Chapter Text
⚙️Hugo⚙️
His first instinct when a rock falls through the ceiling is to run. To find somewhere safe, or use the commotion to swipe some jewels.
But he’s here for the trial, and he needs Hairstripe to not die. Speaking of, where did-
Of. Fucking. Course. Goggles is running towards the stampede of people. There’s a kid just… standing there. In the middle of the floor, crying. A whistling sound, a rock shooting through the window behind the kid- Hugo can’t watch this- but then he drops to his knees, momentum sending him sliding. He grabs the kid and just barely misses getting hit with a rock.
And well, Hugo can’t let him have all the glory.
That’s the only reason he follows the princess- ugh- into the chaos. Not because for a second that crying kid was one of the ones at the orphanage where he lived.
Don’s gonna kill him.
🧪Varian🧪
It’s absolute chaos, dust and frantic people and falling rocks. Varian pushes a kid into the arms of a guard and scans the room. Where the hell is Yong?
A flash of red out of the corner of his eye, there he is! Yong’s stumbling forward from the dust, wiping at his eyes. They’re red, he must have gotten something in them.
“Yong!”
“Varian?”
Yong starts running, not looking where he’s going.
“Careful! You’re going to-”
Yong trips, falling and smacking his head on a piece of rubble.
He doesn’t get up.
“Shit!”
Varian rolls him onto his back carefully, and immediately notices a bruise starting to form on the kid’s forehead. No blood, and he doesn’t seem to be hurt too bad. Just knocked out.
Varian lifts Yong onto his back and heads for one of the side doors. Almost everyone else is out, and the meteors seem to have stopped.
He runs into the princess from earlier carrying another kid, her tiara crooked and dress torn and dusty.
“This way, we have an infirmary just down the hall.”
Varian follows her, and a few more people follow her down the halls with other injured people. The doctors are ready when they walk in, cots set up throughout the room, and Varian is immediately shown where to set Yong down.
It takes a while for the doctors to check on him, more focused on the people with broken bones or worse injuries, but eventually they do.
“He’ll be fine, a day or two of bed rest and he’ll be good as new. Are you planning on staying in town long?”
“A little while at least.” Until Yong’s awake.
Varian starts when a hand rests on his shoulder. He must’ve dozed off.
“Goggles. Come on, get up.”
“Wha- Hugo? Where are we-”
“Trial, remember? Sparky’ll be fine, we need to do this.”
Unfortunately, he’s right. So Varian sits up and they sneak out of the infirmary and back to the hallway for the trial.
“Again? Really?”
Fuck.
“Hey, your highness.” Was that the right title? “We were just-”
“Sneaking off to do whatever I caught you at before the meteors hit? What’s so important you need to do this?”
“None of your business.”
“Hugo! It can’t hurt to tell her, we need someone who knows their way around the castle or we’ll be looking all night.”
“Looking for what? I’m not helping you rob the palace.”
“No, no we’re not stealing anything. We’re looking for the Demanitus trials, to find the Eternal Library. It’s a-”
“Magical library with all the knowledge in the world.” The princess looks hopeful, excited.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah! I wanted to go looking for it a year or so ago so I could figure out a way to stop the meteors. So, if you want my help, you have to let me come along.”
“N-”
Varian cuts Hugo off. Whyever the blond hates royalty, it doesn’t matter. They can bring one more person, and the princess might be useful. “Ok.”
The princess holds out her hand. “My name’s Nuru.”
Varian shakes it. “Varian.”
“Right, now that you’re friends,” Hugo rests a hand on Varian’s shoulder. “we can get going.”
Varian rolls his eyes, and notices Nuru doing the same.
It takes at most five minutes to find the entrance to the trial with Nuru’s help.
“I always wondered what was behind this door. Nobody’s been behind it in centuries, and there’s no recorded translation of the inscription.”
Varian shakes an alchemy vial, a blue light appearing from the reaction, and holds it to the carved words. “Let the light be your guide? Well, that’s unoriginal.”
Silence. Varian turns around to see Nuru and Hugo staring. “What?”
“That language has been dead for as far back as our history is recorded.”
“Yeah, but I translated it. There was an old scroll and the sundrop and moonstone, long story.”
“You translated a dead language?” Hugo sounds surprised- no, awed. Varian turns back to the door as his face flushes.
