Rapunzel had only just met Eugene's family, and she already didn't understand them, and she didn't know how she felt about them. Adira could be fun, but she also thought that she was right all the time, even when Rapunzel thought that it was obvious that she was wrong. Hector was more than just a little scary, and he reminded Rapunzel of the kinds of people that Gothel had warned her about, but he was also really gentle with Varian and his animals, so he couldn't be all bad.
Quirin was worried about his son, and reminded Rapunzel a bit of her own father, but that included the overprotectiveness that she was really getting sick of. As for Edmund, Rapunzel had decided that she didn't like him very much before they even got here. Eugene spoke fondly of his father, and he insisted that their situation was nothing like what Rapunzel had with Gothel, but she couldn't help but see the warning signs. Eugene had saved Rapunzel, and helped her to save herself, and she'd wanted to do the same thing for him, but as soon as she met King Edmund she realized that he wasn't at all what she had expected from him.
Edmund had more or less locked Eugene up in his home all while he was growing up, but the very first thing he did when he saw Eugene was he apologized to him and swore to do better. When the Brotherhood started fighting, Edmund tried to mediate and stop things from getting out of hand, but at the same time he tried to give his siblings the chance to voice their concerns and frustrations. It reminded Rapunzel of what she tried to do herself.
Everything was a mess, and even this small glimpse was enough for Rapunzel to understand why Eugene felt like he needed a break, but also why he was willing to come back. The control and chaos in this family was just a bit too much, and he had needed a break and a breath of fresh air, but he still loved his family, and he didn't want to be away from them.
Rapunzel could understand and relate, as she had felt similarly with her own parents and with Gothel, but just because she understood didn't mean that she knew what to do about it.
Rapunzel thought that it was a really good thing for all of Eugene's family to talk to each other and come to an understanding. Rapunzel may not know a lot about relationships, but she knew that communication and compromise was key. King Edmund seemed ready to try, they just had to get everybody else on board.
What Rapunzel hadn't expected was for the conversation to come to a complete halt the second they got word that the moonstone was gone. Rapunzel still didn't understand completely what it was, but she knew that it was important. Somehow though she still ended up surprised when the Brotherhood immediately turned their focus away from the argument.
The Brotherhood were all focused on what they felt was the task at hand, but all of them seemed to think that the most important thing to do was slightly different from what the others were thinking. Eugene and Quirin went looking for Varian. Adira started to say something to Rapunzel about the sundrop, but Edmund grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room, saying that they needed to go after the moonstone.
Hector was the only member of the Brotherhood that stayed behind, though he didn't look completely happy about it. He settled next to his bearcat and began to treat its injury.
Rapunzel moved to go after Eugene, but a firm grip on her arm pulled her back. She shipped around to find the captain looking at her, concern in his eyes.
"Your highness, I don't want you running off here." The captain said, and just by the tone of his voice she knew that she wouldn't be able to convince him to change his mind. "We don't know this place or these people."
"I just want to make sure that Eugene and Varian are okay." Rapunzel said.
"They're capable of taking care of themselves." The captain said with a slight grimace. He didn't sound like he believed himself even as he said it. Rapunzel gave the captain an unimpressed look. He knew just as well as she did that while Eugene and Varian could take care of themselves, that didn't mean that they did. Varian's idea of taking care of himself was erasing his own memory so he wouldn't remember all the ways he'd been hurt, and Eugene wasn't much better.
Rapunzel knew that the captain had seen Varian and Eugene's struggles just as much as she had, because for a good portion of their trip he spent most of his time glued to her side, keeping an eye on her. They were all traveling in a big group, so it didn't feel too stifling, but Rapunzel had definitely noticed it.
At the start of their trip the captain had been around the entire group, mostly keeping an eye on Varian to make sure he didn't run off. When it was clear that Eugene, Lance, and Adira wouldn't let Varian run off, the captain had turned his attention to Rapunzel.
The captain gently pulled Rapunzel back into the room. "Please, your highness, if there's a thief around that has stolen a weapon I don't think it's safe for you to be out there."
