It was at this moment that Eugene remembered exactly why he hated Kikina eight years prior. It wasn't the oppressive racism the Kikinans had towards him because he was a "pale-face". The weekly monsoons weren't so bad. Annoying, perhaps. But it was a part of life, just like the dry summers back in Corona. Eugene didn't even mind the flying pests that, in a matter of days, had made a meal out of his arms.
It was the walls.
If there was anything he hated most about Kikina, it was the slick, foothold-less walls that even the most skilled climber couldn't scale. Because of the monsoons, mud was readily available to fill in cracks. He remembered the shock Flynn Rider felt when he came to the realization that he, a thief who had prided himself on being to scale any wall and cross any distance in a single bound, had been grounded.
So here he was, standing in a dying storm. Slime of the earth threatened to pull him down with every second Eugene stood still. Drenched from head to toe, mud covered, and far past sleep-deprived; Flynn would have given up. Unable to care about what was going on behind a window out of his reach, he would have walked away. But, then again, Flynn wouldn't have even been there in the first place. He would be sleeping in a warm bed, dreaming about gold and silver and...
Not what she must have been dreaming about.
"Why do I want to help you?" He said to himself, unable to take his gaze from the loosely shuttered window one story above his reach. Through the slow drizzle, Eugene could hear not whimpering, but wailing. Wailing that fell on deaf, sleeping ears that were probably too consumed with lustful dreams to even care about the nightmare above.
Mama Jika's ears.
The one who had ripped the one person he'd cared about before Rapunzel. The one person who with an unfeigned love for Eugene Fitzherbert, not the twisted storybook character he had once wished to be. Makani gave up everything to a pale-faced thief, and all she was given was a knife in her stomach and smoke in her lungs.
It was the walls.
If there was anything he hated most about Kikina, it was the slick, foothold-less walls that even the most skilled climber couldn't scale. Because of the monsoons, mud was readily available to fill in cracks. He remembered the shock Flynn Rider felt when he came to the realization that he, a thief who had prided himself on being to scale any wall and cross any distance in a single bound, had been grounded.
So here he was, standing in a dying storm. Slime of the earth threatened to pull him down with every second Eugene stood still. Drenched from head to toe, mud covered, and far past sleep-deprived; Flynn would have given up. Unable to care about what was going on behind a window out of his reach, he would have walked away. But, then again, Flynn wouldn't have even been there in the first place. He would be sleeping in a warm bed, dreaming about gold and silver and...
Not what she must have been dreaming about.
"Why do I want to help you?" He said to himself, unable to take his gaze from the loosely shuttered window one story above his reach. Through the slow drizzle, Eugene could hear not whimpering, but wailing. Wailing that fell on deaf, sleeping ears that were probably too consumed with lustful dreams to even care about the nightmare above.
Mama Jika's ears.
The one who had ripped the one person he'd cared about before Rapunzel. The one person who with an unfeigned love for Eugene Fitzherbert, not the twisted storybook character he had once wished to be. Makani gave up everything to a pale-faced thief, and all she was given was a knife in her stomach and smoke in her lungs.
