A Frigid Reception

Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen or any of the characters there within (excepting Prince Ragnvald and Prince Walder who are of my own design), they are property of the Walt Disney Corporation.

Hans frowned as the second cuff clamped around his wrist and dragged his arm down. The weight of the chill iron manacles and their chains pulled his shoulders down, forcing his chest to cave on itself.

Prince Ragnvald clapped his white-gloved hands together and straightened, his long auburn braid slipping over his back as he moved to stand beside his shorter, but solidly built younger brother Prince Walder.

"Excellent craftsmanship," Ragnvald tugged the hem of his gray jacket back into place so that his many military honors flashed and jangled together. He and moved to stand beside his brown-haired sibling dressed in similar regiment attire. Ragnvald, the third in line of their immense family, occupied the commanding office of their royal militia and Walder, the eighth in line, served as an admiral among the naval branch. Hans himself had captained the fastest vessel in their fleet.

The ship they sailed into Arendelle's port was his. Or so it was.

"An odd place to invest one's riches—in the dungeons, ha!" Walder kicked the toe of one polished boot into the stone wall. "It makes you wonder what sort of demons Arendelle must keep under lock and key."

"Their own queen."

The princes looked at their youngest brother; the smiles gone from their faces.

They had all heard the story.

Winter in July, was the name of the event whispered around the countries surrounding Arendelle. How the newly christened queen had cursed her land in a demonstration of power only to lift the snows and restore summer with the snap of her fingers. Some of the rumors were nearer the truth and favored Elsa with forgiveness for an inadvertent, unnatural freeze. But near every kingdom, estate, manor only grasped the icy teeth of a monarch unchecked. The other nations shuddered to think how anyone might engage the queen should she chose to expand her influence.

This was why Hans could meet the stern looks from his older brothers with a smile.

Ragnvald and Walder. The beanpole and the winter squash.

Two of the three brothers who once pretended he didn't exist for years and once they did it was only to remind him of his inferior swordsmanship or to cuff his temple for some untoward remark.

"Remember why you're here, Hans," Ragnvald's burning eyebrows firmed the permanent line creased between them.

"Do you remember why you're here?" Hans said at once. "Harald and Eric are too important and you're not important enough?"

"No, you're not important. To anyone." Ragnvald snugged the glove of one hand as if bored with the conversation. Hans hated him for it. "That's why they always saddled me with you. From your bottles and buttons to my swords and ships. Now here we stand at last at your invariable execution."

Hans snorted.

"Most likely all our executions. The queen expressly decreed I was banished from these lands and you've brought me back here against her wishes. You'll hang just as soon as I will."

"Shut up, Hans, you don't anything about diplomacy," Walder spat so flecks of his saliva struck Hans' face.

"And you still don't know how to speak without spittle."

Hans flinched when Walder's fist shot into the air. His older brother chuckled.

"That's what I thought. Wouldn't dare bloody up my knuckles before meeting the queen."

"You wouldn't dare if I had my sword," Hans said and did not duck in time.

The right hook connected with Hans' jaw and sent him sprawling on the stone floor. Ragnvald shouted and jumped between his younger brothers. He steered the brunette toward the door while Hans shook his head to clear it. The square of dying sunlight from the narrow window made the metal glint into his eyes.

"Enough, Walder, for pity's sake control that temper. Hans, you hold your tongue until I say otherwise," Ragnvald made no move to help the youngest off the floor.

"Yes, sir," Hans jeered and levered from his shoulder to his knees to stand. His stinging jaw aggravating the dormant but present pain in the bridge of his nose. The three brothers glared at each other in the mental crossfire when the grate of a sliding beam drew all their eyes to the door.
All three straightened; Hans hindered by his shackles.

A man opened the door and stepped lightly inside.

"Queen Elsa," he said and bowed as Arendelle's queen stepped into view.

She was more beautiful than Hans remembered.

Her slimming royal skirts had taken on a brighter if muted blue offset by the black of her long sleeves, her bodice now embroidered individually crafted snowflakes. Her long platinum hair spilled in a tight braid over one shoulder and her crown glittered above her brow. He heard her heels click softly into the quiet. Her eyes skipped quickly over the scene and found Hans at the back of the cell, unyielding as his brothers bowed to her. Their eyes met. Did he imagine that puff of cold air striking his face?

"Your Majesty," his brothers said in unison and she dipped a slow, elegant curtsy in observance.

"I apologize, lords, for receiving you like this, but this man's crimes in Arendelle are punishable by death and this is how our banished are detained."

"We understand, Your Highness," Walder cleared the tightness in his throat with a cough.

