Eugene rubbed his hands together as he paced around. He'd never been so nervous to talk to Rapunzel. He didn't even know what he was so nervous about. He was pretty sure that she would like his dad and the rest of the Brotherhood. She already knew that Varian was around, so there shouldn't be all that much issue on that end. Maybe Rapunzel would be a little nervous around Andrew at first, but Eugene believed that she would be quick to offer her forgiveness.
As for the whole slavery issue, that wasn't even something to worry about. There wasn't a single doubt in Eugene's mind that Rapunzel would hate the very thought of slavery happening in her kingdom, no matter who was responsible for it.
Eugene wasn't nervous about any individual thing, and yet at the same time he was incredibly anxious about all of it pushed together.
"Man, you gotta calm down." Lance said. He handed Eugene a bowl of hot and hearty soup. Eugene reluctantly accepted it and made himself comfortable on a tree stump.
"I know, I know." Eugene said. "How's everybody settling in?" They had all agreed that Eugene would ease Rapunzel into this, and while he did that everybody else would go to Quirin's home and get some sleep, proper treatment for any injuries they might have, and a decent meal.
"They're great." Lance said. "Varian seems happy to be back in his own lab, though he still doesn't want to talk to Saporians."
Eugene sighed. They needed to be a united force here. Saporians, Brotherhood, and even Coronans. If they couldn't work together how were they supposed to take on the forces that be? Still, he couldn't blame the kid. Varian had been through a lot in this past year, and he was still just a kid. He seemed pretty good at adjusting to things, and now that he was back with Quirin he could have that extra support, but he still needed time.
"No sign of my dad or Hector yet?" Eugene asked.
"Not yet." Lance didn't sound nearly as concerned as Eugene felt. "I'm sure they're fine."
Eugene wasn't as confident. He'd heard from Quirin how strong and capable they were, but they were still just two people. They had who knows how many Coronans that would want to throw them right back into slavery as soon as they found out who they were and where they came from. This just wasn't the time for anybody to be separated from the others.
Yes, Eugene was away from the others, but nobody in Corona would even consider that he was once a slave. They knew him. They trusted him. Eugene was probably in the safest position here, with Lance in a close second, considering he had no mark identifying him as a slave.
Eugene ate his dinner quietly. A few minutes later he heard someone call out his name. Someone whose voice he would recognize anywhere. Despite the circumstances, Eugene felt his spirits lift. He may be learning to embrace the shadows of his heritage, but he would always love his beautiful Sunshine.
"Eugene?" Rapunzel walked past the trees. Eugene shoved his bowl into Lance's hands, glad that his friend caught it.
"Sunshine." Eugene came to greet her, gathering her into her arms. He held her close, wanting to never let go again. Rapunzel giggled and held onto him. "Oh, I missed you."
"I missed you too." Eugene said. "You have no idea what I've had to deal with lately."
"You're right, I don't." Rapunzel said in a tone that was half teasing and half frustrated. "You said you'd finally talk to me."
"I will, I will." Eugene said. He just wanted a minute to enjoy her company. "You said you were bringing your mom?"
"Oh, she's coming." Rapunzel looked over her shoulder. "She's with our new friends. I just ran ahead because I couldn't wait to see you."
Eugene's eyes widened. "New friends?" Was Rapunzel bringing strangers along with her? Before Eugene could have the time to get properly concerned he heard multiple people approaching and talking to each other. Eugene relaxed when he heard not just Arianna's voice, but two others that he'd been wanting to hear all night.
"Dad. Hector." Eugene looked past Rapunzel to see the two of them and Arianna stroll easily into the wooded glade. "Do you guys have any idea how long I've been worried about you? Drew was getting ready to send out a search party."
Hector scoffed. "You expect me to believe the royal pain would care about where we were?"
Edmund nudged Hector. "I thought I was the royal pain."
Hector snorted and nudged Edmund right back. "With all due respect, your esteemed majesty, you're the biggest royal pain in the butt I've ever met."
"Majesty?" Arianna frowned slightly at Edmund. Eugene groaned. This was not at all how he had expected to tell Rapunzel that he was of royal blood.
Edmund gave her a small bow. "Apologies, your highness, I didn't properly introduce myself."
"It's not really your fault." Hector muttered. "You've spent the past twenty five years being torn down just for acknowledging who you were."
"Who are you?" Rapunzel asked curiously.
"Edmund Noch'ov, guardian of the moonstone and king of the Dark Kingdom." Edmund said.
"The Dark Kingdom?" Arianna looked intrigued in a way that made her look so much like Rapunzel. "I've never heard of it before."
