Chapter 1

The Eyes of the Hunted

Author's Note: I did change the character of Jack quite a bit to serve my purposes, but the important thing was that he loves her and is immortal. Sorry to any ROTG purists, but artistic license.

For chronological purposes, the earlier parts of this fanfic take place concurrently with Frozen and also after and before the main events of ROTG, although Jack is obviously already a Guardian.

Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction. Nobody is making any money from it, and certainly not me. I do not claim ownership over ROTG or Frozen or any of the characters involved. Unfortunately. I'd own Frozen if I could, I'd get about a billion dollars richer.

Jack

The first time I saw her, I barely even noticed her. As I was flying over miles and miles of nondescript forest, a strip of white caught my eye. "Ice? Now?" I thought, checking to make sure that it wasn't me. Well, I'm not going to ignore a freakishly straight line of frozen grass like that, so I followed. Thinking now, I'm not sure I should have. It would have saved me quite a bit of pain. Or maybe it wouldn't, who can tell?

At any rate, I followed. The forest abruptly opened up into a bowl-like clearing, which was covered in all sizes of remarkably round rocks. The first thing that caught my eye was the family of four in the centre, two young girls and a couple who I assumed to be their parents. One of them appeared to be sleeping, but the mixture of paralyzing terror and maddening panic on her parents' faces made it abundantly clear that she was very sick. The other, slightly older and with blonde hair so pale it was nearly white, was hiding behind her mother but it was her sister who held my attention at that moment. Nobody likes to see a sick child, and I stayed partially out of genuine concern and partially out of morbid curiosity. I wanted to know why they had taken their obviously sick child to a clearing in the midst of an endless and unforgiving forest. Then the rocks began to move.

I've seen a lot of strange things, and this was hardly the strangest of them, but I have to admit that I was startled into the air, where I remained, hovering, watching. The animate rocks unfolded into short and squat creatures with vaguely humanoid features, with arms and legs. I was too high in the air to hear what was said, but when I saw the look of absolute relief on the family's faces, I knew that the girl would be fine. Then I left, for I had wasted too much time already. I wasn't even supposed to be in that hemisphere, but I couldn't resist the occasional snow squall in the middle of spring.

I didn't see her again for another decade. Please note, I did a lot of stuff during that time. A few blizzards here, a few nightmare winters there, that sort of thing. I visited Arendelle often enough, but I just never saw her outside. I didn't really think about her at all, to be honest. There were millions of other people on the planet, why would I remember her? Maybe it should have stayed that way. I don't know.

Once again, it was the ice that caught my attention. Through an open window I caught a glimpse of a miniature snowstorm. That in itself was somewhat weird, but what was weirder was that all the snow was completely stationary. It was just floating in midair, like someone had frozen the blizzard. Again, curiosity drove me closer. I looked through the window and saw a girl with blonde hair so pale it was nearly white sitting hunched up against the door. And she was crying, but she fought to hold the tears in check, even as she held the snowflakes steady in the air. Something within me longed to go and offer what comfort I could, but I also knew that disturbing her in her time of grief would not go well for either her or me. So I watched and waited, a lonely specter outside the window. At night, when she had finally cried herself to sleep, I left, flying away. However, I made my presence known, even if she would never know who was responsible. When she awoke, she would find the snow crystallized into the pattern of a frozen flower. Like her, the flower was fair yet fragile, a symbol of beauty imprisoned. As I flew into the night, it occurred to me that I didn't know her name.

This time I remembered her, and for the next three years she was wandering in and out of my mind. I checked on her occasionally, flying past her window whenever I flew past Arendelle. She never left her room, though, which was strange. Sometimes when I watched she would spontaneously produce bursts of ice. Whenever this happened the look in her eyes would instantly transform into pure terror, as if the ice was something foreign, chasing and unrelenting. This caught my attention. The ice itself was shocking and would have captured my interest, but it was the look of terror was what truly set her apart. That was the look of the hunted who cannot hide, the look of the tormented who cannot run. That look should not be in anybody's eyes, much less hers. Each time when I left, I formed another frozen flower and placed it on her bedroom floor. I wondered about her, wondered why she was so afraid, and wondered when, if ever, I should show myself. I still did not know her name.

Elsa

I bend over and pick up the flower. Someone had been leaving them every few weeks for three years now. I don't know whom, I don't know why. But one thing I do know, that he/she/it understands in a way that no one else had. How do I know? The flower is the same as I am. Trapped. Frozen.