Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1.

It’s the middle of the night when there’s a knock on his door, and without even opening it, Quirin somehow already knows. He glances between the door, the stairs, and his newly born son in his arms. Varian barely slept more than three hours at a time, and Quirin had taken him downstairs to give Ulla a chance to rest. Should he hurry back up the stairs and tuck Varian back into his wife's arms while he still can?

The door bursts open with a kick, revealing two shadowed figures to enter his threshold. Looks like his decision was made for him, then.

“Brother!” Adira calls.

“Please don’t break down my door,” Quirin begs. Even though he hasn't seen them in years, both of his siblings waste no time in making themselves at home. And, while seeing them warms something in his chest, Quirin can't help but wonder why they've both decided to break into his house in the middle of the night.

Hector breezes past both of them, dropping an armful bundle of leather that goes clink when it’s set on the kitchen table. “Congrats on having spawn.”

“No,” Quirin says. To Hector, to Adira, to the pair of bearcats that are trying to sneak through the doorway into his house.

“You mean you don’t want to see us?” Hector feigns offense, but bends under Quirin’s glare and shoos the animals out the doorway.

Adira nods, taking a seat at his dining table. “We’re not here just for a social call, Cowboy.”

“Cowboy?”  Quirin repeats dubiously, genuinely taken aback.

“What?” His sister looks at him innocently. “Aren’t you a farmer now? Don’t farmers have cows?”

“I have orchards, Adira. Not cows.”

Adira scrunches up her face in distaste. “Orchard Boy doesn’t have the same ring to it, though.”

“Could always go with Ye Old Crofter,” Hector suggests unhelpfully.

“Get out of my house.” The pressure building at Quirin’s temples has expanded to a full-blown headache, a well-known side effect of when his siblings were being particularly troublesome.

Occupational hazards of being the eldest, he supposes.

“Nope. We’re delivering a gift from King Edmund,” Hector announces.

“And meeting our nephew,” Adira adds. She leans across the table to get a little closer, peering down at the bundle of fabric that his child was currently swaddled in. “What’s his name?”

“Varian.”

“He’s very small.”

“He’s a newborn, he’s supposed to be small.” Then, Quirin finally processes what Hector said. “Wait, a gift from the King?”

“Yup,” Hector pops the p on the word, then flicks his wrist, unrolling the bundle of leather on the kitchen table. A collection of daggers, hunting knives, and shuriken glisten in the flickering candlelight. “Edmund thought it was a good idea to get him started on training early, so he sent over a starter pack of blades.”

“Wha—” Quirin sputters for a moment, fighting to keep his voice low so as not to wake his son. “You can’t give knives to an infant! What is Edmund thinking?”

Hector shrugs, “Can’t say our king is the best judge of what to give a baby. Considering he gave his up and all.”

Quirin sighs heavily. Edmund was rather out of touch with what was appropriate baby gifts, he supposed. “I appreciate the gesture, but you have to take that back.”

 “What?” Now, Hector looks genuinely upset. “I lugged it all the way here. I don’t want to lug it back. Plus, your spawn needs stuff to train with.”

The pressure at his temples builds, just like it always does whenever Hector starts getting under his skin. “Stop calling my son spawn.”

“Why? That’s what he is.”

“Hector,” Quirin grounds out, and some part of him itches to grab one of the weapons on the table and start fighting with the man. Tussling with his little brother until they both are out of breath and bruised. Just like old times.

But he can’t. That isn’t him anymore. He has a child.

A soft hand on his shoulder startles him. He turns to see his sister, for once reaching out and actually touching him, eyes asking a silent question.

As gently as he can, Quirin passes the baby over to Adira. She wasn’t motherly in the slightest, but evidently was making an effort for her nephew.

“Edmund still cares about you,” Adira tells him sincerely. “He wants you to be happy with your new life.”

A smile tugs on Quirin’s lips as his eyes drift across his son’s sleeping face. “I am happy.”

“So then take the knives.”

Quirin’s gaze hardens. “I’m not taking the knives. And I’m not training Varian in the ways of the Brotherhood. I left all of that behind.”

“Then bury them in the backyard or something,” Adira shrugs lightly. “Trust me, this was Edmund’s best gift idea. We had to talk him out of sending Hamuel.”

“You’re welcome,” Hector adds, loud enough that it causes Varian to stir.

Instead of bursting into tears as Quirin expects, his son lets out a soft warble and blinks his wide eyes open. A particularly vindictive part of Quirin wishes Varian would start shrieking, just so it would get his siblings to leave.

Adira chuckles, “Okay, your little guy is pretty cute. What should I call him?”

“Varian?” Quirin suggests dryly. “His given name?”

“That’s so boring, brother.” Adira squints and tilts her head in consideration. “What about Peanut? Or Jellybean?”

Quirin snorts. His sister’s love of nicknames didn’t usually revolve this much around food. “Are you sure you’re not just hungry?”

“Mm, maybe a little. I’ll think on it.” She leans in closer to Hector, “Hey Rat Tail, come look at how adorable your nephew is.”

“Gah!” Hector flinches back as though he’s been burned. “Get that thing away from me! Babies are disgusting, drooling creatures. Call me when he can hold a sword.”

“That’s what we said about you, but we kept you around.” Quirin can’t help but chuckle as Adira keeps badgering him, all the way until Hector is backed up in a corner, hissing and spitting like the wild animal that he was. “Here, hold him like this. See, not so bad.”

“This is terrible,” Hector growls, begrudgingly holding Varian like a cat being forced to dip its body into cold water. “You’re terrible, Adira.”

“Fatherhood looks good on you.” Quirin ignores his brother’s horrified expression and turns to roll up the knife kit. Maybe it was nice to know that Edmund still had their best interests at heart, even from so far away. “Are you sure I can’t send this back with you?”

