"We would—"
"Like—"
Hans paused and giggled at the princess's eagerness, closing his hand over hers. "Your blessing…" He wasn't used to joy so strong that it could interrupt his heart with such fits of glee and dandelions. He was supposed to be on top of this, be more professional than this. They were talking to the queen. "Of our marriage," he finished as his sweet girl chimed in, leaning against her arm. He would have to be careful; she was such a distraction.
"Marriage?" the queen asked, a worrisome tone of panic in her voice. Mentally calculating, Hans resigned to let Anna take over, let a familiar face talk to the reserved young queen of Arendelle.
Hans kept a calm demeanor, nodding and smiling at the queen. She was so young, so visibly frightened…unprepared. And cold. If he were to follow through with this plan, she would be easy to get rid of. However, the way Anna explained things only served to upset her more, and his first goal was still to get married, and if they did so without Queen Elsa's blessing he would never have her trust.
Mentally cursing himself after the fact, Hans rushed into an affirmative response when Anna suggested they live here in Arendelle. He was so swept up in her talkativity and wonder that he didn't hear any more of the queen's protests until she spoke a firm, hard, "Wait! Slow down. No one's brothers are staying here, no one is getting married."
Too enthusiastic. The queen fidgeted, asking to speak with her sister alone. Given that Anna had already aggravated the queen, Hans didn't find that a particularly helpful idea toward their goal, but thankfully Anna insisted on keeping him a part of the conversation.
Hans began to mentally prepare his speech; this was an opening for consultation from himself and he had one narrow shot.
"You can if it's true love!"
Not the most sound argument.
"Anna, what do you know about true love?"
"Well more than you! All you know is how to shut people out!"
There it was. Once again, Hans's heart was swept up in Anna's passion, his heart wrung by the thorns of a weeping rose as he watched her stand up for herself against her obviously abusive sister. He needed to marry this girl, if only to protect her from Queen Elsa. Yes, whatever divine being was in charge of this universe had set this in motion. It would be justice to bring to a swift end this queen's reign. Hans would be a much kinder, more open ruler.
But at least for now, he still had to play nice.
"You asked for my blessing, but my answer is no. Now…excuse me."
"Your majesty, if I may ease your concern—"
He paused as she opened her mouth to interrupt him, but she took a breath and nodded.
Confidence lifting Hans's shoulders, he continued. "Your majesty, I have had a lot of heartfelt discussion with your sister tonight. I am sure you have seen it in her yourself, but she's very wise. Perhaps the…decision for us to get married was rather hasty, but I have given it a lot of thought tonight and I can assure you Anna has as well."
He watched her face soften. He would appeal to her pathos; that seemed the most reliable option.
"Your majesty. Queen Elsa. I have only known your sister one night, and I know that you intend to have the gates closed after the celebrations are over…Stop me if I'm making an incorrect assumption, but you love your sister. You want the best for her. How can either of you know whether or not I am worthy of her if your only impression is based on one day?"
"Are you…suggesting…"
"I am not necessarily suggesting anything, other than for you to please keep an open mind about this, whatever that looks like for you," he said. "I trust your majesty's judgment and hope you can trust that of your sister with as much faith."
That line seemed to be the one to seal the deal. As Prince Hans had said, Elsa had the gates closed shortly after the party, and Hans was allowed to live in the castle, and they fell even more deeply in love than the night they had met. Within one week, Anna had become filled with more life and laughter than most of her childhood combined. Prince Hans made her happier than anything else on earth, and she was ready to ask for Elsa's approval again.
Hans thought it might be risky, but he had made a point of keeping on Elsa's good side. He gave her no reason to hate him, having to suppress and even forget his plans to do away with her. There would be no dark side to conceal if a dark side didn't exist.
He had put up with her silence, seclusion, and coldness; bit his tongue every time she sent Anna away because she was too busy to talk to her. If she shut them down again, Hans didn't think he would be able to contain himself.
"Queen Elsa?" Anna asked timidly, with a tight grip on Hans's fingers as she stopped the queen in the hallway. "Sorry. I was—"
"Anna, you don't have to address me as Queen, I've told you that," she said with a soft smile. "We're sisters."
"Oh, uh, um…right. Uh…well, I—we came here…to uh…to ask you…"
"For my blessing," she finished off. Hans couldn't quite place her expression; it was something a little more than disappointment. "You really want to get married so badly?"
"Elsa, I've never…I've never been this happy in my life." She looked straight up at Hans, practically climbing his arm as she smiled at him fondly. "For the first time in forever, I have someone who…I just don't see what you think is wrong with him. And he's even brought us a little closer. Remember last night at dinner? When's the last time you and I laughed like that?"
