Chapter 22

The diaries are finally translated, but what secrets do they hold? Also, a couple of mischievous visitors to the castle leads Rapunzel to think about being a little more discerning about where and when she and her lovers get intimate.

Only one image this chapter, as the other 3 all feature under-eighteen characters.

Several days after Willow joined Arianna and Frederic in bed she made an official declaration that she was making Corona her home, and was given her own quarters in the castle. While she made the space her own and could usually be found there if she wasn’t off exploring somewhere, the bed was rarely slept in, though that fact remained secret to all but the royal family and their significant others. Since she was a princess, though not of Corona, Willow was allowed a lady-in-waiting, if she wanted one, and she asked for Faith, who graciously but shyly accepted. Since Faith was already well aware of, and involved with, Rapunzel’s sex life, it didn’t take long for Willow to convince her to join her bed as well and whenever Willow was unable to join the king and queen, Faith was always willing to help fill that particular void.

A week later, the translation of Gothel’s diaries finally came to an end. Disappointingly, Cassandra was never mentioned by name, nor was there any mention of who her biological father might be, but there were some clues and what Rapunzel and Cassandra found they compiled and showed to Eugene.

“‘They’ve taken the flower,’” Rapunzel read. “‘I’ve already noticed an increased rate of ageing. If I can’t somehow reclaim the power of the sundrop I fear I’ll be nothing but dust before the year is out.’” She then closed the book and looked up at Eugene.

“So that’s it, huh? That’s the final entry?” he asked.

Rapunzel nodded. “That’s it. At least we have a solid point of reference for that one. We know exactly when the flower was taken. It was used to heal Mom, and then the power was passed on to me.”

“And then Gothel kidnapped you and abandoned me,” Cassandra added.

“So if we use that as a reference point, we can go back about a couple years and there should be something about Cass, yes?”

“Gothel never dated any of her entries, but yeah, that’s the idea,” Cassandra said. “When we go back a little ways, there are entries about her being pregnant. And one mention of, and I quote, ‘Despite all my efforts, there seems to be nothing special about the child.’”

“That’s great!” Eugene exclaimed, “Not the way she talks about you, but that child is you, right?” Then he noticed the girls’ lack of excitement. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, if you don’t mind being called a parasite,” Cassandra said bitterly.

“She didn’t!” Eugene said, truly shocked. “I know she was a horrible, manipulative witch who would happily commit murder for her own gain, but surely she wouldn’t refer to her own flesh and blood like that.”

“See for yourself,” Cassandra said, and opened up the book to the appropriate spot.

Eugene cleared his throat and read. “‘This little parasite is draining me far more than I ever thought it would. I can’t even use the flower until I give birth in case it reverts the foetus to an unfertilized state. I truly hope this experiment is worth the effort.’” He closed the book. “Oh, Cass, I’m so sorry.” He and Rapunzel sat on either side of her and hugged her, giving her as much love as they could. “You know none of what she says about you is true.”

Cassandra wiped away a tear. “I know. But it still hurts.”

“I think somebody is going to be getting some extra love tonight,” Rapunzel said. She kissed Cassandra on the cheek, causing the other woman to blush slightly.

“This still doesn’t help us figure out who your father is,” Eugene pointed out.

“No, but there are other entries,” Rapunzel said and opened up the book to an earlier section. “They’re really just snippets of thoughts here and there but we think they could start to paint a picture when you put them all together.”

The remainder of the afternoon was spent piecing together the various entries that mentioned or alluded to Gothel’s pregnancy. The three of them came to the conclusion that Gothel tried to acquire the Moonstone Opal but something, whether her own fear of what might happen if she touched it, or ‘The Guardian’ as Gothel referred to him, stopped her. Instead, she allowed herself to get pregnant and managed to get close to the stone, exposing herself and the unborn Cassandra to Moonstone’s energies, in the hopes that her offspring might gain some kind of power or affinity for the stone.

“I guess Gothel was wrong,” Rapunzel said as they discussed their findings.

“About what?” Cassandra asked.

“About you not being special. Maybe something of the Moonstone did rub off on you when you were still in the womb. After all, everyone else who so much as tried to touch it suffered tragically, yet you not only touched it but were able to claim and control it.”

Surprising both Rapunzel and Eugene, Cassandra suddenly lifted up her head and began to shout. “Fuck you, Gothel! That’s right! Fuck! You! That so-called ‘parasite’ that had nothing special about it and you considered to be a waste of time and effort? Turns out I was special, and I actually accomplished the very task you made me for! I hope that in whatever hell you ended up in, that you were able to watch as I did everything you were hoping I’d do, and suffer knowing there was no way for you to benefit from it!”

