The Return
A/N #1: Welcome to my first Frozen story.
A/N #2: This is perhaps my most challenging story as it will appear both within the Frozen fandom and the Tangled fandom, but with different points of view. Please look for it in both!
A/N #3: I do not own Frozen or Tangled, although I do own my OCs and this storyline…
A/N #4: This is a definite AU story…so please keep that in mind!
A/N #5: Finally, in this story, the queens of Arendelle and Corona are sisters.
The Reunion, Part 2
"My Lady…?"
"Yes, captain?"
"The Spirit is ready for towing."
"Very good, let's get underway so that we may return it and the crew and passengers to their home kingdom.
"As you wish, my lady." Captain Wilhelm stated, as he turned to the quarterdeck.
"Orders, captain?" Commander Callahan asked as he saw his captain returning to the quarterdeck.
"All ahead one-quarter; set course for Arendelle." Captain Wilhelm stated.
"All ahead one-quarter; set course for Arendelle; aye. Mr. Yeager, if you please." Commander Callahan replied.
"Helm, please steer course zero three five degrees." Mr. Yeager, the officer of the watch replied as he moved the engine room telegraph first to 'call' and then to the 'one-quarter' position.
Christian and Synnøve were amazed to feel the thrumming of the deck as the Flynn Rider began to move, its sails still securely stowed on the various spars of the three masts. They could see the waters around the stern of the ship begin to roil as the twin propellers began to bite. They could also see the sturdy tow rope, connected between the stern of the Flynn Rider and the bow of the Spirit of the Aurora Borealis, slowly begin to rise out of the water and tauten as the slack was slowly taken up. They could also see the smiling five member crew standing by on the Spirit of the Aurora Borealis as they signalled their readiness. Rebecca, sensing their wonder, decided to go to them to explain the amazing machinery of the Flynn Rider and how the ship was able to propel itself in the absence of any wind.
"I sense your wonder, Christian and Synnøve." Rebecca said.
"How is this possible? The ship is moving yet no sails are set." Christian asked.
"I am sure you are aware of the miracle that saved your sister's life, Synnøve?" Rebecca asked.
"You mean the drop of sunlight and the resultant starflower?" Synnøve asked.
"Yes."
"Does this have something to do how this ship is powered?"
"Yes. You see, the power of the drop of sunlight varies as to its composition as contained within Eugene, your niece Rapunzel…"
"…and you?" Christian asked.
"Yes. Even within me. As a result of a wild series of events, I received the best of both worlds, so to speak."
"What do you mean?" An obviously confused Synnøve asked.
"Did my grandparents ever tell you what happened several weeks after the return of Rapunzel?"
"Not everything. Why?"
"I cannot really speak for my grandmother, but I am pretty sure because it is of how unbelievable the story of the death of Flynn Rider…"
"The story of the death of Flynn Rider?! But…?"
"Yes; the story of the death of Flynn Rider." Rebecca stated as she looked at the looks of absolute wonder that currently adorned the faces of Christian and Synnøve.
"What happened?" The pair impatiently asked.
"Well, it was about a month after the return of your niece and about a month before he saved my life when…"
Three Years and Ten Months previous…
"Good afternoon, Eugene." Amanda happily stated as she smiled at the dishevelled young man and raises her hand to knock on the door to Rapunzel's room.
"Afternoon?" Eugene asked as he hears the village clock tolling the mid-hour song.
"Why yes, Eugene. It just tolled the one-thirty hour, this beautiful sunny afternoon." Rupert replied with a grin.
"You mean Rapunzel isn't up yet?" Eugene asked his contemporaries of Amanda and Rupert.
"No, I do not believe so. But with all the excitement of the past two weeks, one could forgive her for oversleeping once or twice." Rupert kindly added.
As the three young people were talking about the unusual behaviour by the reunited crown princess, the king and queen, having missed the morning meal and even the noon day meal with their daughter, came up to see if she was alright.
"Have you seen…?" The queen began.
"…Rapunzel? Not yet today." Amanda replied.
"Hmmm. This is most unusual. She is usually awake even before the sun rises, much to the chagrin of the palace staff." The king replied as he took in this new and unusual information with his usual calm demeanor.
"I know. This is the latest I slept in, well, forever it seems, or at least the last two weeks. She loves to have me share the new day sunrise from different vantage points within the royal grounds and, when able, within the beach front and docks of the capital."
The group happily chuckled at the memory of poor Eugene being awoken by one slimy tongue to the ear.
"Sire. Do you have Maximus on a special duty assignment today?" Samuel, the regimental sergeant major asked as he calmly walked up and gracefully bowed to the two monarchs. He knew it was pointless to be upset about this latest development as Eugene, Amanda, and Rupert were sure to know where everyone and anyone was at all times.
