Chapter Text
“Wake up! Elsa you must get up! I can’t open the door!”
The vigourous rattling and agitation of the handle bore witness to the truth of this statement, as Elsa faltered towards consciousness. She had not slept much, and what sleep she had had was indistinguishable from dreams; troubling and confusing and overwhelming.
She was not at all refreshed, and longed for sleep more than anything, but she was relieved in another way to find that it was time to give up the struggle for it and haul herself into activity.
The room, however, suggested otherwise, swagged from curtains to floor to door with ice shards, spaces between spiderwebbed with frozen snow. The windows were nearly obscured – Elsa had been in no state to close the curtains – and the door completely immovable.
“Anna?” she mumbled. “I have had – awful dreams. It’s – “ she had no words to explain what the state of the room was, how it had spiraled, seemingly of its own will, into a storm of confusion and become the after wreck of an ice blizzard at some point during her restless night of wretchedness and rejection. The only comfort she could cling to was that this had not happened when she was truly asleep; although she was unaffected by the environs of a chamber which now resembled nothing so much as an expedition to the Arctic, she merely slept through her own strange weather, and did not unconsciously form it, any more than she sleepwalked. She supposed distantly that if she had been given to somnambulism she would have been put out of everybody’s misery a long time ago, particularly after what she had read in the Contract of Arrangement.
“You should have had awful dreams, Elsa. I have been downstairs to breakfast, and Pastor Nylund is sitting there with that dreadful mother of Hans’s, and they are carving up our lives a great deal worse than Papa did. You must come down, Elsa, you must!”
Elsa’s attention was caught; she struggled out of her bed and to her wardrobe; she selected the first dress that came to hand, changed her mind, and took the darkest one in there.
“Anna – I’m dressing – but I haven’t anything black – have you a ribbon or something?”
“I have Mama’s veils and some black gloves. They will have to do; this is a matter of too great an urgency.”
“What has become of Hans? Does he not take my – our – part?” Elsa asked, pulling the sleeves up over her shoulders and having to wriggle to get them fitted. “Stand away from the door; I must open it, and my – natural abilities – have not been lying idle. At least two yards, Anna, and not in its direct path.”
“Doors do not have paths,” objected Anna, but she retreated as she was told.
“Are you away?” Receiving an affirmative reply, Elsa dropped her shoulders and raised her hands. She could not be sure what amount of power she had at her disposal, so she started willing herself to cast only a small nudge of force at the door, and realized, surprised, that she could feel it. She could feel the resistance of the door against her just as plainly as if she were truly touching it. She pushed at it, testing the strength of her power and of the door, and then flung her right hand out in front of her with a twist as if she were throwing it – and saw what she had felt become manifest; a jagged spiraling shard of ice leapt forward from her fingers, shaped into a spear, spread into a starry jolt of zigzagging spikes, drilling at and into and across the door until – with a creaking split – it gave up the fight, blasted neatly into a mess of scarred and shredded oak.
Anna gasped, gathering herself up into a bundle of caution.
“You could have melted it, couldn’t you?”
Elsa shook her head. “I simply don’t know how. Hans and I have talked about it, but – I don’t seem to have that power. It seems a little ridiculous, I know.” Anna was peaking into the chamber.
“It’s very elegant, Elsa. Like a pleasure garden of snow. But weren’t you cold?” Elsa shrugged and smiled, apologetic. Anna shrugged too, looking like a child accepting the impossible as a matter of course.
“Can you fasten my dress? It’s ridiculously – “ Again Elsa was driven to shrug, before turning her back so she could have her dress fastened. She gazed at the floor, unseeing, as Anna hooked her up.
“Goodness, it was quite the escape from Hans’ homeland, to have to get away without even having time to bring your dresser,” observed Anna.
“I didn’t have a dresser,” said Elsa, wonderingly.
“But how did you dress?”
“A girl came in the morning – when I had to ready myself for breakfast. It wasn’t the same girl often, though. And on the boat it was even worse. I had nobody to help me when we were about to meet MamaPapa and I had to ask this – well, he must have been a cabin boy. He was the only person who wasn’t old enough to – be unsuitable. But still, I was thinking when I saw her, how very shocked that Mama would have been, had she been aware that this very grubby little powder monkey had looked upon my back.”
