This is a Oneshot I wrote a while ago, as someone had requested this on Tumblr. Haven't given thought much into this AU since, but I like how this oneshot turned out :) It's supposed to be set in a world similar to Mad Max. Enjoy :3
Hot. It was way too hot. Water. She needed water. Immediately.
Elsa trudged onwards, crossing the barren desert. Her breath came in gasps, and sweat trickled down her forehead trying in vain to cool her off. It was her own fault she was in this predicament. Right as she had been made leader of the Arendelle Clan, she just had to accidentally reveal herself… what she was.
She stopped walking and stared at her hands, which were blistering from the heat around her. Elsa clenched them into fists, tears threatening to pour down her cheeks.
Conceal, don't feel… Well what good would concealing do her now? She was in the middle of nowhere, with no one around to see her cry, or use… it.
Elsa swallowed, her mouth dry and tasting of sand. In the distance, she spotted a mountain rising from the flat desert she'd been trekking. Perfect. Mountains usually meant shelter, and shade… hopefully water as well. And hopefully she would get there before nightfall.
Being out in the desert during nightfall was a horrifying thought, because when the sun fell… the Outcasts came. The Outcasts were a terrifying clan of thugs and murderers, always moving at night and attacking at unexpected moments. They liked to hang around in the desert, which made Elsa's journey all the more dangerous; if she didn't die of heatstroke first.
Elsa pushed herself on, her leather boots crunching the dry ground.
If she did happen across an Outcast, though… it would easily be taken care of, she thought miserably. She looked at her hands again, and the memory of the previous day flooded into her mind's eye again.
"Monster! MONSTER!" someone shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her.
"Elsa?" Anna, her own sister, was staring horrified at what she saw. Elsa backed away slowly, before finally turning around and running for her life out the doors. She hear screams of hatred follow her, yells of 'Never come back, you devil!' echoed in her ears.
Elsa quickly shook herself out of her memories, finding tears streaming down her face.
They're right, she thought. I am a monster… all I do is hurt people. Why the hell was I born, if but to live such a terrible life where you constantly lived in fear of others and yourself?
She felt that cold feeling in her chest grow again, spreading across her shoulders. Before, every time she felt that feeling come over her, she tried her best to suppress it. She thought she might hurt someone if she let it grow… but now, the cold feeling was so welcoming in this scorching heat, she didn't even bother repressing it. There was no one for her to hurt now. No one. As depressing as the thought was, she was alone.
As she walked, the cold feeling spread across her body and she welcomed it graciously. It was liberating to have some relief from the heat of the scorching sun.
Suddenly, Elsa's vision blurred and her head spun. Her head suddenly started to feel like a hammer was banging on the inside of it, and her breath started to come in short gasps. Her limbs trembled, weakening.
Some part of her mind was telling her she had heatstroke, and that she should find shade quickly; but there was nowhere to go. The mountain she'd been heading towards was still so far away… she would never make it in time. Elsa's knees buckled and she fell to the scorching hot dirt.
Her throat was so parched that it hurt to breathe. The cold feeling she'd welcomed was gone without a trace. The still rational part of her mind told her that she must have used the last of her body's water to create that ice to spread across her body. Damn. Even when you had strange ice powers, you still had drawbacks… after all; it wasn't magic, just a lab experiment gone wrong.
Elsa clenched her fists again, trying to push herself up, but she was too disoriented.
It would be better if I died here… Elsa thought. No one would care, and everyone would be safe. And I wouldn't feel any more pain.
That thought nearly made her smile. Nearly. She thought of her sister, Anna. She felt so sorry for her, but knew that by leaving she'd made the right choice. Anna would only get hurt if Elsa had stayed. She'd gotten hurt once before, when they were little children. Luckily Anna had been too young to remember it clearly, so their parents had kept Elsa's powers a secret from her, just as they did with everyone else.
I'm going to see you soon, mom and dad, she thought. Slowly, she drifted into unconsciousness.
SHHRRROOOM!
Something black whizzed across the desert, past sand dunes and onto a large stretch of barren land that seemed to go on for miles.
