Chapter Text
The laboratory is silent.
It is still. Nothing moves. The air itself does not dare to pass through. Darkness seeps through every corner of the space, even in places it would not naturally go. There is an icy, unnatural cold that sticks to the atmosphere.
Yet, even in this stillness, it is a mess.
A lived-in mess. Papers scattered across the floor. Vials left on desks. Tools almost carelessly discarded to the side. It is obvious that someone has been here–recently, even. There is a clear purpose for all these things. Every little piece of the mess surrounds, centers, the large monument rising from the ground in the middle of the room, covered by a tapestry stitched together. Jutting around it are black, ominous spikes. The source of the dark and cold. A fear is attached to them, one that almost feeds the rocks. It is untamed, unbroken. They are unstoppable.
This eerie silence is disrupted by the sound and movement of the door opening. A brief flutter of wind whispers into the space, a bit of a whiff of the outside world mixing with the smell of chemicals and cement like a breath of fresh air. Bravely, a boy steps into the room with all the authority in the world, as if it belonged to him instead of the rocks; challenging their presence. Yet his dull, exhausted blue eyes stayed spaced onto the stack of books in his arms as he walked in on somewhat unsteady feet. Upon fully entering, he looks up to the attraction in the center, gaze sliding upwards to the formation almost as if it had been an afterthought, stopping abruptly.
Varian's face crumbles and darkens as clarity settles in again.
It's a darkness that runs deep. Accented by the heavy bags under his eyes that tell of many sleepless nights. His hair is an unruly, unkempt mess, goggles lopsided, as if he had been neglecting any sort of personal hygiene. Guilt, sorrow, exhaustion twisted in his gut, just as it always does, had always done, for the past two months. Every time he walked back into the lab it would all slam into him again.
Each time worse than the last.
The process is always the same, over and over again, day after day since the blizzard. The alchemist would stand at the entrance, staring up at the tapestry for a long moment, the first thing he so much as acknowledges, as if he had rediscovered its existence. Then realization at what exactly he was doing would wipe his face clean of any emotion other than hard and stony, jaw setting and gaze hardening in some twisted form of determination. He'd shoved it all deep, deep down in that same instance, until there was nothing left but the numbing emptiness that swallowed it all whole for him.
He forces one foot in front of the other until he's walking at a somewhat decent pace to the desk with Ruddiger on his heels, plopping the stack of books down and sitting in the wooden chair heavily.
But Varian only sits there. Staring at the front cover of the top book as if he were lost. As if unknowing on where to even start. Slowly, as if drawn to it, he turns to the hidden structure again. Contemplating, studying it and the rocks. Hate burned in those irises at the sight of them.
When this all started, he had been fascinated by the things. By the untold secrets they no doubt held. Unlike everyone else, who cowered in fear of them the moment they arrived (Then again, he had always been an outlier). They brought chaos with them, destroyed his home and village in the blink of an eye, and yet, even then, he did not back down from their oppressive might.
No. He challenged them. He was not afraid of them, not even from the moment they first arrived. He had sworn, all those weeks ago, after picking himself up from the cold, unforgiving floor, that he would find a solution. Crack the code, unlock their secrets, defeat them. No matter what he had to do to get there, he would find a way. He regrets now, how eager and excited he had originally been. The memory makes him scoff and sneer.
He had been so naive…
It was odd. To have a personal vendetta against mostly inanimate objects. But it was at the very least warranted all the same.
Varian mentally stews over his anger for a moment. As if reminding himself of why it is that he is doing what he is doing. His eyes lifting from the rocks to the tapestry, pain once again trickling into the deep grooves in his expression.
He'd free him… No matter what it'd take.
… But it was taking so long.
He can't help the way impatient anger settles under his skin as he turns back around. Staring at the notes left scattered and disorganized from earlier in the day. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere, something would change. Something would be different, and he'd be back to square one.
The make up of the amber made no logical sense, no matter how much he tried to force it to make sense. Maybe that is the problem–it is magic, after all. Magic does not follow the basic rules of reality and physics. It is unruly, does whatever it pleases.
But all that tells him is that there is no way to break through because it changes. That concept alone can not be allowed to exist. There was always a way. He'd just have to find it.
So he has to make it make sense. Otherwise it would all be for nothing.
When Varian reaches for the first book, however, it is heavy and reeking with exhaustion. All of the energy in him seeming to be sapped into the rocks despite his earlier conviction. He flips through the pages, despite having read them numerous times already, looking closely for any and all clues that could give him something. Anything.
This is the tedious, ruthless routine he had adopted since the blizzard. Two months of scouring through his collections, of trying to mix any different combinations of chemicals he could possibly think of, while remaining locked in his lab, away from the rest of the world.
A world that seems to have forgotten he even existed, anyway. Because in those two months, no one had come to see if he or his father were even alive. Not even the princess or her friends. Despite him believing that they were friends.
She had promised him. She had promised they'd work out the rocks together. He had put all of his faith and hope into her, like so many others did. He had looked up to her, to Fly–Eugene, to Cassandra. Yet each and every single one of them broke a promise they had made to him.
It just so happens that Rapunzel broke the worst one of all. And had left him here to rot in the wake of her own consequences.
