Chapter Text
It had been a long day. First Lance had nearly destroyed the Roster by “rearranging” it into a different look.
“It’s more like a roster now!”
And then he had apparently thrown an entire barrel of Flynolium into his device.
“More, it needed more”
And then! He hadn’t even stayed to help clean up.
No, apparently that was Varian’s lot in life. “Why is it when I tell people NOT to touch ANYTHING, they always end up touching it!” He mumbled to himself, gesturing wildly, while he scrambled along the corridor. Well, at least he thought it was a mumble. It was hard to tell with all the ringing in his ears. He knew (yes, sadly from experience) that the sound would go away in a few hours. That didn’t make it any more comforting that he couldn’t hear anything right now. “They never believe me when I said DON’T touch!” He rounded the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.
It was the girl. The creepy one from his dream. Though she looked much more solid now. But that wasn’t possible! He brain told him. It had been a dream! Dream people didn’t randomly start showing up in real life! Especially disembodied heads from really weird dreams.
She was smiling at him in the same creepy way though.
He backed up a step.
He wasn’t sure if she was a friend or foe. But either way he didn’t have any of his alchemy supplies, and without them he felt next to useless.
“Having a bad day, are we?”
All he heard was “mama ma mah mumph”
“What!?!” He yelled at her. Why is it people always mumbled!
“Ha, and you can’t even hear a word I’m saying, can you? Poor dear. Well unfortunately for you, you don’t have to be able to hear...”
She lifted her hand
“To get hit” she said cracking a smile.
Varian still wasn’t sure what was going on, be he knew that smile. And it never meant anything good. It looked like Cass on the top of the stairs asking for the incantation. it looked like Andrew when he said he wouldn’t hurt anyone. That smile, well, it looked like his reflection in the amber. It was evil incarnate.
And when someone with that smile lifts a vile of something... you run.
Varian made it all of three steps before he got hit with what looked like purple, green, and blue smoke.
Three colors? Oh that wasn’t good! One color was usually harmless, two was pushing bad, three was deadly. (Not a very scientific rule, but one that had proved true for him). He coughed, and hacked on the air. It smelled foul, like rotten eggs. The smoke curled around his frame and took only seconds to cloud his sight. He fell to his knees. Unable to breathe.
The cloud swirled for a moment more, curling in on his body and then fell away. Leaving no evidence, and no Varian. He was gone.
“Sorry my boy.” Said Zahn Tiri to a now empty hallway. “But you played your part. I can’t have you messing up my plans anymore.”
She turned and started walking down the corridor with another smile. Heels clicking on the stone.
“And I know first hand how much trouble a man of science can be.”
She sneered at her own joke and smashed another vile of the ground at her own feet. A pink one this time. In a few moments she would be back in the black tower. Now, all she needed to do was stall the moon drop for a little while and she would have everything she needed. Everything she had deserved for so long.
And, now that all the wild cards had been thrown away, she only needed to bide her time. She had waited a thousand years to have what she desired. What was a few more days?
—————
Varian’s knees hit the soft ground, and he waved his hands around him trying to clear the fog. Wait, soft ground? That didn’t seem right.
He tried to stand but found himself too dizzy. His body felt like it had just been through a race (Or what he always suspected a big race would be like, personally he never saw the draw in physical exercise).
He took three deep breaths, closing his eyes for good measure. He stilled himself and counted to ten, then opened his eyes and stood. He found he wasn’t dizzy anymore, but somehow his head was still spinning.
What had just happened? Who was that creepy girl in the dress? And where was he anyway?
The woods. Came the very unhelpful answer from his brain.
How did he get in the woods?
“I hate magic!” He yelled into the seemingly empty forest. (At least he had actually MEANT to yell this time) he threw his arms up in disgust. “It’s just not fair! No rhyme or reason, just poof! Hope you like woods!” This time it sounded more like a growl of disgust. “Alright then, be that way” he said as he looked around.
They didn’t look like any woods he knew. And he had seen his fair share of them on his many trips from Old Corona to the Castle. These though, these didn’t seem at all familiar. He stopped, spinning around a few times to see if anything looked normal. For course it didn’t.
“Fine!” He said “time for the Lance method”
He looked around and found two trees and what looked like it COULD be a path between them. Seems fair. And off he started into the woods.
—————
It wasn’t a path. This became obvious after only a little while. But Varian was never one to be deterred easily. So he just kept walking on, and on, and on. Finding his was out took forever. (At least it seemed like forever to him. In truth it was probably only a few hours.)
He stumbled out of the woods and could help but throw his hand in the air and jump.
“Made it out!” He said triumphantly to the trees. And he had to stop celebrating long enough to take stock of where he was.
Edge of the wood, their was water up ahead, and then he could see a bridge. And clear as day in the distance ahead a castle. And not just any castle, but Rapunzel’s castle. He found his second home again. And he couldn’t help but smile.
He had thought he was a goner when the creepy lady threw the vile at him, but apparently it had been a simple transportation mist.
Still smiling from ear to ear he made his way down to the bridge.
But wait, it didn’t look right... he thought stepping on it
And the castle looked different too... now that he stopped to really look at it.
What had he missed? What was different? He asked his brian, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Oh, this was going to drive him mad.
What was it, what was it, what was it? He thought glancing around at everything he could see. His eyes scanned the towers and cobbled stone of this city. He looked at the ground and couldn’t tell what had set the alarm bells off in his head. He leaned down on one knee and studied it hard. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. He glanced off the side of the bridge and stopped.
He pulled his body back curling away from the edge.
“What?” No, no, no ,no. His mind was screaming.
“That’s not... it can’t...” no, no, no, no his mind repeated very unhelpfully.
He took a deep breath and looked over the edge again. Plain stone made up the bridge and went all the way down into the calm and smooth water.
But the reflection staring back at him, wasn’t Varian’s...