"The moonstone's not just a weapon." Hector said from the other side of the room. Rapunzel looked towards him. He was staring at her with those unnerving eyes of his. "It's our kingdom's most precious treasure. It symbolizes our connection and devotion to the moon. It can be used as a weapon, but clearly, so can your hair. That doesn't automatically make it bad, it just makes it powerful, and some people will try to abuse that power."
Rapunzel sighed and brushed her hair behind her ear. "I know how that is." Her gaze moved to the bearcat. "Is your friend okay?"
"It'll be fine." Hector pet the bearcat's fur. "It's tough. Honestly, I think its ego is bruised more than anything."
"What happened?" Rapunzel stepped closer. She wanted to see if the bearcat was actually okay. It looked a little swollen.
"I don't really know." Hector admitted. "I don't speak bearcat, I just taught it some basic ways to tell me important stuff, like if the moonstone gets stolen."
"Maybe I can help." Rapunzel reached into her bag and let Pascal climb onto her hand. She presented her best friend to Hector, who actually looked intrigued. "I might not speak bearcat, but I've figured out how to understand Pascal pretty well. He can translate for us."
"Oh, I've gotta see that." Hector made himself comfortable. Pascal hopped off of Rapunzel's hand and squeaked at the bearcat, who growled and whined. Pascal listened for a bit before looking back at Rapunzel.
Through some charade and color changing Rapunzel thought that she had a pretty good idea what had happened.
"Lance took the moonstone and Varian." Rapunzel said. Hector actually looked shocked.
"The guy that Varian called his brother?" Hector asked. "He's been with the kid since long before he even knew what the moonstone was. Why betray the kid now?"
The bearcat whimpered. It sounded upset. Pascal translated, and Rapunzel felt her heart ache. "Your friend thinks that Lance didn't really betray him, or at least not on purpose. He was trying to protect him."
Hector made an odd face. "Protect him from what? There's no danger here. At least, not for the kid."
"Lance was either protecting him from the moonstone, or from your bearcat." Rapunzel said, reporting what Pascal was translating. "I think that Varian tried to take the moonstone first, and your bearcat went a little too far to stop him, so Lance took the moonstone to save him."
Hector groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "Varian tried to take the moonstone? Why would he do something so stupid?"
The bearcat whined, and with Pascal's help Rapunzel figured out what it had said. "Varian was upset."
"About what?" Hector asked, which Rapunzel thought was an unnecessary question. She thought it was pretty obvious what Varian was upset about, and the bearcat actually confirmed it.
"Everything." Rapunzel said. "The fighting, Horace's betrayal." The bearcat growled, adding something new. Pascal did his best to translate. Rapunzel almost hoped that she understood him wrong, but she really didn't think she had. "Your bearcat says that Varian got really upset very quickly when he started talking about the moonstone. It says that Varian mentioned not being allowed near the moonstone, and a minute later he tried to take it."
Hector's face fell. He looked like he couldn't decide whether he was angry or upset. "I thought we were done with this?"
"With what?" Rapunzel asked.
"His whole inferiority complex thing." Hector said. "He's had issues with it since he was a kid. Varian would always feel like either he wasn't good enough, or we didn't think he was good enough, and he would start doing ridiculous, dangerous things to prove to us or himself that he was one of us."
Rapunzel could relate to feelings of inferiority. Gothel always tried to make her feel like she wasn't enough, and when Rapunzel had first started living with her parents she felt like an imposter, because she had no idea what she was doing. She could understand why Varian might have such problems, but something about how Hector said it really bothered her.
"Varian is a kid." Rapunzel said with a surprising amount of heat in her voice. "And of course he and Eugene feel like you guys don't think they're good enough. You guys have been training them to be mini warriors since they were little, and from what I've heard you've always expected them to be at your level when that wasn't at all possible." Rapunzel believed that children were capable of a lot more than many adults gave them credit for, but they were still just kids, and they shouldn't be expected to handle things that would be hard for any adult to deal with.
