Chapter Text
Hugo hates the cold. He hates cold, rich people, and the ocean, though not necessarily in that order. Most of all, he hates how the biting winds are currently threatening to shove him into a cluster of black rocks as he makes his way through the abandoned houses that once made up Old Corona.
Fortunately, luck seems to be on his side for once. One of the houses is still relatively intact, and judging by the light from the house’s side addition, someone is home. Maybe he can play the sad orphan card, get himself a hot meal and a place to sleep until the storm blows over. Donella always tells him not to make decisions that will put him in others’ debt, but surely he can make an allowance just this once.
He knocks on the door once, twice, thrice, and there’s no answer. Maybe the house is abandoned, after all. Hugo chances a glance inside, and sees no signs of life.
“This place is… homey,” he mutters. Glass beakers are lined up on a desk covered in burn marks and small gouge marks. It reminds Hugo of his own alchemical experiments, particularly the ones that blew in up his face (literally).
He pulls a bundle of cloth out of his pocket and unwraps it. “Olivia, what do you think? Should I look around a little more, or risk the storm again?” He looks out the window and grimaces. “I’m really hoping you pick option one.”
The clockwork mouse squeaks, and Hugo nods.
“You’re right. I can leave whenever I want, so it won’t hurt to do just a bit more poking about.” He tucks the mouse back into the pocket of his emerald vest, where she lets out a pleased squeak at the return of the warmth.
“So spoiled.” He grins before heading into the next room, this one a bedroom.
The bed frame is on the larger side; maybe it belonged to the adults of the house? Were there any kids living here before they all had to leave to escape the black rocks?
The black rocks; the source of Hugo’s utmost contempt. Well, one source, anyways.
He hadn’t been in Corona for very long, but Hugo had heard stories about the black rocks. He knows that the king doesn’t care, that the subjects are in danger, and that the rocks show no sign of stopping. But he also knows that Corona is a good place to hide out on his way to Koto, especially since he doesn’t want to go anywhere near Equis, not with Mad King Trevor still on the loose. Who let that idiot rule a kingdom, anyways?
Nevertheless, the task at hand is to go through the house, find anything worth taking, and grab it all so he can be ready to leave when the storm lets up.
The chest at the foot of the large bed is as good a place to start as any, so Hugo kneels down and picks the lock so he can open it. It’s remarkably easy to get into, which is quickly explained once he starts pawing through the chest’s contents. It all seems to be sentimental stuff- a golden bracelet, a ratty old black cloak with a strange symbol on the clasp like a circle with claw scratches through it, a portrait of three teens piled on top of each other and grinning.
The only thing that looks potentially intriguing is the torn piece of a scroll written in a language Hugo’s never seen before, so he takes the parchment and tucks it into his backpack to study later.
He moves onto the next room, which contains a much-smaller bed and a lot of alchemical supplies. If Hugo were to guess, he would say that this room used to belong to a child, one with similar interests to his own. A paper on the nightstand catches his eye, and he sees that whoever lived in this room had some pretty good ideas. A boiler and pipe system to make hot running water for the whole kingdom, a solution that created a rubbery pink goo when the vial was shattered, a few potential prototypes for an acidic solution to dissolve the black rocks.
He almost feels bad for whoever it was; Hugo didn’t imagine they got much support, if the rumors about Corona’s upper layer are true.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Hugo grabs a few intact vials and stuffs them into his bag. It never hurt to have extra bottles, after all. Besides, judging by the state of the town, no one else would be needing them any time soon.
The blond exits the room and starts for the couch, deciding not to use the bed out of respect for the house’s previous inhabitants. That, and it would feel weird to him to sleep in someone else’s bed. Before he can lay down under a tattered blanket, however, Olivia darts out of his pocket and starts tugging at his sleeve like she wants him to keep exploring.
Hugo groans. “Can it wait ‘til morning, Olivia? I’m kinda tired, and I don’t think whatever you want me to see will be going anywhere in this weather.”
He jerks his head towards the window, but Olivia doesn’t relent. She sinks her tiny metal teeth into the sleeve of his white button-up, making an annoyed grumbling sound all the while. After a few minutes of unsuccessfully attempting to quell the rage of the mechanical mouse, Hugo stands with a sigh and decides that whatever Olivia wants him to see had better be quick.
Allowing the mouse to lead the way by pulling his sleeve, Hugo is directed towards a battered door off to the side. It looks like it leads to the side addition he saw from the outside earlier, so with a shrug, Hugo opens the door and heads in.
Whatever he expected to see, it wasn’t this.
An enormous hunk of twisted, spiraling amber is jutting out of the ground like it burst from the stone, tangling with the black spires around it and wrapping crystalline spikes around everything it can. A large dark-haired man is suspended in the orange crystal, reaching toward the heavens with a crumpled paper clutched tightly in his outstretched fist.
Hugo stares up at the man in horror until he realizes the second fact of this room: he is not alone.
Sitting at a desk in the corner of the room is a scrawny boy who looks to be around Hugo’s age, with a swoop of black hair and a tattered fur cloak wrapped around his shoulders, still soaked with slush. He must have gone outside a while ago, but it had been long enough for the ice to have turned to cold mush and he still hadn’t removed the soggy garment. His face is turned away from Hugo as he hunches over his work, but even at this odd angle Hugo can see that his nose is cherry red and his hands are shaking badly.
