A/N: You know those ideas that just pop into your head and won't go away until you've written them down? Well, this was one of those.

"And there I was, riding through the forest, my men behind me. I'd almost got him; we were only a few feet behind, my crossbow was loaded... we were about to bring him down."

The Captain paused, checking to make sure his story had the desired effect. The little girl stared up at him, her eyes wide beneath her black fringe, her small hands gripping the covers tightly. Yes, it worked; he had her attention. Feeling slightly pleased with himself, he continued.

"We almost had him... but he turned around. He got hold of a vine, he swung towards us and... well, let's just say he caught us off guard. He took my horse and vanished." He made a gesture with his hand. "Just like that."

"How did he do that?" asked the child.

"Well, that's the trouble with thieves like Rider. They're smart, and they know their territory. You shouldn't underestimate them. That's where we went wrong. But I'd learnt from that experience. I wasn't going to underestimate him again, and I certainly wasn't going to give up searching for him. I was going to get that crown back even if it killed me."

At that last sentence, the little girl flinched. The Captain reached out and touched her on the shoulder. He wasn't good at comforting gestures; her expression didn't change.

"Hey, Araminta, it didn't get that bad. I'm still here, aren't I?"

Araminta nodded, but the unsettled look hadn't left her face.

"Should I stop there, kid? I don't want to keep you up all night with this."

She shook her head firmly. "Keep going, Papa. Please; I want to hear the part where you meet the princess."

Of course she did; that's why he was telling her this story in the first place. His daughter was five years old and going through what her mother called "the princess phase". The peach-coloured walls of her room were plastered with drawings of pretty young women, along with their carriages and castles; she seemed particularly fascinated with the castles. There were several toy castles on her dresser, standing proudly alongside a wooden crown she'd been given for her last birthday. Even the rag doll tucked in beside her was a princess of sorts; a crude effigy of Corona's own princess, Rapunzel.

Perhaps it was unsurprising that Araminta had become so interested in her. She probably wasn't the only one, either; nearly every girl in Corona seemed to idolize the Princess. So it was equally unsurprising that, when she found out her father had played a role in her discovery, she was desperate to know about it. The Captain wasn't so eager to tell her. He never did like talking about those events, not even to people who'd actually been there when they happened. But he'd always found it difficult to say no to his daughter. So there he was, sitting in her room, telling her about a journey which was still fresh in his mind, despite the fact it had been a decade ago.

Even as he continued, as he told the little girl about their search through the forest, he knew he was disappointing her. Araminta didn't want to hear about thieves and chases. She'd really wanted to hear about the Princess and how nice her life was. But she was still showing interest, so he had to continue.

"We'd been searching for several hours when this guy approached us. Big guy, not very bright. He said he'd found Rider at this tavern in the forest. Now, we don't usually go to places like that; we leave them alone, they leave us alone, and you don't want to stir up trouble with people like that. But we made an exception this time."

"Was it full of bad people?" asked Araminta, who'd been warned about such people from an early age.

"Well, I wouldn't say they were bad people," her father replied, "but they had the potential to be very dangerous. You have to be careful around people like that, kid. You don't want to push them too hard. But I went in there, we searched the place, and there was no sign of Rider. Those thugs were hiding him from us, and we probably wouldn't have found him if it hadn't been for-"

The Captain stopped quickly. He was about to mention Maximus – how the horse had arrived just in the nick of time and discovered the passage the thief had escaped through – but then he thought better of it. Araminta didn't know about her father's old horse, and with good reason. After all, how can you tell your daughter that your horse was smarter than you were?

Unfortunately, his hesitation hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Papa?"

"... If it hadn't been for my good eyesight," he said at last. "I found that passage, and we were soon catching up with him. I was at the front, and I could see them both; Rider, and this girl with long blonde hair-"

"The Princess!"

"Yes, kid, but we didn't know that then. We thought she was just his accomplice, so we chased them both. They lead us right to this dam, and then..."

Another pause. Araminta watched her father carefully, wondering why he'd stopped there. Why'd he have that strange look on his face? He looked as if he'd heard something unpleasant. Was something wrong with him? Was it her fault?

