The Worth of a Soul
Disclaimer: I do no own Frozen or any of its characters!
Notes: Anything in Italics is a dream, flashback, or inner thought. Or even just emphasis (EMPHASIS!)
Author's Word: Hello dears! I know it's been quite some time since you've heard from me, but what can I say? Life gets hectic. Anyway, just wanted to give a little thanks to anyone who is currently reading this because of my Sherlock fics. Your continued support is what keeps me writing. Now, I beg you to give this new little thing of mine a chance. I've got some great ideas for it, and as long as it's well received I'll carry on! So let me know what you think? No hate, please, I'll simply die!
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Chapter One: The Voyage
"Stew in there, and think about what you've done. You'll be judged soon enough, I'm certain."
What I've done. What's been done to me. What I should have done, shouldn't have done, wish I'd done, wish I hadn't done.
What is the difference, anymore?
It's all the same, it's all just the links of the chains that bind me.
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There are always multiple perspectives to any story, any tale in which a person makes a choice that affects countless others.
If you would permit me this one small mercy... if you would allow me this chance... please let me tell my story. You have to know that I wasn't always a man who would resort to subterfuge and violence against women. You have to know that there was a me once who still knew how to forgive others, how to love. There was a me that was still a person. Still a child.
I just could never forgive myself. Maybe if I can show you the places it went wrong...
I want to earn forgiveness. I want to be whole. I want to be worth the air I breathe.
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Beginnings are usually the best places to start, regardless of how terrible they may be. I was born on an awfully warm June evening, and my entrance to this world marked the egress of my mother. She lived a mere few minutes after my birth, long enough to breathe out my name and shed a few weak tears. Or so I am told.
They told me that her pregnancy was very difficult, that she was ill so often through it. They told me that I came too early, that her bones broke and there was so much blood. They told me that she had begged to die.
I killed her. I, the unwanted thirteenth son. I hadn't a memory aside from the name of my mother, but I wasn't allowed to forget that mine was the straw that broke her. Every day, someone insisted that I had not been worth her life.
Worthless. Trash. Rubbish. Words of endearment from my father.
He was a harsh man and a harsh father, but a just king, as the servants and the groundskeepers told me. All I knew of him was a drunkard with not one ounce of warmth in his eyes or his heart. All I knew of him was the marks on my skin and the tears on my cheeks and the nights I sobbed myself to sleep. All I knew of him was cruelty and pain.
Needless to say, I tried my best not to see him often.
I wandered the halls of his enormous, drafty castle. I made fast friends with the suits of armor and the mousers and the hunting dogs. I spent a lot of time in the stables, asking the horses to tell me stories. The stable master, while not unfriendly, didn't speak to me or even acknowledge my presence at all, except to give me a sugar cube now and then. I used to sleep in a little loft in the library on the worst days. In fact, the worst days became every day and I moved all of my most precious things into that little loft. He never came into the library. I was safe there.
My brothers were little help. They were fighting their own battles with him, too busy to fight mine. The older ones hated me the most because they remembered her the most. The younger ones spared a kind word now and then, but even that was taboo. When you're a pariah specially branded by the king, most of his subjects do their best to treat you likewise, including your own kin.
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One day I lost a ball in the woods and chased it to the front stoop of a little cottage. I was just about eight years old and that morning my father had strapped my hide for mentioning a song I'd heard a maid singing. My injured childhood pride had carried me away from the castle, as far as I could manage.
In the Southern Isles, all forms of art are considered sacred. Because of this, it is illegal for males to practice any sort of artistry, since our ancestors determined that only females had the grace and skill to produce works worthy of the heavens. My appreciation of the maid's song was an act of treason in his eyes. No son of his would betray the throne with such insolence in the face of tradition.
It was a strange balance he expected of me. I was worthless and useless and only good for beating or forgetting, but I was not to be a public disgrace, even if I was a private one. I was to be out of sight and out of mind, but still a perfect prince to uphold the family reputation. I was an extremely redundant offspring of his. After all, what need did a king have of even three sons, let alone thirteen? And why should he care a whit about the unlucky thirteenth?
