Chapter Text
It starts with a banging on the door.
Hugo is tinkering with Olivia when it happens, checking up to see that all of her parts are in working order. Varian goes to open it immediately, passing his sheaf of papers to Hugo, who fumbles and tries not to drop the best attempts at translating the scroll all over the floor. The banging continues, louder than before, and an unpleasant feeling starts to form in the pit of Hugo’s stomach. It’s too familiar. Too unsettling. He doesn’t like it.
He grabs Varian’s wrist, bringing him to a halt. “Wait. I don’t think this is the princess.”
Varian cocks his head, giving Hugo a confused smile. “What? Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know, I just- it doesn’t sound like a dainty princess. I don’t think a prim royal would be punching the door like that.”
“That is kinda weird…” Varian glances to the door, then back to Hugo.
“Here, how ‘bout this?” Hugo suggests. “If it is the princess, I’m pretty sure she’ll just come in if no one answers. We’ll go and wait in the lab and see who comes in.”
Varian nods. “Rapunzel would just come right in… all right. We’ll wait in the lab.”
Leading the way to the lab, Hugo takes Varian’s hand and pulls him past the tarp covering the amber, talking all the while to distract him.
“So, I couldn’t find anything in the history book about Corona, but there’s a lot of information about Saporia. Is that, like, another name for the kingdom or something, or is it one of those things where the king decided he hated the name and changed it on a whim?”
Varian lights up, obviously excited to share his knowledge. “Actually, Saporia and Corona were two rival kingdoms who fought each other a lot throughout history. Saporia eventually merged with Corona when the two leaders fell in love with each other, but not all of the citizens were happy about it. Supposedly, they formed a resistance group called the Separatists of Saporia and tried to stage a bunch of coups over the years, but they never succeeded. I heard a few of them were still around, but they’re all in prison for-”
“Let me guess, staging a coup?” Hugo smirks.
Varian nods with a snicker. “You guessed it.”
“So, what’s the deal with this ancient language and the history book, then?”
“Well, the history book is mostly focused on the other countries’ effects on Coronan culture. Demanitus has a whole section in there because of how influential he was towards, well, everything, but Saporia was important too, especially since it’s literally a part of Corona.” Varian waves his hands in the air as he rambles, somehow managing to convey an entire story through a series of long words and wild gestures. Hugo watches with a dorky grin until he realizes just how wide he’s smiling, immediately changing his expression from enraptured to mildly impressed as he notices.
“Pretty sweet, if you ask me,” Hugo says, smug and suave as ever. “Say, Goggles, how much of the scroll did you get translated?”
‘Oh, the scroll? All of it. Well, except for the parts that are torn since I don’t have the rest of the word, but I finished a couple hours ago. Why?”
Hugo gapes. “You finished ?”
“What, is it hard?”
“Uh, yeah? I’ve never even seen this before and it only took you a couple days to crack it?”
“I would’ve been faster, but you made me take a break to sleep,” Varian admits abashedly. Hugo’s jaw is practically on the floor as Olivia pats his shoulder reassuringly. She’s climbed out of the little pouch he put her in and perched herself on his shoulders once again, completely disregarding how high up she is and how easily she could be knocked off.
A loud crash makes the quartet jump, Ruddiger scurrying into Varian’s arms at the sound of cracking wood. It sounds like someone just kicked the door in, and the unsettled feeling in Hugo’s gut is only intensifying.
Varian looks worried. “That didn’t sound right, we should-”
“We should go and hide,” Hugo interrupts. “Something is wrong. Do you have a cellar?”
The smaller boy nods, leading the way to the cellar. It’s the perfect place to stay unnoticed, right by a large cart. Varian pulls the cart over the trapdoor, positioning it above them so that the pair can see out, but no one else can see in. Hugo shuts the cellar door and lights a few lanterns, setting them up in the empty alcoves carved out of the earth.
For a few long moments, the only sounds are the crackling of the lanterns and the breathing of the quartet, minus Olivia. Then, the racket begins.
