[Varian hugs his arms around himself. Being back home, helping with Zhan Tiri, and his time here- he'd thought he was finally getting a handle on this. But having those memories gone, and then return in a sudden tidal wave... well, the self-loathing has come back strong again. ]
You don't know what you gave up your leg for.
[And he knows that's not Oscar's fault. He's always been so careful about who he trusts with his past and honestly, he knows he should have trusted Oscar with it a long time ago. But he didn't. And now they're here.]
I did terrible things, Oscar. I wasn't a good person.
[Oscar said quietly, fidgeting with the green scarf he had tied around his stump and hoping that whatever enchantment was allowing it to heal his wounds would be enough to help him stay calm in the face of whatever storm he saw brewing in the shadows in Varian's eyes.]
Big ones, sometimes. And, bad people?
[Briefly he thought of Ironwood, how the man built with the aggression of a tank had gently carried him through the woods near Lake Tomie after the attack, destined for Ozpin's mansion. He remembered the strange tenderness in which Ironwood had handled him despite the edges of panic that he had recognized from their terrible meeting in the Vault-- with Oscar on the wrong side of Due Process.]
Bad people sometimes do good things. Life isn't as clean as you're making it.
I know they do. And I know people can learn from their mistakes and do better from them.
[He is, at least, at a point where he can say that and actually believe it. It's taken him a while, and he knows he's nowhere near healed yet. He's not even in the general neighbourhood of getting healed. But he's aware and that's... something.]
That's why I said wasn't. But the memories you gave your leg up for weren't good ones. Not ones worth losing a limb over. [He exhales, moving to sit in his chair by the bead heavily, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand.] But that's one me. I should have told you a long time ago.
Those memories are a part of you-- and I could see how upset you were by not knowing why your life is as it is.
[He regarded Varian with a firm, level look-- as if daring the other boy to suggest that living knowing there was a part of you missing that couldn't be recovered was worth the pain that came with it.]
...I don't know the details, and you don't have to tell me if it's too painful. But, living without knowing why?
[Oscar shook his head, knowing from the infinite depths of the thousands of years of memories and feelings that he could touch just how dangerous a life of half-truths could be.]
It's no way to live. No one should have to live like that.
[Varian... doesn't argue. His shoulders sag and he heaves out a sigh, staring at the ground.]
I was. Upset. What I went through changed me. A lot of it was for the worse, but it wasn't all bad, I learned from it too. It's not- it's not black and white.
[Because it did a considerable number on his psyche, too. It left wounds that are only just starting to heal over- wounds that have left considerable scars on him. As much as he wishes he could have taken everything he did back, he knows that he wouldn't be the person he is today if he hadn't done what he'd done. ]
But it would have come back eventually. This sort of thing never lasts wrong.
[Sounds defeated already though, he knows that's a stupid argument. He could have left Fern get his memories back naturally, but he didn't. He moves his gaze to his prosthetic, tapping it on the floor.]
But I guess I know what it's like to not what someone you care about to go through that. Even if you know it'll end anyway.
[Oscar said in protest, despite suspecting that his attempt at offering space and time wouldn't be accepted.]
I like you, Varian. A lot.
I've liked you for a long time, and nothing you can say will change that. It still was my choice-- I guess I needed to try to take back some of the control we lost in this dream.
I chose to not sit and just watch someone I care about suffer anymore.
[He listens to what Oscar has to say and he doesn't have an argument to it. He hates it. He knows that Oscar has lost a piece of himself, possibly forever, in order to help him and it doesn't sit well. But then, Fern had hated it when he'd learned Varian had done the same thing.
It was like karma had come calling. ]
It's not that I don't appreciate what you've done for me, I just- I wish Sodder had taken something else as payment. Because now you're going to deal with this for the rest of your time here.
[He moves to sit back in his seat, staring at the ceiling.]
There's a very good chance you're gonna regret it once we're done.
[Oscar cast Varian a firm, unwavering look before shifting aside and patting the bedding next to him. This clearly was going to be a long discussion on both of their parts, and there was no need for either of them to be needlessly uncomfortable during it.]
I've already made bad choices, and I have my own regrets, [he added quietly.]
Every decision I made in Atlas led to people being hurt, and I've made plenty decisions here that did the same. This, though? Isn't one of them.
