Go watch Frozen for the second/third/nine millionth time. Get to the part where Anna turns fully to ice and Hans' sword shatters. Pause it right there.
Imagine Elsa being a little less sad and a little more pissed.
You got it? Now lean back and enjoy.
00000
'Elsa!' That voice, so familiar. It sounded so weak, so lost. Could it be? Dare she believe?
No. Hans had no reason to lie - he seemed good enough, even if he had tried to marry her sister the day he met her. Anna must surely be dead - this much she was sure of. And it was all her fault...
The crippling guilt began to settle in, and she pulled her knees to her chest, too mournful to hear the running footsteps head towards her. She didn't hear the labored breathing, the swooshing sound that the sword made as it traveled through the cold air in a mission to find blood.
She heard that voice again - just a quick 'No!' this time - and then a tingling as if her chandelier had fallen yet again. The footsteps she had heard in the back of her mind halted, and she was pushed forward by a small shockwave, sliding a few centimeters forward across the ice. There was a muffled 'oomph' as a body hit the ground. There was the crackle of ice forming, then silence. Cold, blessed silence.
She turned around hesitantly, then found a hand of blue ice, held palm first towards her. Her eyes traveled up the blue arm that was attached to it, crossed the dress she had seen earlier that day, finding the braids that would surely be red if they were not that terrible, frozen blue.
She dashed to her feet, and ran to the front of the frozen form. Elsa's frozen heart broke as she saw her sisters face, frozen in a scene of torment and fear. In her bath of self loathing, she did not recognize the protectiveness that was there as well.
She stepped forward once, hand reaching out to touch the frozen figure. She took a second step forward, then her foot slipped on something and she fell onto her back, the wind knocked out of her.
She couldn't have possibly slipped on ice - ice molded to her feet, protected her, kept her up when she needed it to. He gaze dropped down to the shard of steel that she had slipped on. Confused, as if her mind contained the maelstrom that had graced the frozen shores just moments ago, she noticed the hand that Anna had outstretched before her, as if warding off an attack.
Who was attacking Anna? In her bath of self-hatred, she didn't even pause to think that Anna could have been protecting her. Elsa stood up slowly, noticing the dozens of metal shards that littered the icy expanse, her eyes stopping when they noticed the top half of a sword, stuck in the ice by Anna's feet. Her eyes narrowed, and she whirled around, directing all her loss and anger to the figure at her feet.
"You." The word dripped from her lips like venom, and the redheaded man - boy, really - knew that he should have killed her when he had the chance.
"Your... Your Majesty, what has happened? I swear I -" The gears in Hans' mind turned, as he desperately tried to think up a way to get out of his predicament. He looked up at the queens face, noting that her eyes were not aimed at him, but at his right hand. His eyes darted down, and he remembered the broken hilt of his sword a little to late for his liking. Eyes narrowed, he looked up to the queen, and his words froze in his mouth.
If looks could kill...
"Uhm, this? I just uh, found, it..." He lifted the broken half-blade, testing its weight in his hand. Elsa began to stalk towards him, each footfall echoing off the hulls of frozen ships and making him wince slightly. How did she not trip while stomping in a dress?
After a moment, he decided verbal trickery was not the best option, and went to flee. He slowly started to stand, getting to one knee when a wave of stinging ice was flung at his face. He dashed to the side, but a few still nicked his cheek. Shocked, he reached up and felt the side of his face. Warm crimson stained his glove when he brought it back into view.
Hans grew even colder at the thought. Sure, he had always run risks of imprisonment - playing his brothers off each other, committing treason left and right, stealing secrets, hearts and promises and using them to blackmail - but for the first time, a worse risk faced him.
He was going to die here.
In a fit of desperation, he flung the hilt of his sword at Elsa. Without her so much as moving her hands, a wall of ice grew out of the ground and smashed it out of her way. When the wall cleared her vision, Hans was on the run back to the town.
Elsa had never felt this much emotion in her life. Not when she had hurt her sister as a child, not when her parents had died, not even when she had been attacked at the castle. But right now, all her guilt, her depression, her years of loneliness and self-pity poured into this one, powerful feeling.
Hatred.
She hated the man who ran like a coward before her. Hated him for ruining her coronation night. Hated him for chasing after him with that hunting party. Hated him for lying to her, hated him for making her kill her sister.