To Hugo, it sounds like whoever is out there is trashing the house. He can hear the sound of furniture being shifted haphazardly, as well as glass shattering. Someone is shouting angrily, and there’s a series of loud thuds, like they knocked over a shelf of books.
Varian glances over at Hugo, his features flickering with shadows in the light of the lanterns. He puts a finger to his lips, moving towards the trapdoor.
Hugo grabs his wrist almost involuntarily, shaking his head slowly as Varian whips around to face him. The smaller boy is still for a moment before he nods and sits back down.
It’s almost an hour and a half before the sounds outside quiet down enough for the pair to look. Varian opens the trapdoor just a few inches so that they can see into the room. The cart overhead is concealing them well enough, but Hugo palms a vial of blinding smoke just in case. He and Varian would be fine because of their goggles, but anyone else would be rubbing their eyes for ages.
Peeking out into the room, Hugo’s suspicions are unfortunately confirmed. The lab is trashed, bits of broken glass and wood splinters littering the floor. The tarp is still over the amber for some reason, but the desk has been overturned and the vials scattered, spilling all over the stone floor. It’s nothing short of a miracle that nothing blew up, but some of the patches of colored ick are starting to steam.
Varian, Hugo, Ruddiger, and Olivia are all lined up at the small opening in the trapdoor, watching intently as a dark-haired man in a golden chestplate tosses another book to the floor. His armor reminds Hugo of the guard he saw at the market, though he says nothing.
“Where is it?” The man complains. “We’ve looked everywhere, and there’s still no sign of that blasted scroll!”
Varian gasps, clapping a hand over his mouth to silence himself. He glances at Hugo, whose eyes are wide with shock.
Another guard enters, this one with an impressively bushy ginger mustache. “Calm down, Paul. For all we know, that bratty little wizard boy took it with him.”
The man, presumably Paul, stills. “Took it… with him?”
“Haven’t you noticed? The house is empty.” Bushy Mustache frowns, glaring around the room. “That child is a menace to society. I’m not surprised he would attack the princess.”
Paul scoffs. “No one is. The sooner that brat’s gone, the better.”
The two guards leave the room. Hugo closes the trapdoor, kneeling down next to Varian.
“You okay, Goggles?” He doesn’t even try to mask the worry in his voice; there's not really much point.
Varian’s breathing is shaky, and Ruddiger is curled around his chest with his paws on the boy’s shoulders. “They wanted the scroll.”
His voice is barely more than a whisper, and Hugo pales. “I know. That must be why they trashed the lab.”
“No, Hugo- they want the scroll. They’re going to come after me next.”
“Then we’ll just have to be ready for them next time. I can make some more defensive mixtures-”
“Hugo.”
He stops, looking Varian in the eyes. Clear blue stares into bright green, and Varian draws in a quivering breath.
“You have to leave.”
It’s like a punch to the nose. “Leave- but why? I can help you, i swear-”
“You’ve got to go before they come back. You can’t stay here anymore.”
Varian wants him gone. He should’ve known, should’ve just taken Donella’s advice and not gotten attached- “Goggles, please, I’m not going to-”
“Just leave!” And oh, there are tears in Varian’s eyes, and Hugo doesn’t know what to do. Why? Why would he be upset if he wants Hugo to leave so badly that he’s kicking him out?
“I can be useful, just please don’t- don’t make me leave you behind-” It’s pitiful to beg, he knows it is, but this is someone he actually cares about, and they don’t want him anyways. “You’ll get hurt and I- I get if you hate me, just- please- ”
“I don’t hate you!” Varian is crying now, and Hugo might be too, if he bothers to pay attention long enough to notice. “I can’t let you get hurt, Hugo!”
Oh. Hugo falls silent, blinking in shock.
Varian stares at Hugo with an intense look in his eyes, and he repeats his statement. “I can’t let you get hurt. If you stay, they’ll- they’ll be after you, too. I don’t want to put you in danger. If you go now they’ll have no reason to-”
“Yes, they will.” Hugo draws in a slow breath, and releases it. “They would come after me either way.”
There’s no response other than a surprised, questioning gaze.
“The guards would be after me either way because I’m a thief. I’ve stolen things from every kingdom I’ve been in so far. For all I know, there’s an inter-kingdom warrant out for my arrest.”