I bet none of your choices were made to purposefully hurt people, though.
[He heaves out a sigh, moving to sit next to Oscar on the bed. He stares down at that missing leg again, before focusing on the ceiling once more. Okay. Here we go.]
So. This can get bogged down with... magic stuff that I don't want to get into. The important thing to know is that there were two magical artefacts back home. They were once together but separated when they came to earth- but each had an effect on the other. My father used to protect one of them- it destroyed his kingdom and he was sworn to always keep the secret about what it could do. I never knew anything about any of this - he didn't tell me. That part's... well, it's not an excuse, but it's still important.
[Would things have gone as far as they did if he knew about the moonstone right away? He doesn't know.]
[There was no lie in Varian's words. Nothing Oscar had done was with the intent to truly hurt anyone-- his only aim had been to help prevent disaster.
And, he had failed.
But Oscar listened regardless, and was once more struck by the similarities between Varian's world and his.]
...Artifacts of immense power that are kept secret? That sounds a lot like the Relics Oz made. They're held in secret in each of the kingdoms.... and people have died over trying to possess them. It's... bad.
[Varian had heard a little of the relics. He'd seen the Lamp in action. He nods. ]
A lot of our most dangerous magical artefacts are hidden away and protected by a guardian. But there two were wild in the world. Anyway. These black rocks which were connected to one of them started growing in the ground, making a path towards the castle- to where the princess who held its opposing force lived. They were indestructible and sharp. They were destroying people's homes, their crops. Our village was dying and my father and the king were covering it all up.
[They acted like no problem was there, while people starved or were left homeless. He couldn't stand by and let that happen. Varian's compassion has always been one of his greatest strengths and equally his greatest weakness. ]
Dad forbade me from touching them, but I had to do something. So I made a compound that I hoped would stop them. It... went badly. The compound reacted with the rocks and created this unbreakable amber. My dad managed to push me out of the way before it could catch me in it, but he got stuck in it instead.
[The memory is etched into his mind permanently. A nightmare he relives several times a month- watching the amber eat his father alive. Slowly creeping tendrils trapping him.]
It was swallowing him up and I couldn't do anything to stop it. So I- I went to find the princess. I figured she must be able to help.
[It was the same as any fairytale. A youth spies a problem but no one believes them, and they do whatever they could to uphold their beliefs-- at great cost. Oscar thought of the family he had left in Mistral-- his Aunt and everyone else-- and felt somewhat... disingenuous.
But he couldn't stay. Not if it meant that his family would be in danger.]
The Princess... is she the same one you told me about before? The one in the tower?
Yeah, I was. I started with good intentions. But you know what they say about the road to hell.
[He'd genuinely wanted to help, at the start. His people were suffering and it felt like no one cared. Someone had to do something, and he wasn't about to stand idly by and do nothing.
He shakes his head, shoulders hunching.]
That's the one, and no. There was a blizzard engulfing the kingdom- demonic, it turned out, but we didn't know it at the time.
[Proof that Zhan Tiri had been pushing them around like chess pieces even then. Making sure everyone was exactly where they needed to be exactly when she wanted them to be.]
She had to stay and help her people. I was scared and desperate and begged her to help. The guards thought I was attacking her and had me escorted out. But the time I got back to dad, it was too late. He was completely encased. I knew I needed answers, and I knew I couldn't rely on anyone else any more.
The princess got her powers from a flower- that's where the magic originally fell. The flower was used to save her mom while she was pregnant, but I knew it was still in the castle somewhere. [He picks at the bedsheets.] So I created a truth serum and used it on the castle guards. Found out where it was being kept- and then convinced Rapunzel to help me steal it. She did, even if she knew it was treason to do it. I told her I wanted to help everyone with it. I lied.
[Oscar insisted-- knowing full well how those reasons were not necessarily altruistic in nature. He knew the extents that Varian had gone within Deerington-- and, somewhere in his gut, he knew that the Oz of a different time had certainly committed acts of a similarly nebulous nature.]
Even if you lied, you were still just trying to help your village. You were probably angry and scared, too.