"We ask you meter any justice you see fit on our brother in hopes that his egregious error of judgment," Ragnvald's eyes flickered toward him, "does not reflect poorly on the remainder of our stock in the Southern Isles."

"Any punishment you deem worthy, we condone," Walder quickly agreed.

The young queen's gaze swept over Hans and he was transported to the celebration following the coronation. How she had looked at him them; the cool, distant set of her ice blue eyes—how the subdued warmth of her smile did not quite reach them when he bowed before her. He had heard the stories of her reserved nature, her sequestration from her own court, and he had thought to win her over despite these peculiarities. But nothing had quite prepared him for her reception.

He had offered one hand to kiss the back of hers and she had only inclined her head to him, a soft word of withdrawn gratitude on her lips. Her gloved hands unmoving from their clasp before her skirts. This barrier she set between them, this impenetrable wall he had had every intention of scaling, bore no helpful foothold. No friendly fissure. No crack, no cleft, no chink for him to maneuver into her heart.

And it broke his.

Every moonlit stroll along the fjord, every horseback race through sun-spangled woods, every garden tea in full glorious bloom shattered around him in those cool, iced blue eyes.

"It is a pleasure, Prince Hans."

"The honor is all mine."

Those eyes pinned him now with a hardness more fierce than the wall he had encountered. He stood in the unblinking beam of her gaze gored by spikes.

"Hans!"

Hans wrenched free of his freeze and turned to Ragnvald, who pinned him with an ugly stare.

"The queen has asked for your apology." He said.

Hans looked back at her, at all three of them, waiting stiff and unhappy. Ragnvald with that permanent twist of distaste in the corner of his lips. Walder with his fisted hands hidden behind his crossed arms, itching to strike anything that opposed him.

Elsa.

Hans slid to his knees, the heavy chains singing a waterfall clash as they struck the floor. He clasped his hands before him and bowed his head.

"Queen Elsa, I apologize wholeheartedly to you, your sister Princess Anna, the royal court, and the nation of Arendelle for the wrongs I have done you." He paused for effect. "I humbly beg your forgiveness."

The silence drew out longer than it should have and Hans glanced up. Elsa stood watching him with a rigid stance and cold eyes. She stared so long, even Hans' brothers shifted and exchanged glances with one another.

"Prince Walder, Prince Ragnvald, I wonder if I might have a word with your brother, alone?"

The pair exchanged glances one more time, sniffed, and nodded their consent. Happy to wash their hands of the circumstances, leave Hans to his fate, and vacate the cooling cell to return to his, their, ship and await the queen's call.

Neither said farewell.

The dungeon door whined shut behind them.

The prince and queen studied each other in the silence, both waiting to see how the other would proceed.

Hans hated to admit it, but the young queen truly was a transcendental beauty. Oh, how he had wanted her to be his.

Hans remained on his knees as Elsa advanced and he saw it. The slant of her shoulders, the sway of her hips, the length of her stride. Cracks. Rifts. Nearly imperceptible but he had studied people too long and too hard to be fooled by the façade the queen once paraded in. A detached man had no roots to sever, no weaknesses to exploit. The queen was once well kept in her reticence, but now, now there was confidence, grounding. There was something at stake.

She stopped at the peak of the square of light, looking down on him.

"An insincere apology will win you no favors here, Hans. I will not ask again."

He met her imperial stare with a lopsided smile.

"I see you've found your diadem, Queen Elsa. I understand it took your court staff two weeks to find it on the North Mountain."

To her credit, Elsa turned pink.

"Why are you here?" She demanded. "You hardly seem as repentant as your brothers let on."

"But I am sorry," Hans said with an equal, dangerous softness as he carefully rose to his feet, chains rankling in their slide aloft, "sorry I hadn't struck sooner. Sorry Anna hadn't tripped on her way to you. Sorry that I came so close to wearing that crown."

Elsa met his gaze, forced to look up at him but he was pleased when she did not retreat a single step.

"Only princes wear crowns."

"Only kings rule kingdoms."

They stood opposite each other, two pillars firmly set in their own foundations, neither bending to the will of the other. It was a new sort of coldness in this transformed Elsa. A steadfast determination born of righteousness hard and sharp as ice. He saw a conviction and self-assuredness that had not been there at her crowning, at the celebration of her coronation. A spark of respect tempered with the embers of an ardor he believed doused warmed Hans even as a seeping cold filled the compact dungeon cell.

And he found his opening in her perfect shield.

"You are utterly despicable. A prince without a shred of honor to his family's name or his own. I should freeze your heart, but how can I when you don't have one?"

