#t. knight of corona | eugene fitzherbert

[ringwandervng]

eugene & hana ( @moldedmemories )

hana never made her distrust in him a secret, which was why he’d thought it’d be best for him to try and steer as away from her for the sake of their respective good times. but much like his own sobriety, any sense of good judgments had been thrown out the window. “hey, have your seen punzie? she wasn’t at our table when i got back from the restroom.” 

[avatarvyakara]

Drops of Gold and Silver

A Tangled Fanfic

Prompts 151-165

“Having Fun”

151. Ivory

For all that Eugene still seems afraid of him, Hookhand was a surprisingly gentle teacher. And part of learning to be a princess apparently involved learning sheet music. So when she can finally put it all together for simple songs, a few months after her life began, it’s a wonderful feeling.

Playing piano is like playing drums and guitar at the same time.

(Better yet, her Mom plays too. Where Mother never really indulged her, her actual mother plays a mean left hand, as Eugene says.)

152. Whisper

Hortense Crowley, Mistress and Housekeeper of Corona Castle, tolerates the gossip from her maids. Living Downstairs, even in Corona, can be a boring business, with not much time to develop interests outside the confines of work. So long as they don’t slack, and don’t bite the hand that feeds them, what they talk about in their own time is their own business.

(Besides, it gives her something to share on card nights. And Mr. Nigel’s and the Captain’s poker faces are substantially worse when they’re thinking about having to put up with Flynn Rider, especially when news of his latest escapades trickles down. Were they playing with stakes, Mr. Fitzherbert would have netted her several hundred dollars within the first two months of his arrival.

To be fair, bring up the Princess—and muddy tracks down the halls—and Hortense might have had to pay it back again.)

153. Oblivious

It’s nice to have two friends who don’t disregard how happy she and her sister are to finally stop being thieves—really do look happy for them, too.

Even if Varian is blind to the fact that rambling on about copper-plated alembics (whatever the heck those are) is a sure-fire way to knock someone out at close range.

Somehow, Catalina is unaffected by the hypnosis, and actually seems interested.

Angry is many things, but unobservant isn’t one of them.

“Anyone wanna switch seats with me?” (And she can pretty darn pragmatic when she wants to be, too.)

But apparently Rapunzel couldn’t read the room with a magnifying glass. She sits between the Strikers and the alchemist and chatters away about the animals spending time together and becoming better friends—nice bit of irony—while Varian looks bemused and Catalina slumps and Angry grumps.

(Maybe Angry’s missed something, but she sure can’t tell what.)

154. Spin

Don’t get Cassandra wrong, she’s got a lot of fun stuff. Her stuffed owl, the ragdoll knight Sir Sir and her regiment of wooden soldiers and the criminal Jerk, an equally wooden sword and shield, the books Dad’s basically kept from the castle library for years now...but when she doesn’t want to play at hunting or fighting, she could watch that little blue top for hours.

155. Parkour

“Uh, Friedborg?” calls (recently-married and thus recently-titled) Princess Arianna. “Are you okay up there?”

Her lady-in-waiting smiles at her from the top of the Bishop’s Tower.

It’s surprisingly enjoyable, Your Highness, the gentle reply settles in Arianna’s head, as clear as if Friedborg were standing right next to her. Only...I may not be entirely certain how to get down yet.

156. Grab

“I swear I got bimberries this time!” Eugene protests as the gopher makes a valiant attempt at breaking the sound barrier.

Angry raises an eyebrow at her sister, who looks sheepish.

“I just told him we’d catch him first! Anyway, it was only a little growl...”

157. Bicker

Arguing isn’t good, Rapunzel knows. Arguing leads to cold moods, and needing to apologize for getting the other person upset, and being stuck in one’s room for hours. Arguing leads to Bad Things.

So—

“You know, if you actually spent a minute on something useful for every hour you spend preening yourself, I might understand what Rapunzel sees in you.”

“We practice what we’re best suited for, Cassandra. I’m good at looking good, you’re good at scaring people with your face.”

“My face is scary?”

