Chapter 8
Portrait


There was 4 things on Varian's mind.
Cassandra.
The Sword.
Ham Sandwiches.

And finally, why the symbol seem so familiar to him.

Varian had tried all night last night and almost all day today trying to figure it out, but he was starting to give himself a headache so he quit thinking about it so hardly. He still thought about it, but not to the point he hurt himself accidentally.

Ruddiger was taking a nap beside Varian on the rooftop, Varian was kicking his feet gently off the side of it, watching the sky like he always did. He hadn't seen Cassandra in a long time, he wondered where she was and how she's been. Would she like his new, black sword?

Varian sighed and then pulled his legs up into a hug of the knees, he just wished he could spend more time with her without having to worry about getting arrested or recognized.


Rapunzel and Cassandra walked through the streets that seemed crowded today. Rapunzel was so excited to see everything, she didn't get out much and it showed, but just the same, she knew every single one of her subjects. Feldspar, the cobbler. Monty, the candy shop owner that didn't too much like her. Xavier, the odd legend teller and blacksmith. Stan and Pete, the royal guards.

"Alright Raps, we're just heading to pick up your new dress from the tailors and coming right back to the castle, okay-" Cassandra looked around, "Raps?!" She almost went into a panic.

Rapunzel was greeting some of the children by a fruit stall, she had ran off again.
Cassandra sighed, why did she have to have this job; WHY?!

It took all of Cassandra's willpower not to scream in frustration at the princess. "Raps." She said sternly, which alerted Rapunzel. "Oops, sorry Cass." Rapunzel frowned as the children skipped off and went about their morning. "It's fine, just don't do it again, okay?" Cassandra glared a bit.

Rapunzel nodded and followed Cassandra again.

Stan and Pete saluted her as Rapunzel walked by, and they also waved at Cassandra happily, but Cassandra gave them a growl instead which made them retract their waves. "Oh, Cass! Look at that hairpin! It's so colorful, I've got to go check it out!" Rapunzel then ran off.

"Raps!" Cassandra chased after her through the crowds of people.

Meanwhile, a raccoon, yes; Ruddiger, took sewing kits and pieces of fabric from the stalls to bring back to Varian for his new little project in attempts of impressing Cassandra, again; Ruddiger swore that Varian wasn't going to stop and he'd have to gather materials forever.

Ruddiger avoided people's feet and ran off into the alleyways, searching for Varian, who had told him to meet him in the alleyway near here. But Ruddiger couldn't find him, so he kept searching into the alleyways more, until he heard Varian wincing and shouting.

Ruddiger dropped off the materials by the corner and then ran into that direction, already snarling and chattering angrily at whatever was attacking or hurting Varian.

"Oh look! It's the raccoon again!" One of the kids pointed at Ruddiger. The other kids stopped abusing Varian to look at Ruddiger, then they all tried to grab a hold of him, so Ruddiger ran off panicking. Ruddiger climbed up onto the stacks of crates, trying to escape, and knocked some of the crates over, alarming the kids. Varian weakly sat up and wiped away some blood from his nose as he watched, the kids tried to catch Ruddiger, but Ruddiger was much faster than them.

Varian used this as an advantage and he grabbed his bag, and his backpack, put it back on and then tried climbing the unlevel bricks on the building next to him. Varian nearly fell one time and got a few scrapes, but he managed to get to an open window and crawl inside, and Ruddiger headed up to the window from the wall and crawled inside too.

Varian closed the window shut, which was difficult because of the fact the window had been opened for years without being touched by anything. "Phew. You made it just in-time, buddy... They didn't have the chance to take anything." Varian smiled, his nose scrunching up, albeit it; it was still numb from being hit so many times. Ruddiger chirped and nudged Varian.

"Did you get the materials I needed for Cassandra's tunic?" Varian asked.
Ruddiger nodded then pointed at the corner from one of the other windows.

"Ah. I see. We'll get that later then." Varian nodded and leaned back against the wall.

Varian looked around and noticed that the place seemed untouched for many years. "Huh, I wonder what this place used to be..." Varian stood up and limped over to check out the place. Ruddiger followed. The place looked like a workshop, or maybe an hideout; he couldn't quite tell.

He brushed his hands across the dust-covered tables, wiping away a ton of grey muck from the wood, he didn't find anything of interest, as it seemed everything worth something had been taken out a long time ago before. One thing did catch his eye though.

"What's this?" He picked up a photo off of the table and looked at it closely. It had a lot of dirt on it, but he managed to wipe off most of it. There was a man with stubble on his chin and black hair on the left of the picture, and on the right, was a orange-haired lady with a dress on.

He tried to clean the dirt off of the person in the middle, but it wasn't coming off. "Weird. Maybe a family lived here, I can't tell who else lived here though, because of the dirt." He mumbled.

Ruddiger jumped onto the table and looked at the picture.

Varian could only manage to see that whoever was there, perhaps a baby judging from the height, had black hair with a gentle, barely-noticeable streak of grey hair. "Hm." He put the photo in his bag and continued searching around the building. Ruddiger wasn't liking this too much.

"I wonder what happened?" He muttered quietly as he looked everywhere, the ceilings, the walls, the floors, the crates. Ruddiger shrugged and kept moving on. "We probably should head back outside, but I think we should come back to this place here again, Ruddiger." Varian said.

They then left, gathered the materials and Varian left to his rooftop to make the tunic.