“Nope,” Adira says with a sly grin. “You just better pray that Edmund doesn’t send you any more gifts for the boy’s birthdays.”

Quirin’s stomach drops with dread. “You don’t think he would, would he?”

Adira shrugs. “I don’t think he wouldn’t.”

“Good lord.” Quirin sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Should I tell him no?”

Snorting, Adira cocks out her hip and crosses her arms. “Good luck breaking his heart. In his mind, this boy is going to become the next generation of dedicated Moonstone disciples.”

The very words make Quirin cringe, because that was the very anthesis of what he didn’t want. Varian signing his life away to serve the Moonstone was the stuff of Quirin’s nightmares. Varian was only a baby, he had his whole life ahead of him! There was so much he could accomplish outside of the Dark Kingdom. That’s why he left to go to Corona—the kingdom of opportunity, of happiness, of safety and stability. Things were different here, better for raising a child. Surely Edmund could respect that.

He turns to his sister, hoping to explain this, but Adira isn’t looking at him. “Hector, are you crying?”

Quirin turns to see his younger brother with wide, glassy eyes. “No,” Hector warbles, furiously wiping at his face. “A stick got stuck in my eye. Or something. Or whatever, just—here, take your stupid ugly baby back!”

He shoves Varian back into Quirin’s arms before whirling on his heel and stalking toward the door. It only takes a moment of them watching him storm out before the laughter bubbles up out of Quirin’s throat.

Adira snickers, “What a softie.”

“Bark was always worse than his bite,” Quirin agrees.

From somewhere in the entryway, Hector snarls, “I can hear you!”

 2.

Six years—six, lovely, peaceful years—pass before Quirin sees either of his siblings again. His solitude is ruined when Hector all but materializes out of the shadows on the edges of his field with his bearcats, a thunderous look on his face.

“Adira’s gone crazy,” Hector declares. No hello, big brother. No, my Quirin, your harvest sure looks bountiful this year, you must be doing a great job tending your crops. He just immediately launches into ragging on their sister.

Quirin can’t say he’s surprised.

“I thought you weren’t talking to Adira anymore,” Quirin says. He doesn’t have much contact with Adira since she travels so much, but she did stop by to rant to him in the middle of the night once about how bullheaded and dramatic their youngest sibling was. When they lived together, Quirin acted as the much-needed buffer between Hector’s stubbornness and Adira’s ego, and it seemed that even when he moved away, both of his siblings still gravitated toward him when they needed a peacekeeper.

“I’m not,” Hector sniffs, “but it’s because she’s being unreasonable. She actually thinks the Sundrop has gained consciousness. She thinks it’s taken a host in a person.”

That makes Quirin frown, for a few reasons. While Adira wasn’t quite as strict in her beliefs as Hector was, this did sound a little absurd. “The only person that the power could have been transferred to was the Queen of Corona, but the effects of the Sundrop’s power vanished once Arianna was healed.”

Hector nods enthusiastically, the braids in his hair swinging. “That’s what I said. If the Sundrop took the form of a person, we would know. But that’s just preposterous because the Moonstone can’t—”

Hector cuts himself off, eyes darting down seconds before Quirin hears a tinny voice call, “Daddy!”

A pair of tiny hands tug on his trousers. Varian, six years old and barely tall enough to reach Quirin’s mid-thigh, is already too good at sneaking away from his mother.

“Son,” Quirin kneels and tries to block his brother from his son’s view. “What did I say about wandering out into the fields without your mother or me?”

“Don’t,” Varian repeats glumly, lip drawn down into a pout. Like his eyes, he inherited that from Ulla. But unfortunately for his son, Quirin has had years to build up a tolerance to that look.

“Has your kid’s hair always been blue?”

Quirin looks up at his brother, who is staring at Varian’s hair streak like it’s a snake growing out of his head. He watches as a slow realization encompasses the man's face. “Hector,” he warns, “whatever your thinking is impossible. The moon—the you know what is still locked in the—um, safe place. It hasn’t taken a host in my son.”

Hector doesn’t look like he’s buying it. “How do you explain that streak, then?”

“He was born with it,” Quirin says firmly. That blue stripe had terrified him at first, but Varian didn’t seem to be able to summon any of the Moonstone’s black rocks or destructive powers, so it was just a coincidence.

At least, that’s what Quirin repeated to himself to help him fall asleep at night.

Hector raises a sharp eyebrow. “And that doesn’t sound suspicious to you? You were exposed to the power of the mo—ugh, the you know what. If the Sun…flower can embody itself in a human, why can’t the other thing?”

“Hey mister, can I pet your kitty?”

Quirin glances down to see Varian reaching a tiny hand out toward the closest bearcat. Heart jolting, he quickly scoops his son up seconds before the animal goes to nip curiously at his fingers. “Varian, be careful! Wild animals are dangerous.”

“I take offense to that,” Hector tiffs. His bearcats shoot twin glares up at Quirin, but he glares right back. Like their master, they may look dangerous, but they wouldn’t truly snarl unless threatened.

“But Daddy,” Varian whines, “last week Rhys got a pet kitty, and Margie has a horse that she can ride around on. Mommy said we can talk about getting a pet.”

“Talking about getting a pet doesn’t mean we’re going to get one.”

And there goes that bottom lip wobbling again. Quirin swears, Varian is going to put him in an early grave with that pout.

“Don’t get too glum, squirt. Horses are boring,” Hector assures him with a sharp grin. “What you really want is something sleek, like a cougar.”

Quirin looks up sharply. “Hector.”

Varian lets out a little gasp of delight, eyes lighting up. “Daddy, I wanna cougar!”

“You’re not getting a cougar, Varian.”

“Fine, you want something smaller? How about a snake?” Hector suggests unhelpfully. “Or—oh, a badger!”

“Please don’t give my son any wild animals.”

“They won’t be wild if he tames them,” Hector rolls his eyes. “But…’kay, he does look too small for a badger.”

