Rob X Punzel ~ Forty-Three!

Gentle hands prodded Goldie’s shoulder, cutting short the first proper rest she had managed in ages. Her crusty eyes slowly blinked open, and a nervous servant's face filled her view. Not fully out of her dreams, she angrily rasped, “Off… w-with her head.”

“What?” The servant stepped back, but the half-mumbled words were quickly forgotten as she remembered her duty. “Rapunzel, the royal family will be arriving soon. You need to be prepared, or you’ll spoil your first impression with them.”

The hazy remnants of sleep snapped away as a jolt of excitement lanced through her. Goldie slowly sat up, looking around the room and finding servants bustling in and out, tearing down the makeshift bedroom they’d hastily prepared for her. Moments later, an unearthly clang nearly made her jump out of her skin as a team hoisting the claw-footed bathtub slipped and dropped the massive furnishing.

No one uttered a sound, simply redoubling their efforts. Goldie was gently pulled from her bed, the servants taking care not to aggravate her ribs. Dishes and leftover food from her solo feast whizzed past too quickly for the hungry young lady to reach out and grab anything for herself. The privacy curtains which had surrounded the bathtub were dragged across the stone floor, set up around her barely in time to preserve her modesty as the servants brought fresh garments for her to change into for her first meeting with her presumptive fiancé.

By the time the attendants had finished tying sashes of richly dyed silks into bows and another gave up on her attempt at smoothing Goldie’s hair, it was time for the curtains to be carted out. The last of the servants hurried out with them, leaving the thief as alone in the stone chamber as when she’d first arrived. 

The transformation from somewhat homey to clean and regal had been completed with ruthless efficiency.

Shifting around slightly, the young woman felt ill at ease, not sure how she should go about presenting herself. Although she wore the softest, certainly most expensive clothes of her life, at this moment, they felt like sandpaper dragging across her skin. She pulled at them, annoyed that one section just wouldn't lie flat.

A familiar voice drifted across the room, pulling her eyes to the royal guard standing near the door and apparently staring straight ahead. “You look great, don't worry about it. They're coming up the stairs now. You should try to stand as casually as possible, but don't try to hide the fact that you took injuries. Remember, this is the Brute Kingdom. If you weren’t injured getting what you wanted, you didn't have high enough aspirations in the first place.”

Moments after the final syllable left his lips, the guard gripped the handle of the door and smoothly swung it open. “The royal family of… the Brute Kingdom!” 

As the door swung open, revealing those on the other side, Goldie took an involuntary step forward, hoping to save the king from the massive ogre sneaking up behind him. 

“No~ope!” The guard hissed at her, barely enough of a warning to stop her from making a fool of herself as the king strode into the chamber with a level of energy that seemed out of place. She glanced to the guard, who’d been the one to let her know that the king had been terribly sick recently. He offered a minute shrug, not able to speak in the presence of royalty without permission.

King Frieden was practically skipping as he charted a course directly for his cushioned throne, though as he passed Goldie, his twinkling eyes glanced her direction and offered her a wink of support. She watched him move, trying to put aside her assumption that he would carry the hesitance and frailty of a man at death's door—this was a person practically bursting with vitality.

Then Goldie's eyes slowly traveled back to the person who could only be the queen. She couldn't help but gulp as Queen Brutehilda stomped forward, somehow managing to shake the stone floor with each step. Her presence was even larger than her enormous frame, which by itself was packed with hard muscle that strained against the impractical outfit practically painted on to her. As she stepped across the room, her eyes only left Goldie after she arrived at her rough-hewn stone throne. The queen looked at it, her lips curling into a fierce scowl. “Someone's been sitting in my chair.”

“You couldn't possibly know that,” the king casually countered, faster than Goldie would have expected an answer to come. Clearly, he’d been waiting for an opportunity to start a fight with the massive queen. “It's rock. If someone other than you sat in it for any length of time, they'd be injured.”

The queen reached down, pulling a nearly transparent sheet of material off the seat of the throne. “I know that, which is why I put things on here and check if they've been moved while I was gone. Do you think I'm a moron?”

“I wouldn't go that far,” the king replied lightly, earning himself a suspicious glare for his troubles. The queen's scowl intensified after a moment, shifting into a suspicious glint as though she’d been expecting him to crumble under the weight of her rising anger. Instead, he ignored her with the ease of a man who’d long since mastered the art of conversational deflection. “Ah, there he is now. My son, the future king, is here to meet his bride!”

Goldie followed his line of sight, having nearly forgotten why she was there, thanks to the dark intensity crackling between the rulers. When her gaze landed on the prince, her heart leapt into her throat—though she managed to hold an impassive expression on her face. 

“Rob, join us up here!” the king chipperly called out to the young man, the person Goldie recognized as the mysterious benefactor of the orphanage she had grown up in. The man she had rescued from a disastrous fate by pulling him through the barriers between districts then throwing him into an arena with hardened combatants. Goldie's lips pressed into a line as she tried not to smile at the thought of being pushed into an arena being the correct choice for rescuing someone. 

“Roburt, a prince does not hesitate. He moves when he is given an order from his king,” the queen ground out, gripping the arms of her stone chair hard enough that something creaked.