“You’re… a criminal.”
“Yeah. So, I get it if you hate me.”
“I don’t.”
That was… not the response he expected. “You- wait, what? Why not?”
“Well, taking stuff doesn’t make you a bad person. And besides, you’ve got room to change if it’s necessary. What kind of stuff did you steal, though?”
“Depends. Sometimes it was stuff I needed. Food from a market, clothing, supplies, medicine, that sort of thing. Other times, it was expensive stuff. Jewelry and gemstones from nobles who just wanted to display how rich they were.”
“What did you do with the more expensive stuff you stole?”
“Sold it, mostly. I know some people who can get me good prices for things like high-quality jewelry. And… I did try not to steal from certain people. The ones who looked worse off than me, or who didn’t have much in the first place. They were usually in the same position as me, just trying to make it to their next meal.”
Varian shrugs. “You don’t sound that bad to me. And besides… you helped me. You didn’t have to, and I didn’t have anything to give you in return when you did. You helped because you’re a good person. If you weren’t, you would’ve just walked away without doing a thing.”
A good person, huh? “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
oOoOo
“So, here’s the plan.”
Varian kneels on the floor of the cellar as Hugo scratches out a rough map of his house in the dirt. Ruddiger is curled around his shoulders, watching Olivia with a deadly glare as she rolls the alchemy bombs into a line.
“If they’re still in the house, we sneak past them or use alchemy to fight. We should split up, since I don’t think they know there are two of us. As far as they know, you work alone.”
Ruddiger chitters in annoyance, and Varian snickers.
Hugo rolls his eyes, but smiles all the same. “Sorry, you work alone with your weird cat.”
“He’s not a cat, he’s a raccoon,” Varian insists. “Hugo, you know this.”
The thief shrugs. “Eh, sure. Anyways, one of us can keep them occupied while the other retrieves our supplies. If you can gather all of the chemicals-”
“What, and leave you to deal with the guards on your own? They’re looking for me, not you. I’ll go.”
Hugo looks apprehensive, and Olivia is outright opposed. She squeaks angrily at Varian, tugging insistently at his sleeve until Ruddiger hisses and scares her away.
“Look, how about we just leave it to whoever finds the guards to fight them?” Hugo suggests. “That way, it’s a fair toss-up, since I would rather not let you face them and I’m assuming you don’t want to budge on your side either.”
Varian nods sagely. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
The duo maps out the rest of their plan with Olivia and Ruddiger’s help, waiting until they can no longer hear the guards at all to begin.
It’s Varian who leaves first (much to Hugo’s chagrin), darting out of the cellar with Ruddiger around his shoulders and a few alchemy bombs close at hand. He starts in the lab, grabbing everything important and putting it in a nearby rucksack. Hugo goes next, heading to Varian’s room to retrieve the rest of their chemicals.
Varian is in the middle of grabbing the rest of his alchemy bombs when Ruddiger starts chittering, drawing his attention to the door. Hugo dashes in carrying his own backpack full of alchemical supplies, grinning madly.
“They left!” He exclaims. “The house is completely empty, except for us, so we can get whatever we need without worrying about stealth.”
Varian smiles. “Oh, good! Stealth seems more like your thing, anyways.”
“You kidding me? Announcing your presence is the best part! Besides, you look a lot more sneaky than I do.”
“Eh, fair. Not sure if I should be offended or not-”
“Why not be flattered?”
“... sure. Flattered works. Anyways, if they’re gone then we don’t have to leave. We’ve got time to fortify the defenses, and I’m sure we can put together some kind of quick getaway, too, just in case.”
“Oh- yeah, you’re right! Having a base is more conducive to alchemy, anyways. Unless you’ve got a good wagon, it’s not really an ‘on-the-go’ kinda thing.”
“True. So, first things first. If the guards were here, then the princess probably isn’t coming.”
“Yeah… sorry it didn’t work out.”
Varian shakes his head. “No, it-it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Right now, we need to set traps by all the entrances. Goo bombs should work; they’ve worked before-”
“Goggles, slow down. That princess was your friend, right? It’s fine if you want to be mad at her. She should have helped.” Hugo’s expression is one of concern, but Varian simply shakes it away again.