Varian puffs out his cheeks. “I’m not small! I’m six!” To confirm this, he holds out his hands with his fingers raised to reflect his age. “I’m a whole inch taller than last year!”

“Wow,” Hector snickers, “A whole inch. Quirin, are you feeding this child? I could snap his spine like a twig with one arm tied behind my back.”

His son’s fingers tighten in Quirin’s shirt, face going pale under his freckles, and Quirin decides it’s time his brother says his goodbyes.

“Stop trampling all over my fields and go back to your tree,” Quirin says sternly. He's used to using this tone in the roles he has now as a father and a village leader, but before all that, he used it as a big brother on his two wild and adventurous siblings.

Hector sneers, but yields and takes a step back. “’Kay. But if Adira is right and your kid’s hair starts glowing, don’t come crying to me.”

He turns and vanishes into the forest as quickly as he appeared. Quirin lets out a tense breath, forcing himself to shove thoughts of Varian and black rocks aside. Almost seamlessly, he’s able to slip back into the life of a simple farmer and not a dark king’s servant.

And when a little raccoon cub gets caught in a pest trap two weeks later and simply won’t leave Varian alone, Quirin decides to let this one go.

It was better than a cougar.

3.

Adira is nomadic by nature. Even when she had a home in the Dark Kingdom, she loved to travel on far away quests. If she ever got homesick, she could always pretend that she was off doing King Edmunds bidding for a mission, heading home to see her brothers once it was completed.

She doesn’t stay in one kingdom for too long, making her rounds to protect and keep all knowledge of the Sundrop and Moonstone under lock and key between the seven realms. This week, traveling back from the Fire Kingdom and making a pitstop in Corona before she heads out to Arendelle.

So really, it’s purely by accident that she stumbles onto this particular road during this particular time of day, catching sight of this particular child.

Because Adira realizes in an instant that she knows this child.

“Hi there,” she kneels down to meet the boy at his level where he is curled against a tree on the side of the road. “What’s your name?”

She already knows it’s Varian. This is obviously Quirin’s boy—despite the fact that she hasn’t seen him in eight years (or had it been nine?) she’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

Peculiarly, he’s sitting here alone, and regards her with wary skepticism. “D-Daddy says I’m not supposed to tell strangers my name.”

Adira smiles—Quirin and his stuffy rules can come in handy, she supposes. It was a wise answer if she truly was a stranger. “Alright, how about I make a name up for you?” She puts her hand on her chin and considers him. She’s had years to ponder Varian’s nickname, but she hasn’t been around him long enough to get a true feel for his personality.

Was Varian sarcastic and sharp, like Hector? Was he proud and wise, like Quirin? Was he strong and chaotic, like Edmund?

She can’t tell. A part of wishes she could get to know him, but Quirin wouldn’t like that.

She’ll have to go off of physical attributes, then. His hair had a particular stripe of blue. She could go for something like Hairstripe or Highlight, but what really stands out is his freckles, poised on milky cheeks in a way that reminds her a little of—

“Sprinkles,” she decides.

Varian’s nose scrunches up. “Sprinkles? Like on a cake? That’s weird. Who’re you? Is your name weird too?”

“I’m”—she almost says your auntie, but that would be hard to explain—“a friend. Wanna tell me why you’re out here all alone?”

Varian hesitates, wide eyes glancing up and down the road before finally landing on her. “I- I was traveling with my daddy into the city, but a masked guy popped out and scared our horse, and I fell off the cart. It drove off so fast and I- I couldn’t catch up.”

Ah. That explains why he was alone.

She has no doubt that Quirin can handle himself in the face of a simple highway robber. He was the only one out of their trio who could actually make Edmund sweat when they sparred. But her nephew was much too young to be left on his own.

Varian’s eyes have turned wide and glassy. “What if my daddy doesn’t come back for me?”

“He will,” Adira assures him. “I’m sure he’s very worried and is already looking for you.” Knowing her high-strung brother, he was probably in a panic. “Want me to sit with you while you wait?”

Varian nods, the sunlight catching in the blue streak in his hair, and she moves to comply. She rummages through the pack slung over her shoulder, pulling out a small paper parcel.

“You hungry, Sprinkles?”

Varian’s eyes go wide when she reveals a slice of strawberry cake. She’d meant to eat it as a snack on the road to curb her sweet tooth, but sharing with her nephew wasn’t so bad.

She slices it in half and hands the larger piece to him. She guesses he’s got to be at least eight or nine by now, but it was hard to tell. He was such a scrawny little thing. She could probably sling him across her shoulders and carry him eighty miles before breaking a sweat.

“Mama used to bake sweets,” Varian says after a few bites, unprompted, “but not cakes. Mostly just pies ‘n stuff from the orchards. She even made a compound that made the oven heat up faster! I’ve tried to copy it, but it es’ploded and burnt my eyebrows off.”

Adira’s eyebrows raise. She didn’t know much about her brother’s wife, and she wanted to respect his privacy. But this boy made her sound like a chemist. “Does she bake other things now?”

Varian stiffens, suddenly looking forlorn. “No,” he says softly. “Not anymore.”

Adira frowns, but before she can prod any further the beating sound of hooves fills the air. Varian shoots to his feet just as a cart pulls up.

“Daddy!” he cries, already scrambling with flailing limbs back to Quirin before the cart has even slowed to a stop. “You came back!”

“Of course I came back, you silly boy.” Quirin pulls him up easily into the cart’s seat with one hand, pressing Varian’s tiny form to his chest. Adira knows her brother to be a stoic one, but she also knows when the tremble of his voice betrays anxiety. “I was so worried. Are you alright?”

“”M okay. This nice lady gave me cake!”

Quirin’s face pinches in confusion for a moment before his eyes meet hers. Adira grins and wiggles her fingers in a wave.

Her brother rolls his eyes, confusion immediately replaced by an exasperated fondness. “Did you say thank you?”

