Sharp and Sheer

Summary: Elsa's magic pushed Hans backwards, away from Anna, but it also pierced the most vital of places on him. With no ability to love, or be loved by, Hans feels the effects of the curse, slowly freezing to death in the middle of summer.

Rating: T

Notes: I got the inspiration for a Frozen fanfic so suddenly. :o Readers of Electric Sheep, it will be continued – I'm in a bit of a rut, but I'm working on it. I promise~

Disclaimer: I don't own Frozen.

Sharp and Sheer

Chapter 1

Strange. Everything was so quiet.

His heart pounded against his ribcage, the thumping being the only guidance that pushed him on to do the unthinkable to the Queen crouched defenseless in front of him. That's right, he was alive – alive, unlike Anna, who had perished (accidentally) in the cold room, alone. He took a deep breath, nearly in spite of those who could not any longer (as if a prince like himself was capable of such a thing), and readied the weapon clutched in his hand.

Everything he desired – his throne, his kingdom, his happily-ever-after – was right in front of him, blocked by one weakened and helpless woman. But she wasn't a woman, was she? She was a monster, a horrible beast who had murdered her own sister. The more he repeated it to himself, the more Hans believed it in his heart to be the truth. Elsa was wicked, and he was not. Elsa had brought Anna's demise – not him.

He was the hero in this story.

Fingers trembling only slightly (from the cold, obviously, not nerves) around the hilt of the sword, the prince took quiet steps towards the Queen. She hadn't moved, stilled in a weeping position as an expression of her grief.

How such a woman could possibly still care for the girl she'd shut out all her life was beyond him. Then again, things like love and affection had never been his expertise; nearly every moment he'd dealt in it had been faked, after all. But if she wanted to cry over her naïve little sister, then so be it – it only made his job that much easier.

Quickly, he ran through the possibilities of the strike in his head. A thrust through the heart would be effective, but could he get a good angle from his position? He was facing her back, after all, so shouldn't a simple backstab be enough? Or perhaps he could slit her throat? That would ensure her powers – however clearly broken through because of the news he'd delivered – could not have a chance to react and protect her from harm. He'd seen her powers' deadly capabilities firsthand, up in her mountainside castle when she had nearly cut the lives of the Duke of Weselton's two guards short. He'd managed to intervene – after all, those two idiots dying wasn't in his carefully calculated plans, and he needed as many idiot allies as he could manage to claim – but it had shown him the degree of violence Elsa was capable of when she was afraid.

Perhaps just a simple chop would do. He could slice her head off, but that would be difficult to explain. 'Oh, I do apologize for returning with the Queen's head detached from her body. She had attacked me, you see, and I was defending myself. Yes, as an act of self-defense, my blade chopped straight through her neck. It is with a heavy heart that I present you her head as a trophy...'

He could not see that working out very well, despite his heightened abilities to lie and charm nearly everyone around him into thinking he was a heroic prince.

Chuckling to himself, he decided that it didn't matter how he did it (barring decapitation), so long as it was done. The lack of blizzard to cover everything, including his attack on the Queen, truly was inconvenient, but he could surely cover it up. She was known as a monster, after all, and he had won the hearts of many (if not all) of the Dignitaries of the land. Her death would be mourned, surely, but his courageous act would be celebrated. Rewarded.

He'd be the king he'd always wanted to be.

With a small smile, Hans once more took to gripping the weapon's base, his eyes glued to the broken figure mere feet away. His future, his chance, was mere feet away. Mere minutes, depending on how quick he made the death.

A stab through the back it was, then.

His grin only grew wider, emerald eyes ablaze with ambitious desire as he readied his sword. After counting to three, he thrust the blade through the air, preparing it to cease swinging through air and hit flesh.

"No! Elsa!"

He'd expected the tingle of his weapon hitting flesh so much that he had barely noticed the other woman's pitiful, hoarse cry echoing through the otherwise silent ice kingdom. It was only when the sword connected with something other than the Queen's back did his eyes widen and his senses alert him to the wrongness of the situation. This wasn't supposed to happen! Who got in the way?

Snapping back to reality, the prince focused on the image of Anna, a solid sheet of blue ice rapidly covering her form. With her arm outstretched, she tried to block the blade from hitting her sister, the ice hardening the hand pointed towards Hans. She stood there, a mere statue now, acting as a valiant protector of the one she loved most. When the sword collided with her (her, Anna, who was supposed to be dead, much like the Queen he was about to kill), it cracked in half, shards of steel crumbling down into the snow.

