Blood of my Brother

A Test of Wills

Apologies for the delay in this one! I intended to get it out yesterday, and that didn't happen :/

Thanks to Th3P0rtalMaker for beta reading this one for me! She and K0ekienut have saved these last couple chapters!

Also, check out this insane art by @DoodleDayDreamer on DeviantArt! https://www.deviantart.com/doodledaydream/art/Child-of-the-Dark-Kingdom-882280674?ga_submit_new=10%3A1623364625

And this amazing artwork by @annacles.art on Instagram! The first couple are Blood of my Brother doodles, but the rest are incredible as well! https://www.instagram.com/p/CQKFvd1loPt/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

And I forgot to mention it in the last chapter, but thanks to SpaceButterflies on AO3 for letting me use the idea of "vine trauma!"

And thanks to my aunt for naming the captain for me! I was undecided about giving him a name, but it felt like he needed one.

Trigger warnings: mentions of violent injuries, mentions of past abuse

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The carriage rumbled and clattered over uneven roads, jostling its weary passenger. Her pen skidded at a sharp angle over the journal page, leaving a long, ugly streak across the words she had already written. She winced and placed the pen carefully in its case, blowing on the page to dry the ink. The mark did little to worsen the already muddled page. What was one more scribble mark amongst so much confusion?

She sighed and glanced back over her writing. It was nothing like her usual neat and tidy journaling. Jumbled thoughts leading to nothing, lines connecting points to other points with scribbled notations of what they could mean together, random phrases and snippets of thoughts... and a few doodles of the sources of her confusion—her husband and the boy.

One of the drawings of Varian was as she remembered him that day, that enraged expression that masked so much fear—stars, had she really been the only one to see how scared he truly was? She'd been terrified herself, but even she'd had enough presence of mind to see it. Perhaps anger was better at clouding one's eyes than fear, which would explain why she saw it but neither her husband or daughter did. When his voice cracked, when his mask of anger slipped for a second... How long had he been alone like that? So alone and afraid and hurting? Even in her drawing, she couldn't seem to escape that look of fear, hiding in those big eyes despite the way they narrowed as he glared...

He was too young to be in that situation, all alone and turning to crime to try to survive and save his father. Why, the child didn't look to be more than thirteen or fourteen at most!

How old is he? She'd asked Fred on the way home from the fight.

He'd wrapped her up in his strong arms. "Never fear, love. He'll never hurt you again."

It wasn't the answer to the question, not at all. But she'd been so dazed from the recent happenings and proud of her daughter and sad over the thought that she had to go away that she'd chosen to let the topic rest. She hadn't even realized then that Fred's words were untrue. Varian had indeed hurt her again. Not physically, of course; he never had. Even when he kidnapped her, he'd used his sleeping dust to knock her unconscious, and he'd only kept a chain around her ankle. Sure, he'd threatened to encase her with the same chemical that had encased his father, Quirin, but it was in a desperate attempt to make Rapunzel help—a rather intelligent attempt, she had to admit. By threatening the same fate upon her, he made sure that Rapunzel would have no choice but to find the answer.

No, even with his threats, he'd never hurt her physically. Her pain came from seeing him like that, she thought, as her gaze fell upon another image of young Varian. The way he had looked the day the stranger had spirited him away. She'd drawn this, hoping it would take the image out from behind her eyelids, where it danced every time she closed her eyes. It hadn't. She still saw it. The ugly red, black, and white scars that crisscrossed that childish face, the way his brows lowered and his nose wrinkled with what had probably been excruciating pain, the pale skin that looked to be stretched over nothing more than a skeleton.