Requested by VarianWolf

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You  slowly walk through the leaky dark sewage system, pinching your nose to avoid the foul smell. The fetid and rusted sewer was the only known entrance to their underground hideout so you had no choice but to brave through it. Varian was trudging behind you, tired from staying up all night on another research he was doing. You stifle in a cough as to try not to make any noise. 

Apparently the greedy Saporians had once again escaped and it was up to you and Varian to take care of these hard headed thugs. With your new-found training as a royal guard and Varian's chem-balls, you've totally got this mission in the bag. As you continue to walk in the water, you stifle in a cough as to try not to make any noise.

You feel something poke you on your shoulder. As you turn around, you see Varian handing you a handkerchief with a kind smile on his face.

"Thank you." You say as you tilt your head while smiling, taking it from his hand. This was your first mission as friends. You met Varian when he was new on having his own room in the castle, being the Royal Engineer and all, so you thought it would be a good gesture to accompany him from time to time. 

The two of you were on this mission because you were the only ones available and strong enough for the job.

Rapunzel and Eugene were busy with their duties, Cassandra was out on another mission while the rest of the guards were helping in aiding people who were affected by the Saporian's attacks.

You arrive in front of a large circular grate, hearing their distinct voices from the inside.

A guy who was wearing a man-bun began questioning someone, blocking your view of them. "YOU IMBECILE! Where is the thing I asked you to make?!"

"I-I almost have the calculations c-correct s-sir! I just n-need a few more days!" A faint voice of a lady said. As you guessed from the stuttering, it seems like they kidnapped an alchemist to replace Varian. "It was an animal the last time, b-but it w-wasn't the one you a-asked for."

Looks like they were desperate for something.

"Well, WE DON'T HAVE DAYS!" 

You heard him slam his fist on the table as you saw the him slowly approaching the girl with a knife on his right hand. Before he could hurt the girl, you bust open the grate to intervene.

"Let her go!" You said as you retrieve a glinting sword from your back, pointing it at him.

He let out a small despicable chuckle. "Varian, how are you? Haven't seen you for a long time." He says with a smirk on his face.

"Shut up!" You turn your head to Varian. "Do you know this guy?"

With a chem-ball on hand, he answers "Yeah, his name's-"

"The name's Andrew, darling." He says as he squats down, swerves his leg and kicks your ankle, slamming you onto the ground.

The lady runs away from the situation, desperate to save herself.

You groan as you wince in pain as Varian looks at you with worry. "Rule #1, never take your eyes off your opponent." He says as he looks down you with a loathsome grin. "Of course you'd know that if you were an actual good fighter.

"Wow, I'm so impressed." You say sarcastically as you roll your eyes. "Is your ass jealous from the amount of shit that just came out of your mouth?"

He scoffs. "Trying to insult me? That won't work on me honey."

"Oh, I'm not insulting you. I'm just describing you."

While Andrew was distracted, Varian tries to throw a chem-ball at him, but it was too late as Andrew grabs his wrist as he looks over at the table and grabs a vial and shoves blood-red liquid down Varian's throat in a matter of seconds

But before he could finish the whole vial, you swing your sword to his leg, making him bleed as falls and kneels to the ground. The vial shatters and a thousand shards fly off in every direction  as the red liquid splatters everywhere

"Good luck, Varian." He says as he snatches the ends of his shirt. That was for betraying the Kingdom of Saporia as it will rise again from the ashes!"

You pull him away from Varian and grab him by his shirt, furious at him. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?"

"Like I would tell you." As you were about to punch him in the face, you didn't notice that he had slipped one of Varian's chem-balls out of his bag as he smashed on the ground, creating a pink fog. You let go of his shirt as you cough from it's mist, allowing him to escape from your grasp.

As the pink mist starts to clear off, you see Varian throwing fits of coughing. Something wasn't right.

Without wasting any time, you grab a pipette off the table and a new vial, trying to salvage as much you can from the splattered red liquid. 

As soon as your finish, you out vial in your pocket and you grab his body and slam him over your shoulder as you carry him out of the canal.

"Wait, (Y/N)! What are you doing? I"m- *cough* okay!" He says as he begins to cough uncontrollably.

You run through the sewer, hoping you could make it back to the castle on time. "We don't know what was in that vial. We need to be as quick as possible because that thing might be deadly."

As you barge into the castle doors, Rapunzel instantly sees the two of you.

"Hey, what's going on?" She asks, wondering why Varian was on your shoulder.

You sigh "Queen Rapunzel, we must get him to the hospital wing and quick." You say as you tried to catch your breath. "I promise I'll explain everything later."

You could feel Varian starting to burn up, but Varian keeps on insisting. "You can let me down now, (Y/N). Seriously I'm fine!"

