"Are they very impatient? Why do they want to meet me, do they want to - ask me questions or just get a closer look or what?"

"Some of both, and some of them just don't like that they aren't allowed to bother you whenever they like. It will do them some good to have to wait."

"Okay. Well, none of the things I've said about where I was and what I was doing are secrets, if they're curious. But - thank you."

"You're welcome."

Nibble nibble.

Nom nom. The food is really good.

Eventually Rapunzel's all done. And she sits, looking around.

"You're thinking of staying a while, aren't you? Need anything fetched from anywhere?"

"Nah," he says, smiling wryly. "I'm good with what I came with. Thank you, though."

"If you're not going to go follow her right away - I would like more of the story of how you found her and brought her here," says Ranae.

"How much of the story would you like?" he inquires - of Cearl, who was there when he produced the crown, and certainly seems to have caught the subtext.

"Sooner have more details than fewer, I think."

"In that case," he says, "it all started when I stole the princess's crown."

"Why'd you do that?" sighs the king.

"Pure impulse. The jeweler just happened to leave his window open while he stepped out, I just happened to see it, and judged I could make it from mine to his and back. So I did. I wasn't thinking about what I'd do with it, or what it would mean to you two - I really am sorry about that part. And then I fell in with those two brothers I left in the woods for you - did your guards manage to pick them up yet?"

"Got back early this morning, yep."

"Oh good. Okay. Originally I just wanted to pass through their room on my way out of town, but they convinced me to stick around, which made me pretty sure they were planning something. And then I found out they actually were planning something - betraying me to the authorities and making off with the crown themselves, to be specific - so I preemptively dumped them in a mud puddle and bolted, and then led both them and the Royal Guard on a merry chase through the woods in two different directions, which was excitingly hard to pull off. And at the end of it when I was just getting to be very firmly sure I'd lost them all, I stumbled on this tower, which seemed like a much better place to stay the night than under a tree or in a ravine. And it couldn't possibly be occupied, because there was no door in the bottom. Silly me, in retrospect." He shrugs and nibbles on the last of his bread.

"So you climbed it."

"So I climbed it. And there was this terrified blonde girl with seventy feet of hair. And I stuck around just long enough to have one of her excellent muffins and get my wind back, because she was very very insistent that I should climb back down as soon as possible - did that, fell off the tower from halfway up, broke both my legs when I hit the ground. She dropped her hair on me and un-broke my legs. And, well... it was golden, and it glowed. And she was about the right age. I yelled up and asked if she happened to be a missing princess, and she yelled down that of course she wasn't, and we shouted back and forth for a while and then she let me come up again by her hair to talk about it, and I convinced her that the only way she could really know was to stop taking anybody's word for it and go see for herself. So she packed up some things and we left the tower and came here, and you know the rest."

"Mm-hm."