Chapter Text
A guard with a too tight hat, triple laced boots that went up to his knees and an unusual walking pattern of click…. Click- Clack, his right foot returning too quickly to snuff out the sound of his left, pulled out a wooden chair.
Varian had a bad habit of noticing things about people.
For instance, he noticed that the man who was in charge of interrogating him- a formality to show grace, (they’re never going to hear him out)- had a picture in his left pocket inside the jacket.
From the shape of it pressing against the fabric, it seems to be a watercolour painting of some kind.
This man, the one with a slight tug at the back of his mind, different from the guard still keeping watch on Varian, asked him a question.
“Do you know what Corona is feeling right now?”
“What?” He said as low as his prepubescent voice could manage.
“Corona. You know… the citizens, the moral-“
He looked into Varian’s eyes.
I just mean after everything that you did,”
A beat, and then,
“Do you… know what you did?”
Varian leaned back on the chair, and eyed the closed door. The man didn’t become impatient, he in fact grew excited as the lamp burned beside them.
“Aren’t I supposed to have some sort of.. representation?”
”Not if you’re the kid who kidnapped the queen.”
The man folded his hands together and pressed his pointy distinguishing eyebrows into them.
”Real nice.” He pouted.
“Listen witch-“
“-witch?” He whispered, disappointed that the subject he loves so dearly has to suffer for his ambition.
“…it is generous of the royal family to not have you executed. Before your time, a person having a thing to do with the princess immediately led to one.”
He looked up at the guard at Varian’s shoulder, and signaled with two fingers- his pointer and his middle.
He waved them downward. Varian was a nap sack to the blonde guard who still seemed to be loosing circulation.
He carried him on his shoulder until they left the interview, and then he was to walk in front of him towards the security room.
Varian was patted down, and then stripped of his familiar farm clothes and apron. The stains of failed attempts to save his father in his psychosis gone in a moment when they toss them into a fire.
It’s a good thing that Varian is stronger since he gained the resolve to abandon the nothing he had before for this…
He shook his head.
Then they scrubbed his hair, trying all sorts of chemicals and bleach to wash away his greenish blue streak. They said it wasn’t allowed. Varian didn’t think the white they turned the rest of his hair was allowed either, but when he said that he was informed he wouldn’t be fed breakfast that morning.
Then they placed him into the same brown sleeveless as the other prisoners, and he could tell because it was about 8 sizes too big for him and had the name Randy etched in dusty brown.
The new pants were a miracle.
The cobble ground was a box of nails to his bare feet. Each step burning into his skin. The sound of the guards boots made him grind his teeth.
“What, I don’t get any shoes?”
he kicked Varian in the shin for that.
Varian bent over to cover the spot with his hands, but the guard grabbed him by the large top. Varian struggled.
He pulled him above the cobble until Varian pushed to get to his feet.
The lined eyes waited, and when Varian tried to protest-
“you can receive shoes. Listen first.”
Cryptic adult. They’re all the same. Even the supposed dumb jockey for the head honchos is playing chess with me, he thought.
The night was cold. They all had been recently. The only warm one he remembers after his father was- trapped, was when he pressed his hand-me-down boot quiet as a snowfall onto the castle floor.
The night he kidnapped the queen.
Two days had to have passed since then, he’d been taken to the ‘royal court’ where it was unanimously decided upon his imprisonment.
But he so missed that warmth.
Three days passed, then four, and before he knew it he’d been there a whole month. They kept him away from the other prisoners. Nothing happened because of that.
The only real person who he talked to was the psychologist. He wasn’t sure if all the prisoners had this, but he would go in, and be treated like a human for a half an hour.
Her name is Maurine Lenoir and her long braided hair reminded him of someone. But it was an unmistakable deep brown.
“Sit. Please.” She said, as she did every time he entered the room.
It was classy and closer to ground level from the dungeon. Varian swore he could almost taste the sun on a good day.
“How has it been, in your new environment?”
“Welcoming.” He mused.
”ah you must be feeling better today,” she scribbled.
she sat behind a large mahogany desk with an array of black feathers for inking. Each time she picks a new one, she licks her pointer finger and swiftly pulls it from the stand.
”And your toilette?”
“Safe to say that it’s better, when I have no dignity left to lose.”
”Good.” She smiles.
“Now that your initial worries are- uh poof! Gone! How do you find our chats?”
“They’re nice. I sometimes forget I’m a prisoner here.”
”hmm.” She licks her pointer finger.
The new feather she’s picked is the thinnest tip. Its perfect for writing if you need a lot of space.