“Mama is easily shocked,” replied Anna, in a worldly way, hooking up the last fastener and patting Elsa’s shoulder to tell her she’d done. A moment passed before she caught herself. “Or was, I suppose. Do you think they are really gone?”
Elsa turned slowly.
“We must behave as if they are, Anna, or the whole of the kingdom will be in ruins long before I come of age. Augusta – really cannot be trusted.”
They hastened off. Anna seized her sister’s hand, hurrying her down the staircase, handing her black gloves and a veil as they went.
The scene in the breakfast parlour was as Anna had indicated; Her Serene Majesty was drinking coffee from a dainty china cup, exuding all the air of one who owned that cup and every other item in the room, Pastor Nylund included. Elsa felt the anger inside her well up dark and inchoate, like evil itself, and clenched her black gloved hands to keep it in. Augusta, she noticed, adding to the insult, was still richly and vibrantly clad in glowing gold. No sign of mourning was added to any part of her dress.
“My dear girls!” she greeted them. “Come and eat a little; you must keep your strength up.”
Anna curtsied; Elsa’s eyes were fixed on Augusta with no sign of softness or courtesy.
“Good morning, Mama la Reine. Is my husband still in his bed?”
“I must suppose so, Mignonne,” replied Augusta, showing that she could give as good as she got if Elsa chose to be Frenchified.
“I will send for him directly. The issues surrounding our rule must be immediately resolved.”
“Dear child! They have already been resolved, as you put it. Hans left a note for you – it will certainly explain some things –“ Augusta rose and rang the bell, directing the servant to bring Prince Hans’ note for the Queen.
Elsa took it, watching Augusta as she unfolded it. It was unsealed, which surprised her. Hans had a seal ring on his little finger; she remembered him using it to dispatch her letters with the greater celerity after she had been distraught not knowing how to get them franked. Hans was a complete cynic about Augusta; he would not trust a letter intended for herself with his mother unsealed.
She scanned the lines quickly, handing the note on to Anna.
“I find none of this satisfactory. I must see my husband at once.”
“I fear that will be impossible. He has already left for the ship.”
“Setting aside the fact, Ma’am, that only the most unnatural parent could send her son in a state of illness on a long sea voyage which must surely hurry his demise, as well as depriving his last days of what small comfort he might have, I am compelled to inform you that Hans has no right to his own decisions in such a sort. He is married to the Head of State of Arendelle; he is my husband now, and that much less your son. He will die and be buried on Arendellian soil.”
“Nothing can be done,” smiled Augusta. “You have read his words yourself.”
“I do not believe so,” sneered Elsa. Anna looked in shocked appreciation at her sister. She had never seen her so thoroughly terrifying. “I will go to him now and ascertain the truth in person.”
“The ship should have sailed by now,” rejoined Augusta calmly.
“Accompany me, please, your Majesty. I will show you it has not.”
Amused, Augusta dabbed imaginary coffee drops from her lips and put down her napkin, inclining her head in acceptance, and the four of them – for Pastor Nylund seemed inexplicably to believe himself comprehended in Elsa’s invitation – made their way out onto the castle’s dock.
The flagship of the Southern Isles was still in place – but moving slowly away from them, almost far enough to round the point, was one of the escort ships, clearly an hour’s sailing away.
“You observe?” said Augusta.
“I do,” Elsa responded, walking carefully down the stone steps that led to the water.
At the very water’s edge, unable to take one more step without wetting her feet under the swell, she lifted the hem of her skirt to keep it dry, and her foot as though to take a step into the fjord. But she did not step: she stamped. She brought her foot down like a small soft slippered hammer, and under it the water seized and froze into solidity. Under Augusta’s astonished and dismayed eyes, as Elsa walked forward onto the water, it petrified, white and opaque and deep under each step, and then the freeze began to shoot forward, sweeping and surging through the water like a wave of winter, immobilizing the ships in the harbour, icing up their planks so they looked repainted in crystal lace, and pursuing the ship that bore Hans back to his homeland until it reached it and – when Elsa was less than ten yards from the dock – the ship stopped moving, surrounded by ice.
