Chapter 1,

Hans.

It was truly a beautiful day. As if the sky was mocking him, mocking him for his failure, his betrayal, his crime. One last time he was walking the streets of the Capital a free man, making his way up to the castle. Walking past the traders and peasants, everyone looked at him, walking there in his torn uniform, the prince of the southern isles was finally home.

The time he spent in the holding cell of the ship felt like an eternity, and the memories of the past days were haunting him day and night. In his dreams he heard the desperate cries of a loving sister "Elsa! Elsa!". He would never forget the voice for the rest of his life. It sounded so full of fear, the fear of losing a loved one, something he never experienced himself, there were no loved ones in his life, his mother died shortly after his birth, and his father had no interest in him, most of his 12 brothers barely acknowledged his existance, and the ones who did, showed him pity at best.

No, there were no loved ones in his life, that is why he did not understand what happened in Arendelle even after all these days. Everything was going in his favor, he had Victory in his hands, and from one second to the other, it melted away like everything else.

But it was too late now, what's done is done, even though it felt bad, his entire life had ended before it really began, the news of his actions would reach the castle before he did, he would be chained and thrown into the dungeon, he did not delude himself with false hopes, he knew full well what fate awaited him, he was a regicide, and the sentence for regicide, is death. That very moment the Guard opened the Gates and greeted him with a swift "Welcome home, Prince Hans". All the years of drill and experience were not enough to hide the worry in the guardsmans voice. As he stepped through the open gates into the dim light of the castle he could not help but remember the first time he entered the Castle of Arendelle. Everything was happy and going as intended back then. Now, he felt like a sheep walking into a butchery.

The hallway to the throne room seemed endlessly long, and never looked more depressing.
He finally reached the other side, the doors slid open, this time there was no greeting, no announcement, everything fell silent when he entered, he had the undivided attention of the entire court, something he never managed to get before, though, he would have laughed in any other situation.

Everyone was there, everyone except his Father, the Throne was empty, next to it stood his eldest brother, Rudolph, holding a letter which by the looks of it must have been from Arendelle. Two other brothers stood further down the stairs, Stephan and Markus, Stephan being the 8th in line and Markus just one year older than Hans himself as 12th in line. He could not make out any other brothers, but it was rare for them to be all in one place together. Stephan looked at him with his usual look of indifference, while Markus, who has always been the least hostile towards him, looked at him with anger and disapointment.

Now the oldest, Rudolph looked up from the letter to the miserable piece of meat in the middle of the throne room, standing there in his dirty white Uniform and the expression of a dead man on his face.

Rudolph gave the letter to a servant next to him and stepped three stairs down, towards Hans, still keeping the distance of around 10 metres, before he spoke more to Hans in a few minutes than usually in an entire year, "Prince Hans, you have brought shame on yourself, our House, and our Kingdom, you are accused of treason, attempted murder, and attempted regicide. You have risked our name, our reptutation, as well as the peace and friendship between two kingdoms in a gamble for glory. You went to Arendell without the Kings consent, and acted in your own interest against the good of our people." He took a brief break before continuing," Until the accusations and circumstances of your crime are confirmed, and your guilt is proven, you stand under curfew, get this Scoundrel out of my sight!" Rudolph gave the guardsmen a short notice and turned to step up the stairs again. Hans was still standing there when the guards reached him, the words of his brother had burned into his memory like red-hot iron into skin, a scoundrel, that was exactly what he was, a scoundrel and a fool.

While the guards escorted him to his chambers, he didn't say a word, servants and handmaidens looked at him with expressions reaching from disgust to pity, but he didn't care about that, he couldn't care less what the servants of the castle thought of him right now, all he could think about was the echo in his head, of a princess calling her sisters name with a fear Hans did not understand at the time, not even know. "Elsa! Elsa!" it echoed again and again in his head, the more he tried to surpress it the louder it grew, and with every passing hour he learned the true nature of the fear behind that cry, the fear of being all alone, and with every step he took towards his chamber it became clearer to him, that he was all alone, and he was afraid.