She was talking about him as though he wasn't there, or wasn't a human; a medicine to fix up their broken relationship. It struck Hans as odd at first, but then…did Anna really think that getting married would solve her problems with her sister, somehow? Seeing as the queen would have to involve herself in these matters. Even if Anna didn't realize it, it was possible that he was using her to get to Elsa.
If that was the case…oh, how ironic.
Surprisingly, Anna's argument won, though the queen was still visibly reluctant to trust Anna into the hands of the prince. For some reason, Hans was certain it didn't really have to do with him; it had to do with Anna.
Of course; it had to do with Elsa's control over Anna.
Taking a step back from this relationship, it was clear to see the imbalance of power; not only in the fact that Elsa was the queen and Anna was the spare, but in their relationship itself. Elsa held herself and her affection a prize to be awarded to one who gave her enough attention. Anna worked and pulled and tried for Elsa's attention and now that she had Hans, she didn't really need to. Elsa must have seen it. That must have been her hesitation; with Hans in the picture, she would actually have to try in keeping Anna.
One more grain on an endless beach of hate, and one step closer to having Elsa out of the picture.
The wedding took place within the following week, in the small church of Arendelle. Hans watched Anna as she walked up the aisle, white veil hiding her blushing face, a bouquet of lilies and crocuses in her hands, her heavy white wedding dress dragging behind her. She smiled at him, sure, but she still always looked for her sister, whose smile was reserved and reluctant.
"You're beautiful, Anna," Hans whispered when she reached him. He kept focused on her the entire time, her small hands in his, and as they said their vows Anna took one last long look at her sister. "Anna, look at me," he said. "I would never shut you out."
She bit her lip, squeezed his hands and nodded, and they sealed their love with a kiss.
The following festivities were held mostly outdoors, as per Anna's request. The guests congratulated the new couple, they mingled, they ate, they drank, and she and Hans danced like the first night they had met.
"Are you tired, my love?" he whispered against her ear as he held her close.
"Well I could use a break," she said. "It's just…my feet."
Looking around them, Hans led her away into the hall. She stumbled a fair amount, due to the pain and possibly to how much champagne she had allowed herself. It hadn't been a small amount. Even when she had to lean into the wall, giggling at nothing, Hans counted himself luckier than he had ever thought he would be upon meeting her. She was always so full of life, and she was his…and boy, would it kill him to see her mourning the loss of her sister.
He would deal with that later. Right now, she was smiling, and beckoning him closer. Hans stepped into his wife's arms and pressed his forehead against hers. "I'm still dizzy from dancing."
"From dancing, huh?" he teased, kissing her lips without a second thought. "Hey…hey, Anna."
"Hmhm what?"
"We're married," he whispered.
She smacked his shoulder gently and laughed. "What, are you drunk, too? I know, silly, I was there."
He shook his head, still smiling. His chest and stomach ignited with life as he fully realized what he was saying. "Anna, we're married now. You know what that means?"
"That you love me forever," she said. "And I love you."
"Well…yes." He breathed a laugh, kissing her cheek and then her ear. "You know what else it means?"
In case she still hadn't caught on, Hans slid one hand down her side, resting it warmly on her hip. Her sudden draw of breath told him that yes, she understood now. "The…the party is…s-still…"
"Do you really want to go back to it right now?" he murmured, kissing down the side of her neck. "Anna. Do you? Because…we can," he offered, both hands interlocked at the small of her back as he pulled her close, thumbs fiddling with the elaborate embroidery. "If you really want to."
She didn't stop him when his hands traveled lower, heat teasing her through the gown's fabric, but as soon as he started to lift her skirt she laid a hand on his. "Hans…I think we should, uh…take this to...somewhere more private."
"Absolutely," he whispered, teeth grazing the shell of her ear before he took her by the hand and led her away.
"Excuse me, have you seen the bride?" Elsa asked yet another who could not offer an answer. She shouldn't have waited this long to finally tell her. Knowing how affectionate and obsessed the two were with each other, she might not be able to see her sister for months…but it was getting really bad. Even wearing the gloves didn't help anymore. Anything she touched could turn to ice and she couldn't keep this to herself any longer.
It had only started getting worse once he had shown up. The stranger who took his loyal sister away. The one shred of a happy childhood she could hold onto had slipped away in his assured grip, his charming smile. The night of Elsa's coronation, she had frozen her bed into solid ice by morning.
"Anna?" she called, genuinely worried now. She had to be somewhere. What if she and Hans had gotten into serious danger? What if he had gotten her into danger? No, no, they were probably just in the castle somewhere. If she could just make it to the—
"Oh! I'm so sorry, your majesty," someone said as Elsa brushed shoulders with a lady holding a flute of champagne that she didn't notice had started to freeze. Elsa had to get away and find Anna quickly. Before anything else like that happened.
