These Runaways Will Run the Night

All I Want Is To Fly With You, All I Want Is To Fall With You

The chains on her arms were cold and tight, just as they had been the first time.

Juliet looked down at them as a way to keep from looking at the guards leading her towards the throne room – most likely for sentencing again – and tried ignoring the growing disappointment at herself. Two months, that's all she managed to procure for herself. Varian had thrown away a chance at freedom and she had blown it by being caught two months later.

Dear God, she was stupid. Stupid to think that she could ever truly be free. First had been Azul the Swan's constant rules and regulations, then the chains placed on her by her former friends, and that was followed by the constant guilt at watching her best friend, the one she started to think maybe was more than her friend, being taken away because he lied to save her.

That storm that brought her to Azul and that stupid island should have just killed her when it had the chance.

The door to the throne room thrust open with no announcements, just a thunderous boom as the doors swung wide suddenly. The guard unlocked her handcuffs and then hurriedly pushed her in to the room but remained outside as the doors once again shut with a notably loud boom.

Juliet adjusted her weight from having been thrust in so suddenly, and then looked up to see five pairs – six if you counted Pascal, which Juliet did – of eyes staring at her. All of them appeared to be looking at her with an expression that could only be descried as a relief, which only confused the animal whisperer.

She had expected King Fredrick being here to sentence her, and for him to have a look of cool anger as he sentenced her to another life imprisonment. Perhaps even Arianna wasn't that big of a stretch being here and Rapunzel for that matter, considering the two were royalty as well. But Cassandra and Eugene? Those were two massive curve balls she had not been expecting.

"Uh...hi?" she tried, looking amongst them with wide eyes.

"Oh, Juliet, we were so worried about you!" Rapunzel immedailty lamented, rushing over to pull her into a tight embrace. Juliet immedailty stiffened at the touch, having not been expecting such a sudden rush from the princess. This was soon followed up by wondering why the princess had been worried about her – she was an escaped fugitive. The princess shouldn't have been worried about her.

"You were worried about me?" she asked. She cast her eyes on the king, who after seeing she was okay had immedailty gone back to a wall of impassiveness and raised an eyebrow. "All of you?"

Eugene stepped forward then, crossing his arms with a smile. "Of course, we all were." His own eyes cut across at the patriarch of the Corona royal family. "Okay, some more than others, but you get the point." The king, who seemed to not be taking the open talking about him, stood from his throne suddenly and walked forward in the slow way only adults trying to appear imposing know how to do.

"It has come to my attention that we –" Rapunzel cleared her throat with a raised eyebrow "– okay, I may have been quick to judgement. It was wrong of me to sentence you without evidence, but all the animals were disappearing so quickly, and you were the easiest explanation." The king looked down, almost embarrassed. "I'm sorry for the role I played in your imprisonment."

Juliet knew the right thing to say was that she forgave him for that, but couldn't find it within herself, at least not right now. The king gave an air of someone that was not used to not getting his way and the way he apologized seemed to have a rehearsed tone to it, as if he had to apologize quite often. So instead, Juliet just narrowed her eyes at him until Rapunzel stepped forward to speak, making sure to block the view of Fredrick from Juliet's eyes.

"All charges against you have been dropped," Rapunzel said happily. "Me, Eugene, and Cass did a little digging and we discovered that there was a man trying to smuggle animals, and when he heard wind you were the number one suspect, he tried to frame you."