Angel: I forgot to answer this question since things have been crazy whether I want them to or not, but I don't want things to be crazy anyway XD The question was about who would voice and be the singing voice for Harmony. I believe I answered this already in a season one episode of my other Tangled story, Sisters' Tangled Adventure, forgot which one it is where I answered the question. I said I would have Sango from Inuyasha voice her, aka Kelly Sheridan. However, I've changed my mind, I'd want Natasha Bedingfield voice Harmony. She's the one who sings the ending song More of Me in most of the episodes of the series. I feel like that's a better choice since I don't know if Kelly Sheridan is a singer XD
This takes place sometime after the other Tangled story I have, but before the Ever After short.
Summary: Varian and Harmony take care of the local Corona children.
"Varian! Where's Kiera?!"
"I don't know! I don't see her anywhere yet! Who do you have?"
"I have Seth! Oh man, why?"
The two scientists, Varian and Harmony, were scrambling around in Varian's home, and they were trying to rally all of the kids together.
"Did you check outside?!"
"10 times!"
How did they get into this situation, one may ask?
Well, it all started one sunny day in Corona. Harmony is of course, hard at work in her lab, Daisy handing her the pair of goggles that Varian gave her before...
She flinches at the reminder. No, Cass wasn't that person anymore. And she even sent a letter of apology for kidnapping him, not that he was angry at her for it. Her actions were mainly fueled out of resentment for what she felt towards Rapunzel and Harmony. It also didn't help that Gothel was her mother, and she believed that Gothel loved her...but she's certainly happier now, and the young co-queen is just happy that Cass is out there to make a name for herself the right way.
That's right, Harmony was crowned co-queen along with Rapunzel. Her sister just felt like it was the right decision, since both of them love Corona and want the best for their home. Lately, Rapunzel's just been focused on her wedding with Eugene coming up in a few months, which Harmony is gladly her sister's maid of honor. This type of stuff wasn't Cass' thing, anyway, and she was more than accepting to give Harmony the title, but she will be attending as a guest.
Daisy notices her owner's hesitance to take the goggles, chirping to get her attention.
"Huh?" She blinks and snaps out of it, looking at the duckling. "Oh. Sorry, Daisy. Just...just a bad memory," She takes the goggles, slowly putting them on. She looks down at the security system she's building to protect her tiara from being stolen...well, technically, she wears both her crown and the goggles on a daily basis because she couldn't see herself without them, but after the whole Flynnposter and Baron fiasco, she'd rather not take any chances.
"With the sample of Quirineon Vari gave to me, this should set the area around my crown on fire should anyone try to steal it, but also protect the crown from the explosion..." She takes off her tiara, placing it down in a glass box that's rigged to release the Quirineon if anyone tries to touch it.
"Alright, testing in three...two...one!"
Suddenly the door bursts open and she drops the sample on the floor, which explodes in front of her. She lets out a cough as a burst of tiny green flames appear in front of her. She waves away the flames while coughing.
"Okay...clearly that was a fail." Her hair is now a mess, her eyes having soot around them and her dress is slightly dirty with soot stains on it. Even her goggles are covered with soot.
"Heh...sorry."
Her eyes widen at the voice and she turns around to see her boyfriend himself, the recently-appointed Royal Engineer, Varian. He gives her a sheepish wave with a small smile, Ruddiger around his shoulders.
"Vari! I didn't know you'd be stopping by," She blinks in surprise, taking off her goggles. Normally, both of their days are busy, what with his work with his royal position and her with her mountain of co-queen duties with Rapunzel each day. They still see each other for lunch and dinner, and sometimes breakfast or other events that the co-queens throw, and sometimes community work for Corona. The only day off they really get is on Sunday, in which they spend the whole day together, just them. No matter what their schedules looked like, they always made time for each other.
She attempts to adjust her messy hair. "Usually you don't come to visit unless it's work related..."
"Ha...well, that's actually not why I'm here," He smiles nervously, eyes wide as he grips her shoulders. "I need your help." He starts wiping off the soot from her clothes gently.
"As your girlfriend, your partner, or your queen?" She smirks in amusement. "Because remember, I am all three."
"Umm, it might just be all of the above, actually..."
Varian and Harmony stand in front of the doorway of his cottage, watching various kids run around and making a mess of everything. There's Kiera, Catalina, Seth, the four sisters who braided Rapunzel's hair, and a few other kids that Harmony didn't know that well, but she had seen them around town.
"Uhh, Vari? How exactly did this happen?" She glances at him.
"Well...my dad said that he had to take all their parents out for the day to gather more crops in Old Corona..." Varian rubs the back of his neck. "And I sort of volunteered since I was the oldest one out of all of them in town. But I didn't realize just how many kids that meant I'd have to take care of for the day. So you can see why I need your help. You're the only one who isn't busy today."
