Chapter 22: Varian's memory
Here's another chapter for those who'd like it. I apologize to those who have to wait for my other stories to finish, both that I have been updating lately have a rather important turn, and I want the next chapters to be all perfect before I post them. I do it with this too of course, just right not it was easier writing this.
Did people had fun watching the grand double episode from Tangled this weekend? Let's just admit it; Jeremy Jordan/Varian knocked us over - again! I try to imagine how I can combine my story with the show's ending season, I have to confess, certain things took me by surprise already in ending of season 2. So how to do this... It's a little while till I come that far with this story though. In the meantime, let's go back to our teens!
As his master pondered over what to do to help the poor girl on the edge of tears, Ruddiger too sensed the young girl's sudden sadness. The raccoon had realized the girl could be counted as a friend, both from the situation and because he had felt his master's cent on her, and the critter had quickly come to the conclusion that he simply liked her. Therefore it troubled him to see her this sad. So he crawled off Varian's lap and headed over to Karen and nudged his head towards her arm as he crooned softly.
Karen looked up and smiled at him, and wiped her eyes and nose before beginning to stroke his furry back. "Ruddiger huh?" she gave a chuckle as she lifted him up to her lap and scratched him on his belly. "Now, you're definitely not Caterpillar."
Varian laughed as well, but were mostly relieved to see her smile again, and grateful for his friend to take action. "Nope! He sure ain't. All wrong color and... everything."
"I love his tail. It's so soft and fluffy." Karen said and let her hand gently slide across the critters thick furry tail. "How did you end up with him as a pet?" she said and nuzzled her nose on his soft head.
"I caught him in a trap I made at home to keep critters away from our food storage, and even though dad told me to take him outside, I... I just couldn't. But I regularly have to put up traps to keep him from eating up our apples. He's all hopeless when it comes to apples." Varian looked at him as he let the girl scratch his belly. "But I don't consider him a pet really. He's actually my best friend. Don't you feel that way about Caterpillar too?"
"Of course I do. Caterpillar is the only friend I have here at the Castle." She shrugged. "It's funny. It's like when you work at the castle, other children seem to be a little... afraid of you."
"What? How?" Varian asked curious and pulled his knees further up to his body.
"Oh, I don't know... Maybe they think I'm being snobbish because I work here. They expect a certain perfection here, and other kids just don't always understand that. I... I am some kind of a perfectionist myself, and...not everyone are that." She sighed heavily, still with her hand on Ruddiger, who had curled up into a ball on her lap and soon fell into a doze by the cuddling. "I would sometimes give anything for someone at my own age."
Varian felt how her words touched something inside him. "Hm... I know that one. Other kids seem to be avoiding me too. But I think that's mostly because I'm... weird." Varian looked away. Normally he never talked about it, and all of a sudden he felt a little empty inside, and he wrapped his arms around himself and looked away. "Hm... I guess they're right."
"What do you mean?" Karen asked with questioning eyes.
"Well... People take me for..." He smiled embarrassing as he led a hand nervously to the back of his head. "Don't laugh now, but... they think I'm a magician." He giggled and looked away. "A wizard."
Karen looked with wide eyes at him, then stifled a chuckle with a hand and smirked behind it. "Yeah right! I can sooo see you with a pointy hat and a staff."
"Ah-ha?!" he replied giggling. "Especially since I'm working with science, which is the quite opposite of magic, really! My whole village thinks that..." He suddenly stopped himself as a thought struck him, and he bit him bottom lip again before he spoke again. "Speaking of... Lars said that my village was all abandoned!" He grabbed both sides of his head. "Oh, I sure hope it wasn't the hot water tanks that did it. I would never forgive myself if it turned out that..."
"Hot water what?" Karen arched an eyebrow.
Varian woke a moment from his disturbed monologue and saw her confused look. He tried to explain to her his grand idea of surprising his village with hot, running water to all the village by the use of science and alchemy. Little did he know that his grand surprise project had blown to pieces half a year earlier.
Karen sat speechless with her mouth open while he spoke, before she blinked in a mix of confusion and amazement. "How in the world were you gonna do that? You need to warm up water with firewood, and I don't think that would be very good in an underground tunnel."