There was a wizened old man resting in a rocking chair by the door. As I stood on his pathway, staring warily at him, he grasped his gnarled walking staff and stood, using the other arm to push his weight out of the chair. The elder slowly made his way to my ball and stooped shakily to retrieve it.
"Now, my boy, have your ball. Mustn't lose it, no, not a nice ball like this."
I drew a breath and approached him, carefully taking the ball from his hand. I bowed and murmured my thanks before turning to leave. But his voice stopped me, quiet and kind and soft. Nothing like I'd ever heard before.
"What is your name, child?"
"It's Hans, sir."
He leaned closer on his great staff and peered at me, eyes aged but clear and clever and a startling blue.
"There wouldn't happen to be a 'Prince' preceding that 'Hans', now, would there?"
I cast my eyes down and shuffled my feet in the dirt. Unfortunately, I thought.
"Yes, sir. I promise I won't bother you any, I'll just be going now. Sorry for the trouble."
"Nonsense, lad, nonsense. Come in, come in. The grandchildren and I were just sitting down to dinner. You'll join us, of course. Hmm, dressed a little scruffy for a princeling, aren't we?" he observed as he wrapped an arm around my thin shoulders and ushered me inside.
I was always dressed a little scruffy. Better to dress like my family treated me. Like refuse on the street. Better to avoid unfortunate attention.
I asked him what his name was. He told me to call him Granddad, like his passel of little boys and girls did. And we sat down at a table together and ate a warm, home-cooked meal. When we finished, all of us children washed and put away the dishes while Granddad sat in a large armchair and puffed on his pipe, his great white beard tickling his knobby knees. Eventually we were all gathered by his feet on the floor and he told us a story about a little swan chick that had gotten misplaced into a family of ducks.
Soon the light of day faded, and as Granddad herded the children towards the attic and their little beds, the strangest thing happened. Those young ones, aged just six years and younger, began to sing, boys and girls alike. The eldest spun a simple melody and her siblings wove harmonies around it. Until then, I had never heard anything more beautiful and I wanted so badly to be a part of this family. This very real, very happy family, where music was not scorned, but instead something to be shared. Where it was not withheld from the unprivileged.
"Granddad, can I stay here... with you?"
"Why, little prince, haven't you a large and loving family of your own to go home to? And besides, they'd toss me in prison for kidnapping!"
"They don't care too much for me. And I don't really think they'd throw you in prison. Rather, I think they'd pay you not to return me."
The old man's brow furrowed as he placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Now, young master, true or false those statements may be, but never you mind. I tell you what: go on home tonight and come visit me tomorrow. I'll be here, don't you worry."
On an impulse, I hugged him quickly before I ran back down the path and into the woods.
From that day forward, I spent every spare moment at Granddad's cottage. And I found some peace.
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That little cottage in the woods, so humble and simple, became the very best part of my life. Granddad began to teach me things. Music, mostly. That dear, mysterious, forbidden art. He taught me to sing, to play instruments, to write songs. I learned right alongside his grandchildren as if I was his own. On Saturdays and Sundays we drew and sculpted and painted. On Wednesdays we danced. On Fridays we read and wrote, stories and poetry and things.
In between cursings and beatings, I would learn a new concerto. After a drunken lecture on the family reputation, we reviewed the minuet. Some days I would be forbidden meals at the castle, and some days Granddad baked cookies and sweet rolls.
Like oil and water, these two halves of my life were. I couldn't get them to reconcile, to fuse themselves into some coherent self-entity.
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One learns certain things, when one's life is so splintered and strange. Like how to act. To conceal and cover up the unwanted-whatever. Model prince and worthless, monstrous waste of space in one outwardly well-manicured and inwardly volatile package. One learns how to shut down one's emotions and pretend to be a whole person.
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When I was fifteen, my father discovered that I'd taken to giving bread from the kitchen larder to the young vagrants that slept underneath the castle's great bridge. He threw me in the oubliette for seven months. There was no sunlight. There was a candle, now and then, but no sunlight. It's amazing how intensely one can feel a desire for sunlight as though it was hunger in one's stomach, deeply rooted and unseatable.
When at last the hatch swung open for the final time and someone led me to the servants' bathhouse, I stood at the window for seeming hours and wept at the scent of moving air and the feel of sunshine.