“Aha! She admits it!”

—why do they look like they’re enjoying themselves?

158. Artificial

They can leave his father trapped. They can call him a criminal. They can let the Black Rocks destroy the whole kingdom by making up stories of how they’re all gone. They can pretend they ever tried to be his friend.

But, thinks Varian as he turns the music box and watches the parts of the Amber Guard automaton assemble themselves with something akin to satisfaction, they cannot stop his mind working.

They’re pushing a false happiness on people. He’ll make real happiness for himself.

159. Meal

“Oh, and by the way,” says Mom, “I wanted to say thank you for inviting Friedborg to your Ladies’ Lunch the other day. She had a wonderful time.”

Three possible responses appear in Rapunzel’s mind, sounding respectively rather like herself, Cassandra, and Eugene:

“Aw, Mom, I’m really glad!”

“Ah, at least someone did.”

“Uh, Mom? How can you tell?”

Option One seems best, under the circumstances.

160. Parry

Sword-fighting isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s a difficult task for protectors of the land, something they have to be proficient in, just in case someone tries to kill them one day.

“Cass? Are you okay?”

Eight-year-old Cassandra, padded and disarmed of her brand-new wooden sword, looks up from the ground at her father, who looks about ready to break down apologizing.

She grins.

“Again!”

Task or not, it is fun. It’s a challenge.

161. Purr

The low rumbling sound fills the room as Eugene tickles the enormous palace mouser under the belly.

Rapunzel nearly coos. Pascal and Cassandra just stare. (Whittington is widely regarded as the most dangerous animal on the island for a reason. Even Owl and Maximus keep their distance.)

“What? I’m a cat person.”

162. Rerun

They remember bits and pieces. Something about a top? Pretty sure there was a quest of some sort. But being a kid (again?) brings its own set of feelings.

Cassandra feels...energetic. Her hand is much better, even though she’s not sure why it wouldn’t be. She wonders, idly, where her Dad is, but remembers that he’s back in Corona. (Where is she? Ah, doesn’t matter, she can’t be that far.) She knows Lance—he’s her silly, funny friend—and she knows Eugene—she doesn’t like him—and she knows Rapunzel—she’s upset with her about something but she’s not sure what. Time for some fun—and she finally doesn’t have to listen to anyone if she doesn’t want to.

Lance feels...oddly free. He doesn’t have to pretend to be cool or anything, he can just ask anything that comes to his mind. He knows his name is Arnie, but his friends call him Lance so that’s what his name is. And these are his friends. Cassandra is fun, even if she plays rough. Rapunzel is nice. Eugene is Eugene and he’s very, very special. Time for some fun—all the world to explore and so many questions he can finally ask.

Shorty feels...the same as ever. He’s around people he trusts, even if he has no idea why and doesn���t much care. He has a lot on his mind, but not a lot of mind left to balance it on. One thought remains, though:

“I finally found my duck!”

163. Maze

Her human friend had an odd fascination with them. Which was the only reason why she was indulging him as they passed through some ruins in Planitia Australis.

“You do know,” said Zhan Tiri pointedly, “that I can simply fly overhead to reach the other side?”

“Ah,” replied Demanitus with a grin, “maybe I would do that, if I could. But you won’t, because then you’d never know if you could have beaten the maker at their own game.”

Damn the man.

164. Intermission

What with one thing and another, it’s actually very hard for Rapunzel not to have fun. The difference lies in the why.

For most of her life, she had fun because, well, yes, things were enjoyable, but also because the alternative was just being bored stiff with nothing to do. Then, once she was the Lost Princess, it was doing fun things as a distraction from what she needed to do. But there was that brief period, maybe two days long, where she could choose to have fun with no lack of options and no duties. Between one Tower and another, there was the world.

And, really, two days like that is more than most people get in a lifetime.

165. Psychology

Arianna has played chess with three girls in the palace in her time, and each of them played slightly differently.

