Chapter Text
The difficult thing was finding a way to get into the palace without getting arrested first. It took a lot of placating, dodging, smooth talk, and a fair amount of running in between, but they managed. Max helped the most, there. For some reason, the guards that recognized him almost universally showed him more respect than they did their superiors. One impatient, determined whinny from him and any arrest attempts were put on hold for the moment.
What actually got them in, though, was Eugene staking his recapture - his life - on Rapunzel being the lost princess.
The conversation with the Captain was strained, to say the least. He was a stubborn, headstrong man, and a wary enough one to suspect the whole thing was a ruse. It was, of all things, the hair that convinced him. He’d seen it earlier when it was blonde, by the dam. Now that it was brown, well, “I can’t deny the resemblance. If nothing else, you’ve found an impressive look alike, Rider.”
Of course, his reluctance didn’t wane much - frankly, Varian suspected he was waiting for any excuse to throw them in the dungeons, Eugene most of all. Still, he allowed the investigation to proceed. They were not at first allowed to see the King and Queen. Nobody wanted to risk being wrong and igniting that grief in full all over again, especially right after her birthday. So they waited, for hours, for them to find someone who might be able to confirm it.
That person ended up being the top royal advisor; a far too serious, long-faced man named Nigel. Alongside a couple nursemaids and physicians, he was one of the few who’d seen the Lost Princess in person before she was lost. Not to mention, he knew the faces of their Majesties better than just about anyone.
When he walked in, he strode right up to Rapunzel and looked her in the eye with a sharpness befitting a hawk for approximately fifteen seconds before softening his expression. “What did you say your name was?”
“Rapunzel,” she answered.
The man raised an eyebrow and looked at Eugene and Varian. Eugene just shrugged. “I don’t think creativity was that woman’s strong suit.”
Nigel hummed, tapped a finger to his chin and backed a few steps away. He didn’t quite pace, but Varian - who was very familiar with needing to move to think - got the impression that he wanted to. “Of course,” he mused. “What did she look like? The one you claim to have rescued her from?”
“Well, I never got a good look at her,” Eugene admitted, scratching the back of his head. He looked to Rapunzel, but it was Varian who piped up next.
“She was a little less than a head taller than Rapunzel,” he rattled off, details filling his mind. “Pale skin. Really curly hair down to here,” he leveled a hand a little above the midpoint of his upper arm, “Black, mostly, but I swear it was more gray the second time I saw her, and it went white after Rapunzel’s hair was cut, I think. She had a pretty antiquated red dress - erm, fourteen hundreds, maybe? I don’t know, but it looked like the sort of thing you’d only see in old portraits or something - and a black cloak. All Coronan fashion, just very old Coronan fashion.”
“The second time?” Rapunzel asked, surprise in her eyes. “You’d seen her before?”
Varian’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Glancing at her sideways, he rubbed his neck and laughed nervously. “Right, I, uh, didn’t tell you about that, did I?”
“Perhaps you should,” Nigel pressed, alert to every word they said now.
So, Varian did. To the best of his ability - which was very well, if he said so himself - he explained his three encounters with the woman Rapunzel named Gothel. This was met with a mix of emotions. Curiosity, concern (from Eugene especially), a hint of suspicion (it was a look that had not left the Captain’s eye since they arrived) and no small amount of confusion all around.
“I don’t understand,” Rapunzel said, her eyebrows furrowed. “What would she want with you?”
“Yeah. I get that with Rapunzel, it was a whole thing to keep the magic healing and youth-restoring hair for herself,” Eugene puzzled, “But you’re not magic. I mean, weird blue hair stripe aside-” he flicked the lock in question teasingly- “You’re just an average every day kid genius.”
Varian preened at the compliment, but Rapunzel gave him an odd look.
“Wait, that’s natural?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s had it ever since he’s had hair,” Eugene affirmed. “I always assumed it was some latent side effect of his mom’s experiments.” He laughed fondly. “I tell you, I wouldn’t put it past that woman to have tested some bizarre potion or another on herself while she was expecting. She was almost as insane as Varian is when it came to alchemy.”
“All that aside,” Nigel looked up from some paper he’d pulled from his coat a while in to Varian’s story, “If what you’re saying is true, and that woman’s age was in flux enough that she could appear old one day and young the next, along with what would appear to be an attempted second count of kidnapping, then I’m inclined to believe your story.”
The Captain, a silent presence on the side ever since the advisor had arrived, stood in surprise at the comment. “You can’t be serious?”
“You saw the culprit yourself, Captain,” Nigel turned to the man. “You know as well as I do, perhaps better, that the boy’s description of the kidnapper matches up. This young woman bears a stark resemblance to the Queen, that cannot be ignored.”
“But- She was brought here by a thief! ” The Captain protested.
“A thief who risked his own arrest and revealed the identity of his younger brother whose very existence was yet unknown to us to do so. A thief who, reportedly, has worked with very few, and out of nowhere was sighted with this young lady, but then with the same blonde hair the princess was born with,” Nigel pointed out. “Not to mention, accompanied by your most trusted stallion. I am not normally one to rely on the judgment of a horse, but in addition to everything else, Captain?” He snapped the papers in his hand pointedly. “I am not merely persuaded. I’m as certain as I believe we can be.”
The Captain considered this for a moment, looking between the Advisor, the so-claimed Princess, and bane of his existence. Slowly, his reluctance melted away and he sighed. “Well,” he said, “I can’t deny the evidence if the King’s most trusted man himself says it’s true.” He met Nigel’s gaze. “Should we inform their Majesties?”
