Gonna be honest, I am so, so, so, so, sorry this is so late. I told myself, "I'm gonna update in a week! I'm gonna do weekly updates! I'm gonna write a thousand words each day so I can do weekly updates!"
Forgive me.
This one is a bit longer, anyway, to try and make up for it though!
Does that work? Hopefully it does.
Anyway, happy reading!
-S
The crystal edge of my blade pressed dangerously against the man's throat, dragging against his protruding jugular just enough to seduce two drops of black, syrup-like liquid to pool in the indention of the double-bladed sword. I contained the frost that begged to burn and mutilate and choke the now-traitor. Something akin to the power of torture was implanting a dizzying high into my bones and heart and mind and although I hated, despised, loathed it, it was stubborn, resigned to staying until I was completely poisoned with it, willing to kill any person who stood up against my orders, no matter who they were. Unfortunately for the adrenaline-type rush, though, the man did not cry or pray for forgiveness or beg for me to stop, no. He simply sat there on his knees, palms to the tops of his thighs, eyes glued to his friends who watched on with anxiety and sadness in their eyes. This angered me beyond reason and instead of simply slicing his throat and letting him bleed out on the lessening snow, I removed my blade from his neck, elaborately swung it over my head, and embedded it into the muscle and skin between his neck and shoulder. The sword didn't cut straight through, which was intended, and the pain of having my ice cold blade cutting his muscles, bones, veins, and tendons made his face turn up in a scowl and a pitiful scream tear from his barely open mouth. My neck tightened in slight disgust at the black blood that was being pumped out of the wound past my sword and spilling onto the ground, but mainly I felt… pleased. He was the first example, probably of many, and it would do well if the men could watch him suffer.
I extracted the sword by pulling it forward, slicing his body even more and persuading more of the red life-liquid to meet the open air, and wiped it on the arm of my coat (I had more than enough and even if I didn't, the Queen was sure to give us new uniforms), ridding it of the traitorous filth. "I want Roy to be an example," I proclaimed, making my thoughts and directions painfully clear against the sobs I could just barely hear in the audience. "All who defy me will be labeled as a traitor and killed immediately. All who defy the Queen will be labeled as a traitor and killed immediately. All who defy –"
"All who defy King Joseph will be labeled as a traitor and killed immediately!" A rush of footsteps and grunts of men, along with the horrendously unneeded outburst, signaled yet another foolish and impulsive soldier. The unsheathing of a blade was clear against the now calm breeze, and as I turned my head, I saw a slight, dexterous-looking boy, I guessed he must've just barely met the age criteria, lunging towards me with the blade poised for a single thrust. A smug grin pulled at my lips as I grabbed my sheath just above the opening and spun to face him. I bent my wrist so that when the tip of his blade was about to pierce my gut, it instead slid smoothly into the sheath. With his lungs breathing my exhales, I twisted the sword out of his hand, threw it to the ground, grabbed his black hair by the roots, exposed his neck, placed the cutting edge of my sword against his jugular, and sliced his throat open with the whole length of my sword. Blood gushed not only on my weapon, but also on my face, neck, and the top half of my already ruined coat, and I had to refrain from wiping the boiling hot and distasteful liquid away from my mouth. I knew I had to leave it there, since it would only serve to prove how serious my standing with the Queen was. And although I hated how sticky and strangely metallic it felt on my skin, my new alliance kept my hands from cleaning it. My eyes, however, still twitched with immense amounts of disgust and horror.
I dropped the young corpse and turned to the rest of my men, my breath slight and trembling, my eyes wide in horror at what I'd done. "All who defy me will be labeled as a traitor and killed immediately," I repeated, mechanically cleaning my blade on my sleeve. I stepped over to my sheath and grabbed it like I had previously, quickly making a slicing motion towards the two dead bodies behind me, unintentionally sending the sword's hilt into the back of the younger one's head. Not sparing the two carcasses a second glance, I returned my blade to its rightful home before willing it to disappear entirely in its case. "If you don't give two ever-living shits about the Queen or Arendelle, you should at least consider me." I turned around, making sure I spoke to each and every one of the men who I grown close to over the past months. "I did this for your own good, not mine!"