Cassandra played the hardest; she treated every game like a battle, trying to intimidate her opponent into giving up. And when she got to the endgame, she was nearly unstoppable. But Cassandra also focused too much on single pieces, using her queen or her knights or her bishops on their own as much as possible and trying to wear Arianna down one stage at a time, instead of trusting that she could use focus on the action in more than one way. So many combinations, but only with a few pieces—like weapons to be used and then switched out when broken. Getting to the endgame was the hard part.

Calling Rapunzel a girl might be stretching things, but she is Arianna’s daughter and therefore will always be that mix of newborn and young woman and everything she missed in-between. And Rapunzel’s beginning-games are superb, considering she only had one partner before Arianna. But therein lay the rub—Pascal was (so it seemed) incredibly intelligent, but he was just one chameleon. So he and Rapunzel could play the game practically knowing each other’s moves, turning a battlefield into a ballroom, each mind working dozens of turns ahead. The same way Arianna might play with Friedborg, or Frederic. Fun—but Arianna is not Pascal, and Rapunzel is not used to other styles of play. Go too far from the style she knows, play a riskier game, and despite her enthusiasm remaining the same her confidence plummets. A misstep in the dance can leave her scrambling to pick herself up.

The third—one of the Silent Strikers, who she’d found exploring one day—plays well. Kiera, who prefers to be called Angry, didn’t know the game, but a few lessons later she was already making Arianna guess. Where to Cassandra it was a duel and to Rapunzel it’s a dance, Angry plays the game like poker, watches for tells and tries to redirect the flow her own way. Much like Mr. Strongbow plays, if it comes to that. But she overplays. Angry can see combinations that work, and can force Arianna into playing hard if she wants to—but there’s so often a moment of early triumph, a feeling that it’s all fine and the next few moves won’t matter. Sometimes she loses when a single extra combination could lead to checkmate.

Sometimes they win. But when they win, it’s because Cassandra lets the pieces on her side work together like a team, or Rapunzel is learning her mother’s style of play, or Angry retains her caution up until the end. When they overcome their weaknesses.

(Arianna’s weakness is a tendency to be goaded into unwise decisions, or making fatal errors early on that she scrambles for the rest of the game to fix. But sometimes —sunset, a girl who looks so familiar, years of guilt over tearing apart her kingdom and her family and herself by not being strong enough finally fading away—she wins too.)

[ringwandervng]

eugene & rapunzel ( @melodieuxm )

eugene perked up at the music, giddiness filled his chest as the upbeat rhythm play. thank god arthur has good taste. he made his way to rapunzel, tapping his shoulder lightly to grab her attention.  “hey,” his cheeky grin was hard to contain as he offered her his hand to take. “i believe i owe you a dance?”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & jasmine ( @littlevcper​ )

“sultana jasmine, hey,” he flashed her a smile as he raised his champagne flute in greetings. “oh wow, your dress is gold – it’s pretty and bright. are you matching with din?”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & arthur ( @crystallizedwings​ )

“there he is, man of the hour!” his lips stretched into a wide grin when he spot his friend – his now married friend – as he made his way through the crowd with two glass shots in his hand. “dude, you need to link me up with wherever you’re getting these drinks from, because they’re just top-notch.”

[ringwandervng]

[FLASHBACK] eugene flynn & rapunzel || @melodieuxm​ 

flynn rider’s day was getting stranger and stranger. first he met this weird girl at the tower – which, okay, maybe wouldn’t have been so bad because she was kinda cute in a sweet, wholesome kind of way if she hadn’t: 1) hit him square in the face with a frying pan, or 2) kept the crown he had stolen earlier today in exchange for escorting her on a trip to see the so-called “floating lights.”

then the same girl proceeded to have a bout of extreme joy/guilt over leaving said tower – and flynn tried to help by suggesting that she return and just hand him the crown so they could go their separate way, which, frustratingly enough, she refused. so he took her to snuggly duck, because surely a tavern filled with scary and dangerous criminals would be enough to scare her off back to her tower.  except she started singing about her dreams and then everyone started singing too. 

and really, flynn had barely processed what was going on before they got chased by everyone, nearly dying, and finding out that the girl’s hair literally glows.

flynn rider would really prefer to just lie down and figure out what the hell is going on. not that he had time for that. not when they were soaked and cold, and the day was getting darker. “we’re gonna need to find somewhere to rest tonight and find something to make fire somehow.” he turned to the the girl, an eyebrow raised and mustering his best-selling grin, “you think you can at least manage one of them, blondie?”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & arthur ( @crystallizedwings​ )

“are you sure you don’t need anything? water, napkins, another trip to the bathroom, anything at all?”

