Twisted Destiny

Truth

With Brock moved into a house in Old Corona, Varian returned to the castle to meet with Kline and Clementine. While he was with them, Rapunzel was sending Owl to find Vigor with a letter, in desperate hope of him having enough of his senses to come to Corona and help with them against his ancient nemesis.

"There is a spell for detecting a Disciple. I created it myself." Kline said calmly. "However, I have not used it in quite some time...It will take time to prepare."

"How much time?" Varian asked.

"Two days." Kline nodded.

"That's not too bad." Varian nodded. "In the meantime, we'll stick to code-words and make sure that nothing important slips out of the castle walls."

Kline nodded. "How is that coming along, by the way?"

Varian paused, then offered him a vial. "Drink this."

"Ah, I understand the caution." He said, drinking the truth serum obediently.

"Right. What is your name?" Varian asked.

"Kline Semar Vinch, True Seer of Saporia." He replied calmly.

"Okay..." Varian started to feel around his face, tugging lightly, before he stood back, satisfied. "It should wear off in a half-hour."

"Splendid. Why have you not given this to your father?" Kline asked.

"I..." Varian faltered. "I...I'm afraid of what I'll find out. That he might actually...actually hate me."

Kline sighed and reached out to pull him close, gently stroking his hair soothingly, before Varian slowly stepped back. "I do not believe he hates you, Varian. More that he is...afraid of the future, of losing you."

Varian sighed. "What is so scary?"

Kline shook his head. "I promised him that I would not tell you."

Varian hesitated. He could force him to. It'd just be one question...but, he couldn't do that, not to Kline. Kline was a friend. He sighed and walked out of the room, feeling dejected.

"Varian?" Kline said calmly as he left. "How is it going?"

"I still have a few design issues to figure out." Varian replied as he closed the door behind him.

--

The problem with recruiting more men for the Royal Guard was that you didn't know who to trust. Varian, at the King's request, checked on all of the Royal Guards to make sure none of them were Lucas, even though he was pretty sure it was pointless. Lucas hadn't been in his Royal Guard form since Varian escaped from prison all those months ago.

Still, he kept an eye out, when he was working with King Frederic, and then went to his lab to work.

Rapunzel, likewise, was looking for two particular birds and checking on the townsfolk to make sure no one was missing. To her relief, no one was missing, and she made posters of Mother, Father, Sugracha and Lucas to join the Cassandra one already made.

"Should I include Tromus?" She asked thoughtfully as she tapped the handle of her paintbrush.

"We haven't seen any sign of him yet." Eugene frowned. "Still, better safe than sorry."

"Yeah." She started to paint a poster of him.

"You look like you're having fun." Juniper walked over to look at the posters. "Quite the ensemble...you forgot Zhan Tiri herself, though."

"I-I'm getting to that." Rapunzel blushed. "How could I forget about her." She mumbled.

Eugene grinned. "Where have you been, Juni?"