...She's a good person. Better than I could ever be.

[Though his tone is sad, it's not pitying- he's not looking for reassurance. It's a plain statement of fact. ]

I didn't know that then, though. I thought she wouldn't help me, so I...did something really terrible to make her come to me. I drugged Ruddiger with a serum to make him huge and set him on the capital city. While the guards were distracted with him, I... I snuck inside the castle and kidnapped the Queen. I knew Rapunzel would come to save her mother and she did.

[Because of course she did. She was a better person than him. Varian exhales slowly.]

I had an army of automatons I'd built ready for what few people were left after Ruddiger to fight them off, so only Rapunzel and the King got into my home. I managed to get the jump on them and trapped them with my alchemy. I... to make Rapunzel help me, I dropped the amber solution near her mother, to- if she didn't help me, her mother would have faced the same fate as my father.

[He grimaces, his shoulders tense like he's trying to recoil into himself.]

I thought that was fair.