I was angry and scared. I felt like I had nothing and no one left. But it doesn't excuse what I did. I lied to and manipulated a friend. I forced her into a corner and when she got me what I wanted, I lashed out at her and turned my back on her. After everything, she'd been through. After she'd spent the first eighteen years of her life being lied to and manipulated and used. I did it to her, too. She trusted me and I abused that.
[That was where he really crossed the line, he thinks. He might have been able to turn back to the light then, while he and Rapunzel argued in the vault. But he didn't. She'd told him she'd promise they would fix it and that was that.]
She'd promised she would help me. Before then, and again in the vault. I felt like she'd broken the first one and the second felt... hollow. Like she was trying to convince me not to do anything stupid. There's a reason I don't make promises unless I know I can keep them.
[And a reason why breaking a promise to him is just about the worst thing that can be done. Why he still hasn't fully forgiven Maul. ]
...But that wasn't a good enough reason for what I did. I took the flower back home, I ran for it. But it didn't work. I realised all the power was in Rapunzel, and I needed her for the rocks. But I didn't believe she'd help me any more. I was already wanted for treason, so I just carried on. [He grimaces, looking away.] I distracted the palace guards by turning Ruddiger into a monster- while they were busy with him, I kidnapped the queen. I knew Rapunzel would come for her mother.
Oscar said quietly, digging his fingers into the sheets and twisting them around so he didn't feel like he had to sit still while he listened. All the while he understood the truth-- and that Varian had not been joking when he said that he had committed terrible deeds in his homeland.
"Anyone would-- but, did anyone bother asking you why? Didn't anyone try to talk to you?"
Varian wishes it ended here. That he was just stopped and things stopped escalating. But he's very far from done yet. Much like there's a reason he doesn't make promises easily, there's a reason he doesn't trust this story with many people. He's always terrified it'll ruin his relationship with them forever. When they learn what he's actually capable of.
"By that point, I was a wanted traitor to the crown. So no, no one tried to talk to me."
Maybe if he hadn't gone so far, Rapunzel would have. She has an endless ability towards forgiveness. He should have given her the chance. But he didn't, and now they're here.
"I made a bunch of automatons to attack the guards and keep them busy. Rapunzel and the king decided to try and sneak into my lab, but I was expecting them. I captured them pretty easily. I... gave Rapunzel an ultimatum. I emptied out a vial of the amber next to where I'd chained her mom up. I told her she helped me, or her mother would face the same fate as my father."
He still remembers how terrified Rapunzel and her father were. How the queen tried to keep a brave face but how blatantly terrified she was too. He didn't care. It was all a means to an end at that point.
"...It didn't work. Rapunzel's power didn't do anything with the amber and the royal family managed to get free. I saw them hugging together, just this... this happy family and I'd lost the only family I had left and something in me just... snapped."
"I did. I wanted her to suffer like I had. So she knew how it felt."
It had been spiteful, and selfish, and stupid. He could see that now. But at the time, there had been a red veil of rage around him and no amount of reasoning with him would have brought him down at that point.
"I got on board my biggest automaton and grabbed the queen and Rapunzel's best friend in each hand. I told her she needed to suffer and I... I started to crush them to death," and he was ready for Rapunzel to watch every agonising second of it. "...Luckily for all of us, Rapunzel realised her connection with the rocks and managed to defeat me and save them. No one died and I got sent to the castle dungeons. I was there for a year, before I got out. "
....listening to all of this was hard, but Oscar kept his silence and his opinions to himself-- concerned more for the disconcerting parallels he saw with the systems in Remnant with the secrecy and the divisions amongst the people than the actual treasonous acts in many ways.
There was no condoning what Varian had done-- but it was easy to see the reasons for those actions as well.
"...Of course you wanted her to understand. You were angry, and alone. That's hard to deal with."
It was a small fortune that Varian had been stopped before anything happened, Oscar knew. But, still...
"I was all of those things, but it didn't give me the right to try and kill people who'd done nothing to me."
It wasn't even about Cassandra or Arianna at that point. It had been about ripping into Rapunzel's heart and making her hurt as much as he possibly could. He likes to think he wouldn't do that any more, but once you know you have such a deep, dark well inside of you... well, the fear of it coming back and swallowing you whole is always there.