Pink dusts Varian’s cheeks as he quickly whips around. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Sprinkles.”

“Sprinkles?” Quirin repeats dubiously. “That’s the best you can do?”

“What can I say?” Adira shrugs. “Your kid’s so sweet he’s giving me cavities.”

“It’s a miracle your teeth haven’t rotted,” Quirin mutters, and a tiny, microscopic smile spreads on his face. It fills Adira with a warmth she didn’t know she missed. “Alright son, let’s get back on the road. We have a delivery to make.”

“Bye, nice lady!” Varian turns in his seat and keeps waving to her, even as they disappear into nothing more than a small figure in the distance.

Chapter Text

+1

It occurs to Varian, as he’s awoken in the middle of the night by a stranger breaking into his cell, that he’s probably being kidnapped.

His mind is mostly fuzz these days, which, to be honest, is perfectly fine by him. Too much thinking meant remembering and remembering took a swift nose dive into pain pretty quickly.

So when a tall woman kicks in his cell door, it takes a good minute for his brain to catch up to what the heck is going on.

This woman is absurdly tall and looks strong enough to probably bench three guards at once with one hand.

She leans against the doorway, crossing her arms. “What’re you staring at me for? C’mon, get up. Haven’t you ever heard of a jailbreak before?”

Always gearing for a fight, Andrew is already on his feet. “And who the hell are you supposed to be?”

The woman shoots him a lingering glance, but her lips stay closed. Pushing off the iron, she crosses directly over to Varian and yanks him up by the collar of his shirt like he weighs nothing. Varian’s head spins at the sudden vertigo, feet scrambling to find stability.

“Aggghh okay, okay, I’m up!”

The woman frowns a little. The dim starlight shining through the barred window makes her platinum hair look as though it’s made up of shimmering moonlight. “Huh. Thought you’d be taller by now.”

And before Varian can even begin to process what that’s supposed to mean, a hand grabs her shoulder and yanks her backward.

“Look lady,” Andrew snaps, “I don’t know who you are or what you think you’re doing, but if you know what’s good for you, you’re gonna give me your sword.”

The woman doesn’t respond, stoic expression revealing nothing. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your hand off me.”

Andrew sneers, sinking into a fighting stance.

The woman sighs.

“I really don’t have time for this,” she mutters, then in one fluid movement, swings her leg up and brings it down over Andrew’s head. The Saporian goes crumpling to the ground in a heap with a broken groan.

She turns back to Varian and jerks her chin toward the door.

Panic pulses in his chest and he takes a step back. There was only one reason why a person would want him out of jail. Really, the only reason a person would want anything to do with him at all.

“I-I don’t want any trouble,” he says, wrists twisting uselessly in the cuffs. (The guards had quickly decided that if the alchemist could use his hands, the alchemist was dangerous. As if Varian could concoct a dangerous explosive out of the rock walls and these damp, dirty floors.)

She snorts. “Funny how not wanting any trouble landed you in jail, Sprinkles. I can’t wait to hear that story.”

Varian stares at her. Something about this woman seems kind of…familiar? But he has no idea how. He’s certain he’s never met this woman before in his life.

(“Wanna tell me why you’re out here all alone?” a dim voice says, the sound echoing from the edges of his mind.)

A loud band from somewhere in the hall makes him jolt, heart leaping into a gallop.

The woman hums as she glances back toward the door. “Times up.”

And then Varian’s feet are off the floor and the world lurches as he’s tossed over her shoulder.

Varian yelps, pain skittering across his ribcage from where a guard kicked him the other day. He feels the bones creak, precariously on the edge of cracking, and tries to squirm enough to get off this woman.

But she’s really strong.

And he’s definitely being kidnapped.

“Wha—” he tries to say, but strands of thick, long hair get caught in his mouth when he inhales. It reminds him of someone else he knew with long hair, a fissure opening somewhere in his chest.

The woman hurries through the dungeons with almost inhuman speed, somehow swiftly and precisely avoiding swings by guards like a trained acrobat. Varian can’t do much but hold on for the ride, mind reeling at the absurdity of someone breaking him out of prison only to probably take him to another prison once he was done brewing whatever alchemical solution they needed.

Honestly, screw his life.

She takes a turn down a hallway and skids to a stop, finally dropping him back on his feet. They’re at a dead end, but he can still hear guards coming. The woman seems unbothered by this, kicking open a window that leads down to a courtyard below.

Varian understands her intentions in an instant. “N-no. No way. I’m not going to jump.”

She shrugs, flashing a small, impish smile. “Okay.” Then she seizes Varian by his shoulders, ignoring his cries of nononono, and shoves him back into the open air.

Varian flails and screams and prays, but it doesn’t stop or slow the rate that the brick is rising up to meet him. He slams his eyes shut and braces for—

He hits something soft. A warmth.

His eyes fly open in surprise, only to lock on a pair of almost glowing yellow orbs. Eyes.

The man who they belong to is terrifying.

“Hi,” he says. Varian shrieks and punches him in the jaw.

And it’s not a very good hit—much to Quirin’s disappointment, Varian’s punches have always been pretty weak; and that was before he was in chains, half-starved—but the shock makes the man loosen his grip. Varian goes tumbling out of his arms and lands face-first on the cobblestone.

“Ow,” the man says, sounding more annoyed than in pain. “Rude.”

There’s a soft thump, then the woman’s voice, “What are you complaining about now?”

“The kid punched me.”

“As he should,” the woman says matter-of-factly. “You have a very punchable face.”

The world stops spinning long enough for Varian to peel himself off the ground. He catches sight of the woman sticking out her tongue and the man sneering—and both of them are on these weird…bear…cat…things?

(Hasn’t he seen one of those, once? Or rather, a pair of them? Lurking on the edges of the fields, standing docile behind—)

“Um.” He says intellectually. “What are those. Also, more important question, who are you people?!”

