#this is mostly a joke/crackpost ftr

[birb-tangleblog]

Thinking about an AU where Hector joins the caravan after the Great Tree, but he still doesn't believe the sundrop is real and it drives Rapunzel crazy trying to prove it to him.

He conveniently doesn't remember the decay incantation or anything she did at the tree, it's all a blur- he's guessing Adira bailed them out or it was dumb luck.

Raps says her hair glows and heals when she sings, so he's like. Sing then. And she has to explain it doesn't work anymore.

Eugene shows him the (sun-shaped?) scar on his side, and Hector thinks it's a weird birthmark.

(He listens to her story about Gothel/the lanterns/the events of the movie, and his takeaway is asking about why Gothel told Raps her real birthday. 😭)

He laughs when Rapunzel insists Adira's shadowblade can't cut her hair- but Adira just took off to go find some medicinal herbs or food, so they can't prove it.

Raps jumps off the roof of the caravan or does some trustfalls to try to force her hair to cocoon her, but she's not in enough real danger for it to activate so she just... faceplants. Hector is unimpressed.

Hector's mental acrobatics getting increasingly outlandish- a normal knife bounces off her hair b/c there's metal filaments hidden in it. The blade was weak/old. Maybe her hair is that long because of her royal diet.

If it looks like it's glowing, surely that's a trick of the afternoon light.

I do feel like he'd eventually accept it (and his support/loyalty to the group would partially hinge on that, and genuinely believing it was an answer to the rocks) but I could imagine his skepticism becoming a running joke.