He honestly should have known better. No one in the village or even beyond liked him–he heard the things they whispered about him out on the streets. Yet, Varian still did everything he could to prove to people that could genuinely care so much less. To try to show that he was good, that all he wanted was to help. It's no wonder that they turned away from him.
He spent all that energy, only to get nowhere at all. It was a stupid waste of time. A mistake he swore he'd never make again.
He poured his very being into this new, sole task: Freeing his father from the amber he created by his own hands (It didn't matter if he hadn't meant to, it still clawed at his heart and caused him agony; Dad had said not to mess with the rocks and he didn't listen). He only remembered to sleep and eat, if even then only barely, because Ruddiger would remind him to. Sometimes Varian would outright refuse or disregard him. The lack of taking care of himself was beginning to rear it's ugly head now.
As a matter of fact, it started to do so about two days ago. There's an annoying dizziness that swims in his vision, one he doesn't notice until he stands for too long. He sometimes gets so hungry to the point where he feels nauseous, as if his stomach is trying to eat his insides, and he finds himself hunching over the desk, arms curled over his midsection until it’s all over. Everything feels too warm, too uncomfortable. But he fights through it all, no matter how much worse it'd feel like it'd get.
Sleeping wastes time. Eating wastes time. The faster he could figure this out the better.
At the moment, Varian has two beakers in his hands; one circular, glowing a sickly green and the other flat on the bottom, full of bright pink liquid. His goggles are fastened over his eyes as he lifts both, tilting the green vial into the pink at an agonizingly slow pace. He leans forward, squinting with a scowl, watching the singular drop of liquid slide over the lip like a hawk, ignoring the nausea simmering at the bottom of his stomach, the taste in his mouth. He could worry about it later, he had to be careful, one wrong move and it could explode in his face–
The echo of distant footsteps and voices have him freezing, face falling. At first, he thinks he's imagining it. It had been so long since he'd heard other people that maybe he was simply hallucinating at this point.
But the sounds did not go away. In fact, they were getting closer.
He doesn't know why he sets both beakers down on the desk almost haphazardly–Ruddiger squeaking with shock and steadying the flat one, catching the other so they didn’t fall–but he finds himself running to the left side of the room, scrabbling for the window to hoist himself up and look out to spot what the commotion is.
And it takes a moment for him to process what he is seeing.
In the distance, in between the black rocks blocking his front door, he spots flashes of blue, burgundy, and worst of all… Purple. A yellow glow mixing with the blue if it gets too close.
He can't believe what he's seeing. Even less in what he is hearing, the voices coming closer, becoming comprehensible.
It's them.
“... I still don't understand why he would lie to me.” The voice is full of guilt and sorrow. A hint of revered horror, most likely to the sight of the rocks. Rapunzel. “Not… Not about this. If I had known…”
The next one is full of compassion, but just as much sorrow. Eugene. “Hey, don't beat yourself up, this isn't your fault, Sunshine. Besides, I'm sure your dad had… Some good reason why he didn't want you knowing. Probably.”
“I want to know what that reason is exactly.” Came the last. Suspicion and doubt lacing her words. Cassandra. “Because, obviously, things are a lot worse than we thought. What King would lie to his subjects, much less his own daughter about this?? Something just isn't right here.”
It was a question Rapunzel didn't like. “I-I don't know… Let's just, worry about one thing at a time, though, alright? W-we can, I dunno, ask him or something after this. Poor Varian…”
Whatever they said next faded into the static of his mind. As he watched them near the front of his home across from the lab, knocking at the door. Calling for him, or for his Dad (He hadn't heard that name in so long…). Going quiet with confusion when no one answered, sharing weary looks with each other.
He slipped from the window, stepping back with a wide, glassy gaze, the princess's words circling in his mind. Poor Varian…
They're here. His thoughts whispered. A jumble of confused emotions fighting for the right to show itself. They're here. After so long… They're here.
Worst of all, the king… The King had lied to her. Was… Was that the reason she hadn't shown up in so long?? How did she find out? Why would the king lie???
Why would anyone lie about this…?
From his peripheral, he saw Ruddiger crawl up to his side, looking up at him with sad eyes. Varian meets them, rooted to the spot.
“They're here…” He whispers past the lump in his throat.
All the raccoon does is set a paw against his leg in comfort.
He doesn't know what to do with himself. He doesn't know if he should still feel angry, jump for joy, curl into a ball and cry with relief. The longer he stands there the more he feels like passing out.
All these weeks… Of being alone. Of thinking he had been abandoned, by every person out there. He had thought his plea for help had been completely ignored.
When it was so much worse than that.
He had imagined this moment so many times before. He had thought he'd be snide and cold, pushing them away and out his sanctuary. He thought he'd snap and yell at the princess, pointing fingers at her, torturing her with the idea that this was all her fault. To gain some kind of satisfaction for the vengeance he felt he had deserved.
Instead, all he can do, is stand in the middle of the room, looking up from the floor with those same wide, glassy eyes, meeting the emerald green gaze of the embodiment of the Sun herself. Watching as her eyes widened at the sight of him as the other two stepped behind her, shock registering on their own faces.
No one moves, or says even a single word, as they all stare at each other.
Not until Varian shifts, turning to face them, tilting his head to the left with a tight, unnatural smile that's way too wide. And when he speaks, it's a croak of pain and suffering.
“Welcome back, Princess.”