Therapy, anyone?
Sorry, this chapter was supposed to go up yesterday. School and work means I don't get home until very late and then I have to do homework, so it was almost midnight before I remembered.
Trigger warnings: mentions of EXTREME violent injuries, self-deprecation, nightmare
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"Teach me to fight."
Hector looked up from where he was skinning the deer he'd killed. "What?"
"Teach me to fight." Varian set his book down. Hector had insisted on taking care of everything that night due to Varian's injuries, meaning he hadn't been allowed to tend to the fire or get water or anything. Of course, Varian's injuries were the reason his request was probably ill-timed. "I want to learn to fight the way you did today."
"Kid, that kind of combat takes years."
"Yeah, and you said you started as a kid. Will you teach me?"
The warrior looked at him skeptically, but Varian could see the light in his eyes and knew he had piqued his interest. The kid had always been good at analyzing people, and he knew there was no way Hector would be able to resist.
Sure enough, he answered, "'Kay. Why not? After you get better."
"Yes! Thank you."
He nodded. "We'll get you a staff in a bit. That's where you need to start."
"Got it." He nodded eagerly.
Hector raised an eyebrow. "I mean it. You don't try anything until I say so. You need to rest still."
"Yes sir." A sharp breeze blew through the woods, sending the child snuggling further into his cloak and hugging Ruddiger close to him. Hector didn't seem bothered in the least by the cool air. He continued cleaning the animal, and Varian returned to his book. He didn't need to pass out at the sight if he was going to convince Hector he was up to fighting.
It had only been a few hours since the rescue, and Varian wasn't sure how to handle the situation. Half his mind still screamed at him not to let his guard down. It was only a waiting game until Hector decided he was no good. The other part of him craved to trust Hector's words from earlier and to stop worrying. He would not leave. He loved Varian.
He waited with bated breath for Hector to tell him it had all been an elaborate trick and to throw him back to the soldiers. But it didn't happen. The warrior had simply packed up their campsite and moved the party on to the next stopping point. In a show of trust, Varian had chosen to ride on Riki with Hector rather than with Kiki, even when Hector had assured Varian the bearcat was well enough to carry him.
Before leaving, Varian had gone back to the alchemy shop and spoken to the very concerned proprietor. The man had bought back the supplies and wished Varian a speedy recovery. Varian had tried to give the money back to Hector, but the warrior insisted he keep it since it was supposed to have been his present. Varian wasn't sure if he would ever get over his aversion to alchemy, but leaving the shop had still ached. He longed for that hole, one of many in his heart, to be filled; the absence killed him, but the thought of embracing it once more terrified him.
The one hole that had no way to be filled, however, was the absence of his father.
"Uncle Hector?" he whispered.
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"How do you get over losing someone?"
Hector placed his knife down and stared with unfocused eyes off into the distance. "You don't," he finally answered. "I don't think anyone ever truly does. It hurts less as time goes on, but you never get over it. There's always a part of you that holds on to whatever's left and won't let you go on."
"What do you do about it?"
The warrior looked over at him. "Go on anyways."
"What?"
He sighed. "When the Brotherhood split up, I didn't know what to do. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. I tried to ignore it by applying myself that much harder to guarding the moonstone. It was my way of coping. But when I went to Old Corona and saw Quirin's body... well, that was one of the worst moments of my life. I honestly thought that would break me. That's when I started asking questions. I wanted to find out what happened so I could get closure. That led me to you, and then I had a whole new problem to worry about. Crap! Not that you're a problem; just... I was so busy trying to protect you it helped me get out of my own head. I moved on because I had to. It still hurts, and if I stopped to think about it, I'd probably do something stupid. But I had a reason to move on. Someone to take responsibility for." He allowed a small smile to creep onto his face. "Saving you saved me."
Varian tilted his head. He truthfully had had no idea Hector had felt that way. "Then is it wrong to grieve?"
The warrior raised his eyebrows. "Of course not! It's natural to grieve. You're supposed to. You need to. We need to. There's a balance between grieving and moving on. You can't forget the past and the people who meant so much to you, and you shouldn't. But you shouldn't let that loss take everything else away from you, including the future. Hold on to the memories, but don't try to relive the past."
Varian pulled his knees up to his chest. "I thought I could get him back," he whispered. "I thought maybe he was still alive. That if I could try hard enough, I could save him. Part of me still hopes that's true, but I couldn't take it if I was wrong. I can't have that hope."
Hector didn't respond. He finished cleaning the deer and prepared to cook sections of it over the fire. After a lengthy pause, he asked, "Hey, kid, can I ask you a question? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"Sure."
"It's about what you said earlier. About the princess."
At the words, Varian drew into himself. His shoulders hunched, and he wrapped his arms around his knees.
Hector winced. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget it."
