Good day, my friends! I was charged by my good friend Myseybee to write this fic and i figured it would be a nice idea for me to at least try writing something shorter than I'm used to. This is the result. I'm pretty happy, but I can't contact Myseybee (also my beta-writer), so there may be a little roughage, particularly around the touchy-feely happy ending, because I'm not good at those.

Regardless, here you have it. I hope you enjoy.

(For those following my Fire Emblem story also, I apologise for my delay in getting you the next chapter - SkyDrive [where i store all of my FE:A documents] has been unavailable to me for a while, but it's okay now as far as i can tell, so I will endeavour to get it to you for the beginning of next month. Thank you for your patience. *Satoru Iwata voice* Please understand.)

Scorched

"Oh, Anna. If only there were someone out there who loved you." Hans smiled sadistically as he retracted his hand from Anna's cheek, letting her face drop back to the chair.

Anna couldn't register what had just been said, fear bubbling to the forefront of her mind. Surely she had misheard him; an effect of the ice in her heart, perhaps? Her panic increased as he wandered towards the fireplace – if he put it out, she stood no chance of surviving.

Slowly, he tugged at the fingers of his left glove, before slipping it off and placing it in his pocket. Kneeling on the carpet, he hovered a hand over the burning logs. The flames began to die down and eventually petered out with a splutter of sparks as Anna looked on in open-mouthed bewilderment.

"H…how can you…" Her speech was growing weaker and she could barely form a coherent thought, let alone voice it.

"Everyone here has assumed that your sister is the only one who's special. Unfortunately for the both of you, everyone is wrong." He rose and replaced the glove, covering up his hand's glowing red skin once more.

Anna's breathing slowed, and she managed to struggle a sentence together. "But… we were going to get marr… get married. Wh…"

"Oh, don't worry about that; we'll still get married. Or, at least, everyone will think so."

"What… what are you d…ngh." Anna's head pitched forward as she grimaced in pain.

Hans sauntered back to his own chair and sat down on the arm. "Tell me: how do you feel about Elsa being on the throne?" He adopted a sarcastic tone. "Oh, of course, she's your sister, and you love her sooo much, but really, do you think she deserves her title? You are just as worthy a successor to your father's kingdom, are you not?"

Hans stared at his would-be wife, waiting for her answer. Her eyes were drooping, though, and none came, bar a weak attempt at a sneer.

"Jealousy is a very big player in a Monarchy's politics, but all you have is Elsa." He waved a finger slowly in front of her face. "One little person in your way. I have twelve elder siblings, all brothers, so what hope do I ever have of getting on the throne? Unless, of course, Arendelle's queen is in need of a king…"

Anna managed to open her eyes again, confusion staining her bright blue eyes. "Elsa… why did you choo… me?"

"I had planned to marry Elsa, but she was a little… anti-social, shall we say? You were as good a second choice as any, especially when she gave half the kingdom a reason to kill her." He was nearly laughing by the end of the sentence. "And of course, it didn't hurt that she's killed you too." He pushed himself off the chair and stepped towards the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got two funerals and a coronation to plan."

Anna knew she didn't have time to keep asking questions, but her curiosity got the better of her. "Fire!" She spun around in her chair as she shouted the word, and immediately regretted it as her stomach lurched. "How…"

Hans shrugged. "Where did your sister's powers come from? Does anyone really know? The point is, your sister wasted hers. Emotions are a powerful tool where these powers are concerned, and poor Elsa let hers get the better of her." Lifting his glove, he revealed the red glow of his palms to the dying princess. "This is the result of a lot of practice."

Anger piled into Anna's mind. "My sister was trying to protect me!" she grunted through gritted teeth.

Hans placed a hand by Anna's head on the chair. "Your sister was a fool! Your predicament is more than enough evidence for that."

Without another word, he whipped round and left the room, taking a brief second to fix his expression to one of broken-hearted sadness.

