"The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter."
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster
The relationship between the countries of Arendelle and the much smaller Corona had always been rocky at best. Arendelle sat just under the watchful eye of the great North Mountain, which supplied the country with rich fertile grounds and miles upon miles of silver veins just waiting to be mined out. The dense forests and rugged climates around the capitol city, not to mention the surrounding fjord, made the city the most protected and impregnable cities in the world. Corona on the other hand suffered through harsh winters with little crops and mostly relied on trade of livestock to keep their people fed through the rough seasons. They were seen as small and weak, and usually preyed upon by those who thought of them as an easy target to pillage, unlucky for those that doubted them, Corona was known for having some of the fiercest warriors to ever walk the earth.
As jealousy and anger rose, trade between the two countries was becoming an increasingly difficult endeavor. With the recent passing of Arendelle's king and queen and the drastic weather change that has made crossing the sea's nearly impossible, relations have crumbled. Many in Corona have suffered, the backlash coming to strain those already left with little to their names. The people suffer and stew in their own hate, only to be spurred on by the nobles and royal's of Corona who lay their blame on one person in particular. Queen Elsa of Arendelle.
The newly appointed monarch was the target of most of Corona's unabashed anger and rage, it was as soon as the young princess had been born that the so aptly named "eternal winter" began to creep its way across the continent. In the twenty two years since, it had become common knowledge of the young queen's frigid powers. A witch, as some would call her, a demon to others, she had the control over snow and ice, enough to set two countries in the depths of a deadly winter with as little as a thought. She was a danger, a threat, as said by Corona's council, if she were left to live and rule their very livelihoods would be in jeopardy. Not to mention the livelihood of their citizens as well. At merely twenty and two years of age, this woman was threatening an entire country with extinction, and that had to be rectified.
This is where we begin our tale.
King Leon of Corona sat surrounded by his council, listening as each and every one of them shouted and grumbled angrily at him. He could hardly believe he was in this sort of a meeting, planning the assassination of a queen, a young woman barely lived, because of a little snow and cold winds. There was no getting around it though, he had already tried on occasions to change their minds, that they could simply reason with the woman, but to no avail, his counsel, and his people, were convinced. The queen was to die to end this winter. There was no other way around it. They agreed months ago, this winter could go on no longer, and they were close to using the last of their supplies. With winter coming, and the grounds already covered in thick layers of frost and ice they had little choice. Rations in the city were dwindling, not to mention how the farmers in the wilderness fared. If they were to survive, something had to be done, and soon.
"What do you insist we do? We cannot simply send troops to sea only to die in the storm, or worse, by the hands of that witch," councilmen Ingrum, a grey topped man of about sixty and one year's shouted above the rest of the men and women gathered in the room. He surveyed everyone around him skeptically, his dull eyes scanning over his now silent fellow council members.
King Leon waited silently as the rest of them slowly began to offer suggestions. He looked over each council member, watching as they hunched and shivered in their seats. The hearth was alive and crackling near them, but it did little to stop the mist that formed with every angry word and breath.
"Maybe hire some assassin to do our work for us!"
"We could invite her over for a peace dinner, and poison her food," someone cackled.
"Entice them, get them to attack us first, then they'll have no choice but to come to us to fight!"
The king mentally shot down every idea that was supplied to him. Hiring someone would cost them money they didn't have, and poison was a coward's weapon, besides, the queen would have someone there to taste her every meal so the whole thing would end badly for them the second he hit the ground. Enticing them into a war was no good either. Corona may have some of the deadliest warriors around, but Arendelle's army was massive, and much more suited for this harsh winter, they would stand no chance, and they would still have to get to the queen after all of the fighting.
King Leon put the tips of his forefingers to his temple and rubbed slowly. He was starting to get a headache. This was just one of many meetings that they had taken with such a subject, and the stress was starting to get to him. He knew if they didn't come to some agreement soon he would lose it.
"I may have a suggestion," all voices faded and everyone's attention turned to the youngest member of the council.
King Leon studied the young man thoughtfully, he had yet to speak in all the meetings that they had held previously to this one. Leon simply passed it off to inexperience or that fact that the young man was not a Corona native, but he acknowledge the man's opinion as if he'd served as many years as the rest. Dressed in thick wool and cottons embroidered with the sigil of his homeland, he could tell the boy was frozen to the one. Even if he would never admit it. He was a summer child, used to the warmth and prosperity of the Southern Isles, but he stood unshaken in this harsh wasteland determined to help,
"What do you suggest Hans?" the king was very curious at this point.
