Varian! Please, help me!'
Varian desperately reached for his father's hand, straining as the amber slowly encased his body like an irreversible tide.
'No, Dad! Please!' he begged, their fingertips brushing before he was thrown backwards across the lab, pinned to the walls by his own creeping amber that was quickly forming around his legs, keeping him from saving his father.
Quirin's eyes were pleading as he tried to escape, stretching upwards as if he could outrun what was coming, but it was no use. He gave a final gasp as the amber wrapped around his head, sealing him in his golden tomb.
'No!' Varian screamed, raging and desperately trying to break through the amber around him. 'Dad! I'll save you! Just hold on! Hold-'
The amber formed around his own face, cutting off his air and making Varian convulse, even as his body remained stiff around him. He needed to breathe, he needed to-
'Varian!'
He gasped, suddenly finding himself floating through a strange cloudscape, air filling his lungs as his body relaxed again, his fear washing away in moments. That hadn't been his dad's voice, but it had felt familiar all the same. He looked around, trying to make out where he was, and spotted something darker appearing in the distance ahead of him. He drifted towards it, realising it looked like a massive, upright ring made of machinery and wires. He'd seen that before.
'Demanitus' portal,' he mused, reaching for it.
But the moment he came within reach, the empty space within the ring exploded into a swirling blue vortex of light, making him jump back in alarm. It looked just like the portal he'd constructed to try to trap Zhan Tiri, only this time there was no inescapable pull towards it, letting him drift right up to its surface, staring inside. There were dark shapes looming in the background, looking like some kind of shelving that stretched far out into the distance. That definitely didn't look like the realm he'd been accidentally pulled into two years earlier. It almost looked like a library of some kind.
A figure appeared amongst the stacks, hurrying closer and Varian tensed, waiting for some kind of enemy or monster or even Zhan Tiri herself. Instead, the figure was humanoid, roughly his own height, with long hair hanging down over their shoulders that made him think they were a woman. She ran up to the portal but Varian still couldn't make out more than her dark silhouette, even as she raised her hand and pressed it to the surface of the portal. He reacted without really thinking, raising his own hand to press against hers. He felt a jolt of electricity between them that quickly shifted into a pleasant warmth that made him want to curl his fingers around her hand. But the surface of the portal was like a glass window, refusing to allow him to cross the boundary.
'Who are you?' he breathed, squinting to try to make out any of the woman's features.
'...Varian...!' she shouted, her voice barely audible despite how close they were.
'Who are you?' he asked again, louder this time.
Instead of replying, the woman held up something in her other hand, pressing it against the surface of the window separating them. Varian bent down to examine it, realising it was a book of some kind, a strange symbol adorning the cover. Despite the fog that was obscuring the woman, this much was clear.
'Please, how do you know me?' he shouted, looking back up at her.
Before she could attempt to respond, she was yanked backwards like a puppet on a string and Varian shouted, banging on the portal surface to try to reach her before everything around him swirled into darkness.
Varian gasped, sitting up in bed and breathing heavily, sweat beading his forehead. Curled on his pillow, Ruddiger yelped and almost fell off the bed in shock, shaking himself and glaring balefully up at Varian who didn't even notice. He was used to nightmares; he got them almost every night. But this had been something entirely different. Where had that even come from? He hadn't thought about Demanitus' portal in months, maybe even over a year. Since Zhan Tiri's defeat over two years ago, he'd been completely swamped with other alchemical experiments and engineering tasks for the kingdom, giving him little time to dwell on that strange realm he'd stepped into. So what had brought this on? And who had that woman been? Her voice had sounded so familiar, though he couldn't place it for the life of him.
He glanced towards his desk, its parchment-strewn surface bathed in the moonlight shining down through his window. Ignoring Ruddiger's tired chittering, he swung his legs out of bed and hurried over, grabbing a pencil to draw up the symbol he'd seen on that book she'd held up, committing it to memory before the dream faded. He was shaking slightly, but his hand was steady as he completed the symbol, looking down at it as he tried to figure out what it could possible mean, but nothing immediately came to mind. Ruddiger chittered again and sleepily made his way over, crawling up to Varian's shoulder to look down at the symbol.