"It's very far from here." Edmund said. Eugene realized that he actually had no idea where exactly the Dark Kingdom was. "Our people have been separated, but against all odds we have survived."
While Arianna was looking at Edmund, Rapunzel only had eyes for Eugene. She looked excited. "Your dad's a king. So I guess you're a prince?"
"Trust me, it was news for me too." Eugene said. "I'm still trying to get used to the idea.
"You make a far better prince than you give yourself credit for." Edmund said. Our people already look up to you."
"Our people consist of maybe ten people." Eugene said. He was including Lady Arina and her family. "And two of them are literal children." Varian and Micah may not be young children, but they definitely weren't adults.
"Those are just the people you have met." Edmund said.
"There are a ton more." Hector said. "Each of them is just as loyal to the moon as the last."
Rapunzel and Arianna looked confused, but neither of them asked about the moon or moonstone. Eugene was relieved about this. They had a lot of things they needed to talk about, and even though the moonstone was on that list, it definitely wasn't the top priority.
Eugene had thought a lot about how to start this conversation. The solution he'd come up with was far from perfect, but it was something, and it would let him know just how much Rapunzel knew and where she stood.
"I told you I would give you answers." Eugene said to Rapunzel. "And I will, but first I have a question for you." He showed her the back of his hand. He'd shown Rapunzel the mark before, but it wasn't something they'd talked a lot about. "Do you know what this means?"
"Your mark?" Rapunzel took Eugene's hand and rubbed her hand across the mark. "I just know that you've had it since you were a kid."
Arianna looked at Eugene's hand over Rapunzel's shoulder. Her eyes widened in horror and she took Eugene's hand from her daughter. "Who did this to you?" Arianna sounded horrified and furious. Eugene had the feeling that while Rapunzel was in the dark, Arianna wasn't nearly as oblivious.
"The one who was literally responsible won't be a problem ever again." Hector rubbed his own hand. He showed off his own mark, and Edmund did the same. "I made sure of it."
"You know what this brand means?" Edmund gave Arianna a careful look.
"Well, I don't know for sure, but I saw a lot of things in my youth, not all of them good." Arianna said stiffly. "I don't think that there is ever a good reason to brand a person like they were a piece of property, but especially not to do such a thing to a child."
Rapunzel was starting to look a little panicked. "What does the mark mean?"
"It's a slave mark." Eugene said.
"Slave?" Rapunzel looked horrified and faint. "You…your family…"
"I don't remember it at all." Eugene said to try to comfort Rapunzel. "I was only five when Quirin snuck me out."
"Quirin?" Rapunzel and Arianna had identical looks of confusion and determination on their faces. "Are you saying Quirin was-"
"He's my brother in all but blood." Edmund said. "He was given the chance to earn his freedom, and I insisted he took it."
"We thought Quirin was out of this life." Hector crossed his arms. "And then Varian got dragged into it."
Rapunzel's breath shuddered. Arianna closed her eyes and lowered her head. Eugene felt a little bad for dropping so much on them so quickly, but they needed to know.
"Please don't tell me that Varian is a s-slave." Rapunzel said. Her tone was shut off and as close to distant and unemotional as Rapunzel could get. Eugene hated to hear Rapunzel like this.
"Not anymore." Eugene said. "We took over the compound they were at."
Rapunzel nodded, but she still looked too stunned to be relieved. "How could this happen? I thought Varian was in the dungeons. He was supposed to be taken care of. Dad was supposed to help him."
"Help?" Hector growled. "Oh, I would love to see that man's idea of helping."
"Is there a gap in the dungeon security?" Rapunzel asked. "How could slavers have gotten past the guards and gotten Varian out without anybody noticing?"
Hector gave Rapunzel a look of disbelief. Lance shifted uncomfortably. Eugene just gave Rapunzel a sad look. She would never assume the worst of her friends in Corona. Of course it was easier for her to search and reach for ridiculous explanations that felt better than the most logical thing.
Arianna looked pained. She moved to stand in front of Rapunzel and put her hands on her daughter's face, holding it gently. "Rapunzel, darling, I don't think Varian was snuck past the guards."
"B-but how else-?" Rapunzel said desperately. She looked like she didn't even want to think of an alternative. "I don't understand."
Arianna sighed. "Do you remember what I told you about the first time I met Quirin?"
"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" Rapunzel asked. Eugene's chest was starting to hurt. He knew what was happening. Rapunzel wasn't dumb. She was more than capable of putting together these pieces without it being explicitly spelled out for her. Eugene didn't know the details of how Arianna met Quirin, but if King Frederick was involved he had the feeling that it hadn't been anything good.