After her little rant was over, they all sat in silence. After half a minute, Rapunzel asked, “Feeling better?”

Cassandra smirked slightly. “Yes, actually.”

“We still aren’t any closer to knowing who your father is,” Eugene said.

Rapunzel smiled. “Sure we are. We have a potential witness.”

“Who? The Guardian?”

“I’ll give you one guess as to who that probably is.”

Before they went to dinner, they left a note at the remote mirror for Eugene’s father asking to talk with him. After dinner they saw there was a response. “Okay,” was all that was written, so they left another note asking what times he’d be available to chat. The following morning, another note in a different person’s handwriting replied, but was not what they were expecting. “The king suddenly departed last night, saying he was going to visit his son. We’ve sent out search parties for him, but he can be surprisingly stealthy when he wants to be. If we fail to bring him back, and assuming he’s travelling by foot, you can expect him to arrive in about a month.”

Eugene sighed. “Of course Dad would assume that when we said we wanted to talk, that we meant literally,” he said, shaking his head. “Did he forget that the whole reason we gave him the mirror was so we could talk without having to meet in person?”

“Well, on the minus side, we’ll have to wait a while before our investigation can move forward. But on the plus side, once he gets here it’ll be a lot easier and faster to just talk to him, rather than write notes back and forth,” Rapunzel pointed out.

“What should we do in the meantime?” Cassandra asked.

Rapunzel shrugged. “About the diaries? Nothing I guess. I mean, we’ve translated and read everything we have. There might be some hidden meanings if we go back and reread some of the earlier things, knowing what we now know, but I doubt it.”

Eugene glanced around the room to make sure they were alone, then wrapped his arms around both women’s shoulders. “But you are finished translating?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“So that means you have a little more free time now, right?”

Rapunzel grinned. She turned so that she was facing her husband and her breasts were pressed against his side. “What are you suggesting, Eugene?”

Eugene let his arms slip down so that he was holding the girls by the waist. “I have an idea of what we could do to fill up that time.”

Cassandra copied Rapunzel and turned to face Eugene. “Oh? Do tell,” she said as her hand ran along Eugene’s belt.

Eugene let his hands drop lower so that he was caressing both women’s behinds, causing their cheeks to turn slightly red. “Why don’t we continue this conversation in our room?” he suggested. The girls smiled in agreement.

As they began to make their way down the hallway towards their bedroom, one of the guards turned the corner, spotted them, and quickly made his way towards them. “Ah, Princess, there you are.”

“Kevin. How can I help you?” Rapunzel asked.

“It would seem you have some guests, Princess.”

“It would seem?”

“Well, I was on my normal patrol when I spotted ... I’m sorry I can’t remember their names, the former daylight thieves, seemingly sneaking around. I called out to them, but they took off running. I and several other guards gave chase, but they gave us the slip. We know they’re your friends, so we aren’t too concerned about them getting up to no good, but we thought you ought to know they’re here. Somewhere.”

“Thank you Kevin. If they’re here, then I have a pretty good idea of where they’ll be.”

Opening the door to one of the guest bedrooms, the one given to Catalina and Kiera while they were renovating the treehouse, Rapunzel, Eugene, and Cassandra found the two girls sitting on a pair of beds, looking somewhat forlorn.

“Catalina! Kiera!” Rapunzel said warmly, pulling them both in for a hug. “It’s so nice of you to visit.”

“Hello, Princess,” the girls replied.

“Kevin told us you had snuck into the castle. Why didn’t you just come through the main doors? You know you’re always welcome here. Is something wrong?”

Both girls sighed. “No, not wrong,” Kiera said.

“Why did you run from the guards? Did you think you’d get in trouble for being here?”

“No. We just didn’t want to talk to any of them.”

“Can we stay here for a while?” Catalina then asked.

“Stay? Of course you can. But why? Did something happen to the treehouse? Where’s Lance?”

Kiera shook her head. “Lance is fine. So’s the treehouse. But ... Adira is visiting again.”

“Already?” Eugene asked, then whispered over to Cassandra. “Guess she couldn’t keep away from that BBC, could she?” He got an elbow in the ribs for his troubles, but did notice Cassandra had a tiny smirk on her face that she tried to hide.

“I thought you girls liked Adira. Why would you want to avoid her?”

“We do like her,” Catalina said. “But because of our trip to the island, they’ve both been acting more ... uninhibited.”

“She means they’re having sex out in the open,” Kiera said bluntly.

“Oh my!” Rapunzel said, blushing.

“Told you,” Eugene again whispered into Cassandra’s ear.