The redhead didn't cower under the weight of every set of eyes on him, instead he met Leon's gaze and with a smile,
"We send someone in, someone who we can trust to kill the queen without being suspected," murmurs from the other council members began to arise, but Hans wasn't finished. He had already seen the way that the king was about to dismiss his idea as foolish, "there is one other person gifted with remarkable abilities, someone who is sure to gain the queen's trust and be able to take her one on one if it came down to it".
King Leon's blood immediately ran cold. How could he even suggest such a thing!? The King stood angrily and faced the still calm and collected prince,
"How could you even think such a thing, there is no way I would-" Hans cut in,
"I know how you're feeling, I understand the danger, but I believe that this will work".
The king sat back in his seat, his face and neck red with anger, but the more he thought about it the more the idea seemed to make sense. He took a calming breath and then gave Hans a stern look,
"are you sure you're willing to risk your fiance` for this?"
Hans smiled reassuringly,
"I have nothing but faith in her".
The king sighed and called a guard to enter. He gave one simple order, but it took everything he had to do so,
"bring me my daughter".
Princess Anna spent most of her time in the courtyard. It was one of her favorite places in the castle even when it was buried in over a foot of snow. She loved the way winter looked in Corona. Not that she'd seen winter in any other part of the world, or any other season for that matter, but it was definitely her favorite. The courtyard was surrounded on all sides by castle walls, giving way to the wilderness beyond, but that didn't matter to Anna. She had all the wilderness she could want right there. The entire courtyard was thick with trees and bushes. It had been a special request from her personally.
As a princess, certain things were expected of her. She had to be proper and petite. She was taught to be poised and perfectly manicured at all times, but all that to Anna sounded horrible. From the moment she could walk she had been different. Instead of dresses and royal balls she insisted on breeches and swords, and if she had grown up anywhere else she would have been forced into those very things she despised. Corona however, was different, and they encouraged her swordplay, and the will to fight for the pride of your country. That is just what Anna did. She'd gone to her father one morning and requested that she be taught the art of the sword. Naturally he didn't blink an eye at how unorthodox it would be for a princess to run around wielding deadly weapons. Instead he welcomed the chance to teach her himself.
To his astonishment however, Anna progressed far quicker than King Leon could have ever imagined, and soon he had to give her training over to a master swordsman. It wasn't long after that they discovered the small girl's gift. It was subtle at first, almost no one noticed until a day of training gone wrong.
Anna struggled on that day. Defense had never been a strong suit for the young woman. She relied on her speed too much, her master had said, she would never win in a real fight if she didn't learn to defend. So he came at her. He ordered her to do nothing but block his attacks and stand her ground, and so she did. His attacks were precise and packed a strong punch, it was almost too much for the young girl to handle. When her master came at her again, this time faking to his right before bringing his sword around the opposite way she did the only thing she could think of, she swung her sword into his with all the strength she had.
The end of his sword went clattering to the earth ten yards away while onlookers stood in awe. What had she just done? She'd cleaved his sword completely in two. Only sword-masters with many decades of training and strength had ever accomplished such a feat. While her master stared at his broken sword in awe Anna thought nothing of it, she threw her hands into the air and shouted about her victory. She paid no mind to the people staring at her. The strength the young princess possessed was only heard of in old stories of gods and dragons, things told to children in the night, but it was undeniable that she had a strength rivaled by no man.
So here she was now in the courtyard, dressed in a thick woolen tunic and breeches, a long forest green cloak embroidered with Corona's symbol in gold flowing off of her shoulders. It was frigid, and even though Anna had become accustomed to the bone-chilling air of winter she found this cold to be different; comforting even. She waded through the small man-made forest admiring the way ice coated the branches and limbs to give the wood an odd glittering quality. It was peaceful. The calm and the quiet that came with the winter, and the way her breath puffed out in front of her face. She pulled her hood up around her face, the cold starting to make her cheeks go numb. She couldn't remember why she'd come outside in the first place she just knew needed to get away from the claustrophobic castle walls. The people, her father, and her newly appointed finance` counted among them.
Just the thought of him made her mood turn sour so she hiked further into the trees, and tried to block out sight of the looming walls around her. Her marriage to Hans had been arranged, and no matter how different Corona was from the rest of the world's customs, that didn't save her from the fact that she' be forced to marry one day. They'd met a total of three times before her father decided to add him to his small council and move him from The Southern Isles to Corona. Anna did everything she could to avoid him.