"Papa?"

"Hold on, I'm... remembering."

"But you said you remembered it already."

"Hey, cut me a bit of slack, Araminta. It was a long time ago!"

The irritation in his voice silenced her immediately. The last thing she wanted was to make her father angry. For a moment they just sat there, watching each other warily, before the Captain spoke again.

"We almost had him," he said, and now he was looking at the space above his daughter's head. "We would've caught him easily... but then the dam broke, and we were washed away. We wound up several miles away, and some of my men thought that would be the end of it. Rider had drowned, they said, or he swam ashore somewhere else. They didn't reckon we'd see him again."

Then a grin spread across his face; the slow, proud expression of someone reliving a particularly good memory.

"But I got him in the end," he told his daughter. "Turns out he'd tried to get back into Corona. I can't say why – he was a wanted man, and everyone there knew his face – but he did, and we caught him. Before the day was over, he was in jail, waiting for the execution he surely deserved."

The Captain paused once again, trying to figure out where he'd go from here. There was something so wrong about trying to describe a hanging to Araminta; this was a child who'd grown up on happy endings and didn't seem to want anything else. But if he told her the actual story... the truth... well, he couldn't tell her that, either. Maybe he could make up something else. Maybe he could say Rider was still in jail. She was only five; she wouldn't understand how implausible that was...

"How'd he get out?"

This jolted him out of his thoughts immediately.

"What?" he asked, looking back at his daughter. She couldn't have asked that. She wouldn't have known to ask that. As if unaware of the disturbed look on his face, Araminta repeated herself.

"How'd he get out of jail, Papa?"

Yes; she'd asked it. He'd have to think fast.

"What... what makes you think he got out of jail, kid? He's a criminal. Criminals don't get out of jail, especially ones like Rider."

"But Mrs Willow said he did."

"Who's Mrs Willow?"

"My teacher."

"At that school you've just started?"

Araminta nodded. "She used to work at the castle, and she said that Prince Eugene used to be a criminal called Flynn Rider, and that's how he met the Princess. But you said he was put in jail. If criminals don't come out of jail... how did he get out? Did you..."

She hesitated; not because she was trying to be considerate, but because the thought of her father doing something wrong was genuinely odd to her. After all, he was the one who did everything right. He was the one who protected her and knew the answer to everything. How could he be wrong about this? But then again, how could Mrs Willow be wrong? She'd known the Princess, too, and she also knew the answer to everything...

She heard her father tell her it was time to go to sleep, but she was so caught up in this little enigma that she didn't notice the coldness in his voice. She didn't notice that he hadn't kissed her goodnight, like he normally did. No, Araminta just lay there in the dark, fiddling with her rag doll absent-mindedly as she tried to figure out whether the adults were lying or simply mistaken. After all, why would they lie to her?

The Captain stood outside her bedroom door, looking straight ahead. Only he wasn't really looking at anything; he was coming to terms with what had just happened.

Of course Araminta would have found out eventually; if not through a teacher, then through one of her friends or a history book. You can't keep such things a secret forever, especially when they concerned some of the most powerful people in Corona. But it still annoyed him that she knew about this. At least, he thought to himself, this "Mrs Willow" had spared her from knowing how Rider had escaped. At least she'd left out the parts that concerned him.

Had she done it out of courtesy, he wondered. Had she, at the last moment, remembered who that girl's father was, and spared her the embarrassment of hearing about his failure in front of the other children? Or maybe she just didn't know?

The Captain shook his head at this last thought. Of course she'd known. Everybody knew how he'd screwed up. Everybody except Araminta, and that was the way he'd preferred it. He liked the way she looked up to him; the way she thought he could solve any problem and protect her from anything that dared to harm her. Okay, she was only a child, and a sheltered one at that, but at least someone out there still had respect for him.

Well, that wouldn't last for much longer. Soon she'd find out about Maximus, the thugs and the frying pans. And once that happened, that'd be it. He wouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.

The Captain sighed and made his way downstairs. He needed a drink.