Work Text:
“Cass, please, I know you don’t want this. You think you do, but it won’t end good, come back, it’s not too late” Varian said again, coming closer to her as he speaks. “Come back. We miss you, we all do. Me, Eugene, Rapu—“
“Enough!” She shouts. This was her destiny, she chose it. Who was he to say otherwise? He had made his choice, she had made hers. That was that.
In anger she summons a flat rock, pushing him away. Only, it didn’t, it became sharp, and it went right through his… no… No!
“Varian!” She stumbles, realising what she’s done. The rock retreating itself as she does. “No no no” she runs over. Blood staining his shirt, running out of the wound she made. She desperately tries to think of anything to do, the wound is too big, he’s losing too much blood.
“I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” she says, tears trickling at her eyes.
“Cassie…” he whispers, his voice so silent the words barely reach her.
“Look at me, hey, it’s going to be okay. Stay with me please” his eyes dart around the room, before fixating on her again. “Rapunzel” he reaches his hand up to the glowing stone on her armour. It is clear to her what he wants, give the rock to Rapunzel. It’s his last wish.
“Please stay…” she whispers, more a beg. He looks up at her, a calm look, it’s terrifying, he’s leaving them… and he trusts her to make the right decision. He has no reason to, but he does. Then he closes his eyes, his body goes limp. And he’s gone. Never to be seen or spoken to again. And she did it, it was her fault, and for what? To pursue some destiny that a blue little girl told her she had some right to? If this was her destiny, she didn’t want it. She would do anything to take it back if given the chance.
The tears she had been repressing streams down her face. She killed him. She killed him. She killed him. She killed him. She. Killed. Him. He was kid, he had his whole life ahead of him. And in the blink of an eye she had taken it away from him, taken it away from him and everyone who loves him to experience it along side him. She took him away from everybody. He had nothing to do with this, and she still did it.
“Serves him right” the girl appears behind her.
“What?”
“He had no right to say such things, but what’s done is done. Now when Rapunzel comes you can take the Sun Flower while she mourns him” she continues, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You!” Cass stands up, suddenly having a burst of anger. “How dare you talk about him like his life didn’t matter! Like he was just some means to an end to get to Rapunzel!”
“Isn’t that what he was? Do I need to remind you why he was in this tower in the first place? That wasn’t my suggestion”
“I know what I have done!” She shouts back, voice breaking. “Believe me, I do. But I won’t do it again. When Rapunzel come, I will give her the Moonstone and end all of this”
Saying that made it feel good, that was what she would do. They would never forgive her, she’s not sure she will forgive herself. But she won’t continue this, it is time for her to turn around again. This isn’t what she wanted. There was no way to take back what she did, but she doesn’t have to continue down this path. It’s time for her to stop. This has gone too far, way too far.
“You mean to tell me you believe the boy?” She asks, as condescending as always.
“That boy’s name is Varian, and yes, I do. Now get out” Cass says firmly. She won’t let this girl boss her around anymore.
“What?” For once, the girl sounds confused.
“You heard me, get out” she says again, even more firm. The girl looks amused and angry at the same time, before she disappears, like teleportation and she is gone. For a moment Cass waits for her to come back, she usually doesn’t back down so fast, but she doesn’t.
Cass falls back down to her knees again, and lets out every feeling and emotion she had suppressed over the last weeks.
————————————
“Pascal,” Rapunzel whispers as her trusted chameleon climb up on her shoulder. “Wasn’t Cassandra there?” Pascal shakes his head, as much as a chameleon can anyway.
“Let’s go in.” Eugene says, and they walk towards the big door on the other end of the room. Rapunzel, even after Pascal saying Cass wasn’t there, listens for anything footstep-like before going in.
“Varian!” Eugene calls, only a second before Rapunzel sees him as well. Lying in the middle of the room, is Varian.
They both ran over as fast as they could.
“We were so worried about you!” She smiles, but it fades as he doesn’t response. “Varian?” She asks worried. Eugene reaches him first and sits down, before stumbling backwards.
“Rapunzel…”
She comes over quickly and sits down beside both of them and…
“Varian!” Immediately looking at him she feels sick to her stomach, his shirt is entirely soaked in blood she can’t even see where the wound is, his skin is way paler than normal, and the most terrifying thing of them all, he’s not breathing.
“No, no, no, Varian wake up!” She cries desperately, “please…” she unbraids her hair and wraps it around his waist.
“Flower gleam and glow, let your powers shine. Make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine, what once was m-“
Eugene puts her hand on hers, forcing her to look at him. “He’s gone.”