Elsa turned to Augusta, smiling a little.
“Do you?”
The Royal Stables were directed to send out a sled for the Regent immediately, Elsa dissembling a little about the surprisingly abrupt cold snap that had resulted in such a solid freeze, but demanded the moment be seized and the Prince returned without further discussion.
“But what will you do?” whispered Anna.
“I must save him, Anna. I owe it to him because he saved my life, and as Regent he is much to be preferred to his mother.”
Anna acquiesced; Augusta had launched into a long disquisition on the hopelessness of Hans’ health and the impossibility of his taking the regency, no word of which Elsa believed, and had added that since the Regency would last only a year, she hardly knew what Elsa was making such a fuss over. Elsa, listening to her with half her mind only, still heard enough to be surprised by Augusta’s effrontery. She questioned whether anyone in the world would not be making a fuss over relinquishing their liberty to somebody who wished their death.
At length they could make out the figures huddled up on the sled, muffled in furs, and shortly the sounds of the sled were audible, the spattering hard patter of the dogs’ feet and the encouragement of the driver, and a few minutes later they finally drew to a halt by the stone jetty.
Elsa ran down, relief lightening her feet as much as her heart, until she saw Hans and halted. What his mother had told her was true. Hans was still alive, but barely.
His skin had a ghastly pallor, his complexion was almost blue and his hair had gone nearly white. Augusta, who had seen the beginning of his condition, blanched at the grisly sight of him, and Anna was motionless with consternation, her hand moving to cover her mouth.
Dolph was wretched, his arm only supporting his brother from sliding to the floor of the sled in a dead faint, his expression wracked with guilt. But for Elsa, the sight was worse, for she knew, as soon as she saw his want of colour, the deathly hue of his skin, that his injury might quite well be mortal, and that it was of her infliction. She knew that she had struck him, just as she had Anna, and that she had no knowledge of how to undo the hurt she had wrought.
She darted forward and took his hand; he was fully as cold as he looked.
“Hans! You are so cold – I have to take you to the Valley – I am so very sorry.”
“Elsa? What?” asked Hans. His eyes felt very heavy – in fact, he felt leaden with cold all over, and could barely move. He moved his face to smile, suspected he was failing because it felt like stirring porridge, and squeezed her hand. “You sent for me. Thank you.”
“Oh, Hans. You shouldn’t thank me. It’s my fault, I struck you – last night, when I was so upset – I couldn’t control it.”
“If I am an unnatural parent, Your Highness would seem to be an equally unnatural wife,” remarked Augusta.
“I am a force of nature,” retorted Elsa sharply. “And I did not send him away to die at sea, when he might at least be kindly cared for.”
“Dragging him off to some valley northwards would scarcely seem caring.”
“I will do all I can to save him, and I will succeed. You will not rule in Arendelle, Your Majesty. Your own country has need of you.”
“But this is my duty, Your Highness. My son entrusted your regency to me. You saw the note.” Augusta clearly believed her son closer on death’s door than he was, for Hans raised his head at this and said clearly,
“I didn’t write you a note, Elsa.”
“How can you trust him? You must suspect, at least, that he had a hand in what happened to your parents?" After momentarily being led to hope somewhere inside his acute state of cold, that Elsa would indeed be able to best his mother, Hans heard this accusation as the death of all hope. His mother was right on all counts; for he was her son.
“I don’t believe a word from your lips and if it were true, I shouldn’t care a rap for it.” Hans heard the words and was dumbfounded. He did not believe she had said it, he did not believe she believed it.
“If I am to credit that, I must think you a fool.”
“No, I have stopped being a fool, because I have understood what I never did before; that I am too frightening for anybody to wish me well, even my own father and mother. I would not have hurt them for the world, but they were willing to let me be hurt, just as you are willing to let Hans die.
You mistake our marriage, Your Majesty, if you imagine it to be something you can undermine at this late stage. Hans cannot return to the Southern Isles because he and I are – closer - than he is, or can be, to any of his other flesh and blood. We are one flesh.”