There was nothing wrong with him personally. He was handsome, smart, and witty. King Leon loved him, but Anna tolerated him at best He just didn't understand her. She was a free spirit, rambunctious and rebellious, and she liked to spend time in the stables helping care for horses while he liked to stay inside and play the perfect son-in-law with her father. Every time the two came into contact he insisted she act like the princess she was. She always firmly informed him where he could put his opinions.
She didn't make it much further into the trees, the crunch of snow behind her had her stopping dead in her tracks. She knew she was relatively safe in the courtyard, only a select few were allowed to wander it as she was, but that didn't stop her from reaching into her cloak and gripping the hilt of her dagger. She listened to the footsteps slowly approaching her. There was only one person, she could tell by the sound, and they were close. She slid her back against the trunk of a nearby tree and waited,
"Princess Anna?" a man called.
Anna recognized it as one of her father's guardsmen, she came out from behind the tree and presented herself. He stood, almost shaking in his light armor, only a thin cloak to keep out the cold. She cracked a grin and put her hands on her hips,
"You're going to freeze to death out here, you know?" she teased. She knew all of her father's men, had grown up training with most of them. This one she knew as Allderad, he was about eight years older than herself, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. He rolled those eyes playfully and shivered, but still managing to hold himself in formal position,
"His Majesty has sent me to fetch you, Your Highness".
She chuckled at his formalness, he was obviously trying to take his new position seriously. Maybe too seriously in her opinion. He turned abruptly and she followed him back through the wood and into the castle once more.
Anna was led to her father's study. When the door closed behind her she was left standing with her father, and Hans. This wasn't going to end well she could already tell. Her father motioned for her to take a seat next to Hans, and she sat unwillingly, waiting for someone to begin talking. The moments ticked by uncomfortably. The room felt tense and Anna felt like she was suffocating under something unspoken. She wiggled uncomfortably in her seat.
"Anna," her father began.
She knew that tone, she remembered it from when her father first told her she was going to marry Hans. She sat quietly, her heart thudding loudly in her ears. Just a moment later Hans spoke up, and explained that morning's council meeting, and the decisions they'd come to. Anna sat there in silence. She replayed the words over and over in her head. It was almost laughable how crazy the two of them sounded, she could hardly believe what she had heard.
"You want me to...what?" her voice came out hushed, questioning and very confused.
Hans placed a hand on her shoulder. She knew it was meant to be comforting so she resisted the urge to shrug it off. Her surprise overrode everything else. He leaned closer, and looked at her like she was a small child. She felt like hitting him,
"You know what the Ice Queen is like. If someone doesn't kill her the kingdom will suffer, the people will either freeze or starve to death, we need someone to end this winter".
Anna's anger flared a bit,
"So why not send some assassin or something!? Why on Earth would you want to send me!?"
King Leon took his daughter's anger in strides. He knew she would be angry, and she had every right to be, it was a lot to ask of her, but this was for the country, and for their people.
"Anna, we need someone to gain her trust, we need someone with your...gifts," Leon talked calmly, there was no need to convince her, he knew she would go, he knew she would do this for Corona, "as Hans has said, the country is suffering, it has suffered for longer than you know, we need you to do this for us. All of us".
Anna wasn't convinced. She narrowed her eyes at her father; what made him think that he could just assume she'd be okay with such a task?
"Don't you have someone else, someone with a lot more experience in this kind of...stuff, that could do this? What made you think to send me?" Anna crossed her arms over her chest and looked from her father to Hans and back again.
King Leon sighed, he didn't like the idea himself, to send his own daughter willingly into the hands of the Ice Queen, but the way Hans had put it to him before it made perfect sense. The redhead spoke as if he had read the king's mind,
"You're trustworthy. The Ice Queen has been known to be very selective of the company she keeps, and she's especially wary of men. You are about her age, and if you go as if you're there to ensure peace between our countries she'll never suspect a thing".
The three sat in silence again while Anna thought it over. They were right, crazy, but right. The people of Corona were suffering, starving, and freezing to death every day. She had the power to change that, all she had to do was play friend and diplomat for a while, and then...
The thought of stabbing someone in the back, literally, had Anna ready to decline. No matter how evil someone was, they didn't deserve to die, but the thought of the Ice Queen sitting on her throne haughty and happy while the world froze had her gritting her teeth. Anna could imagine the woman, a witch in all aspects, dark haired and ugly, how could she stand by and let her do this? Her resolve hardened instantly, and she met her father's gaze,
"I'll do it".
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~The-Frozen-Avatar