'Mean anything to you?' he asked quietly and Ruddiger shook his head, looking like he'd rather be asleep.
Varian sighed, looking out his window over Old Corona, bathed in the silvery moonlight. He knew he wasn't getting back to sleep again any time soon.
Donella sat up with a jolt, her former partner's voice still ringing in her ears, accusing her of betraying her as the portal closed between them. She wanted to shake the dream off as nothing more than just that, a dream, but she knew it had been a memory. But why now? After all these years? She hadn't thought about Ulla or their former quest in years, though the repercussions of it still weighed heavily on her at the back of her mind. She looked at the mechanical timepiece on her bedside table which read half-past three in the morning. All around her, the building rumbled reassuringly as Ingvarr's sleepless city constantly transported steam and energy throughout its streets to the very far reaches of the kingdom. It was a comforting noise, the sound of gears turning and steam humming a discordant lullaby. But now it seemed different, as if there was pressure building somewhere in the steam system that would soon explode outwards, consuming the kingdom around it.
That hadn't been a dream, she decided. If Ulla was still alive in the Eternal Library, then she very well could be reaching out. And if she could find a way to escape the library and return to the Seven Kingdoms, everything Donella had built for herself in Ingvarr could come crashing down around her. She needed intel, and there was only one person she knew could get that for her.
Decided, she strode to the door and flung it open, startling the guard stationed outside of her door.
'Do you need anything, ma'am?' he asked, saluting.
'Bring my Cyrus,' she ordered, 'I don't care how early it is. And find Hugo, wherever that little rat has hidden himself this time. I have a job for them.'
Varian hadn't gotten back to sleep that night, sitting at his desk to ruminate over the symbol he'd drawn and his brief writing outlining his dream, trying to solve the puzzle they presented. Ruddiger had long since given up trying to keep him company, now splayed out on Varian's bed, snoring softly. It was only when the first rays of dawn hit Varian's face that he realised what time it was, that symbol floating before him after spending most of the night staring at it. But he couldn't just sit there all day. The kingdom never rested and it needed its Royal Engineer. So reluctantly, he rose to get changed, shoving the parchment into his jacket pocket and trying to make himself somewhat presentable after his rough night. He was just glad most people who saw him were used to his antics, taking the dark bags under his bloodshot eyes in stride after the many nights he'd worked through for the betterment of the kingdom.
Ruddiger finally stirred as Varian pulled on his deep purple vest embroidered with the sun of Corona over his heart. On his shoulders were the symbols of his office as Royal Engineer; a flask of bubbling chemicals in front of a green flame. When Rapunzel had given him his new rank, she'd designed the emblem herself, taking inspiration from Varian's chemical solution dubbed Flynnoleum that he'd used to provide hot water to the entire kingdom thanks to his system of underground tanks. As Corona's very first Royal Engineer, he'd had a large amount of input on the design but he'd trusted Rapunzel to come up with something that fit, and he hadn't been disappointed. She was an artist by nature. Which reminded him; he was set to meet with her today and, if his timepiece was accurate which he knew it was, he was going to be late for.
He hurried downstairs where Quirin was making breakfast and looked up with a smirk at his appearance.
'Spend another night experimenting?' he asked his son, setting down a bowl of porridge in front of him.
'Sort of,' Varian replied, hastily spooning it into his mouth, 'More like thinking about a dream I had.'
Quirin didn't have time to question him further as Varian was already finished, throwing his bowl back in the sink and giving him a quick hug before he raced outside. 'Sorry! Gotta go meet Rapunzel!'