There’s shouting from above, and an arrow clinks off the stone an inch away from him.

The man tiffs. “I’ll choose to be offended by that later.” He leans down and grabs a fistful of Varian’s shirt. And then Varian is being tossed around like the sack of potatoes he apparently was, this time slung onto the back of whatever that animal was.

There’s a sharp whistle, and suddenly the bearcats are running, but to where? Who knows! Certainly not Varian. The panic of trying not to fall off a bearcat pairs nicely with the fear of the unknown, sending his stomach lurching. The sweeping of the landscape doesn’t help either—those creatures are absurdly fast, and it seems like in no time they’re passing through the town, seamlessly weaving their way around the guards on the docks and crossing the island bridge.

“You can’t blame him if he doesn’t remember,” the woman calls to her companion as they ride. “He’s only met you once.”

“Twice,” the man corrects.

She blinks, confusion flickering over her face for an instant before her eyes narrow. “You visited without me?”

“I have a life outside of you, sister.”

Every pounding of the creature’s paws sends Varian cringing as it puts pressure on his aching torso. The sharp pain tells him if his ribs weren’t broken before, they certainly are now.

“Stop,” Varian gasps, “Stop, please!”

Surprisingly, they actually do. Varian all but crumples off the back of the beast, stumbling back until his back hits something solid—a tree. Sucking in sharp, stilted breaths, he slides to the ground and curls in on himself.

As black spots decide to do the tango across the edges of his vision, Varian forces himself to focus. Take stock of the situation.

1. Pro: he was out of jail. And it looked like they’re far enough off into the forest now that they were probably safe from the Coronians guard, at least for now.
2. Con: he’s in the middle of nowhere with two random strangers who probably want to use him.

Swallowing against the bile in his throat, he decides to get ahead of this. “Look, I don’t—don’t know who you are or why you broke me out, so why don’t you tell me what you want me to make for you and we can get this over with.”

His kidnappers share a curious glance.

“Make for us?” the woman echoes, sounding perplexed.

He waits a beat for her to laugh—or give an explanation, a demand, or something—but she genuinely looks lost. So does the man, who has even paused scratching one of the bearcats bellies to look at him curiously.

Okay, now Varian is confused.

This…this had to be a trick.

“I—yes?” One arm wrapped around his side, he ticks off his fingers. “Sleeping powder, truth serum, goo traps, glitter bombs—whatever it is, I’ll do it. You just have to let me go.” He hates the twinge of desperation on the edge of his voice, but he can’t help it. He’s out of the dungeon. He can finally get back to Dad, finally make his stupid brain figure out a way to help—

(But the Sundrop didn’t work. It was hopeless, because the Sundrop didn’t work—)

He shakes his head to throw that thought out. He’ll think of something that’ll work. He will. But right now, these people and their confused expressions only add to his frustration.

Did they think he was an idiot? Some naive kid who would trust so easily, especially after the way he had been doublecrossed? 

Varian raises his chin and hardens his stare. “I’m not stupid. You wouldn’t have broken out the guy who attempted regicide and singlehandedly almost overthrew the kingdom unless you had a reason.”

Absurdly, this makes the man laugh. “Well aren’t you the little anarchist?” Varian snarls, but this only makes his grin widen. “Oooh, do that again. Only this time, pretend like ya mean it.”

The woman rolls her eyes. “Stop teasing him, Hector.” She unsheathes her sword as she strides in close to Varian’s space, the black blade glinting in the moonlight. “Hold still.”

Varian shrieks and throws his arms above his head, fully expecting his head no longer to be attached to his shoulders. Instead, he hears the clink of metal, and the weight on his wrists falls away.

He stares dumbly for a moment at his now free wrists—even in the dark, he can see how the skin was raw with welts and bruises, pulled too tightly over the knobby bone. He’ll probably have scars there once he heals. And if his hands looked this skeletal, the rest of him couldn’t look much better.

Varian feels woozy.

He forces himself to look away, eyes darting instead to the woman, the broken metal on the ground, to her sword. “How did that…Hang on, is that sword made of the black rocks?”

“Sharp eye, Sprinkles.” The woman shoots him a smile. She crosses her legs underneath her as though she’s going to start meditating. She’s far enough away that he doesn’t feel like she’s closing in on him, which Varian appreciates. But he still can’t quite get over why she’d feel content enough to start polishing her sword in the middle of the woods when she had just broken a dangerous criminal out of jail.

Varian gets the feeling these people don’t view him as dangerous. Which, is frustratingly annoying…and yet, a little refreshing.

“Only the best for Auntie Adira,” the man—Hector?—mocks in a tinny tone. He crowds closer to Varian, kneeling in front of him and blocking any kind of escape.

Varian hardly notices, too focused on this woman. That familiarity bell is ringing again, going off like Ruddiger is banging it like a gong, but for the life of him, he can’t put his finger on why.

She shoots him a wink and lowers her voice to a conspiring whisper. “He’s just jealous I got to it first.”

A steady hand suddenly clasps around his forearm, gently pulling it forward to expose his mangled wrist. Adrenaline crackles through Varian and he jerks back, hissing as the movement sends a sharp pain shooting through his side when he hits the tree.

Hector immediately holds up his hands in a passive gesture. “’Kay, no touching. Got it.” He leans back far enough to unclasp the cloak from his shoulders and drapes it across Varian’s lap. Automatically, Varian's fingers dig into the thick fur, strangely grateful for being able to anchor himself on to something.

But…he's so confused.

“I don’t understand,” he admits. “Do I—know you? I, I feel like I know you.” He squints as he observes them both, racking his brain for some kind of an explanation.

Then suddenly, the memories come to him in flashes.

Seeing this man at the edge of their field and wanting desperately to pet his furry companions, curious by the sharpness in his smile.

