Twisted Destiny

Stone

"Think this'll keep people away from these rocks?" Rapunzel asked as she finished painting a sign.

Juniper looked over it and snickered. "Oh yeah, that'll work."

Eugene came over to look at it. "Couldn't you have made us look a little more, I don't know, brave?" Eugene asked, looking at the picture that depicted him jumping into Varian's arms as they both cowered from the rocks with the words "STAY AWAY!" over them. "Or at least swapped our positions?" He muttered.

"I really wanted to get the point across." Rapunzel said, then grinned. "Besides, you're so cute when you're screaming in terror." She rubbed his cheeks teasingly before leaning into his chest for a hug.

"W-We-he-hell, that is true." Eugene admitted, then paused, looking Rapunzel over. "H-Hey, Sunshine, I know that Juniper's had her whole Saporian training and all, but how come you're not affected by these rocks? I mean, why aren't you screaming your head off at some vision of your worst fear?"

"Because..." Rapunzel started, glancing to the side, "as long as I have my friends with me," she rubbed Pascal's head, "I'm not afraid of anything."

"Guys, I-I think I might have an idea." Varian spoke up, drawing their attention to where he was kneeling by one of the rocks.

--

"Now, theoretically, if we sever this chain of rocks," Varian said as he circled part of a graphic he'd drawn up, using one of the servant carts as a backdrop for his models and graphs, "using one of my alchemical solutions," he emphasized proudly, then went on, "then we can cut off the red rocks' fear power."

"Oh-ho, we can so cut off their power." Rapunzel said enthusiastically.

"You just need a cavern that runs deep enough." Varian explained. "I don't know if the Herz Der Sonne tunnels are quite deep enough, but..."

Rapunzel stood up. "Deep cavern..." She said thoughtfully, then gasped. "I know just the place!"

They heard a woman screaming and turned to see Faith's older sister running by in terror. They went out just in time to see her stopping next to the red rocks in the hallway and cringing away before she was turned into a red rock statue.

"Oh no..." Rapunzel said as they went over to look at her. "It's getting worse!" She looked at them. "We can't let this happen to anybody else." She turned to Varian. "Your plan starts now."

Varian nodded. "I need to get my alchemy from Old Corona."

"I'll take him on a horse." Eugene assured her. "You make sure that no one else turns into a red rock statue!" He grabbed Varian's wrist and pulled him along as they hurried off to the stables.

--

When they returned, they found that Rapunzel had gotten a change of clothes, with a pink blouse, purple vest and pink leggings with a short, purple skirt, her trusty blue satchel at her side as always and Pascal on her shoulder. "What's this about?" Eugene asked.

"After talking about my last trip into the tunnels, Juniper suggested that I get something a little easier to move around in." Rapunzel shrugged. "Does it look okay?"

"It's, uh, different. Cute, but different." Eugene nodded.

"You look great." Varian said, gripping the strap of his backpack nervously.

"Hey, relax." Juniper walked over and made sure his backpack was fastened shut and secure. "How was it back home?"

"Horrible. Andrew and dad are both statues." Varian said shakily.