Author's Note: Based on an anon prompt, "every word's only to please." An AU somewhere between Frozen and The Snow Queen, and it's supposed to read more or less as a fable. Started as a drabble and then turned into this.

Prologue

Legend tells of a once-great kingdom in the North, upon which befell a most terrible fate.

Legend tells of a mysterious and powerful Snow Queen, who covered all the lands in ice with a single breath.

Legend tells of a heart, brave and true, that has the power to break the curse of eternal winter.

Legend tells of many things, but only to those who would believe them.

I

Hans didn't look back once on the day he left for Arendelle.

It was his twenty-third birthday, though few knew about or cared to remember the occasion. Red-haired and olive-eyed, he was the youngest of thirteen boys born to the Westergards, a noble family with roots dating back to the beginning of the first settlements in the Southern Isles. As one son among many, he had been overlooked, ignored, and sometimes forgotten altogether.

Where his brothers thrived on competing and fighting with one another for their late father's praise, Hans recoiled from it. Where his brothers embarked on military and trade careers of great renown, Hans hesitated. Where his brothers found suitable wives (and then lovers) to bear children that would carry on the Westergard name, Hans waited, and was alone.

And so he found himself at the port town of Flakstad on a crisp and bright morning, carrying only a large knapsack with him. He was dressed plainly, wearing a dark brown jacket over clothes thick enough to withstand a journey by sea. The only things he saved from his previous life were his fine white kid-skin gloves and his sword, both of which he wore on that day. They had been his mother's last presents to him before her passing the year before, and they were the only items about which he felt even remotely sentimental.

From his perch by the dock, he looked over the trade ship upon which he had booked passage. It was not elegant or grand, like the ones his brothers commanded in the Navy, nor was it sleek and new, as he could tell from the numerous places where holes had been repaired in the hull and beak. Nevertheless, there was something exciting about it to him. Perhaps, for example, it had survived many rough storms at sea, or been attacked by pirates and looted. He imagined all of these scenarios with a small grin, and they took his mind off home.

He had some time before the ship was set to leave port, and checked over the contents of his sack. He realized that his compass was missing and frowned, asking a nearby stranger where he could purchase another in spite of the early hour. The man pointed to a shop on the other side of the road, and when Hans saw it, his frown deepened.

It was a dark and dingy old wooden house, with black markings on its sides from years of soot and grime. How anyone could call it a "shop," he thought, was questionable. Nonetheless, he knocked on the door. "Hello?" he called, though no one answered. He walked to the windows, and saw that no lights were lit inside. He sighed, assuming defeat, and began to walk away.

It was then that the entrance creaked open, and a crone as old and dilapidated as the house itself appeared in the doorway. "Did you knock, young man?" she asked, offering a mostly toothless smile to him. Her right hand, resting on a cane, shook with the effort of holding herself up.

Hans considered lying to her, but upon remembering his need, he pushed away his reticence. "Yes," he replied, and plastered on his largest, politest smile. He observed her frayed and unkempt gray hair, as well as the liver spots dotting her skin, and swallowed his distaste. "I'm sorry to come so early, ma'am, but I was told I might be able to purchase a compass from you?"

The crone's dark brown eyes, cloudy with the beginnings of glaucoma, regarded him with curiosity. She paused, and then nodded, at which he felt relieved. "Yes, yes, I have just the thing," she said, and motioned for him to follow her into the house. She placed her cane against the wall, and her hands shook as she drew out a box of matches from a drawer in a side table by the door, and then opened the cover of a lantern atop the table.

Hans grew impatient with her struggle. "Here, let me help you," he offered in a gentle voice, and she made a small noise of thanks as he struck the match and lit the candle inside, lifting the lantern so that she could see. His smile felt painted on. "That's better."

"How kind you are," the crone complimented, and took her cane again as she led him further and further into the dank and dark clutter of the shop, kicking things out of their path every so often. He saw only glimpses of what was inside - torn maps on the walls, books with pages falling out of their spines, a mounted reindeer head, a staff and orb - but it was far too dim to make out anything clearly. He struggled to keep from holding his nose at the stench inside, which reminded him of rotting fish.

"It's just back here—ah, yes," she said, "right there, in my desk." The smell got worse the closer they got to the back of the shop, until Hans could not help but cough when the crone finally bumped into the edge of her desk. She laughed a little to herself, mumbling about her clumsiness in old age, and he continued to hold the lantern for her as she put her cane down again and rifled through various drawers.

He squinted down discreetly at his pocket watch, surprised at the time, and without realizing it, his foot began to tap against the ground.

"In a hurry, are we?" she asked, chuckling as he stopped his foot and blushed in embarrassment. "That's all right, that's all right," she reassured him, "you are young, after all. I was impatient, too, at your age."

She continued to mumble on about youth and folly and other things, and though Hans kept smiling at her, he had long since tuned out her ramblings. It was only when she paused that his attention was drawn to her again. "Have you found something?" he asked.

"Yes, and it's what you're looking for, I believe." She held up a compass to the lantern light, and he grimaced when he saw its barely-legible face. She rubbed a wrinkled palm across it, moving the dirt to the side. "Ah, there it is!" she exclaimed, pointing to its arrow. She moved the compass from side to side, watching as it pointed due north, and then nodded as she handed it to him. "Still works as well as the day I found it."

He looked at the item with skepticism, though he had to admit that it did, indeed, work. "How much… do you want for it, ma'am?" he asked at length, making her laugh.

"That depends on what you intend to use it for," she answered with a spry twinkle in her dark eyes. She glanced at the white gloves that covered his hands. "Are you off with the Navy lads? Or on your own adventure of some kind?"

Hans thought of his brothers and father, and went stiff. "On my own."

"To find your own place," the crone said, and nodded. "Oh, yes. I understand."

Hans's eyes widened, and he gripped the compass so hard that were it any flimsier, it might have broken. The crone had voiced aloud something he had only ever said in his private thoughts—but it was impossible, he thought, for her to have known that. He reassured himself with the idea that it was mere coincidence, though his grip on the compass did not loosen.

She smiled her dreadful, toothless smile at him again. "But where are you going, dearie? That ship you intend to board is going north, isn't it?"

His lips pressed into a firm line. "Indeed it is, ma'am," he replied. "To the Northern Countries." Without knowing why, he added: "Though I'll be disembarking at Farsund."

Her brow lifted as her hands, which had been shaking until then, became still. "Farsund? How odd. Small town, poor people," she commented, looking thoughtful. "Why there? You won't find what you're looking for in such a place."

He was irritated by her presumptuousness. "Well, I'm not staying there," he told her, keeping his voice even. "But it's the closest I can get to—"

He stopped, realizing he had said too much, but it was too late. "Arendelle," she finished, and sighed. She shook her head. "You intend to go and find the lost kingdom." There was warning in her gaze as she continued: "It is a fool's errand, my boy."

Hans rose to the challenge. "It is what I intend to do," he affirmed, "fool's errand or not."

"The Snow Queen of the North Mountain rules those lands," she said, "beautiful and fierce, but with a heart of ice." The crone became more animated as she told the familiar story. "If not for her, Arendelle would still be there, and the young princesses ruling in peace—though, of course," she added with a gleam in her eye, "there are some who say that it was the elder princess herself who brought the Snow Queen to her kingdom."

His ears perked up at this detail. It was one he had not heard before, and in spite of his inclination towards disbelief, he was curious. "Brought her to Arendelle? But how?"

The crone shrugged. "No one knows," she replied, "but it is said that when she was born, the princess was cursed by trolls with a strange sickness, and so was kept hidden away for many years in the castle. When the young princesses' parents died at sea, the elder was to be crowned Queen. But on the evening before her coronation," she went on, her eyes wide, "terrified that her curse would be discovered, she sought out the Snow Queen, whose powerful magic she thought could heal her." She sighed, and rested against the desk. "But the Snow Queen only brought destruction, and the two young princesses were never seen again."

She looked wistfully into the distance. "Now, only one with a heart that is brave and true can—"

"'Break the curse of eternal winter,' yes, I know," he cut her off, making her frown. The crone's ridiculous talk of trolls and curses and mysterious illnesses made him remember his purpose there. "I've heard the legends, and I'm not afraid. There must be a logical explanation for Arendelle's disappearance, and I intend to discover it."

"At what cost?" the crone asked. "Your life? You have many years in you yet, young man. Don't let the Snow Queen take them from you."

He shrugged. "She will do no such thing, because she doesn't exist, and I'll prove it." He placed the lantern down on the desk, and held the compass out to her. "Now, how much did you want for this?"

She pushed away his hand. "Nothing, boy," she replied. "You'll be needing it more than I ever did, if Arendelle is what you seek." She grasped the handle of the lantern again. "Now go, before your ship sets sail without you."

Hans nodded and mumbled thanks to her as he walked briskly out of the shop, wincing as vibrant daylight greeted his green eyes. He looked down to check his watch once more and picked up the pace, running to the docks. The ship was already boarding, and its passengers - mostly tradesmen and deckhands - were making their way up the gangplank. He followed suit, and then paused when aboard, examining the ship for a second time.

