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"I think I'm more surprised than you are."

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"That very well might be true," he says. "And I've been surprised a fair amount in my life, I might be more used to it than you are. Probably you don't get very many surprises sitting in your abandoned tower all day. Probably it's just the occasional squirrel dropping in to say hi and ask if you've got any spare chestnuts. That's a joke, squirrels don't talk. That I know of. I guess they could be doing it where nobody else can hear and we just wouldn't know about it."

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"I don't think squirrels talk."

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"Well, sure, neither do I. But it's hard to be sure. I didn't think people lived in abandoned-looking towers with no doors, and look how wrong I was."

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"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"
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"I'm getting the sense that you wouldn't like it if I did, and I don't really have a good reason to. If you want to keep being a very solitary non-flying forest hermit, that's no business of mine. I imagine it gets lonely, but maybe you don't care about that as much as I would. Or maybe you secretly talk to squirrels. Do you secretly talk to squirrels? You don't have to tell me, I bet the squirrels made you swear a solemn vow of silence. On a chestnut."

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"I don't talk to squirrels."

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"Okay." He finishes the muffin. "That was a really good muffin, miss non-flying forest hermit who doesn't talk to squirrels. I have no idea where you get muffin ingredients, but you do amazing things with them. Maybe it's owls. Do you have an owl friend who steals small bags of flour from nearby towns and picks cranberries for you by the light of the moon, carrying them here one at a time in his beak? That would be very impractical. Maybe he has a little cranberry bag that he can carry in his claws. Talons? I think it's talons when it's a bird."

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"I don't think I had better tell you."

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"Tell me what? Your solution to the problem of how owls can efficiently transport picked berries? Good call, I bet your owl friend would be jealous of the competition if word got out. He would no longer be champion of the owl berry-carrying contests."

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And with that, in spite of everything, Rapunzel laughs.
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Rolan grins at her.

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She gets control of herself presently and goes back to watching him warily, like she expects him to spring at her if she leaves her guard down.

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"You're a very nervous non-flying forest hermit. Is it me? People usually don't find me that scary. I'm not cut out for intimidation. I prefer running away. I find it solves almost all of my problems." He sets his satchel on his lap and sighs. "The rest I mostly deal with by making new friends, but all the running away kind of interferes with forming lasting relationships. Maybe I should get a pet mouse."

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"I told you you should go away and you are not solving your problems by doing it," Rapunzel points out.
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"Yes I am," he says. "I'm just waiting until I'm steady enough to trust myself getting down that wall again, because my minimum standard for any running-away plan is that it has to be less likely to kill me than the alternative. Except under very special circumstances. Are you the kind of very special circumstances I should be risking my life for?"

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"I guess not."
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"Good. Thank you."

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"You're welcome."

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He smiles.

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Rapunzel keeps warily watching him.

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Yep, she does definitely do that. He can tell.

He seems to have stopped babbling for the moment. Now he's looking contemplatively at his satchel.
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"What's in the bag?"
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"Poor life choices," he sighs.

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"Figuratively?" she guesses.
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