Chapter Text
"I could say how this is the story of how I died
And I almost did, multiple times
But I didn't die, instead I got to live"
"Really now, Goggles
Save some drama for me
S'my thing after all, right"
"Don't-
Don't sidetrack me
Anyways, back to the story..."
*_*_*_*_*
Golden light streams through half-drawn curtains and lay on the freckly face of a dreaming boy. His dark hair owning a mysterious teal streak, messy from a night of relentless twisting and turning had strands stuck to his sweaty forehead.
The beam of comforting radiance startles him awake with a gasp, blue eyes wide as silver coins and trembling hands clenching his bland grey sheets. The raccoon at his feet jumps up, chittering, puzzled and concerned for the terrified boy who had awoken gasping for air as if he'd been held underwater. Their eyes meet and the boy looks noticeably calmer, though not completely over whatever had just happened in his slumber.
He sighs heavily, "Ruddiger?" And the grey animal hurries over, the boy's hand reaching to pet him.
"Varian! Breakfast had been made, come down!" He heard his father call.
Varian swung his feet to the side of the bed and walked over to his wardrobe, shaking off the nightmare he just awoke from. He quickly changed into a white dress shirt and a blue waistcoat with gold trim. Rapunzel had it tailored especially for him as a birthday gift saying that it matched his blue eyes and streak in his hair. Varian's birthday was a few months ago now, but the princess, his good friend, had organized a whole party in the castle. It was his eighteenth after all, she had said.
He looked in the mirror seeing the man he'd become. He looked at himself. Ignoring the boy he used to be, forgetting all the terrible things he'd done. Varian would erase all that if he could, pretend it didn't happen, but it would always come back to haunt him.
He's different now. He's the Royal Engineer, he helped save Corona, he got his father back, he gave Corona running hot water.
He redeemed himself, hadn't he? So why does he look at his reflection and still see—
"Son? Are you awake yet? Breakfast is waiting!" Varian's father bellowed from below him.
Turing from the mirror he grabs his iconic goggles from his nightstand and pushes them up atop his now combed hair.
"Royal Engineer, son of Quirin, friend of the princess, and an alchemist," Varian sighs. "That's who I am."
Sitting at the table was Quirin, Varian's father and chief of Old Corona. All Varian had ever wanted was for his dad to be proud of him, and now he is, but that pride hadn't come easy nor did it come kindly. When he looks at his father he sees unbreakable amber encasing Quirin, a terrified look permanently painted on his face.
"Good morning, son. You look...tired. Is everything alright?" Quirin asks, concerned.
Varian shrugs, "I'm fine, just had a weird dream is all."
His father quirks an eyebrow. "Hm yes, dreams are weird aren't they, do you wish to talk about your dream? It may help?"
Varian brings his plate of fried egg and toast to the wooden table, across from his father and sits, avoiding his eyes as flashes of his dream plague him. Beautiful melodic humming, a mysterious glowing symbol on the cover of a thick cyan journal, an adventurous but kind looking woman with freckles and long auburn hair. It all felt so familiar yet so strange, like he had some sort of connection with it. He flexes his gloved hands, finally looking into his father's deep brown eyes.
"I um... I had this dream about a woman, she was humming some sort of, I don't know, a lullaby? It was like I heard it before, seen her before," She had felt so familiar it was like he should be shamed for not remembering her name.
"and there was a book- a journal. It was a blueish green colour and... there was this symbol on it." As Varian told his dad about his strange dream, Quirin's face twisted into something between utter shock, disbelief, and despair. The expression made Varian slow and eventually stop recounting, staring at his father in confusion and maybe a bit of fear.
Quirin shudders a sigh and slumps forward, resting his head in his gloved hands. His food shoved to the side untouched since his son had started talking about his 'dream'.
"Dad?" Varian leans forward, voice hinting at his disquiet. "Dad, what is it. What's going on?"
After a moment of uneasy silence Quirin looks up from his hands and at his son, dread clear on his face. "There is something..." he takes a long breath, hesitating before deciding to continue. "Something you should know, something perhaps I should have told you about a long time ago."
Varian looks at him, blue eyes wide unsure where this is headed. "Is something...happening?"
Quirin stands and Varian follows only for his father to tell him to sit, "it's better for you if you stay seated," and with that he leaves the room. Leaves Varian staring, trying to understand what might be happening.
His father returns after a few minutes with something in hand, It was wrapped up in a dirty cloth. He hands it to Varian wordlessly. The boy looks at his father, pleading for an answer, anything that could tell him what the heck was going on.
"Dad?"
"Open it, son."
Hesitantly, Varian unwraps the object from the cloth and as soon as his hands took hold of the book, as soon as his blue eyes locked with the symbol, he knew. He knew.
"Mom's Journal." Varian's breath hitched as he heard her faintly singing the lullaby she sang when he was a child.