"Not today." Will replied.
"It is just that he is not in the stable and no one can seem to remember the last time he was seen." Samuel responded.
Amanda, softly knocking on the door was to be surprised, as was everyone, when the door slowly opened under the force of her gentle knock, the latch barely engaged with the door frame. It was as if the door was intentionally left unlatched as the person knew that the sound the tumblers made as they engaged would echo loudly throughout the palace.
As the trio, with the two monarchs and Samuel trailing closely behind, slowly walked into the room, they quickly realized two important facts. First, the bed was made and showed no sign of being slept in that night; and second, a certain crown princess was conspicuous in her absence.
"I don't think Rapunzel is in trouble as she is quite capable and well-armed with her frying pan." Eugene stated, to the amusement of the others, as he noted the absence of her frying pan in the room and briefly reached out in an attempt to sense her.
"But, where is Rapunzel?!" The three ask the others as their individual scans reveal a definite lack of the green aura of the crown princess.
"I don't know." They replied to each other.
"What do you think?" Eugene asked.
"I am not sure." Rupert replied, as he too was at a loss to explain.
"Oh, no…" The three sighed.
"Oh, no what?" King William asked the three.
"You don't think…" Eugene began.
"…that she went out exploring without any of us?" Amanda smoothly finished for him in such a way not to raise an alarm in the others.
"Well…" Eugene mumbled.
"She did take Max with her." Rupert confidently added.
"He is very capable and I am sure that Rapunzel will be fine with him and her frying pan; I think."
"Let's see if we can join minds to find her…" Eugene suggested.
"Good idea."
The three cleared their minds of the concern they felt for the crown princess and easily linked together; the synergy of their joined minds quite miraculous. They soon found that they could easily discern all within the palace grounds and expanded their attention to encompass the entire city. Coming up empty of anyone outside the palace grounds and within the capital city with the similar emerald green aura, they shifted their attention further afield; to the mainland.
The scan of the mainland, in the vicinity of the Snuggly Duckling, revealed a brief flash of an unusual grey aura before it just as quickly disappeared as if blocked by something. While Rupert and Eugene did not think anything of it, Amanda did.
"I know where she is. Let's go!" A confident Amanda remarked to the others.
The Present…
"What did she go?" Synnøve asked.
"She went to the place she had called home for the first almost 18 years of her life. The auras disappeared when the trio, with Rapunzel goading them along as she held each securely around the neck by her hair that had become animated and vengeful, entered the hidden entrance to the glen containing the tower."
"Her hair became animated and vengeful…?" Christian and Synnøve asked, dumbfounded.
Three Years and Ten Months previous…
Eugene, Amanda, and Rupert; with William and Catherine close behind; quickly entered the glen and soon made their way to the tower and silently up the spiral staircase. The scene that greeted them had to be seen to believe as none of them had ever seen hair that came to life.
The hair, once thought of as a benign healer and giver of life, had each of the three antagonists in a choke hold held several feet off the floor. The hair, in a very animated way, was smashing the two brothers unmercifully into the ten inch square ceiling support timbers. Their bloodied and broken bodies no longer made any sounds. After about 20 such impacts, the hair grew tired of this game and threw them out the open window, and down to the ground where a sickening double thud could be heard as the two brothers hit the one large rock within the hair's reach of the tower. To say that this did a little damage to the brothers was to severely understate matters. It caused both severe skull injuries and multiple spinal fractures. If anything, it was a merciful end to a tortuous last half hour of life for the brothers.
"Now, now Gothel! Do you not want the hair now?" An almost maniacal Rapunzel sneered as the hair fully took over her conscious being.
Gothel, completely terrified by the transformed Rapunzel and slowly losing consciousness could only grunt out a few intelligible syllables.
"I am sorry, what was that? You want me to sing? I would be more than happy to." Rapunzel replied, her normally emerald green eyes an ominous red.
"No!" Eugene shouted. His plea for her to stop went completely unheard and unheeded. Fortunately for the sanity of the crown princess, so too did his presence go unnoticed by the now self-aware hair; at least initially.
"Flower gleam and glow…"
The hair began to glow in its normal golden hue as it rapidly move down the length of the seventy feet of blonde hair.
"…make your power shine…"
The hair glowed even brighter than before and soon reached the antagonist. Gothel began to look younger.
"…take for me their life…"
The hair suddenly turned jet black at the roots and rapidly made its way towards a now quite terrified Gothel, as it began sucking all the light out of the room.
