Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Well, this has taken ages, but there you go! Varian's trial, and his speech especially, is incredibly difficult to write for me, and I want to get it right so much. I'm working hard on the few chapters we will be spending in the court room, because it has such a big role, not only in this story but also regarding the whole series. So many issues were never addressed when it came to Varian's treatment and some characters' responsibilities are just... ignored? So yeah, you can take this arc as an attempt to fix some of the show's flaws. Everyone in this story has made mistakes, and they all need to be held accountable for them, no matter who they are. After all, this is how we learn and grow, and that's what makes characters interesting.
Anyway, Chapter...100 ! Can you believe it? Because it's still hard for me to wrap my head around!
CHAPTER 100
If Arianna hadn't been sitting on her throne, she would have fainted and collapsed right there and then. All color drained from her face, she was staring, aghast. What was happening? Where was Varian going with this? Actually, where was the vulnerable, emotionally unstable child she had been taken care of for weeks? Although her motherly eyes didn't miss how his hands were shaking, she gazed at the sudden boldness with a mixture of apprehension and fascination.
Varian felt beads of sweat forming underneath his bangs, one of them already rolling down his temple. His throat, however, was terribly dry. His eyes locked on the audience in front of him, he started to enumerate the long list of his crimes. His voice was loud and clear, but could not completely hide the tremors that shook it.
"So… Treason. Kidnapping. Assault. Use of drugs against people's will. Attempted murder. You and I, Mr Adviser, are guilty of the same crimes."
Unable to control his nerves, Varian started to pace back and forth.
"In my case? Treason to the King. Assault on the Princess, her fiancé and her lady-in-waiting with the means of an automaton. Drugging the castle staff. Assault on the royal guards with a shape-changed raccoon. Kidnapping of the Queen. Attempted murder on her person and the Princess' lady-in-waiting. Attempted terrorism and attack on the Princess. Have I left anything out?"
"You could have mentioned gaslighting the Princess to convince her to help you steal the flower, and utter disrespect to the King", a deeper voice added. Ah, of course… Varian knew the King wouldn't be a man who would forget so easily his sassy and insolent "She's right, Dad", back in the lab...
But at least, old Fred was playing along. Cards on the table it would be, then.
"Fair enough," the teen nodded quickly, for fear of losing his assurance, before he turned back to Nigel, his cuffs clinging in the process.
"You claim that you have devoted your life to your King, yet you betrayed him when you decided to act behind his back to lash out at me. You committed the same actions than the ones you wanted to see me punished for."
For the first time Nigel's eyes looked uncertain. That child…that felon… actually had a point. By wanting to defend the respect of the law, he outraged it himself.
"As of today,", Varian went on, despite the uncomfortable pounding of his heart in his chest, "I know… I have understood….why I did all those things. And I will answer for them. It took a lot of time, a lot of suffering and a lot of thought. Also…" he paused and directed his blue eyes to the Queen, "…also a lot of love. Now I know who I am. My question is: do you, Mr Adviser?"
Nigel was surprised when he found he had to swallow hard before speaking.
"How dare you!", Nigel spat. "You should be throwing yourself at the feet of your king and implore his forgiveness!"
Varian took a deep breath, debating with himself whether he should go on. His line of defence was clear in his head, but there was one problem with it: it was a leap of faith. There was a point of no return.
It was time to take that leap.
A thin smile made its way across the teen's face. Whether it was from renewed confidence or an attempt to reassure himself, he couldn't say. He steeled himself before he turned to speak to the crowd again.
"I'll tell you then. I'll tell you who I am. Yes, I am the alchemist who almost overthrew the Kingdom. I am the scientist whose heart was as hard as the amber my father is encased in, and who didn't hesitate to threaten the lives of the King's loved ones."
Voices rumbled through the audience. Obviously, while everyone in Corona knew of the rumors about Varian being dangerous and recklessly attacking the Princess, the side of the story that told he was an orphaned child had been far less spread.
"My Dad… all I have ever wanted was to make him proud…. I thought that if I could prove myself, we would one day be close to each other… he would see me for who I am and wouldn't be ashamed of having me as a son. Well, now…. if he could see what's become of me… I'm not sure he would ever look at me in the eyes again."
Varian hung his head, as if not looking at anyone would make them go away.
"I know that what I did was horrible. There is no other word for it. And there is not one day going by without me thinking of what I've done. And regretting it beyond words."
Varian's head spun for a second and he wavered on his weak legs. Unsummoned tears sprang to his eyes, but it was too late to stop now. Spreading his legs just a little for balance, he dug his feet into the floor to steady himself.