Where the rough edges and stained masts had charmed him before, he now saw them with a sense of foreboding. He scrutinized every patched-up tear, every creaky floorboard, and every unfriendly look from the other men at his clothes or sword with a wary eye. Finally, he turned his gaze to the compass the crone had given him - still pointing due north - but noticed that it had stained his fine white gloves.

He thought of her cautionary tale, and looked back at the shop—but whatever light had shone from the lantern had been extinguished, and it was just as dark as when he had first arrived.

II

The voyage was as choppy as he had heard it would be, and the poor state of the ship did not help matters. He slept little as the crew required all hands on deck to tie down supplies when a rough wave shook them loose, and in spite of his naval training, he often felt seasick. Some of the more experienced hands even said the waves and winds were worse than usual, blaming the weather at various times on God, Poseidon, krakens, or even sirens.

Hans tried not to think of it as ill portent, though the warning words of the crone echoed in his mind more often than he would have liked to admit. He read books in his spare time to keep from dwelling on them, but steered clear of anything to do with Arendelle. So many years had passed since its disappearance that it was impossible to separate truth from myth, and as a grown man, he was no longer interested in the latter.

This did not, however, keep the other men from discussing the topic.

On the night before they were to arrive in Farsund, the main crew played cards below deck, and Hans sat in his usual place at the back, reading by his lonesome under dim lantern light. The others onboard had taken to calling him "Your Highness" for his reserve and detached air, and though the moniker irritated him, he was grateful to be left alone. He never normally listened to the boasts and taunts and prattle they exchanged amongst themselves, but on that unusually calm night at sea, when their discussion turned towards their destination, he could not help but eavesdrop.

"Did'ya notice how cold it's been gettin' as we come nearer to port?" the third mate asked, and shivered for effect. "That Snow Queen's messin' about again, I s'pect."

"Snow Queen, indeed!" the cook scoffed, taking a puff of his pipe. "I would've thought you'd outgrown such fairy stories, Leif."

"They're not jus' stories," Leif defended himself, and folded his hand with a grunt. "Per'aps you all're too young to remember, but my grandpa tol' me that this passage used t'be much smoother sailin' in his day, an' the Northern countries not so barren 'n' cold."

"They were always cold," the second mate chimed in, "but it's true: the closer anyone gets to that cursed kingdom, the worse the weather." He folded his hand as well. "And the worse ye feel."

Leif nodded. "That's right. E'ery time I do this voyage, I feel a pain in me gut that gets worse an' worse till we get back 'ome to th' Isles."

The captain guffawed. "Ye've got Vic's cookin' to thank fer that."

Hans recognized the symptoms the man spoke of, and swallowed with discomfort even as the others laughed at the cook's expense. The latter cleared his throat and shot a glare across the table at the captain. "All the same," he remarked, "we're a long way from Arendelle, or what's left of it. If there were, in fact, a 'Snow Queen,' as you say, I don't think she'll care that we're makin' a quick call at port in Farsund." He grinned as he revealed his hand to the others, who groaned as he collected his winnings from each of them. "So long as we keep to ourselves, what's she got to worry about, eh?"

Leif frowned as he thrust his money forth, and crossed his arms again while the second mate dealt a fresh hand to all the players. "She don't think the same way we do, Vic," he said. "She's got a 'eart o' ice, and she don't care who ye are, what ye want: she's out to hurt ye, jus' like she did t'those poor princesses." He took the pipe from Vic's hand and drew a long puff from it. "Ye never know what ye did to upset 'er, till you're a block o' ice."

Hans rolled his eyes. He had never enjoyed the superstitious nature of men at sea, and this conversation was no exception. "I think it was th'older princess - Elsa, 'er name was - not the Snow Queen," the engineer interjected, handing over his portion of the winnings with a grimace. Hans, remembering the crone's story, looked up from his book. "Isn't the story that she was the one cursed by the trolls' magic mirror? Per'aps it was 'er that made Arendelle and 'er sister, the Princess Anna, disappear."

"Per'aps," Leif conceded. "But Elsa was a girl, cursed or no. She couldn't ha' conjured such magic as the Snow Queen: to make 'erself take on the form o' bears an' birds, or e'en a single snowflake." His gaze flitted around the table to try to read the other men's expressions, not wanting to lose again. "And 'ere's only so much a girl could do, in th' face o' that kind o' power."

The others grumbled at that, except for the captain. "I think yer daughter may disagree, Leif," he said with a smirk. "I seem to remember her raisin' such a fuss when you didn't bring her back a pony from France as would ha' rivaled any Queen o' Ice and Snow."

The men laughed, and Leif folded his hand with a "hmph," taking one last, long drag from the pipe before handing it back to the cook. They returned to their usual talk after the captain's jibe, much to Hans's relief. No matter how preposterous some of what they'd said had been (he had had to keep from laughing aloud when the third mate spoke of shape-shifting into bears and snowflakes), he still felt unnerved.

And with every passing wave that brought them closer to shore, his trepidation only grew.

Farsund was a small and bleak town, with houses that sagged and creaked with every passing wind. They stood in stark contrast to their surroundings - great mountains and rocky shores, and waters dotted with barren isles - and so Hans was bewildered when he heard a man on-board say that the town had once been a bustling port, and a popular spot for a summer holiday.

From the looks of it at present, he guessed that it was home to no more than a hundred people, and that their ship was one of the few which still called at the town's ramshackle port. A handful of miserable-looking townsmen greeted them at shore to help secure the boat and unload its goods, and fewer still proffered any kind of advice on where to eat and drink or purchase supplies. The other men were unsurprised by the unfriendliness of the town, having visited there before. Once they were finished unloading the goods meant for Farsund and then loading the ship with others meant for towns and cities further afield, they exchanged payment with the local men and headed towards the one building in the town with any recognizable sign of life: the pub.

Hans had no intention of joining them at first, but his stomach grumbled for something better than what he had been settling for on the ship for the last few days: namely, old beer, stale biscuits, and salted pork. More to the point, knowing that he was preparing to set off on a grueling journey alone through the mountains and hills of this country to find Arendelle - and that the pub might present his last opportunity to enjoy a home-cooked meal for the foreseeable future - he could not deny himself the experience, even for the sake of avoiding the men's company.

It was with this thought that he followed them into the small, dark tavern, its original sign having long flown off its hinges, and took a seat a little ways away from them by the bar as they crowded around the table by the fireplace. Even with a fire going, it was not much warmer inside, and the wooden frame of the house groaned loudly enough to set Hans on edge even as he put in his order with the barkeep. As he looked around, he noticed that whatever reindeer antlers and paintings of hunters and firearms used to decorate the walls had long since fallen down, broken, or been removed. (The owner of the tavern must have realized that the weather would never allow them to stay up longer than a day, and his resignation was reflected in the gloomy atmosphere that clung to the bare walls.)

The others were quiet for a while as they settled in, but as time passed and the fire struggled to stay alive, they began to grouse again. "Miserable place, in'nit?" the engineer observed as their meals and beers were set down with a thud on the table in front of them, the barkeep glaring at each man with contempt. The engineer returned the look, and then finished off half his pint in just under a few seconds, exhaling loudly. "Now that is the kind o' piss I've been dreamin' of."

The men laughed as Hans was served last, his silence earning him less scorn from the barkeep. He took a sip of his beer and held back a cringe as he swallowed, knowing that the man's light blue eyes were watching his reaction. He nodded at him in thanks, but the latter merely gave a small "hmph" before turning his back on the group, busying his red, calloused hands with cleaning glasses. Hans rolled his eyes in reply and shifted his attention to the men's chatter.

The second mate looked unimpressed with the stew they had been served. "Couldn't expect much better around these parts," he said. "Hardly any crops t'speak of anymore. It's a wonder there's any food at all."

"Jus' fish and bones," the captain noted, and chugged the watery soup left over in his bowl until the broth dribbled down the sides of his face and into his dark beard. He slammed it down on the table when he was finished, and growled at the barkeep: "Another!"

Hans grimaced at the sight, wary of the scowl the barkeep wore at the captain's order. "You sure finished it quick enough, sir, for it bein' jus' fish an' bones," the second mate remarked, earning a glare from the captain. He grinned as he finished off his own portion. "I can't complain meself. The old lady's not half so good a cook as this feller."

"Forget Arendelle," the engineer joked, "now there's a real tragedy."

Leif shot him a dark look. "Ye shouldn't say such things, now that we're in 'er country," he warned. "Can't ye see what she's done to it a'ready? To this place?" He shook his head, disturbed at the thought, and lit his pipe. "Cursed, all o' 'em cursed."

"Is that right, mate?" the engineer, freshly inebriated, shouted at the barkeep. When the others glared at him, he took a sip of Leif's beer and smirked. "Have ye all been 'cursed' by this powerful and terrible Snow Queen, like our man 'ere says?"

The barkeep paused mid-polish, though he did not turn to look at any of the men. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low. "Curses can be broken," he answered, "reversed. But this eternal winter is no curse." He had drawn everyone's attention, including Hans's, with his quiet and careful tone. When his eyes finally met theirs, the effect was palpable. "It is a plague without a cure, and with no hope of ever finding one."

His gaze then turned on Hans, who nearly jumped out of his seat. "I know your kind: thrill-seekers, adventurers searching for some meaning in the world beyond their own," he observed. "But you won't find what you're looking for out there. Every man who's ever tried has never returned."