Eugene, having quickly realized that he had not a moment to spare before Rapunzel was irreversibly damaged by the negative energy surging through her, negative energy that would wind up destroying her naïve innocence, reached into his left boot, where he kept his dagger, pulled it out and held it at the ready waiting for the right moment to strike out.
"…add that soul to mine."
The maleficent hair, now realizing the danger that Eugene represented, sent the two strands that had held the two brothers snaking around to grab and stop this new threat. Luckily for the sanity of Rapunzel, her evilly possessed hair, tangled as it was around the structure of the tower, was a 'hair' too slow for Eugene's lightning quick reflexes!
Eugene, also realizing that he did not have a moment to lose, took two steps forward towards Rapunzel, who was totally oblivious to her new dream, reached out, grabbed the hair despite the severe pain as the dark powre surely began to melt his hand and arm into nothingness, and…
The present…
"And, what?!" Christian and Synnøve asked as they were drawn surely into the most amazing story they had ever heard outside the wonder of their daughter's ice powers.
"Well, he cut her hair about three feet below her neck."
"Then what happened?"
"Well, he died as the massive negative energy melted his arm up to the elbow and sucked what life remained out of him." Rebecca stated as a tear unavoidably trailed from her left eye down to her jawline before dropping with a plop to the deck.
"He…, what!?" Christian and Synnøve cried out; tears falling from their eyes as if they had personally known the recklessly brave Eugene Fitzherbert.
Three Years and Ten Months previous…
The hair, now cut to less than four percent of its previous length, quickly turned a wonderful shade of chestnut brown; a shade that matched that of her mother, Catherine. The once benign and now quite malignant power of the hair, now completely destroyed, caused Gothel to age so rapidly that by the time she dropped the fifteen feet from where the hair had had her suspended she was nothing but dust.
Eugene, his left arm burned away to almost nothing by the intense negative energy of the devil hair and his internal organs completely destroyed, fell silently to the ground with his dagger clattering uselessly to his side. He wore a smile on his contorted face, knowing that his sacrifice would not be in vain as he noted the wonderful change in Rapunzel.
The sound of her cape fluttering to the ground was not the only sound to be heard in the aftermath, for the screams of two women soon brought Rapunzel fully back into the here and now…
"NO! EUGENE!" Amanda and Catherine both cried out as they both dropped to their knees completely heartbroken and devastated by the tragedy they had just witnessed; as did Rupert as he was as overwhelmed by the awful sight before him not to mention the foul smell now overtaking the entire room; the sorrow in their voices unmistakable. William, standing there, alone now and quite shocked, suddenly realized all that the power of the sphere of star energy could do. He drew from his massive amount of calmness and imperturbability and did all he could to exercise the emotional control he was famous throughout Io, soon to be all Sonnen III, for. His calmness was to be paramount to the reversal of a dreadful tragedy as he psyched himself up to be prepared to help Rapunzel to help Eugene. All was not as lost as it seemed…
Rapunzel, looking at the source of the noise, quickly saw a sight that chilled her to the bone. Her beloved Eugene, the man who had done so much to bring her the wonder of love and to help her acclimatize to the real world, lay motionless with his left arm grotesquely burned and charred to nothingness below the elbow, as if exposed to a fire of several thousand degrees; his body completely lifeless.
"Eugene! What have I done?! PLEASE DON'T…! YOU CAN'T BE…! I NEED YOU!" Rapunzel wailed as she ran over and grabbed him up and hugged him close, ignoring the smell of burnt flesh around what remained of his left arm.
The Present…
"If he died, how does this story keep going?" Synnøve asked; her quaking voice breaking the deafening and quite uncomfortable silence around them.
"Well," the now tear free Rebecca replied with a huge smile; "It would seem that all the magic did not live in just her hair."
"It did not?" Christian asked, totally confused as to where the story was leading.
"No. It did not…"
"But…?"
Three Years and Ten Months Previous…
The only sounds in the tower room were the loud sobs of Rapunzel as she held and gently rocked the lifeless body of her new dream in her arms. She was so grief stricken that she did not feel her father come beside her and kneel so that he could grasp her around her shoulders. Catherine, Amanda and Rupert were totally confused to how he could be so calm in the face of such a senseless tragedy as Eugene had quickly become a valued member of the family. She looked up with red rimmed and teary emerald eyes at the deep sea blue eyes of her father and saw a strange sight. He was smiling.
"Daddy?" Rapunzel quakingly asked; her shock too great to fully analyze the entire surreal situation.
"Rapunzel, please do not cry for all is not lost."
"It isn't? But…? What do you mean?" Rapunzel confusedly asked as she held tighter to the deceased Eugene.
"Do you remember what I told you before, the evening you came home?" William quite calmly asked, as the others too suddenly realized the true power of Rapunzel and her power to reverse this tragedy.
