‘you know i have feelings for you.’
OF COURSE SHE DOES. How heavy his gaze was upon her during their meals. How charged his touch was in the slightest encounters - the passing of books from one to the other, the kiss of a hand. She felt it in the rise of blood to her cheeks at the sound of his name, the flutter in her chest at the prospect of a moment alone between them. Her body certainly knew the energy between them. Though there’s something that shifts once she hears it spoken.
Teeth catch her lip, if only to prevent an outpouring of emotion in return. You’ve brightened my life in a way I didn’t know possible. I dream of you. Every feeling I have, anger and shame and joy - they’re yours. All of it is yours. I would relive that horrible night a million times to ensure that we would meet again like this.
She swallows the words. A delicate situation required a delicate hand. Something, admittedly, Rapunzel did not have. But she had half the sense to understand the consequences that would arise from this courting. It would be a matter of time before her hand would be given to someone else, wouldn’t it ? And it certainly wouldn’t be PERIDAN.
If she cannot say anything appropriate, she’s resolved to say nothing at all. Pale eyes close in a moment of concentration. She will be bigger here. A single solemn nod is the only answer she can offer him before fleeing inside.