"No! I'll only put you down when there's a hospital bed nearby." You look at Rapunzel as she looks at the both of you with a worried stance. 

She gestures with her hand, "Come on, follow me."

The sun was now setting on Corona as Varian was being examined by the doctors, you were pacing worriedly around the room as you wondered what could have happened to him.

"What do you think's gonna happen to him? Eugene asks as he looks over at Varian, who finally seems to be sleeping. 

Rapunzel tries to ask you questions as well. "Were there any clues lying around or anything Andrew might have said that could help us?"

You were trying to wrack your brain from the events that happened earlier as you sat down next to her. "I'm not sure." You say as you grab the red vial from your pocket and it on the palm of her hand.

"I did manage to salvage this." You say as Rapunzel was examining the red vial.

She looks up at you, confused. "What is this?"

"It's what Andrew shoved down to Varian's throat." You look over at him, worried." I managed to cut him on the leg before he could put the whole thing in Varian's body. The thing shattered, but  I did manage to save some so that it could probably help us get some answers, Your Majesty."

You sit in between them as you shoved your face into your palms, letting out a sigh.

Rapunzel pats you on the back as she tries to be supportive. "Don't worry (Y/N). Varian's gonna be fine and please, don't call me that. Rapunzel's fine."

As you were about to respond, Cassandra slams the door open as she walks towards you 

"What happened to Varian? Who's ass do we have to kick?" She says, ready to fight.

Eugene stands up and tries to help Cassandra breath. "Okay, calm down Cass!" 

"NO!"

"YES!"

"NO!

"YES!"

"Alright, stop it!" Rapunzel says trying to break the two off. "I know we're all worried about Varian, but there's no need to fight."  She holds both of her hands assuring them. "I'm sure the doctors will find a cure!"

"Fine. But I bet they're gonna be sorry once they meet the wrath of my new halberd!" She says proudly with both hands on her waist. "Since Horace here broke my last one again, I had to get a new one from the blacksmith while on my mission!

"Hey! I told you to stop calling me that!" He crosses his arms, offended by the name.

Rapunzel gasps as she comes to a realization. "Wait, I think I know who can help us!" 

While you were all discussing what to do, Varian woke up from all the noise as he rubbed his eyes while seriously having a set of bed hair.

"(Y/N)?" He mumbled drowsily

You rushed over to his side, both of your faces illuminated by the candle light as he saw the worry in your face. "Varian, are you okay? Are you in any pain? If you are you can just tell me, okay? Do you need anything? I-"

You stop as Varian holds your hand and looks into your eyes.

"I'm fine, really. Stop worrying about me." He says with a kind smile.

Your eyes widen at his remark. "Worried? PFFT!" You tried to act casual and dismissive. You weren't really one to talk about sappy emotions. "I mean, I uh- if anything happens to you I'd be the one who gets in trouble! Just needed to make sure that's not gonna happen, so uhh yeah."

Rapunzel sits down on the side of his bed, as she brushes Varian's unruly hair like a mother caring for her child.

She asks in a soft manner, "How are you feeling, Varian?"

"Okay, I guess?" He says a bit lightheaded. "Though I keep getting the urge to scratch my legs. though."

As Varian removes the blanket to see what's making his skin irritated, you all gasped at this peculiar sight.

"WHAT THE F-"

"OH GOODNESS ME"

"IS THAT-"

"FUR?"

"WHY IS IT ON ME?" He exclaims as he tries to scratch the grey fur off of him. He  frantically tries to remove it from his skin, but every attempt he does to pull it off becomes more painful.

As you see him freaking out, you notice something unusually something off from his face. "Varian?"

"What?!" He looks at you in panic with his eyes filled with fear.

"Does your front teeth usually look like that?" You ask as every single person in the room looks at his face.

He quickly stands up from his bed while still scratching his legs. You give him a handheld mirror as he looks in his reflection.

He looked like he was about to pass out.

"Looks like we need to head to his shop now." Rapunzel says to the rest of the group.

You all got aboard on the carriage so none off the Coronans would see the state of their well known Royal Engineer. It might stir up suspicion across the kingdom and all of you would like to avoid that possibility.

Varian was slowly panicking while on the ride to Xavier. He kept fidgeting his hands and his eyebrows were furrowed with worry.

You held his hands gently so you wouldn't alarm him.

You looked him in the eyes with assurance. "We're not gonna let anything bad happen to you, alright?"

"You promise?" He asked hopefully.

"I promise."

As Xavier was forging a new weapon, all of you walked into his shop hoping he had the answers to your questions.

"Ahh, to what do I owe your pleasure of your presence, Queen Rapunzel?

