Gone

Wither and decay

Rapunzel's voice bounced off the walls of the lab, her voice and face beautiful yet dark. Her hair was flowing black and her eyes dark voids.

No of this seemed to register with varian as he watched the amber incasing his father start to melt. Pure disbelief filled his face as he watched his father slowly be freed from his golden prison. Some part of Varian had always believed that he would never free his father, even as he went on to do all of those horrible things. Yet here he stood, Amber pooling like honey before him and Rapunzel singing beside him.

He almost couldn't believe it when he whispered it the first time, so his voice raised in amazement the second. "It's working!" He exclaimed, the note trapped Quirin hand now fluttering softly in the faint wind.

End this destiny

"Oh!" He yelled, joy overcoming him as he stumbled forwards, "Dad!"

Break these earthly chains

Varian paused, noticing how Rapunzel was still singing. He glanced down at the bucket he held, the water sloshing from his movements. Her words from earlier echoed in his head, reminding him of his duty. Without looking back, he steeled himself and threw the water at Rapunzel. It evaporated before it even touched her.

And set the spirit free

Desperate, Varian shouted at her, "Wake up!" And without thinking clamped his gloved hands down on her shoulders, forgetting what happened to the water.

"Gah!" He yelped when his gloves suddenly melted right off of his hands with a menacing hiss. Unfortunately, he had been caught off guard by this sudden change, not retracting his hands in time as they recovered the distance of his gloves. His bare hands met with Rapunzel's shoulders.

The spirit free

A burning sensation instantly took hold in his hands and he quickly pulled them back. They were quickly turning black, looking almost like ash as his skin shriveled and cracked.

He screamed.

The world seemed to melt away as pain shot through his hands. He barely registered himself falling to the ground, legs crumpling underneath him. A sudden numbness overtook the tips of his fingers, slowly growing down his fingers. Looking through his tears, he managed to catch a glimpse of his blackened fingers. He nearly passed out from the horror.

His fingers were slowly disintegrating, crumbling away like sand. No muscle or bone could be seen, just black dust.

He was brought out of his trance when someone shook his shoulders violently. Dizzily, he looked up to see Rapunzel with both hands on his shoulders, tears pricking her eyes.

"Varian!" She shouted, "are you okay!?"

Worry was etched into her face, making her look much older than she really was. Her hair sprawled out behind her, back to its original state.

Varian didn't respond, couldn't really,  and just stared at her. He knew he should respond to her, but his mind drew a blank.

This just worried her more.

Her felt her hands leave his shoulders and saw her get up and walk around him. Too out of it to turn around, Varian just closed his eyes and tried to calm down. The pain had spread past his elbows and up his arms, but had slowed down considerably. He could no longer feel any of his fingers and based off of the tingling feeling crawling up his palms he could guess where it was. A thought briefly flickered through his head. It was faint and insignificant amongst all of his other screaming thoughts, but it somehow managed to break through,