"Still in the amber. I gave up on trying to free him. But the people who helped me out of prison had some ideas and I stupidly followed them. I thought they were on my side. We used magic to wipe the memories of the king and queen- Rapunzel and her group were away trying to learn more about the rocks. It was easy to slip in and take over. I took place as their royal advisor and with their memories wiped, they had no reason to believe otherwise. I treated the citizens of the Kingdom like slaves- working in the mines. The orders came from the king, even if they knew it was me pulling the strings. They didn't dare rise up. "
He knew there was a quiet residence, of course. Xavier had been at the front of that. But nothing came of it until Rapunzel came back.
"...I wanted to make a gas to spread through Corona- that's what I needed minerals from the mines for. I wanted to force everyone to forget... everything," he grimaces- after being in Deerington and both seen and experiencing how awful that was, he can't believe he ever thought that was a good idea. "I thought it was the only way I could redeem myself. "
"I'm sorry that's what you thought you had to do to get your redemption,"
Oscar said quietly, picking his words carefully. For a moment he realized he was talking to someone comparable to Ironwood at their worst-- whose fear and need for control overrode their better judgement and, when lost in the darkness of their despair, saw no choice but to use their might as an avenue to make matters right.
In a small way, Oscar also saw how he was no different.
"Forgetting things doesn't make anything better," he added, quietly. It was a sentiment he felt in his bones, he knew in his gut. "I... think a part of me knows that better than most people. And, I think you know that now, too."
It was stupid and naive. It was a childish way of thinking. As if hiding all the damage and pain he'd caused would somehow make it so it never happened at all. He'd tried to dodge the consequences of his actions and it nearly destroyed the city.
"The people I was working with double-crossed me. They never wanted to go with my plan. The chemical I was working on was highly explosive. More than Flynnolium. By a lot," he pulls his flesh and blood leg up to his chest, hugging it close for comfort. "They... they wanted to drop it on the city, raze it to the ground. Wipe everyone out. I- that was a line I couldn't cross. I didn't sign up for mass slaughter."
For all the bad things he'd done, there was a line. He took a small sense of comfort that the line existed at all. That despite everything, he wasn't a complete monster. He's quiet for a moment- there's a part of this story he always skips over, but Oscar sacrificed an awful lot for these memories to come back. It would be disingenuous to keep it from him.
"...I helped Rapunzel get onto the airship they were going to drop the chemicals on. The fight meant the ship was damaged, it was going down and fast. If we didn't get it higher again, it would have levelled the city. We could use the chemical to keep it up, but it would have meant someone staying on the ship," his eyes become a little more distant, he doesn't like talking about this, there's a reason only Fern knows. "I told Rapunzel to get off. I just- I needed to fix my own mess. And it's not like I had anyone left to mourn me at that point. I couldn't let something I'd created kill so many people. I just- if one of us was gonna die, it might as well have been me."
He'd been so desperately lost at that point. The darkness had swallowed him whole and he didn't know how to get out of it any more.
"She didn't let me. She kicked me off the ship and used her hair to protect herself and the city was saved, " he heaves out an uneven breath. "She- she managed to free my dad. She'd learned a new power while she was out in the world, and she used it to melt the amber. He was okay," thank god, he was okay, Varian doesn't know where he would be if his father had been lost forever. "From that point onwards, I did everything I could to make up for what I'd done. To try and put good back in the world after doing so much damage."
He lets go of his leg, leaning back on the bed, casting Oscar a look.
"And now you know," the whole sad, sorry tale. "That's what you gave your leg up for."
Oscar leveled his gaze on Varian and shifted on the bed, pulling his good leg up onto the mattress and folding it before him as if he were sitting with both legs in relative comfort. He watched his friend, mulling over the sad, sorry tale of Varian's fall and redemption-- a part of him feeling like the themes within were distinctly familiar.
He heaved a sigh and shook his head, shaggy hair falling into his face.
"You saw the line and you didn't cross it. That's more than most people can say... Including people whose memories I've got in here."
He tapped his temple, and dragged himself out of the memories of the Last King of Vale.
"That's an important part of you, no matter how dark it is and the things you've done. And... I guess it's that darkness in you that caught my attention when we met. I..."
Oscar chuckled and shook his head once more.
"Nevermind. It's nothing. But-- that does explain a lot about why you were mad at me in February."
