Chapter 4: The Varian Dilemma

As they were leading him through the corridors, Varian had all his attention turned to the imagined animal in his hands. He spoke to it and petted it, like it was a real pig. The Captain walked in front of them, pressing his lips to a thin line. Pete and Stan found his behavior just as disturbing, at the same time it was relieving that he was walking on his own for once.

"It's okay, little pig. We got away from His Mayonnaise!" Varian mumbled. "Just wait and you'll be as good as new."

The Captain rolled his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.

"Does he actually believe it is a pig?" Pete asked, looking at the messy scraps in Varian's hands.

"It IS a pig!" Varian spat, without looking at him, and Pete looked up at Stan, who only shrugged back."It's a pig. It's gonna be a beautiful pig when I'm done with it!" His voice went lower now, as he went back to nuzzling it, holding it close to his face like he whispered in its ear, although he made a fragile attempt to whisper. "We're gonna do wonderful, you and I. I'm gonna teach you how to read, I'll give you some nice clothes, and you'll be my assistant in my lab. Won't that be great?"

The Captain shook his head as he got more and more fed up with the boy's speech.

"And I'm gonna name you... Cassandra!"

Pete and Stan froze as the name was spoken, and looked at the Captain, and noticed that he had stopped, his whole body growing tense and he swirled around to face the boy. His jaw tightly bitten, he looked like he was close to explode as his face got more and more red. He reminded of a man who had been stung by a wasp and was struggling hard not to let out a cry of frustration and pain, and the two guards just waited for him to lash out his anger. Varian on the other hand, looked at the Captain with mischievous eyes and a sly smile, satisfied that he had managed to provoke him. The guards stood still, not daring to move.

But instead he closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath and let out a growl before he spoke. "Will you be able to handle him by yourself? I must... have a word with the King." His voice were more or less controlled, but the two guards knew very well that he really weren't able to be near Varian anymore than necessary and needed an excuse to leave.

"Sure, Captain. We can handle him." Stan replied.

"You can trust us, Sir!" Pete said.

"Good!" They stood a moment watching him leave. Varian too looked up from underneath his mop of hair, still grinning satisfied.

"There there, Cassandra. Captain Blather has gone now, don't you worry about him anymore." he whispered to the imagined pig in his hands. Pete and Stan turned away from the Captain as he disappeared and pushed Varian a little to make him walk again.

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"Have we lost him in his madness?" King Fredric said, his voice weak and sad. He sat quiet a moment, feeling lost. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to meet his wife's green eyes looking at him. "What am I doing wrong, Arianna? Why can't I get through to him?"

"Your effort is admirable, Fredric, but... I really don't know. If it has gone that far with him, I'm not sure if there is anything more we can do. I don't want to give up either, although at the moment, what we have tried is getting nowhere."

"I know, but we can't just give him up. I feel like I owe it to Quirin to at least give it a try." Fredric looked up, his look lost towards the ceiling of the pavilion. "We waited too long. If I had done something sooner... We have allowed him to go mad while we..."

"Fredric, the damage that was done had to be taken care of. People needed to be calmed down and assured the situation was under control. Plans had to be made for handling things while the black rocks are still around. And the preparation for Rapunzel's depart... took it's time." Arianna paused a little at the thought of her daughter. Then she spoke again. "Things had to go in order, you know that."

"I know, Arianna. But..." Fredricc closed his eyes, leting out a heavy sigh. "I promised Rapunzel..."

"He is a rebellious teenager, Sire!" Nigel said, holding his nose high. "I'm not the least surprised he would do what it takes to attack the royal family again. Like he did that first time with the Princess..."

"According to my daughter, that wasn't at all what happened, Nigel!"

The royal advisor stood still out of being spoken against, by the King himself, who's mood changed as suddenly as a glass breaks when hitting the ground.

"Rapunzel gave me a full description of that day's event before she left. He came to her and begged her for help to save his father, who was at the time about to be completely consumed by the amber that emerged from the black rocks. And as we all know, that day she was unable to do anything to help, despite her promise to do so. And the lad got desperate because he was most likely running out of time to save his father's life, and he therefore grabbed a hold on her clothes without thinking about either courtesy or manners." The King was steady when speaking, but there was a sting in his voice that made the advisor lowers his nose a few inches, as well as his head. "But she ensured me he didn't do anything to harm her being that day. And I see now I was a fool not to have that story you served me confirmed with her before we had everyone in Corona believe in a false rumor as you encouraged me to send out forces to capture him at any cost!"

"But Sire..."

"ENOUGH!"

The sudden outburst from the King put everyone at silence. Some birds that had been chirping nearby flew away, making allot of sound by flapping their wings to get away from the disturbance. The embarrassing silence that came right after was to touch and feel, and Fredric sighed and leaned back in his seat. Arianna looked at her husband, heavy by heart; then at Nigel, jaw dropped in shock over the King's frustration; and then she spotted the Captain reappearing in the doorway, apparently he must have heard the King's cry, because she saw on distance how worried he looked as he stoped a second.

"Please leave us, Nigel. I need to think." Fredric said in a horse whisper.