Once he let me out, I began spending time in the kitchens, where the chefs taught me how to cook and the maids taught me how to sew. From then on, I simply made food and clothes for the children while I was at Granddad's, using the money I earned from working for the castle librarian and the stable master.
Once he let me out, I started boxing and fencing. Hunting and fishing and riding. Archery and swimming. Anything physical. They never interested me before, and my father mistook it as me finally working at preserving our image. But what it turned out to be was an outlet. Whenever night had fallen and I was left to myself, I'd strike the punching bag with my fists until they bled, imagining his awful face broken by my hands. I'd race my horse over miles of open country, pretending that his words were the dust behind Lars' hooves.
Once he let me out, so little of the child I had been remained.
Granddad knew that the dungeon had changed me. He tried so hard to patch me up, to fix me. I lashed out at him a few times. They always ended with tears from either one of us and murmured apologies. I hated that part of myself, that part that so poorly handled the feelings of those I loved. I hated the part of myself that couldn't resort to a better way to deal with my own emotions. I hated the part of myself that couldn't bear that others should be so at peace, so happy, when I couldn't be, the twisted part that drove me to drag the fortunate into my depths of discontent.
Then again, I hated every part of myself.
The tighter my downward spiral and the more disconcerting my compositions became, the more Granddad fell silent. He knew me too well by then, knew that I no longer set any store by words. But he was still simply there, in that little cottage in the woods, and he contented himself still with imparting his skill and wisdom. Often our afternoons would pass with not a word spoken.
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His flesh and blood were growing up to be fine young men and women, all slender and fair creatures with voices like angels and kindness in their hearts. They were gentle to me still, even as warped and twisted as I had become. They still treated me as their brother.
A few months into my eighteenth year, I attended the wedding of the eldest sister, my dearest Aileen. There I had the most fortunate misfortune of meeting the beautiful Kristina, with whom I fell into a senseless, mindless love. She had the loveliest pale brown eyes. She had soft hands and a sharp sense of humor and a steadfast kindness in her heart. And she would sing to me, as I laid with my head in her lap beside the somnolent river in the woods.
I think I was happy, during our short-lived time together. I think that my night terrors had softened into nightmares and my decaying heart had started to regrow. I think we could have had some peace.
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Just a few weeks shy of my nineteenth birthday, the king's health had deteriorated so terribly that a regency was required, and the eldest prince, Adolphus, assumed the duties of the realm. It was at this point that the extent of my father's terrible parenting exhibited itself in the tyranny of my older brother. He was cruel and unforgiving.
Arbitrarily, he chose this time to select a bride, and decided to choose from the eligible girls in the country rather than a foreign princess. Looking back, I am aware now that the "arbitrariness" of this decision was little to none.
Adolphus had discovered my relationship with Kristina, and "randomly" selected her out of the crowd at one of his grand balls. Her face was brave and calm as he took her hand, led her to the front of the room, and introduced my beloved as the future Crown Princess of the Southern Isles.
But that evening, on that riverbank in the woods, I held her in my arms as she wept, and I kissed her for one last time. We parted ways and she spent her last night in her childhood home. Mad with grief and hatred, I stumbled through the trees to Granddad's cottage. I arrived at his door shouting and screaming. In my fervor, I recoiled too sharply at a touch from his hand, and he fell to the ground, with a great bruise forming on his papery cheek.
"Hans, my child," he croaked through a throat thick with sobs, "How far will your anger take you?"
I carried him to his chair and wrapped a blanket round his thin frame. My own face was damp with tears as I knelt at his feet, as I had done so many times as a child. This time, instead of begging for a story, I begged for forgiveness. He simply placed his hands on my shoulders, and let me cry.
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When I returned to the castle hours later, I was seized by the guards and dragged to the Regent's study. He sat lazily sprawled in a large chair behind his ornate desk, and looked positively bored as he accused me of treasonous activities.
"I have it on good authority that you have been consorting with my fiancee, Katrina. Is that not true, brother?"
"Her name is Kristina," I growled through gritted teeth as I struggled against the guards' hands.
"I believe I said, IS THAT NOT TRUE?" He stood and slammed his hands against the desk. "Perhaps if you answer honestly, I'll be inclined to be merciful in terms of your punishment. I would hate to see something terrible happen to you. Brother. Dear."