He's at least more accepting of the fact that, as awful as his past was, he's learned from it. It has been the stepping stones for him to becoming a better person.
"...After losing those memories, I realised that they really did make me learn to be better, I guess? I knew how bad I could be, so I knew to avoid... that again. When I didn't have those memories...well, that lesson wasn't there."
And he'd ended up getting into fights and not being quite right. He'd felt broken and lost and as much as it truly hurt still that Oscar did this, sacrificed this to get those memories back, he's not convinced how well he would have handled another month with them gone. Especially with the dream collapsing around them.
"... It did?"
He's a little curious where Oscar was going with that one, but he knows better than to press it. he heaves out a soft sigh, leaning back on the bedframe.
"Hah," it's a tired, sad little laugh, not much humour behind it. "I kind of understood why Rapunzel was so mad at me, back on the ship. I just- I don't know. It brought back a lot of bad memories and I was scared for you."
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You don't know what you gave up your leg for.
[And he knows that's not Oscar's fault. He's always been so careful about who he trusts with his past and honestly, he knows he should have trusted Oscar with it a long time ago. But he didn't. And now they're here.]
I did terrible things, Oscar. I wasn't a good person.
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[Oscar said quietly, fidgeting with the green scarf he had tied around his stump and hoping that whatever enchantment was allowing it to heal his wounds would be enough to help him stay calm in the face of whatever storm he saw brewing in the shadows in Varian's eyes.]
Big ones, sometimes. And, bad people?
[Briefly he thought of Ironwood, how the man built with the aggression of a tank had gently carried him through the woods near Lake Tomie after the attack, destined for Ozpin's mansion. He remembered the strange tenderness in which Ironwood had handled him despite the edges of panic that he had recognized from their terrible meeting in the Vault-- with Oscar on the wrong side of Due Process.]
Bad people sometimes do good things. Life isn't as clean as you're making it.
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[He is, at least, at a point where he can say that and actually believe it. It's taken him a while, and he knows he's nowhere near healed yet. He's not even in the general neighbourhood of getting healed. But he's aware and that's... something.]
That's why I said wasn't. But the memories you gave your leg up for weren't good ones. Not ones worth losing a limb over. [He exhales, moving to sit in his chair by the bead heavily, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand.] But that's one me. I should have told you a long time ago.
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[He regarded Varian with a firm, level look-- as if daring the other boy to suggest that living knowing there was a part of you missing that couldn't be recovered was worth the pain that came with it.]
...I don't know the details, and you don't have to tell me if it's too painful. But, living without knowing why?
[Oscar shook his head, knowing from the infinite depths of the thousands of years of memories and feelings that he could touch just how dangerous a life of half-truths could be.]
It's no way to live. No one should have to live like that.
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I was. Upset. What I went through changed me. A lot of it was for the worse, but it wasn't all bad, I learned from it too. It's not- it's not black and white.
[Because it did a considerable number on his psyche, too. It left wounds that are only just starting to heal over- wounds that have left considerable scars on him. As much as he wishes he could have taken everything he did back, he knows that he wouldn't be the person he is today if he hadn't done what he'd done. ]
But it would have come back eventually. This sort of thing never lasts wrong.
[Sounds defeated already though, he knows that's a stupid argument. He could have left Fern get his memories back naturally, but he didn't. He moves his gaze to his prosthetic, tapping it on the floor.]
But I guess I know what it's like to not what someone you care about to go through that. Even if you know it'll end anyway.
[He sucks in a deep breath.]
It's fine. I'm ready to tell you.
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[Oscar said in protest, despite suspecting that his attempt at offering space and time wouldn't be accepted.]
I like you, Varian. A lot.
I've liked you for a long time, and nothing you can say will change that. It still was my choice-- I guess I needed to try to take back some of the control we lost in this dream.
I chose to not sit and just watch someone I care about suffer anymore.
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[He listens to what Oscar has to say and he doesn't have an argument to it. He hates it. He knows that Oscar has lost a piece of himself, possibly forever, in order to help him and it doesn't sit well. But then, Fern had hated it when he'd learned Varian had done the same thing.
It was like karma had come calling. ]
It's not that I don't appreciate what you've done for me, I just- I wish Sodder had taken something else as payment. Because now you're going to deal with this for the rest of your time here.