“Y-yeah. It’s no biggie. Let’s go!”
⚙️Hugo⚙️
Fuck. Holy fuck he actually-
Wow. Just wow.
Hold up, not wow. Snap out of it Hugo, you knew he was a brainiac. An annoying nerd who you’re just tagging along with for the trials.
An annoying nerd who fucking translated a dead language.
There’s a sound from down the hall, and everyone spins to see a figure standing in the doorway. The princess relaxes, but Hairstripe doesn’t. Hugo’s eyes flick to the edges of the figure- blurry- and then back to the others.
“Oh, hi B! How are you?”
“I am doing well, princess. Why are you and your friends attempting the trial? Have tales of its danger not spread to you?”
“I know it’s dangerous, but another meteor shower just happened. I have to find some way to stop this before any more of my people suffer.”
The princess seems to realize something and spins to Goggles. “Oh! You guys probably can’t see who I’m-”
“I can.”
Hugo nods too, obviously he could see the ghost. And he knew Hairstripe could, just not how.
“That’s… not a common thing.”
Goggles just shrugs. “I’ve almost died a dozen times. Actually… I think I did for a little.”
What. Why is there a twinge in Hugo’s chest at the thought?
Sparkles seems equally shocked, but she shakes her head. “Ok. Anyways, let’s get this done before my parents send the guards out to find me.”
🧪Varian🧪
It’s dark inside the trial, with only a few pinpricks of light on the ceiling. No light from the hall makes it into the room, blocked somehow. By magic or science, Varian’s not sure. Knowing Demanitus, probably some massively insightful combination of the two. It’d be amazing to take the trials apart, figure out how they were put together and maybe even a way to replicate them, or make something similar!
“They’re stars.”
Nuru’s voice echos slightly in the dark room, the lights flaring brighter in the ceiling. She glances down at her skirt, which Varian notices is a map of the stars, then points at the ceiling.
“There’s Leo, the brightest one in the middle is the Regulus star. And over there, Orion!”
“Let the light be your guide! It’s telling us to navigate by starlight.”
Hugo scoffs. “That’s a little obvious, don’t you think?”
It is, actually.
“It would be if the stars were accurate. They’re wrong, look up there! Draco’s in the wrong place, as is Eridanus, and I think I see Musca in the wrong spot as well.”
Varian has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “D, E, M? I’d bet the names of the misplaced constellations spell out Demanitus.”
“So the old guy was a narcissist too? Of course.”
“You’d know all about that wouldn’t you Hugo.”
Hugo mock-gasps at Nuru’s words. “Are you calling me egotistical?”
“You said it, not me.”
“And here I thought princesses were supposed to have good manners.”
“Guys! Focus, please?”
Nuru’s hand slips into Varians. “Let’s stick together, this might be trickier than we think.”
Varian reaches back for Hugo’s hand, but the blond ignores him and just follows close behind them.
It doesn’t sting, and Varian did not have butterflies at the thought of holding his hand.
He’s so fucked.
⚙️Hugo⚙️
None of them talk much as the princess leads them through the dark, past constellations Hugo never bothered to learn and a few he did. One of those is Coma Berenices, and The Mice galaxies inside. He’d always loved finding those, they reminded him of being a little kid and stargazing with Callie.
“See zat one, Hugo? Zose are ze mice, les souris.”
“Like Olivia!”
“Oui, she is une petite souri. Just like you are mine.”
Hugo shakes his head, shoving that memory back in its box. Now is not the time for sentimentality, and that train of thought only goes somewhere dark.
“And there’s Scorpius, which makes the last one.”
When Sparkles says the name of the constellation, there’s a blinding flash of light as a circle of mushrooms lights up.
In the center of the circle is a box. Hugo walks up carefully, mindful of any potential traps, and runs his fingers over the lid.
It's iron, with something written on it.
"Hey Goggles! Think we need your translating skills again!"
🧪Varian🧪
Hugo calls him up to the box, forcing Varian to look away from where he'd been examining the mushrooms.
He's right, the inscription on the box is in the same language as the door.
"The stars were your guide to me, part of your quest for the library, but knowledge has phases like this box's key."
"So, what, we stick this box outside at night and the moon unlocks it?"
"Must be. Think anything happens when we take it?"
"Uhhh... guys?"
Varian whirls to see Nuru backing away from a giant frog-like creature.
"Run."