“He can’t be, he- he… no.” He can’t be gone. She buries her face into Varian’s chest, trying to feel the warmth of his body one last time.
He can’t be. He’s so young. He had already lost so much of his life, he had just gotten it back. And now he was gone. The rest of the kingdom had just started to accept him again, but now he was gone. His father had just gotten out of the amber, and now he was gone. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t asked him to translate the scroll, Cassandra would have had no use for him, and he would still be alive.
She would never hear his voice again, never see his smile or hear him talk about his newest science experiment. Even if she didn’t understand a thing, it was nice hearing him so passionate. When he talked about it, for only a moment, all the problems of the world seem to just disappear from his mind. That’s why she never told him to stop, he deserved to have that moment of blissful joy.
She felt the googles on his head and took them off. They looked the same as they always had, full of small scratches everywhere from the years of use. She held onto them in her hand for a moment before putting them in her bag without really knowing why.
Footsteps enter the room, slowly. Knowing she asked Lance to keep Angry and Catalina out until they come back, it was only one other person it could be.
“You killed him!” She got up and saw Cassandra walking in. Her eyes were red and swollen, Rapunzel hated seeing her like this. But right now what she hated most was the fact she could feel bad for her after what she did.
“I-I didn’t mean to, i-it just- it just happened, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry,” Cassandra stammered out, “I tried to-I tried to save him, I couldn’t. I didn’t mean to kill him I-”
“But you did,” Rapunzel says “you can’t take it back. Please just-“
She was interrupted by Cassandra reaching her hand up to the Moonstone. In a second she rips it off her armour. Her hair turns back into its normal black, and she regains the same clothes she wore the day she first touched the rock.
Cassandra throws the Moonstone over the floor, it slides across the floor, barely not touching her bare feet. Rapunzel reaches out to take it, to end this once and for all.
“Wait!” Eugene takes her hand, “We still don’t know what happens when you touch it. What if… I can’t lose you too, Blondie”
“I know, but we can finally end this, no one else will be hurt. Cassandra survived, I will too” Rapunzel says, fake hope in her voice. If she would be honest, she had no idea if she would survive, but at least if she didn’t it would only be one more life gone. She couldn’t let it get into the wrong hands again.
Eugene didn’t try to argue anymore, he knew it was hopeless. With tears still dripping down his face, he watched her move forward. The Moonstone glistening on the ground, the cause of all this sorrow. She grabbed it, and the stone started to glow and burn inside her hand. It didn’t hurt as she would have expected, the glow radiated through her fingers. Rapunzel closed her eyes, the light being too bright to look at. She could feel her feet lift off of the ground, sending her floating into the air. Then another light joined the blue around her, a bright yellow light sprung out of her chest and merged with the blue in her hand. Blue and yellow were everywhere, lighting the entire tower around them. Her hair glowed with the same intensity as the yellow around her. Then it stopped. As suddenly as it had appeared it was gone.
She fell back on hard stone floor beneath her, Eugene didn’t miss a beat before he was running towards her.
“Are you okay?” He asked, worry all over his face.
“Yeah, I—I’m okay” Rapunzel answered. She looked down at her hair, it had kept its length but was now all brown like it should be. It was weird seeing herself with brown hair again after so long, especially in this length. Without it being indestructible the length wouldn’t last very long. She turns, finally meeting the eye of her former best friend. The best friend that had killed someone Rapunzel thought of as her family.
“You said you didn’t mean to kill him, then what happened?” She asked, glaring at Cass. She had felt angry before, but never like this. Never heard this kind of anger in her own voice.
“I don’t—I don’t know… it—it just—I lost control” Cass stammered out, seemingly trying to figure out what had happened herself. Rapunzel somehow found it in herself to feel bad for her for a moment, only making her hate her more when the moment disappeared. Eugene looked over at Rapunzel, a clear question in his face. She nodded.
“You’re under arrest for crimes against the kingdom,” he walks closer to Cass, “And the murder… of Varian Ruddiger.” He put the handcuffs on her, gentler than most other guards would. She didn’t even try to fight it, only walked with him as they all started the way down. Lance, Angry and Catalina, they would have to tell them. And Quirin, how is she supposed to tell him they failed to bring him back his son? Tell him that he wouldn’t see him again?
She could hear their voices before she saw Maximus’ shadow.
“Just because we’re not there yet doesn’t mean we’re not getting there!” Lance said, clearly trying to get the girls not to realise that they were in fact not going to get there. Rapunzel was the first to enter the little outpost they were standing on.