"Mm," She glances away. Rapunzel is busy with her co-queen duties and meeting people with Frederic and Arianna, Eugene is training guards with Max, and Lance was paying a visit to the Dark Kingdom to see Adira for the day.
"But there are other people in the castle besides me you could've asked," Harmony points out.
"I know, but...well, since it was me who would be asking, I had a feeling they would say no. Not to mention these are all the kids in the village here," He gestures to all the children.
"And it just had to be a busy day," She sighs wearily at the fact that they'll have no help whatsoever. Probably just about anyone else would've said no as well since everyone is gathering crops for the weekly crop report...of course, the kids couldn't help out, so they had to go somewhere.
"Alright," She puts her hands on her hips. "This shouldn't be too hard. I mean, Kiera and Catalina are already like daughters to us."
"Ahh," Varian starts off nervously.
"Okay, sometimes we don't get it right, but it's only for a day, it shouldn't be so...bad," She hesitates to say that last sentence since there was the time that Cass, Varian, Lance, and Shorty turned into children when they were going to the Dark Kingdom...that was definitely something. And it was absolutely a wake-up call for Rapunzel, Eugene, and Harmony herself. She doesn't implement her lessons onto Catalina or Kiera often since bringing up that incident sometimes Varian, but it was worth the occasional laugh.
"Yeah, we're 16. We got this," Varian chuckles awkwardly, hands behind his back. He then flinches when he sees someone grabbing Ruddiger by the tail. "Oh! Ruddiger!" He rushes forward to go deal with it, Harmony sighing slowly at the kid-infested cottage in front of her.
This might be a little harder than either of them bargained for...
Eugene steps into the doorway of Rapunzel's room, lightly knocking on the door. He can see her arms poking out from the changing screen. "Blondie?"
"Oh! G-Bug!" She smiles in amusement as she hears the small annoyed grunt. She peeks past the screen to look at him. "Hi!"
"I thought we agreed not to call me G-Bug," He gives her a strained smile. Since she is his fiancee, sometimes he makes an exception about the nickname, but he wished that she'd come up with another one...
"You sometimes still call me Blondie even though I lost my hair, Eugene," She gives him a smirk, Pascal chirping in small laughter.
"That...is a good point." Eugene points at her with a knowing smile before clearing his throat. "I was planning on taking a break, and I was wondering if you, your sister, and Varian wanted to go to Monty's?"
"Oh, they're not here," Rapunzel tells him, to his confusion.
"Really? Where'd they go?"
"I heard that Varian needed her help with something since she didn't have any duties today. Not sure on where they went," She steps back for a few seconds to put on her dress. "I'm free, though! Only for a little while. I have an art class soon."
Ever since she became co-queen, she sometimes holds art classes and Harmony will sometimes hold an inventing class as part of community work, something they both vowed to do when they were crowned. It's mostly for people who are interested in doing these two classes, or for budding artists/inventors. Varian co-teaches inventing with his girlfriend on occasion.
"I wonder what they're doing?" Eugene rubs his chin in thought.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure they're having fun," Rapunzel smiles optimistically.
It's actually the opposite as the two teens are sitting next to each other with weary eyes and messed up hair. Varian's hair kind of reminded Harmony of when his Rooster exploded, and her hair is a tangled mess. All the kids are running around, either messing things up or making a mess of themselves.
"This is not working out, is it?" Varian pinches his nose at the chaos.
"Nope." She stands up and whistles with her fingers. Kiera and Catalina give each other sly smirks and Kiera sneaks upstairs to hide in Varian's lab.
"Okay kids, who's hungry?" Harmony offers with a small weak smile, earning cheers. "Alright, into the kitchen you go—wait." She stops short and Varian looks at all the kids, silently counting to himself. His eyes widen as he realizes the same thing she has.
"...Where's Kiera?" He asks nervously after a few seconds. He stands up as the brunette with blue/yellow bangs glances around the room. "Kiera!"
"Kiera, come out right now!" Harmony demands as she steps forward. The kids take this opportunity to take off running around the home again. The two scientists' eyes widen at them. Harmony groans at this; she had just gotten them to listen. But again...they are kids.
"Let's get them together and then figure out where Kiera could be," Varian suggests to her and she nods. They take off in opposite directions to gather some up, Harmony wrapping an arm around Seth's waist and picking him up. He giggles as she tries to catch another, and in all of the running, checking the windows and doors, and looking in the kitchen, she still doesn't see the black-haired girl. She watches her boyfriend pick up a little girl by the waist.
