The Queen of Nightmares
A Frozen and Rise of the Guardians Fan Fiction Novella
Pitch X Elsa, Bunnymund X Toothiana
By Marigold Fire
Chapter 1: Seeing is Believing
Elsa, the Snow Queen of Arendelle, stood by her solitary window gazing out at her land of white. Summer had passed and with it the bitter memories of her self-inflicted exile, after the most disastrous coronation in the history of her people. As the sunshine had slowly turned to morning dew, so too had the memories of her past of fear and pain. Fear of what she could do with her wintry powers, and the pain of realising it had always been in her control.
The answer had been love.
Love had thawed the frost that Elsa had unwillingly bestowed upon her land. Elsa's sister Anna had sacrificed her life for her and Elsa knew it was because she had realised this simple equation too. Then Anna had found her true love- Kristoff, and they had married in the fall.
Leaving Elsa alone.
It's not that she wasn't used to being alone. On the contrary, Elsa had spent most of her childhood locked in this very room, too scared to open the door. But after she had brought Summer back to Arendelle and restored peace to the land, she had imagined her life would change somehow. Sure, she created ice rinks for her people and hosted snow days now, but nobody came to see her just for her. Just to say hello, or to see how she had been lately. Not even Anna wanted to build a snowman with her anymore, and Elsa found herself wishing that Anna would come knocking on her door.
But Anna didn't live in the castle anymore and the guards and attendants wouldn't dare approach the Snow Queen, so Elsa found herself utterly alone…or so she thought…
A rustle from inside her room made Elsa turn away from the window, so her long blonde braid swung over her shoulder and her sparkling blue eyes searched for the source of the sound. The empty room leered back at her, mocking her solitude and she sighed; did she so desperately want company that she was imagining things now?
Elsa turned away from the emptiness to longingly gaze at the life blossoming below her again, when rushed footsteps pattered across the floor behind her. She flipped around with hands poised to attack with an ice beam, but nothing greeted her again. Elsa twirled her hands in the air in annoyance, creating a swirl of snowflakes to release the tension building up inside her. She mustn't let this get to her, for she had known since she was a child that fear was her enemy.
Elsa strode across the room and sat down on the four poster bed to prove her point: There was nothing to be afraid of here. But when the sound of fingernails screeched against the wooden planks beneath her mattress, Elsa gave a small gasp as the hair began to rise along her neck. Should she scream? Call the guards? Would anybody hear her?
She forced herself to laugh, "I'm not afraid of the Bogeyman" she said out loud, as though this would eradicate the fear slowly constricting her chest. "Show yourself!" She commanded, feeling rather ridiculous talking to what was possibly nothing.
But to her immense surprise, a substance like black oil began to spill out from under her bed and she lifted her feet in terror so that it wouldn't touch her. Slowly the black substance rose into the air and took the form of a tall dark stranger with eyes speckled with silver and gold, and pale skin stained with the black oil that seemed to emanate from him. He was the most terrifying thing Elsa had seen for a long time, equal to what she saw when she looked in the mirror as a child. She held her breath. There was the same fear reflected in his eyes now. Her own fear.
"Pitch Black, at your service, your highness", the stranger said in a voice like velvet, taking a long sweeping bow at Elsa's feet. Elsa breathed out, her breath coming out in a cold fog, which only revealed an inch of the fear that was casting a storm inside of her. Pitch Black looked up at her, a small frown on his face, and she closed her mouth, which she had only just realised was hanging open.
Pitch laughed softly, "Not quite the effect I was hoping to have on you, but not the one I thought I would have either so I can't complain…still…" He drew himself up to his fullest height and towered over Elsa in an intimidatingly grand way, "You recognised me and that's worth something".
"You're really the Bogeyman?" Elsa asked, feeling five years old again. Pitch's laugh echoed around the room and she looked behind herself in confusion, that sound hadn't even looked like it had come from his mouth. She turned back to face him with a tight lipped expression, but he had vanished again.
The laugh stopped too.
Elsa peeked under bed to check if he was hiding there but there was only an empty space and dust. She slowly lifted her head to scan the room for signs of him when he hung upside down from the ceiling, with a whisper of "Boo" centimetres from her face. Elsa screamed and Pitch Black rolled his eyes in pleasure, laughing in her face for real this time.
At this point, Elsa decided that Pitch was insufferable.
Elsa screwed her face up in anger and yanked his arms so he fell from the ceiling. She would have been worried for him, but he landed on his feet like a black panther, full of feline grace and strength. "You're a nightmare" Elsa said darkly. She had never had much of a sense of humour and Pitch was trying her patience. Pitch turned away from her and she was about to apologise for offending him, (why, she had no idea), but then she glimpsed the satisfied smile that crept along his gaunt and handsome face.
"That wasn't a compliment" she added, suddenly annoyed at his ability to take her insult in such a way. "It is to me, your highness" Pitch said, his smile widening, showing teeth sharper than that of the average man. In fact, there was nothing average about Pitch Black at all, that's what made him so incredibly (yet infuriatingly) alluring. "And why is that?" Elsa demanded, her usual calm demeanour completely shattered, and her hands smoking with cold ice urging to burst free. "For you see Queen Elsa" he whispered softly, his voice a ghostly breath on a windless night, "I am the King of Nightmares".