Outside, he barely registered the waves of the villagers as he raced by, swinging up onto the horse he had permanently on loan from the royal stables named Orion. He was a gentle creature with a soft grey coat almost identical to Ruddiger's which might have been why Rapunzel had chosen him to offer Varian. The arrangement had come about after Rapunzel has noticed how long the trek was from the capital to Old Corona for Varian, taking several hours each day that could be better spent on his machines and experiments. Varian had tried to refuse, but she was insistent, at least until he could come up with a machine that was faster.
He swung Orion's head around now, taking to the well-worn road at speed and leaving the village behind. Despite the tiredness nipping at his heels, the day was shaping up to be another classic Coronan beauty. The sun was shining down through the canopy above him, dappling the road ahead of him, while birds sang happily amongst their branches. He passed by countless farms and villages as he approached the city, slowing Orion once the road became busier, weaving through the farmers and carpenters and stone masons as they started their days. Some called out greetings to him as he passed and he waved back at the familiar faces. Most of the work he did involved optimising the work that Corona's civilians undertook, finding ways to make their jobs easier and faster which they were extremely grateful for.
He reached the town that sat on the mainland side of Corona's bridge, aptly named Bridgetown, new buildings constantly being built amongst the forest trees as the kingdom's population grew. Since Zhan Tiri's defeat and Corona's rebuild being completed, people had started to travel here from all over the Seven Kingdoms, drawn by the lure of jobs and the quickly advancing lifestyles that Varian's machines could provide. Eugene insisted it was the hot water system he developed but Varian liked to think it was more than just that one invention.
'Morning, Varian!' one of the guards on the bridge called, a man called Hadrian who Varian often worked with when he was needed in Bridgetown. He was the unofficial guard chief for the town, despite how close they were to the capital, the locals appreciating his easy-going attitude tempered with a stern insistence on following the law.
'Hi, Hadrian,' Varian called back, 'Sorry, can't stop today. Gotta meet with Rapunzel!'
'Tell her I said hi!'
Varian waved as he passed, slowing Orion to a brisk walk as he entered Corona's capital city. Since Zhan Tiri's destruction of most of the buildings, many of them had been newly rebuilt, often with the latest of Varian's technology installed. Cranes hung over the docks, utilising counterweights to lift the heavy cargo from trading ships while steam powered by Flynnoleum rotated them to allow for even greater dexterity. Water tanks were located in strategic locations across the city in the tunnels that spread below the island, acting as both storage for his hot water systems and as a fire prevention system he created after the third Flynnoleum explosion that threatened to burn down the entire city. New streetlights lined the roads, alchemy orbs replacing the typical oil lanterns to create a smokeless light that began to glow once the sun set. It was nothing compared to the great steam-powered cities of the kingdom of Ingvarr far to the east, but Varian was still proud he'd managed to crack hot running water before their engineers had. He supposed it was thanks to Ingvarr's focus on creating weapons of war rather than finding ways to care for its citizens.
Here, even more people were calling out greetings as he passed, tempted to stop at Attila's bakery or Monty's sweet shop, but forcing himself to move on, even as Ruddiger attempted to leap free to scrounge for food. Leaving Orion to be cared for by the castle's stable hands, Varian dismounted in the courtyard, taking a moment to look over the walls around the castle that housed his defense systems. If there was a threat to Corona, they wouldn't be caught out again like they had been with Zhan Tiri. Every one of the royal guards was trained to use the new cannons Varian had set up around the castle walls, with a range long enough to reach any approaching ships and even into the mainland. Most of their ammunition was non-lethal at Rapunzel's insistence, utilising Varian's signature sticky traps and bubble bombs, but he made sure that all of them also had several clusters of Flynnoleum bombs in case of more dire circumstances.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, he hurried into the castle, easily navigating its twisting corridors thanks to years of familiarising himself with its layouts. He knew all the shortcuts, often darting into servant's corridors to get wherever he needed to go in record time. In minutes, he'd reached Rapunzel's offices in the administrative wing, not far from those of the king and queen. Rapunzel had balked at calling them that, instead insisting they were more meeting rooms than offices, going so far as to paint every surface inside and out to make it more welcoming and less formal. The door was open as Varian approached and Ruddiger leapt down to race inside, knowing that Rapunzel would be excited to see him again. Sure enough, Varian could hear her laughing and greeting the raccoon before he reached the doorway, entering to see the princess scratching Ruddiger's belly as he flopped over on her desk in front of her.
