Author's Note: I apologize for the long-delayed epilogue. Life has taken a painful and unexpected turn for me, and it's not going to go away soon. You know how it is. Anyway, the newest chapter and close to the Coronation saga is here, without further ado. Hope you enjoy, and have fun reading.

Coronation Part 5: Sword Dance

No one could explain the sudden, morbid, unwomanly fancies that had overtaken Rapunzel following her disastrous coronation and spontaneous jousting a few months ago.

It came gradually at first, when her tutors started to remark on her being late or missing for her private lessons, or the guards who caught sight of her sneaking through the barracks with a guilty smile and a suspicious-looking casket in her hands, and just the faintest glimmer of sword-steel shining from the inside, but they dismissed it and carried on their duties with blissful ignorance, not knowing the change that was growing in her. Eventually it grew too obvious to dismiss. The royal library mourned for the loss of their favourite and most frequent visitor, Rapunzel dearest, who was now but a specter and vague memory among the bookshelves, and was instead spending her time out in the muddy, grassy fields, practicing how to lunge with a rapier and shoot with a bow and bash with a shield, instead of reading about Victorian architecture. When before she was bashful about her new acquired taste in hobbies, now, as word spread across the castle, she decided her efforts to be in vain and that she had nothing to be ashamed of, and made no attempt to hide it. Once in a moment of overzealous confusion, she had bespattered her face with markings of pink crayon as war paint, and ran through the corridors with a spear held the wrong way, screaming 'Long live Her Majesty!' and frightening the hearts out of butlers' mouths the entire day, until Eugene finally managed to get a hold of her as she was sliding down the banister in her rendition of the Charge of the Light Brigade and held her down long enough into a condition of unwilling surrender. This was cause enough for her understanding boyfriend to bring this issue to the ears of her parents.

Rapunzel's acute boyish phase came as news of uncharacteristic surprise to King and Queen of Corona, who had long grown accustomed to being invited to her tea parties, manicures and pillow fights, and was now hearing that their little girl was interested in picking up fencing and jousting, a sport normally exclusive to handsome princes and gallant knights. But then again, this was Rapunzel they were talking about. A nineteen year old girl who still played with her soft toys and got excited about something as trivial as the dewdrops on the grass. Surprise came often when it came to Rapunzel.

Sweetly, Eugene had volunteered as marshall and tutor, and convinced them that the only victims of her fencing would be scarecrows, not realizing the pain and humiliation he was about to endure as he took to teaching her on their first day out in the courtyard. He thought he would have learned by now that being with Rapunzel meant also to be kicked, stabbed, scratched, and hit on the head repeatedly and mercilessly in every few minute interval. Maybe he secretly enjoyed it.

That was when Rapunzel's pommel knocked him on the forehead hard, introducing him to a new constellation of stars.

No, he definitely did not enjoy this.

"Lucky shot," he said, rubbing his head, "But you know it'll only count as a point if you strike me with the tip of the blade-"

"You mean like this?"

Blink, and he had missed it. The rapier came lashing at his throat like a silver blur, and Eugene was just about to bring up his own sword to block it when he felt the icy metallic sting of the blade pressed hard against his neck. Too slow.

Eugene held his hands high in a gesture of surrender, swallowing a nervous lump in his throat as he watched the tip of the blade tail the movement of his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He tried to keep his voice steady, "Pretty good for a beginner."

Rapunzel grinned smugly, twirling the rapier with such precise restraint as to only gently caress the bottom of his jaw, "I learned from the best." Eugene couldn't help but smirk delightfully at that comment, false though as it was.

"Alright, practice round is over," he announced with a theatrical flourish of his rapier, and then he bowed, "And now, we dance."

There was a fiery twinkle in Rapunzel's eyes - those eyes that never lost her childlike candor - but today they shone like a star amid lowering clouds. They shone with battle-lust.

And so began the sword dance in great earnest - they parried and blocked, slashed and struck, feinted and sidestepped. Eugene came to the slow realization that he was no longer teaching a pupil, but rather facing a worthy opponent of equal skill and stature, that this was an actual challenge, and that his opinion on her fighting was only growing higher and higher. He watched her swirl the rapier like a master swordsman, strafe effortlessly as if she was skating on ice, move her limbs and body with all the distracting elegance and flamboyance that she normally carried in silk gowns, but never before witnessed in military apparel.