The Duke of Weselton was stood outside the room with two of his guards and several of Arendelle's own. He frowned upon seeing the prince's forlorn face.

"What happened? How does the princess fare?"

Hans rested his head on the door as he locked it. "She…" Hans pretended to wipe a semi-formed tear from his eye as he turned to the duke. "She is dead. Elsa's… witchcraft froze her heart and… she died mere moments ago."

"But… but then who is in charge of the kingdom? Arendelle needs a ruler!" The duke puffed his chest out and subtly adjusted his attire expectantly.

"Fortunately… we did have time to… say our vows, and she has… had asked me to do whatever possible to protect Arendelle and restore it to its former beauty."

The duke looked discomforted at the revelation, but soon recovered, letting his opinions on Elsa voice themselves once more. "I told you! That ice queen is a menace! We should have ended it when we had the chance!"

Hans opened his mouth limply, almost trying to make an argument, but sighed. "I had hoped for a different solution to this, but you are right. We must execute Queen Elsa if there is any hope of this nightmare ending."

The door burst open, some of its icy veneer shattering into the room. Inside, where Elsa should be, was nothing but a pair of mangled, iced-over shackles, lying in a heap of shredded metal and ice on the floor.

"Where in blazes has she gone!?" The duke blathered, clearly uneasy at the thought of her walking about freely.

Hans dashed the short distance to the window, careful not to tread on any particularly slippery parts of the prison floor. The glass was also coated in ice, but there was one patch of only thin frosting which he wiped off with his sleeve and peered through to look upon the whited-out tundra of the docks. A small figure edged its way across the ice, a cape flapping in the wind behind them.

"She can't have gotten far. With this many guards, she must still be in the castle for us not to have noticed." Hans said, not taking his eyes off of the moving silhouette.

"Then we much waste no time!" The duke half-shouted. He waved his hands at the attending guards. "Go search this palace from top to bottom. Get everybody who can be spared onto this! She can't be allowed to escape!"

Hans bolted past the others in the doorway and made his way to the docks' exit. Two guards stood at the gate, unperturbed from their posts. Evidently, Elsa had sneaked past them, but there was no way Hans could get through without them seeing him.

"You two, with me. Elsa has escaped and I'm looking for her in these docks."

He looked at the floor around them. It was brick, like the rest of the castle, and had a coating of ice that thickened as it neared the exit. Beyond, though, was just ice; there would be nothing between the sea and their feet but a single sheet of frozen water.

The pair followed his orders and the three of them stepped onto the ice, making their way between the boats trapped on either side of them. The guards naturally took their positions ahead of the prince, enabling him to slip his gloves off and the glowing skin underneath to go unnoticed.

Passing the gloves to his right hand, he left one produced a small tongue of flame. After placing the gloves in his pocket, he spread the fire to both hands. The crackling of flames caused one of the guards to turn around before shouting and recoiling in shock. His partner turned as well, a confused grimace on his face.

Hans flung his hands wide, sending lines of fire to the ice at their feet. It melted instantly, plunging the armoured guards into the ice-cold water below. Their armour and weapons dragged them down quickly, damning them to a watery grave.

The natural cold quickly stopped the melting once Hans had cut off his fiery pillars and Hans jumped over the small chasm, before quickly making his way in the direction he had seen Elsa stumbling. The snow was blinding, making it impossible to see much further than an arm's length in front of himself.

Using his left arm to shield his face as much as possible, he lit his right hand again and shot a blast of fire into the nearest ship, and spread it along the hull. In the new light, he could clearly see the slowly receding form of the Arendellian queen. He made haste towards the woman; he could easily blame the fire on a gunpowder storage error.

He was faster than her, but she had managed to get surprisingly far in the time she'd had. He shouted after her, but she was only panicked by the thought of returning to her prison and began to run. Hans sped up his own pace, and his boots proved more reliable than the queen's heels. Elsa's panic caused her to lose the normally superhuman purchase she held on the ice and she fell to the ground, staring into the cold abyss beneath her.