'Hey, there he is!' Eugene greeted him and Rapunzel looked up, smiling brightly.
'Varian, hi!' she exclaimed, leaping up to pull him into a hug.
'Woah! Hi,' he said back, 'Um, you okay? You only saw me a couple of days ago.'
'I know but you're always so busy lately,' Rapunzel sighed, grinning. 'I feel like we never see you anymore.'
'There's a lot to do,' he admitted with a shrug, 'Kingdom never stops. I can't either.'
'Jeeze, kid,' Eugene commented drily, 'You're only a teenager. Stop sounding more responsible than me.'
'Sounds like that's more on you than me,' Varian shot back and Eugene barked a laugh.
'That's better!'
'So what did you want to talk to me about?' Varian asked, 'It's not another issue with the hot water, is it?'
'No, it's not that,' Rapunzel replied before seeming to notice the air of tiredness hanging around him. 'Hey, are you okay?'
'Yeah, I'm fine,' he replied, 'Just didn't get much sleep last night.'
Rapunzel frowned and he could see her trying to figure out if it was caused by overworking or nightmares. With Varian, either was equally plausible. But he didn't really want to get into that with her today and quickly added, 'How can I help?'
'Right, well we've just finished inducting some new recruits into the royal guard,' Rapunzel explained, glancing at Eugene, 'And we were hoping you might be able to take them through your cannons?'
That was it? It didn't really seem like the urgent meeting Rapunzel had said it was when he'd received her message.
'Really?' he asked, baffled, 'Why do you need me to do that? Eugene, can't you do that?'
'No can do, Goggles,' Eugene replied, 'I'm actually heading out soon to oversee a trade caravan heading out to Vorath. I mean, there's always Lance but-'
'Absolutely not,' Varian interjected, making both Rapunzel and Eugene grin. After one too many accidents with his machines caused by Lance, Varian had issued a permanent ban against him getting within five yards of any of Varian's creations. The idea of Lance trying to demonstrate how to use one of his cannons to a group of new recruits was terrifying. He was starting to see why Rapunzel had sounded urgent.
'Alright,' he agreed, 'They down in the barracks?'
Eugene nodded and Varian quickly turned away again.
'Good luck, kid!' the captain called after him. He was so focused on his new task that he didn't notice the knowing grin the two shot to each other.
He found the recruits loitering around the barracks with Commander Pete waiting for him. They looked at Varian with varying degrees of disbelief and apprehension. He had a reputation around the kingdom for his brilliant inventions, but also for his past actions against Corona that he'd sooner forget. When he met people for the first time, they often seemed disappointed to realise he wasn't some all-powerful, mythical figure like Demanitus reborn. Instead, he was still a somewhat scrawny teenager with a mop of unruly black hair streaked with teal with a raccoon perched on his shoulder. Though it did make it funny when Varian went full-alchemist on them, demonstrating his expertise with his machines in a way that no others could replicate.
That day, he did just that, leading the recruits up to the castle walls to the nearest cannon that often acted as a training weapon. He settled in the pilot's seat, adjusting the controls to suit his own frame before starting it up, the hum of Flynnoleum through its mechanism like greeting an old friend.
'You've got two main controls for it,' Varian explained, gesturing to the two joysticks on the console. 'The left one controls rotation. The right one controls elevation.'
He demonstrated each, spinning the cannon smoothly until it was pointed out over the ocean where a number of training buoys were floating. He raised the cannon until it was at the optimum height to reach it, but refrained from firing its training round just yet.