"I love her."
"I am well aware. And, as I am feeling particularly beneficent tonight, I will accept that as your admission of guilt, and sentence you to a mere 40 lashes. Oh, I am nice, aren't I? Take him to the dungeons and work my will."
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I stopped feeling the strokes somewhere in the middle of my penalty. All of which I was conscious was the raging inferno within me, composed of years of scorn and ache and caustic words. On the thirtieth lash, that terrible anger manifested itself in the form of fire.
The whip and the ropes that bound my limbs turned to ash, and tongues of flame licked across my ragged, bloodied flesh, cauterizing the torn wounds. The dungeon master's hands and arms were singed and bubbled and the smell of burned flesh permeated the air. The guards fled the room and returned with the Regent in tow. Smoke was still curling from my body as the men in the room called me a "wicked elemental" and a "filthy abomination" while my brother decided my fate.
"Oh, would that I could just kill you, brother. A term in the King's Army should beat it out of him," he panted. There was fear in his eyes as he searched my face. "Gentlemen. As payment for your silence on this matter, you may choose a goodly sum or death. There is no option. No one else is to know of what transpired in this room or of the true circumstances of the prince's "decision" to enlist. Leave him in here this night. Tomorrow morning he goes to The Forge."
With a few swift kicks from the dungeon master, they departed. I should have caught a chill from the damp cell and lack of a shirt, yet the very air around me was charged with warmth. Slowly, I twisted my sore arms to search my back, and found brand new ridges of scar tissue rather than open stripes. I leaned against the wall, the stones heating beneath my skin, and tried to catch my breath. I lifted one shaking hand, watching as small flames danced across my fingertips.
There was a certain sort of terror that settled in my chest that night, a terror that spread through my limbs. This great power contained within me was nothing more than another burden. Another aberration, inclusion, fault to hide.
And yet.
There was also a feeling of freedom, just a small one, that accompanied that sense of fear. Helplessness is the greatest prison, be it a prison of the body or a prison of the mind. And though I was lying against a wall in a dungeon cell and was to be forcibly enlisted in the army the next morning, I didn't feel quite so helpless, anymore.
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That night, I slept a peaceful hour or two before a light rapping came at the door.
"Who's there?"
A small, dirty face appeared behind the door. I recognized him as one of the kitchen boys.
"What are you doing down here, young man? This is no place for a little boy."
"Well sir, I don't think this is any place for a prince, neither, yet here we are. I've brought someone to see you."
And then there was Granddad's face peeking through the bars as the child's feet skittered down the hall.
"Hans, my child. What will become of you now?"
"Granddad..." I rasped weakly as I held my hands before the door to show him my dreadful power. "My brother is sending me to The Forge in the morning to, quote, 'beat it out of me.'"
"This is a weighty gift, my son. You will be scorned, and distrusted, for the people of your land will not be able to understand your power. Very few have the heart or the character to bear a burden such as this, and to use it nobly and for the good of men."
I slumped against the door, head in my hands as a scream tried to choke its way out of my throat.
"But you, my boy, are surely blessed with a great heart to match this great power. If only, if only you can learn to deal with your great anger as well. I... before I came, I had anticipated that I would find you in some trouble. I am weary and may be dead before you return from your three years, and so if I am, I want you to follow these instructions." He slipped a small piece of paper through the bars.
"Granddad, I must tell you. I am sorry, for all the ill I've caused you. You are the only father I know."
"I dare not keep track of wrongs at my time of life. And you, the blessing of another son in my old age. Now hush, child. Our time is short and I must go."
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For three years, I served the banner of the Southern Isles in its wars with the western tribes, wars that we did not fight out of necessity but of greed. My countrymen bled and died for the sake of stolen lands, stolen goods, and slain peoples. There was merely suffering, day in and day out, of every creature involved. Yet how could we stop? How could we refuse our duty to the crown? No one had ever taught us how.
I still see their faces.
I wasn't very popular with my comrades. Like most people in my life that didn't outwardly expresss their hatred, they simply tolerated my existence, aware of my body but feeling no obligation to my soul. They knew enough. Enough to frighten them into silence and some into complete apathy. So I kept my quarters in the make-shift stables and bedded with the horses rather than sleep in the tent-rows of miserable men. No one cared- or was brave enough- to stop me. Who had the energy? We were exhausted and empty.