With a wave of her hand, a ball of ice and snow appeared in front of Hans, and the giant she had unthinkingly created at her Ice Manor pulled itself to its knees, once giant claw snatching the Prince before Hans could escape. The goliath began to squeeze, and Elsa could hear ribs pop.
"Sion, no. Bring him to me." The giant stopped squeezing, turning to look at his creator and master. He nodded once, then his booming voice rang out over the ice.
"Yes. This is your kill."
Hans, ever the valiant icon of honor and manliness, fainted.
When he woke, his hands were cold. His back hurt and he knew that his ribs were cracked, and he couldn't seem to get enough to breath. One of his lungs must have been injured.
He opened his eyes, trying to stand, but he could not. His hands were chained to the ice, secured by that same material. He looked up, and saw the monster before him. It grinned, then spoke.
"Oh good, prince Hans. How nice of you to join us." Elsa purred, and he knew he was just waiting to die now. Her eyes were wild, crazy. She licked his lips, then kneeled before him.
"Well, Hans. Today, you die. It's very simple, really." She grabbed ahold of his chin, turning his face this way and that as she examined him. "We have a witness - an ice-harvester and his reindeer took my sister back to the kingdom. I told him of my plans, and sent him on his way. He seemed... Pleasant enough."
"Your Majesty, please, I beg of you-" His words were cut short by a backhanded slap.
"Do not speak to me. And do not call me that anymore - I am no longer queen." Hans' shocked look must have amused her, because she giggled. "No. I have committed a grave sin twice now - three times when this is over. Once when my parents died - I know it must have been my fault that they went on that trip. They didn't tell me what it was, so it must have had something to do with my... my curse." She bit her lip at this, and he was shocked to see it draw blood.
"Once again with my sister, and now, you." She sighed, then stood, and he noticed she no longer wore her flowing dress. She now wore deep, dark blue trousers and a buttoned-up shit, as well as a red - how on earth could ice be red? - vest. She tugged on the cuff of her sleeves, then kneeled back down. "Well. Prince Hans -" She chuckled. "I still don't know your last name. Oh well." Clearing her throat, she looked him in the eyes, and he saw no pity or mercy there. Just disgust and contempt.
"Prince Hans, thirteenth in line for the throne of the southern isles, formerly betrothed to Princess Anna of Arendelle, as my last act as Queen I hearby sentence thee to death. Any last words?"
He opened his mouth, desperately trying to think of some way to talk his way out of this. He had done it before. He could do it again. Surely no one could resist his infamous charm and wit? He cleared his throat, then began to talk.
"Please -" Elsa suddenly silenced him with her lips, breathing deep into his throat. He was shocked into silence, and when she pulled away she spat onto the ice. He felt an odd tickle in the back of his throat, then a burning chorus of pain as he began to freeze from the inside. He shook in his chains, trying not to escape his fate but to escape the agony that was the end of his life.
After quite a few minutes, nothing remained of the prince but a blue statue, face frozen in torment, veins popping in his neck. He still wore his clothes, but they were dusted in frost. The queen sighed, then turned to her companion. "Shame. I wished he would have chosen dignity over trying to escape again. Would have been a lot less painful."
The hulking behemoth didn't say a word, merely raised a giant, flat bottomed foot to crush the corpse of the man who now surely resided in hell. Where I may rest quite soon as well. Elsa thought, grim. She stopped Sion in his attempt of crushing what was left of him.
"Leave his corpse as a warning of what I - what we are capable of. They will send less after us if they fear us for the monsters we are." Sion pulled his foot back, then turned to his master.
"Where do we go?"
She paused, thinking. Then she shrugged.
"Does it matter? Let us go farther north than the north mountains, and see what awaits us." The giant nodded, then kneeled. Elsa climbed onto his outstretched hand, settling on his shoulder. They departed, leaving no evidence of their departure save the giants footprints, which were soon blown away in the wind.
00000
So, Yeah. This is not going to be a journey of love and sappy romance and things like that. It's going to be bloody and violent. If you wanted some Sister+Sister bonding time, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place. There's going to be plenty of emotion, but not so much fluff and happy times.
Please leave a comment/review/death-threat if you feel like it. I'm not going to start charging a toll until I feel like writing this becomes taxing, which wont be a while because I really am looking forward to writing this.
Cyaround.
-Arac