Sound the Bugle
I awoke in a cell on the boat that would be returning me to the Southern Isles. Returning as a failure, chained like the beast I had become. Caged and alone like I deserved. I wished they would sound the bugle now, the ones they play when a warrior has returned from battle, or a Prince from a foreign land. I wished they would play it just for me, as they had for so many of my brothers before. But I knew it wouldn't sound. Not for a monster.
I thought back to the start of my journey to Arendell, the bright-eyed boy I had once been, looking only for a place to call their own, but as the seasons change, suddenly, magically from summer to winter, so too did I. I had gotten so lost in the strive for power I had forgotten everything else, let myself fall into the flurry of desire, the frost of greed. My heart had frozen over, but I did not have someone to thaw it from it's icy shell. And I remember how I used to be, warm, bright, full of life, despite the pain and loneliness I had suffered. There had always been hope, the hope of a better future. There had always been love, the love of adventure and life. But that has all been shattered, lost by my own hand in the grip of desire, greed, fear..
Now I can't go on. What is left for a monster who used the only person to show them kindness and love to take everything they had dreamed of away, destroy what had meant the most to them, and broke their heart with rejection, the same way I had been cast aside before. Made them feel the pain I had been through, when all they had wanted was to be loved. I can't even start, how can I pick up the pieces that have been shattered, destroyed.
I've got nothing left. I had thrown away my last chance at a dream I had been futilely chasing after my whole life. There was no way I could stand to face myself, for there was nothing left to stand. My position will be gone soon enough, there was no way anyone, especially not my family could see anything in me now. The man that had left to seek a place to call his own was long gone, leaving only a shell of a man that could have been great, but let himself fall farther than all of those before him. The warmth, love and hope of a young man had been stripped away to leave just an empty heart.
It feels as if I'm a soldier, wounded so I must give up the fight. A soldier in the battle of succession, and of belonging, but I'm starting to see that it was never meant to be. My brothers where right, I should have given up long ago. I would never amount to anything. I had fought against my fate, but had returned with nothing more than I had gone with. But with so much less of myself. Like the wounded soldiers, bearing the burden of war. Except I didn't have the honor of protecting anything, only the wound inflicted by my own deeds leaving behind the lasting scars of my own disgrace and failure.
The boat stopped, having reached the docks of the Southern Isles. I looked up to see the face of my brother, the king, his face painted with disappointment and disgust. And the pang of realization hit me once again. There's nothing more for me. Not for the monster, there's not a place that would take me. A person that could accept what I have become. I wanted him to lead me away in the chains that held me down, take out on me the punishment I deserved.
Or leave me lying here, to starve and decay. To be forgotten, as I had never been remembered before.
Let them sound the bugle now, telling all the disgrace had finally washed up on shore, tell them of the prince who tried to destroy a family and the kingdom that went with it, tell them I don't care what anyone says of me or does with it. There's not a road I know that leads to anywhere. I have come to the end of my journey, no where else that would take me, no once else to care. I am out of directions, I am lost. There is nothing else to guide me, and without a light I fear that I will stumble in the dark. The darkness of my own end. I will lay right down, decide not to go on living with the agony of what I have left.
Every will to keep going had all but escaped from my soul, but then from on high, somewhere in the distance, there's a voice that calls "remember who you are" and it's familiar yet strange. It was the voice of the one who had always picked me up as I fell, who was always happy to see me, to be with me, the one who had stood by me no matter what the danger, no matter how stupid or wrong I had been. And it kept calling "If you lose yourself, your courage soon will follow" and I knew how true his words had been, in the midst of the frozen wasteland I had fallen into I had lost myself, and the courage to stand back up out of the pit of despair. "so be strong tonight" the night where the king could decide my punishment. "Remember who you are" I am Hans, Prince of the southern isles, Hans who had never been forgotten as I had never been remembered by the people around me. I had to make them remember, not the monster that had controlled me, but the man who had the courage to chase after a destiny that he had to make himself.
"Your a soldier now, fighting in a battle" The battle I had been fighting my whole life, the battle to not just be the forgotten boy, but the man who could stand tall. "To be free once more" and he was right, this was a battle to free myself from the prison of desolation I had grown up with, freedom from the mar I had put on my own name, the dark stain on my honor and life. And to Fight to not let down the one who still had faith in me. Yeah, that's worth fighting for!
A/N: I do not own Frozen, it's events or it's characters - Disney Does. I Also do not own "Sound the bugle" By Bryan Adams in any way. I just put them together, because they just seemed to fit so well...
This is my first published fanfiction so I hope it wasn't a total train-wreck. Comments and criticisms welcome.