And with a sudden shove from the side, Elsa fell against a pillar. Ice spiraled and curled up the thing instantly. She heard gasps from those surrounding her, and nearly paralyzed in fear, she cried out, "Anna!"
Everyone was staring at her. When she looked down, she could see ice spikes near her feet, keeping others away. Panic flooded into her heart. She tried to jump back from the results of her own power, breath coming out in short, quick bursts, trying not to cry as the thing she had concealed for so long was revealed to all of Arendelle.
"Elsa!" Anna finally called out, bursting through the castle doors, holding the top of her wedding dress to her chest. Hans trailed close behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder when she looked out, shocked, at all the ice. "Elsa what's going on?"
"Please calm down…wait, don't—don't come any closer yet," she tried to warn, ice doing its job for her and nearly impaling the flush-faced princess.
"Elsa!"
"I'm sorry, I'm—"
No words could come out of Elsa's mouth without being accompanied by some form of ice. Hans held Anna back by the waist, repeatedly telling her everything was okay, but she still tried to struggle after her sister. "Anna, I'm trying to protect—"
"Elsa, please!"
The queen had started to run, to abandon her kingdom. The crowd parted the way for the dangerous woman. Anna wrenched herself from Hans's grip and ran after her, out of Hans's sight, but he kept running in the same direction until he found her found her on her knees in front of the frozen fjord, watching the queen disappear into the night.
He let Anna sob into his shoulder as he led her back up the steps, mulling all of this over in his mind. If the queen had abandoned her kingdom, well…this made his plans a lot easier. He didn't have to kill anyone, just console his queen-to-be and take care of the kingdom which had just conveniently fallen into their laps.
"Did you know?"
"No," said Anna, worry heavy in her voice. He gave her a look; of course she hadn't told her. Why would she ever tell Anna anything as important as that? If he ever met Elsa face-to-face again, he would kill her. Anna would probably back him up, too. Maybe she'd even get over the fact that Elsa had not only shut her out this time but straight-up abandoned her.
And yet not two minutes later, "Tonight was my fault."
Was she blaming herself?
"I pushed her, so…"
This girl was hopeless.
"I'm the one that needs to go after her."
"What?" At this point she fully ignored Hans, calling for her horse as he rushed after her. "Anna, no, it's too dangerous. Are you sure you can trust her?" She was already on her horse and ready to go. He was running out of argument at this point. "I don't want you getting hurt."
"She's my sister. She would never hurt me."
As she rode off into the storm, still in her wedding dress, all Hans could think was But Anna, she already has.
"I just think you're being unreasonable, that's all," Anna said with a bit too much acidity, glaring from her sister to the offered glove she had encased in ice.
"You can think whatever you want. I don't care. You're a fool who married a stranger!" she shouted back, raising a wall of ice spikes between herself and Anna. "So go back to him, be fools together, whatever you want. But I'm not putting my gloves back on, especially not on the judgment of my idiot sister!"
The words pierced through Anna's chest so that she would have preferred to be physically impaled by her sister's ice. Standing there in her muddied-up wedding dress, no alternate plan, after losing her horse, nearly freezing to death over two nights, and endangering the life of a lonely mountain man with a hopeless crush on her, Anna felt hopelessness seep its way in for the first time in her life.
"Look…you…you don't have to put the gloves back on. Not right now. We can talk about this…"
"I'm done talking about it. Just—" Elsa looked up, suddenly, at the ice chandelier high above in her new castle. Anna followed her gaze, to see nothing but a few frozen drops of it shaking. "What was that?"
"What?"
Suddenly a troop of men shattered through the tall, icy doors of Elsa's fortress, Hans at the head of them. "Anna! Anna, you're alive!"
"Of course I'm alive—"
"You brought him here?" Elsa cried, making for the stairs. This time as she ran, Anna didn't run after her, Hans leading her to the door as he gave orders.
"Do not harm the queen! I need her alive and in Arendelle," he told the volunteered men. One of them he pulled aside, whispering something that Anna couldn't hear.
She rode back to the castle with him unescorted, the mountain man forgotten from her mind as she held tightly to her husband. She told him of the whole journey as they returned to Arendelle within a matter of hours.
"And you're sure she didn't hurt you?" he asked again, checking her over for bruises and cuts as they entered the castle library, one of the few rooms in the house with still enough wood to keep a fire burning. "I can't believe you insisted on going in alone. Well…I can believe it, but it was still a mistake."
She tried to smile, but the only thing she could feel was green-gray pity for herself, an empty feeling tugging her heart down from its rightful high place in her chest. "I tried my best. It just wasn't enough. I'm not enough for her…"
She had missed the point, the entire point! Elsa was useless to her, didn't she see? Elsa didn't care about her. Anna was here blaming herself again, about to burst into tears over somebody who didn't love her. If this was what love really looked like in its essence, one-sided and sickly, pining, desperate…Hans wasn't so sure he still wanted any part of it. Loving someone as weak as Anna might ultimately be his downfall.