It wasn't bad enough for Ariana to see the truth of her husband, but it was another piece in the puzzle, and after everything they'd talked about she was starting to put the pieces together and see the bigger picture.
Rapunzel didn't have nearly as many pieces as Ariana did, but she was also really good at puzzles. For her to not see this situation for what it really was Eugene felt like Rapunzel was keeping some of her pieces upside down and refusing to look at them, because she caught a glimpse of a not so pretty picture and she didn't want to see the details.
"Rapunzel, Varian wasn't snuck out." Eugene said. "I saw the transfer papers for myself. He was sent to the compound."
"That's not possible." Rapunzel insisted. "The captain is the only one that can write up transfer papers, and they have to be approved by my dad."
There were tears falling from Arianna's eyes now, but she was trying to be strong for Rapunzel's sake. "I know it's hard to understand, and I definitely don't like the thought of it, but-"
"What? Mom!" Rapunzel pulled away from her mother and looked at her in betrayal. "You can't seriously think that dad has anything to do with this."
"I'm sorry, but what's wrong with you?" Hector asked. He sounded so close to losing his temper, and Eugene was wondering what had taken him so long. Eugene gave him a warning look, silently begging him to back off, but Hector completely ignored both him and Edmund's attempt to pull him back.
"You find out that there's slavery going on right under your noise, and your first thought is that your father, the king, is just as much of an idiot as you are and that he doesn't know a thing? Hector growled. "You know, I used to know someone like you. The second she got bad news, she decided to ignore it in favor of a comfortable and convenient lie."
Hector stalked towards Rapunzel. "You want to know what happened? She buried her head, convinced Edmund to do the same, and we missed our chance to escape from your people when they came to enslave us."
"That's not true!" Rapunzel snapped, fire in her eyes.
"Oh?" Hector raised an eyebrow at her. "So just because you're a naïve princess that's living in her own little world you think you know more about something that happened to me before you were even born than I do?"
Rapunzel looked seconds away from breaking. "I don't…I'm not…" Rapunzel shook her head. "No. You don't know my dad the way I do. He wouldn't be involved in this. He wouldn't." Rapunzel took a few steps back. "I need to talk to him. I need to hear his side of things."
"Rapunzel." Eugene reached out to her, but she just shook her head and wrapped her arms protectively across her chest.
"I'm sorry." Rapunzel said as she began crying. "I can't…I can't." She began to walk away. Eugene reached out for her, but Arianna grabbed his arm and gently pulled him back.
"She just needs time." Arianna said quietly. She rubbed Eugene's arms and pulled him into a firm hug. He couldn't help but lean into her hold. "You need to understand. Rapunzel has learned once before that her parent wasn't who she thought they were. Nobody would want to go through that, let alone twice."
Eugene knew that, and he understood, but it still hurt
Edmund came up to Eugene and put a steady hand on his shoulder, grounding him. They just stood there for a long moment before Eugene sheepishly pulled away from Arianna. She had just found out that her husband was a tyrant, and yet she was the one comforting him.
"Are you okay?" Eugene asked Arianna. She took a deep breath.
"Not at all." Arianna said. "I don't want to believe it, but I can't just ignore the fact that people are hurting and my husband has been responsible for so much pain." She wasn't crying anymore, but her eyes still held nothing but hurt. "He's a kind man to those that he cares about, but for as long as I've known him he has had the tendency of ignoring the fact that even people that he doesn't like have feelings and can feel pain."
Arianna straightened her back and wiped her face of any remaining traces of tears. "Your people haven't deserved this. Nobody does, and I'm sorry that I've been blind to the suffering happening in my kingdom. If you'll be willing to give me a chance, I would like to do anything it takes to make things right."
This was not the Coronan royal family help that Eugene had expected, but it was far better than nothing. He was already missing Rapunzel's presence, and Eugene wished that this didn't have to be a wedge between them, but he couldn't worry about their relationship right now. This was bigger than just him. His family. His people. All of the other people who were forced into a life of slavery. Eugene had a responsibility to make sure they were okay.
"We'll take any help we can get." Eugene said. He forced a smile on his face. "Are you ready to meet up with the others? Varian's anxious to apologize to you."
"I think I should be the one to apologize to him." Arianna said. She was still hurt, but she didn't look at all scared or nervous about seeing Varian and some strangers who probably wouldn't be happy with anybody in the royal family. "Please, lead the way."
