- The King Speaks

The judge called the court to order so the king would have his time to testify of what he went through.

"Gothel," began the father, standing before the seated and chained woman. "You do understand that you hurt us terribly."

Gothel nodded, not trusting herself to speak, she was almost as scared of the king as she was of the queen. The whites of her eyes shone plainly to the king and the judge. The queen had forgiven her, but the king could still kill her.

"You are a ward of the crown and have been for some time?" Gothel nodded again. She had arranged that, All her family had died, she was old, the manor had even burned down in an accident. She had lost everything, her only remaining hope was in Jonathan's return. She had placed herself in the care of the crown in her declining years. The royal family have taken good care of her, but they couldn't help the terrible feeling of loss she always carried. She had spent lots of time in the palace at first, learning all of the ways inside it.

She had taken to walking down the coast to her lands to watch for his returning ship. To be alone. When she had seen a flash and heard a song on the wind. She had found the golden flower and thinking to sing the song, sang and the flower glowed and she became young again. She had not returned to the palace, but she had heard that they thought she had thrown herself into the ocean.

"Taking our daughter, was a terrible crime, it hurt in ways I didn't know existed. She is home now as a woman, but she can never be my little girl, because of what you did."

Gothel nodded again. She wanted to bow her head, but the metal collar around her neck made that impossible. She bit her pink lip scared of what would happen next. The kings voice wasn't loud, but it filled the courtroom, yet she could feel he was communicating only with her. The silence in the courtroom was deafening, as every quiet word was strained for. Now she was scared like nothing had scared her before.

"You hurt me. Worse, you hurt my wife and the people of my kingdom. What you did also changed me, in ways I didn't notice. I was hurting myself, my wife and my kingdom."

He took a step towards her. "I want to hurt you, so much. To make you suffer like we had suffered all these years. To hear your screams to offset the weeping of my wife. Did you know she wept herself to sleep, in my arms, every night since you stole our beloved daughter?"

Gothel shook her head. He was right in front of her looking into her eyes, his rich voice caressing her, holding her intimately.

He took another step closer. "My heart broke over and over again, every night, because of those tears. I want you to hurt like we did. I want your screams and your tears. I have a file, that may be the most comprehensive compilation of torture techniques ever collected in the history of the world. I know how to inflict pain on you in ways that could make you suffer for weeks and even months. I can make you scream yourself to voicelessness and you would keep trying to scream. I can break your spirit so deeply that you would never harm anyone ever again. You would crawl on all fours and never even think of looking up again."

"For all the screams and tears I could extract from you and for all that I could break your body, your mind and your spirit. I could even kill you, but I know I couldn't break your heart, like you broke ours. All that research and I still don't know how to actually hurt you. Pity." The father shook his head and shrugged.

She felt her seat warm as she lost control in her fear, she knew in her heart he could do it, he would be right in doing it and he would enjoy it. Tears leaked down her cheeks. Gothel was panting, fear had her insides in an icy grip, the metallic taste of pure fear on her dry tongue.

His eyes bore into her own and there was no way to get away from him, even and she tried to push herself through the seat. He was communicating so intimately with her. She wanted to close her eyes and mind, but he just stood there and kept talking, holding her with his voice. She had only felt like this when Jonathan had been with her, but this terrible intimacy wasn't the intimacy of love, but of hate.

The guards next to the terrified Gothel risked exchanging a glance. They knew it was their duty to protect the prisoner so she could be properly executed, but the thought of restraining the king was a conflict that was tough to overcome. They weren't sure if the king was going to try something, the words were spoken softly, almost gently, but they were so terrifying. They were half expecting the king to lunge and try to kill the prisoner himself in front of the court with his bare hands.

Rapunzel was hugging her thick braid, she knew that her real parents had to express what they had gone through so the court could determine what was the proper response to what happened, but seeing Mother so scared was so disturbing.

To hear the pain her real parents went through was terrible too. She was wishing her hair could heal these things, but her special song could only heal physical injuries, not emotional ones. It was taking everything she had to keep from sobbing as her real mother put her arms around her shaking body. Rapunzel wanted to heal everyone, and not let anyone hurt each other any more, but this was something they needed to do so they could.

The king moved to stand between Gothel and Rapunzel and looked from one to the other.

"I find myself at a crossroads. I could continue hating you with all my heart, and it feels so good to hate you, or I could love my good daughter with all my heart. I can't do both," he shrugged. "If I keep hating you, I would just keep hurting my family and my kingdom, and I don't want that."

He turned to Rapunzel. "I would love my daughter, with my whole heart, and I will not give place in my heart to hate anymore. I love you my daughter." He took the steps to be near his daughter, his hand out to her. Rapunzel's lip was quivering, she was feeling the great love her father had for her, their hands touch over the divider. How could she feel it so deeply?

The king turned to Gothel. "For my daughter's sake, for my kingdom's sake, I give up hate now. As a ward of the crown I would still care for you as if you were my own and I would do that gladly as you took care of my little girl as I would have wanted to myself. I forgive you."

Gothel wanted to cover her face and her tears but the chains restrained her. "Thank you, I'm sorry." Her black curls rustling as her head shook. The emotional overload she was experiencing was exhausting her. She had done a great wrong to this family, but they were not wronging her in return, she didn't deserve this kindness.

As the king sat, the judge came to himself and asked Gothel, "Can you continue?"

Gothel shook her head, breathing hard; tears flowing down her cheeks and neck, into the rough grey cloth of the prison dress she was wearing.

The judge called a recess for the day and waved the guards forward, and they had to all but carry her out for her legs were too weak to carry herself. As she was turned the judge noticed the stained dress and he quietly ordered a set of new clothes to be sent to Gothel's cell. But he was grateful too for the break, the incredible emotional energy the king and queen had brought to the proceedings was challenging to handle.

He could see the observers were slowly getting up as the door closed behind the royal family. He could see a lot of extra white around the eyes of most of the people as they were standing up quietly. No one was talking much, but everyone were moving slowly and shakily.

He went to his chambers and sang for some time to quiet his mind and his heart.