Hans tried to keep his expression unreadable, though a shiver ran down his spine. "You don't know what I'm looking for," he said.

"I do know, boy," the barkeep replied with sharp eyes, "and if you cared to live even one day more, you would listen to me."

"Impossible, mate," the engineer remarked, and finished off Leif's pint. "His Highness's ginger head is too far up 'is royal arse for that."

Finally, this earned him a round of chuckles from the group. The barkeep returned to his work after glowering in response, giving Hans one last, long look of disapproval.

Hans didn't meet his eyes again after that, too rattled by the exchange to say anything to anyone else for the rest of the afternoon. He left the pub before the others, and managed to find two small shops that opened at his request. They were both operated by older men whose funereal countenances were matched only by the sepulchral atmosphere in their shops, and they spoke little as they sold him the various supplies and clothes he needed for his journey. Their stares, however, held the same solemn warning in them that had been given by the barkeep.

He did his best to quell the growing disquiet in his mind as he re-packed his bags by the harbor. The men he had sailed with were readying to depart, taking on-board some final provisions while the engineer inspected the outside of the ship from the dock. No one gave him a parting glance, and he did not think of any of them in return.

"Ye won't get far with them flimsy shoes, lad," said Leif, catching Hans by surprise. The older man held out a pair of heavy leather boots, aged but well-crafted. "Take 'em. You'll need 'em, where yer goin'."

Hans eyed the man curiously, accepting the boots with care. "Thank you, but… why are you giving them to me?" His brow rose. "I thought you, out of everyone, would—"

"Disapprove? Aye, that I do," Leif agreed, and crossed his arms as the wind blew hard against them. The engineer shouted for everyone to get back to the ship, satisfied with his inspection, but Leif stood firm as he continued. "But ye remind me of how I were at yer age, full o' blood an' desirin' to change me life. So here I am."

"I see," Hans replied at length, looking at the boots. He cleared his throat, and added: "Well, thank you again, all the same. I won't let them go to waste."

"I'm sure ye won't," Leif nodded, and clapped the young man on the shoulder. He paused there, and his grip grew tight. "Jus' remember, lad: sooner o' later, ye'll run into her," he said, "and when ye do, ye mus' not be tempted by 'er beauty or charms. Ye must stay th'course, an' be true."

Hans frowned. "And how are you so sure that I will see her—this 'Snow Queen'?"

Leif shrugged. "I'm not," he admitted, "but I can see how ye are, an' I remember how I were at your age—an' I were a damn fool." His look was knowing. "I wouldn' want ye t'make those mistakes, when ye could be facin' such a monster." He gave Hans one last, light pat on his shoulder, and walked back to the ship, waving over his shoulder as he walked up the gangplank.

Hans remained by the dock, standing as if fastened in place, and his hands shook inside of his gloves.

III

He left Farsund before nightfall, not wanting to linger a moment longer in the wretched town (with its even more wretched inhabitants).

He discarded his old boots by the docks - though probably worth ten times more than the ones given to him by Leif, they were far less practical - and within a few hours of his departure from Farsund, he had made his way into the deep forests and hills further inland. Using the crone's compass, he went north, and only north.

The trails he took were well-worn, but not well-trodden. In fact, the longer Hans walked, the less he could tell if anyone had been through that territory in months, if not years. Eventually, his only company were the occasional bird or fox passing through the woods, and the surrounding landscape likewise became increasingly barren, punctuated by dying or dead deciduous trees and cold, punishing winds. Only the hooting of owls and the howling of wolves could be heard clearly above the wind when he made camp in the forest in the evenings, though the sounds were comforting in the absence of any others.

However, as days passed in this manner, he drew less and less solace from any such noises, and they diminished until he no longer knew if they were there at all, or just in his imagination. As he went up into the mountains, the ground became covered with snow, and the cold air all-encompassing. Even with his thicker boots, skis, and clothes that he had bought in Farsund, he struggled against the harsh climate, and as his supplies of food and water dwindled, he felt his defenses against the forces of nature weaken.

By the fourth night of his travels, he no longer knew where he was, caught in the fury of a blinding snowstorm high in the mountains. He had thought, two days before, that he might be close to Arendelle; however, after being alone for so long, it was hard to trust his own mind, let alone the crone's compass. Images of trolls and broken mirrors and a woman with skin and eyes as blue as ice filled his mind, and his hands and feet grew number by the hour.

It was in this state that Hans thought he saw, somewhere in the distance, a small cabin. He knew it was probably a mirage conjured by his feverish mind, and in spite of the vicious wind and snow pelting him from every direction, he felt himself drawn to it.

As he came closer, the light from the cabin became clearer, though the form and shape of the building itself was hazy. He thought he could make out the words on it, for a moment - Oaken's Trading Post - but in the same instant, a flash of light passed before his vision, and a terrible pain shot through his body. Forced to his knees by the blow, he sank like a stone into the snow, and his heartbeat slowed.

The last thing Hans saw was a single snowflake floating towards him, and it seemed to grow larger and larger before his eyes as they drifted shut.

He awoke in a warm room illuminated by firelight.

Beneath him was a hay-filled mattress, firm but more comfortable than anything he had slept on in weeks. He looked around with bleary eyes, not quite awake, and shuddered at the sensation of his sweat-drenched clothes clinging to his body. He had been stripped to his undergarments and a compress placed against his forehead. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the rest of his belongings drying by a bright fire in a hearth.

Next to them sat a young woman with light hair, tied back in a thick braid, deep in concentration as she cooked something over the fire. She was gaunt, and looked weary as she worked, her clothes stained by cinders. She was dressed in a traditional bunad far past its prime; whatever its original colors had been, it had turned a faded grey with time, and had patches stitched over its numerous tears.

The girl glanced at him, and knocked over the stool she had been sitting on when she saw that he was awake. She rushed to him, removing the compress from his head and plunging it into a bucket by the bed. When she placed it on him again, it was as cold as the storm outside, and he nearly cried out in surprise.

"You're sick," she told him. "You need to rest."

Hans barely heard her, his head throbbing in pain, and he closed his eyes tight when she placed her equally cold hand against his cheek. The sensation, he thought, was not unpleasant, and when his eyes opened again, he saw that hers were as blue as the sky on a clear winter's day.

IV

Another two days passed before Hans was conscious for more than a few hours at a time. By then, the storm had quelled to a gentle, murmuring wind.

In the midst of his indisposition, he had managed to learn a few details about his savior, and where exactly he had ended up. The girl's name was Gerda, and she had lived in this cabin on the North Mountain for almost two years on her own. She lived off the forest and the meager plant and animal life which could survive the endless winter, and she had kept him alive with what little food she had to spare. She looked thinner than before for her efforts, her face and hands covered in soot from sleeping on the floor by the hearth, and he wondered at how she could look after him when she herself seemed so pitiable in her poverty.

He did not have the sense to question her while he had been ill, but as he awoke on the third day to clear skies and a blinding sun, he felt more capable of carrying on a conversation. Hans sat up with a groan, and looked out of the window by the bed. He was greeted by the same vast, empty expanse of snow and evergreens that he had seen en route to the cabin, with one exception: Gerda. She was carrying as much timber as she could carry in her small arms, and he watched as she walked around the house and deposited the pile by the front door. She came inside after brushing stray wood chips from her apron, and knocked the snow from her thick brown boots by the entryway.

She exhaled fog as she took off her gloves one by one, meeting his curious stare. "You're up early," she remarked, and then walked to the hearth to stoke the waning fire. When it was alive again, she hung a kettle over it. "Are you feeling better?"

He nodded, and pulled back the blankets as he swung his legs over the side of the bed with only a small wince. "Better," he confirmed, "thanks to you." He looked her over, noting that she was still dressed in her outdoors gear. "Cold out there?"

"It always is," she said, and flashed him a small, resigned smile. "Better to stay in here where it's warm, while you're still healing."

He shrugged as he stood up to stretch, his legs quivering from disuse. "I'm no good to anyone if I'm on my back all day," he rejoined, walking over until he stood next to her. Hans glanced at the bookshelf by the front door, upon which sat his over-clothes. They were neatly folded and clean - Gerda's handiwork, no doubt - and he simpered a little. "But I'd be of more use to you if I were properly dressed."

Her reply was guileless and gentle. "Of course. There's a room in the back where you can change."

He was almost disappointed by her simplicity, but took his clothes and went in the room as suggested. Once inside with the door shut behind him, he looked with surprise upon his new surroundings. There was a large, round bath which took up most of the space in the room, suggesting that this cabin had been home to a sauna at some point. He had a vague memory of the words he had seen written on the outside of the building - "Oaken's Trading Post" - and thought that the cabin must have been, once upon a time, a mountain retreat for explorers and tradesmen.

The notion made him put on his clothes more quickly, and he walked back into the main room with a questioning gaze. "Gerda, what—"

"Tea?" she interrupted him, holding up the hissing kettle from the fireplace. His furrowed brow abated at her innocent look, and he nodded with a half-smile. Better to be gracious and approach this stranger slowly, he thought, than to attack her all at once with his suspicions.

She sprinkled a few grounded leaves into the bottom of a cup, poured the water over them, and placed it on a small table next to her. She motioned for him to sit in the chair beside it. "Please, Hans."