"With alchemy! I would use a compound that would create a chemical reaction which would keep the tanks warm. There would be no need of firewood at all." the boy explained eagerly, and the girl's interest in his work made him forget his own troubles for a while.
"Wow..." she blinked as he was done explaining at last. "Sounds like you've put allot of work into this."
"I have, but I... Eh... Guess I can't tell if it was worth it now." Varian said and carefully leaned back on the bed. "I suuure hope it wasn't my fault that people had to leave my village..."
"I don't know anything about any machine... stuff, but I think it's more likely that it's the black rocks's fault that your village was abandoned."
"What?!" Varian blinked and looked at her again. "Black... Black rocks?"
"It's actually a problem that has been all over the Kingdom lately. Large, sharp, pointy black rocks that had made their way through the kingdom and caused quite allot of damage. I dare bet that's the reason, cause I've heard they have destroyed people's homes and crops and quite much else. It's also the reason why..." she was about to mention that Princess Rapunzel had to leave to solve the mystery of these rocks, but she never got that far, as Varian interrupted her.
"So it doesn't have to be my fault?"
"Nope!" Karen shook her head. "I believe you can calm down at that part."
"Pheeew..." Varian leaned his head back again. That's good. What a relief. I was actually hoping to present the idea at the science expo, but... " he interrupted himself again and sat up again as he became thoughtful. Then he suddenly looked at her again. "Wait... What day did you say you had seen me here again?"
"It was the science expo actually!" she replied, carefully stroking Ruddiger's fur to avoid waking him up.
"Really? You mean, I really took part in that?" his blue eyes widened and looked like they were gonna pop out of his head. "Oh, what a drag I don't remember that! What was I presenting?"
"How am I suppose to know? I was too much cooped up with chores to even go at the expo. Besides, I saw you here, inside the castle corridors." she said, pointing towards the floor. "Like I said earlier, I saw you helping Cassandra with HER chores." Losing her smile as she spoke the last words between bitten teeth, she had trouble hiding her obvious dislike of the subject.
"I was?" He wrinkled his eyebrows and led a finger up to his lips as he thought. "Yes, you did mention that name at the kitchen. But... I don't recall anyone with that name."
"Are you sure?" Karen said. "Cause I saw you talking, and you even said you were friends."
"Eh..." Varian chuckled slightly insecure. "No offence, but that's another thing I find a little hard to believe, cause mostly, girls at my age, they sort of..." he looked away rather embarrassed and gave the nervous laugh again while his eyes flicked. "Ignore me. No surprise, really..."
"Well, how old are you then?" Karen asked.
"Fo...fourteen..." he said, rather insecurely, suddenly flicking his eyes.
"Well, I am thirteen, and Cassandra is ten years older than me." she said with a smirk. "So she's definitely not your age. And... no offence, but... it could be that she tricked you to do it for her. Believe me, it's not the first time that's happened." She frowned and looked away.
"Doesn't actually sound like a the nicest person." he replied, arching an eyebrow. "Who is she? You seem to know her pretty well."
"If I know her, it's not by choice. She's Princess Rapunzel's lady-in-waiting. And she doesn't even like it. That is so unfair! I would give anything to be in that position!" Karen said and frowned even more. "Although she had this idea of becoming a guard one day. Her father is the Captain of the guards."
"Wow... How did I of all people stumble into a lady-in-waiting? And to Princess Rapunzel of all the world!" Varian got stars in his eyes for a moment before he blinked and spoke again. "She must be kind of important to be in that position."
"She likes to think she is." the girl said, looking away with small eyes.
"What does she looks like? Describe her so me, and maybe I'll recall her."
"Okay." Karen thought a moment before she spoke. "She is about a head taller than you, I guess, rather pale with black, short wavy hair and grey eyes. And she's always having a sarcastic smile on her face. Or a frown. One could say she' kind of pretty, but that depends... Anyway... Whenever she's with the Princess, she wears what ladies-in-waiting wears; a bright blue and white dress and a white headdress with a veil covering her hair."
"Hm... I don't think I recall anyone with such description..." Varian looked up in the air as he rubbed his chin with his fingers. "Or that kind of outfit..."
"Then... can you recall ever seeing her without the dress then?" she said, tilted her head to one side.