Hector scowled. "We don't expect the kids to do everything we do. The most dangerous tasks aren't given to them."
"Okay, first off, Eugene is not a kid, and you guys need to stop treating him like he is." Rapunzel crossed her arms. "Second, the most dangerous jobs you guys do are probably also the most important. You're not letting Varian do the important stuff, and you're surprised that he feels inferior."
Hector rolled his eyes. "You don't want us to involve Varian in dangerous stuff, but when we don't you get mad at us. What do you want from us?"
"What I want is for you guys to do better," Rapunzel said. "We all need to do better." Varian had gotten upset and walked off with Lance, and they were all so absorbed in their fighting that they hadn't even noticed he was gone, and then that whole mess with the moonstone had happened. None of that was okay.
Hector looked frustrated. "Quirin and Edmund have been saying the same thing for the past two years, but neither of them will say what they mean. How am I supposed to get better when I don't know what I'm doing?"
Rapunzel couldn't help but shrug. "I-I don't really know." She was a little sheepish. She knew that there was room for improvement, but that didn't necessarily mean that she knew just what that improvement should be. At least Quirin and Edmund recognized that they needed to do better. If anybody needed to work on it, it was Varian and Eugene's fathers. Although, if either of them truly thought that fighting with their family was how they should go about improving, they needed to have some words.
Hector pet his bearcat before getting to his feet "You'll be fine." It took Rapunzel a minute to realize that he was talking to the animal. "I've gotta tell my siblings what's going on. If Lance took the moonstone and Varian we need to be careful how we do this. Kidnapper and thief or not, Varian still sees him as a brother, so maybe getting him completely out of the picture isn't on the table."
Rapunzel felt a shiver go down her spine. She knew that the moonstone was important, but she really didn't like the thought of killing somebody off just for stealing the wrong thing. She didn't think that anybody deserved to lose their life.
Hector started to make his way out, but he paused and gave Rapunzel a look that she didn't understand. He smirked slightly before he steeled his expression again and looked at the captain. "I need to go after the others, but I'm not about to leave two intruders in the tree unsupervised. If I'm leaving, you're coming with me."
Rapunzel smiled. She still felt uneasy around Hector, but she appreciated his help. Maybe this really was actually about him not trusting them, but Rapunzel liked to think that smirk was the silent sharing of a secret.
Rapunzel didn't know if they were going to go right after Varian, or if they were going to find Edmund and Adira first, but it didn't really matter. Rapunzel just liked the thought that they would be doing something. It had to be better than just sitting around and waiting for things to get even worse.
Varian didn't want to talk. He didn't want to accept help. He just closed in on himself, and Horace was concerned. He didn't want Varian to be alone. He was here physically, now he just needed to drag the kid out mentally and emotionally too.
Varian had a fair amount of pride, and trying to undermine it would just make Varian double down. Convincing the kid to let his walls down would take a special kind of attention. Horace waited until Varian's anger had sizzled down to despair and loneliness. Horace gave Lance a warning look, just daring him to stop him, before riding closer to Varian. It wouldn't be a private conversation, but he would take what he could get.
"Hey, kid." Horace said quietly. "I'm sorry about lying to you. Really. The thing is, you've already had to deal with more than your fair share of disappointment, and I knew how much it would ruin you to be betrayed by someone else that you already trust. I thought it was better to risk what little trust you have in me than for you to lose whatever confidence you had in Lance."
Varian very pointedly didn't look at Lance, who was watching them out of the corner of his eye. "I'm not mad." Varian said quietly. "I feel like I should be, but I'm just so tired." Varian sighed. "Everything hurts."
"I wish I could take that pain away." Horace said. "But everything I do makes things worse."
"Yeah, but you're not the only one." Varian said. He wrapped his arms around himself. He was obviously upset. He was walking slowly. Horace had just assumed that Varian's trudging was because his leg was hurting him. Was part of Varian's reluctance because he was upset? Horace should have talked to him earlier, except he probably hadn't been ready to talk earlier.
