They left Gerte confused, but again, Elsa could not be questioned. Kay had left. Elsa was glad of that.

Flynn's reaction upon seeing the girls was quite enough for Elsa. His gaze shuttled between Rapunzel and Elsa, specifically between Rapunzel's fine dress and Elsa's pale, bare feet. His mouth opened like a stunned fish, emitting a sound like a cat being squeezed too tightly. Elsa withheld comment.

Maximus had the horse-sense to make no comment but the pricking up of his ears. In three steps, Elsa was up on his back and settled in the saddle. She reached down to take Rapunzel's arm, lifting her to sit behind with Flynn's assistance. Having been given something to do, Flynn stopped acting like village lad at his first cotillion.

"You- that looks good on you," he stumbled into saying to Rapunzel.

Maximus made a kind of equine snicker. Because Rapunzel was sat behind her, Elsa could not see how Rapunzel reacted to the tongue-tied compliment. Elsa chose not to turn and look.

She realized that Flynn Rider, with his Casanova ways, could be a problem. Elsa had interviewed enough of his conquests over the years to have a sense of his typical technique, but she wasn't sure if she would recognize it in action. He appeared, to her, sincerely impressed by Rapunzel. Regardless of however Flynn felt, Rapunzel seemed to regard him highly.

Rapunzel leaned around Elsa's shoulder when Maximus started trotting along. "Couldn't I walk?" she asked. She pointed at a youth who was carrying smaller child piggyback. "Or Flynn could carry me on his back, like that. You would, wouldn't you, Flynn? There's so much to see, and I can't see through any of the windows from here."

"It wouldn't be polite to go looking in windows," Elsa answered, saving Flynn from having to make an answer of his own. "Some are shops, but most are dwellings. We'll soon be at the marketplace. I'm sorry, but you'll have to be a little patient." When the crowds in the street pushed Flynn ahead, Elsa turned to Rapunzel again. In a low voice over her shoulder, she said, "Carrying like that is only for children or emergencies. It wouldn't be good manners for a young woman to be carried about like that."

"Why?" Rapunzel asked.

"Can I explain when we are in private?" Elsa felt strange about having to answer Rapunzel's innocent question at all. She was certainly going to postpone it until they were out of earshot of all-and-sundry.

"OK," Rapunzel replied. "I have a feeling you're going to have to explain a lot of things for me."

Elsa made a noncommittal noise. "Etiquette is just a matter of training," she said while scanning the street for a sandal seller. "Flynn!" she called down. "There's a sandal maker about thirty feet ahead who seems to be heading off toward the other avenue. Would you run and bring him this way for us?" Flynn raised a hand to show that he had heard her, then dashed between the other pedestrians toward his target.

"I thought we were going to the market?" Rapunzel asked.

"We are. I think you'll like it," Elsa answered. She guided Maximus over to the side of the street where they would wait for Flynn's return. "Sandal sellers don't sell from tents in the market. They walk around at the outskirts of the market carrying unfinished sandals. The sandal maker will take quick measure of each of our feet, then finish up a pair of sandals from the incomplete ones closest in size."

So warned, Rapunzel stayed put when Flynn returned with a small, skinny man who immediately selected woven straw shapes from the rack on his back and held them up to the ladies' feet. Elsa took some copper coins out of her purse. With only a slight hesitation, she handed them to Flynn to pay when the sandals were ready.

Elsa brought her leg over so that she sat side saddle during the final fitting of her sandals. She shifted to the opposite side and slid herself down off of Maximus. Emulating Elsa, Rapunzel turned sideways so that both her feet were side by side. She stifled a giggle when the sandal man knotted the toe strap that secured the first sandal to her foot. "Thank you," she said to him, after he finished the knot on the other.

While the footwear did not hold up like a leather or canvas shoe, it was lightweight and made to order in minutes. The style of simple sandals from common straw had come to Corona through traders from afar; the craft had become the skill of poorer folk, often immigrants from neighboring countries, who didn't have the training and could not afford the materials of finer wares.

Rapunzel wiggled her toes in the new footwear. Experimentally, she bounced her feet. One of the sandals bounced off. The sandal maker stooped to pick it up and moved to put it back on Rapunzel's foot, but Flynn intercepted. He traded the coins for Rapunzel's sandal, exchanged a few words in Stelese with the man, and put the sandal onto Rapunzel's foot himself. Rapunzel expressed a little sigh when Flynn's hands touched her foot and ankle.

"What did you say to him?" Elsa asked in a conversational tone after the sandal seller had walked away.

"I thanked him for his work, and asked him how he was doing," Flynn answered.

"I didn't realize that you could speak the language of Stele," Elsa replied. "Picked that up in recent years?"

"Something like that," Flynn responded. He offered Rapunzel a hand down from Maximus.

"And how is he doing?" Elsa persisted.

Flynn gave her a contemplative look. "He said he was getting by."

Rapunzel spun in small circles, testing out her new sandals. "These are wonderful! It feels strange to have them on, but interesting!" She leaned against Maximus when she stopped, clearly a bit dizzy. "Whoo hoo!"

"And now, we walk," Elsa said. "Maximus can sit aside and wait for us. The market is too crowded for him, especially with all he is carrying." She exchanged a significant glance with Flynn when he caught her eye. The tiara was still in the stallion's pack, and the tiara was still Flynn's bid to stay out of the castle dungeons.