It was then that a sharp force flung him backwards, a sudden shot of cold sniping at his chest, face, limbs – everywhere. Though he was appropriately dressed for the weather, a chill throbbed through his veins, making his whole form turn numb as the push of the magic turned to a shove, forcing his body to collide with the ground behind him. As his head hit the ice, his chattering teeth caused him to bite his tongue, the coppery taste of blood becoming the only thing he could focus on.

And, as it was, it was also the only sensation he was aware of. Everything else had gone completely numb. Nothing hurt, and that was concerning. He'd been pushed backwards, smacked his head against the ice, and bit his tongue. Surely he should be feeling something?

But no, there was nothing – merely the complete and utter nothingness that washed over his body, stretching to every last inch of him.

Blackness dotted his vision, and he had to close his eyes, as if it somehow helped his plight. It didn't do a damn thing in actuality; he was still freezing, still unfeeling, and still was reduced to becoming just another lump on the icy ground.

Elsa and her newly frozen sister were nearby, he knew, as he couldn't have been pushed that far away. They were most likely within a few feet of his presence – yet she they everything else appeared to be silent. Why wasn't Elsa saying a word? Her sister had just died – this time for real – and she had nothing at all to say? Not even a cry of remorse? Or was it simply that Hans had lost the ability to hear for the time being? That was quite a good possibility, as the rest of his senses appeared to be seized by the frost.

Hans felt as though he was frozen to that very spot on the ice, solid and unmoving and dead. Yet, he knew very well that he was alive by choice signs; the rhythm of the organ keeping him alive pounding against his chest and the sound of the air entering and leaving his lungs told him as much, but it was still difficult to tell in the icy wasteland Arendelle had been reduced to. The air was thin, the lush green that had once decorated the town becoming shades of dull gray and white. Hans could see his hurried breath leaving him, bringing about the illusion that it was truly winter – that he, too, was a part of this tundra.

And indeed, the ice brought the illusion of everything – not just the town's buildings and nature, but the humans that interacted, as well – being reduced to a solid block of ice. Hans was no exception, lying in the snow, doomed to be covered by the blizzard until he was merely another chunk of ice, frozen solid and forgotten. Even if this winter ever stopped, he'd still have to be dug out through meters of snow. By then, his corpse would need to be identified.

Yet, this frozen wasteland was alive. Hans knew it; he could feel it underneath the quiet and stillness. He simply could not recognize what was making it or why it was alive, as he was more concerned about the way his limbs were not moving as he commanded them to.

He had been so close – so, so close to his dream that he nearly felt the crown's weight on his head, the warm blood of the Queen splattering against his skin. Everything he'd ever wanted was right in front of him, quite literally, and yet...

Yet he had failed. Why?

His plan had been carefully laid out, leaving no room for error. The original plan was merely to woo Elsa (or Anna, as it had turned out) and kill one sister to ensure his rise to power. However, the rest of his act had been improvised, as the revealing of Elsa's powers created a diversion from his unblessed engagement to Anna, and he stopped protesting when the younger sister wanted to go out, alone, in the cold to seek the Queen. Why would he protest? She could get herself killed, and that would be that. It was so simple, and everything laid itself out perfectly in front of him. After Anna's 'death,' he had played the part of the grieving prince well, and changed how the situation was seen by those who mattered.

The Dignitaries saw it as a hero executing a dangerous sorceress, not a traitor murdering a young woman. It had been perfect.

Where did he go wrong?

Perhaps, he thought sluggishly as his mind continued to fade away from reality, if he had simply killed Anna mercifully instead of leaving her to freeze to death in the room, he wouldn't be in this position. He'd always been sure to cover his tracks, and yet he hadn't ensured her death. Somehow, she had gotten out and made her way to the frozen body of water.

Somehow, she had made it in time to protect her sister, at the cost of her own life.

The wrong sister died in the end, and Hans had failed.

He'd be left to die here, a death undeserving of a prince.

And a wonderfully brilliant one, at that.

The first face the ginger-haired girl recognized once the numbness faded was her sister's. Elsa. Elsa was here, she was mere inches away, with a red rim to her eyes. Her beautiful older sister, the Queen no less, had been crying? For her?