I learned to "control" the fire inside me, but I am not proud to say that many battles were won on my power alone. Not proud at all. I saved countless lives, at the cost of countless more. I could see the haunted fear of the faces of the men in my company. They were terrified of me and yet they were grateful, respectful. I knew that they were men of honor, and would not say anything about the peculiarities of the youngest prince of the land. Nor would they be anxious to. It pains me to say that there was never a danger of an enemy soldier speaking of my power. And I will say no more about it.
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By the end of my term of service, I had been made a captain and dismissed with honors. Upon my return, there was a small parade, quiet and polite, much to my relief. The castle staff welcomed me in secret, with little smiles and whispered words, and asked if I would be returning to the tiny loft in the library, which I was informed they kept ready for me. The stable master offered me an entire handful of sugar cubes and a terse nod. Thankfully the horses missed me.
I could scarcely hold myself within the castle walls, so anxious was I to return to my true family. I struggled through an incredibly painful family dinner, in "celebration" of my return, at which the Crown Princess Kristina could not even meet my eyes and the Regent grinned at all my misfortune like a cat in tub of cream and none of the rich food even managed to interest my war-hardened stomach.
I stole down to Granddad's cottage once the castle was dark and still. To my relief there was a light in the window and smoke issuing from the chimney. My knock was answered with a quavery "Who is it?" and tears caught in my throat as I answered, "A worn and weary traveler, home from war."
He yanked the door open with more strength than I knew his weathered frame could have possessed and enveloped me in familiar arms, and I was home.
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The week I spent with Granddad following my return was the most peaceful I can recall of my lifetime, filled only with music and laughter and simple companionship.
Of course, I knew something such as that could never last.
On what turned out to be our last evening together, Granddad and I were napping by the fireplace after a large supper and a thorough recounting of the family's goings-on. I should have know something was afoot, for though he had seemed his usual, jovial self, there was an undercurrent of detachedness and worry for the previous couple of days. Several times he asked if I still had that little slip of paper he gave to me the night of my exile.
It turned out that a couple of the guards he knew had casually warned him against seeing any royal persons without the Regent's permission.
If he had only told me...
All they needed was the sight of the guitar in my hands and the flute in his, and the verdict was levied.
They came just before midnight, accompanied by a sorceress who dulled my fire. They held me and forced me to watch as they broke his brittle bones. I screamed until there was no sound. They wouldn't stop. They didn't stop until he was limp and being dragged toward the castle.
At that point the sorceress drugged me, and I was not conscious again until I was kneeling in chains on the floor of the council chamber.
"It is lucky for you that the Regent may not command executions. That power remains solely with the King. So. What should be done with you, you treasonous filth?"
I must tell you how painful it was to have all of my power trapped and boiling within me. It raged beneath the surface, crying out for my brother's blood, but the sorceress still remained, leaving me helpless. I kept my eyes downcast and my mouth shut as he considered me.
"Arendelle crowns its queen next month, and I unfortunately cannot attend. However, I must send an ambassador. You will go to Arendelle, and if I hear of one little mistake, I will toss you in the oubliette for the rest of your natural life. Are. We. Clear?
I gave only a terse nod before asking, "What of the old man?"
"Consider him... collateral. He rots in the dungeon until you return with a perfect record. Then I'll release him. Should you slip up, brother dearest, I will be telling Father about your extracurricular activities and the old man... well, I do believe I needn't say it."
They gave me another 40 lashes while the sorceress was still present. The old marks had faded too quickly and he wanted a fresh reminder of my subjugation. This time, I could not save myself. This time, every strike cut deep into my flesh, past the old scar tissue and marks of battle.
Adolphus laughed.
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Thus, after a month of confinement in a castle tower, I made the two-day sea journey to Arendelle, and my arrival at the Grand Fjord is where you entered my story. But now you must pardon me for a moment.
The ship has made landfall at the Port Prosperous Harbor. My trial begins shortly.
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Author's Afterword: So! Let me know what you think! I should have the next chapter up in a week or two.
Much Love and thanks,
-The Queen of Fragile Hearts