Eugene started to make his way back to Quirin's place. Lance was right at his side, just like always, there to offer support. Eugene didn't know what he would do without him. Arianna walked behind them, while Edmund and Hector talked to each other in hushed and tense tones in the rear. Eugene hoped that they weren't fighting. The unity between all of them would be their greatest strength. Without it, they were powerless and the battle would be lost before it had even started.
When they got to the old castle in Old Corona Eugene was about to lead the way inside, but his dad came up next to him, looking like he had something to say. From the look on his face, Eugene knew that it was going to be a serious, and maybe not so fun conversation.
"I'll catch up with you guys in a bit." Eugene gestured for Arianna to go in. "Lance'll keep an eye on you." As she and Lance went inside Eugene faced his dad. "What's going on?"
"Hector needs to talk to you." Edmund said. Eugene looked past his dad to see Hector, who seemed to be looking around for a potential threat.
"Uh, yeah, sure." Eugene said. He didn't know why Hector didn't just ask him himself, or why his dad looked so worried.
"I just ask that you hear him out." Edmund said. "At least consider what he has to say. You don't have to agree with everything he has to say. The moon only knows that I don't. But he's the moon's chosen for a reason."
Eugene was starting to think that he knew what Hector wanted to say. He already didn't like it, but he could at least listen. "I'll do my best." Eugene said. His dad nodded and went inside. Eugene took a deep breath and went to join Hector.
"Hey," Eugene said.
"Hey." Hector looked a little awkward. "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."
Eugene pushed aside the pain at the thought of Rapunzel. "She'll come around." Eugene said with more confidence than he was actually feeling. "Thanks though." Eugene knew that Hector didn't really like Rapunzel. It must be hard to be sincerely empathetic when somebody was upset about somebody that you didn't particularly like.
"I know you had your heart set on taking a diplomatic approach." Hector said quietly. "And clearly you still have hopes for the princess, but we need to have a plan in mind for the worst case scenario."
There it was. "I don't want to use the moonstone." Eugene said. It was an overwhelming, awe-inspiring power that he didn't understand. He'd seen just a little hint of the power, and he didn't want to have anything to do with it. He didn't trust himself to be able to control that kind of power.
"I'm not asking you to use it." Hector said. "I know that's a lot to ask. You grew up in Corona. You know these people. You still see this place as your home."
"So what are you saying?" Eugene asked.
"If it comes to it, and we don't have any other choice, I can use the moonstone." Hector said. "I won't do more than is absolutely necessary. I'll show as much restraint as you ask me to."
Eugene didn't understand. He thought that if Hector wanted to use the moonstone it would be to completely destroy Corona. Why would he volunteer to hold back and follow Eugene's example? What would be the point of Hector using the moonstone if he was just going to do it the way that Eugene might if he could bring himself to?
"Why would you do that?" Eugene asked.
"Bearing the moon's power is a heavy burden." Hector said. "In a way, you have to become the moon's hands and let go of yourself. I spent years learning how to do just that, and it still hurts. I wouldn't wish that pain on anybody. I'm not trying to take the moon's power from you, but if you don't want to handle that power yourself, then I can take that burden from you, if you want me to."
Eugene blinked. It was hard to wrap his mind around this. "This isn't about punishing Corona. This is about helping me."
"You're my prince." Eugene said. "My place is to follow you and your father, not to try to take the lead. That's a load I wouldn't be able to bear. The best I can do is make your burden lighter if I can."
"I appreciate the offer." Eugene said sincerely. He still had the moonstone on him. "Look, I'll hold onto the moonstone for now, but if it comes down to it I know who to hand it off to."
Hector looked relieved and honored. "You only have to say the word."
Eugene sighed. "I know." Somehow knowing that it would be that easy to pass off the responsibility felt just as terrifying as wielding the moonstone himself. Eugene would have to think carefully about this. "You think you can tell me just what the moonstone is capable of?" Whether Eugene used the moonstone or asked Hector to take it, he still needed to be wise about this. He didn't want to do anything that he didn't completely intend to do.
"I would be more than happy to do so." Hector said. He actually sounded eager.
"Well, Lance made some food earlier." Eugene said. He doubted that Hector and his dad had eaten anything today. "Why don't we go inside, get some food, and get you off your feet."
Hector followed Eugene inside, and just that small act made the younger man feel both grateful and overwhelmed. Whether he liked it or not, he had people looking up to him. Eugene needed to pick up the reins and at least help lead. If he didn't they would all be lost.
It was overwhelming, but in a way it also felt nice because Eugene knew that while people were counting on him, they were also there for him to count on as well. Eugene may have grown up as a lonely orphan, but he had a family now, and he didn't plan on letting any of them go easily.