His name sounded strange yet natural from her lips, and he marveled at how her hard life in the mountains had not diminished the lyricism of her voice. He took the cup carefully, blowing on the surface to cool the tea. "Thank you," he said with genuine gratitude, at which she gave a slight bow of her head.

She smiled into her own cup as she pressed it to her lips, giving him an inquisitive look. "Were you trying to ask me something?"

Hans reddened. "Oh, yes, I—it's just that I noticed the old sauna in the back," he stammered, "and I recalled the name out front, and I wondered…" He paused to set his cup down on the table and collect himself. "Well, I wondered how you came to find this place. After all," he continued, "I'd been travelling for what seemed like years before I stumbled upon it, and frankly, I thought it was just a figment of my imagination at first."

Gerda's smile was thin in response, and she looked down. "I thought the same when I first found this cabin," she replied, her hands wrapped tightly around the cup. "But I haven't managed to get away from it since."

His brow rose. "What do you mean?"

She appeared pained by the question. "It's a long and sad tale," she said, and stared into the fire. "I don't wish to burden you with it, while you're still recovering your strength."

"I think it's recovered enough to hear the story," he returned, and was circumspect in sounding as polite as possible even as he burned with curiosity. "If you're willing to tell it, that is."

Her hands unclasped themselves from around the cup, and she sighed. "No one else would, or could listen to it," she said, "so I suppose I am." Her eyes met his for a moment, and he felt stunned into silence by their dazzling blue depths as they shined brilliantly in comparison to her ashen and dry skin. In the next instant, they returned to the fire, and she began. "I came here from a small village by the sea, where I grew up. I lived there with my younger brother, Kai, and our parents… until they died." Her lip trembled. "It was a difficult time, and I coped with their loss better than my brother. He took to running away when we argued - which was often - but I always found him and brought him home." She grasped the cup again, her hands shaking. "Until the one time I didn't."

Hans nodded. "He came here."

"Yes," Gerda said. "But it took me a long time to track him down, and by the time I did, he had become very sick. Just like you were when I found you, but worse."

There was something odd in the way she told her tale, Hans thought - a vagueness or emptiness to its details that struck him as suspect - but he maintained a sympathetic facade as she went on. "And you took care of him here, the same way you have me?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, but he died, all the same." Her lips pressed into a grim line. "I tried to find my way back home," she said, "but the storms here are bad, as you know, and the trails I'd taken were covered again by the time I left. I walked for three days until I was too weak to go on, and I—" Her eyes shut tightly, and when they opened again, she was blinking back tears. "I came back here, because I had nowhere else to go."

He believed her story even less than he had at the start, but put on a grieved expression for her benefit. "I'm sorry for what happened to your brother," he said. "These mountains are no place for a boy."

"No," she agreed, sniffling. She wiped away a stray tear that was falling down her cheek before it landed in her tea. "They're no place for anyone."

Hans stared at her. "And yet—" He paused for dramatic effect until she looked at him again.

"And yet?"

He averted his gaze, pretending embarrassment. "Well, that is—what I meant to say, is… I've heard many stories about these mountains, none of them good." He remembered the crone, the barkeep, and Leif with a deep frown. "'Every man who's ever gone there has never returned,' so they said," he said, imitating the barkeep from Farsund's low voice, "and yet… here you are, alive in spite of all the evil trolls and witches that I was told had cursed this place." He gave her a knowing look. "Though I can see you're not a man, which perhaps has something to do with it."

This remark drew a small smile from Gerda. "Indeed I am not," she agreed, "nor have I ever been fond of, or believed in, such legends myself." She gazed out the window, and in the same moment a cloud passed over the sun, dimming the shine of the snowy landscape. "But there is a strange aura about this place that I have never quite understood… as if it exists in a realm beyond God's reach." She blushed. "I know that must sound like a lot of nonsense to you."

He forced himself to shake his head. "You've been here far longer than I have, so who am I to say what this place is, or isn't?" he demurred. "It certainly is strange, if nothing else."

She sent him an appreciative smile at that, and sipped her tea. "So why did you come here, knowing the stories?"

He had not expected the question, and so his answer was not as well-planned nor as well-executed as he would have liked. "I hail from warmer lands in the South," he began with a truth. "I have family there, but… we're not close." He plastered on a look of consternation. "I have many brothers - too many, if you ask me - and one younger sister. She's the only one I've ever cared for, out of all of them, and so I've looked after her like a father since our parents passed."

This description earned him a plaintive stare from Gerda, as he had hoped it would. "She was struck by a strange illness very suddenly a few weeks ago, and her health declined rapidly. We were told that the petals of a certain kind of rose could be made into a balm that would heal her, but when my brothers found out that it only grows near the North Mountain, they wrote her off as a lost cause." He stared at the stone floor below him, and strategically slumped his head over his shoulders, his elbows resting on his outspread knees. "They were scared off by the stories about this place, and told me it would be a fool's errand to come here. But I had to take the risk, if it meant that I could save her life." He let out a sullen chuckle. "Not that I've done much so far that would be of help to her, except get sick myself."

"But you're getting better," Gerda noted, and touched his shoulder to reassure him. Hans lifted his hand, making it appear as if he meant to place it atop hers—but then paused, and let it settle back into his lap instead. He noticed her try to hide a look of disappointment at his withdrawal, and then return to the subject at hand. "What is the name of the rose that you seek?"

Having conjured his story from whole cloth, Hans struggled to think of a flower that she might not know - or even one that he would know - and named the only one he could think of in that moment. "It's called the huldra," he told her in his most convincing tone. "Do you know it?"

He glanced over at her face to assess her familiarity with the name. When it looked as blank as before, his nervousness eased—but before she could answer him, he shuddered, his whole body convulsing with a forceful pain that terrified him.

Gerda came to his side in an instant, and he leaned into her, allowing her to help him up and guide him back to the bed. She unbuttoned his shirt as his head lolled back, and he winced at the paralyzing ache that pulsed behind his eyes. "You'd better rest more, and let yourself recover," she advised, "or you won't be able to help anyone, let alone your sister." She slid his shirt off arm by arm as he undid his trousers with quivering fingers under the covers. When he had finished wriggling his legs out of them, he handed the garment to her, sweating from the effort. She placed them to the side and pressed the compress against his forehead, which calmed him.

He fell back on the mattress in a cold sweat, and he breathed haggardly until she placed one of her cold hands against his cheek, shushing him.

"Sleep, now," she instructed, "and tomorrow, we shall find your flower."

V

Hans awoke to the moon high in the sky, and Gerda sitting at his bedside. She scrutinized him with quiet interest, and her face glowed in the lantern-light.

"I know you lied to me about the rose, Hans."

He watched as she wrung out the compress before dipping it back into the bucket, and he fought a swallow of discomfort, eyeing his white gloves on the bookshelf behind her. She was calm as she placed it back upon his forehead, and her fingers lingered in the air before returning to her lap. "My mother was a skilled gardener, and she used to read me books about plants and flowers to help me fall asleep as a child." Her eyes drifted towards the window, and then back to him. "The huldra is a variety that grows only in the Southern countries—your lands."

Hans had to refrain from cursing himself. He had never been so ill-prepared and careless with his lies back home, and so was embarrassed that she should catch him out in one of his worst ones. "So it is," he admitted, realizing that he had underestimated her. Pausing for a moment, he added: "It's not often that I'm honest with strangers, if you must know. Even ones as pretty as yourself."

Gerda's cheeks flushed at the remark, and she cleared her throat. "Then, if you didn't come to find a flower," she followed with greater authority in her voice, "what exactly are you here for?" Her brow rose as he shifted up into a seat. "Do you even have a sister, or any other family?"

"I don't have a sister," he said as he gathered his wits about him, "but I do have several older brothers. No parents left, like you." He ignored the frown she shot him, though the expression dissipated as he elaborated: "My father died some years ago from old age, and my mother… she followed him, about a year ago." He paused at the memory, and continued: "As for your other question, I'll answer you truthfully, but only if you do the same."

Her head cocked to the side. "What do you mean?"

He leaned against the wall behind him. "I'm not usually such a terrible liar, when I'm in full possession of my wits," he said with a grin, "and I can always tell when someone is lying to me. So I know that you didn't tell the truth about how you ended up here, nor why you're still here."

Gerda sat back in surprise, silent for some time; finally, she turned sheepish, and nodded. "No, I didn't."

Hans relaxed. "There, now," he said, "isn't that better? So, let's begin again: I'm Hans, I come from the Southern Isles, and I have twelve older brothers—"

"Twelve?" Gerda asked, incredulous.

Hans wore a weary grin. "Yes, twelve, all in equal parts successful, clever, and unpleasant." He paused to clear thoughts and memories of his brothers from his mind. "And you are…?"

"Gerda, who had one brother and two parents, all three now deceased," the girl said, and exhaled. When Hans regarded her with skepticism, her lips pursed in protest. "It's the truth."

He shrugged. "I believe you," he said. "Your name just doesn't suit you, that's all." She reddened, and his smile returned along with a more cordial tone. "As I was saying: I'm Hans, you're Gerda, and we're both rather alone in the world, in our own ways," he continued, "and so I came to this place looking for the lost kingdom of Arendelle. How about you?"