Though seeming confident when she first left Arendelle in search of Elsa, Anna's true doubts had still been churning through her mind and heart, clouding how she really saw her sister. She tried as hard as she could to focus on the times they'd played together as children, but the image of a closed door was blocking everything else. That door had been her enemy so many years, preventing her from seeing the one who'd shut her out, so it was only natural that it had been the thing to bar her from happy memories.

But all that seemed to melt away – all the doubts, the uncertainty, and the worries about the legitimacy of Elsa's care towards her – when Anna gazed at her sister. She had been such a refined queen during the party, and even after her powers had been revealed, had a certain air of royalty about her. Anna herself lacked that sort of presence, but Elsa had it down naturally. It made the younger just a bit jealous of how proper manners came to her so quickly, but it didn't matter now.

Elsa was older, so she'd been the one to rule. It was simple, quick, and easy – Anna herself couldn't argue, and truth be told, it didn't bother her much. Even in the way they walked and spoke, Anna and Elsa were clearly two completely different people with two completely different paths in life. Elsa was destined for the throne, while Anna simply wanted to be acknowledged and loved.

She was much too clumsy and awkward to be queen, and besides, "Queen Anna" just sounded strange. If she had her sister's love, and found true love in Kristoff or another man in the future, that was all that mattered.

The lust for a reign could be a deadly one, as Anna had nearly seen. Hans, in his desperate attempt to claim his own kingdom after not being able to properly acquire one in his home, had been ready to strike Elsa. The sword had been raised, the man's face surely twisted into a cruel smirk, and like a guillotine, had been on its way down when Anna had stepped in between.

As cold and terrified as she'd been, the redhead managed to stumble over and reach out, protecting her sister from harm and willing to die in her place. But the curse had other plans, as the ice that had been dormant inside her ever since she'd been struck in the heart rapidly covered her body, freezing her in a protective stance.

And somehow, she had thawed out. The ice melted from her chest outwards, dissolving as quickly as it had spread over her. When her face was free, she had set her blue eyes on her sister's disheveled frame, putting the puzzle pieces together slowly. Elsa had murmured her name in disbelief and hugged her instantly, prompting her to believe that her sister's curse had finally tamed itself. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that Elsa had tamed it herself.

"An act of true love..." a quiet voice gasped from nearby – a voice she recognized as Olaf's, the snowman who her sister had somehow brought to life with her magic. Wait – Olaf? When did he get here? Swinging her head around, the princess also found Kristoff and Sven standing nearby.

But it wasn't cold anymore. That was first thing she realized as soon as her sister's warm arms left her.

"Love... of course..."

Something seemed to dawn on Elsa, for once those murmurs left her lips, her hands lifted towards the sky. Slowly, the icy surroundings melted away, much like how Anna's frozen prison had dissolved. The tundra was fading away, bringing back summer elements in its place; flowers bloomed once more, the sun peaked out from behind the clouds, and a warm breeze of air gusted through them.

Thankfully, their group had been on top of a ship, for once the icy sheet covering the ground melted, the ship once more bobbed freely in the water, churning and making Anna a bit dizzy (she'd never been on a boat, after all, not to mention a boat had caused her parents' deaths). She had to lean on Elsa so she didn't fall or trip, holding her sister's hand – her bare hand, distinctly lacking in a glove this time – and trying to keep her balance.

"Wow..." she breathed, giggling a bit at how soft her sister's skin was. She wasn't expecting it to feel like this, especially for the hand of a wielder of ice.

Elsa raised an eyebrow, her own lips curled into a smirk. "Anna, what's so funny?" she asked, her tone playful with more than just a hint of relief to it.

The princess slowly raised their conjoined hands, studying the way their fingers were locked together; in a way, it symbolized their relationship now: unbreakable and sealed. Anna's act of true love, and Elsa's love in the form of grief afterward, had began the healing process.

They would be fine.

"We're touching, yet you're not freezing me or anything around you," she whispered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. They were sisters through and through; why had Anna doubted her to begin with? There was a reason she had shut Anna out, after all; the younger had been too naïve at the time to understand.

So Elsa had managed to learn to control her powers, after all; Anna smiled as the warmth returned to Arendelle (and her own heart, as well), pleased noises of its citizens sounding from the main part of town. Children were laughing. Adults were sighing in relief. Everything was returning to how it was.