"You said she didn't hurt you, Anna, but she did."
"No, she didn't…mean it, I just came on too strong. I pushed her, I ran into it too fast when she didn't want to be talked to, she's embarrassed by me, I'm too much for—"
"Prince Hans," interrupted a man's voice as the door shot open. "We have the queen."
She was playing him for a sap. Those big, wide, innocent blue eyes, the plead in her tone; well if she was going to play innocent, so would he. The queen needed to be put to death and now it would be entirely justified. Lying to her country, endangering it, abandoning it. Arendelle deserved a far better ruler. But if she was going to play nice, then so was he.
"You have to let me go," she begged, and Hans did have to admit it was lovely to see such a beautiful, powerful creature rendered helpless in manacles. "Please."
"Until the council has made a decision, your majesty, I am powerless to do so," he lied. "But I'll do what I can." He turned, left, closed the door, and stood straight as a rod as he faced his wife. "Honey!"
"This isn't in the council's hands, Hans, this is in yours and in mine."
"Whoa, slow down…"
"What game are you playing, Hans?" Fear hollowed out her weak voice as she looked from him to the cell door, replaced quickly by panicked anger. "Are you just gonna keep her locked away, forever? You can't do that!" She shoved at him and went for the door to pry it open. "She didn't hurt anyone, she never—ah! H-Hans…"
He had her pinned against the opposite wall by the wrists, eyes bearing down on her. He was smiling. "Don't act as though she isn't used to being locked away," he said too calmly. "My dear…my dear, my bride. I have fantasized about this every night since I met you, in a thousand different ways, but I never dreamed it would have to go like this; with you in the middle of the action."
"Wait…what?"
The prince, soon surely king, stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and lifted her chin, locking eyes with her. His expression exuded peace, solace. "But you don't have to worry. Just go to your room, my pet, and wait for me, and I will be there soon enough to console you…"
It was suddenly uncomfortably cold in that corridor. The rough bricks at Anna's back scratched her through her worn wedding gown. "But what are you talking about?"
"Your sister's execution," he spoke gently against her ear. Anna couldn't believe his words at first, though he had pronounced them so clearly. Suddenly his grip on her wrists felt like venomous snakes, his breath felt like a sickly toxin. Heart thrumming and stomach twisting, Anna looked down at his face, pressed to her neck, to see him grinning. "And now that we're on the same side, here…"
"We are not on the same side!" Trying to wrench free was like trying to lift a mountain. "Was…was this your plan the whole time? To…marry me? And kill my sister? Oh god…" Her entire world twisted and her heart beat in her ears. Black clouds filled her mind, throat, mouth; the door behind her husband shrank into the distance. His words took on an echo.
"Well, this is a little different from my original plan, I do admit…I figured, once we married, I'd have to…stage a little accident for Elsa." His words were too casual, too calm. His breath was too hot. Anna was slipping. He was going to kill her this whole time? She had shared a bed with this man. She had shared her love with him. She twisted her head to the side and retched, her empty stomach offering nothing. Her legs had given out; she was hanging by her wrists. "As thirteenth in line for my own kingdom, I didn't stand a chance. I knew I had to marry into the throne somewhere. As heir, Elsa was preferable, of course…and even you can't hold a candle to her beauty, my dear."
"Stop…"
"But you. You were so desperate for love. You were willing to marry me, just like that. Love…love." He paused. Anna had to screw her eyes open to see why, that he was laughing silently at the word as though it were a joke. "A pitiful thing. I did try to warn you, Anna, I tried to keep you. But even when I gave you the best days of your life you left me to go after your precious sister."
"She…she doesn't deserve to die, Hans, please," Anna sobbed weakly, still hoping this was all some twisted dream. "Please, please…"
"Yes she does!"
The world for Anna spun and stopped as suddenly as her face hit the floor. She curled up into the white folds of her dress, sucking in as much air as she could between horrified sobs.
"You still can't see it! You can't see all that she's done to you! Anna, I'm rescuing you!" he shouted. "But you can't see it, you're so blinded by her passive abuse. You'll see, one day, when you're ruling Arendelle by my side. You'll thank me."
"I'd rather die along with her!" she screeched. "I trusted you! I trusted—I tru—I loved you."
He stooped to her level, eyes deadpan as he took her chin into his hand. "You still trust her over me?"
"For the rest of my life," she spat.
How weak, how pathetic, how unhealthy was love like this. "Very well. I will keep her around until you give birth to my first heir, and then you and your sister can die together. I have no use for such a weak wife. And you had such promise. I have outgrown you."