The black thing was a car, a vehicle literally like no other. The driver himself, who was currently using it to escape his clan, the Hairy Hooligans, had built it. It was faster than any other rustbucket in the Archepellego Desert, sleeker than any motor vehicle that a wrangler could… well; wrangle up; not to mention a whole lot quieter.
Leaving, leaving, LEAVING! Hiccup, the driver, was currently thinking. So LEAVING. There is no way they're making me do… that. I'm not a thug, I'm not a thief; and I'm sure as hell not a murderer. I'm not, I repeat, NOT going to become something like an Outcast.
Toothless, his scruffy black lab had less concerns than his master. His head hung out the window, his tongue lolled out care-freely. The dog woofed happily as Hiccup drove over a bump, while Hiccup only cursed at the sudden jolt.
None of his clan knew about his car, which had been a secret project. Nor did they know he'd left… yet. So by the time they'd realized he was gone, Hiccup would have reached the ocean by then. And that would give him more than enough time to get a boat to that place once called America.
Toothless woofed again, but this time it wasn't a happy sort of bark. He whined, scratching his paw at the door handle. Hiccup stole a perplexed glance at his dog.
"Toothless, you just went not that long ago!"
Toothless woofed again, more indignantly this time. Hiccup tensed; in the corner of his eye, he realized Toothless was about to jump out the open window. He slammed on the brakes, groaning.
"Okay, okay, you useless animal!" Hiccup cried, pulling the car to a stop and opened the door, letting his dog out.
Instead of going to the bathroom, though, Toothless shot off in a random direction.
"Wait—TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup cried, running after him. "Where are you GOING? Come back here, you stupid, useless—," he stopped short, suddenly realizing that in the distance there was a body, lying crumpled on the hot desert sand.
Hiccup quickly got over his shock and ran over to the body. Toothless was waiting for him when he reached it; wagging his tail happily as if to say, "Look what I found!"
Hiccup knelt next to the body, turning it over so it was face up. To his surprise, it was a woman not much older than he. And a well-to-do woman at that, no one in the Scavenger Class wore clothes as well made as that, albeit very dirty. Her platinum hair was tied up in a messy bun, and her skin was very flushed, though that might be from the amount of sunlight she'd been exposed to. Hiccup put a hand to her throat, and was surprised to find a pulse. It was fast, and her breathing was very shallow. Heatstroke. And probably dehydrated as well.
Hiccup glanced back at the car, frowning. He had only brought provisions enough for himself and Toothless; there was no way he could give this woman any to spare. But as he stared at this woman, feverishly lying on the desert floor, he couldn't possibly imagine leaving her behind knowing he could at leasttry to save her. Besides… leaving her behind was what his father would have done. What the Hooligans–or any other clan nearby–would have done. And Hiccup had always been one for doing something completely unexpected.
He changed his position and reached his arms underneath her back and knees, lifting her up so that he was carrying her bridal style. Toothless ran in circles around Hiccup, sniffing the woman's hand and whining excitedly.
"Toothless, Toothless, down!" Hiccup cried. "This is hard enough as it is; she might not have much meat on her bones, but neither do I!" Toothless only sneezed in response.
They reached the car, and Hiccup placed her on the back seat. He ran over to the other side and got into the driver's seat, and Toothless hopped in after him. He quickly started the car, and they were off. Hiccup decided the best place to go would be the mountain in the distance. He doubted any Outcasts would be there, they liked to reside in more canyon-like areas, though they did have a thing for the desert at nighttime. Which was all the more reason to get to that mountain as quickly as possible–shouldn't be a problem.
Hiccup turned a knob on a panel next to him, and cool air blasted at his face. He'd discovered an air conditioning unit in an old junk pile, and had somehow made it work again. Placing it in his car was his best idea yet. It could keep him and his engines cool, without the fear of overheating in the middle of the desert. Hiccup directed the air towards the woman, who, he realized with a pang, had started to convulse a little.
"Yep, heatstroke," Hiccup muttered, extremely worried. Toothless whined and, before Hiccup could stop him, climbed into the back seat with the woman and started licking her face.
"Toothless, no! Don't do that!" Hiccup cried, craning his neck to look at his dog. "She's supposed to stay cool! Get off her!"
