Chapter Text
In a different kingdom, one might question why the prison was so close to the castle since, surely, that’d cause trouble at some point, but this was Corona, and at this moment Queen Arianna felt grateful for the close proximity. It made it easier for her to pass subtly into the cell-block and avoid the pomp and circumstance of a public appearance.
Ariana bore a heavy cloak around her shoulder, and it hid her face and noble dress from the criminals as she walked through the dungeons. She couldn’t afford being recognized. Not yet. If the criminals caused too much of a ruckus, the guards would insist she leave for her own safety. She could always order them away, as Queen, but her conviction was already so faint that she feared any obstacle would turn her around.
As it was, she made it safely to her destination, without leers or a riot or overprotective guards. Giving a quick glance around, Arianna dropped her hood once she confirmed there was no one else around. She stared into the dark (but dry, clean, perfectly habitable) cell, and her eyes fell on the boy behind the bars. He didn’t look back; his head turned to look out the narrow window.
“Varian,” she addressed him.
He didn’t respond.
More softly, she repeated, “Varian.”
At that he turned his head slowly away from the windows and his eyes tracked across the room until they settled on hers. Still, he didn’t speak.
Varian was barely lit by the torch outside his cell. He hadn’t been in jail long, so he hadn’t paled any from lack of sun, but the bags under his eyes had grown. Immediately, Arianna’s brain began to whir. There’s not much else to do in the dungeons than pace, sleep, and eat, and if the unfinished trays by the door were any indication, Varian had been doing too much of the first and not enough of the second and third.
If he wasn’t sleeping or eating, he was deteriorating, and all of Corona had regretfully learned what happened when Varian had a poor idea. Poor, Adrianna added mentally, in its intent and execution. Varian’s skill with alchemy and mechanics was impressive regardless of one’s opinion on him. Arianna wasn’t certain what he could be getting up to from inside of a prison cell, but she grew cautious nonetheless.
Of course, her words came out wrong. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, your highness ,” Varian replied, “I was shackled and thrown in here.”
Arianna paused. He was right, but she shook her head, “I misspoke. What have you been doing down here?”
“Rotting,” he said, and he looked back out the window.
In the most regal manner she could manage, Arianna replied, “You’ve been down here three days.”
“Strawberries rot in two.” Varian shrugged and reached for something behind his cot. For a moment Arianna froze up, but then she saw some dirty fur and realized, somehow, Rudiger had made his way into the cell with Varian. Varian himself kept talking. “Of course, that could potentially be extended with some kind of preservative, or cooling device. I suppose it I had-” he stopped. “I don’t.”
Arianna didn’t follow, so she asked, “You don’t what?”
“I don’t have anything here. Can’t preserve any strawberries.
“I don’t believe you have any strawberries to preserve, Varian.” Arianna still didn’t follow. She was forgetting why she’d come down here.
Varian threw his hands up. “Of course not! I could go buy some, but of course first I’d need to be able to go shopping, and I don’t see any farm stands in your dark, damp, and dreary prison-” Arianna was 95% certain the prison was not damp. Corona wasn’t inhumane to its prisoners, despite how awful many of them seemed to be- oh he wasn’t done- “and I’d need to get money from dad, who, oh yeah, everyone left trapped inside impenetrable rock, and then strawberries would need to be in season, and the rocks destroyed my weather manipulator prototype! So no, I’m not-”
“You were attempting to control weather?” Arianna was very disconcerted with that. Disconcerting. She came down to talk with him about something related to that.
“I was attempting, but Dad always said it was ‘too dangerous’.” He paused, then whispered, “I was so close. I could’ve saved the crops last year. I could’ve done it, but you and your family-”
Arianna remembered her question, and she decided that he was going to start spiralling if she didn’t act soon.
“Varian!” she interrupted.
He fell silent as though he had never expected anyone to be listening.
After a moment of silence passed between them, she steeled her nerves and addressed him. “Varian, why did you kidnap me?”
There was no immediate response. He blinked a few times, and Rudiger hopped up onto the cot. When he finally spoke, his voice was very level but confused. “I had to get Rapunzel to come to Old Corona and save my Dad.”