[He moves to sit back in his seat, staring at the ceiling.]
There's a very good chance you're gonna regret it once we're done.
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[Oscar cast Varian a firm, unwavering look before shifting aside and patting the bedding next to him. This clearly was going to be a long discussion on both of their parts, and there was no need for either of them to be needlessly uncomfortable during it.]
I've already made bad choices, and I have my own regrets, [he added quietly.]
Every decision I made in Atlas led to people being hurt, and I've made plenty decisions here that did the same. This, though? Isn't one of them.
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[He heaves out a sigh, moving to sit next to Oscar on the bed. He stares down at that missing leg again, before focusing on the ceiling once more. Okay. Here we go.]
So. This can get bogged down with... magic stuff that I don't want to get into. The important thing to know is that there were two magical artefacts back home. They were once together but separated when they came to earth- but each had an effect on the other. My father used to protect one of them- it destroyed his kingdom and he was sworn to always keep the secret about what it could do. I never knew anything about any of this - he didn't tell me. That part's... well, it's not an excuse, but it's still important.
[Would things have gone as far as they did if he knew about the moonstone right away? He doesn't know.]
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And, he had failed.
But Oscar listened regardless, and was once more struck by the similarities between Varian's world and his.]
...Artifacts of immense power that are kept secret? That sounds a lot like the Relics Oz made. They're held in secret in each of the kingdoms.... and people have died over trying to possess them. It's... bad.
What happened?
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A lot of our most dangerous magical artefacts are hidden away and protected by a guardian. But there two were wild in the world. Anyway. These black rocks which were connected to one of them started growing in the ground, making a path towards the castle- to where the princess who held its opposing force lived. They were indestructible and sharp. They were destroying people's homes, their crops. Our village was dying and my father and the king were covering it all up.
[They acted like no problem was there, while people starved or were left homeless. He couldn't stand by and let that happen. Varian's compassion has always been one of his greatest strengths and equally his greatest weakness. ]
Dad forbade me from touching them, but I had to do something. So I made a compound that I hoped would stop them. It... went badly. The compound reacted with the rocks and created this unbreakable amber. My dad managed to push me out of the way before it could catch me in it, but he got stuck in it instead.
[The memory is etched into his mind permanently. A nightmare he relives several times a month- watching the amber eat his father alive. Slowly creeping tendrils trapping him.]
It was swallowing him up and I couldn't do anything to stop it. So I- I went to find the princess. I figured she must be able to help.
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[It was the same as any fairytale. A youth spies a problem but no one believes them, and they do whatever they could to uphold their beliefs-- at great cost. Oscar thought of the family he had left in Mistral-- his Aunt and everyone else-- and felt somewhat... disingenuous.
But he couldn't stay. Not if it meant that his family would be in danger.]
The Princess... is she the same one you told me about before? The one in the tower?
... did she help you?
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[He'd genuinely wanted to help, at the start. His people were suffering and it felt like no one cared. Someone had to do something, and he wasn't about to stand idly by and do nothing.
He shakes his head, shoulders hunching.]
That's the one, and no. There was a blizzard engulfing the kingdom- demonic, it turned out, but we didn't know it at the time.
[Proof that Zhan Tiri had been pushing them around like chess pieces even then. Making sure everyone was exactly where they needed to be exactly when she wanted them to be.]
She had to stay and help her people. I was scared and desperate and begged her to help. The guards thought I was attacking her and had me escorted out. But the time I got back to dad, it was too late. He was completely encased. I knew I needed answers, and I knew I couldn't rely on anyone else any more.
The princess got her powers from a flower- that's where the magic originally fell. The flower was used to save her mom while she was pregnant, but I knew it was still in the castle somewhere. [He picks at the bedsheets.] So I created a truth serum and used it on the castle guards. Found out where it was being kept- and then convinced Rapunzel to help me steal it. She did, even if she knew it was treason to do it. I told her I wanted to help everyone with it. I lied.
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[Oscar insisted-- knowing full well how those reasons were not necessarily altruistic in nature. He knew the extents that Varian had gone within Deerington-- and, somewhere in his gut, he knew that the Oz of a different time had certainly committed acts of a similarly nebulous nature.]
Even if you lied, you were still just trying to help your village. You were probably angry and scared, too.