"That the hair did not just glow when I sang and heal as well?"
"Exactly! Think what else it could do that you have first-hand knowledge of." The calm William replied, his huge smile now slowly mirroring on Rapunzel's face as she also, albeit slowly, made the connection.
"It kept Gothel young!" Rapunzel excitedly shouted as she slowly made the connection between the power of the sun and herself.
"YES! It kept her young for FIVE CENTURIES! First in the form of the flower and then in the form of not only your hair, but you yourself. And, you will find, it can do far, far more. If you channel the power…"
"Channel the power…; the power. The POWER! YES! Flower gleam and glow…" Rapunzel confidently began as she shed tears of what she hoped would be joy, ensuring that each and every one of the drops landed upon the face and chest of Eugene.
"…let your power shine…"
As her voice gained in strength, so too did the strength of her tears. The individual tears began to glow in a golden light as they rained down on the prone Eugene.
"…make the clock reverse…"
The tears, glowing as they did, caused the surrounding tissue that they landed upon to glow as well; each tear causing a larger and larger section of Eugene's skin to glow as the power of each individual tear multiplied exponentially to the infinite power; cubed! It was a LOT! And, soon his entire body glowed so brightly as to cause the others to have to shield their eyes.
"….bring back what was once mine…"
The entire body of Eugene began to faintly glow, not that Rapunzel could tell through her severely tear hazed vision as she paused a moment to catch her breath.
"Keep going…" William, Catherine, Rupert and Amanda all whispered, imperceptibly.
"Heal what has been hurt…" Rapunzel continued, her voice gaining in even more strength.
As Rapunzel completed this phrase, Eugene's body suddenly glowed in the most incredible golden light; the brightest glow coming from his formerly burnt arm as the charred remnants faded away and then completely rebuilt itself cell by cell – bone, muscle, skin all reforming in a wonderful choreography of creation – and returned to its former appearance; now with the super human strength, and more!
"…change the fate's design…"
Not visible on the outside was the sure repair of all of the internal damage caused by the negative energy once channelled through the hair. Cell by cell and system by system, each and every part of Eugene was restored to better than normal. Each and every old wound, completely healed and repaired, faded into nothingness.
"…save what has been lost…"
Eugene's lungs, fully repaired, expanded and began to take in a breath to be distributed to his body tissue as his heart began to beat, slowly but surely and gaining in strength, serving as the vehicle to continue the now miraculous recovery of the once deceased. Additionally, the power of the sun served as the catalyst for his cells to jump start back into full operation; and better than ever!
"…bring back what once was mine…"
Eugene's nervous system, now fully restored, too began to respond as the synapses began firing again to send the brain's signals throughout the now fully restored body.
Finally, at the deepest molecular level, a miraculous fusion was going on that would render Eugene as perhaps the strongest individual to live; EVER! The power of the blue star drop already contained within his body now reacted with the power of the yellow star drop to form even more miraculous compounds within him and give him the power of creation and the power of life over death.
"…what once was mine."
Rapunzel, her tears slowly drying and not so patiently waiting with baited breath as the glow of Eugene slowly faded to nothing, could scarcely believe her eyes, now readjusted to the darkness of the tower, as she first saw Eugene's chest moving in response to his slowly strengthening respiration and then felt the strengthening of his heartbeat as she felt his pulse through the hand she was holding. What she did completely believe was that her dream was asking her name.
"Rapunzel?" Eugene weakly asked as he took in the sight of the now brunette crown princess.
"Eugene…?" Rapunzel asked, almost not believing her ears.
"Did I ever tell you I have a thing for brunettes?" Eugene smirkingly asked, knowing that he had to do something witty to bring a smile to the once traumatized crown princess.
"EUGENE!" Rapunzel happily shouted as she very unceremoniously jumped on the now recovered future Prince Consort and quite passionately kissed him as the two couples of William and Catherine and Rupert and Amanda looked on; massive tears of joy streaming down each of their faces.
"I don't know about you, but dying sure makes one hungry!" Eugene remarked.
"EUGENE!" The group exclaimed.
The Present…
"So, in the aftermath of this miracle…" Christian began.
"Eugene was imbued with a miraculous mixture of elements that rendered him once the most powerful individual on the planet."
"Once…?" The pair asked.
"Yes. You see, about a month later came the Miracle at the Orphanage."
"Which imbued you with the powers of Eugene?" Synnøve asked.
"Yes. Now to get back to the original question, the Flynn Rider takes advantage of not only the power of Rapunzel's tears, but mine and Eugene's as well."
"How does it work?" A now insatiably curious Christian asked.
A/N #6: Please read, enjoy and review…