"I don't see why," a voice spoke up from my left, grumbling and deep. "The supplies would've arrived –"
"There is no supplies, damn it!" I screeched, turning on the oblivious hulk of a man. Unperturbed, I grabbed his collar, though it was quite a ways above my head, and pulled him down so his shit-brown eyes met mine. "There never was. Galaway cut its ties to us a long time 'go." Gasps and murmurs erupted from all around me as I let go of the man, reminding me of the ignorance and blatant apathy that the soldiers carried at their hips in lieu of swords. "Are you all so blind?" I begged, spinning wildly where I stood. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Arendelle horses arriving to direct us to the castle on a path that wouldn't alert the whole castle city. "The country you would so willingly give your life for has left you for dead! Frozen and mangled creatures beyond repair, they don't care!" I pressed my hands against my chest ferociously, caving in slightly, begging them with my body to see truth. "I care!" I gasped. "I've always cared! I gave everything to lead you in this… this attempt at dethroning the Queen. They were the ones who turned their back to you all, not me. They were the ones who saw nothing but chess pawns when they looked at you, not me. They were the ones who said 'Leave them to die in that blizzard', not me!" I ceased my rampage as the horses came closer, and as I looked upon them I realized the Queen herself was leading the group. I straightened as I brought my eyes completely to the royal, giving her graceful aura my unbridled attention.
She was dressed in a dark, deep, forest green dress, much like the one she wore when I first saw her in her throne room. This one was thicker though, more accustomed to the all-encompassing chill of the storm we had just barely left. A long, thick leather cloak rested on her shoulders, no doubt there to protect her frail skin from any damage. I silently ordered my men to make a path for her before I moved away from the dead bodies, attempting, I guess, to remove myself from the accusations that I had killed them even though the blood on my face obviously proved otherwise. I met her horse head on and the animals took one whiff of me before grunting and turning away against the Queen's wishes. "Easy, easy," she whispered as she patted the horse's neck. "He's just a dirty man, Flurry, relax." Her eyes scanned over me again, not leaving a detail untouched by her eyes. "Very, very dirty," she amended.
"I had to clean up my mess," I muttered as I moved out of the way of the obviously agitated horse. Queen Anna shrugged as her eyes followed me, her lips pulled in a way that hid her smile. "I was expecting you later, Your Highness."
"I was growing restless," she replied, her tone plush like down but still holding her authority. Her eyebrows came together in a twitch before she gave me a pointed gaze, reminding me of the two guards at her side a few steps back. Placing one foot in front of the other, I bowed – low like I did last time – and kept my eyes to the ground before rising. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that none of my men looked as if they even attempted to move.
"What is wrong with all of you? Do you have no manners?" I went and grabbed the collar of the closest soldier and shoved him back. Though I didn't want Queen Anna to see me as angry as I was, I couldn't help the fury that was bubbling up under my skin at the outright apathy they were displaying. "I honestly don't care if you are willing to give your life for Arendelle." I watched as hundreds of eyes widened in shock. "By the absolute least, you should be willing to give your life for me and what I stand for." Many of their eyes dropped to the ground in shame. "It's true, Arendelle might not be your country but I am your Captain." With that, a man, James I think his name was, looked me in the eye with a determined look and bowed with his knees to the ground. He was followed by Martin, his partner, then by Gregory, who was followed by Adam and Joshua, and eventually my whole battalion was on their knees not for the Queen, I knew, but for me. My mouth was agape, even when each of them rose one by one, each individual man looking at me with a specific brand of trust and respect. I kept up eye contact as long as I could before I finally had to break it, extending my hand and quietly asking Raymond for my horse. He placed the leather reins in my gloved hand without a word, only a smile, and turned to the rest of my men, barking out orders I couldn't quite comprehend, my bones numb with shock. I mounted the steed and turned away, my eyes on its achromatic mane.