"No, it's... it's fine." He forced himself to relax. "I'm assuming you want me to explain what I said about her abandoning me."
Hector's guilty look was answer enough.
Varian took a deep breath. This was a leap of faith. This was explaining everything he had withheld from the one person who deserved to know. "She came to me asking about her hair. Then we started investigating the black rocks. I wanted to help. I wanted to do something instead of just sitting back helplessly like—like I thought my dad was doing. I suppose he knew more than he let on, though."
Hector scoffed playfully. "Yeah, he never said anything unless he had to. That was always annoying. Had to drag information out of him."
"Yeah. Anyway, I started investigating, and she promised to help me. She said I wouldn't be on my own. I trusted her... But yeah, when my dad told me to stop messing with the rocks, I didn't listen. I kept experimenting. Then that... that one experiment went wrong, and he saw what happened and pushed me out of the way, but he got stuck, and I went to the palace for help, but there was a blizzard—"
"You went to the palace in a blizzard?"
"Yeah. And came back in it. It was a state of emergency there, and she couldn't help, and then I got thrown out by the guards—"
"WhAT!"
"Not the point. I came back, and Dad was... he was encased. I tried to break the amber, but nothing worked, and when I tried to go back for help, I found out they accused me of attacking the princess and I couldn't get to the castle and no one wanted to help and I had to go back home—"
"Kid, slow down. You're going to hyperventilate."
"Sorry." He reigned in his frantic breathing. "I waited around for over a month after that, trying to experiment on the amber, but nothing worked. A week after the blizzard, the masked men—I found out later it was the royal guards, sent by the king—showed up and tore up the house and interrogated me, looking for Dad's graphtyc with part of a scroll in it. I'd already found it, so I hid it when they weren't looking. They left me alone then, but they stormed in every few days to trash the place and ask questions. I suppose they didn't want me talking about the scroll to anyone. And they wouldn't let me leave. I couldn't evacuate with the rest of the village. After a month... I kinda snapped. I lost it. Lost my mind. Got a letter out thanks to Ruddiger, convinced the princess to come find the graphtyc so she could be a distraction, snuck out, and stole the Sundrop flower. But it was useless, and the princess hated me for that, so I..." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I kidnapped the queen to use as bait to force the princess to come to me. I wanted to use her hair, since it's unbreakable, to try to break the amber, but that didn't work either, I failed, and I—I tried to kill the queen and Cassandra. I fought the entire royal guard. That's when she used the rocks. Stopped me. I got arrested and—" he bit his lip. "Well, you know the rest."
Hector was staring open-mouthed. Varian suddenly realized his precarious situation. He had spilled the dark truth about his past. For all Hector's declarations that he didn't care about what Varian had done, now that he knew the truth, that was bound to change.
That thought hurt. He had tried to protect himself and failed. He had allowed himself, against his better judgment, to open up to the warrior. Now the man would see his mistake and turn Varian back in. And Varian would have to suffer the pain that came from exposing his heart only to have it stabbed.
"So let me get this straight," Hector rasped. "The princess asked you to investigate... you were trying to help people... you lost your dad, got held under house arrest for a month for knowing too much, stole a useless flower, got let down and abandoned by the very girl who promised you wouldn't be alone, and when you finally had enough and fought back, they arrested and tortured you. Did I miss anything? Oh, right, the part where you got falsely accused."
"What?" Varian had expected him to be mad, yell, accuse him of taking advantage of his kindness, force him to leave after all. He hadn't expected this. "I—I mean, yeah, she abandoned me, but it's not like I deserved her help. She had better things to do."
"Yeah, yeah, just—just give me a second, huh?" Hector stood and walked away from the campsite into the nearby woods. After about ten seconds, Varian heard a bloodcurdling scream, accompanied by what sounded like fists against the trunk of a tree, followed by a metallic schinck and the crash of the tree falling. Then Hector reappeared, running his hands through his hair. "No. 'Kay? Just no. There's no excuse. I don't care if she had 'better things to do.' A month? A month wrongfully imprisoned and abandoned after she asked you to help! And she never showed up!" Hector knelt down in front of Varian and pointed. "Listen to me, okay? You did not deserve that. You deserved to get help, and the fact that you didn't is on her. She left you to take the fall for what she asked you to do. And I don't ever want to hear you say you didn't deserve help ever again, 'kay?"
Varian blinked in surprise. "I—she had a kingdom to worry about! There was a blizzard."
"And after that? After that, when the guards came and put you under house arrest?" His yellow eyes were practically shooting fire.
Varian didn't answer.
"No. Bullcrap. Varian, you are worth more than that, okay? You're not just an asset. She had no right to ask you for help and refuse you when you needed her. I need you to see you're worth more than that!"
Tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away. "You... you don't hate me?"
