Chapter Text
After a few days of travel, Varian finds himself in the outskirts of Bayangor. It's getting late when he sees a house by the side of the road and decides to ask them for directions to the main city so he doesn't get lost. The sound of laughter and shrieking audible from the doorstep means there are probably a few kids in the house. When he knocks, the door is opened by a woman in a long red dress, her black hair twisted and held back by two sticks stuck through it.
“Hello?”
“Hi! Um… I’m trying to find the main city and I was hoping for directions?”
The sound of something crashing proceeds two kids running into the room behind the woman. “Moooom Yong's experimenting again!”
“One second.” The woman turns back to Varian. “Why don't you come in for a minute. I can find a map and show you the way as soon as I take care of this.”
“Oh, ok!.” Varian hesitantly walks inside and sits on a chair in the main room. The two kids who'd run in earlier scamper up to him.
“Who are you?”
“Uh… I'm Varian.”
“Where're you going?”
“The- the main city?”
“For the firework festival? That's what Yong's trying to get into!”
“Is Yong one of your siblings?”
“Yeah, he likes to play around with stuff but he keeps messing up and exploding things.”
“Oh ok.” This Yong kid kinda sounds like Varian had been when he was a kid.
The woman who had answered the door walks in with soot on one of her hands. “Sorry about that, my son likes to experiment and he tends to get… violent reactions.”
“It's no problem! I used to have the same issue growing up. If you wanted, to pay you back for the help, I could give him a few tips?” Varian really wants to meet this kid, he didn't have anyone to talk science with in Corona.
“I- sure, I would appreciate that very much. Soot stains are hard to remove.” She turns towards the hall, her voice managing to cut through the background noise that comes with several children. “Hey Yong! Come out here please!” She turns back to Varian. “I'm Su. We're not far from the main city, an hour or so on foot. If you want to stay the night, you could come with us tomorrow for the firework festival?”
“I'd hate to impose.”
“It's no problem, if you're helping me out the least I can offer is some food and a roof over your head. You can’t be much older than my eldest.”
That's when a short, scruffy-haired kid with scorch marks on his clothes walks out. “What is it?”
“Yong, this is- yknow I never got your name.”
“Varian, of Corona.”
“He's heading to the city tomorrow and offered to give some advice on your fireworks in exchange for a place to stay tonight.”
Not exactly how it went but whatever.
Yong's eyes light up in a way Varian knew his used to. “You make fireworks too?”
“Not intentionally, but I'm a scientist. Why don't you show me what you've been working on?”
“Ok!” Yong grabs him by the hand and practically drags him down the hall and into a bedroom that has seen its fair share of explosions. In the middle is a tube painted in red and gold, along with a funnel and several containers of chemicals. “I've been trying to make the firework red but strontium's not easy to come by so I'm experimenting with the shape of the tube first but when I add the strontium the explosions don't work.”
“Hm, can I see your calculations?”
“My what?”
“You are trying to calculate the right amounts of everything first right?”
“Nah, I just try stuff and remember what happens with each combination.”
“That's- Yong that's amazing, to learn like that. Why don't you show me how you're doing it, and I'll see if I can help you get it to work out.”
At some point, Su brings up some food and Varian scarfs it down. “This is really good!”
“Family recipe. I haven't heard any explosions in a while, is that a good or a bad thing?”
“Mom, it's awesome! Varian's been showing me all sorts of things about how the different chemicals react with each other so I don't cause any massive explosions!”
“That's amazing.” Su mouths a ‘thank you’ as she leaves.
Even after their dinner, the two stay up for hours. Varian knows Yong should get some sleep, he's twelve after all, but he can't bring himself to stifle the spark of finally getting something to go the way you want it to.
The next morning, Su wakes Varian and Yong to the smell of something Varian doesn't know, but it's mouthwatering. Breakfast is hurried, and Varian counts at least six other kids getting ready to head out. Apparently this firework festival is a big deal.
Varian leaves Prometheus and the wagon behind, but Ruddiger comes along wrapped around his neck like a scarf. The weight is comforting, and something he's thankful of when they round a corner and see the absolute mayhem of the crowds.
“Ok kids, have fun, watch your bags, littles stay with your partner. Meet back here for the finale and have fun!”
The kids disperse into the crowd, quickly out of sight, and Varian lets Yong drag him to a few stalls. Everywhere is colorful and bright and the music and chatter combine into a cacophony of celebration Varian rarely hears in Corona.
Varian glances down at his arm, where he wrote the directions for finding the trial he could decipher from his mom's journal. “Yong! I gotta go check something out!”
“Can I come with you? You don’t know the way around here!”
Well, he might be helpful, as long as he didn't enter the trial with Varian. The kid did not need to end up in danger. “Ok! I'm looking for a giant dragon statue!”
“I know where that is, come on!”