Hans chuckled, the chains rattling along with him.

"No, my queen, you don't have the heart." He said, ploughing forward at her silence. "I don't think you understand how widespread your little winter tirade has gotten. Citizens in neighboring countries saw that deep freeze, some suffered it, but everyone is talking about it. Stories pass from mouth to mouth, each retelling a little more wrong than the last. I've even heard a few where Anna was trying to kill you for your crown. Very few recitals hold you as the heroine. Do you think it's wrong of them to be fearful?"

"I'm in complete control of my power." Elsa's hands balled into fists at her sides.

"Arendelle's fjord was not the only one frozen. Ports were cut off all along the coast. Crops died. Livestock died. People who couldn't find their way home in the storm are still being found in woods to the north. What you meant and what you've done are one in the same to them. You're a witch. A monster."

"I am not a threat to anyone's welfare." The stone floor soon crinkled with a thin layer of frost. Hans kept peeling back the layers.

"You told me once that you were a danger to Arendelle. You still are."

"I'm only a danger to you, Hans," Elsa thrust one hand at her feet where a cluster of ice crystals appeared.

"And Anna." Hans struggled to keep his growing smile in check as he saw her striking eyes widen. "You wonder what would have happened if she'd stayed frozen that day. You sometimes worry you'll lose control again."

"No." Elsa gripped her elbows in both hands over her stomach.

"You still have nightmares about freezing her heart and in those long, sleepless nights, you sneak to her room and crawl into her bed—crying and trembling, beyond words to see if she's still warm."

"No!" Ice splintered across the floor.

"Because every night you dream about that accident again and again. And every night poor Anna becomes nothing more than an empty ice sculpture tipping over and shattering to pieces."

Cold stabbed both of Hans' feet like swords driven down through his arches. He gasped as he careened backward, crashing awkwardly against the wall as his ice caked feet remained stuck in place. A freezing hand clutched his throat as another pressed over his heart, nails gripping painfully at his lapel.

He hammered the tiny splinter in her blasé pretense wide open.

Elsa breathed hard over him, her lovely face twisted into something ugly, depraved, a mad glint in her eyes. The hand over his throat hurt as it choked him—as if her palms were made of knives. Hans' rapid breath clouded the air, stirring the loose bangs around the queen's face. A warm liquid spilled down his throat as if he'd drunk a steaming mug of spiced mead too quickly.

He could see his own wide eyes reflected in hers; exchanging surprise for surprise.

The queen thrust backward allowing Hans to slump to the floor, chains clanging as he touched his throat. His fingers came away red. He looked across the way at a hunched Queen Elsa, both watching his blood dripping from her left hand to stain the snow at her feet.

She looked at him. A deer caught in a ring of hunters. The same royal doe he had seen fleeing her court for the anonymous wilds.

A rumbling in his throat surprised them both.

"Complete control." He laughed. "Who's the real monster here, Elsa? I may have been the first to try taking your kingdom, but I won't be the last."

Elsa stared at him, brow knit, her mouth open but no sharp reprimand tumbled from her lips.

An urgent knock sounded at the door and the man who saw the queen into the cell said,

"Queen Elsa! The dock is empty. The princes from the Southern Isles have gone!"


Author's Note: Uhh...Happy Valentine's Day? I made you feel bad for Hans, didn't I? ...I didn't? Then I point a finger at the Frozen fandom for making me sympathize with his character. Show of hands, who else was surprised when Hans turned out to be a bad guy? I'm usually on top of these things and even WHILE I was watching Anna race back to get her kiss from Hans, I was thinking "No, no, she has to save Elsa somehow. How is this going to work if she kisses Hans?" So yeah, I got tricked. But I love that I got tricked into that old Prince Charming trope turned on its head. And I guess somewhere deep down I wanted Hans to be sincere to start, but his ambitions got in the way of nobility. Yeah, what he did was a dick move and I agree, but there's a bit more to him than that. I think if Hans secured his kingdom, he would have made a decent king-his care for Arendelle's citizens during the freeze illustrates this. I think he might have really loved Elsa if she had let him in, so to speak. And she just destroyed him when he realized he couldn't have her. Or his kingdom.

That said, this story is quickly snowballing into something huge. Which makes me quail considering how much work I already have on my plate. Oog. But hey, if you guys want more, drop me a shout out. I'm listening!

And holy crud, first I post that super sad 'Cold Hands' Frozen fanfic ON Christmas day, and now I've got this dark, angsty piece for Valentine's Day. What's my PROblem!?

Blackfire 18