Chapter Text
It all started because someone woke up that morning and took a big swig of his overprotective-older-brother juice, forcing Varian to stay behind while he went on his own grand adventure yet again. Apparently, fourteen years of age wasn’t enough to be breaking into castles and stealing crowns, even under the wings of three other experienced thieves. It didn’t matter that he was smart and skilled enough to have invented and perfected multiple complex alchemical formulas by the time he was ten, reverse-engineered and modified a double-bolt crossbow for long distance goo bomb firing at eleven, and at twelve broken into and out of the third most heavily fortified palace of the modern age without any help (though Flynn did not and would hopefully never know about that last one). Varian was simply “too young to help” and should just “stay here and relax while Flynn took care of it.”
Varian kicked a rock. Because that was all he was good for, apparently.
The rock skittered a few feet across the loose soil before toppling into the creek with a quiet splash. Disappointed with this outcome as he found himself to be with most recent events, he let his head thump back against the rotting wood of the old fishing shack Flynn left him at. Hidden in the forest away from the nearest towns to make sure he was safe.
Honestly. He was fourteen, he could handle himself! At the very least, he should be allowed to explore a market, something to keep himself occupied while Flynn worked. Though Varian would prefer being able to just help on the mission. It wasn’t like he was completely inexperienced - he’d been on plenty more dangerous ones before! He may not have been invited then either, but that was irrelevant. Varian couldn’t understand why he should have to sit this one out.
Well. Okay, that was a lie. He knew, logically, that Flynn wanted to keep him safe, keep him out of sight, and chances were, they weren’t getting off capital grounds without a guard seeing them. And if one guard saw them, the whole squadron would be after them, and Varian didn’t have enough goo bombs for that. On a certain level, Varian understood that. Didn’t like it, but he got it. What he didn’t understand was why Flynn was so concerned about him in particular being seen, even though he knew for a fact that Flynn had been on his fifteenth wanted poster by Varian’s age.
They’d had that conversation before, though. Something about Varian having a future that didn’t involve a life of crime and wanting a better life for him, as if that was a possibility. It wasn’t an argument he particularly wanted to rehash, though; not when Lance wasn’t there to maybe-hopefully take his side.
So, here he was instead. Waiting. Listening to the once-a-river, now-a-creek trickle by and trying to ignore the overwhelming stench of wood rot and long-dead fish that hung over the shack.
This was the worst day ever, he decided.
Tired of sitting in one place, Varian elected instead to pace around the clearing for what was probably the seventieth time. Next time, he was going to talk Flynn into letting him wander around town or steal a book from the local library, anything to ward off this mind-numbing boredom. Sure, he had his journal, but he couldn’t be so flippant about how he used its pages, especially not when he barely had twenty or so left. Maybe they could try and find a new one after this. All the more reason for Flynn to hurry up and get back here already.
Seriously, how long did it take to steal one little crown? Wasn’t Flynn supposed to be back by ten? It looked like noon. Certainly felt like noon, the sun beating down on him with a vendetta as it rudely ignored all the lovely would-be shade of the surrounding forest. And it was only going to get worse, the later Flynn was. So he’d better get there soon, or Varian was going to burn up into a bored little crisp.
…What if he’s been captured?
He’d better not have gotten captured. Varian was running low on his good acid, and Flynn still wasn’t as good as Lance at helping him get ingredients for more. He didn’t want to waste what was left on Flynn being an idiot and getting himself captured and forcing Varian to break him out of a jail that Varian didn’t even have a map of.
He’d better not have gotten captured, because stealing the crown is treason and treason is not a crime you want to be caught for under any circumstances ever-
It was fine. It was okay. It was totally fine, because Flynn definitely didn’t get captured. He just, had to take a different route to the rendezvous, for some reason. The long route. He was just a little late. He’d be here soon enough. It was fine. It was okay. It was totally, absolutely, completely fine.
A twig snapped and Varian jumped out of his skin. With how fast he turned around, he might have gotten whiplash. He had half a mind that it was Flynn, finally returned and living proof that all was, in fact, fine, and half a mind that it was a guard come to prove the opposite.