Her face changed when he mentioned Arendelle. "Do you know it?" he asked.

Gerda nodded, looking disturbed. "Why are you looking for it? You must know the stories."

"Yes, of course I know them," he retorted with an eye roll, "as everyone knows these things. But I don't believe them. Snow Queens? Magic mirrors? Trolls? It's all a bit absurd." He crossed his arms, feeling more like himself than at any point since he had arrived. "Whatever the real cause of its disappearance, I have a feeling that the men who came before me believed too much in the fairy tales, and were unable to separate myth from truth." He tapped his head for effect. "And so they never found it. Probably died of exposure along the way, the poor saps—as I likely would have, had you not rescued me."

She blushed and looked down, but her expression soon turned tragic. "Kai - my brother - he was looking for it, too."

Hans blinked, and his arms uncrossed. "Arendelle? He was looking for Arendelle?"

Gerda nodded. "That's how we ended up here, in this cabin." She wrung her pale hands together in her lap, her distress growing as she revisited her original story. "We were from a small village - that part is true - called Spitzbergen, a few days' journey from here. Not by the sea," she amended, and averted her gaze. "When we were children, Kai used to tell me countless stories about fairies, elves, and other magical creatures—but his favorite was about the Snow Queen." Her eyes darkened, and Hans held in a shudder at the mention of the mythical figure. "She was beautiful and fearsome, he said, with skin that looked like it had been painted blue, and a crown of ice whose points were as sharp as the ends of icicles."

Hans's lip twitched at the description; it was not unlike what he had seen in his dreams. "He told me that she used to visit him in many different forms - once as a single snowflake, another time as a great white bear - and take him to her great palace of ice in these mountains. There, she would feed him his favorite dessert, Turkish delight, as well as chocolates and other candies, and he would sit with her and look upon her wonderful ice sculptures, carved to resemble birds and beasts and exotic flowers." A warm and affectionate smile flitted across her face. "I used to love those stories. Of course, as we got older," she said, looking at Hans, "he stopped telling them."

She grew quiet, and he prodded her to resume. "But…?"

Gerda sighed, smoothing out the dirty apron of her bunad. "When I was twenty-one and he eighteen, there was a particularly bad harvest, and many people died in the village from malnutrition or disease, our parents among them. Kai took their deaths much harder than I did." She grimaced. "He started talking about the Snow Queen again: about how she'd visited him and told him that we had to go to the mountains, to Arendelle, where she could protect us from some great evil that would soon descend on our village." Her hands laced themselves tightly together, and her expression was tense. "I told him he wasn't making sense, that the Snow Queen was just a childhood fairy story and that Arendelle was long-gone, but the more I said those things, the more and more determined he became to leave. And when it became obvious that nothing I could say would change his mind," she said, "I finally agreed that we would go, but only if we left together. So we did."

At Hans's look of surprise, Gerda frowned. "You have to understand, Hans—we only had each other, after our parents died. And with the way he was acting, the things he was saying… I couldn't in good conscience let him go into the mountains alone."

"You were worried about him," he said, making sure to sound compassionate. "It's understandable."

She seemed as if she didn't quite believe him, but continued her story nonetheless. "Yes, I was worried," she affirmed, "and I was right to be, as it turned out. We wandered for days and days in the mountains looking for Arendelle, and all the while the weather got worse and worse the further north we went." She looked at the pillow resting at the head of the bed. "Kai got sick - well, sicker than he already was - and by some miracle, we happened upon this place on the evening of the worst storm we'd faced yet." Gerda's gaze turned to her hands, stained by cinders, and an air of misfortune hung around her like a cloak. "I tried to nurse him back to health with the limited resources we had, but he kept insisting, even at the height of his fever, that the Snow Queen could heal him if I brought him to her. He said he remembered where the palace was from his childhood, and that he could take us there."

Hans inhaled slowly, remembering the storm on the night he found the cabin, and wondered at how familiar it sounded. "So he really thought that those stories were memories?"

"Yes, and to be honest… the intensity with which he spoke about them, and the level of detail he could recall—in a way, I think I wanted to believe that it was all true as he said, if only to find him a cure." She leaned back in her chair, and as her chin turned up towards the ceiling, Hans was struck by how the lantern-light brought out the inky depths of her blue eyes. "But I couldn't risk moving him when he was so sick, especially not out into that terrible cold. And so he got worse, until finally he died." She pressed a hand to her cheek, and closed her eyes. "I remember how he grew colder and colder, the closer he came to death. The feeling of his skin was like ice at the end."

She clutched her own hand as she said this, and Hans recalled, with startling clarity, how cold her hands had been against his cheek. He shook off the thought as he saw her prepare to speak, her lips trembling. "I left the cabin after I buried him in the forest, following what I thought was more or less the same path we had taken back to the village. But when I got there, there was…" Gerda stopped, her eyes tightening. "There was nothing. No trace of it. As if it had never existed at all." Her lips pressed together. "And I thought that perhaps I didn't take the right path back after all, that perhaps I was lost," she said, "but the more I wandered, the weaker I grew, and eventually I found my way back here." She shook her head. "It made me wonder if Kai had been right after all."

"Or," Hans suggested, "perhaps the Snow Queen saved you, instead of him."

This quip upset his host, and he changed the thread of their conversation. "What I meant to say, is: what happened to your village sounds a lot like what happened to Arendelle."

Gerda frowned. "Whatever happened to Arendelle, it happened a long time ago," she objected. "I, however, know what I saw."

"But you have to admit that it sounds similar," Hans interjected, ignoring her irritated look. "In fact, I find it rather odd that no one would have told me about your village on my way here. People would never pass up a chance to blame yet another unsolved mystery on magic and witchcraft, after all."

She maintained her stubborn dissent. "Spitzbergen was a tiny village. Practically nobody knew it existed in the first place, so how would they know if it was gone?"

Hans didn't like that explanation - it was too convenient, too clean - but he could see that the conversation, up to and including their current quarrel, was unsettling for Gerda. In order to keep her from sensing his suspicion, he relented. "Let's not argue," he implored. "I don't wish to upset you further, after everything you've done for me."

She regarded him with mistrust as he drew closer to her on the edge of the mattress. "I'm sorry for your brother's loss, truly. Your life has not been easy, it seems, both before and since you came to this place. I don't intend, or want, to make things any harder for you."

She was silent for a time, unnerving her guest; eventually, after her lips bent back into a neutral line, she spoke. "So what makes you think you can find Arendelle, where everyone else has failed?" she asked, and added: "Tell me, truthfully."

He looked down to hide his surprise, and wore a rueful smile when he met her blue eyes again. "Because I have nothing to lose."

Gerda's brow furrowed. "I find that hard to believe."

Hans felt his face grow hot at the pointed remark. "And how would you know?" he said, surprising even himself with how resentful he sounded. "Or do you think you've already figured me out, after a few days?"

"I wouldn't presume to know you well," she replied calmly, "but I've certainly noticed a few things. Like your fine white gloves, and your well-crafted sword, and the ease with which you lie." Her stare was piercing as she continued: "All of it points to a high-born background, which means you would have quite a lot to lose in this venture."

It was stated so matter-of-factly that Hans felt all the more piqued by her remarks. "There is nothing holding me to that life," he repeated, "and no one."

"Surely that isn't true," she countered. "There must be someone—"

"No, there isn't," he cut her off, bristling. His cheek twitched as he thought on it again, and a shadow passed before his eyes. "Except—"

"Except?"

He instantly regretted the slip-up. "Except nothing," he snapped, returning her inquisitive stare with a stern glare. "There is no one, as I said."

Her gaze remained fixed on him. "What about your mother?"

He frowned. "What about her?"

Her interest in the subject was unwavering, in spite of his best efforts to look annoyed by it. "Perhaps it's a bit naive of me to think so," she began, "but I find it hard to believe that your own mother would make you feel so unimportant."

His gaze flitted to his gloves and sword atop the bookshelf, and he noticed that both had been cleaned by Gerda so well that they looked as fine as they had on the day that his mother had given them to him. Seeing this, he could not help but feel somewhat indebted to her, and his antipathy towards the discussion subsided.

"No," Hans acknowledged, "she didn't." His hands relaxed in his lap, and he could not help but give in to her sincere curiosity. "She was my father's last wife, and I the last of four sons she bore him. I suppose she felt that she had to protect me, somehow, since I was the youngest." His forehead creased as he recalled his childhood. "But she was sick for much of her life after giving birth to me, and so she couldn't do much to protect me from my brothers', nor from my father's, cruelty."

Gerda rested her hand on his, squeezing it gently. "I'm sorry, Hans. It is a terrible thing to lose a mother."

"And a terrible thing to have terrible family besides," he joked, prompting a half-smile from his host. After a pause, he allowed their fingers to interlace, and he found a peculiar kind of comfort in the calluses on her fingertips and palms. "But that is all in the past, now."

"Yes," she echoed, and her blue eyes dimmed with the lantern's dying flame. "All in the past."

VI

Gerda softened to Hans more and more as time passed, and they seldom argued. He kept his suspicions about her to himself, for on the one hand, he was resolved to be amiable towards her—and on the other, he found her interest in him refreshing, and he enjoyed indulging it.

