As the trio made their way through the dark kingdom's castle, Cassandra sighed internally, quite tired from the impromptu song Rapunzel put them through once again. Especially since the whole thing seemed like such a farce to her nowadays.

Eventually, they made it onto the platform leading to the moon opal itself and Cassandra could barely contain the flurry of excitement and uneasiness that settle within her. Of course, they just had to drag out her discomfort with even more emotional things such as forehead kisses and whatnot. Seriously, she was just gonna take a rock. Who needed assurance from a guy for something like that? Cassandra would never understand some things, and she decided she didn't particularly want to. The only part she enjoyed was the look of worry that briefly passed over Rapunzel's eyes that Eugene must have taken as uncertainty about the opal, but Cassandra knew was due to her earlier words.

Finally, mercifully, the blond princess started walking towards the moon opal. Cassandra's eyes were glued onto her back at first, but as the prison holding the opal started to glow and change in reaction, she found her eyes drawn to it. Everything beautiful in this world...truly loved Rapunzel and no other, huh? She resisted the urge to clench her first as Rapunzel ever so slowly reached towards the opal.

Thanks to her training, Cassandra was able to approach the princess without anyone noticing and quickly snatch the stone before she could touch it. Smirking to herself at the irony of her training being used against Corona, the very kingdom she once loved more than her life, she struggled to hold onto the opal.

Rapunzel must have said something, and Cassandra's lips moved so she must have said something as well, but she honestly couldn't hear or register anything happening, only the ringing in her ears and the feeling of power seeping into her fingers.

A bright flash came forth from the stone and she could vaguely hear the couple being thrown back, but she refused to even glance at them, instead focusing her energy on wrestling the stone towards her. When it collided with her chest, she screamed at the feeling. It didn't particularly hurt, actually, it was just uncomfortable pressure and...power coursing through her, but it still felt so incredibly different.

As she came back to the ground in her new form, she opened her eyes to see the expressions on the couple's faces, and a range of emotions surprisingly came over her. She felt satisfaction upon seeing them that way, of course, but her slight feeling of emptiness almost confused her. Pulling her lips into a smirk, she realized that the feeling must have been from being heartless. After all, only someone heartless could enjoy seeing her friends in such a state, no? Well, who needed a heart when you had something much more powerful on your chest? Something that could make you heard? Something that could finally make you Rapunzel's equal? No, better than Rapunzel!

She almost laughed at that moment, but instead, settled on saying something she deemed would make an impact on the naive younger girl, "You have to be careful...who you trust."

——————————————————

Varian was sitting on his bed, contorted into an odd position, his feet up on the wall, when he felt a small tremor. 

Closing the notebook he was scribbling in, his lips curled into a small smile. A smile he never showed anyone. A smile that seemed somewhat scary, yet somehow soft and endearing. A smile that only appeared when it came to things related to Cassandra.

Placing the notebook under his pillow and practically bouncing off his bed, he hummed a small tune. 

"It seems my Cassie's done her part~"

A few more consecutive tremors shook the ground as he closed the door behind him and he giggled to himself at them.

"She probably...definitely doesn't need help right now...but I wanna watch...from a safe distance, of course..." 

——————————————————

"Please, Cass, don't cross the line..." came the melodic singing voice she had now come to detest.

Cassandra's eye twitched a bit, knowing a song was coming again. But still, she found it wasn't so horrible when she was center stage. There were a few times she almost hesitated due to lingering emotions, but she found that her anger at Rapunzel somehow grew the longer she was with her. In her hypersensitive state, in part due to emotions and in part due to her newly acquired power, she heard a faint clapping that no one else did. 

Looking around discretely as Rapunzel continued to sing her pleas, she wondered if it was the blue girl, until her eyes found Varian who was partially concealed. Their eyes met for a brief moment and they seemed to smile at her before he disappeared.

Cassandra returned all her focus on the musical number, thankful that no one else noticed Varian and deciding to make a quick yet dramatic exit soon. After all, she no longer had a drop of interest in whatever nonsense and honeyed words would come out of the princess' mouth. As she flung the door that led outside triumphantly, Cassandra smiled to herself.

"Seems I finally have the right for a dramatic exit?" Cassandra asked the boy she knew was following from a distance as she rode the black rocks away from the castle.

Still keeping hidden, the boy laughed loud enough for only her to hear. As she watched the rocks she left behind disappear, cutting off Rapunzel's path towards her, Cassandra was suddenly thankful that there was still someone else to laugh beside her. A cute, joyful little laugh that was at least a little bit less unnerving than the blue girl's.

A/N

Hi...I'm very sorry again that I haven't been able to update in a while. We already had a high workload in normal classes but online classes seems to have doubled it... I hope everyone is safe, and thanks for continuing to read this! I know it's annoying when a fic takes so long to update and you realize you've forgotten most of it... I've also decided to continue writing this even if I haven't watched season 3 yet, so most things in season 3 won't happen here. I'll try to update at least once a month from now on...please vote and comment! They really motivate me to write haha... Also, don't you think this Varian has a high potential to be yandere lol