"I'm always messing things up." Varian said quietly. "It's no wonder the Brotherhood doesn't trust me. I don't trust me."
Horace frowned. "Hang on, who says the Brotherhood doesn't trust you?"
Varian glanced towards Lance. "The moonstone is probably the most important thing that our people protect, and I'm never allowed to so much as look at it. The rest of you guard it, and the others have even trained with it just in case. If they trust me, why does it feel like they're protecting it from me?"
Horace sighed. Varian sounded extremely hurt. How long had this been bothering him? "They're not protecting it from you, they're protecting you from it." Horace said. "Even just being close to the moonstone for too long and it gets into your head."
Horace stared blankly ahead and his head pounded as he remembered the training he had done with his dad on his last birthday he'd had at home. His dad hadn't told anybody else, and Horace definitely hadn't mentioned it to Varian, but they'd done a little training with the moonstone itself. For the first time in his life Horace had wielded the moonstone, and just the memory of it made an uneasy feeling build up in his chest.
"When I was younger I thought that if somebody uses the moonstone then they get to control the powers of the moon." Horace said. "I couldn't have been more wrong. The moonstone isn't a way for you to harness the powers of the moon, it's a way for the moon to harness your powers."
Horace closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the horse reins. "You have to have strong will and solid determination while wielding the moonstone. If you falter or second guess yourself, the moon will sense that weakness and try to compensate for it. If you're not careful you can very easily become a puppet for the moon."
Varian made an alarmed sound. Horace opened his eyes and looked at him. Varian looked like he was going to be sick. Lance looked more than a little concerned himself. Horace wondered if he perhaps shouldn't have shared that information while Lance was holding the moonstone himself.
"If you're going to start doubting yourself, let go of the moonstone." Horace said sternly. If Lance lost himself he was just going to put all of them in danger. Horace thought that the only reason why Lance had been handling the moonstone fairly decently was because he had a set goal in mind and he was determined to do it. Lance's confidence was working in his favor.
"I'm fine." Lance said, and his voice didn't waver at all. "It just would have been nice to have a heads up."
"I'll keep that in mind next time you decide to steal a priceless artifact that can have a mind of its own." Horace said dryly. Varian snorted. Horace hadn't meant to be funny, but anything that amused Varian had to be a good thing. Lance laughed and Horace couldn't help but smile, somehow feeling amused even though this situation was anything but funny.
They walked quietly for a moment before Varian gave Horace a sheepish look. "C-can I ride with you?"
"By the moon, yes." Horace pulled the horse to a stop and held a hand out to help Varian lift himself onto the horse's back, just behind Horace. Varian scooted close to him, holding on tight for support. Horace couldn't help his rush of joy. Varian was trusting him, even if it was just for this small thing. It was better than nothing, and right now Horace would take what he could get.
"You good back there?" Horace asked.
"I'm fine." Varian said. He only sounded slightly uncomfortable. Horace took Varian at his word and encouraged the horse on. Lance, who had stopped and waited for them, watching them carefully, continued on with them. If Lance was jealous or upset that Varian had accepted help from Horace and still wouldn't talk to Lance himself, he didn't say a word about it. Lance kept his thoughts to himself as they rode on to the Dark Kingdom.
A/N: I know that the captain has been noticeably absent for most of this story. That's just me focusing so much on my story that the smaller details just fall to the side. I frequently do the same thing with Hector's animals and Ruddiger in my other stories.
At least I've come up with a reason that fits into the story as to why the captain hasn't been around, aside from just my lazy writing. I haven't written about the captain since just before the whole wand of Oblivium thing, and most of the chapters after that were from Varian or Eugene's point of view, and those two have been so focused in on themselves and isolated from the others that it makes sense that they wouldn't really notice the captain...at least, that's what I've tried to convince myself of.
I never really forgot about the captain (I've been beating myself up about not mentioning him for ten chapters or so), I just haven't mentioned him. And clearly I've been overthinking it.