“Send a courier.” Nigel looked at Rapunzel - the found Princess - and her group and, for once, smiled. “I will bring them to a more appropriate meeting place.” The frown returned as his eyes caught on Varian’s torn off sleeve. “And would someone please get this boy a proper shirt?”
It was a nice balcony that Nigel selected. A private one at the back of the palace, overlooking the courtyard and the ocean beyond. One hidden away from the prying eyes of civilians or staff. Rapunzel, when they were left there, wandered to its very edge, staring out over the endless line of the horizon with wide eyes. Eugene had followed at her side, but kept the same respectable distance he’d maintained since they entered the palace. Varian drifted to her other side, hoisting himself up to sit on the stone railing there despite Eugene’s half-hearted protest.
From there, he could see her face well enough to know Rapunzel was nervous. She had her hands clenched together over her chest, and her mouth was pulled into a taught frown.
It was odd to see her with brown hair. Even after only a day, it felt wrong for her to be without a river of blonde cascading down her back. Still, in the evening light he swore there was a certain golden gleam about it when the sun caught it just right.
“Hey,” Eugene spoke up from her other side, catching on to her nerves too, “It’s going to be okay.” He took one of her hands in his and set them on the railing. “More than okay. I mean, you’re a princess! Who would have guessed?”
“I did,” Varian said.
Eugene rolled his eyes. “Teen geniuses aside, who could have guessed?” He shook his head. “In all seriousness. Rapunzel, I know we’ve only known each other for a couple days, and it’s going to be a big change for you and big changes mean a lot of adjustment, but I think you’re going to love it.” He squeezed her hand and smiled, a soft look that turned into his usual roguish smirk moments later. “I mean, picture this: Palace life! Bucketloads of staff waiting on you hand and foot, meals prepared by the best chefs in Corona, a whole kingdom at your fingertips!”
“And you’ll have parents,” Varian added, a gentler note to his voice than even he knew he could conjure. “Real ones, this time.”
Rapunzel hummed. “Yeah,” she nodded, though her voice was quiet and the tightness never left her face. “Yeah, it’ll be… good. This will be good.”
Eugene frowned, his brow pinching with concern. “Yeah,” he said with more certainty than his expression held, “It will be.”
Behind them, the doors opened with a heavy creak, and there stood the King and Queen of Corona, faces painted with disbelief. The King did a better job of masking it, but the way he froze, one hand still on the mahogany door, said enough.
Seconds passed. The Queen took the first step forward, carefully, hesitantly, as if one wrong step would dispel the miracle that brought back her daughter. She froze at the edge of the first stair.
Rapunzel closed about half of the distance before stopping and staring at these people who were supposed to be her parents. It was all too quickly very easy to believe, especially looking at the Queen. She had the same upturned button nose, the same round, welcoming face, the same soft eyes and now, the same brown hair. Just as Nigel said, a spitting image.
It was only when the Queen roused herself enough to descend onto the balcony proper that Rapunzel continued forward again. The King, perhaps emboldened by his wife’s approach, followed close behind.
Eugene and Varian, however, stayed at the balcony’s edge. They watched the tentative meeting of mother and daughter, watched nervous faces break into tearful smiles and watched as the three came together in the perfect picture of a family. Watched as they embraced and sank to the ground as if the weight of their joy was too much to maintain appearances through, and as the King and Queen clung to their daughter after eighteen long years of her absence.
Varian slipped off the railing and moved up beside Eugene, his own arms crossed as his brother put one around his shoulders. Varian leaned his head against him, chest filled with- something. It was a complicated emotion, one he couldn’t seem to put a name to.
He was happy, he thought, for Rapunzel finding her place in the world so soon after discovering it. A little jealous, maybe, that he and Eugene would never have their own secret blood ties to discover. They knew what happened to Varian’s mom and to their dad (or, knew enough, at least - there were only so many reasons for people to go missing and never return), so there wasn’t really any chance of it.
More so than jealous, Varian’s stomach churned with something like sadness. Even the family he’d had growing up was incomplete at the moment. He missed Lance. He missed Ruddiger. He missed long nights spent by the campfire, listening to his brothers tell tales of their epic heists until one of them got distracted by a raccoon stealing their food. He missed whistling along to tunes that wormed their way into his head and refused to leave until they invented a new one, always to Eugene’s chagrin. He missed pretending he hadn’t left the campsite or the rendezvous point after a long night spent following along from the shadows, sometimes certain they’d bought it, sometimes knowing the pine needles in his hair or mud on his boots gave him away. He even missed the lectures about his safety he’d get when he was found out, not that Eugene hadn’t been perfectly capable of that on his own. It was different when Lance wasn’t part of it.
Homesick, he figured. Watching the reunion, it left him feeling homesick.
Then, the Queen looked up at them and held out a hand. Eugene, with his free arm, took it as if for a handshake. Instead, she pulled him and, in turn, Varian down into the embrace.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and Varian felt his heart melt.
There, in the arms of his brother, Rapunzel, and these rare versions of the King and Queen, so grateful and so human, he had the strangest feeling that everything might actually be alright. Sure, there would be complications. There was definitely going to be a lot of adjustment ahead, and there were those he missed and longed to see again. Right now, none of that had to matter.
Here he was, in the last place and situation he could have ever expected to be in, and yet somehow, for once, he felt completely alright.
He could worry about everything that was still to come later. For now, he buried himself in the hug and smiled.