Hector sighed. "No. No, and I'll tell you as many times as I have to. I don't hate you. I can't. I hear what you said about what you did, and I see a scared kid lashing out at the people who hurt him, 'kay? I don't hate you for that. I hurt for you. I hurt for what you went through. For what you felt you had to do to be heard. It never should have happened."
"I—I'm a traitor!" Repeating the same arguments over and over again was getting exhausting, but he didn't deserve the warmth and compassion in his uncle's voice. "You can't tell me that's okay!"
"It's not, and I won't. But you know that without me having to tell you. You've made that abundantly clear, trust me. I'm going to tell you what you still don't seem to understand. You never should have had to go through that. Any of it. 'Kay?"
The words rang in his mind. You're worth more than that. It never should have happened. You never should have had to go through any of that. And oh, how he wanted to believe them! But his logical mind fled back to every move he had made against the royal family, against the people of Corona, against his father. He thought of the months spent in prison, being told he was worthless, that he deserved what they did to him, that he murdered his dad.
And strangely enough, it was that last point that made him see.
After everything they told him, everything they forced him to admit under torture, that was the one thing he had never accepted.
Traitor? Undoubtedly. Worthless? Without question. His dad's killer? Never. Even when they forced him to drink that vile compound, forced him to say things that he didn't mean, he had held that truth in his heart. It was his lifeline.
And now it pulled him free of the murky waters of doubt and hate.
He had done wrong.
And so had they.
He looked up at Hector, new understanding giving him a strength he hadn't felt in forever. "'Kay."
O‴O‴O‴
Hector watched the soft rising and falling of Varian's chest as he slept, his raccoon snoozing beside him. The child had a peacefulness about him he hadn't even had after his decision to stay. This would be a long process, Hector knew, but he was prepared. He would give Varian the assurance he needed, as often as he needed it.
It helped that Varian was rather unproblematic. Sure, he did try to run away, and on multiple occasions Hector got involved in a fight over him, but he never had to fight with him on anything other than Varian's self-worth. He was polite and helpful, even during the entirety of last week when he wouldn't talk.
They had settled into a sort of routine over the last few days, even before his capture. They traveled during the day, stopping around sunset to make camp. They washed in the cold creeks and streams they found on the way. Hector did the hunting and heavy lifting. Varian tended to the fire and kept an eye on things while Hector was gone. The animals jumped in, too, taking turns keeping watch over their disaster-prone humans.
At night, they reapplied the healing balms to Varian's injuries. The boy's broken arm allowed for only limited movement, so Hector had to help. Fortunately, Varian was more accepting of touch, now.
This night, however, coming right on the heels of the guards' attacks, Varian had been tense and skittish at every touch. Hector could see him trying not to be, trying to calm himself. The good news was that the wounds were healing nicely and would probably be fine in a few days. The bad news was that most, if not all, of them would leave vicious scars.
Burning rage filled him at the thought of what his kid had been through. How had it come to this? How had he been left to take the fall for something the princess asked him to do? She had recruited him. She had asked him to help with the rocks. When everything fell apart, she left, avoiding all consequences of her actions and leaving an orphaned child to pay the price. She had left him to be beaten and scarred and abused.
And when Hector met her, he would make her pay.
A soft gasp drew his attention. He looked over to Varian, whose face was contorted in pain—or, memories of pain. Ruddiger sat upright as Varian started twisting and jerking. Nearby, the bearcats looked over from their sleeping position of being tangled around each other as if a single mass. Artemis, sitting on Kiki's back, flapped her wings indignantly.
Hector knelt beside the boy. "Varian?"
His breathing had quickened. He gave a pained yelp and quickly bit his lip.
The warrior grimaced. He needed to wake the kid up, but that could hurt him. Staying asleep could hurt him, though, as he was now thrashing violently against unseen hands.
"Varian!" Hector reached out and shook his shoulders. "Wake up, kiddo. You're safe. It's okay."
Sure enough, Varian shrank into a ball at the contact. His right arm came up to protect his face. Hector gritted his teeth and shook him more aggressively. "Varian, kid, you're going to be okay. I need you to wake up."
Varian's eyes blinked open in surprise, and he sat up with a cry of pain. His right arm dropped to wrap around his bruised ribs. He trembled in fear and stared off into space with wide eyes.
"Kid?" Hector spoke softly, not wanting to scare him. "You okay?"
He shuddered and drew his knees up to his chest. "I'm fine."
"Do you want to talk about it? I mean, you don't have to. That's fine. Sorry; forget I said anything."
"No, no, it's okay." Varian looked up at him, still breathing heavily. "I want to. I want to. Do—do you think it'll help?"
"It might. Did you ever talk to your dad about your nightmares?"