Eating cake with this woman when he got lost on the side of the road, feeling comforted and safe by her side.

In both instances, there was one common variable, one consistent figure that tied these two people into his life.

“You know my dad,” Varian realizes softly, voice cracking into a whisper.

Both man and woman grin at the admission. “See?” Adira says keenly. “Told you he’d remember.”

“You—you gave me cake,” he says to Adira. Turning to Hector, he shoots the feral-looking man a glare. “And you threatened to snap my spine in half.”

Hector sizes him up. “Still could, ya know.”

“Oh, don’t let his tough warrior act fool you, Sprinkles. He cried when he first held you.”

“Shut it, Adira!”

Against all odds, Varian feels a tiny chuckle bubble past his lips. He honestly doesn’t remember the last time he laughed—and he immediately regrets it, because it feels like a knife is sliding in between his lungs. Groaning, he curls a hand around his side and thunks his head back against the tree.

“Okay, no laughing. Laughing bad. Got it.” He cracks an eye open and fixes it on the pair of no-longer strangers. “So, if you don’t want me for my alchemy and you’re friends with my dad, why are you here?”

“Because we were bored,” Hector snaps. “Why do you think?”

Adira shoots him a Look. “I think what Hector means is that this wasn’t exactly the family reunion we were expecting. Hearing that our brother disappeared and our nephew had gotten arrested made us awfully curious about a few things.”

He should be annoyed at her tone, but his brain gets hung up on earlier in her sentence. “Nephew?” His eyes widen as his gaze darts between them, certain his sleep-deprived brain has misheard. “You – you mean…”

Adira nods with a cheerful little smile. “Not by blood, but in everything else.”

“My dad never mentioned you.” The words aren’t as accusing as they probably should have been, and Varian realizes too late that that was probably rude.

“He didn’t shut up about you,” Hector shoots back. “I think I got fifty letters gushing about your little science projects.”

—Varian’s heart lurches, because since when did Dad ever gush about anything he ever did—

Hector continues, “So it doesn’t really make sense when the nerdy kid he’s described gets himself locked in the highest security prison in Corona.”

Varian tiffs, crossing his arms and setting his gaze stubbornly on the middle distance. “What part of regicide don’t you understand?”

He feels…weird talking about it. Almost uncomfortable. Which is stupid, because literally everyone in Corona already knew who he was, what he had done, but now he has a newly acquired aunt and uncle and they look seconds away from giving him a lecture.

Hector holds up his hands. “Look, I’m not saying murder is a bad thing. It can be totally justified—”

Adira looks at him sharply. “Brother—”

“I was justified!” Varian cuts in loudly, probably too loudly, voice shrill and bordering on a scream. He can’t help it. He’s been repeating it over and over again in his head, replaying every moment that lead up to that battle. “It’s just—”

He flounders for a moment, wondering even if there are words to explain the anger and sorrow and frustration and hurt that consistently swirled in him for the past few months like an unending tornado of conflicting emotions.

The worst part about it? He misses Rapunzel. Misses Eugene and Cass, the first people who were really his friends, misses having friends, misses when people didn’t look at him and see a monster.

No one will ever forgive him. He’s come to terms with that. Not Corona, nor its princess, nor his father.

That’s fine. He doesn’t deserve it, anyway.

“—complicated,” he finishes lamely. Even though he’s free of his shackles, he feels as though heavy metal is weighing down on his shoulders. “You should have just left me in there.”

“I’m surprised Quirin did,” Hector admits.

Varian cringes at the sound of his father’s name. His hands tighten in the fabric of Hector’s cloak, a numbing chill sweeping over his body.

“Varian,” Adira says, tone carefully neutral as if trying not to frighten him off. As if she already knows. “Where is Quirin?”

Heat automatically prickles behind his eyes. He avoids looking at either of them. The words he needs to say are locked in a tight bundle in the center of his throat, but there’s no way he can tell them. They’re Dad’s siblings.

“I…” I trapped him in amber. I killed him. I was only trying to help. No matter how he phrased it, the words just wouldn’t come. He kept his eyes stubbornly on the dewy grass, little droplets reflecting the moonlight, shimmering off the edges of that black blade like stars trapped in liquid onyx—

Varian stills. A thought started to materialize in the misty fog of his mind. He wills it to take shape.

Adira’s blade was made out of a shard of the black rocks. That meant, at some point, the rock had to have broken off of its root. But what could have broken something unbreakable? The rock had a chemical makeup that was so unique, like nothing on Earth, nothing that could be replicated. Kinda like diamonds. Diamonds were once thought to be unbreakable too, could cut through anything, but the only thing that could cut through a diamond was—

“Another diamond,” he whispers.

Adira blinks. “What?”

“They’re like diamonds! ” He lets out a maniacal laugh, the noise somewhere between relief and hysteria. “The only thing strong enough to cut through it is itself! That’s why no chemical was working! You can’t cut a diamond with acid! You need another diamond!”

He’s practically vibrating with giddy energy, the realization shooting a new kind of adrenaline through his veins. One that spoke of Dad, Dad being okay, Dad smiling at him and hugging him and holding him close and saying his name—

(“’Kay, I feel like I missed something,” Hector mutters, glancing at Adira.

She shrugs. “Don’t look at me. I have no idea what’s happening.”)

With renewed energy, Varian launches to his feet and snatches the sword out of Adira’s hands.

“Whoa, nephew!” She’s immediately on her feet and grasps for it back. “That’s my sword.”

But Varian stumbles back, feet clumsy with fatigue. This sword is huge and its dragging against the grass and his limbs are so heavy and he is so heavy but some manic part of his brain is saying take this and run, you moron, get to Dad, get to him now—

He can only dance out of her range for so long. Adira is fast and Varian is tired and shaky. It doesn’t stop him from clawing at her shoulder when he tries to take it back.