"Good evening Xavier, it's so good to see you as well! We actually have a, uhm-" Rapunzel was having a hard time explaining this through. "What do you call it? We have a very, you could say a strange  situation in our hands."

Cassandra grabs Varian from the carriage and brings him in front of Xavier. Interestingly, he now has very long grey ears which flopped over on the sides of his face and the fur has traveled up to his arms and hands.

"Curious..... very curious." He says as he goes around Varian, assessing him carefully.

"We also have this!" She says as she approaches Xavier, handing him the red vial.

He holds the vial by the fire, examining it. "Ahh, I seem to know what we're dealing with here." Xavier hands back the vial to Rapunzel as he explains what it was.

"As you can see it isn't a fully red. It has a purple undertone if viewed under a bright light." He walks back to Varian, holding his fluffy ears, inspecting them. "It also seems like our man of science has encountered a Rare Saporian magic, and an incorrectly made one at that."

Eugene asks, "What does that mean?"

"Have you ever heard the The Legend of the Saporian Horse?

You all shake your head simultaneously.

Xavier sits down as he was about to tell another legend of his. "Centuries ago, during the war of Kingdom of Saporia and Corona, one man with great scientific knowledge had manage to transform a full grown man into a talking horse. They have used this man-horse to infiltrate information about Corona's war plans and tactics, that would later help on their full-scale invasion of Corona. The only setback was that once you had caught the horse's saliva, it would be likely for you to turn into one too. But as you all know due to the love of the two kingdom's leaders, the war was ended."

 Eugene was still confused by all of this. "So Varian here, is now turning into a horse?"

Xavier shakes his head. "As I said, the liquid had a purple undertone. It should only be the color red, my dear friends. "

"So what do we do now?" You ask.

"What I want you to do lady is to keep asking this young boy questions about his past." He says 

Cassandra butts in, wanting to make this as quick as possible. "I'm sorry to intervene, but the young boy isn't such a young boy anymore."

You all turn to Varian seeing that he was now a full on donkey, his hands and feet now had hooves and his whole body now had fur. Though it was clearly Varian, because he had a blue streak in his mane and a rather bright blue set of eyes for a donkey.

"Holy mOTher of dONkeYS!" Eugene says as he grabs Rapunzel and hides by her back. You all back away from him, keeping in mind that every single one of you might turn into a donkey as well.

"Help me guys, ple-HEE" Looks like he could still talk, but it wouldn't be long until he loses his human consciousness inside of the donkey's mind. He even started braying.

"Alright, the three of you need to help me on creating the counter-potion. Quickly now! Xavier says as he grabs a book and opens to the page of it's directions.

As Xavier was giving out instruction and all of you engrossed on listening in, you all didn't realize that Shorty had come into the shop.

"How sweet of you guys to find my goat a new best friend!" Shorty says lazily as he puts his arm over Varian. 

You all panicked. "SHORTY NO!" You all screamed at him.

But it was too late, Varian had already licked Shorty's face.

Shorty pats Varian on the head, seemingly unaware of what might happen to him. "Imma just go take a nap." He says as he lazily lays on a box and snores heavily.

Varian realizes what he did, disgusted with his actions. "UGH WHY DID I DO THAT?"

Xavier was now kneeling down in front of you, holding your shoulders. "Young lady, you have to keep on asking him questions. Keep his mind active or else we might lose him. He might be able to drink the potion and turn to his original human body, but he won't remember who he is anymore."

"But what about Shorty?" Eugene asks.

"We'll make a counter-potion for him as well, don't worry." Xavier exclaims.

You look over at Varian, determined to make this work. "Okay Xavier. I will do my best." You say as the both of you walk over to Varian. Xavier brings you down to his secret room behind the fireplace to hide Varian from the townsfolk walking by.

He leaves the two of you alone. You were panicking from the pressure, especially since you and Varian were only acquaintances. 

The room was dimly lit and the air was a bit cold, but you couldn't let these minor little inconveniences stop you from helping Varian. You started petting his snout, caressing it back and forth to help him relax.

You take a deep breath as you began to start questioning him."Hey Varian, do you remember me?" 

"Yeah..." He nods slowly as he tries to access his memories. " Your name is (Y/N).

"Do you remember how we met?"

"We met at uhm..." He seemed to be having a hard time recollecting and you were starting to feel uneasy about this.

You see the uneasiness growing in his eyes as they start to flicker from bright blue to grey. You had a hard time seeing him struggle like this, so you wanted to give him a little push. "We met at the li-?" 

"The library!" He said, grinning with his buck teeth. You sighed in relief as you panicked  there for a second.

As the two of you were at work on trying to hold the end of the deal. All three of them except for Xavier, were freaking out.