'You've also got this lever here,' he said, pointing to the flat lever on the console, 'This lets you choose what kind of ammunition you want to be firing. Green is Flynnoleum, my explosive. Pink is a sticky trap, blue is a bubble bomb, red is a smoke bomb, and yellow is a stink bomb. The lever controls this mechanism on the side to change your ammunition.'
He gestured to an attachment on the side of the cannon on his right where a number of steel tubes were stacked in a line, the colours of their orbs inside shining through a glass plate. At the top was a copper pipe that slid across the tops of each as the lever moved, ready to change ammunition with a press of a button on the right joystick.
'Now you can't just point and shoot,' he continued, 'That might work for targets that are closer, but for targets that are further away, you need to be able to calculate the arc needed to reach longer distances. It sounds a little complicated, but as you practice, you'll get a feel for it. Left trigger fires the cannon.'
At this point, he did fire, the glass orb full of yellow paint firing from the barrel and sailing over the city, slamming straight into the training buoy and exploding, colouring it bright yellow.
'Now a lot of the shots that you'll be using have an area of effect that they can reach to so you don't have to directly hit a target straight on every time. But the closer you can get, the better. Who wants to try?'
At once, the hands of the recruits shot up, each one eager to test out the machine and Varian let Pete organise them into a line, stepping back to observe as one by one, they settled into the pilot's seat to take up the controls. While it wasn't the most exciting of his regular jobs, he didn't mind monitoring new recruits as they learned their way around his machines. It gave him a rare chance to relax for a while and think up new ideas for machines or chemicals while sitting in the sun. And he did just that, leaning back against the battlements as the cannon roared nearby, pulling out a notebook and sketching up an idea that had been brewing of a mechanical vehicle that had the potential to replace horses. Not all horses, of course; he loved Max and Orion and the rest of the palace horses. But it would be nice not to have to rely on Rapunzel's goodwill to get from Old Corona to the city most days. And with this machine, he might be able to travel even faster. He was just working out the chain mechanism to get the wheels turning when his dream popped into his head again and he found himself setting his pencil down to pull out the piece of parchment from his vest pocket. Ruddiger noticed his hesitation and looked down at the picture, then up at Varian in askance. But Varian still had no explanation for what it could mean. Was it a sigil like Corona's sun or Vorath's circle and three lines? Was it a chemical symbol that he didn't know about? But he flipped to the front of his notebook where he had a full table of all the known alchemical symbols, and it didn't match any of them. He thought it could possibly be the symbol for mercury or cobalt, but the lines were all wrong. He just didn't know what to make of it.
Without warning, the cannon began to make a groaning, screeching noise and his head whipped up immediately.
'What happened?' he demanded of the hapless guard sitting in the pilot seat.
'I-I don't know,' he admitted, quickly climbing down to make way for Varian. 'I was just moving it the way you said.'
Varian frowned, giving the two joysticks a gentle tug, only to wince at the grinding noise that came from it. Pulling a small wrench from his pocket, he crouched beneath the console and pulled off the steel panel to expose the internal mechanism. He saw the problem immediately and thankfully, it was an easy fix.
'Not your fault,' he called with his head still in the console, 'Looks like the bearings just need to be regreased.'
Sending Ruddiger off to his lab to bring him more machine grease, he quickly began disassembling the cannon, powering it down and laying its bolts, gears and wires out on the cobblestones of the wall behind him. The guards gaped as they watched him work, baffled about what he was doing. Within a few minutes, Ruddiger was back with a steel bottle of grease and Varian quickly applied it to the offending bearings until they shone. Satisfied that everything was now working as it should, he meticulously began to put it back together again until he reset the panel, rising again and wiping grease from his face.
'Should be good to go now,' he assured them and the guard nervously stepped back up to the pilot seat as Varian reactivated it. This time, the cannon moved smoothly again and soon the guard was grinning, aiming out over the bay to fire his test ammunition.