Anna’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. Augusta’s sardonic glance flicked over her, observing her shock but misinterpreting its source. Anna was amazed to hear Elsa telling a bare faced lie. Elsa never lied. Until this very moment, Anna had supposed her to be quite incapable of it.
“Hans? Is this a fact? Did you betray your country and your family exactly as she claims?” How I meant to, he thought, and decided that it was best to let Elsa run the scene as she wanted.
“I’m a Westergard. We do bad things.” The double meaning was not lost on Augusta, and it did not please her. He earned a hard look from her, one unleavened with sympathy for his indifferent state of health. Her momentary distraction allowed Elsa to continue uninterrupted.
“I am not unfamiliar with the necessities of rule. But when we Arendellians take a step, however ill advised, or indeed against one’s own preferred moral code, we stick by it. And any Arendellian, high born or low, would surely scorn to abandon his own wife and child. Hans will be my regent, and I will save him. You may wait his renewed health on your ship if you wish; I suppose it will not be in any great hurry now. Perhaps the Pastor should accompany you. – Dolph, you will stay with us.”
Augusta stepped towards the sled, Hans supposed to remonstrate further with his wife – but she was stopped abruptly by a sharp hedge of icicles. “I will not negotiate, Mama in law.” And swiftly, puzzlingly, Elsa seemed to have got him out of the sled, bundled him up and enforced his mother – perhaps by main force of will, for there were no further demonstrations of snow or ice – to get into it in his stead, to be escorted back to her flagship.
The Queen’s departure – or something - made him feel decidedly better. Warmth and motion seemed to be returning to his limbs. A feeling of comfortable fluidity in his movements animated him. Dolph supported him up the steps to the dock, and into the castle, where he was seated on a sofa and a tankard of something hot and strongly scented with spice placed in his hands. He drank, gratefully, before realizing that he was the subject of intense silent scrutiny from the other three.
He looked an enquiry at them.
“Your hair, you know,” Dolph attempted.
“When you were in the sled, when you arrived, it was completely white – you know, the way people’s hair is supposed to be when they are shocked and wake up the next day with all the colour fallen out,” explained Anna. “But it seems to be turning back remarkably quickly.”
“I am improving every minute,” he agreed. “Do we have any notion of the cause?” He looked to Elsa. She was watching him, observing his improvement. In a sudden rush of movement, she was upon him, her hands touching first his hands and then his face and his hair, gauging his temperature, then lingering to tangle her fingers in his.
“I have no idea,” she murmured. “But I am so glad, Hans, so very glad.” She was smiling at him, as though she wasn’t able to stop, and wasn’t able to look away.
“How do you feel apart from glad?”
“I think I feel happy. I feel that all is right and that we shall be well.”
“I believe that may be why, Elsa, you have undone whatever you laid on me. You stopped freezing things by accident when you decided to trust me.”
She looked long at him, thinking over what he had said. “No. Not trust. I feel certain I shall always have to keep a close eye on your activities. Only I don’t care that I shall. You are like Anna; I love you and it can’t be undone.” She reflected further on it, her hand still in his. “I can control it, then.”
Standing up, she crossed the room, flung open the windows, and stepped onto the balcony, breathing in deeply the frigid blast of air that followed. “I shall send your mother on her way,” she said quietly.
She stretched out her arms to the whole horizon, as if pulling it towards her, engaging the storm symptoms she had made, and then like an angel embracing the skies above her, raised her arms, lifting a scurrying whirl of twinned and rimed and toothed crystals into a dozen twisting towers, feeding up into the sky, twirling into a huge stellar six pointed fern, and blinking precipitously into non existence, leaving behind only a blue, untainted bright winter sky.
“It is done. I am a little fatigued. Shall we have some lunch, and send a pigeon to bring Helena and Angelika, at least for a holiday? No doubt we can look forward to a most edifying correspondence with your mother about its duration.”
Hans stood up, offering his arm.
“Why would you need to keep a close eye on me when you have so clearly thought of everything?” he asked her. She looked at him again, and was again quite unable to repress her smile.
“I can’t decide. Perhaps I just wish to.”
So still smiling and still not quite telling each other the whole unvarnished truth, they went in to lunch.