Neither answer was what he found, leaving him with the strangest mixture of dread, relief and confusion he’d felt in a while. Before him stood a woman, maybe in her early to mid thirties or so, with a luxurious mane of jet black curls tucked beneath the hood of a fine black cloak. She had a mature look to her, sharp features and sharper eyes. She held herself with the grace of a queen, as if she was perfectly at home in the middle of Corona’s least populated forest.
Her eyes locked with his, and an icy chill ran down his spine, causing him to take a half step backwards. He wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps it was to do with the absolute indifference written across her features or those steel-cold eyes and the way that, as they caught on some uncertain aspect of his face, her own expression shifted to something like intrigue, then softened before he could be sure of what he’d seen. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it, nor did he like the way she preceded her words with a curious hum, like he was the one who was out of place.
“Now, what would a young boy like you be doing all the way out here alone?” She asked, taking a slow step towards him. Her manner resembled one of concern, but there was something… off, about it. He couldn’t place what. Perhaps he was just paranoid, it may have only been the little irrational voice which sometimes liked to tell him things were wrong when they weren’t, but Lance had always said a thief should learn to trust his gut.
“Oh, just, uh- out exploring the forest.” Varian’s eyes darted away when he told the lie, and he bit back a frown. He needed to get better at that; Lance could weave a lie as easily as he breathed, a talent Varian only wished ran in his blood at times like this. He shrugged and knocked on the rotting wood of the fishing shack in an attempt to regain his lost nonchalance. “I found this old place the other day. It’s, uh, really old, isn’t it?”
The woman frowned and Varian hid a wince. “It’s really old?” Stupid Varian, that’s the best you can come up with?
“Where are your parents, child?” the woman asked with narrowed eyes. “Haven’t they taught you better than to wander around where you don’t belong?” She strode a bit closer, watching his face carefully, “The deep forest is hardly any place for children, you know.”
“I don’t, uh-” shoot, no, bad brain, couldn’t say that- “I mean, I’m not,” he grasped for a solid response that wouldn’t result in receiving a lecture from a stranger. “My- my brother said he’d be out here, somewhere. I was looking for him, is all.”
Her expression turned to one of pity. “Oh, you poor dear. You’re an orphan, aren’t you?” She placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently as if to comfort him, though the gesture and the words only made him tense up completely. “Don’t tell me you’ve been seeking refuge in an old shack on your own.”
“I-I-I’m, not,” He stammered, pulling away from her touch. “I mean, I-I am really just waiting for my brother here, I’m- He’s just, running late, is all. He’ll be here soon.”
She hummed again, contemplative. “And he’s just left you all the way out here in the meantime, no one to watch over you? What was he thinking? No responsible guardian would leave a child in the wilderness to fend for themself.”
Stepping further away from her, Varian crossed his arms defensively. He didn’t like how easily she’d read him already. He didn’t even know what exactly tipped her off. Regardless of what it was, it didn’t give her the right to start criticizing Flynn. “I’m not a child…”
There was not a single ounce of regard for his discomfort in her eyes as she followed in his retreat, laughing a light and melodic laugh. Even that had a practiced elegance to it. “Oh, teenagers. You love to think you’re all grown up, and don’t even realize how much growing you have left to do. Come along, now.” She placed a hand on his back between his shoulder blades, deceptively gentle. “Why don’t we go find that brother of yours together, shall we?”
The unease he’d been feeling since she’d first laid eyes on him was quickly shifting into panic. He began to protest, “W-Wait, but-”
“No, no, it’s quite alright,” she interrupted him, guiding him away from the fishing shack. “I simply wouldn’t be able to go on with myself if I knew I’d left a poor, lost child all alone when I could have helped. Now what was your name, dear?”
“Uh-”
Before either could say anything further, a sudden commotion startled them both: the heavy thud of hooves hitting the earth accompanied by a loud whinny. A brilliant white stallion appeared from behind an oddly shaped rock that had just come into view only a few yards away.