Yong pulls him through the crowd surprisingly easily, ducking through and around clusters of people. Before long, the crowd breaks and Varian is at the foot of a huge dragon. It's 20, 30 feet tall, and its tail curves up to the cliff behind it. If Varian looks closely, he can see a staircase carved between the spikes of the tail. He knows he has to get into the dragon from the mouth, so he starts walking.
“What're you doing?”
“I have to get up there, all the way to the top.”
“Is this for that library thing you mentioned yesterday? The one with infinite knowledge?”
“Yep. And before you ask, no you can't help. I don't know how dangerous this might be and I'm not risking a kid.”
“I'm like, six years younger than you.”
“Which is half your age. You're not going in.” Varian makes the mistake of looking down. Falling from so many heights had given him a healthy fear of them.
Once they reach the top, Varian starts looking for a way in. There are small crevices between the scales leading to the edge of the mouth, so he straps his staff to his back and climbs. The task is difficult enough Varian doesn't look down, but he also doesn't notice Yong following behind him until they’re both in the mouth of the dragon.
“Yong! I told you you weren't coming!”
“Come on Varian please! I can be helpful, what if there are monsters or something? I can be a distraction! If it's a fire trial, things might be explosive and I've got more experience with that than you!”
“You're really not taking no for an answer are you?” He is not seriously considering letting Yong come, is he? Yeah, looks like he is. “Fine, but you have to promise-” Varian doesn't get to finish that sentence because Yong shifts his weight and a piece of the stone sinks underneath him, causing the slab they're standing on to tilt, dumping them down a slide.
A short drop, screams echoing against stone, and they're in a red stone cave. As Varian sits up, he realizes the stone isn't red. It's lit by the lava a dozen feet down, surrounding the stone pillar they stand on.
“Oops. Guess that was the way in.”
Varian takes a deep breath, he can't blow up at the kid. He hadn't meant to do it, and Varian was letting Yong come along anyways. “Ok. Guess we're in the trial.”
“What're we supposed to do with these?”
Varian glances over to see Yong pointing to a large cardboard tube and about a dozen chemical vials.
“I don't kn-” The whole room shakes and Varian looks over the edge of the stone platform to see the lva slowly but surely rising. Across the cave is another platform, slightly lower than theirs, with a door. “We need to get over there.”
“Hey, most of these are for making fireworks!”
Varian glances between the door, the tube, and the vials. “Maybe if we make a firework that can carry us across? Without blowing us up midair?”
“Yeah, sure! Uh but I- You should do it.”
“What? Yong you're the fireworks expert here.”
“What if I get it wrong! We'd die!”
Varian walks forward until he's in front of Yong, crouching down and putting his hands on the kid’s shoulders. Oh sun he's turning into Eugene. “Yong, you've made a bunch of great fireworks. True, not all of them worked as intended,” Great pep talk Varian! “but you're still way better at this than I am and I trust you. You can do this, I know it.”
“I guess I can try.”
“Yes! Ok, how can I help?”
“Hold the tube still so I can mix the right chemicals in!”
Varian does, and helps Yong pour the chemicals in. He keeps one eye on the rising lava, and- what was that? It sounded like something coming down the slide-
“Hop on!” Yong pulls Varian up onto the tube. “3, 2, 1!”
The explosion echoes in the cavern and Yong almost falls off as they shoot across the cavern. When they're almost over the platform, Varian yells “Jump!” and throws down a bath bomb.
Yong and Varian both land in the suds and it takes a few minutes to get out.
Varian pushes open the door, revealing a long hallway.
“We're done! That was scary, I almost thought we were gonna die.”
Varian ruffles Yong's hair. “You did a good job! Let's not celebrate just yet, there might be booby traps in this hall. Watch your step.”
Each step has Varian more and more suspicious, this couldn't be this easy! There has to be one more challenge.
But after a few minutes of walking, they come up on a pedestal where the totem-
Is in the hands of a tall blonde in green. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail, yellow-lensed goggles around his neck and glasses reflecting some of the red lighting. He’s tall, easily six inches taller than Varian, and he has earrings. And he's stealing the totem.
“Hey! That belongs to us!”
“Huh. Weird. Kinda seems like I'm holding it, which makes it mine.” The thief's voice has a faint accent, not Coronan but from some other kingdom. Galcrest maybe?
“No way! We did the trial, not you. Hand over the token.” Varian holds his staff up, prepared to shoot the compound at the end in the thief's face.
“I like your magic wand, it's pretty.” Yong pulls out a few firecrackers. “And some fireworks! How fun. Well you two are adorable but I'm on a schedule so…”
The thief throws down a smoke bomb, filling the air with blue sulfuric-smelling gas. When it clears, he and the totem are gone.
“Yuck, it stinks!”
“The smoke bomb he used was also a stink bomb.”
“That's kinda genius.”
Varian hates to admit it, but it is. “I know.”
“Also, how do we get out of here?”