Angel in the Snow, Demon in the Shadows
(A/N: Something I had spinning around in my head for a while. I suppose it's kind of a Hans/Elsa thing but a darker take on it that hints that maybe there could have been more. I just had to get it out, so let me know what you think. I have a lot of ideas written up but I'm not sure, yet, whether to expand on this. If you want me to continue and make this more than a oneshot, let me know.)
She ran through the storm she had created in tears, fleeing from the palace, fleeing from those who wished her harm, fleeing from everything. This land was better off without her! Hans would take care of Anna. Together they would rule Arendelle and all would be well again. She knew the thought was naïve. It would never be well again. Not now. Not anymore. At least, though, Anna would have her prince.
At least she herself would be free. Isolation was nothing new to her. In isolation there was comfort, reassurance, safety... crushing loneliness and eternal regret…
Frozen
Hans gazed darkly out at the snow as it whipped around. She had escaped. Damn her! This ended now. She ended now. He gave chase, though the men with him called for him to stay out of the blizzard. He was beyond caring. The cold never bothered him anyway. He smirked to himself on realizing how true that suddenly was. Much like Elsa. He inwardly scoffed at the idea they could have anything in common. They didn't, really, now that he thought about it. The cold never bothered her. It was truer, in his case, to say he had never really felt or noticed the cold... He hadn't felt or noticed anything for a long time...
But now he noticed her...
Through the wisps of snow he saw her running. Her feet hardly touched the ground as she fled at a speed almost unearthly. Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, after all he was keeping up, but optical illusions were amazing things, really. Brother number four had introduced him to optical illusions. He'd always marveled at them. He'd never asked why they looked the way they did. He preferred not knowing the answer. It kept the mystery intact and left the answer up to your wildest imaginings. That was what was happening now. He could almost fool himself into thinking she ran with the wings of a goddess at her back. All around her the snow crystals blew, and then she would disappear from sight only to reappear somewhere completely new.
She looked so lost. So frightened. So vulnerable. That was the time it was best to strike at the prey; when they were weak and confused and on the verge of just giving up. That was the state she was in now. She ran and the storm swirled around her and around him violently. She was there, a wisp, and then she was gone like a phantom. She was there, a wraith, she was gone, a figment of the imagination. Perhaps she was an optical illusion. Perhaps he was chasing air. Perhaps there had never been a Snow Queen of Arendelle and all of this had been in his imagination. Maybe that was why he couldn't feel anything. Of course he knew that thought was ridiculous, but it made one wonder.
God, her beauty was otherworldly... There was no one who could deny she was just so beautiful... But then those sorts always hid darkness and coldness beneath. He knew because he was one of that sort. His brothers were that sort. After all, what was beauty? A mask for the hideousness underneath...
But she was beautiful underneath too...
No, no she wasn't. Perhaps in a sense she was, but he had seen her coldness. He had seen how willing she was, when cornered and trapped, to kill. But then most of humanity was that way, he believed. Push them far enough you could get them to do the most horrific things. Things they never dreamed they would. He had been pushed that way. He had once cared. Now he didn't. He had no regrets. He did not regret this! He would see this plan through to its finality.
"Queen Elsa!" he called out to her form. He watched her. Waited for her response which would come soon. She turned to him looking so desperate, so miserable, so... so defeated... She would look more defeated still soon enough. They spoke. He hardly heard her. He hardly heard himself; like he was just some spectator looking down on this entire play from somewhere else. He thought he picked out 'just take care of my sister' in her words.
Love of siblings and sibling bonds were a lie...
'Just take care of my sister.' That was his cue. He told her that her sister was dead. Now there was more than the appearance of defeat. She was beaten. She was broken. He had won and she was his... Her warm blood would dye the ice red and melt the snow beneath it. Or maybe that was more his blood. His blood would melt the snow. Hers would kiss it gently and drive it to mourn its lost queen.
Beaten. Broken. Strike now. She is weeping. She will not fight. Strike now...
And he did... He raised his sword... As he approached he could have sworn he saw the wings of an angel at her back.
Frozen
She saw him, racing through the snow. Sometimes he was beside her, and she would meet what she believed may have been his eyes but couldn't tell. A swirl of snow would come and he would disappear and be farther away than before, and sometimes closer. They ran almost parallel to each other now, side by side, distance between them. They knew where the other was. They both knew. This was the man who would have her sister. He would be a blessed husband. She told herself that, but within she felt uneasy because she knew, she sensed, that there was something very... off. Sometimes, through the snow, she could swear she saw the horns of a devil and the tail. Illusions, she knew, always illusions, but still...
Again gone, out of her sight. Again the snow felt empty and endless and the blizzard an eternal prison but safe. There, back again, and the blizzard seemed not so empty and endless anymore, but all that more dangerous and deadly. She wanted the endless prison that was safe more than she wanted the small prison of foreboding. "Queen Elsa!" she heard him call. She had stopped on hearing it. Maybe she had stopped even before. She no longer knew. She could hardly tell what she was doing anymore. She turned to face the good and decent prince behind her. Good and decent...
So why did she see a demon in his shadow...?
She spoke, and they knew there was no going back now.