To this end, he entertained her with stories of his naval training, descriptions of the great and wealthy homes and palaces in the Southern countries, and gossip about the self-important and scandalous denizens of those same places. In turn, she would recount books she had read or had read to her, or fond memories of her parents and brother.

When she asked, he would share his own in return, but these instances were few and far between. Mostly, he would tell her about his mother: her wild red hair and green eyes, like his, and her famed beauty in the Southern countries. Otherwise, he preferred not to think nor speak of his living family, nor to ponder on what they might think of him, if anything.

Their conversations helped him to recover from his fever, and within two days he was on his feet again. He helped Gerda gather berries and firewood, and he often watched her from afar when she plucked animals from hand-crafted snares left in the forest. He was fascinated by her skillfulness and resourcefulness, though these qualities also heightened his wariness of her, and his disbelief even in her revised story about how she came to the cabin.

She appreciated his assistance and company, it seemed, for there was always a soft and kind smile on her face. Whatever misgivings she might have held towards his motives in return, she never voiced them, and did not press him for details when he appeared reluctant to tell them. He even thought she might have started washing her face and hands a bit more, as he began to notice things about her that he had not before: the light freckles dotting her cheeks; her long eyelashes; the gentle curve of her nose; and even the wave and shine of her hair, which had heretofore been too speckled with dirt to see its true, light blonde color.

Admiring these features, he felt at odds with his mistrust. Surely, he thought, if this girl had intended to harm him, she would have done so when he was at his weakest point. Their game of "playing house" did not fit with any pattern he was accustomed to, and her seemingly limitless warmth and openness continually confounded him.

It was for this reason, among others, that Hans did not tell Gerda about the cold.

For at the same time that his fever and general pains and aches were abating, he realized that the cold which had initially paralyzed his advance up the mountain had never gone away. In fact, as time marched on, he seemed to grow colder and colder, and he knew it was not just because he had given up the bed so that she would not have to sleep on the floor anymore.

He tried to dress in more layers, or even wear two sets of gloves, to ward it off; but it came back every night worse than before, and he fought hard to keep his new predicament from Gerda. Still, she noticed that something was wrong, and asked after his health every morning.

To this, he offered the same reply: "Better than ever, Gerda. I'll be out of your hair in no time, and on my way to find Arendelle again."

It was on just such a morning after uttering those words that a rush of cold swept through him, and he could not help but fall into a coughing spell. She greeted this with immediate concern. "Are you sure, Hans? You sound quite bad."

"Positive," he said mid-cough, and recomposed himself as he buttoned up his overcoat. "We should get going, or else we'll be caught in the storm that's coming."

Gerda's eyes followed his to the window, where the landscape and skies above it were almost blinding in their whiteness. She frowned a little, but agreed. "I suppose we should."

When they were both finished dressing, he led the way outdoors, where the wind was beginning to pick up. He clutched his coat to himself, and gripped the axe he'd brought to chop wood so hard that his hands felt numb. Gerda followed close behind with a basket, intending to check her traps. Her face was hidden from view under her thick, fur-lined hood.

She paused at the spot where they normally would have parted ways, and he sensed her worry without seeing it. "Go on," he said, "I'll be alright."

At this, she walked away with reluctance, and he sighed in relief once she was out of hearing range. He went into the forest with heavy feet, panting, and came to the familiar clearing that Gerda had created with the same axe he carried. There, he found the remains of a younger tree that he had chopped down the day before, and dragged it upon the stump of one long-gone to break it up further.

The wind rushed past Hans as he did this, nearly knocking him over, and he stuck his axe blade-first into the stump, holding onto the handle for balance. He waited until it passed, and then breathed uneasily, dislodging the blade. He swung it down upon the tree again and again until he grew fatigued by the exercise, and he paused to rest.

It was then that Hans felt the gentle patter of snowflakes on his face, and saw them fall onto his gloves and coat. The image of Gerda's light hair and pale skin passed through his mind, causing him to smile despite the cold, and he removed one glove from his hand to catch the falling snow.

When he turned his gaze up towards the sky, however, his left eye was stung by a searing and blistering pain that forced him to his knees. He shouted in agony, clutching at his face, and all the while the wind whistled around him, as if mocking his misery. He groaned as the pain spread to his temples, and he took little solace even in the sound of Gerda's footsteps as she ran to him and covered him in another cloak, sheltering him from the gathering storm. She guided him back towards the cabin, and he struggled not to trip every step of the way, unable to open his eyes.

She had to slam the entire weight of her body against the door to get it shut again, and he leaned against a wall with one hand over his face, his head and body still covered by the cloak. He stumbled his way back to the bed with Gerda's help, and sat on the edge of it for a long while, breathing with difficulty as she rushed to prepare things around him. "Tea, tea, you need tea," she mumbled to herself, and as his headache grew duller, he could hear the sounds of the fire crackling, and then of the kettle hissing.

The smell of the tea wafted over to him, and he could tell she was close. "Now, let's get you into bed," she said, and drew his cloak back.

As the hood of the cloak fell to his shoulders, she gasped, and the cup fell from her hands, clattering against the hard floor below. He pried open his eyes at the noise, alarmed by the look of horror on Gerda's face that greeted him.

"What is it?"

"Your… your hair!"

Hans pressed his hand to his head, but found that every tuft was still in place. "What do you mean?" he asked, frowning. At her trembling lips and terrified expression, he became perturbed. "Gerda, what is it?"

Her wide eyes turned away from him as she nervously walked to the other side of the room, and rummaged around in a knapsack for something. He watched her with growing disconcertment. "Gerda, just tell me what's going on, please."

She shook her head, and looked as if she were biting back tears as her hands stopped moving and pulled an item from the sack. She held it close to her chest for a moment with her eyes closed, looking distressed; at his questioning stare, she slowly made her way back towards him, unable to meet his eyes. The form of the object she held was jagged, as if broken off from a larger piece, and when she finally revealed it to him, he understood the reason for her disquiet.

It was part of a mirror, and when he held it up to look upon his reflection, he saw that some of his hair had turned white.

VII

Hans's condition worsened overnight in spite of Gerda's constant attentions, and he awoke the next morning from a fitful sleep to find his hair whiter still.

Upon closer examination in the mirror, he had also noticed that his eyes looked different from before - their color a dark emerald, or perhaps blue-green - but he did not have enough time to investigate this change before Gerda had taken the object from him, worried that it would upset him further.

The storm outside had likewise intensified, and the wind howled and moaned with such force that it made him wonder how the cabin was still standing as it creaked and grumbled. He ground his teeth at these myriad sounds until it was painful, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, and whenever Gerda's back was turned, he grabbed at his hair, shivering.

"Stop it!" she scolded, taking his hand in her equally cold one. "You'll only make it worse."

He paused, and then gently gripped her free hand, keeping her by the bed. His lips were dry and cracked as he spoke. "I don't want to die, Gerda," he said, feeling more frantic with every word. "Not here. Not when I'm so close to finding what I came for." His eyes widened, and his grip tightened. "I can't go back without finding it."

She pressed a cup of tea into his hands with some effort and motioned for him to drink it, which he did with a grimace. When he finished, she placed the cup to the side and drew a chair to sit by him. She offered him her hands, and he took them into his own, which were still shaking. "I know I told you that I have nothing to lose, but… I can't go back south, or anywhere, like this," he told her, gesturing at his hair. Unnerved and frightened by his illness, he dropped his pretense. "I'm not who I said I was, Gerda."

She blinked at him with perfect innocence. "What do you mean?"

He swallowed hard. "I… I am a prince, in my lands," he said after a time, and tried to ignore the shock that ran from her eyes to her fingertips. "I was hoping, with this journey, to show my brothers that I could be a success on my own terms, and not theirs. But obviously, things didn't work out the way I'd planned."

"Does it really matter what they think, though?" she asked, and pressed his hands. "You told me yourself that nothing was holding you to that life - nor to its expectations, or its disappointments."

"I know what I said," Hans snapped, and then looked pained, shaking his head. "But it's not true. I finally understand that now, when it is too late." He laughed ruefully. "I have always cared about what they thought of me, and what they think still. No matter if I try to wish it away, or say that I don't care… I do. And all the while knowing that they think nothing, and expect even less, from the unwanted thirteenth prince."

There was real understanding in Gerda's eyes - from where, he did not know - and it touched him. "I think you were brave to come here and write your own story," she said, "prince or not. You tried to change your life—and isn't that what matters, in the end?"

"Brave?" he repeated, incredulous. "No. More like a prideful fool," he said, "and one that has changed nothing for anyone, let alone for himself." He felt an acute sting of failure, as well as guilt, as he met her eyes. "I didn't want to tell you, because I thought…"

"What? That I might try to take advantage of your wealth? Or your title?" Gerda finished with a raised eyebrow, prompting a bemused look from him. "Knowing you were high-born never changed the way I felt about you." She reddened. "Nor how I feel, still."

Hans felt a rare surge of warmth flood his senses, temporarily breaking through the cold. "I… Gerda, that's…"

She rested her head against his shoulder, and their closeness made him blush. "You don't have to say anything," she told him. "Just know that you haven't been a burden to me. Rather, your company has been a blessing."

Hans felt her quiver in silence after this, and she began to sniffle. She placed one of her hands over her eyes as she wept, and he sighed. "Please don't cry, Gerda," he said, and put an arm around her. "My life is not worth your tears."