“Um…” Hugo starts, unsure of what to say. “Hi…?”
The boy flinches violently at the sudden sound, though he hadn’t reacted at all to the sound of the door. He turns to Hugo in an instant, his brow furrowing as their eyes meet.
He tilts his head, and Hugo notices a streak of blue hidden in the shock of black hair falling over his face. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
His house? “Your house?”
“Yes, my house. I live here. Who are you?” The other boy’s voice is rough and scratchy, and the more Hugo looks, the more he notices. There are dark bags under the mystery boy’s eyes, and a hollow, sickly look about his whole face. He’s shaking slightly overall, not just his hands, and he looks like he might fall over any second.
Hugo tries for a polite smile, though he’s sure it probably looks more like a smirk (it usually does, not that he minds). “My name’s Hugo. I got lost out in the storm, so I went to the house that looked the most intact. I didn’t think anyone was living here, though. And you are…?”
His brow furrows, like that’s too many words for him to comprehend all at once. “Varian. And…”
Varian looks up at the amber, and his expression crumbles for just a second before he manages to hide it again. For just a split second, Hugo sees infinite melancholy… and infinite guilt.
So, he blames himself.
“What happened?” Hugo asks, and his voice is gentler than he thought himself capable of.
Varian takes a shuddering breath. “The rocks… I thought- I thought I could get rid of them, but I was stupid- he told me not to, to- to stop messing with them, but I didn’t listen, and-”
Another shaky breath. Hugo holds his own, watching with a special kind of sadness in his own eyes. Mourning for someone I never even knew.
“It was my fault,” Varian says, a whisper in the empty room. “I spilled the vial, and it- it reacted with the rocks somehow-”
“And made that amber,” Hugo finishes quietly.
Varian gives him a miserable nod. “And now- now I have to fix it. The princess won’t help- they threw me out in the snow- but I have to fix it-”
Hugo takes a step forwards, noticing how erratic Varian’s breathing has become. A princess throwing him out in the snow- he must have tried to ask for help ( and been denied, his mind finishes). Whatever the case, Hugo can’t just leave him to work for stars only knows how long, in the same room with a potential corpse (who, on closer inspection, might be his father.
“Hey, Varian,” he says slowly. “How long has it been since you last slept?”
Varian stares. “I don’t have time for sleep. This is important, I have to-”
“Whatever you have to do, you can’t do it if you’re on the verge of passing out. It’ll lower the quality of your work and you’ll never get anywhere.” It’s a low trick, implying that Varian might cause himself to fail, but luckily for Hugo it seems to have worked.
The shorter boy looks crestfallen, but he slowly nods. “I can’t just leave him, though…”
“You aren’t. You’re just… taking a tactical break. Tell you what, as soon as you’re ready to start working again, I’ll help however I can. I’m an alchemist- you are, too, right? Two alchemists might be able to do what one can’t.”
“O-okay. I’ll…” Varian attempts to stand, nearly falling on his face before Hugo darts over to catch him.
Hugo grins. “I think you just fell for me.”
oOoOo
With some difficulty, Hugo manages to get a semiconscious Varian into the main house and put him in the smaller bed. It’s quickly becoming obvious to him that most of the odd stains and burn marks on the desk are from alchemic solutions going wrong. One is obviously an acid splash, while another is reminiscent of a chemical burn. The only thing that seems out of place are the claw marks, but Hugo is sure he’ll figure those out eventually.
“What do you think, Olivia?” Hugo pulls the mouse out of his pocket, letting her climb all over his arms and shoulders as she inspects both boy and room from all angles. “Should we stay a while?”
Olivia squeaks and nods.
Hugo grins. “Thought you’d say that. I’ll have to give him a nickname, then. Hairstripe?”
A disgruntled squeak is all the answer he needs.
“That’s a no, then. Blue? Science boy? Goggles?”
Olivia bumps her nose against his cheek on the last one, and Hugo smiles.
“You like that one, huh?” He looks down at the sleeping boy, nodding to himself with a pleased expression. “Goggles it is.”
Hugo leans back in the chair with a yawn. He hadn’t noticed his own exhaustion, what with the whole traumatic scene from earlier in the evening, but it’s quickly becoming apparent.
“Gotta find myself some place to sleep,” he mutters, only partly aware of Olivia’s insistent tugging at his sleeve as she directs him to what seems to be the kitchen. “Can’t just sleep in the chair. I’m hungry, though. Do this nerd and his… I think that was his dad? Do they have food? Well, we’re about to find out.”
He follows Olivia’s directions into the kitchen, finding some cured ham, a loaf or two of bread, and a few cans of soup in the pantry. There are some jars of what appear to be pickled vegetables, but he ignores those.
“Ham sandwich it is, I suppose.” He busies himself with the sandwich as Olivia explores the counter. Hugo is about to leave the kitchen when the mechanical rodent taps her tiny metal claws against one of the cans, giving him a knowing look.
Hugo huffs, but complies nonetheless. “And soup for Goggles, according to the bossy mouse.”
Olivia pouts.
Picking up both mouse and food, Hugo heads back into Varian’s room and sets the soup on the nightstand. After eating his sandwich at the desk, he returns to the main room and stretches out on the couch, ready for a good night’s sleep.