[ringwandervng]

[FLASHBACK] eugene flynn & arthur || @crystallizedwings​

it was hard not to hear about the newly crowned king of camelot. it was the hottest talk across the kingdoms. people were raving about how it was the biggest twist of  the decade, something no one had seen coming. he might not know the history of the kingdom well enough to understand why, but he did think the new king deserve a congratulation even from a simple man like him. 

which was why flynn rider planned on stealing a couple of the king’s diamonds. 

now flynn had prepared the most elaborate plan. thanks to the knowledge the great mr. robin hood had bestowed upon him and the arsenal of experiences he had under his belt, he had learned how this nifty trick of rope dropping into a room. which, okay, might be a bit unnecessary. but flynn was feeling like putting this particular job with a little bit more flair and he does need more practice to pull it off more often. and that was why he’s hanging by a rope to enter the room with the biggest grin on his face –– that is, until the rope snapped and he fell flat on his face. 

okay, so maybe he should have a better secured a better rope. and a partner. 

but that’s cool. his nose was perfectly fine and he was getting better at playing things by ear. so he grabbed the diamonds, found a way to sneak out to the back door, get out and make a quick run for it. super easy, until he noticed the guards walking his direction coming from the kitchen area. his quick thinking moved his feet to go for the nearest door, shutting it quietly as he let out a sigh of relief. now he just need to wait for a little bit. he turned around to lean on the door to relax for a while, though the sight of another man in the room – one particular man that he very much recognize.

“arthur? what are you doing here?”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & juliet ( @stvrbrvght )

while it made perfect sense for a royal wedding to be filled with so many guests, it really didn’t change the fact that it was a bit annoying to navigate through them. he was trying his best of course, but buzz from the alcohol wasn’t helping him much and he ended up bumping into someone, almost spilling his champagne in the process. “damn that was a close call. sorry about that, these crowds are so –” the words halted when he finally got a better look at the familiar face in front of him. “jules? i – you’re here.”

[ringwandervng]

[FLASHBACK] eugene flynn & jack || @ofdiamonddaggers

if you asked flynn ryder what was the biggest key to navigating through a crowded marketplace, it would be having a pack of guards going after you. sure, it might be a bit unconventional.  but from his own, very personal experience, there was nothing better to sharpen your instincts and reflexes than the very threat of getting thrown into jail for taking couple of jewelries and gold from a noble family. which was what exactly had gone down that fine afternoon. even through the buzz of the crowd, flynn could hear the shouting guards from behind him, and even though his feet was carrying him as fast as he could, they only sounded closer and closer. he had briefly turned around, was able to briefly make out the guards brightly-colored uniforms amongst the sea of people, before focusing back to running. or at least, he would have if somebody hadn’t completely yanked him to the side. 

the quick yelp was a little bit embarrassing, and he would have complained about the sudden interruption to his getaway if he hadn’t seen the familiar person next to him. "well, well, fancy seeing you here,” he said after a moment of catching his breath, “didn’t think anyone was around to catch my bachelor-in-distress signal and come to my rescue.” he flashed his old friend a crooked grin before taking a peek from the corner of the building. “you think they’d be smart enough to check this way?”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & aladdin || @codexq

the bar eugene and his old buddies were hanging out at were so alive with cheers and laughter that he’d rather stay drinking with them until the morning comes, or until they’re getting bounced. but tomorrow was going to be a busy morning, and a persisting headache or sleep-heavy eyes weren’t really going to help his case too much. so after another round of ale, and a couple of failed attempts to get him to stay longer, eugene finally walked out of the bar and into the warm agrabah night, a perfect weather for a nice, uneventful walk back to an inn. at least, it was supposed to. somewhere along the way, his eyes had wandered off and some swiping. which, normally would be something he would be obliged to stop. but it was his night off and he wasn’t in corona. so technically he didn’t have to play good samaritan and snitch, and he hadn’t planned to. it’s just, well, the culprit looked oddly familiar.  