There was a moment where all three held themselves in tension. The woman, startled by the horse’s sudden appearance; the horse, for some reason poised like it was ready for a fight; and Varian, unsettled by the Coronan seal that marked it as a guard horse. They all deflated at the same time.
“Ugh,” The woman scoffed, “A palace horse.”
For some reason, the horse exuded a general air of disappointment.
Varian was mostly just glad that there was no-
“Where’s your rider?” The woman spoke again, suddenly breathless, a note of terror in her voice. She spun around to the direction from which she’d come. “Rapunzel?” Now panicked, she tore off into the forest, leaving a very confused Varian alone in the company of a similarly puzzled horse.
Varian blinked, his eyebrows knitting together of their own accord. He kicked at the dirt and sighed. “So much for not leaving the ‘poor, lost child’ alone in the forest…” He started on his way back to the fishing shack when he felt the snout of one decidedly strange guard horse sticking into his side. “Wha- hey!”
He tried to stumble away from the horse, but the thing just kept sniffing at him relentlessly. It almost reminded him of when Ruddiger would search through his clothing for apples if he smelled one on him, except Varian didn’t have any apples right now and instead of his favorite raccoon (who was off who-knows-where with Lance) it was a strangely determined horse with the royal crest emblazoned on its tack.
“Get- off me!” He tried to push the horse away, and at first, it seemed to work. The horse nickered, stared at him for a second, then started furiously trying to grab his sleeve in its mouth. He managed to pull out of the way and jumped backwards, but the horse was relentless. It chased him when he ran and kept biting at his sleeves, his gloves, his hair, though never quite seemed to go for his actual arms or hands. Varian just kept dodging out of the way, even tried to sprint off, but quickly found that it was not, in fact, a good idea to try and outrun a horse.
And that is how Varian ended up being dragged around the forest by the collar of his shirt like some kind of stray kitten by a horse.
It was Flynn’s fault, he was sure.
—————————
The kid wasn’t at the rendezvous when they got there.
Flynn rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Why wasn’t he here? He was supposed to wait here. He was usually pretty good about sticking it out unless something chased him out. Or, at least, he was good about following from a distance and then getting to where he was supposed to be before Flynn did and pretending he’d been there the whole time. The place didn’t look compromised, so where in Corona was Varian?
He’s probably just at the backup. He thought it got too late, or heard too much rustling and got spooked, something like that. He’s safe. He has to be safe.
That kid was going to be the death of him, one of these days. All this stress wasn’t good for his health. Or his skin, for that matter.
“...Are you sure this is the right place?” the tower girl asked. “Maybe you just got turned around.”
“No, no. I’m sure this is the right old, rotten fishing shack in the middle of nowhere.” Flynn sighed. He started to search the immediate area again, just to make sure there weren’t any signs of a struggle, signs that Varian was in trouble, signs that he was just napping nearby or-
Hoofprints. He found hoofprints.
Flynn was trying very hard not to scream.
He was also very much failing in this regard.
That horse just became his mortal enemy.
—————————
The boy smelled like the thief. He could very well be an accomplice, or if he wasn’t, the two were at least herd mates. Obviously, Maximus couldn’t just leave a lead like that sitting in the middle of the forest.
Besides, the boy was barely more than a foal. Foals should not be out in the forest on their own. And if the boy was not an accomplice, but Maximus was right in thinking he was a herd mate, then he would require some form of non-thief guardianship, as was the standard for minors according to the official Coronan book of law. Maximus would not be able to make sure the foal was put in the care of a proper, law-abiding herd if he just left him alone in the forest. So, Maximus did the responsible thing and took him with him.
The boy protested this, clearly oblivious to how unacceptable his current herd situation (and potential occupation) was. But Maximus was not the best horse because he gave up on things. Maximus was the best horse because he knew what he was doing, and he did not stop until all was right with the world and an apple was in his mouth. So Maximus ignored the foal’s protestations and escape attempts and continued his search. The boy would calm down in time, and this way, he would not be alone in the forest or part of the thief’s herd. Two criminals with one hoof.
This is why Maximus was the best horse.
Now, to find that thief…