Forgotten Magic

Chapter 9

"Raps, are you sure you wanna-" Cassandra begins, but the princess has already strapped herself to the contraption. "Rapunzel?"

"Lets do this," she says, voice full of determination.

"Okay!" Varian rubs the back of his neck. "Rapunzel. Now, this may get a little.."

"Exciting?" the princess suggests, eyes bright.

I shake my head continuously in the background as the alchemist says "Um, sure. Yeah! That's a good word for it" before yanking a lever.

I don't know if I'd like to describe what happened when he pulled that lever. Not because it's super strange or grotesque or anything. I just don't know the words to describe it. Basically, the machine begins to do these...kind of very dangerous experiments on the princess's hair. She must have had some strong guts because I would've thrown up if I were on that.

After about a minute, everything stopped. Rapunzel's hair was all over the room and she looked absolutely exhausted.

"And there we are! Done," Varian declares.

"Alright," the princess smiled. "Not super fun, but it's over."

"Ha! Oh, sorry. Yeah, I... I meant done with the first test," the alchemist corrected, tapping one of the levers. "But don't worry, only 86 more to go!" He pushes the lever.

At the beginning of this test-as a blade is being held over Rapunzel's head, I see a face lookin in through the window with an expression of alarm. But before I had time to react to that, the spinning blade broke off its arm and flung itself right at Varian's head.

"Amazing!" he yells as it lodges itself in the wall. "You were right, it's absolutely unbreakable!"

I suppose I had to expect that a couple seconds later, someone would force open the door. While shouting "But I'm betting you're not!" And demanding "Let her go."

Perfectly, at that moment, Rapunzel gets propped up. "Eugene! Hey!" She wore a slightly guilty smile.

"Blondie! You're okay!" Eugene smiles. "You wanna tell me what's goin' on here?" After a prolonged pause, he decides "You know what? I don't care. I'm gettin' you outta there." He starts to walk up to the princess as the second test stops.

"Hey!" Varian bursts out, distracting the man. "You're Flynn Rider!"

My eyes immediately drift to the literal shrine behind the the curtains on one of the alchemist's walls. Ah, yes...

After a long moment, Eugene-or Flynn Rider-starts basically rambling. "No. You don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen you before in my life. You can't prove anything!"

Varian runs over to the curtain. "I'm your biggest fan!" He pulls it open. "See?"

After another pause, the man's face breaks into a smile. "Hey, now! Flynn Rider, nice to be met."

I tried to keep myself from rolling my eyes.

"I used to see your wanted posters all the time!" the alchemist basically squeals. "You're my hero!"

"Oh, well, "hero" is a bit much."

And here he goes with the books.

Sure enough, he pulls a stack of thick books from a nearby shelf and starts bringing them to Eugene before bumping into the man. "I've read every single book about you!"

He picks up one of the books. "Oh... well, um, you see, that's not actually me. I just took the name from the book."

"Hey, hey! Remember the time you dueled that evil knight, blindfolded?" Varian began waving around a sword-like item that I wish I knew why he had.