"WITHOUT THE DRESS!?" Varian cried out as his blue eyes threatened to pop right out of his head again and his face turned bright red as he stumbled. "Are you saying that...? I-I-I would never...! WHAT?!"
Karen couldn't help but break into laughter when she saw his panicked expression and wide eyes. "No no no..." she covered her face with both hands, trying in vain to hide how amusing she thought this was. "She... she... she wears..." she struggled to gather herself and gasped several times. "She sometimes... dress up as a boy..." she giggled and gasped over eachother, unable to stop laughing. Ruddiger, who had woken up by Varian's cry, almost rolled of Karen's lap by her laughing, and blinked confused over what was going on, not really understanding what was so funny.
"Oh!" Varian sat back again, realizing how foolish he must have looked like and laughed himself. After a minute of laughing, the two teens wiped their eyes and finally got their breath under control, but Varian didn't stop blushing.
"Thank goodness. I bet my dad would reeeally have like that." he giggled and stared at the roof.
Karen stifled a last chuckle with her hand before giving him small eyes and a sneaky smile. "You should be more afraid of HER father. The Captain isn't someone you mess with."
"I'll keep that in mind." he smiled foolishly. "So I was... helping this Cassandra... Here, at the castle?" he pointed a finger down on the bed, indicating that he meant here.
"U-huh." Karen nodded.
"And the science expo has been... when?"
"Long time ago."
"So..." he bit his bottom lip again, afraid to ask the next question, but his curiosity won and he drew his breath before he dropped the bomb. "What... month is it... really?"
"Beginning of may." she replied, but immediately regretted being so quick about her answer when she saw his reaction.
Varian's blushing face took it's time to turn to normal after they stopped laughing, but now all color faded from his face. He drew his breath a couple of times and swallowed hard. "So... that's why he drew the curtains..." he whispered. "He didn't want me to see that..."he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with both hands. "This is absurd. How is this even possible?" He gave a loud gasp at sudden and covered his mouth. "Beginning of may? But that means..."
"Means... what?"
Varian's only reply to this was trying to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. He begun to look insecure and started biting his bottom lip again. "I'm missing... a whole half year... of my memory!" He looked up at the roof with lost eyes. "How is that even possible?"
Sensing his master's frustrations again, Ruddiger headed over to Varian and sat beside him, patting his arm gently to comfort him. Without looking at him, Varian led an arm around him clenched him to his side. Becoming aware of his presence again, Varian looked down at his furry friend. "Do you know what happened?"
Ruddiger replied by looking away.
Karen sat up on her knees in the bed and looked at him. "Hey, let's try to figure it out. What's the last thing you can recall? Think now! Try really hard!"
He sat back and took a deep breath, let it out slowly and cleared his throat. "Okay, let's see... I think, one of the things I can recall, was... I was down in the grottoes where I did some modifications on the water tanks." he raised his head and smiled at her. "I don't think I would have remembered that if we hadn't talked about it."
"Let's do some more talking then." she smiled. "Tell me what you did down there."
"Alright!" Varian said and got eager. "Okay, I went down in the grottoes, got up again, put on my protection suit, I was planning to try out something, and then I got disturbed when Ruddiger got..." he stopped and sat staring out in front of him.
"What? Ruddiger got what?" Karen tried to keep him going.
"T-trap-pped in my... Trapped in..."
The next thing that happened gave Karen yet another scare.
I decided that it would be normal to make it beginning of may since, it seems like Corona is a Germany like country and therefore winter isn't that long, and summer is even longer. And, it was autumn when Rapunzel met Varian, with some trees growing orange and apples on the trees. And since season 1 stretches through 6 months, I found it best that Rapunzel might have her birthday in, let's say it's in April. And now she's been away for a month and a week, making it May for our hero to 'wake up' in.
And... I don't know if anyone agrees with me, but I remember in 'Challange of the Brave', we saw Cassandra doing laundry, and the three maids, among them the young, yet unnamed girl, came and threw more into the water, and there I thought she looked a little taller there than in other scenes, and I liked the thought that she was just a little younger than Varian. For all we know, she could be a little short for her age. She looks like she has grown too a little in season 3, becoming a little taller, just like Red and Angry. That's a funny detail no one has noticed yet.