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[That was where he really crossed the line, he thinks. He might have been able to turn back to the light then, while he and Rapunzel argued in the vault. But he didn't. She'd told him she'd promise they would fix it and that was that.]
She'd promised she would help me. Before then, and again in the vault. I felt like she'd broken the first one and the second felt... hollow. Like she was trying to convince me not to do anything stupid. There's a reason I don't make promises unless I know I can keep them.
[And a reason why breaking a promise to him is just about the worst thing that can be done. Why he still hasn't fully forgiven Maul. ]
...But that wasn't a good enough reason for what I did. I took the flower back home, I ran for it. But it didn't work. I realised all the power was in Rapunzel, and I needed her for the rocks. But I didn't believe she'd help me any more. I was already wanted for treason, so I just carried on. [He grimaces, looking away.] I distracted the palace guards by turning Ruddiger into a monster- while they were busy with him, I kidnapped the queen. I knew Rapunzel would come for her mother.
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Oscar said quietly, digging his fingers into the sheets and twisting them around so he didn't feel like he had to sit still while he listened. All the while he understood the truth-- and that Varian had not been joking when he said that he had committed terrible deeds in his homeland.
"Anyone would-- but, did anyone bother asking you why? Didn't anyone try to talk to you?"
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"By that point, I was a wanted traitor to the crown. So no, no one tried to talk to me."
Maybe if he hadn't gone so far, Rapunzel would have. She has an endless ability towards forgiveness. He should have given her the chance. But he didn't, and now they're here.
"I made a bunch of automatons to attack the guards and keep them busy. Rapunzel and the king decided to try and sneak into my lab, but I was expecting them. I captured them pretty easily. I... gave Rapunzel an ultimatum. I emptied out a vial of the amber next to where I'd chained her mom up. I told her she helped me, or her mother would face the same fate as my father."
He still remembers how terrified Rapunzel and her father were. How the queen tried to keep a brave face but how blatantly terrified she was too. He didn't care. It was all a means to an end at that point.
"...It didn't work. Rapunzel's power didn't do anything with the amber and the royal family managed to get free. I saw them hugging together, just this... this happy family and I'd lost the only family I had left and something in me just... snapped."
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"It must have hurt, seeing them like that while your dad was trapped," he said quietly. "What happened then?"
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It had been spiteful, and selfish, and stupid. He could see that now. But at the time, there had been a red veil of rage around him and no amount of reasoning with him would have brought him down at that point.
"I got on board my biggest automaton and grabbed the queen and Rapunzel's best friend in each hand. I told her she needed to suffer and I... I started to crush them to death," and he was ready for Rapunzel to watch every agonising second of it. "...Luckily for all of us, Rapunzel realised her connection with the rocks and managed to defeat me and save them. No one died and I got sent to the castle dungeons. I was there for a year, before I got out. "
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There was no condoning what Varian had done-- but it was easy to see the reasons for those actions as well.
"...Of course you wanted her to understand. You were angry, and alone. That's hard to deal with."
It was a small fortune that Varian had been stopped before anything happened, Oscar knew. But, still...
"What about your dad in all of this?"
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It wasn't even about Cassandra or Arianna at that point. It had been about ripping into Rapunzel's heart and making her hurt as much as he possibly could. He likes to think he wouldn't do that any more, but once you know you have such a deep, dark well inside of you... well, the fear of it coming back and swallowing you whole is always there.
"Still in the amber. I gave up on trying to free him. But the people who helped me out of prison had some ideas and I stupidly followed them. I thought they were on my side. We used magic to wipe the memories of the king and queen- Rapunzel and her group were away trying to learn more about the rocks. It was easy to slip in and take over. I took place as their royal advisor and with their memories wiped, they had no reason to believe otherwise. I treated the citizens of the Kingdom like slaves- working in the mines. The orders came from the king, even if they knew it was me pulling the strings. They didn't dare rise up. "
He knew there was a quiet residence, of course. Xavier had been at the front of that. But nothing came of it until Rapunzel came back.