"Your mother was, like you, an alchemist. Her science took her everywhere. She was reckless as she was beautiful, she was gentle and kind, she was brave and loving. She was always writing up new experiments and going on new adventures. Until one day she decided to finally settle down. We got married and had a child, you. Even with a family she never gave up on making things, on learning things. But one day..." Quirin's reminiscent face turned dark and sorrowful. "One day her old partner wrote a letter containing an old legend that turned out to be true. Your mother had left two days after, promising me that she would be back." His expression twisted with pain.
"She never did, mom never came back..." Varian says, voice hushed. "What was it? The legend?
Quirin's face suddenly turned solemn as he wrung his hands uncomfortably under the table.
"The legend of the Eternal Library."
Varian's heart races and tightens his hands on his mother's Tome.
"Th-the 'Eternal Library'...do you know anything else about it? Do you know what it is?" Varian asks, voice growing desperate with curiosity.
Looking taken aback from his son's questions he grumbles, "Maybe it was a mistake showing you the Journal, telling you about the legend...
...you're just like her, your mother. You're reckless, you never think things through, you'll jump headfirst into danger for the sake of a new discovery," Quirin shakes his head with a haunted look in his eyes. "No, no I won't let you look for the Library, it's far too dangerous."
"But dad," Varian protests. "You said she never came back, that doesn't mean she's...that she..." He couldn't say it. "She could still be alive, she could still be out there!"
"Son-"
"Dad." Varian levels.
Quirin stands abruptly and turns for the door saying only one thing before leaving. "No."
Sighing, Varian sits back into his wooden chair, hands folded on the Journal's teal cover.
No, Varian wouldn't let that be the end. He knew his mother was out there, he could feel it, could feel her.
Varian had to learn more about the legend of the Eternal Library.
*_*_*_*_*
The boy and his raccoon companion journey to Corona to find the blacksmith. He knew about all types of legends and would tell them constantly.
The large man hummed to the sound of metal against metal, his white hair catching the sunlight that found its way into his smithy.
"Xavier!" Varian yells, running across the street to the blacksmith. "Xavier, I need your help with something!"
The man looked at Varian with a knowing smile. "Ah yes, what is it? Does it have anything to do with a legend?"
Varian stops, mouth wide. "How...did you know?"
"A historian always knows when a story needs to be told."
*_*_*_*_*
Next to an anvil, Varian sits on a simple wooden stool, Ruddiger crunching on a juicy red apple. Xavier hangs up the sword he was working on so that he could help the boy. Varian recounts everything that happened with the Journal and his dad, asking about the Eternal Library.
"Hm yes... I do recall that one. The Eternal Library, the place of infinite knowledge and discovery. Now that is no mere legend and your mother sought to prove it. In every Kingdom there is a trial. The trials each hold an ancient item of Demanitas' time, the Totems. The Totems are the key to opening the Eternal Library, you must achieve all seven of them to enter."
Eyes wide as cookies Varian gapes. "Wha-what? Demanitas? Totems? Trials?"
"Hah, yes boy. Demanitas hid the Totems in Trials of his own creation so that only the true men of science were able to access the Eternal Library." He pauses, looking at Varian softly. "Your mother was a scientist through and through, with the help of her research partner I have no doubts in my mind they made it to the Library."
Sucking all this new information in, Varian let's the air out of his lungs that he'd unknowingly been holding.
"She never came back... Xaves, do you think that maybe she might still be alive?"
Xavier doesn't flinch nor falter. "I believe she is still in this world. I am sure you can find her, Varian."
The boy blanches. "I... how'd you know I was going to find her?"
The blacksmith chuckles. "You are just like your mother, brave, adventurous, smart, and determined to never give up." He pats the boy's shoulder and smiles warmly. "And you always do the right thing."
Having learned about the Eternal Library, Varian sets off to Old Corona to talk to his father once more,
he was going to the seven Kingdoms,
he was going to complete the seven Trials, and he was going to find his mother.
*_*_*_*_*
Varian finds his father tending the fields with a few other villagers. The sun was setting but still standing strong and bright.
"Dad, we need to talk." Varian stays to the side, letting people continue working.
Quirin lifts his eyes to see his son and hesitantly suggests, "Let's head inside."
The wooden door closes behind the man, boy, and raccoon and they stand in the dark, refusing to meet each other's gazes.
"Xavier told me about the Eternal Library. Dad, I have to go."
"I know,"
"Dad- look I understand it's going to be dangerous and- wait what?" Varian starts, realizing what his father said.
"You can go. It is dangerous and I don't want to let you go but I understand that this is something I can't stop you from doing. You're not a boy anymore, you're eighteen now, and if you truly believe that your mother is out there then I trust you to find her. I trust you, son. And I love you."
Varian can't stop the trembling in his hands or the tears in his eyes. "Dad...I-I..." He wraps his dad in a big hug in which Quirin returns it.
"I love you, dad."
*_*_*_*_*
That night the two planned for Varian's journey. Apparently Quirin had stocked up on food for his son after their morning conflict once he realized Varian would go. Quirin patted his son on the back and told him to rest up. Varian was to leave in the morning so his father had insisted that he'd do all he could to help the boy with whatever was needed to get ready.
That meant giving Varian his lazy donkey, Prometheus.
*_*_*_*_*