Varian glanced back to the rest of the cannons perched on the walls, realising that he'd been so busy lately that he hadn't actually been keeping up to date with his regular maintenance of them.
'Pete, have you got this?' he asked the commander, 'Just gotta check the others.'
'Sure thing, Varian,' he replied and Varian hurried off with his bottle of grease, systematically going through each and every cannon, making sure they were all properly greased, fuelled and had plenty of ammunition. Despite the speed at which he worked, it took him several hours to go through all of them thanks to just how many there were. By the time he had come back around to the first cannon, the training had reached its end and Pete was marching the recruits back down to the barracks. Varian thought he should probably return to Rapunzel but as he looked up towards her balcony, he spied his Rooster perched on the roof of the castle and realised with a sigh that he hadn't done any maintenance on it recently either. So he began the climb through the castle, stepping out onto the roof to look over the warning system. But as he looked out over the city, he then realised that he'd been neglecting most of his machines and he glanced ruefully at Ruddiger.
'I thought you were supposed to remind me to check all these?' he asked and the raccoon shrugged, clearly having forgotten as well. The entire rest of his day was spent traipsing across the city, first checking the dock cranes which were susceptible to rust thanks to the salt water, then his hot water systems in the tunnels. Eugene would never let him hear the end of it if these malfunctioned, having grown far too accustomed to having hot showers every day. What resulted was Varian completely losing track of time, getting himself lost in his work until Ruddiger finally grew tired of waiting and began pawing at his face to get his attention.
'What? What is it?' Varian demanded and Ruddiger pointed towards his wrist where his timepiece was fixed to his glove. He blinked in surprise to see it was nearly 6 o'clock. His dad was probably wondering where he was, not to mention Rapunzel.
Muttering curses, he quickly finished up with the current hot water tank and raced back up to the castle, one of the guards at the door waving him down.
'Varian, the princess has been looking for you,' he explained and Varian cursed at himself.
'Yeah, I'm sorry!' he exclaimed, 'Lost track of time.'
'She's in the throne room,' the guard continued and Varian bolted, missing what he shouted after him in his haste. He skidded to a halt outside the doors where two more guards were stationed, unusual for this late hour. Did the royals have someone visiting?
'Can I go in?' he asked breathlessly, 'Rapunzel's waiting for me.'
'You might want to wipe your face first,' one of them replied with a small grin and Varian looked down at his own distorted reflection in his golden cuirass. He had grease and soot all over his face and apron and grimaced, pulling a cloth from his pocket. He wiped away the worst of it, but there wasn't much else he could do until he changed. The guard seemed more amused than anything, grinning as he opened the door.
'Rapunzel I-'
'Surprise!'
He yelped and jumped back as the throne room erupted into cheers, people grinning wildly at him as he held a sticky trap above his head ready to throw.
'Woah, Varian!' Rapunzel exclaimed, hurrying over, 'Calm down! It's just us!'
'What's going on?' he demanded, looking around in confusion at the gathered crowd. His dad was there which was surprising, but so were the rest of the Brotherhood members with King Edmund of Vorath, the former Dark Kingdom. Lance, Kiera and Catalina were laughing together nearby a table that sported an impressive looking cake, Attila showing it off with Monty. The King and Queen were nearby, chatting with Eugene. Even Feldspar and Xavier were there, joining in the festivities. It took Varian a moment to look up and notice the large banner hanging from the rafters that read "Happy Birthday Varian!"
'My birthday?' he asked, looking at Rapunzel blankly.
'Uh, yeah!' she replied excitedly, 'We've been planning it for weeks! We thought we'd have to distract you all day but you kinda ended up doing that yourself. We just didn't realise how distracted you'd get.'
Varian blinked, surprise. Was it really his birthday? When had that happened? He thought it was still January. But that would mean...
'I'm eighteen?' he asked and Rapunzel gave him a long suffering sigh.
'You really need to spend some time away from your lab,' she admonished him, ruffling his hair, 'Yes! Congratulations!'