"...I wanted to make a gas to spread through Corona- that's what I needed minerals from the mines for. I wanted to force everyone to forget... everything," he grimaces- after being in Deerington and both seen and experiencing how awful that was, he can't believe he ever thought that was a good idea. "I thought it was the only way I could redeem myself. "
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Oscar said quietly, picking his words carefully. For a moment he realized he was talking to someone comparable to Ironwood at their worst-- whose fear and need for control overrode their better judgement and, when lost in the darkness of their despair, saw no choice but to use their might as an avenue to make matters right.
In a small way, Oscar also saw how he was no different.
"Forgetting things doesn't make anything better," he added, quietly. It was a sentiment he felt in his bones, he knew in his gut. "I... think a part of me knows that better than most people. And, I think you know that now, too."
tw: suicide
It was stupid and naive. It was a childish way of thinking. As if hiding all the damage and pain he'd caused would somehow make it so it never happened at all. He'd tried to dodge the consequences of his actions and it nearly destroyed the city.
"The people I was working with double-crossed me. They never wanted to go with my plan. The chemical I was working on was highly explosive. More than Flynnolium. By a lot," he pulls his flesh and blood leg up to his chest, hugging it close for comfort. "They... they wanted to drop it on the city, raze it to the ground. Wipe everyone out. I- that was a line I couldn't cross. I didn't sign up for mass slaughter."
For all the bad things he'd done, there was a line. He took a small sense of comfort that the line existed at all. That despite everything, he wasn't a complete monster. He's quiet for a moment- there's a part of this story he always skips over, but Oscar sacrificed an awful lot for these memories to come back. It would be disingenuous to keep it from him.
"...I helped Rapunzel get onto the airship they were going to drop the chemicals on. The fight meant the ship was damaged, it was going down and fast. If we didn't get it higher again, it would have levelled the city. We could use the chemical to keep it up, but it would have meant someone staying on the ship," his eyes become a little more distant, he doesn't like talking about this, there's a reason only Fern knows. "I told Rapunzel to get off. I just- I needed to fix my own mess. And it's not like I had anyone left to mourn me at that point. I couldn't let something I'd created kill so many people. I just- if one of us was gonna die, it might as well have been me."
He'd been so desperately lost at that point. The darkness had swallowed him whole and he didn't know how to get out of it any more.
"She didn't let me. She kicked me off the ship and used her hair to protect herself and the city was saved, " he heaves out an uneven breath. "She- she managed to free my dad. She'd learned a new power while she was out in the world, and she used it to melt the amber. He was okay," thank god, he was okay, Varian doesn't know where he would be if his father had been lost forever. "From that point onwards, I did everything I could to make up for what I'd done. To try and put good back in the world after doing so much damage."
He lets go of his leg, leaning back on the bed, casting Oscar a look.
"And now you know," the whole sad, sorry tale. "That's what you gave your leg up for."
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Oscar leveled his gaze on Varian and shifted on the bed, pulling his good leg up onto the mattress and folding it before him as if he were sitting with both legs in relative comfort. He watched his friend, mulling over the sad, sorry tale of Varian's fall and redemption-- a part of him feeling like the themes within were distinctly familiar.
He heaved a sigh and shook his head, shaggy hair falling into his face.
"You saw the line and you didn't cross it. That's more than most people can say... Including people whose memories I've got in here."
He tapped his temple, and dragged himself out of the memories of the Last King of Vale.
"That's an important part of you, no matter how dark it is and the things you've done. And... I guess it's that darkness in you that caught my attention when we met. I..."
Oscar chuckled and shook his head once more.
"Nevermind. It's nothing. But-- that does explain a lot about why you were mad at me in February."
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"...After losing those memories, I realised that they really did make me learn to be better, I guess? I knew how bad I could be, so I knew to avoid... that again. When I didn't have those memories...well, that lesson wasn't there."
And he'd ended up getting into fights and not being quite right. He'd felt broken and lost and as much as it truly hurt still that Oscar did this, sacrificed this to get those memories back, he's not convinced how well he would have handled another month with them gone. Especially with the dream collapsing around them.
"... It did?"
He's a little curious where Oscar was going with that one, but he knows better than to press it. he heaves out a soft sigh, leaning back on the bedframe.
"Hah," it's a tired, sad little laugh, not much humour behind it. "I kind of understood why Rapunzel was so mad at me, back on the ship. I just- I don't know. It brought back a lot of bad memories and I was scared for you."
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