, sisterly love, but a kind of love that proved to be the strongest of all.

(Romantic love, even your supposed-to-be true love, was nothing comared to that. A little mouse against the imeasurable force of the raging ocean.)

Oh how she would have loved to have a sibling to rely on, a sibling whose love would make her feel like it didn't matter whether Eugene's was still directed toward her or not because it would be the most important thing in the world.

Unhappily for her, she hadn't any, and had to face it all on her own, like she always had. She'd been used to it.

Eugene wouldn't answer any of her questions when it came to that topic.

He was like a book written in a foreign language she did not speak. A language she did not know, let alone understand. He was unreadable.

He was barely a human being anymore. He was not the kind of Prince to grant her every wish, to vow to protect her against all enemies, to take her affectionately in his amrs with no further motives but to hold her close to his heart. He was a man who had grown up alone, had had a tough childhood and had truly faced the whole world on his own. He was deaf to her words, to her pleas to go somehere else together, only the two of them. He barel paid her attention anymore. They were all but a happy royal couple at the end of a famous well-known fairytale she often caught herself dreaming of. No, the were far from it.

He was all she could clearly see, while she was nothing more than a rock on his path. A rock you get rid of with a mere sideway kick.

He would undoubtedly end up leaving the castle, bidding her a fond farewell, leaving her alone and judged by everyone, the main subject of all the maids' gossiping until they'd find something else more intersting to ramble about, which would take some time.

(She would dread fairytales till the very end of times.)

For you, I was only a chapter, but for me, your were the entire book.

Author's Note :

Hey !

I wanted to try to write about something else but Frozen, I'd appreciate it very much if you would share your thoughts about it, I hope you enjoyed reading !

More stuff is to come, mainly about Frozen, like the last two chapters of Cold As Ice, and the Prologue of Thawed Herts, the sequel of Thawing The Frozen Heart, for those who read.

I'll try to write more about other Disneys if it is worth it, I mean, I hope this wasn't too shitty.

Love you !

Laura Of Arendelle