Tangled au where 12/13 year old Rapunzel gets mad at Mother Gothel and in a fit of teen rebellion cuts her hair and that kills her, so the now orphan Rapunzel leaves the tower and stumbles into the Snuggly Ducking and is effectively adopted by the thugs. She works there as a barmaid and every year a couple of them take her to the outskirts on the kingdom to see the lanterns.
She isn’t found out to be the lost princess until
A) she goes into the kingdom to bail out one of regulars
Or B) after stealing the crown, Eugene, heads to the pub to keep low only to have a heart attack bc wtf is that the queen???
Ulla was a passionate scholar of science and a thaumaturgy enthusiast; so unlike the rest of the brotherhood, she had a rather open-minded fascination towards the moon opal. During one of their class sessions, she once shared to little Eugene that she had a theory: she believed it is still plausible that the moonstone can be good, can do good, can be used for good…if people only took the moment to try and give it a chance by putting the effort to understanding it, if…the right person learned to connect with it. Her wonder and curiosity influenced little Eugene’s understanding of how to perceive the moonstone, his father the king and the brotherhood always painted the moonstone in a rather negative light to him growing up but her perspective gave him hope—hence why when she passed away from childbirth and baby Varian was born sickly to the point that doctors could not guarantee if he’ll ever make it—the young prince had an idea… and did the unthinkable.
King Edmund was reluctant to apply any drastic punishment towards his very own son for obvious reason—and besides, he couldn't really blame nor resent the child for just wanting to help. He knew the little one was too innocent to grasp the dangers of the opal. However, he also understood that at the end of the day, it all comes down to the fact that young Eugene cared a lot; that he was just as scared as everyone else was of losing his little baby brother-cousin too soon in life because baby Varian was the only remaining remnants of his leya Ulla, she worked so hard until her very last breath just to bring this bundle of joy into the world, he remembers how excited she was for him to eventually meet him and he doesn’t want her sacrifice to be in vain.
And Quirin was forever grateful to the little prince for saving his child’s life so he vowed to serve him with utmost loyalty to show his undying gratitude towards the royal family of Umbra. As a father himself, King Edmund empathizes with Quirin and now he can see that his son’s action did came from a place of love and acknowledges it. Admittedly, it was unprecedented but truly was a miracle that the baby was back to health with the help of the moonstone; the young prince took a risk and it surprisingly paid off so King Edmund was willing to take a further look into this phenomenon, no matter how wary it makes him feel.
Though they still have a duty to uphold, to keep the peace in their kingdom as the royal family and to keep their people safe as the brotherhood; therefore in order to keep a close eye on this rather exceptional situation the king has come to the decision that they will treat baby Varian as one of their own from then on—with the moonstone becoming a part of the family, and by extension a royalty.