It was strange – everything was back to normal, and yet so different. Elsa was holding her hand, and had actually hugged her – she wasn't shutting her out any longer. They were closer now than they'd ever been, even as children. Kristoff and Sven and Olaf were here, as well; they were friends, something Anna had never truly had.

But someone else was here, too: Hans.

She had nearly forgotten about Mr. I-Want-the-Throne in her frozen state and subsequent thawing out, and she felt disgusted with herself for almost doing so. How could she possibly forget Hans, the wicked man who had nearly taken not only her life, but her sister's, as well? A ruthless monster who wanted the throne Elsa had been rightfully born to take. He'd managed to charm Anna, as she was naïve, and the rest of the officials who had come to Arendelle, as well.

Where was the snake? Anna tracked her gaze around the ship, eventually finding the prince's figure lying in the corner, motionless. Turning back to the Queen, she asked, "Elsa, what about him? What are we going to do?" She didn't know why he was unconscious, but she guessed it had to do with the force of Elsa's powers. It just made things easier, she supposed.

Before she could respond, Kristoff piped in with an offer: "Sven could probably kick him off the boat." In mischievous agreement, the reindeer gave a snort and butted his head against the blond's cheek. "You know how strong his legs are."

Anna chuckled; as Olaf had pointed out, Kristoff had travelled on Sven's back across the tundra to reach her, riding strongly as a "valiant and pungent reindeer king". The deer was strong and powerful, and could surely kick Hans off the boat. It was a particularly humorous idea, Anna had to admit.

"I definitely don't doubt it, but I don't know if that would be appropriate..." the princess trailed off, giving Kristoff a shy smile. She didn't even have time to contemplate how she felt about him before; though she had been searching for him in the blizzard, her act of true love had ultimately been with her sister, in the form of her sacrifice.

"Appropriate? I think it'd be very appropriate, given what he did-!"

"Ah, ah, ah," Anna interrupted, placing her palm gently on his chest, as if to calm him down. Her tone was still playful, but had an air of authority about it as she spoke of her sister: "Let the Queen decide his fate." With that, she turned to Elsa, giving her an expectant glance.

With a heavy sigh, the older woman replied, "Anna, this is difficult to determine... But I suppose it is part of my duty, isn't it?" The faintest of smiles ghosting over her face before fading back to a frown. "I will have him arrested for his crimes, and taken back to the Southern Isles. Anna, you mentioned he had several older brothers, correct?"

"Twelve," Anna interrupted, cracking a sheepish grin.

"Yes, twelve. I suspect his brothers will know what to do with him, and will select a suitable punishment. I know they'd be able to come up with something – better than anything I could." Anna wondered if Elsa would have the heart to put Hans to death; then again, that wasn't exactly something the princess wanted to happen, either (even to him).

With a nod, Anna turned back to glance down at the unconscious man. After marching up to his corner of the ship, she bent down to try to wake him up. Yes, he'd probably be less compliant awake, but he could walk himself back that way. She placed her hand over his cheek, preparing to slap him, but stopped short once her fingers brushed his skin.

She drew back, green eyes widened like a deer in a bright light. Her gaze fell on Hans once more before turning to her sister and friends.

"H-he... h-h... he..." The words wouldn't come to her, melting away on her tongue like the snowflakes that had just been replaced by sunlight. She tried to touch Hans once more, to lift his still figure and maybe get him over to Sven (since he certainly wasn't walking as he was now), but it was no use. He wasn't going to budge.

Elsa must have noticed her immediate panic, and crouched next to her, placing a slender hand on the younger's shoulder.

"Anna? Anna, what is it? What's wrong?"

It was as if everything really was frozen again. Anna couldn't get the words out; she just couldn't speak properly with an odd sort of fear and sickness spreading through her. She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself in a huddling position as she lowered her head.

She never wished for... this to happen.

"Anna...?" Olaf's concerned voice sounded next to her, his stick hand also patting at her back.

"I-it's... it's Hans, he... h-he..." She tried so hard to get the words out, to reveal what she had found so they could all think of what to do next, as a team, but Kristoff's larger figure appeared next to her before she could do anything. His hand reached out to briefly touch Hans's neck, and she was suddenly very relieved he was there to say it so she did not have to.

With a grim expression, the blond turned to Elsa to give her the news.

"He's ice cold."

Anna couldn't even nod in confirmation before she noticed the defining – and ultimately damning – streak of white settling into Hans's auburn locks.