Quirin approached then, giving Varian a sheepish smile.
'You left so quickly this morning,' he said, 'I didn't really have any time to talk to you about it. Of course, the princess didn't want me to ruin the surprise but I thought you might have forgotten. Turns out I was right.'
Varian looked about at the gathered crowd and his face flushed with embarrassment. 'Oh, man. Were you all waiting for me?'
'Only forever!' Kiera called, making Lance and Catalina laugh.
He sighed heavily, grinning ruefully at Rapunzel.
'It's okay,' she assured him, 'We know how busy you've been lately so I wanted to do something just for you. Give you a night off for once.'
'Now why don't you stop your raccoon from completely destroying that cake?' Quirin suggested and Varian's head whipped up to see Lance fending off Ruddiger who looked ready to launch himself at the cake.
'Hey, Ruddiger!' he shouted, racing after him.
Despite his late appearance, Varian found himself having a great time with his friends and family, realising how much he missed just hanging out with them all. Rapunzel had been right, he had been way too busy lately. And this party was a good way to remedy that. Despite having spent most of the previous night up, the party went on well into the night, people slowly filtering out as the clocks ticked closer to midnight.
Finally, Varian found himself sitting along one of the walls, watching as Lance tried to corral Kiera and Catalina out of the throne room to bed. With a satisfied sigh, Rapunzel moved to sit next to him, grinning.
'Good night then?' she asked and Varian smiled back.
'Yeah. Just can't believe I forgot it was even my birthday. I guess I've just had a lot going on lately.'
'You seemed tired this morning. You look even more tired now. Have you been getting enough sleep?'
Varian shrugged. 'Sometimes. It's just that last night...'
He trailed off, his hand going to his pocket again to pull out the drawing.
'What's that?'
'I had this dream last night,' he admitted, showing it to her. 'I was floating in front of that portal that Demanitus made to trap Zhan Tiri. Remember that?'
'Well, I never really got the chance to see it completed,' Rapunzel reminded him, 'But I saw the drawings.'
'It was definitely that,' Varian continued, 'But it didn't lead to that weird realm we got pulled into last time. I could see through it like it was a window and it looked like a library or something. But there was someone standing on the other side. I couldn't make out anything about her other than I think she was a woman. But she held up this book to the window and this symbol was on it. It was the only clear thing I could see. I tried to go through it but it was like the way was blocked. Then I woke up.'
'Did she say anything?' Rapunzel asked curiously.
'Just my name,' Varian admitted, 'But the thing is, she sounded so familiar, but I have no idea where I've heard her voice before. I probably sound crazy.'
'No more than the rest of us,' Rapunzel assured him, 'I don't know what this dream could have meant but maybe your subconscious was trying to tell you something?'
'Usually my dreams are pretty clear,' Varian muttered, 'But this felt different. It was like it wasn't even my dream at all, like I'd slipped into someone else's head or something.'
'Now you do sound crazy,' Rapunzel commented and he elbowed her with a smirk.
'Varian, I think we'd be better of staying in the castle tonight,' Quirin said as he approached, 'It's a long walk back home so-'
He froze, gaping in shock not at Varian or Rapunzel, but at the drawing she was still holding. His mouth worked but no sound came out.
'Dad?' Varian demanded, rising to his feet, 'What's wrong?'
'Wh-where did you get that?' he choked out, pointing to the drawing.
'I drew it,' Varian admitted, taking the picture back from Rapunzel. 'I had a dream last night and this was on a book in it. Why? Do you recognise it?'
Even without Quirin answering, Varian knew he did and his heart began to hammer in excitement. But Quirin's face looked stricken, his eyes going vacant as if he was a million miles away.
'Dad?'
Quirin jumped, returning to himself, looking at Varian with such a look of sorrow that he took an inadvertent step back.
'I've seen it,' Quirin admitted quietly but this time Varian didn't feel a rush of excitement, only dread. 'It... was on a book. A journal. That belonged to... your mother.'