He had always known that Rapunzel was a gifted individual - nay, not just gifted. A gift. She was an ace-of-all-trades if Eugene ever saw one: candlemaker, ventriloquist, ballerina, and now, sword-maiden of Corona Kingdom.

But he had yet to teach.

"No, no, wrong! All wrong!" he said impertinently, "Your hands, closer to the chest! Your chest inwards! And your legs, you need to spread them wider!" he said, his criticisms peppered between a flurry of sword attacks, which came dangerously close to his face more than he would admit.

"Sorry!"

"You're wound up tighter than a spring," he said, persuading her to relax - by screaming at her, "You need to relax, Rapunzel! Relax, Rapunzel! I said 'Relax'!"

"I'm trying!" Rapunzel pleaded, not properly defended for an onslaught that was both physical and verbal.

Eugene's sincere but deprecating insults, something that came more out of habit than an actual malicious desire, came in full and earnest force. "You call that a strike?" "Hit me harder!" "Are you even trying?" "Put your back into it, girl!"

If this was the Rapunzel of yesteryear, the 'barefoot, high-strung ingenue' so affectionately referred to before, she would have broken, thrown a fit and turned into a mess of inconsolable sobs. But this Rapunzel had borne witness to a whole year of new highs and lows, of joys and griefs of womanhood best left unmentioned, and in that year she had learned to grow a spine, to become stronger and firmer in character, so when Eugene's reprimanding came as sharp as his blade, she merely clenched her teeth together and snapped with the audacity of a woman scorned, "Eugene! Shut up!"

He rolled his eyes just as they clashed swords, "Typical. They say they want to learn but they end up shouting back."

The duel took a turn for the stranger when Rapunzel suddenly dove - coiling her knees and springing straight into the chest of Eugene Fitzherbert - who was expecting a sword lunge and not a human cannon ball to strike him. It knocked the wind right out of him, and they both fell onto the dewy grass, doing a lively performance of rolling and tumbling before they stopped with Rapunzel on top. If Eugene didn't love Rapunzel very much, he certainly wouldn't have loved her then - there were blades of grass and soil tangled up in her hair, mud was splashed right up to her knees, her steel guards were grinding uncomfortably with his own, and there was the pungent aroma of sweat wafting from her.

"A fair win, m'lady."

She hissed angrily, "You let me win."

"And why would you say that?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

She gestured to his hand that was currently gripped firmly on her behind. "Hands off," she warned, though the rosy color on her cheeks betrayed her true emotions.

He wordlessly obliged, an inscrutable smirk on his face that Rapunzel mistook for mischief, when he reached up with one hand to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face, and she mumbled with a soft and breathless, "What are you doing?"

He pulled her closer, until their lips locked in a passionate embrace, the sweetness of a first lover's kiss tingling across his body.

The lords and ladies of uppity noble society may think of her as the Barbarian Princess, the greatest social blight to have emerged from some uncivilized forest and a bad influence and role model to all the princesses out there, but that was not how Eugene saw her.

Yes, to Eugene, she was more.

She was no Cinderella, she was his Rapunzel, his lovely cherub and his Valkyrie guardian, and he would love her till the end, in silk dress or in chain mail, no matter what raiment she wore or what new enterprise her fickle mind took to fancy that day. Of course, that was what he loved most about her.

She's beautiful, he thought, and for a moment he was struck with an odd pang of loss. Had he lost his Rapunzel forever? Was she gone for good, the giggling, doe-eyed girl who'd not wanted to grow up?

"Don't change too much, Rapunzel," he said as they finally parted from their kiss. That was when he saw something that made him smile, for beneath the smattering of pink crayon smudged over her eyes, was the faintest dash of makeup in the form of silvery-black kohl.

She smiled, a genuinely sweet and demure one she gave only for him, and that was his answer.

"I won't."

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this new level of character development in our little Rapunzel. She's going to grow into a more mature, more worldly and more adult woman in the years to come, if you readers would like to see more, that is. So, read and review, tell me what you think. I'm leaving the fate of the story into your hands. Should I continue? ~Reading Disorder