"They really do respect you, Captain Elsia," Anna grinned from my side. She was bent unladylike over the front of her saddle, arms crossed under her head as she lay on the horse's nape. The redhead bobbed up and down in synchronization with the horse as she smiled up at me, teeth almost as white as the fading snow around us. "It's admirable, really, how much they look up to you."
"They fear me," I growled, releasing the reins and placing my clasped hands on the saddle horn. "That's all. Most of them don't even like me. What you saw was simply a show of loyalty to the oath they took when I was first took the position. That's when they all hated me. I had to earn their respect through even more sweat and tears than I shed getting there." I exhaled deeply before meeting her eyes again. "What you see isn't love or adoration or admiration. It's fear for what I might do or say. It's abhorrence, not respect, Queen."
"I think the real abhorrence here is the fact that you can't see the fact that they do respect you. Maybe it's not in a way that you're used to, but they do." She straightened her back and looked ahead, quickly stopping her horse and turning to the guards. I followed lead, curiosity piqued seeing as we were nowhere near the castle. "Guards, please take Elsia's men to the barracks. Make sure they have the finest bunks and give them a full meal upon arrival. When they're all settled, go back to the castle."
"Would you like someone to accompany you, Your Majesty?" a man with greying hair and goatee grumbled, his horse impatient and pawing at the ground.
"I think I'll be fine. I have Elsia. Bye now," she waved them off and flicked her horse into a quick trot leaving me to rush after her, my own steed lagging from fatigue. She turned back after a momentary pause. "Having problems?" I shook my head and rubbed the horse's beige neck, spurring him forward and finally catching up to the Queen. "Your horse is tired. You need to let it rest." A pause. "Come now, we can double on mine, he can take it."
"Y-Your Highness," I stammered, gripping the horn harder and harder. "I-I don't think –"
"I order it."
I sighed as she brought her horse closer to mine, and I knew she knew I couldn't disobey. Damn these royals and their almighty power, I remember thinking. "Shouldn't I lead?" I wondered with a wave of my hand when she made no attempt to move to allow me in the front of a saddle.
"My horse, my lead," was all she said as she turned her gaze to the space between her horse's ears. Uneasy, I slowly worked my legs out of the stirrups and onto the saddle. I gestured for her to bring the horse in closer and slipped my left leg behind her slowly, noticing that the saddle was just big enough for two people. I held back a sickening laugh at the knowledge that, yes, the Queen of Arendelle planned to share a horse with me. I lowered myself (somehow gently) behind the Queen's thin, lanky body and felt my face and neck grow irrefutably hot, like lava had worked its way into my pores and decided to throw a get together for every other burning substance. My hips and stomach were pressed intimately against the Queen's back, rocking in tune with the steed's steps. I turned to my horse and let go of the reins, afterwards watching it race off towards the castle like it wasn't in the least bit tired. I whispered a curse before turning to the front, only to meet a breath-taking set of mischievous teal eyes looking back. It was then that I knew she knew I knew. "What I'm about to show you is a secret known only to the past Kings and Queens of Arendelle." It was a whisper amidst the roaring gale we were travelling against, yet I heard its ferocity and secrets.
"Then why do you show it to me?" My voice was becalming, taken aback from the advent of the Queen's attitude. My fingers gripped the wool of my pants in a tight exasperation and anxiety. I did not know what this 'secret' was, or what it entailed, but I knew deep in my torso, near my heart and lungs where it accumulated and solidified into a crystallized cyst, that it would change me, change Anna, and change our relationship. Why, though, I didn't know.
The horse kept its pace easily, even with two persons, and the gusts that attempted to whisk my cloak and jacket away held its previous ferocity and truculence as we traversed through the forest, heading to the inscrutable destination. "As my personal guard, I must have outright trust in you." She turned to the front after addressing me, acting as if she hadn't just appointed me as her first and foremost. At first, I did not process it, mainly because she did not give me time to, but after just a few minutes, the information finally sunk in.