“I can be upset over it later. We’ve got bigger problems on our hands.”
Hugo glances away with a furrowed brow, but he doesn’t press. Varian continues.
“Now, Ruddiger can arm the traps if we set them. I can make some other stuff too, but none of it’s really combat material-”
“Hang on, what exactly do you have in your repertoire? If it’s different stuff than what I’ve got we can probably combine our arsenals. It would be more effective, anyways.”
“Oh, good point. Well, I’ve got the normal stuff- soap bomb, ice bomb, goo bomb, anti-goo bomb, light solution- those can be blinding if you smash them- in a few different colors, truth serum-”
Hugo holds up his hand. “Hold up. You developed a truth serum? And you didn’t market this because…”
Varian’s expression turns serious. “Truth serum is one of the most dangerous things I have ever made. It’s extremely potent, and it’s not just a lie combatant. It compels the person to tell the exact truth they’re asked for. You can’t cheat it by saying you don’t want to answer, even if you really don’t, because that’s not the truth you’re being compelled to speak.”
“Whoa. Do I want to know how you figured that out?”
He grimaces. “Experience, unfortunately. Also… if someone overdoses and takes more than a few drops, it makes it physically painful to hold in the truth. It’s not just a mental compulsion anymore, it’s physical too.”
“Holy stars.” Hugo’s eyes are wide. “I see why you didn’t want this getting popular.”
Varian nods grimly. “Yeah. Luckily, no one else knows the recipe. It’s in my journal, which nobody else ever reads, or wants to read, because they think it’s all ‘witchcraft and devilry’, which is very rude of them.”
“Am… I allowed to read the journal, or is it Goggles-only?”
“Well…” Varian hesitates. “I suppose you can read it. You’re my friend, after all, and I also trust you not to use the stuff in there for stupid reasons.”
Hugo grins smugly (not that he ever grins any other way). “So prank wars are off-limits, then?”
Varian grins too, looking a tad more devilish than usual. “Of course. You have to use your own smarts to win a prank war.”
The pair dissolves into giggles as Olivia and Ruddiger look on, each shaking their head at the display of the teens’ antics.
A rapping at the door interrupts their laughter. Both boys immediately fall silent, looking at each other with expressions of horror.
Hugo gasps. “They’re back already? But it hasn’t even been a day!”
“Maybe it’s someone else?” Varian suggests halfheartedly, but he looks concerned all the same.
Olivia, ever the sensible one, takes it upon herself to go and check. She scurries back only a few moments later, looking deeply worried and a bit apprehensive.
“Who is it?” Hugo asks. The mechanical mouse draws out a picture on the floor in lieu of trying to mime it out, and their eyes grow wide as the scratched-out lines take the form of a sun- the symbol of Corona’s royal family.
Varian looks aghast. “The princess is here?”
Olivia nods.
“Oh, this is not good.” Hugo grimaces. “This is not good at all. She didn’t come before, but she comes now? Right after a pair of guards ransacked the place and then left? That can’t be a coincidence.”
“I don’t like it either. Why now? And… why not before? I asked for her help, and she had to send guards ahead of her? Is… is she really so scared of me that she doesn’t trust me not to attack her?” Varian’s face falls, but Hugo is quick to dissuade him of his melancholy notions.
“No. Absolutely not. Those guards wanted the scroll, remember? If she sent them because she was afraid of you, she would’ve arrived with them and they wouldn’t have left. Something else is going on here.”
Ruddiger nods, pointing to the sun and the cellar, and then to the sun and the alchemy bombs Olivia had laid out. Hugo hums his agreement.
“Cat’s right,” he says, ignoring the dirty look he receives from the raccoon. “We could hide and wait to see what she does, or we could greet her when she comes in and have our alchemy ready just in case. But it’s your call, Goggles. I’ll follow whatever you decide on.”
Varian hesitates, but then nods firmly. “We’ll take our alchemy and hide in the cellar. I need to see how she reacts with my own eyes before I can figure out if she’s with me or against me.”