"Elsa!" Hans soon caught up with her now, and was only a few paces behind her when she turned to face him. "I mean you no harm." He raised both of his hands. "I want nothing more than to help you, but the Duke of Weselton is using your escape as reasoning enough to order your execution!"

Elsa pushed herself to her feet again and took several steps away from Hans. "No! I never meant for any of this! I only want to be left alone; why can't you people see that!?" She slipped again, falling back to the ice.

"I can! I can see that now! The only reason I brought you back here was because I assumed you knew how to stop the winter. I will help you escape, but the duke's men will be searching for you everywhere." He stepped closer to her, extending a hand to help her up.

Elsa stared at his bright red palm for a few seconds, shaking from fear. Eventually, she extended her own hand and he pulled her up. It was the first human hand she'd felt in three years. She had forgotten the warmth that she felt in other people – the heat of a human body contrasting with her own frozen interior.

Once she was standing again, she realised the heat coming from Hans wasn't the same kindness that Anna or her parents had offered; it was burning. Pain flared in her hand and she pulled it back sharply, staring at the dim glow of Hans' hands.

"I… I'm sorry. People's skin is usually… quite hot compared to my own. I haven't had any contact for so long, I… must not be used to it anymore."

Hans realised himself that her hand had been even colder than he was used to, and retracted his limb, merely nodding his acceptance of Elsa's reasoning.

"Elsa, before we go anywhere, I think it is best for you to know about Anna…" he whispered, the words almost lost to the raging storm.

"Anna? What happened!? Where is my sister!?" She edged closer to Hans, eager not to miss his next words.

"You… froze her heart."

"No! No, I didn't mean to!" Elsa screeched, a tear beginning to form in her eye as she realised what that meant. Her memory flashed back to the night she had hit Anna in the head. You are lucky it wasn't the heart. The heart is not so easily changed.

"I know. But that doesn't change the fact that you did…" The pair stood in opposition for a few hauntingly quiet seconds. "We could not help her in time… I'm sorry, but… you killed Anna with your own hands."

Hans had spoken the truth when he said that emotions had a key role in controlling their powers, and if one felt nothing, then that is exactly what their powers would amount to. Elsa's mind blanked. She couldn't think and she couldn't move. The wind died and the snow-clouds stopped pouring.

Within a few seconds, the docks were clear, Elsa and Hans perfectly visible in the middle of the ice. The fire on the ship had nearly been blown out, but now it regained its hold and happily crackled in place. Elsa slumped. She didn't put out her hands; she didn't move her legs; she simply collapsed onto the hard, cold ice.

Hans reached into his coat, drawing a dagger from an inside pocket. He wasn't going to risk her surviving in the waters beneath them. She couldn't see his movements – she was too embroiled in her own thoughts of Anna. A single slice downwards would rid him of the one thing between him and the throne of Arendelle.

"Elsa!"

The blade fell through the air, before colliding with an ice structure that had manifested itself between the pair. The dagger bounced out of his hands, spinning to the ground and across the ice, far out of reach. Hans stepped back, out of shock, and lost his footing, crashing down onto the fjord.

He sat in stunned silence at the sight before him; Anna had somehow managed to escape the room she had been locked in and fought her way across the ice to stop Hans' attack on her sister. Now, though, the ice had taken over, freezing her solid into a perfect statue, a single arm still raised against Hans.

Hans slammed a fist into the ice, sublimating a small crater into steam. Forcing himself to his feet, his hands and forearms began to burn, small flickers of fire flashing across them, beyond his control.

Okay, folks, this is where I was going to have you pick which ending you wanted to read, but thankfully I was reminded we can't do that, but it's still in two parts at the moment, so there you go. Continue onwards!

(ADDENDUM: If you wish instead [or also] to read the unhappy ending, PM me for the link to the Google Document)

Have a nice day,

ThyRandomNinja