“I need that,” he gasps, sounding desperate. Like a child. “Please, I need—”

Adira shoots him a look that reminds him of a disappointed parent and easily pushes him away. “The Shadow Blade isn’t a toy. You can cut your finger off if you flick your wrist the wrong way.”

Varian shakes his head wildly, trying to make his stupid mouth say the stupid words that will explain, but his brain can’t get it together.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his upper arm. His uncle steadies him, one hand going to wrap around the base of his skull, thumb gently but firmly tilting his head up. The movement startles Varian. That was something his dad did. He wonders if that was something his father taught to this man.

Yellow eyes search his for a moment. “Breathe, kid.” Varian didn’t know he wasn’t breathing, too hyperfocused on that sword. But okay, oxygen might be a good idea—as long as his ribs didn’t kill him first. “Why do you need the Shadow Blade?”

There are so many things Varian wants to say, but the fear of what comes next nearly closes his throat. Still, if there was a way to help his dad, he had to at least attempt to explain what was going on. Maybe they could help.

Sucking in a rattling breath, he tries.

Awareness comes back to Quirin in slow waves. There’s a hacking noise, so loud it vibrates across his skin. His body feels…weightless…until it suddenly doesn’t, and he’s falling.

And then he isn’t. He bites his tongue when his jaw smacks the hard stone floor, the pain sharpening the rest of his senses. He scrapes himself up into a kneeling position, rubbing against his sore jaw.

The only warning Quirin gets for what comes next is a screech of, “DAD!” and suddenly Quirin is being tackled by his son. Varian, weepy-eyed and panicked, is all over him; touching his temples then his jaw then his shoulders then his chest, as if making sure Quirin is a solid person and not some mirage.

And then, his son is hugging him.

“You’realiveyou’realivethankthesunyou’realive,” Varian is choking, sobbing and clutching onto him in a way he hasn’t done since he was nine. “Daddy, I thought—I’m so sorry—I didn’t listen, I’m sorry, I love you—”

“Shh, son,” Quirin croons, automatically pressing his shaking child closer to his chest. “It’s alright, Varian. I’m all—”

And then, Quirin remembers.

Startled, he looks around the lab and is shocked at what he sees. Broken shards of amber strewed across the floor, a hole in the floor and in the wall, hunks of what looked like robotic limbs, Adira and Hector—

Wait.

“You,” he starts, unsure of where he even wants to go with this sentence.

Adira nods solemnly. “Us.”

Quirin sighs.

“Dad…these guys say they’re your siblings? But I didn’t even know you had siblings.” Varian pulls back, wiping one shirtsleeve across his cheeks to clean the tear tracks with a sleeve. The state of that sleeve catches Quirin’s attention—it’s ratty and covered in dirt. And it wasn’t just the shirt; Varian himself looks like he hadn’t bathed in a while. And his hair is long, longer than he usually kept it. To add to the oddity of his son’s appearance, he was practically swimming in a cloak that clearly wasn’t his, not wearing either his goggles or gloves—

Quirin’s heart skips a beat.

Varian must realize he noticed, because the boy goes to pull the cloak closer around himself. Quirin catches him before he can, gently yet firmly taking one of his son’s delicate hands in his turning it to reveal the raw, angry flesh at his wrists.

Quirin suddenly feels overwhelmed, seconds away from sobbing. Something had happened to his son while he was trapped. Something had hurt his child, and Quirin hadn’t been there to prevent it.

“Son,” he says, voice thick, “What happened?”

Varian stubbornly keeps his head down, hiding any emotion that could have betrayed themselves through his eyes. “Uh… A lot of things. But…but it’s okay now, because you’re okay, and that’s all that matters.”

And suddenly, Quirin feels a heaviness—one that he hasn’t felt since Ulla died—settle in the air between them.

“Hi Hector,” chirps his brother from across the room. “How’re you? Great, thanks for asking, brother. It’s so good to see you after eight years, I’ve missed you every day. Why Quirin, I’m touched.”

Despite everything, Quirin finds a dry chuckle leaving his lips. “Are you done having that one-sided conversation?” His eyes turn to Adira. “I’m assuming you had a hand in this.” He gestures broadly to the mess in the room.

“Actually, just the amber,” Adira admits. “That hole in the floor was here when we got here.”

Hector snorts, strolling around the wreckage of Varian’s lab table. “Hey, remember how worried you were about us breaking your door?”

“Don’t touch that! Or—or that.” Varian squirms out of his arms, running to stop Hector from acting on the impulse he shared with Hamuel that urged him to touch anything shiny. Quirin lets him go, immediately missing the soft warmth his son provided.

Quirin still feels lightheaded enough that Adira has to help him to his feet. He peers down the hole in the floor, eyeing the trap doors that were blown off, the chains that were welded to the walls, the metal limbs that are pierced by black rocks.

The rest of the house isn’t much better. Their living room and kitchen are thankfully intact, but it looks like the upstairs remains relatively untouched. It seems whatever happened mostly took out the lab and the front door.

He looks to his sister for answers, but she can only offer him a shrug. Hector can’t give him an explanation either—it seems the only one who knows how their house got destroyed is Varian, but his son won’t reveal much.

“Can we wait? I just—just don’t want you to be mad at me right now,” he answers meekly, one arm wrapped around his side. “Just for tonight. You can yell at me tomorrow.”

Quirin can’t possibly imagine how any of this wreckage could have possibly been created by one 5’2” teenager, but he’s no stranger to having to rebuild a wall or two thanks to one of Varian’s experiments going awry.

The robots, though. He can’t wrap his mind around the robots.

“Okay,” he gives in. “Tomorrow.”

Varian lets out a sigh of relief, then his face pinches in pain, clutching his side a little tighter.

“Here.” Adira appears out of the kitchen doorway, holding out an ice pack. Varian accepts it, molding his expression into one of brave indifference as he holds it to his side.