Now that she’d gotten over her initial surprise, Goldie studied the prince as he stiffly walked across the room. Though he wore princely regalia instead of the comparatively modest clothes she remembered, and his face was swollen from the bruises of a recent brawl, she was sure of it—this was Bob. Or, she supposed, Roburt. 

His gaze kept flicking to her. He wore his composure like a mask, though when he saw the humor dancing in Goldie's eyes, his ‘mask’ paled. Roburt quietly bowed to the king and queen, then took his own seat, which allowed him to study Goldie in turn. Now only she stood, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of the royal family's scrutiny. 

Brutehilda opened her mouth, and Goldie prepared for questions to start flying at her, but was left disappointed as the massive woman shifted to face the king. 

“How miraculous to see you up and out of bed.” Her tone was rich with derision, sharp enough to cleanly slice the stone she was seated upon as she vented at her counterpart. “I could’ve sworn you were declared unfit to leave your chambers. I suppose it's a coincidence that your sudden recovery coincides with the embargo from the alchemist guild?”

“Correlation does not equal causation. Sometimes, all a man needs is a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air.” He punctuated his words with a grand gesture toward the walls of the chamber they were in, though his eyes remained fixed on the queen's face, his stare flat, as though trying to find the right moment to strike. “Besides, how could I resist the opportunity to meet my lovely future daughter-in-law? The soon-to-be princess who has fought against every eligible lady in the entire kingdom to be here, using the trials you yourself designed to prove herself worthy of Roburt.”

“Yeah, she's pretty enough, but there's no chance I'm going to let her be the next queen,” Brutehilda scoffed contemptuously, her gaze flicking to Goldie for a bare moment. “You know what I was doing before I came here? I was reviewing the memory crystals which followed her tower climb. She defied the spirit of every one of the challenges. This sneak was supposed to prove her combat potential on the first floor, but all she ended up doing was relying on tricks and dodging through when other people were fighting to get to the ladder.”

“As for the rest of the tower, all she’s got is smoke and mirrors. No actual power. Some lowborn citizen with pretty hair, a utility-based waste of space with no real, personal power.” The queen's muscles flexed dangerously, threatening to shred the outfit around her biceps. “Everything she's gotten, she's begged for, borrowed, or stolen out from under the noses of those who’re actually meant to get here.”

Goldie realized the sparkles at the edges of her vision were from hyperventilating and forcefully took control of her breathing so she wouldn't collapse in front of royalty and prove the queen's vile words correct. 

“Be that as it may, as it may…” The king's smooth reply was a firm boulder the crashing waves of the queen's fury was unable to budge. “She is here. Rapunzel fulfilled every requirement laid out, and the rules themselves stipulate that any method of success is acceptable. Never once were combat skills declared necessary for victory. Just because you are unsatisfied—as in every other aspect of your life—you cannot strip her of this victory. To do so would invite chaos, riots in the streets, when every person from the prince to the lowest pauper is told in no uncertain terms that the crown breaks its own rules.”

Brutehilda’s nostrils flared large enough that Goldie could have fit her clenched fist into them, her heavy breathing creating a wisp of steam rolling away from her. “The tower was designed to forge my successor in my image. Whoever succeeds me must be a Witch Queen who understands the price of power and is willing to pay that cost. No matter what. This… multi-tool of a girl is nothing more than an anomaly. Allowing her to claim the prince will undermine every plan I have for the future!”

“Yet, it is your rules that allowed her to get here.” The king returned to his original point, hammering it yet again. “Will you attempt to rewrite the laws simply because you dislike the outcome? I'll tell you now… I will not allow it to happen.”

As the ultimatum echoed around the stone chamber, the tension in the room reached a fever pitch. Brutehilda lunged to her feet, looming over King Frieden with her uncooked-ham-sized fists pulled back, her muscles coiled like a snake ready to strike, writhing around under her skin as she barely held herself back from venting her anger on the monarch. For his part, the king remained as still as a statue, his expression serene, but his eyes blazing with a bright, bronze light.

The luminescence increased in intensity, casting shadows around the room as he tapped into the massive ward structure giving him authority over the kingdom. “Did I say something… false?”

Around him, the air silently warped, the instant, imposed quietude more terrifying to Goldie’s senses than if thunder was booming through the space. The queen’s power flared in response, sparks popping in the air as she glared, and he smiled peacefully as if completely unconcerned with her reactions.

Then, like a fog vanishing beneath a strong wind, the queen abruptly relaxed, her expression shifting from pyroclastic fury to icy calculation as she turned to regard Goldie. “Very well, perhaps the candidate herself will be open to seeing reason. Rapunzel, Rapunzel… you have a choice to make. If you willingly relinquish any right to be considered as a bride for the prince, I will fulfill whatever other little power fantasy you have. A noble title? Anything under duchess, it's yours. Wealth? I'll give you three cities to manage as you see fit, and an army under your control to protect it. Power? The best training available, from me even.”

Her lips curled back, revealing teeth as square and chiseled as walking tiles. “Apparently, it is within your rights to… refuse… my generous offer. Before you make your choice, I'd like to remind you of one simple fact. In the Brute Kingdom, there’s no greater crime than possessing treasure without the power to hold onto it.”