eugene glanced around, not seeing anyone else had seem to taken notice, before turning back to see the culprit walking away. without a second thought, he followed suit – which, okay, yes it might be a bad idea because he was being a bit creepy. or he might get robbed in a dark, narrow alleyways. though his worries quickly once he got a good look at the suspicious man. "so, i don’t know who’s giving the sultan bad directions, but i think the castle’s the other way.”

[ringwandervng]

eugene & yarran ( @kintsvqi​ )

"hey don’t look so glum – it’s a wedding. you should mingle and dance, or drink if that’s what you’re into.” 

[ringwandervng]

eugene & guinevere ( @for-remembrxnce )

"guinevere, hey, i almost didn’t see you.” eugene had to hold the urge to smack his own face. this is literally her wedding, dumbass. “you, uh – you’re doing good? i know things can get hectic at the last minute so i just, uh, just wanna make sure.“

[ringwandervng]

[FLASHBACK] eugene flynn & cheshire || @whitesctin​

for the first time in his whole entire life, flynn rider had to admit that he was most definitely lost. 

though in his defend, that was not his fault. he’d heard of wonderland and all the weird things that goes around. but he certainly had no idea that the forest was going to be so twisty and messed with his excellent navigational skills. yet flynn was sure he’d been walking around the woods for three hours now and he was nowhere close to getting near the border. 

at one point, he stopped walking all together and groaned loudly. “this is so not how you’re gonna die, rider,” he grumbled to himself. he was ready to about to continue his trekking when he heard the rustling, startling him. his head whipped to the direction of the noise, only to find a cat standing next to a nearby tree. which might be an odd thing to find in the middle of the woods, but he chalked it off as a woderland thing. besides, it was hard to get worried at all when the harmless thing looked so cute.  “well, hello there fella,” he cooed as he began to walk closer. he crouched down and reached out to pet his back, soft fur against his skin. “too bad you won’t happen to know how to help a poor guy out, huh.”

[ringwandervng]

[ FLASHBACK ] eugene flynn & elsa || @lovedrovghts​ 

if anyone were to make a list of the kingdom from best to worst, flynn rider would probably put arendelle pretty high on the list. not that flynn rider had been through a lot of them, but arendelle actually had a lot to offer – the different food and drinks that would never fail to tickle his tongue, the quaint little shops with many pretty merchandises, a surprisingly lax and flawed guard system, and a thick and fascinating woods that surrounded the city which makes a fantastic hiding spot after he actually snagged some knick knacks. 

the castle’s interior, as it turned out, was a lot prettier when compared to exteriors. the decors were anything shiny of flashy, but there was no doubt in mind that they would bought by high bidders. flynn took his time to grab all the things his heart and wallet desired and only made his way towards the door when he was finally content. though not before he peeked his head out the door to check his surroundings. no one was around to stop him from getting richer and he couldn’t help but grin.

flynn rider was starting to think arendelle was going to end on top of his favorite kingdom list by the end of the night.

still, flynn wasn’t going to start throwing stealth out of the window. he stalked towards a different room – one that would bring him closest to the woods to hide. which shouldn’t be such a difficult plan, until he noticed the bed occupied by someone. crap, this is someone’s bedroom. alright flynn rider, you’re so close, he thought as he started tiptoeing for the window, just get to the window quietly, no big deal...

[ringwandervng]

eugene & anna ( @peachyxdoll ) – pre-plot drop

“i know it’s weird to feel a bit conflicted about eating a cake from the best baker in camelot, but like, the wedding cake looks so good that i kind of feel like it’s almost a shame to actually ruin it, you know?”