Twisted Destiny

So Much to Do

Brock looked up with a cringe as they approached the tower. "Varian was kept in there?"

"Yep. Inside a tiny little cage suspended waaaaay up there." Eugene nodded, pointing up. "I had to cross the tiiiiiiniest bridge to get to him."

Brock looked like he was going to be sick. Eugene laughed and walked past him. "Well, let's go find that Mindtrap!"

"Right." Brock sighed and looked at their father. "Dad?"

"Hm? Ah, yes." He nodded. "The Mindtrap. Let's go." He walked inside after Eugene and Brock followed them. "I was just...this is the first time I've been alone with you boys at the same time since..."

"Yeah, yeah, sentimental stuff. C'mon, we gotta get the Mindtrap or Adira and Hector are gonna be trouble when we go to crash the wedding." Eugene said as he led the way up.

Brock looked at him, then at their father. "Don't...don't take it too hard, he wasn't raised by a family like I was, so he tries to pretend he doesn't care."

King Edmund nodded. "...You said you were in an orphanage. Why were you never adopted?" He asked as they continued up the stairs.

Eugene tensed. "...It's not that I wasn't...I just..." He sighed. "I had a lot of bad luck when it came to...families. Lance, too. We had to run away from our new homes or save each other from them. L-Like, this one time, Lance got adopted by this circus, and there was this real creep of a clown there...I-I had gone to check it out, worried about him, and he was trying to force him to sing in this clown outfit for the crowd, even though Lance was really shy and didn't like people hearing him sing. He threatening to hurt him 'in a pleasurable way' if he didn't do as he was told, and that's when I came in, smashed a large drum over the guy's head, then grabbed Lance's hand and we left."

"Yikes. What happened next?" Brock asked.

"Well, we ran and ran until we ended up nearly being run over by this carriage. A man stepped out and asked who we were, where our parents were and, upon learning we were orphans, offered to take us in. And that was The Baron." Eugene sighed. "He didn't seem so bad, at first. By the time we found out he was kind of horrible, it was too late to leave. I mean, he treated us well enough. And his daughter was cute." Eugene chuckled a bit. "But, uhm, he was really harsh to the older guys, and if anyone was caught stealing from him or hiding something from him or they failed a really big job...yeah. Honestly, I was lucky he didn't kill me after I left his daughter at the altar."

"You what?!" Brock laughed a bit.

King Edmund chuckled. "I remember when I met your mother. Did you know she was once a pirate? She came into the Dark Kingdom seeking 'the greatest treasure', the elusive Moonstone, and Quirin and I caught her in the act. While in the midst of pleading for her life, she looked into my eyes and..." he sighed, "she lowered her weapon and said, 'on second thought...can I just stay here with you?' Oh, you should've seen Quirin's face when I pulled her close and gave her a deep, passionate kiss. Adira and Hector got there late and showed up just in time and Quirin gave them this 'I don't know' expression, it was classic."

"Our mother was a pirate?" Brock chuckled. "Wow. Guess crime is in our blood."

"Yeah, we both just kind of fell into it, huh?" Eugene shrugged.

"She had this expression, it's kind of like your smolder, Eugene, only it was a little more...you know, her. She called it 'the dazzle'." King Edmund chuckled. "I thought it was the cutest thing, she would do it every time she wanted to sway me into something. She never went after the Moonstone again, after that day."

Eugene smiled sadly. "She sounds like an amazing woman."

"She was." King Edmund said softly. "She really was." He clutched at the purple crystal necklace he wore, the only thing he had left of her, aside from their two boys.