Kiera continued. “Because we were all naked on the island, they seem to think that it’s perfectly fine to go naked anywhere in the treehouse too. If that were it, then we wouldn’t be here. I actually kind of like being naked around the house. It’s fun. And Catalina can go werewolf without worrying about tearing her clothes.” Catalina shrugged in shy agreement. “But they don’t stop there. As soon as they think they’re alone they start going at it, even if it’s the middle of the day and they’re in the main room.”

“And they don’t stop even when we do show up!” Catalina continued, blushing heavily as she remembered what she saw. “Twice yesterday we bumped into them while they were ... being intimate, and they just kept going. I think they even laughed at how quickly we turned and left. Then this morning we walked into the kitchen and there they were again, bent over the table ... doing it. When they saw us, they didn’t try to cover up or slow down or anything. Adira just said ‘Good morning’ and Lance asked us to give them ten more minutes.”

“And did you?” Eugene asked.

“We gave them a lot more than that,” Kiera answered. “We went to our room, packed some clothes, then came straight here.”

“But we left a note, so it’s not like they have to worry about where we went,” Catalina added.

Everybody in the room was blushing by the time the girls finished their tale. “Well,” Rapunzel said after a few moments of awkward silence, “I can totally see why you girls would want a break from all that. Rest assured, you won’t stumble across anything like that here.”

Eugene gave a subtle cough, catching Rapunzel’s attention. A very brief and inconspicuous glance towards Cassandra reminded Rapunzel of what they were about to do before they were interrupted by the guard. “Ah, right,” she blushed. “Um, girls, just to make things clear. You know what being married implies, right?”

Kiera rolled her eyes. “Yes, we know you and Eugene have sex. We overheard you before, remember? And we know what you were doing whenever you two went off alone on the island.”

Rapunzel blushed slightly. “What I mean is that if you’re hoping to avoid sex altogether, then you’ll be out of luck even here.”

“It’s not that we want to avoid it. I mean, we’re still curious...” Catalina said, her cheeks going nearly as red as her hair.

“But it’s not like we’re going to enter a random room and find you having sex, right?” Kiera asked.

‘Guess we’ll have to limit ourselves to the bedroom while they’re here, just in case,’ Rapunzel thought. Out loud she said, “No of course not.”

“Then it’s already a million times better here than at the treehouse.”

“Well even if there was no reason, you’re always welcome to stay here,” Rapunzel said. “I trust you told your dad how long you’d be staying, right? So let’s help you get settled.”

Night found Kiera and Catalina outside the door to Rapunzel’s room, with their ears pressed to the door. As they listened, they could just make out the sounds of giggling and moaning.

“Yep, they’re definitely having sex,” Kiera whispered to her sister.

“Do all adults have sex this much?” Catalina whispered back. “I mean, I know I’d like to try it one day, but is it really so good that it’s all they ever seem to do when they’re alone?”

“Must be. Must also be nice to have someone to do it with. My fingers never make me moan like that.”

Catalina blushed. “Kiera!”

“What? Don’t act like you don’t play with yourself too. We share a room, you know. I might not have the senses of a werewolf but I’m not deaf.”

Catalina’s blush deepened. “Well, anyway it looks like our idea to play cards with them won’t work out tonight.”

“Wanna try Cassandra? Maybe she’d be up for it.”

“Sure.”

The two girls made the short trip to the door leading to Cassandra’s room. They knocked but got no response.

“Cassandra, are you in there?” Kiera called, loud, but not so loud that they’d disturb the lovers. Still, no response came.

“Think she’s already asleep?” Catalina asked.

“She’d be a rather lousy bodyguard if she was asleep this early, if you ask me,” Kiera said. She tried opening the door. It was locked. Not to be deterred, she pulled out a set of tools and deftly picked the lock.

“What are you doing?” Catalina asked, giving her sister a slightly disapproving look.

Kiera quietly opened the door. “Just double checking to make sure she isn’t sleeping. If she is, we ought to prank her for sleeping on the job,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“Okay, but if she’s not there, then we leave, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The girls entered Cassandra’s room. It was dark and there was no sign of anyone.

“Cassandra, you in here?” Kiera called. No answer came.

“Guess she’s not here,” Catalina said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, where did that come from?” Kiera asked. “That wasn’t there the last time we were here.” She was looking at the door joining Cassandra and Rapunzel’s rooms.

“It’s a door. So what?”

“Maybe she’s in there. Let’s go check it out.”

Catalina rolled her eyes, but joined her sister as they approached the door. Kiera opened it just a crack, and candlelight from the room beyond poured through the opening. The girls peered through the gap and gasped.