Rapunzel hooked her arm around Flynn's. "Let's see everything!" she said.

ooo

Rapunzel did not try to contain her excitement. Why would she? The marketplace was a crowded thoroughfare lined on each side with canvas canopies or the occasional tin roofed shed. The air was a blend of salty humidity from the harbor and amazing food smells. She oggled trinkets imported from all over the world. Stalls with unfamiliar, tantalizing fruit called her to smell and touch them. More than once, the merchant seemed ready to scold her for handling the produce, but then Elsa would step close and be recognized, which always made any protest vanish.

Rapunzel spotted a glass case filled with what she recognized right away as cupcakes. They looked as splendid as Atilla's baking. She rushed over. "They're so beautiful," she praised. "Could we…?"

"They will be very sweet. Are you sure you want all that sug-" Elsa started. "Oh, there's chocolate!" She took a silver coin from her purse. The cupcake seller protested payment from Corona's Champion. Elsa countered by placing an order for two dozen to be brought up to the castle in the next week, which satisfied everyone, not the least of which because Rapunzel, Elsa, and Flynn all strolled away bearing cupcakes.

Flynn suddenly pulled Rapunzel away into an alcove. They peeked out to watch Elsa exchange greetings with the guard that approached. Flynn pressed himself against the wall. He looked at his yet unbitten cupcake.

Rapunzel caught his eye, and they shared grins. "What flavor is yours?" Rapunzel asked. "Butterscotch? What does that taste like?" She took a small bite of hers and savored the flavor of toasted hazelnuts in the buttercream frosting.

Flynn proceeded to take a large bite of his. "Like delicious," he said around a mouthful.

"Mmm," said Rapunzel.

Flynn shyly offered it to her. "Bite?" he asked.

Rapunzel offered hers in turn. "Share mine, too," she said. They traded cupcakes and took bites. Flynn's bite of the hazelnut buttercream was smaller than the one he'd taken of his own. "This is good, too," Rapunzel commented. She wondered if he noticed that she'd taken her bite from the edge of his bitten part. It gave her a little thrill to do it, putting her mouth where his mouth had been.

They were handing their original flavors back when Elsa stepped over to the alcove. "Wendel is gone," she said. "I've asked him to tell the rest of the guard that I am taking the day for other activities." She looked at their already half eaten cupcakes. A small frown pinched her features, but then she took a bite of hers and pleasure replaced the frown. "Heavenly," she said.

"Would you like to taste the hazelnut?" Rapunzel asked.

"Just a taste," Elsa agreed. "Do try the chocolate. It's my favorite." Elsa took a nibble of the hazelnut cupcake. "Mm. Very good."

"I like this one, too," Rapunzel said. She ate the last of her cupcake. Licking crumbs and frosting from her fingertips, she added, "I haven't met a cupcake yet that I haven't liked."

"Wait until you have seven layer cake," Elsa commented.

"Is there some here?" Rapunzel asked. She looked up and down the street in case she had missed such a wonderful thing among all the other wonders.

"I think we should eat something more substantial," Elsa said, "because I completely skipped breakfast, and this chocolate cupcake is making me feel as if I drank a whole pot of black tea. Let's go this way." She pointed a direction away from the waterfront and market.

The new goal was not without detours. On the way to the more substantial meal, a scrumptious smell lured Rapunzel off toward a fried shrimp vendor, where she experienced waiting in line for the first time. Waiting in line was the definition of anticipation. She felt a thrill every time the front of the line customer received his serving of fried shrimp, because then her place in line moved forward, putting her that much closer to what she soon discovered was a divine new flavor. If she had known about deep fried foods before, she would have deep fried something in batter daily.

She added a flower to the pile of wildflowers that children were making in front of a tile mural depicting a man, woman, and baby. She was going to ask Elsa about the mosaic but was distracted when an excited little boy jumped off the platform and skinned his knees landing badly. His parents didn't appear to be anywhere in sight.

She crouched down beside the wailing little boy. "Ooh, that looks like it stings," she said. The boy suddenly stopped crying at stared at her. "Can you stand up?" she asked.

With a solemn nod, the boy got to his feet. He continued to stare at Rapunzel as if she had two heads. Then, fast as an arrow, he shot off into the crowd.

Elsa joined Rapunzel. She whispered, "I was afraid you were going to heal him with magic."

"You told me not to use it," Rapunzel answered. "Could we get some more fried shrimp?"

"Flynn's holding our place in line," Elsa assured.

ooo

Flynn must have noticed that Rapunzel had been eyeing the festival souvenirs, because he stepped aside and came back with a small purple flag with the same sun pattern as the festival banners. When Elsa gave him a look of suspicion becoming anger, he protested that he had purchased the flag.

"I wouldn't steal from a little kid!" Flynn told Elsa.

Elsa didn't budge. "What about the money you used? Ill gotten gain?"

"As a matter of fact," Flynn said, "I earned that."

Elsa folded her arms. Then she unfolded them and smiled. Rapunzel saw the effort in the smile. Rapunzel grasped one of each of Flynn's and Elsa's arms and dragged them both off toward an open door. There was a sign hanging beside the door, so she hoped that meant it was a shop, not someone's home.

Once inside, she released Flynn and Elsa. Her hands were almost on the covers of a book when she stopped. She looked to the craftsman sitting at his workbench. "May I?" she asked, suffering with her self-restraint. After the craftsman nodded, without pausing from his stitching, Rapunzel picked up one of the thick books and opened it, wondering if it would be Cooking, Geology, or Gardening.

Slowly, she turned the pages. "It's blank," she noted.

"These are journals," Elsa explained. "They are for recording your thoughts or observations, such as sketches and descriptions of nature."

"Or filling with your bad poetry," Flynn supplied. He stepped close to Rapunzel. "You seem disappointed, Blondie. This store sells stationery, but we can go to a bookstore next."

"That's alright," she said. "I have all the books at home."

ooo