"Varian! Where's Kiera?!"
"I don't know! I don't see her anywhere yet! Who do you have?"
"I have Seth! Oh man, why?"
They run around as fast as they can to catch up with one target each.
"Did you check outside?!"
"Ten times!" Harmony calls out, narrowing her eyes at Catalina running by.
"Get back here!" Varian runs past her, chasing a little boy. He turns around and blows a raspberry at the alchemist before running off again.
Harmony grabs the arm of the red-haired girl gently, stopping her in place. "Catalina, where's your sister?"
"Well hi there, ma'am!" Catalina holds up Skully, to Harmony's disgust. "My name's Skully!"
"No, I don't need Skully," She gently places down the skull. "And I thought I told you that you couldn't keep that!"
Another girl runs past her while holding Daisy. The duckling chirps in protest. "Wait, Daisy is not a toy!" Harmony lets go of Catalina in favor of chasing after the two. She smiles slightly for the distraction, running around the room.
Varian's managed to grab another kid and Harmony joins him in exhaustion, Daisy on her shoulder. "Now I know how you felt when Cass, Lance, Shorty, and I were kids. Kind of like this, huh?" He smiles weakly at her.
"Yeah, it's different when it's just teenagers dealing with this..." She murmurs, glancing away. Varian then heaves a sigh.
"I don't know why I thought I could do this. Kids hate me! They won't listen to me..." Of course he still thinks about the people and their...conflicting opinions of him. He still gets a few whispers and murmurs from some people in the castle, and kids were probably the most influenced out of anyone in Corona. After all, even a baby cried just by looking at him back when the red rocks were around. He thought that maybe if he could take care of them...they might just warm up to him.
Harmony's eyes soften as she looks up at him. She knew very well that there are still people who have negative opinions of him. She doesn't see it often, but there will sometimes be someone who glares at not just him, but her as well since she's a co-queen. Children besides Kiera and Catalina could be told by their parents to distrust him, which is probably why they're acting this way. That didn't make it fair or right to Varian, though...
She turns to all the kids, walking past Varian to his confusion. She starts grabbing all the kids, making them all freeze and stop what they're doing. It's her grip that makes them all stop, which is gentle, but also meaning business and that they shouldn't move. She then places them all down in the middle of the room once she has everyone besides Kiera. Kiera, having heard nothing, steps down the stairs and peeks into the room. Harmony takes a deep breath, facing all of the children. Varian looks at the back of her head, wondering what she's doing.
"Mona, what-"
"Alright, everyone," She speaks up, interrupting him. "I know that none of you asked to be here, but you are. I'm not gonna lie, it can be hard knowing who you can trust."
Varian holds in a breath, feeling that she's talking about Cass, who...did betray her friends, and like with Varian, people were reacting negatively whenever she was brought up for a while. But he can also tell that Harmony is happy that Cass has made her own decisions, even if that meant leaving everyone who loves her behind.
"Varian...went through a lot, more than I can tell you," Harmony glances away. "You're all young, and it can be hard to understand, so I won't tell you exactly what happened or why it did." Everyone looks at her in confusion, including Varian himself. "What I can tell you is that...he's definitely made mistakes, and some of you might still not agree with the fact that he's a different person. But honestly...if you get to know him better...you'll like him," She glances over her shoulder with a smile. "I know I still do."
Varian gives her a small, grateful smile. It's times like these that a certain question is answered, which is why Harmony even stays with him. Sometimes when he hears people insult him, which isn't so often nowadays, he doubts himself if he's even good enough for a co-queen, let alone someone kind, brave, and selfless like Harmony.
"But didn't he help those Saporians?" A little girl asks, Varian biting his lip. He gets tense whenever they're mentioned, especially Andrew. The guy was definitely a jerk, and Harmony's just glad that he can rot in prison.
"Yes..." Harmony draws that word awkwardly. "But he had his reasons, and he really hopes that you see past that and...see the good person he really is. Give him a chance, and judge him by how you see him, not anyone else."
The group of kids besides Catalina glance to each other and Varian looks away, feeling like this wouldn't work. Just because she was a co-queen and he has faith in her didn't mean she could easily influence a bunch of kids. Not that he underestimated her, he definitely did not.
Kiera glances at Varian and sees just how willing he is to help them. That aspect might've gotten lost in the past, but she can see that he's at least making a good effort to try, despite the risks. She had no idea if this would help, but she steps forward anyway, making herself known to the two. She winces slightly from the mixed looks of relief and annoyance from the two teenagers.
Making a mental note to apologize later, she clears her throat. "I've known V for a while, and while I think of him as a nerd-"
"Hey!" Varian calls out in protest.
"He's a good guy. You can trust him."