"I… I knew only one thing back then. My father was gone, because of me… It….it should have been me, but he chose to sacrifice himself to save me….and…and…. I… I probably killed him…. So I didn't have a choice. I just couldn't rest until I found answers and fixed what I had done.
Varian was fighting back the tears with all he had, but they wanted to push their way out of his eyes.
"Help….never came…. Help I risked my life through the storm to get…. But I was left alone, with the guilt and the fear and the sleepless nights… no one ever…. ever came."
The huge room was entirely silent as Varian unfolded his story, letting an endless flow of tears roll down his cheeks, baring his heart and soul for everyone to hear and see. It was both excruciating and somehow… liberating.
"I used to look up to the Princess, her fiancé and her lady-in-waiting." Varian couldn't push himself to use his former friends' names. "But from the moment I was face to face with a golden tomb for a father, I realized I could only rely on myself, and no one else. And I was right, painfully so. Days, weeks and even months passed. They never came", he concluded in a whisper. He raised his shackled hands to quickly wipe his face and nose with his glove.
"If only… if only we had never started being friends…. Maybe….maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much…. Their absence… their betrayal. It drove me mad. I was fueled by anger. It didn't matter if I had to turn my back on everything my father taught me, on the last shreds of what might have made him proud of me. He raised me in the utmost respect of others and especially the royal family, and I… I did everything I could to destroy them. I just wanted them to suffer as much as I had."
Varian's jaw visibly tensed, as feelings of rage came back to the surface. He had been so unfairly treated, ignored one moment, vilified the next, and eventually rejected by all, he was still mad at the world for that somehow. But the worst part was that hurting other people would not have made him feel better, he knew that now. It would not have brought his father back. And, hadn't the Princess stopped him in the nick of time, he probably would have KILLED people! That very thought scared him more than he could say. He fought inwardly as he felt he was crushed under the weight of the deep hatred he still had for himself.
"But I was a prisoner of that anger, just as much as my father was a prisoner within the amber. He couldn't reach me, I couldn't reach him, and I didn't see how my actions were only driving me further away from him."
"Your Majesty! Why are we still listening to the boy?" Nigel interrupted. "What does it even have to do with me? I thought I was the one on trial right now! I demand justice!"
Varian faced Nigel again.
"We are getting there, trust me," Varian replied promptly. "Over time, I came to believe I truly was what I became. That I was dangerous. After all, I was called that even before I deliberately tried to hurt people, before I kidnapped the Queen, even before I took the flower. I had done nothing wrong at that point, but I found out after the storm that people were angry at me. Leaving the house to get some food meant risking to be pelted with rotten vegetables or rocks." His fists clenched in front of him. "A rumor had spread. And you just admitted being the one who spread it. You see, there is one difference between you and me, Mr Adviser."
"You had a dedicated Queen to pamper you?" Nigel snarled.
"No. Maybe. Not the point. You were there, the day of the storm. You know what happened, I was desperate, and I… I never wanted to hurt her… well not back then. All I needed was help. And yet, before I knew it, I was hitting the ground face first in the snow, the cold wind whistling in my ears and numbing my hands and feet…." He closed his eyes as his mind was already taking him back to that awful moment. "And yet you chose to hawk a different story, and everyone believed you. How could they not? I was an outcast already in my own village, and I dared lay a finger on the delicate Princess. It didn't take much for people to choose their side. Did you know, Mr Adviser, that slander is the best way to get rid of people? As far as I am concerned, you tried to kill me way before I was arrested and brought here. It started on that day."
As if unable to hold Nigel's gaze any longer, Varian scrunched his eyes and turned away, sadness, anger and bitterness threatening to overwhelm him all at once. No, please, no, let me finish this, he repeated in his head. I have to see this through.
When his eyes opened again, they were staring at nothing as he went on speaking, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. It was time to go after the bigger game, but he could barely breathe at that point.
Varian turned on his heels and took a simple step forward toward the King of Corona.
"And that… brings us to you, your Majesty."
A little bit of history, because I'm reading this book about Louis XVI"s and Marie-Antoinette's children, how they lived through the Revolution, aged 10 and 4. They saw the people invade the palace, yell threats and obscenities to their parents and were imprisoned in a medieval dungeon, only to be separated from their parents and aunt. Only one member of the family will come out of it alive...
Anyway, it is said that Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI's wife once told her lady-in-waiting : "On a la calomnie qui vaut beaucoup mieux pour tuer les gens ; et c'est par elle qu'on me fera périr.", which more or less means: "Calumny is much more efficient to kill people. And by it I shall fall." I wanted to include this tought in Varian's speech, especially because it did play a role in Varian's downfall.