Hugo helps him gather up the glass balls full of multicolored alchemic solutions, placing them all into an empty messenger bag with a bandolier for later. Once everything is gathered and the plans drawn in the dust of the floor have been smudged away, the four slip into the cellar and close the trapdoor just in time to hear the door of the lab creak open.
oOoOo
Three people enter the room. One is a petite woman with a floor-length blonde braid wearing a purple dress and, oddly enough, no shoes. The two who follow her both have short dark hair, though one is a woman in hunting clothing and the other is a man in a blue vest. The second woman looks incredibly severe and shows no sign of fear, while the man is stroking his short beard in nervousness as he looks around the lab.
“Raps, are you sure anyone is even here?” The man asks, and Hugo notes that his tone sounds exceptionally afraid, as well as slightly familiar. Where has he seen that face before? “There’s no sign of the kid anywhere.”
By kid, Hugo assumes they mean Varian. He turns to the brunet, about to whisper a question, but Varian puts a finger to his lips and points to the blonde.
“Of course, I am, Eugene!” Her voice is peppy and excited even in an obviously serious environment. “Why wouldn’t he be? He did ask me to come and visit him, after all.”
Visit? She sounds remarkably unconcerned, and Hugo realizes that this must be her- the famed Princess Rapunzel. Of course, she is; that man she called Eugene looks exactly like Flynn Rider. They said he fell in with a royal family, though I didn’t realize they meant it like this.
Varian narrows his eyes as the third person speaks, sounding just as severe as she looks. “I don’t mean to interrupt, Princess, but are we going to ignore whatever that is?” She points to the amber with a thin saber. Hugo hadn’t even seen her unsheathe it.
“Oh, right!” The princess yanks down the tarp Hugo had thrown over the hunk of amber that had encased Varian’s father, and it’s all he can do to hold the other alchemist’s hand and hope he can provide some comfort at the shocking sight that the princess has just unveiled.
There are three gasps from outside of the cellar as the intruding party sees what Hugo had seen only a few weeks ago; a grown man suspended in the orange crystal, fist raised towards the heavens as he clutches a crumpled paper like it’s his last lifeline.
“Oh…” Rapunzel seems to have no words for the unsettling sight, and her two companions rest comforting hands on her shoulders. “This is why he showed up in the storm. I thought it was odd how intense he was acting. I thought he was just a little stressed or something.”
Stressed would be an understatement. Hugo grits his teeth, squeezing Varian’s hand for support.
Eugene shakes his head. “This is… how? I don’t think the kid would do something like this on purpose-”
“It was almost definitely an experiment gone wrong,” the second woman interrupts. “You saw how reckless he was with those black rocks. They were barely a problem when he started messing with them.”
Rapunzel is still staring up at the amber, but she finally manages to tear her eyes away, looking incredibly gloomy. “I wish I hadn't seen this… I wish I’d never touched the rocks in the first place. Come on. We should leave before anyone finds out we snuck out here.”
Hugo chances a glance at Varian as the trio exits the lab. The other alchemist is staring wide-eyed after them as though he can’t believe what just happened.
“She… didn’t even try to help,” he whispered. “They- they think it’s because I was just being too reckless- but it was- no, I can’t- she said-”
“Goggles, calm down,” Hugo said quietly. “They don’t know the whole story. That princess doesn’t seem very helpful to me.” He spat the word as if it were a curse, glaring at the floor before his gaze softened as he looked back to Varian.
“She didn’t say she was sorry about it happening or that she wished she could help,” he said, quiet as the breeze. “She… she said that she wished she hadn’t seen it. She wished she hadn’t touched the rocks at all. Like she only wanted it to not be her problem, not that she wanted to fix it. She doesn’t want to fix it. She just wants it to be someone else’s problem.” The shorter boy was almost seething in quiet hatred now, his raccoon clinging to his shoulder and trying to calm him down.
Hugo grabs Varian’s shoulder, prompting the other boy to look him in the eyes. Hugo wasn’t a fan of direct eye contact, but right now he could stand it for Varian’s sake. “Listen to me, Varian. That- what just happened there- was not your fault. She doesn’t want this to be her problem, just like every other noble.”