"S-sometimes. But I never used to get nightmares like... like these." He bit his lip, sighed, then began. "I... I keep seeing the th-things that happened back then. Sometimes the things I did. Sometimes the things they did. The, uh... the torture. Tonight it was the... it was the time they—they blinded my eye." His hand strayed to the right side of his face to cover the clouded orb. "They... they had this thing they would do. It started about two months after the arrest, I think. The king told them to clear out my lab. So to get rid of my al-alchemy supplies, they... used them. On me." He took a deep breath. "They would strap me to a table an-and pour chemicals on my skin. That's how I got the scars you asked about. Most of my compounds were harmless, but... they started using the raw chemicals. And sometimes they'd use things like my truth serum. Force me to drink it and ask me questions. When I told the truth, they'd... hurt me." His hand strayed to his upper left arm, where Hector had noticed multiple parallel lines, possibly from a dagger. "Anyway, my nightmare was the day they used acid on my eye. Not anything too major, just—but yeah, it cost me my sight."
Hector sat in stunned silence. Beside the humans, Ruddiger's jaw hung open.
When the man spoke, his voice was strained and hoarse. "They... that's why you don't do alchemy anymore."
He nodded. "I didn't realize it would affect me that way, seeing it again."
"I can see why." Keeping his tone low and calm was a struggle. "Did—do you think the king knew they were going to do that?"
Varian fixed his good eye on Hector. "He's the one who told them to."
Hector was once again shocked speechless. Of course. Of course Her Royal Backstabber took after her father. Of course the man who ordered a child to be imprisoned in his own house with his father's body would give the command for him to be tortured in ways that made fire run through the warrior's veins just to think of.
Hector had seen many gruesome things in his life. But this? This was sadistic. It was monstrous.
But Varian wasn't finished. He drew his shoulders in and kept his head down. "It—it wasn't enough for him to j-just tell them to. He had to see it. He would come and watch what they did. Make sure I was being punished enough for attacking his family. He was there th-that time. When they did this." He motioned to his eye again. "He made sure to stand on my right. He wanted to be the last thing I saw from this eye. And he was." His voice had faded to a whisper.
The warrior's blood, which had been boiling, suddenly ran cold. A deadly weight settled in his chest, hard as steel and sharp as a blade. This man had not only wrongfully imprisoned his nephew; he had ordered his guards to torture him and then watched them do it. He had taken every opportunity to make Varian suffer, even going as far as making sure his hated face was imprinted on the child's brain for eternity.
And Hector would take great pleasure in making him regret ever hearing Varian's name.
Impetuously, he put his arm around Varian's shoulder. His nephew looked up in surprise, then scooted closer and tucked into Hector's side the way Ruddiger always did with him.
"Kid, I'm so sorry," he whispered. The storm inside him settled to a dull roar. "Look, I know you're worried about what you supposedly deserved, but that's over, 'kay? Your debt was paid the hard way. Put it behind you."
Varian nodded. His eyelids were starting to close. He blinked a time or two. "Uncle Hector?"
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"Could you tell me another Brotherhood story?"
"Y-yeah. 'Kay." The ice in his blood cooled the fires of his fury enough to give him control of his voice. Adira and Quirin had always described him as a hothead, a loose cannon. But this level of hatred and rage blazed like the forge of a swordsmith; and the cold, calculating wave that washed over him quenched the steel blade in his bosom, leaving him with a weapon fit for a king. Or, more accurately, fit to destroy a king.
So he opened his mouth, giving no place to the fierce words that pushed to escape, and told Varian a story of three siblings, a rhino, and an accidental—yes, accidental—fire that happened to damage a priceless tapestry. As he spoke, Varian started to drift off, his head sagging against Hector. Seemingly unconscious, the child shifted until he was using Hector's leg as a pillow.
He stopped talking and looked at the boy in surprise. "Umm..." He looked to Ruddiger, who shrugged as if to say, This is your problem, not mine. The raccoon snuggled up beside Varian.
What was he to do now? Moving the boy might wake him up. Varian was, unfortunately, a light sleeper. Hector couldn't possibly guess why. He sighed and grabbed Varian's pillow, pulling the blanket up to cover the sleeping kid. The situation reminded him of the times he and his siblings would dogpile to keep off the cold when out on a mission. He smiled fondly at the memories and laid back, careful not to disturb his nephew. "'Night, kiddo." Then because he knew he wouldn't hear him: "I'm not gonna let them get away with what they did. You deserve better."
The rest of the night passed without incident.
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Gonna be honest, this hurt to write. I knew I had to do something dramatic for Varian's prison experience, and this nearly made me cry. But the angst must go on.
Shoutout to my friend who's an amateur blacksmith for helping with the sword analogy.
And if anyone knows how to add a picture to a chapter, please let me know! I tried, and it was too big. I can't figure out how to resize it. Not sure how I got it to work for my artwork book but not this one.
As always, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Thank you and God bless!