“Varian,” Arianna replied, his name sounding peculiar from how many times she’d repeated it, “why didn’t you just ask Rapunzel to come? She told me before she left that you had been friends.
Varian looked out the window suddenly. “She left?”
“Corona.”
“... she’s gone.”
Arianna wasn’t certain why his voice got quieter and wavered slightly, so she chose to ignore it. She had to, for her own sake, to continue this conversation. Prompting again, Arianna said, “She said that she’d promised to help you.”
“She had.” Varian’s mouth twitched into a sneer.
“And?”
Clenching his fists, Varian bit out, “When I came for help, she refused me.”
Arianna remembered that part of the story. She also remember the part where Rapunzel was dealing with a deadly snow storm threatening all of Corona. “You should’ve come back. Corona was enduring the worst storm in many, many years, and she was under a lot of stress-”
Varian inhaled sharply “My dad was being trapped in rocks that your kingdom was ignoring.”
“Your father is very important to you,” Arianna cautioned, “but she had thousands of citizens to think about. Many were trying to evacuate, and those who weren’t were sheltered in the castl-”
Varian punched his cot, and Rudiger startled. Varian whipped his glare to Arianna and shouted, “She said nothing as they threw me back into that blizzard! Everyone else treated me like a criminal who’d attacked the princess after that. No one in Corona wanted to help.” He kicked the ground. “I shouldn’t have to keep giving you chances if no one gives me any.”
Arianna almost folded her arms, but she decided that’d seem less authoritative than she was going for. “I gave you chances, even while you were building that dreadful automaton.”
“I’d already kidnapped you. There was nothing for me past this dungeon at that point.” He sighed and leaned against the wall. “I just-” he hit his head. “Ow.”
“Careful. Your head’s not harder than stone.”
“I know that…” Varian rubbed his head, and Rudiger climbed onto Varian’s lap. “I thought if I kidnapped you, Rapunzel would finally save my dad, and I’d-” he cut himself off. “Dad would be proud.”
Arianna fought several urges at once. The first was to groan, the second was to laugh, and she settled on the third: “Your father was a loyal citizen. You attempted regicide.”
“That wasn't what I wanted!" Varian ran a hand through his hair. "It only came to that because I failed every single other time, and then you didn't care! No one did" He sighed. "And I thought that if I killed you, I would finally succeed at something. Then Dad would be proud.”
Although she wasn’t certain why, Arianna felt a pit in her stomach. “You haven’t had any visitors besides me, have you?”
“Some of the guards came to gawk and the idiot brainiac, but other than that, no.”
“Would your father have visited you here?”
Again, silence befell the pair. Varian glanced between his window and the queen, eventually settling on the scenic view. Varian’s narrow window was starting to shine with glorious colors of sunset, and in the dynamic light, Varian’s eyes seemed larger but more sunken, like those of a starved child.
Arianna knew that she’d have to head back to the castle for dinner soon. She couldn’t afford to wait forever for this boy to answer, and so after a minute of silence passed, she offered, “I’m sorry you were thrown out.”
Varian glance back at her. “Are you expecting me to say sorry back?”
She didn’t deign to give a response to that. Instead, she reached out towards his half-emptied trays of food, laying just outside and inside his cell. “You really ought to eat, Varian. We’re not trying to-”
“Don’t touch those!”
Faster than Arianna had ever expected a lethargic, moody teen to move, Varian hopped off the bed, wielding Rudiger on one shoulder, and he swatted her hand away through the bars of his cell.
Arianna gave him a quizzical look. Then, he eyes caught a string, made of- well, she couldn’t be certain, but her eyes flicked over the cell as she traced an elaborate trap connecting the trays to a loose cinder block above the cell door.
Varian just took a step back and sat back on his cot. “Nothing.”
Arianna, for her part, simply nodded. And, of course, made a note to warn the guard who’d come to move his food.
She threw her cloak hood back on and exited the prisons, back to her castle and husband, back to wondering where her child was. Back to life.