She drew her hand from her face again, her nose and cheeks red as she gazed upon him not with affection and sorrow, but with dread. "It's not just that, Hans. It's—" She stopped to fight back a sob. "I should've told you this last night, when it started, but I was so scared, so terribly scared!"

He gripped her shoulders with concern. "Told me what, Gerda? What is it?"

"The cold, the white hair," she said as she wept, "the same things happened to Kai, before he died."

Hans understood her meaning, and withdrew from her. His face paled as she continued. "I felt powerless to stop it back then, but…" Her eyes widened, telling of some new thought, and her tears abated. "I can't let it happen again. I won't let it happen again, not to you." She took his hands in hers. "Maybe… maybe Kai was right about the Snow Queen," she said, "and maybe she can cure you."

He was disturbed by the idea. "It's impossible, Gerda," he replied, frowning. "You and I both know full well that no such person exists."

"But what if she does?" Gerda insisted. "I didn't believe before, the same way you don't believe now. But what would happen if we did believe? If we thought it were possible?"

His expression was dubious, but to his own surprise, he hesitated to reject the idea outright. Instead, he lingered on it, and the longer he lingered, the more the cold crept into him, and finally pricked at his heart. The sensation spoke to the severity of his malady, and he relented.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but perhaps it's time we find out."

Over top his usual outerwear, Gerda wrapped Hans in her warmest fur cloak against his protests. "You'll freeze out there," he objected, but she persisted as if he had said nothing at all, fastening his feet, one after the other, into his skis.

"I'm stronger than I look," she remarked, "and I'm used to the cold."

He could not argue with that. "So you are," he concurred, and shuddered even as he felt the heat of the cloak enfold him. As the storm raged outside, so too did his illness become more inflamed, and he leaned on Gerda as she opened the door, letting in a blast of wintry air. They both cried out at the force of it, but with gritted teeth and incredible will, she pushed them through to the outside, and led them into the forest.

They trudged upwards as the snow collected ever higher around them, and it seemed to Hans that the storm was deliberately trying to slow them down as the day drew on. The cold was interminable and shocking in its power over him, and even with Gerda's valiant efforts to hold him up and keep them on course, he felt himself shriveling up from the pain.

It was near nightfall when he finally surrendered to the tempest. "I can't go on," he told her, his voice rasping. "It's too much for me to bear."

She tried to pick him up, but he had no energy left to help lift himself from the snow. She knelt beside him, panting as she wiped the sweat from her brow. "Then I must go on, for both of us," she said with conviction. "I will find the Snow Queen, and bring her to you."

"You'll die if you go alone," he argued, coughing from the cold.

She took the glove off her right hand, and pressed it to his cheek with a firmness he did not know she could possess. "I'm a survivor, Hans," she said, "and I will come back for you." With that, she put the glove back on and stood up, pausing only for a moment to look down at him before turning to the mountains.

The last thing Hans saw was Gerda walking away, and then disappearing into the storm.

VIII

Hans awoke to find bright and clear blue skies above him.

The world seemed so peaceful for a while that Hans wondered if there had ever been a storm at all, until he felt the damp. His clothes were soaked through from laying on the snow-covered ground, and the sensation made him remember the events of the night previous, down to every unsettling detail.

"Gerda!" he called in a panic, sitting up suddenly. He winced at the pain that stung at his limbs, his heart as heavy as an anchor in his chest. "Gerda!" he shouted again, though no reply came. His eyes darted to and fro across the white landscape, seeing and hearing nothing except for his own harsh, short breaths. In the distance, the mountain stretched higher still, its peak shrouded by clouds.

He labored to lift himself from the earth, and looked up to the sky again. He hoped he would see some sign of life in it - a bird of prey, or even a simple sparrow - but he was met only with piercing sunlight. He turned his gaze away and closed his eyes, a hint of the agony he had suffered the day before still pricking at him in the form of a dull, persistent ache.

The longer he kept them closed, however, the more Gerda's face filled his thoughts. He imagined it frostbitten, covered in ice, lifeless; the thought turned his stomach, and made him colder than ever. He knew he could not abandon her to the barren mountains, no matter if he was close to or already on death's doorstep himself.

With newfound purposefulness, Hans opened his eyes, and was greeted by a marvellous sight.

Where there had been nothing before, there now sat on the cliff face of the mountain a great and towering palace made of ice, sparkling under the sunlight with such dazzling brilliance as to awe him into stunned silence. It looked like a divine creation, suspended as if it were floating in the air, with a central spire that seemed to reach into the heavens. The pinnacles likewise rose from the earth atop tall and sharp buttresses, and reaching out from the entrance was a long and curved bridge, graceful and pure in design. From within the palace, the nave glowed, emanating a luminous blue light which reflected off of every inch of the structure.

It was the grandest thing he had ever seen in his life - more impressive to him than any Indian jewels or Scottish castles or Roman ruins from ages past - and he knew at once to whom it belonged.

"It's her," he murmured, feeling his heart stirred in an unfamiliar way. He began to walk towards the palace without realizing it, all memories of his pain and struggle obscured by its majesty. No wind or snow impeded his steps as he drew closer, the light within the palace dancing under the sun, and he walked across the precarious bridge with unusual ease.

Up close, the palace was even more resplendent, and he admired the sharp edges and seemingly impossible curves of its exterior. Upon the doors to the palace was a gigantic snowflake, intricately designed and etched in ice, and he took off his glove to place his hand upon it, tracing the grooves with fingers numbed by cold.

No sooner had he touched the great doors, however, did they open before him, revealing an expansive and empty grand hall. The icy interior was dreamlike in its beauty: a long chandelier hung above him, casting its pale reflection onto the floor below; an arching staircase curved at the back, its railing carved into fine geometric patterns; and a fountain sat in the center, with water frozen perfectly into place along the edges of its three levels. Holding up everything were giant pillars of ice, turquoise in color compared to the dark blue of the walls and the azure of the staircase.

"Who are you?"

Hans looked up in surprise to find a woman staring down at him from the top of the staircase - no, not just any woman, he realized, but her - and his jaw, hung low in reverence of the palace, dropped lower still at the sight of its creator.

"It's… it's you," he stammered, his face growing hot. "The Snow Queen."

She looked so unlike what he had imagined, or how she had been described in the legends of old: her skin was a pleasantly normal shade of light pink, not blue; she wore no crown of ice, nor any crown at all; and there was no hint of bear nor bird in her, save for the elegant cloak of white fur she wore, trimmed with fine icicles.

Like her cloak, she was the very picture of refinement as she descended the staircase with her long white-blonde hair tied back in a braid, her lithe figure covered in a dress of blue ice. When she reached the bottom and stopped a few paces from him, he noticed other smaller, but equally lovely details about her, like the tiny snowflakes decorating her braid.

She regarded him with a cool smile. "And you are?"

Hans struggled to answer, his jaw snapping shut. "I…" he paused, and she took two steps closer to him—close enough, in fact, for him to notice the freckles dotting her cheeks, and the familiar shine of her remarkable blue eyes. He could not place how he recognized these features, however, and shook off the odd feeling she gave him. "I am Prince Hans Westergard of the Southern Isles," he stated with greater confidence, some of his old poise returning. "And I seek the lost kingdom of Arendelle."

When her eyes gleamed with a strange light at this revelation, he continued: "I've heard stories about you since I was a boy, and on my journey here—to find you. You see," he explained, touching his white hair for effect, "I fell ill along the way, and I hoped you might know of a cure." He held up the hand that touched his hair to her, and his heart raced at the sight of his fingertips, outlined with the first touches of frostbite. "I'm afraid I will not live long enough to find Arendelle, otherwise."

"And why do you seek it?" she asked, looking over his hair and hands in a detached manner.

He felt his chest rise to the challenge. "Because I know it is not lost," he said with more certainty than he felt, "and if it is not lost, then it should be found, and the myths put to rest." His chin tilted upwards even as his throat constricted, repressing a cough. "I must do this, if no one else will."

Her gaze narrowed at him, dubious; afterwards, her previous aplomb returned. "Perhaps I can help you," she replied, and turned back to the staircase.

He followed her automatically as she ascended the stairs, though where her steps were silent, his echoed until they reached the top. There, the doors to another room opened with a simple wave of her hand, the only sign of her magic being the tiny dust cloud of soft snow left in the air behind her.

Though awed even by this small demonstration of her powers, something about her carriage and the sharpness of her gaze bothered Hans, and he could not help but keep a wider distance between them than before. He cautiously stepped inside of this new room - just as impressive as the last, with an enormous snowflake pattern carved into the floor below and a wide balcony at the front - and took greater care in examining his surroundings not just with amazement, but also vigilance.

"Follow me," she said, walking to the balcony, and so he did.

The view from that perch overlooked the hills and valleys below the mountain, all the way down to the fjord itself in the distance. Hans sucked in a nervous breath at their height, though he could not tear his eyes from the landscape.

"There is Arendelle," she said, "though perhaps not as you expect it to be."

