And a Little Bit of Fairy Dust: A Varigo AU // Sequel to Faith Trust

Relearning

The journey would be short.

3 days at the longest: They would walk until they reached the river, and follow it up toward Na'hal; an isolated village surrounded by the great mountains. There, they would meet Lady Wysterna, an old recluse who dedicated their life to studying magic. It was a simple task in theory. (Unfortunately, in Hugo's experience, expecting a task to be simple was an invitation for things to go horribly wrong.)

"Tell them you know me," Donella insisted. "She won't talk to just anyone."

"Why not come, then?" Hugo asked with a small shrug. Donella gave him a knowing look.

"Someone has to buy you time to get to Na'hal," she explained. "I'll do what I can to slow them down."

"We appreciate it, ma'am," Nuru said with a small smile. Because of course she was coming- she was going to be following Hugo whether he liked it or not. If it wasn't being used against him, her stubbornness would truly be admirable.

"Keep safe, and keep your heads down. I'm sending Eugene to help keep you safe, but even still, this is going to be dangerous. Use your brains," she said sharply.

"We will," Rapunzel smiled. "Don't worry."

"You're not who I'm worried about," Donella said. Hugo glared as he looked up to meet her eyes.

"I promise not to be stupid," he grumbled.

"Atta boy," Donella grinned.

So there they were. The four of them, on a journey Hugo never in his life thought he would ever make again.

Nuru made things manageable. It took them about 5 minutes of walking in silence to start coming up with stupid games to keep themselves entertained. (At the moment the game was to yell out as many unique birds as they possibly could- Hugo was winning 3 to 1.)

Rapunzel was strangely silent. She trailed behind them, muttering something to herself Hugo couldn't quite make out. If he put enough effort into it, he could just pretend she was another stranger. A normal human stranger with normal human motivations to find their way up the mountain. (Those were the moments he felt the most at peace.)

Nuru could tell something was up. He wasn't quite sure when she worked it out, but every time he found an excuse to escape a conversation with her, Nuru would give him a look that made him want to jump out of his own skin.

He was not avoiding her. He was just saving his energy. That was a normal thing people did.

Then there was Eugene.

Hugo had done a lot of bad things in his life.

Mostly theft. He was great at it after all, and there was truly nothing that compared to the adrenaline rush that came whenever he would pluck a new shiny out from a noble's unguarded coat pocket. When he was younger, Donella nicknamed him Magpie after she found a hoard of gold coins stashed under his mattress. (She wasn't going to do anything- after all, she knew he knew she had to get her money from somewhere and it certainly wasn't coming from a run-down alchemy shop in middle-of-nowhere Ingvarr.)

There were other things on the list- most of them you couldn't prove were him, thank you very much.

The point: if there was a hell or some kind of afterlife crafted for shitty people, that was where Hugo was going.