“Did you break your ribs?” Quirin asks, horrified and perplexed at once. His son's experiments have given him concussions before, but Varian has always been careful enough not to break a bone.

His boy chews on his bottom lip and avoids looking directly at him. “I didn’t.”

The unanswered but something—or someone—else did rings in Quirin’s head like a warning bell.

“I’m going to go set some traps,” Varian decides abruptly, probably noticing the alarm on Quirin’s face. His boy is too observant for his own good. “We have to know if people are coming.” He turns to Hector and Adira. “If anyone asks, I skewered myself on the rocks. You picked my body clean of any valuables before tossing me into the harbor.”

Hector nods, completely unphased. “’Kay.”

Varian taps his finger against his chin, gears whirring inside his head. “I bet I can make a fake corpse out of melted wax and dye...I should have enough scrap metal laying around to construct a mold.”

“Varian!” Quirin sputters over him.

His son turns to him, expression deadly serious. “Don’t go outside, people have to think you’re dead too.”

“What—”

Adira settles her hands on his shoulders and steers Varian in the opposite direction toward the couch. “No trap setting or corpse construction right now, nephew. We’ll take care of any palace guards that go sniffing around this place.”

(Guards? Quirin mouths, feeling as though he’s losing his mind.)

“I have to do this.” Varian’s bright, baby blue eyes are feverish and manic. “If they find me, th-they’ll take me back, I c-can’t—”

“Nobody’s taking you anywhere. Trust us,” she says. “The only thing you have to do is plant your face into a pillow for the next six hours, at least.”

“Ha! I haven’t slept that long in months.”

“Not helping your case here, Sprinkles. Couch. Now.”

Varian keeps grumbling, even as Adira manhandles him over to lay down. Turning to his brother, Quirin whispers, “Guards?”

“Yeah, there were a few,” Hector says unhelpfully. “Adira got to take most of them out though.” He strides into the kitchen, which Quirin finds is also a mess with haphazardly open cupboards, mold in the sink, and a layer of dust on every surface. Hector sends a plume of it up into the air when he plops down at the kitchen table, kicking his feet up.

It hazily reminds Quirin of the night his siblings had first met Varian. Only this time, without his wife resting upstairs and the aching distance he feels from his son, the life is sucked dry from of this place.

“What happened?” he asks again. At this point, he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I think,” his brother says, twiddling with one of his knives between his fingers, “that you should talk to your kid.”

Quirin shoots him a glare. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do? He’s not answering me.”

“Probably ‘cause he’s still shaken up from the jailbreak.”

Quirin barely restrains himself from shouting, voice lowering into a hiss. “Jailbreak?!”

Hector stops what is sure to be a heart-attack-inducing lecture by pointing his knife at him. Not as a threat, but for emphasis. “Look, my knowledge of what happened starts only about four hours before we woke you up. The only person who can give you the full picture is Varian.”

“I understand, but he isn’t—”

“He didn’t know who we were, Quirin.” Hector’s voice is raw, hurt flashing through his eyes. They glow like tiny suns in the dim light of the kitchen.

Quirin treads carefully forward, walking a delicate balance of upholding his truth and not upsetting his brother. “You know I wasn’t going to tell him about my past.”

“And what good did that do, huh? He needed us,” Hector stresses, “and he didn’t even know us. We’re his family. Your family. Keeping him in the dark won’t help him, brother.”

“He’s not ready.”

“How do you know?” Hector leans forward, eyes piercing, challenging the foundation that Quirin has kept protected for fourteen years. “How do you know he’s not, Quirin?”

Because he can’t survive without me nearly rolls off his tongue, but that thought makes him pause. He had been stuck in the amber long enough for there to be layers of dust around the house, and Varian was still alive. He may not have been thriving without his father, by the looks of him, but there was no denying his child was brilliantly resourceful. He can take care of himself.

And Quirin is so proud of that. Varian is a genius, and deserves so much more praise than Quirin knows how to give.

Perhaps then, that was the root of this. Perhaps in his mad desperation to protect Varian, Quirin had blocked out what was right in front of him. His baby boy wasn’t a baby anymore. He was growing into an aspiring, brilliant young man. 

What if Varian was ready? Was he ready to be completely honest with him? To share the part of him that he had put to bed so long ago, to open up himself and his secrets?

There was only one way to find out.

Hector leans back, humming in approval as his point sinks in. “Thaaaat’s what I thought.”

Quirin runs a hand through his hair and sinks down into the chair across from him. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Could tell him about that time you accidentally whacked a bee's nest with your spear.”

Quirin shakes his head. “I hate that you remember that.”

“I don’t,” Hector grins, “That day was great.”

“Not for me.”

“It’s not always all about you, brother.”

Soft footsteps announce Adira’s presence in the doorway. “Did you let in a raccoon, Hector? One just scampered in through the window.”

“That’s probably Ruddiger,” Quirin answers. “He’s Varian’s friend.”

Adira nods. “That explains why the creature tackled him and started purring.”

“Oh, so you let your kid get a raccoon but not a cougar?” Hector clicks his tongue and bitterly sheaths his knife. “Talk about a double standard. What happened to ‘my son can’t have a wild animal, Hector, they’re too dangerous'?”

Quirin levels him with a hard look. “Raccoons aren’t bloodthirsty carnivores.”

“They’re tiny bandits! He should upgrade to a chamois, at least.”

The day his son was split from Ruddiger was the day he died. Quirin smirks, “Good luck trying to convince him. Ruddiger is just as much part of this family as you are.”

And then his brother launches into a defense as to why animals that were bred in the mountains were better at protecting their packs. His sister pokes holes in his arguments with her sharp wit, just like she always does. Through the windows, the sun begins to rise over the fields of Old Corona, tinting the sky with bright pink and red hues.

Quirin’s eyes drift to where he can see the distant outline of his sleeping boy on the couch. It was the start of a new day, and a start of a new beginning. For both of them.