She gestured with her pale hand towards the valley by the fjord. As she swept her arm across the territory, the kingdom was revealed to him as it once must have been in its glory days: surrounded by lush green forests and clear water, with a castle of white-gray stone and green caps that glittered like emeralds under the sun. Hans swore that he could even hear the everyday clamor and laughter and shouting of the townspeople, and he gripped the railing with excitement at the first sight and sound of life he had seen in weeks—but in the next instant it had all disappeared, hidden under a blanket of snow and ice just as before.

He blinked once, twice, three times, even, to make sure that it was really gone; then, he turned to her with confusion. "What—what happened? It was there, Arendelle was there, and then it was…"

"You saw only what you wanted to see," she interrupted, and her expression grew taut. "I cannot change what's happened, nor show you what no longer exists."

"What 'no longer exists'?" He repeated, confused. "But what…"

His face paled as he finally understood her meaning, and he backed away from her until he bumped into one of the pillars. Looking behind him, he saw the edge of his coat-sleeve reflected back at him, and realized that there was a mirror behind him. Without wanting to, he turned until he saw himself fully in the glass, and jumped with terror at the sight.

His hair was white - every last strand, down to the roots - and his eyes had become as blue as the Snow Queen's. Some of the skin on his neck and hands were covered not in frostbite, as he had presumed, but in a transparent sheen of ice. It seemed to be spreading even as he looked upon it, touching his earlobes and tracing the veins of his arms, and he recoiled from the mirror, clutching his shaking head in his hands as he turned back to her. "It really was you," he murmured, his eyes wide. "You cursed Arendelle with eternal winter, just as they all said."

It was then that he thought of all the people along his journey who had warned him about the Snow Queen, remembering, last of all, Gerda. He realized with shame that he had altogether forgotten her since first catching sight of the palace, and with that realization returned the image of her lost in the mountains, alone, afraid, and frozen. "You have her, don't you?" he alleged. "You have the girl."

He held up his freezing hands again to punctuate the accusation, scowling as she walked towards him, the strange light in her eyes again. His anger and fear grew as she closed the distance, and he reached for his sword on instinct.

The Queen gave a fearful frown and twisted her hand up beside her, and the opening to the balcony was closed off by a wall of ice. The sudden force of her magic blew him backwards, and he uttered a cry of pain as he made impact with the hard floor below. With a forward push of her hand, the doors to another room behind him opened, and she conjured a wind to blow him into it.

Hans groaned and shivered as his head hit something in the room where he landed, and his heart pounded at the sound of the doors closing behind her. Holding his injured scalp with his hand, he looked up at what he'd knocked into, and felt his heart slow to a quiet thump.

It was a sculpture of a girl, carved in ice, her hands outstretched above him. He scrambled to his feet for a better view of it, and was stunned by the level of detail: every stitch of the bunad it wore was etched into the ice, every hair in its braid visible just below the surface, and the defensive stance so lifelike, it was hard to believe that it was not real. His face drained of color the longer he looked upon it, for he thought the figure looked much like Gerda in the curve of its nose, the shape of its lips, and even the style of its clothes.

As he looked, the ice encroached ever further into his body, and the distressing ache in his eye which had almost blinded him the day before returned with a sudden and grim force. He staggered from the statue, disturbed and frantic with rage. "You froze her," he accused, his stomach turning. "as you must have done to everyone else who crossed your path." His regarded her with revulsion as his vision blurred. "You're a monster."

"I'm not!" the Queen cried, and pressed her hands against her breast. Snow flurried around them in the room as if complementing her mood, and he stepped back, afraid of her magic. "I didn't mean to hurt her," she said as a tear trickled down her cheek, and fell to the ground with a clink as it turned to ice. "I never meant to hurt anyone."

Hans almost felt sorry for his words, seeing the powerful queen in such a pitiful state. The look she wore reminded him of Gerda, and his lip trembled to think that he had failed the poor girl so completely that she had been turned into an ornament in this enchanted palace. He looked down at his hands, more frozen than before, and had to hold back tears himself. "Then undo it," he appealed to her, "return life to this girl. If you would just stop the winter, bring back summer… please."

She shook her head, her eyes desperate in their sadness. "Don't you see? I can't."

He heard the sincerity in her voice, but his pity left him. "I don't believe you," he spat, scowling. "If you're not the monster I think you are, then you will save her," he demanded, and pointed at the sculpture. "You have to save Gerda!"

At this, the Snow Queen stopped weeping and the snow settled around them, her terrible melancholy replaced by resignation.

"Oh, Hans," she lamented, "don't you recognize me?"

His brow tensed. "Recognize you? What—"

He stopped and stared at her as if for the first time, taking in her features: her blonde hair, fine and shining; her pink lips, touched by frost; the freckles dusting her cheeks; and, most of all, her large eyes, as blue as the sky on a clear winter's day.

Hans fell to his knees. "It can't be…"

She said nothing as he looked at her, and nothing still as he continued to speak, the words spilling forth from his lips as if in a nightmare. "The cabin, those stories you told me, the secrets… all of them lies?" He peered down at the ice below, seeing the outline of his reflection, his white hair visible even on that surface. He touched it with growing dread. "And this sickness, this curse—it was you who gave it to me," he said, "and you who kept me ill, all this time, promising to find a cure." He looked up at her with a fearsome glower. "All while knowing you could never heal me."

The Snow Queen started at this assertion. "I didn't know, I didn't mean to make you sick," she protested, "and I didn't lie—not about everything." Her body shook as the snow swirled around her once more, her face in her hands. "I thought you were different. I thought you could…"

"Could what?" he snarled. "Trust you? Befriend you? Love you?" He let out a harsh laugh that turned into a violent cough at the idea, and rose to his feet. "Or perhaps you thought I could rid you of your own curse with 'true love's kiss'?" He sneered at her. "You said yourself you don't believe in fairy tales, or was that a lie, too?"

As she bristled with anger and the storm intensified, he continued to bait her, knowing from the pain swelling around his heart that he truly had nothing to lose. He took several steps towards her, enjoying the repulsion in her expression. "You were so desperate for love that you kept me sick so that I would stay by your side," he mocked, "but all you succeeded in doing was making me as sick as you."

"Stop it!" she shrieked, and a blast of wind blew him back into the ice statue, making him keel over with pain. She placed her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror, and she knelt on the ground below with a whimper. "Please, stop. I never meant to hurt you."

His chuckle was brief and aggrieved. "You've already done that, I'm afraid," he told her, using strength he did not know he had left to stand above her, "just as you did to this poor girl." He looked at the statue again, and then back at the Queen as his hand found the hilt of his sword. He felt next to nothing in his fingers. "Who was she?"

She refused to meet his eyes, staring instead at the floor. "I never had a brother," she said after a time, "only a sister: Anna. She tried to help me when no one else would, and she paid for that with her life."

At this admission, Hans recalled the stories told to him - first by the crone, then by the men onboard the ship, and finally by the barkeep in Farsund - and at last realized who she really was.

"Elsa," he murmured. "You're Elsa. Then she must be…" He looked back at the figure and shuddered. "Princess Anna." His eyes widened, and he exhaled a shaky breath. "You are the lost princesses of Arendelle."

She lifted her gaze to look upon the sculpture, ignoring Hans as he drew closer. "Yes. And Anna was the only one who ever tried to understand me." Her eyes met his as he unsheathed the sword. "I thought maybe you did, too - maybe you cared, like she did - but now I see how I was mistaken." Her forehead creased in a wounded way. "As soon as you saw this place, and the Snow Queen, you forgot about Gerda - about me - and thought only of your own life and eternal glory," she snapped, and her lip curled in disgust. "Now I see that you could never have cared for me, or for anyone, except yourself."

"And you cared so much for your dear little sister that you froze her heart," Hans returned with a vengeance, his grip tightening around the sword. "Isn't that right, Elsa? Your sister is dead - along with countless others - because of you," he said, "and many more will die, until your story is ended."

As her eyes welled up with tears again, he raised the weapon above her. She lowered her head as if in surrender, though the storm around them did not cease. It never would, he knew, until she was defeated.

"Goodbye, Elsa."

And so with what little strength he had left, he brought down his sword, and the world went dark.

Epilogue

The palace is most alive at night, especially when the Northern Lights visit the skies above the Mountain.

They dance through the hallways, on the ceiling, over the doors and under the grand staircase, sliding along the railing of the balcony, and reflect off the mirror and figures in the lost room.

She never goes into that place, not since it happened. But on nights like these, she cannot help but follow the lights as they travel through the halls, leading her to it. Her own magic cannot keep her from opening the doors, nor can her regret keep her from gazing upon her unintended creations.

They are just as beautiful, she thinks, as the rest of her palace - the details remarkable, from the sharpness of her sister's cheekbones to the boldness of the prince's chin - and just as silent.

She approaches the figure of the prince, his arm and sword raised in the air in a striking pose, looking fierce and determined and brave, just as he always does. It brings a thin smile to her lips, which she presently presses to his.

When this kiss does not stir him, she is not surprised; after all, it never has before, and she knows it never will.

She sighs, withdrawing from the prince, and comes to greet the figure of her sister. She places her hands in its outstretched ones, regarding its eternally plaintive expression with pity. Then, softly, she comes closer and caresses the side of its round and pretty face, its cheeks illuminated by notes of green and yellow and pink as the lights flicker to and fro in the room.

"You don't have to be afraid anymore, Anna," she says, and smiles. "Now you're not alone."