Eugene was running around trying to find the ingredients, as he became sweaty by the second. "WHERE IS THE GODDAMN ACONITE FLUID?" He was about to lose his mind, as he tries to check and read each vial one by one.

While she was stirring the pot and reading each step in the book, Rapunzel was trying to pull herself together. She knew she couldn't mess this up. They only had one shot at this. "Okay Rapunzel!" She mumbles to herself, bug-eyed and a smile so wide it was almost creepy. "You've got this! You can't let anyone down now! This is Varian we're talking about!"

Cassandra and Xavier were working together on chopping up the ingredients. "Eugene, hurry up! We don't have all night here, you know that right?

"I'M TRYING MY BEST HERE CASSANDRA!"

"Everyone just calm down okay!" Rapunzel says, almost as if she was having a pep talk with herself! "We need to keep it together alright! We cannot let our friend turn into a donkey, alright? SO FOCUS!"

Varian was already pacing around as you hear his hooves "clip-clop" on the ground. 

"(Y/N), I'm scared." He says looking at you with worried eyes. 

You try to calm him down, but you were freaking out as well. "I know, Varian. I know."

"W-What am I supposed to be doing right now?" He even started bucking out of fear. "I don't remember!"

The world around felt like it was collapsing and so was your mental state. "Well, you haven't answered my question, that's for one."

You saw the blue streak in his mane starting to fade and each second that goes by feels like you were about to lose him.

"I'm having a hard time remembering!" He says, his voice cracking at every almost every syllable.

You started thinking about what could you do as you tried to calm down. "Right, uhm memories!" You say as you starting to tremble. "You need to remember who you are."

You throw out Xavier's instructions out the window, thinking you had to explain who he was.

"You're name is Varian from Old Corona." You say as his eyes start to wander around the room, but you grab his snout and direct his face to yours, trying to remain the eye contact.

"You're favorite meal is ham sandwiches. You are the first Royal Engineer who created hot running water for the whole Kingdom of Corona. You love the feeling of making your father proud."

With every attempt you make at trying to explain him who he was, his blue streak had almost gone invisible and the blue in his eyes were almost grey. It almost seems lifeless.

"You're smart and you're strong. I make fun of you a lot, but it doesn't bother you. You once even called me a badass when I myself didn't feel like I was. I was drowning in despair and sadness, but you helped myself out of that. You basically saved my life and you barely even knew me then."

His eyes started to flicker even more and you were started to become more afraid. You couldn't give up now. He needs you right now as much as you needed him back then. There was no room for doubts. You had to be brave. For Varian.

"Your worst nightmare is losing everyone you love and I hope I made into that list because...."

"(Y/N)! ..." He was starting to bray loudly and was barely bring out the words he wanted to say.

Even with his donkey body, you approach his donkey state and pull him into a hug, unafraid.

 "Because I hope that there could be a lifetime waiting for us."

You hear the fireplace move as four figures make their way down the stairs. Rapunzel exclaims, "We're so sorry we took so long, we had to put the counter-potion in a halibut for Shorty to even drink it."

"Okay buddy, open wide!" Xavier says as he puts the potion into Varian's snout.
As soon as he drank the potion, his fur started to shed off, his hooves returned back to being hands and feet and his face was now the same as it used to be.

But something wasn't quite right.

You jumped to hug Varian, embracing him as tight as you can. "Varian! I thought I was gonna lose you!" Though he didn't wrap his arms around you. His arms stayed put at his sides.

"Who are you?"

You felt your heart fall to the pits of your stomach as you slowly back away from him. This can't be happening.

"Where am I?" He asks with a confused tone.

You covered your mouth from shock as you feel tears filling your eyes. Your breathing became heavier. You try to come up with words to say as you stared off into the distance as you feel yourself being emptied inside.

Was this the end?

"HAHA! Gotcha! I was just messing with you!" Varian says as he pulls you into a hug. But of course, you weren't gonna let this slide.

You shove him across the room as he stumbles on his feet while you cross your arms

"Aww come on, don't be mad at me!" He says as he wipes your tears away. "You've got a lifetime to be happy with me instead, you know?" He chuckles.

"Oh shut up!" You say as you hug him tight with the rest of the crew joining in.

Shorty comes downstairs as well to join the fun. "Well, let me get in on this one too!" 

"Now we need a good night's rest before we catch that bastard who did this to you." You say as you try to reclaim the moment. "Are you with me on this one Varian?"

He nods excitedly. "Of course, I am!" 

In a blink of an eye, everyone joined on the mission as you all vowed to protect one another.You held Varian's hand as you were filled with determination. 

"We're gonna let him know that Coronans are not to be messed with." Rapunzel says.

Those Saporians were going down.