Elsa stared at him, drinking in the long billowing black cloak he wore that seemed to be woven of the same ethereal substance that had first looked like oil to her. On closer inspection, she could see that it was more like liquid smoke, (if there was such a thing), and she found herself wondering what it felt like. Pitch Black's gold-silver eyes watched her carefully as she drank him in, his slicked back spikey black hair and long fingers, perfect for playing piano, although she imagined he wouldn't bother using them for that. Most probably he uses them to terrify children in the night with tall shadow puppets on the wall, Elsa thought moodily.
This made her feel annoyed with him again, and she shook her hands in another attempt to rid herself of some frustration. A flurry of snowflakes fell from her fingers and she blushed, "Sorry I'm still working on controlling my powers". Panic rose in her chest at her little magical mistake, but she easily forced a smile on her face with practised charm.
"Don't apologise to me. You and I, we are the same after all…" Pitch glided away from her to stand at the open window where she had stood earlier. "Get away from there, the people will see you and think…" Pitch smirked,
"And think what, your highness?" Elsa fumed, he knew exactly what they would think; anyone with half a brain knew that any respectable woman in Arendelle, never invited a man into her room without an escort.
"Relax" Pitch said, his voice silky as velvet again, "They can't see me". Elsa gave him a confused look, and he moved away from the window to come closer to her again. His inky black aura swirled about him as he walked towards her, and Elsa felt as though she might be sucked up into it, like it was a black hole.
"Why can't they see you?" Elsa asked breathlessly, her heart in her throat. "Did I just…imagine you?"
"No!" he said, hurt and fear flashing in his eyes. Elsa relaxed,
"Good" she replied, not knowing whether she believed that but not wanting to dwell on the question of her sanity. "You see they don't believe in me" Pitch said in a casual fashion, as he smoothed back his hair with a slightly shaking hand that gave away his true feelings on the matter. "So?" Elsa asked ignorantly. Pitch threw her a dirty look, "They cannot see what they don't believe in". Elsa stared at him thinking, that made sense, it was like the old saying, 'Seeing is believing' except the other way around.
"I suppose that's why they don't see you either" he added cruelly, making Elsa raise her eyebrows in indignation, "They do see me, I'm their Queen!" Pitch looked down at his slender fingers, "Of course you are…but do they really know who you are?"
"Clearly because I'm their queen, the Queen of Arendelle!" Elsa felt her cheeks heating up as her temper burned within. There was something about Pitch that made her forget about the advice her father had given her as a child: conceal, don't feel. Pitch knew how to push her buttons so all her emotions fought to get out.
"What do they really think about you?" Pitch whispered, his gold-silver eyes crinkled in mock concern with an annoying smirk that made it altogether insincere. Elsa felt like snow balling the smirk off his face. "Do they really believe in you Elsa?"
"Yes" Elsa answered defiantly which made it Pitch's turn to raise his eyebrows,
"Do you really think they could after all your little 'accidents'?" Elsa's pulse quickened and small beads of sweat poured down her temples to form glistening ice drops on her cheeks. Sweating had never been so beautiful.
"That's in the past, they have put that behind them now…" Elsa felt her resolve weakening as Pitch tore down the walls she had put up to block out this voice, his voice, in her head.
"But have you?"
The question hung in the air between them. Elsa's face had a tortured expression on it that wilted her beautiful features like a suffocated rose. She turned away from him, heart broken and Pitch realised that he had taken it too far. He was too good at what he did, making people fear and hurt, that he sometimes forgot that he was even doing it. This was not why he had come to speak with the Snow Queen.
"Sorry" he said hoarsely. It was clear that he was not used to saying the word as it did not slide from his tongue like the rest of his silky speech. Elsa just glared at him. He looked back at her in a nonchalant manner and she broke his gaze with an aggravated sigh, "I'm sorry too, sorry for being indifferent about people not believing in you. I do know how that feels. I…"
Elsa took a deep breath, and ignored the echoes of: don't feel, in her head, "Trust me I know what it's like". Pitch nodded, he seemed to have deflated since his apology and appeared more human now. More vulnerable…
Their eyes met in a brief embrace of understanding just for a moment.
Suddenly a knock resounded at the door, bringing them both back to their senses. Pitch broke Elsa's gaze, embarrassed by his moment of weakness, and she held her hands up to her mouth in panic wondering how she was going to explain the presence of Pitch Black in her room. Meanwhile Pitch shook his head slowly, looking as though he had awakened from a day dream for the first time and seemed horrified with himself.
"Farewell until next time Queen Elsa" Pitch whispered silkily, and he melted into the shadows like a vapour. Elsa watched him go in amazement, his outline still lingering in the dark, her heart beating loudly in her chest as the voice of Kristoff met her ears, "Elsa, are you in there? Want to come skiing with us this afternoon?
Elsa watched the last glints of those gold-silver eyes fade into darkness, before she turned to open the door with a painfully practised smile, "Sure Kristoff that sounds great".