There was seldom Nigel remained silent, but now he did. If he dared not to speak or if he kept silent as a protest, Arianna could not tell, but the royal advisor never the less made a deep bow before he turned around and walked away, he passed the Captain of the guards without looking at him, but the Captain looked shortly at him when they passed eachother.

She failed to hear Nigel carefully whisper to the Captain before disappearing.

"Choose your words wisely, Captain. His Majesty is in a foul mood."

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It was a little bit to walk back to the dungeons, and on their way, they kept listening to Varian mumbling nurturing words to 'Cassandra'. They were almost arriving the door down when Varian made sentences out of his mumbling again.

"You're so beautiful, do you know that, Cassandra? Pretty... Just like Stan's wife. You look just like her."

Stan froze and widened his eyes before frowning. "Now wait a minute!" he said, tightening the grip of his arm and stopped, making him look at him, and Pete stopped as well, wondering what happened. "How dare you insult my wife like that."

"It wasn't I who said it." Varian said, remaining calm. "It was Pete who said it."

"What?" Stan's eyes were shooting daggers at his friend. "Have you..."

Pete's eyes widened as he panicked at the sight of his friend's look. "No I swear, Stan. I would never..."

"Oh yes, Pete would!" Varian said and looked up at Pete who looked like a question. "Remember when I gave you those delicious cookies of mine? You liked those, didn't you?"

"You mean those who made me and everyone say things that were just the truuuth...?" Pete stumbled, as he begun to recall that day. "Cause those were really delicious."

"I'm so glad you liked them." Varian said smirking before he continued. "And the first thing you said after eating them, were that Stan's wife looked like a pig." Varian kept going as he looked at him with half closed eyes and a sneaky smirk as he wagged his head a back and forth."A big... Fat... Pig! Ready for dinner!"

"Now this is..." Stan glared at the skinny guard, who were almost trembling by the sight of his insulted friend.

"N-n-n-no! No no, I didn't! I don't think at all, Stan!" Pete shook his head in panic as Stan's face grew as red as the Captain had been a moment ago. "Stan, you know I..."

"Oh you did. Everything you said that day was nothing but the truth, remember?" Varian kept it going.

"Pete! How could you?" Stan said harshly.

"But Stan, you know perfectly well..."

As the two guards kept arguing loudly, they failed to notice how Varian smirked underneath his messy hair. When they didn't watch him, he started to rub his gloved hands with the mayonnaise and butter mess he had made before he stuffed all the greased ham slices in the pocket of his apron; briefly reveling the little decorated silver container he had hidden between them.

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Arianna looked at her husband again, his hand covering his eyes like it would help him face reality. She took his hand in hers, giving it a light squeeze. "Maybe we should wait till we get a word from the scientists in Old Corona. Maybe if they find an answer, then..." She paused herself as she felt Fredric squeeze her hand back. Then he looked up and spotted the Captain as he approached and bowed. The King looked up and met his eyes.

"What do you think, Captain? I am running out of ideas of how to handle this."

"Sire?" the Captain of the guards stepped forward. "Since the situation with young Varian is a little... out of the ordinary, may I be bold enough to offer an... alternate solution?"

The King looked at him, letting the question hang a little before he sighed. "I am more than open to another solution, old friend."

"I fear the boy is too lost in his own world to realize his actual situation. But I believe I know of a way we can, how should I put it... make him understand how his situation really is."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" It was the Queen asking. The Captain had caught her curiosity even more than the King.

"You know my daughter Cassandra. I-I confess that it hasn't always been simple raising her, as she has most often preferred to act more like a boy than a lady. "

"No offence, Captain, I know you have done your best. But without a women in her life a role model, I find it easy to understand that she has looked up to you." Arianna said in the most sincere way she could.

"Anyhow..." the Captain cleared his throat. "When she reached the point of womanhood, I found it necessary to... take action. I feared for her reputation and realized that when normal demands and threats didn't work, I had to... give her good scare."

"Oh?" Arianna said silently. "Captain, what in the heaven's name do you mean?"

"I simply had to tell her that if she did not change her ways for the better, I would be forced to send her off to a convent so she would learn to behave. I even took her there once to show her how the life of a nun were, so she would see what would await her if she didn't start changing into becoming a real lady." The Captain paused. "I have never seen her get scared of either riding a horse in full speed without saddle, or fighting my best guards without armor, and recently I've seen her take the worst challenge without a hint of hesitation. But when we walked out of the convent that day, I could see she was terrified to her bones. It's the first time I've felt her shiver."

Arianna looked at him, not saying a word, but thinking of the tough as nails lady in waiting they had given Rapunzel. The one who had taken her out for a day off duties that night when her hair grew back. She wasn't sure of what to believe.

"I actually have the feeling that such a fate would be worse than anything for a scientist." The King replied. "But I'm not certain that would have been a good idea... considering how the monks would manage to handle..."

"I was... actually thinking of something else, Sire. I thought it would be... necessary to let the boy open his eyes to his actual condition. Like you said, Sire, under normal circumstances, Varian would have been sentenced to death, like traitors of the Kingdom should."

"I am aware of that, Captain." the King replied.

"But it seems like Varian isn't. So what if we..."

The King's eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he heard the Captain's idea.