Toothless growled but obeyed, clambering back into the front seat. Hiccup stole another glance at the woman, whose cheeks now glistened with dog saliva.
"Whoever she is, she owes me big time," Hiccup muttered to himself, stepping on the gas and shooting across the desert faster than he'd ever gone before.
Ten minutes later, Hiccup had reached the mountain and had found a nice cave elevated from the ground. He hid his car in some dry bushes near the base of the mountain, and carried the woman to the cave, lying her down and hoped she was comfortable. He then ran back to the car and collected some of his provisions plus some rags, and returned to the cave panting, his arms full. Toothless watched him with his ears perked, licking his maw when he saw the food Hiccup had brought.
"Not now, Toothless, we'll eat later," Hiccup promised. He picked up one of the jugs of water and doused one of the rags, and placed it onto the woman's forehead. He then wetted another other rag and placed them under her neck.
The woman's eyelids fluttered, and she moaned a little. Hiccup sighed with relief. He put a hand under her head and lifted it, and poured a little water on her lips with a jar. The woman coughed and spluttered, but once she realized it was water, she drank it greedily.
"Slow down or you'll throw it up," Hiccup advised. The woman blinked up at him, disoriented and confused.
"…Anna?" she asked weakly. Hiccup snorted.
"Ah, no. Try again, maybe pick a less feminine name please?" The woman blinked again, slowly gathering her bearings. She opened her mouth again to speak, but Hiccup quickly stopped her. "Don't talk; drink. You need water." He lifted the jug to her lips again, and she drank slow, deep gulps.
Finally she pushed the jug away, breathing heavily.
"Where… where am I?" she moaned.
"In the middle of the Archipellego Desert. Twelve days north of hopelessness and just ten degrees south of burning to death. And might I add, what a lovely, lovely day it is," he said sarcastically, glancing out the cave entrance to be met with the unwelcome sight of blinding near-white sand, heat waves and plants that had long since shriveled up and died.
The woman tried to sit up, but Hiccup laid a stern hand on her shoulder. "You have heat stroke, it's best if you stay lied down for a while," he said. He reached for the rag on her forehead, meaning to rewet it again–but jerked his hand back as soon as he touched it. The woman looked at him with curious half-closed eyes.
"What?" she mumbled.
"N–nothing," Hiccup stuttered. He reached for the rag again, but his fingers told him the same thing they'd told him before. He wasn't going crazy—or maybe he was.
The rag was frozen! Frozen. Somehow, the wet rag had frozen solid in the middle of the freaking desert.
Hiccup slowly lifted the rag off her head and stared at it, feeling the coldness radiating off of it. It was frozen stiff; there was no denying it.
"What the…" Hiccup gaped. He turned to Toothless. "Do you see this, bud?" Toothless woofed, cocking his head with his ears perked.
Hiccup turned back to the woman, who had fallen asleep again. He reached for the other rag he'd placed under her neck, and to his shock it, too, had frozen solid.
He suddenly got a crazy theory. A very crazy theory, one that was sure to be disproven instantly. But he had to try to prove it, just to make sure he wasn't going insane. He reached for the jug of water and lifted the woman's hand, and slowly poured a little onto it.
The water froze the instant it touched the woman's skin. Hiccup couldn't help but stare, creeped out and fascinated at the same time.
"What… what are you?" he whispered, looking at the woman's sleeping face, perplexed. She didn't answer, but when she woke up, she was definitely going to suffer the wrath of Hiccup's insanely curious mind. Was he scared? Nope, though he probably should be, said that voice in the back of his head that one really should listen to most of the time. But he couldn't help being fascinated at this woman.
This woman could turn water into ice. Now, when you were in the desert, ice was extremely hard to come by, if at all. Many had never even seen ice in their lives before, besides the frost that covered the grounds every once in a while during winter. Hiccup wanted to know how on earth she did it. And not just that, he wanted to know who she was, where she came from.
She didn't scare him. Her face was too gentle to be a fierce warrior, though Hiccup knew perfectly well looks could be deceiving. But still, he wasn't scared. Just very curious and very, very confused. He squinted at her sleeping form and whispered, "Who are you?"