“Well I don’t mean that I’m not you know, sorry. I don’t- I’m just saying I feel sort of human here.”
His hands find their place into his elbows and his toes into the palms of his feet.
”okay.” She says.
She finishes what she was writing he can see her folding it and stamping it with the royal seal.
“Have I ever told you that you have a fear of enclosed spaces?”
Hah! He laughs, letting his hands feel the cold air.
”I’m not.”
”there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
”I’m not,” he huffed,
”I used to crawl around in chicken coops for neighbours, and spend hours digging in old historical sights to find anything for a new concoction I was working on.”
her eyebrow quirked, “they why must you defend yourself?”
“I mustn’t.” He spat, and when the half an hour candle burnt out he got up, and walked out the door quickly.
Varian hated when people assumed things of him. He despised when people berated him for things as well.
The cold unforgiving metal at least told him what to do. Maybe he was going crazy.
When the guard in charge of him locked the door to the cell, Varian interrupted their routine.
”Hey! Is there anyone else to talk to in this place?”
”Why? Sick of Mrs. Suck up already?” He said without turning to face Varian. He could feel the dirt grin he had on his face.
Varian groaned, and hung his head in front of the bar.
The guard swung a key around his finger. Click…click-clack! Just like his footsteps.
Three more days passes, and then Four, and then another month. He knows for sure this time, as he receives a letter.
”what is this?”
“A letter. It’s from the Queen. You can read it, or I could just tell you what it says.”
”you went through my mail?” He snatched the letter from the guards hands. Snarling at him defensively.
”Just procedure, Varian.” He strides a few steps towards his post. A beat, a turn, and then suddenly-
“-don’t be too upset, the letter is good news.”
“Sure. But I prefer to read my mail on my own, thank you.”
”ah ah, Watch the attitude.”
Varian gave him a confused look, and then remembered the shin kick from his first day- that still has yet to heal somehow- and drops it.
The letter is nice to touch, the feeling of paper against his fingers, something tangible he can hold.
The letter is so obviously tampered with. The envelope ripped to shreds, coffee stains plunging the rim of the paper.
It reads:
Dearest Varian,
The kingdom has been better. The black rocks have overgrown Old Corona so the citizens there have moved towards the town or away. No one is allowed there without permission from the royal court
This hurts him. He knows he could have solved the mystery by now. Houses must be destroyed and the labour to rebuild them will be great. People have been talking forever about getting rid of the place in favour of new developments. Of course there are advocates against this- but this is the perfect opportunity.
No one has remained injured from the night of your attack. I’m sorry about what happened to your father, I truly am. I sincerely hope that when Rapunzel returns she does so with a cure or comfort for you. But none of this will happen if you don’t try to be better Varian.
My best advice for you is to sing a familiar song. May this bring some joy to you on this white Christmas.
Best regards, Queen Arianna.
It was nice. A nice sentiment, and- and it was really great to receive news from the outside- and-
Varian’s eyes watered until a few heavy drops fell atop the coffee stains.
“Today’s Christmas.” He whispers, lips curling as far back into his mouth as he can to choke back a sob.
He feels them stretch wide across his face, obvious as a robber’s mask and a large bag of money to a crime scene.
The guard doesn’t turn around, and lets him curl on the ground. His hair droops down into his eyes and itches them all wrong. He grabs his arms and holds them close to his chest.
He feels distant from his family. The cell stretches out wide and tall and far away from him.
He thinks of his mother…
and he’s embarrassed! He opens his mouth wide to scream, or wail or beg for her to forgive him.
He can’t remember a thing about her. Or about how his dad would speak about her!
And if he doesn’t… and his dads truly gone now… who will remember her?
He thinks about his dad instead. They had so many good memories together! There was the time that Varian nearly blew up the whole town and his dad was embarrassed..
uh
There Was the time when Varian tried to make his father a cake for his birthday. He got so frustrated with baking and ended up using alchemy instead. His father was blue for a week!
He was terrified of the chemicals hurting the crop so he had Varian tend to them. Safe to say they died either way.
“I'm sorry Dad.” He thinks, “I’ve let you down. I said I wouldn’t- but I did.”
He reads the letter one more time, before the guard interrupts.
”You can’t keep the letter, unfortunately.” He extends his arm to take it back. Varian hands it back.
Nothing special happens on Christmas. Varian goes to bed, tired and out of tears for the day. He grumbles about how weak and vulnerable he feels in this open cage.
Then three days pass, and then four days, and then another month.