A/N: This morning I dreamed a dream about Rapunzel's beautiful and terrible hair and it went something like this.
The King's Dream
The King sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh, my daughter, my daughter." he cried tears on his face. He bolted from the bed and ran to Rapunzel's quarters.
As Rapunzel lay whimpering in her bed, the King caught her up in a massive hug. "Oh, my daughter, my good, good daughter." She awoke and understood there was no nightmare, her papa was loving her, she returned his desperate embrace.
The Queen found them rocking back and forth on the bed as the King wept. And Eugene came in, the King leapt upon him and embraced him too. "Thank you, thank you, thank you for cutting my good daughter's hair."
"What? I don't understand." said Eugene as he looked around. Rapunzel and the Queen looked confused.
Dragging Eugene to Rapunzel's bed the King gave them another crushing hug and then wiped the tears from his face.
"I have dreamed a dream, a true dream, of what would have happened had you not cut my good daughter's hair. Because you did, you have saved the world."
" Rapunzel's hair grew like no other, before our death" he looked to his Queen "she would have been found because her hair could no longer be contained by the tower or the canyon."
"That's a lot of hair." Eugene remarked slowly. The queen shushed him.
"And you would still be good because you are so very good, you want to help people with your hair. You would heal anyone who came. They would come by the thousands and the tens of thousands and you would heal them."
"All came to you to be healed and you loved them and you healed them and they loved you. The minstrels sang, so always your hair glowed with healing power. You were on the throne, not as Queen of this kingdom but as Queen of the World. You were beautiful, beautiful as the dawn after a storm, but at terrible, terrible cost."
"The hair bound you to the throne and the crown to your head. The hair snaked into every room of every house in the kingdom. It crossed the bridge and covered all the land of all the world. There would be no darkness on the world anymore because of the light of your magic, glowing hair. Everyone loved you because you healed them. Everyone lived even though they longed for death. The power of your hair kept even your mother and I alive even though we were on death's doorstep, and how we longed to cross that threshold."
"You would have destroyed the world, not from malice or hate but out of love. No one had babies anymore, because life was too terrible a price to pay for living."
Tears filled Rapunzel's great, green eyes as the full horror of her Papa's dream broke upon her mind and she sobbed against her papa's chest.
And Eugene thought quietly to himself, "Brought back the Lost Princess and saved the world, maybe I am good enough for her."
"My beautiful, good daughter, how incredible you are, how loving you are. I love you so very much." Said the King.
"I love you more." said Rapunzel in a small voice with her arms wrapped around his chest.
The King, her father, lifted up Rapunzel's chin and looked seriously and deeply into those wondrous, green eyes, "No, you love us most."
Great tearing sobs of happiness wracked Rapunzel's body as her deepest, most desperate and secret dream finally came true as she hugged her papa with all her strength.
Author's Note:
There is an image that should go with this, far beyond my meager skills as an artist.
Rapunzel is in the center of the throne room. Her hair comes up through her crown, her hair binds her to her throne. She is smiling and weeping in love for everyone. Her parents are on their thrones behind her also bound, but so very, very old, they would welcome death if it could come. Everyone would. There is a chorus always singing the incantation, her hair is glowing. The hair is a tentacle-like mass covering everything every person every room every bed. It spills down the streets and into every home, it spills over the whole earth, the continents glowing from the glow of her hair. She becomes the Queen that Galadriel rejected:
In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen!
Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Dawn!
Treacherous as the Seas!
Stronger than the foundations of the Earth!
All shall love me and despair!
Like an Incarnation of Immortality, she has become Mother Smother.
"I Love You Most."