“Princess! See, I told you she was alright” Lance smiled, sometime he could act as a dad amongst the girls. “What was that light?”
“The moonstone, it’s gone now” she answered, gesturing to her brown hair now braided together.
“It’s actually gone?” Catalina looked surprised at the two that had come out behind them. Angry looked through the three of them, looking for something. Or someone.
“Rapunzel, where’s V?” She asked.
“He—he’s…” Rapunzel took a deep breath, “He’s…” she couldn’t get the word out.
“Dead…” Lance finished for her, his face falling out of the smile that it normally had. The two girls looked from Rapunzel to Eugene until their eyes caught on to Cassandra still in cuffs right beside him.
“You… you did this!” Catalina shouted angrily at Cass. In a second she was in her wolf form, Rapunzel hadn’t seen her in it since she first found out about it. Anger filed the entirety of her wolf face, she seemed as if she was ready to charge at her until her sister put a hand on her back. She looked down at Angry’s sorrowful face and turned back into a girl and fell to her knees.
“There was no way to save him?” Angry asked, sitting down beside Catalina.
“He… was already gone when we got there” Eugene answered slowly. Lance sat down beside the girls, hugging them as Catalina cried and Angry tried to hold back her own.
Catalina was soon on her feet again, wiping her tears and helping Angry up. “We should probably get going” she said. Rapunzel just nodded and they started the walk out of the tower and back to the castle. None of them said anything, the silence consuming but also no one wanted to talk at the moment.
It didn’t take much time until they were at the entrance of Old Corona. She looked over and could see the silhouette of Quirin in the pumpkin patch.
“You go on, I have to tell Quirin”
Eugene put his hand on her shoulder, “Want me to come with you?”
Rapunzel shakes her head, “It’ll be better if only one person does it. I’ll meet you back at the castle”
Eugene gave her a quick hug before continuing on towards Corona while Rapunzel headed the other way towards the pumpkin patch where Quirin was starting to walk out of.
“Uh, Quirin!” She cleared her throat, “Quirin!” He finally turned around and walked towards her.
“Princess, what can I help you with?” He asked, she had completely forgotten she never told him Varian was kidnapped.
“I have something to tell you, we should go inside.” He looked rather tense but followed her nonetheless.
“So what’s happening? Is Varian okay?” He asked the second they had gone inside and sat down. She had no idea how to tell him, was she supposed to start with him being kidnapped? Or go right to the… other part?
“So… yesterday Cass came to Eugene’s party, she was looking for the scroll” She clutched the googles inside her bag, needing to hold on to something.
“The… scroll Varian was translating?” He asked.
“Yes, she… took him with her. And… and we were too late to save him” she buried her head in her hands, “We tried, but… he was dead when we got there”
Quirin just sat there, his face was unchanged, a facade Varian had told her he used a lot when he was really upset. Varian had never specified it, but it seemed like to her that Quirin wasn’t a fan of showing emotion to other people.
“He… he’s dead,” he whispered, “he’s… dead…” He shook his head, over and over and over and over again.
“I—I’m sorry” Rapunzel laid her hand on his, trying to comfort in any way she could. She didn’t quite know how, she had never had to tell a dad he lost his son. Or that she was the reason he lost him.
“You didn’t mean to… you weren’t the one that did it…” his voice rose a bit, she could see a flicker of something she thought was his past self in his eyes. A flicker of the warrior he used to be. A flicker of a Brotherhood warrior. A flicker of pure anger.
“Do you need anything?” She asked.
“I just need to be alone.”
“Okay, if you need anything you know where to find you” she smiled softly before walking out. She started the way back to Corona alone, thinking about everything that happened. She needed the time alone as well.
————————————
4 years later
Varian,
Me and Eugene finally got the wedding right. It was a magical night, everything was perfect. Only thing missing was you. Even Edmund managed to go the entire night without voicing his thoughts out loud. Well except once, he says he did it on purpose but I highly doubt it. Kiera and Catalina made the perfect bridesmaids, even got Kiera to wear a dress which is an unusual thing to see. Lance was so happy to finally see Eugene married, cried almost more than the rest of us. Really wish you were there to see it. I miss you, a lot. Can’t even imagine all the things we would be able to do with your alchemy.
Your favourite sister, Rapunzel
She tied the letter to the lantern and sent it into the sky. A single blue light shining across the black night sky. A reminder of the light he had been in all their lives. She hugged his googles close to her chest, remembering the way he used to melt into her hugs when he was upset. Or the way he would hug her so tight she couldn’t breathe when he was happy. Even so many years later she could still hear his response clear as day when she said,
“Happy birthday Varian”