AN: Hey, I'm back. 'Sup?

Am I talking to anyone at this point? I'm trying not to be bitter. Truly, I am. But let's be real: I haven't heard from anyone since 19 chapters ago. That's not normal. That is a "tempted to slit my wrists" level of not normal. I'm dead serious. Not the first time I've felt so invisible that I wanted to kill myself… that's basically been a biweekly occurrence for over a decade… but I haven't done it yet and I'm not gonna do it now. I've found a better way to deal with this. Please see the other AN at the end of this chapter.

Day 24

A ship arrived in Corona, the island nation towering, glorious, and inviting as ever.

Some minutes after the ship docked, Eugene emerged from the cabin, carrying his luggage, waving off guards who offered to take it for him.

Promptly, he found himself face to face with Pascal, the tiny chameleon standing on a mast at his eye level.

"Hey, froggles," Eugene said brightly.

Pascal frowned at him suspiciously, looking around.

"Rapunzel isn't with me," he said calmly.

Pascal gaped.

"Stayed in Arendelle," he said. "I'll tell you in a minute, I don't much like listening to myself talk."

Pascal looked skeptical.

"I don't like repeating myself," Eugene amended. "If I told you now, I'd have to find a way to completely rephrase the story once Mom and Dad asked me about it. So, let's go find them, shall we?"

Reluctantly, Pascal submitted, and took his invited spot on Eugene's shoulder.

They travelled for some time, through the usual sights and sounds of Corona, the busy rush of workers and shoppers unusually cheerful, even serene.

~0~0~0~

Eugene found the king and queen on the castle balcony, overlooking the kingdom. He came up behind them, keeping his distance.

"Hey," he said quietly.

They turned to him, and the queen promptly broke out in a grin. "Eugene!" she said, rushing forward and embracing him. "Here, let me take some of that off your hands."

"Thanks, Arianna," he muttered, allowing her to heft some of his luggage. "You don't have to…"

"I can handle it," she said, winking at him.

"Thanks," Eugene said wearily. "Hey, Fr—sir."

"Eugene," the king replied. "Where is…?"

He trailed off as Pascal loudly jumped from Eugene's shoulder to the floor with a surprisingly loud smack, and scampered away.

"Rapunzel," Eugene finished. "She… decided to stay in Arendelle, just for a while."

Arianna raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Staying? For how long?"

"I… I'm not sure," said Eugene. "A couple of months, at least."

The king's hands shook, and his voice quavered. "But… but she was supposed to come back… she was supposed to be right back…"

"Oh… sir…" Eugene said, reaching out a comforting hand, but withdrawing it before he made contact, unsure of what to do with it. "It's okay. She just… wanted to get to know the cousins better."

Arianna lit up. "Of course… Anna has always been a very spirited… excitable… well, you can't help falling in love with her."

"That's about the shape of it," Eugene mumbled. "I won't go into the specifics… in fact, I'd rather be deliberately evasive about them, all things considered. Anyway, I'll just… be on my way…"

Eugene turned to leave and found himself face to face with Maximus. Pascal sat atop the horse's head, and both of them glared at Eugene harshly.

"Really, fellas?" he said wearily. "Two years we've known each other. The open hostility is getting real old."

They didn't falter.

"F… M… L," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. "It's all right. She'll be back before you know it. She just… needs more time with her cousins. They get along."

He smiled warmly at them, and Maximus's scowl deepened.

"Goodbye," Eugene said firmly, turning on his heel to walk back to his chambers.

~0~0~0~

~0~0~0~0~0~

AN: And now comes the story's first proper time skip—which is to say, instead of the next chapter being Day 25, it'll be Day 30. From now on, not every day in the lives of the princesses will be depicted.

And, sad to say, I think there'll have to be a time skip in my updating as well. I've been really quite depressed, by life in general. And the fact that I have absolutely no idea what anybody thinks of fifty percent of this story, well, that hasn't helped. I thought this would be something new and invigorating and exciting that lots of people would want to look at, not the single most lackluster reception I've received in a lifetime of lackluster receptions.

So, I'm going to choose to be a diva here. I'm going to do something I've never done before, and refuse to update until I receive a certain number of reviews. I'll continue working on the story, of course, to make sure that updates come more efficiently when they do, but I won't update until this story has a total of 114 reviews.

Why 114? Because that's three times as many reviews as this story has chapters. As most stories on this site have at least five times as many, it seems fair. All it would take is for three people to tell me what they think of each individual chapter. I know seven people follow this story, I'm sure three of them can do that much. That's the bare minimum that most people get, three reviews per chapter. Why do I have to ask for it? Most people ask for ten. And get it.

Am I not bad enough, is that the problem? Do people only review to point out glaring grammatical mistakes, leaving me screwed because I never make those? Whatever. Add 78 reviews to my current total, and this story will continue. If not, the hundreds of pages of story ideas I've developed over the past year will never see the light of day, so if you have any interest in seeing that, if you're not wholly satisfied with what this story's been so far, please contribute to the review count. I do mean it, I've got a lot of things to do, so I can wait as many years as it takes to hit that 114. Don't expect me to be spurred to action by the release of Frozen 2 or anything like that.

The ball is now firmly in the audience's court. Let's see how that goes.