A/N: There are many different takes on a "soul mark". Some versions have the name of your true love written on your skin, appearing at birth or at a certain age. Other versions have the first words spoken to you by your true love. Imagine if not everyone was graced with hints about who their soulmate was, or if what was etched in your skin were your soulmate's words, but not necessarily the first words they ever spoke to you? This last scenario is my inspiration.

And of course, Disney's Frozen ain't mine...just the following mess is.

It has been said that it would be far easier if everyone got their soul marks at the same time - either at their birth, or when each were matched age. But nothing in life is easy, especially something so prized.

OooOooooOooO

Elsa loves her words.

She's fourteen when they burn their way across her hip. In the dead of night she awakens, crying madly and scratching at her skin, hoarfrost marching across the bedlinen and coating the room in rime. Her words hurt as they etch their way into her, and she can't help think they're not supposed to hurt. No one had warned her about the pain, and she panics because something must be wrong.

Elsa tears at her nightgown, yanking it up to expose the erythema and burning just at her hipbone. In the nicest, smartest, masculine scripted hand she's ever seen is written: If you would just stop the winter and bring back summer...please.

Anna was born with her mark, words printed neatly across the boney prominence of her ankle: You okay?

Elsa spends two hours ghosting her fingers warily over the mark with tears in her eyes, carefully pressing cold fingertips against it like she's worried she'll smudge it if she's not careful. But she's not actually worried - everyone knows soul marks never fade or smudge or anything like that. They're permanent. It is now most permanent thing about her, aside from her ice. And for that, she can't stop her smile.

Her soulmate knows she has magic. He believes she can control it. Elsa wonders how he will learn of it as the locked gates and seclusion from the outside world become momentary forgotten, her mind lost in a beautiful fantasy. Perhaps, with him, she can learn to control the magic. Control the curse. For the first time in forever, a tendril of warmth unfurls somewhere deep in her heart.

Out of the corner of her eye Elsa catches something flickering and sparkling, distractedly. Her chin snaps up at find ice crystals, her ice crystals, rising slowly upwards towards the ceiling then pause - suspended. Elsa gasps, absolutely dumbfounded, because her ice has never done that before.

Elsa then remembers herself, her curse and how she hurt Anna, what the old troll said and she resolves to forget any fantasy of ever finding her soulmate. Because she can't. No one can be that close. No one. Especially someone so important.

OooOooooOooO

Prince Hans Westergård was born with his soul mark, not that it does him any good. It's written over his heart, of all places, and as Hans came of age he couldn't help but think that a place so romantic was wasted on his banal mark: Don't you see...I can't.

The letters are smushed together and the cursive too bit too boxy at the same time. It looks like a mess. Like someone had no proper concept or patience to hold a quill. What the hell was her rush?

Hans sometimes wonders what it is he fails to understand, fails to see she can't do. He'll lay awake, imagining all sorts of different scenarios...in his youth he likes the ones where he asks for the impossible like for fairy wishes to fly or for a magical genie lamp. As he ages, becomes more logical, he wonders if she is refusing him when he offers his hand to her in marriage. Or bartering over the price of tradable goods.

Hans develops a habit of resting a hand on his chest, rubbing his thumb against the place where he knows the marks is. His brothers take great joy in pointing that habit out to him, and he always makes a conscious effort to never do it again. Against his best efforts, he still sleeps with a hand curled up next to his chest. Because the words are hers.

Truthfully a soul mark so plain is just as bad as having no mark at all; none of his brothers were graced with one. Hans is shunned for his; Lars, Caleb, and Rudi all pretended he was invisible for two years when they learned of it (it's what brothers do). Despite this, Hans hopes against hope that his soulmate will find him anyway.

Every year that passes after his fifteenth, it becomes harder and harder to have hope. She's likely some illiterate little tripe, anyway. Not meant for a prince. (Or so he tries to tell himself.)

When news of the tragic loss of Arendelle's king reaches the Southern Isles, Hans decides he is done with all that soulmate nonsense. He's going to get to Arendelle. He's going to be King.

Hans is certain there will be some awkward dialog with his blushing bride, the freshly minted queen following her coronation, regarding the words of his soulmate hastily etched over his heart. Hans is prepared with all sorts of romantic, pathetic rubbish to feed his queen depending on her reaction. Perhaps the reclusive girl will simply swoon over the fact he'd give up his soulmate to be with her instead.

Regardless, his fate is his own, and he shall be its master.