“She promised she’d help me. She promised.”
“There must be some way to fix this,” Hugo muses. Olivia, perched on his shoulder, squeaks for his attention. She hops down into the dust and starts etching out a series of symbols; a cluster of spikes, a swirling peak with a stick figure in it, a sun and moon together.
Varian tilts his head, momentarily shaken from his emotional turmoil by the presentation of a puzzle. “Those are the black rocks… and that’s the amber… and a sun and moon?”
“Hey, you said the black rocks are unbreakable, right?” Hugo asks. “And the amber is too, right?”
“Yeah…” Varian’s head snaps up. “And the only potential way to destroy an unbreakable object-”
“-is with another unbreakable object,” Hugo finishes, grinning. Olivia preens, looking exceptionally pleased with herself as she scurries back up Hugo’s arm to her place on his left shoulder. “But how do we get a black rock? Can we dig one out of the ground or something? We could use it as a drill tip, or even a chisel, I suppose, but how to get one in the first place…”
“There’s no way I can think of to get a black rock. I’ve never tried to dig them out myself, but they stop the crops around them from planting roots, so they must travel underground. They’ve gone through everything- solid stone, steel plating, everything. The only thing they haven’t been able to break-” Varian cuts off, his eyes gaining a look that’s almost hollow for how much intense focus it holds.
“The only… there’s something else the rocks can’t bust?” Hugo asks
“Princess Rapunzel’s hair,” he says quietly. “She has the power of the sundrop, and I’m almost positive these rocks are coming from the moonstone. Sun and moon- they counteract each other. Olivia, you were trying to say that earlier, weren’t you?”
The mouse nods. Ruddiger looks jealous, but Varian’s absentminded scratching of the spots behind his ears quickly calms him.
Hugo catches on. “If her hair can withstand the black rocks, then it really is unbreakable. Can it destroy the rocks?”
“No, not that I’ve seen… but with the right added components-”
“-the power of the sundrop might just be able to shatter the amber! All we have to do is hit it at a structural weak point-”
“-and the whole thing will come down and my dad will be freed! But we have to get-”
“-the sundrop first, so where is it? Does she have it?”
“No, it’s kept under lock and key… in the castle, I think? No one is allowed near it, let alone allowed to use it. The king doesn’t like me anyways. He’d never agree to lend us his magic flower, even if it would save my dad.”
“His magic flower? Did he grow it himself?”
“Well- no, he found it and took it so he could save his wife before I was even born. But-”
“Yeah, so it ain’t his. He just snatched it up and never let anyone else have it because he’s greedy. I’d bet real money there were plenty of other sick people in the kingdom that he kept that flower from. He only cared once it affected him directly. Am I right?”
Varian is quiet for a moment. “There was a rumor years ago, about the queen’s sickness. They said… they said it was a kingdom-wide plague, but only the queen’s illness was recorded. Dozens of people went looking for the flower, but only King Frederick was allowed to use it for his wife.”
Hugo’s glare hardens. “Typical nobles. They ignore every problem until they have no choice but to acknowledge it.”
“And they’re doing it with the black rocks now,” Varian realizes. “It’s been spreading, and no one has done anything but remove people from their homes and say everything’s fine. They don’t care about us, do they?”
“No, they don’t,” Hugo practically hisses. “And if they won’t acknowledge this problem, then let’s make them acknowledge it.”
Varian looks hesitant, but he doesn’t reject the idea. “I don’t know about being so… aggressive right off the bat. Maybe we can try to be civil first?”
He shrugs. “Your call, Goggles. But if it comes down to it, we’re two alchemists with plenty of time and supplies to prepare. They’ll listen one way or another.”
The shorter boy still looks a bit reluctant, but he nods. “It’s… it’ll be our backup plan. We can’t just attack people out of nowhere, but we need them to help us.”
Varian looks down at the drawing of a sun and moon, etched into the dirt and flickering in the dim light of their lantern. Hugo glances down as well, followed by Ruddiger and Olivia.
“We know what we have to do.”