There's seconds of silence, which makes Varian a little uneasy. But then some of the kids start to look a bit sad for some reason, and Seth looks up to the two first.
"We're sorry, Varian and Queen Harmony. We should've listened."
"Yeah, we're sorry," A few more kids mumble sadly. Varian just smiles slightly at them. They are still kids, so he couldn't really put them at fault. They did nothing wrong, and they were just exposed to all his actions. It was even a wonder that some of their parents even trusted Varian enough for him to look after them safely.
"It's okay, you guys." He steps forward to stand next to the brunette, smiling gratefully at her. She returns the gesture and then turns back to the group, hands on her hips.
"Alright, everyone. Let's start this over. I don't think we need to repeat what time it is since I can hear the stomachs gro-"
Her own stomach growls and she glances down at herself, smiling sheepishly. "I guess I worked up an appetite myself. So let's go eat lunch and then we can officially start this over."
All of them stand up and run into the kitchen, including the kids Varian was holding before.
"You know, you didn't have to stand up for me with these kids," He tells her softly, holding her hand. "You could've just left it alone or just let them hate me."
"It's not their fault or yours for their opinions," She replies, looking at him in the eye. "You were just...in a different place, and they don't know the full story to understand it completely," She gestures to where they were all sitting. "Besides, some things are worth standing up for."
He blinks and then smiles at her. "Thanks, Mona. You always know what to say."
"If I didn't, I wouldn't be co-queen," She smiles back, taking his hand and walking away. "Come on, I'm sure they'll love your ham sandwiches."
"Would they?!" Varian exclaims in slight excitement, causing her to laugh.
About two hours later, Quirin leads the group of parents back to his cottage. Each of them are carrying at least two bushels of fruits and vegetables to show the queens of Corona. There is slight tension as some of them are expecting something awful, given that it's Varian...
"I know he's your son, Quirin, but can we really trust him with our children?"
"That part of Varian's life is over, my friends," He glances over his shoulder. "And as his father, I will stick by him. I may not have agreed with his choices once I learned them, but deep down, I have to trust him."
They say nothing after that. He's slightly changed after being encased in amber, as he trusts that Varian will do the right thing from now on...sometimes with help. His son's work has made Varian happy, especially since Queen Harmony lives there. He just wants to support him, despite his previous opinion of Varian's inventions...
They reach the cottage and Quirin opens up the door. His eyes slightly widen at the sight and then he smiles softly.
Varian is reading from Harmony's journal, because the kids chose him to read from it. He was a little hesitant at first, but since he's been there for a majority of the things she wrote, it does put him a little at ease...and sometimes gets him annoyed because there are other things she wrote down...such as him getting skunked when the brunette and her sister both got cursed by Madame Canardist.
"Mona, why did you write that down?"
"I had to, Punzie wrote about the cauldron flying across that gap..." She sweats a little. "Not to mention I felt awful about it. You had to sit in the caravan for hours."
"And tomato juice was everywhere," Varian's eyes widen in horror. And by everywhere, he literally meant everywhere.
"But you guys beat that curse, remember?" Catalina asks with a small smile.
"Well, it was more so that I believed my sister and I weren't cursed anymore, and then we weren't," Harmony smiles softly before giving an annoyed look. "Madame Canardist definitely isn't a nice person, though."
"Agreed," Kiera and Catalina say in unison with small nods, since they were the ones who stole Vigor.
"Can you tell us more about why you call him raccoon boy?" A girl raises her hand.
"Oh, well-"
"Mona~" Varian calls out in a slight warning tone with narrowed eyes. "Don't talk about that." He gives a small pout as she giggles. Yes, she still calls him that, and she will never let him live that down for as long as she can remember.
"You made a hole in my room, it's only fair that I get to tell people!"
"Mm," He looks away, crossing his arms as he looks like a little kid. "It technically wasn't my fault, I..." He realizes that if he hadn't left, the girls and Lance wouldn't have made the hole in the first place. "Well...in retrospect, I guess I can accept some of the blame."
"Are we interrupting?" Quirin decides to ask and everyone looks up to see the group. They run up to their parents in glee besides Kiera and Catalina. One parent walks up to Varian with a small weak smile.
"Thank you, Varian. You did good work."
"Oh, no problem," He rubs his neck bashfully. "It was...an experience."
"Perhaps we should have you look after our children again every week so that us parents can have a break!"
"Maybe just a few every week," He chuckles nervously. After today, less is definitely more his preference. "But really, it was thanks to her royal highness," He gestures to Harmony, to her surprise. "Her faith in me...helped a lot."
She smiles at him, kissing his cheek.
"Eww!" The kids call out in unison, causing the two teens to laugh.