"Your Majesty? May I ask if you could repeat that last part?" My hands seized my leather belt and squeezed in a repetitive and anxious manner. She turned unexpectedly and entrapped me in her teal traps.
"No," she hushed, her lips in a too-close proximity to mine. "You heard me just fine, I know you did. You may however keep your voice down. We're almost there." She went back to her previous position and flicked the reins, urging her horse into a forest that sat strategically between the permanent blizzard and the capital city of Arendelle. The horse became tense under my legs, I noticed, the further we ventured through the evergreens and barren oak trees. I attempted to sooth him by stroking his hindquarters, but the animal just shivered and continued to prepare to sprint away. I exhaled deeply before pulling myself closer to the Queen as inconspicuously as I could, basking in the warmth that her body seemed to naturally emanate. Against my intentions, she may have noticed, because she then asked, "Are you cold, Captain?" I chuckled before straightening my back, trying my hardest to stop touching her.
"Forgive me, Your Highness," I sighed out. "I forgot my place."
"Odd," she murmured, scooting back into me rather harshly. "Because I'm absolutely freezing," she reached behind her and took my wrist in her palm and removed it from my belt. In less than a second, she wrapped my arm around her waist, connecting my front to her back intimately. My eyebrows rose in surprise as my jaw dropped in shock. I stuttered and fell over my tongue which thought that it was a grand time to swell and stop working completely. The Queen simply laughed before she collapsed into me. "It's well below zero. I'm surprised that as many of your men survived as they did. Especially without performing any… indescribable acts," Her voice dropped to a whisper that I barely heard over the whipping wind. I breathed out as much as a laugh as I could through my uncooperative tongue and closed up throat.
"You haven't met Raymond or John, have you?" Oh wonderful, now my mouth decides to work. My arm unintentionally tightened around her Majesty. "From what I heard, they performed quite a few 'indescribable acts'."
"They…?" She twisted to look at me incredulously. I simply laughed and shrugged.
"Apparently, I mean, I don't know. I don't wish to see that."
"See what? Don't you have the same… say, parts, for lack of a better word?" A tense silence followed her words where I stared at the back of her head, eyes wider than they had been before and my heart racing in my chest, cold but pounding into my lungs.
I shouldn't have been hesitating. I should have been laughing and assuring her that, yes, I did have the same "parts", and that I had no qualms about seeing Raymond and/or John naked or… whatever else they might do to pass the time. However, I was silent and I was hesitating and somehow I wanted to say no, I didn't have the same parts and I was a liar and a cheat and I shouldn't be trusted and she should have me executed right then and there. Suddenly, the lack of a bulge in my trousers was painfully noticeable and caused me to attempt backing away from Queen Anna, only to have her press herself into yet again. I was made horrifyingly aware of the reinforced bandages containing my breasts and forming my torso into something akin to masculinity.
I was made horrifyingly aware of the fact that I was a woman.
My words were, yet again, stuttered out and messy as I whispered, "Yes, of course, but they're my two best men. I don't need to know or see what goes on when the wind blows too hard."
"I assume the wind wouldn't be the only one blowing hard," she replied after just a second before turning around, a sly smile upon her lips. My face grew warm at her implications – I was in the army, of course, so I did comprehend the innuendos – as I vacillatingly extended my other arm to become secured around her waist. Queen Anna simply smiled, though I could detect hints of a blush adorning her freckled cheeks. "Oh!" she shouted out unexpectedly, twisting ferociously enough that I was almost thrown from the saddle. "I almost missed it! Damn my one track mind." She pulled the horse to a stop and redirected it to turn towards a deep crevasse that stood out like freshly shed blood on the pure but thinning snow. "Now, it's going to be a bit icy, but if you overlook that, it should be a pretty easy walk."
"Your Highness?" She couldn't possibly mean we were going to…
"Come on, Elsia," She jested, ushering me off the steed and into the soft, wet snow near the underground cavern. "Use your brain a bit, won't you?" Dismounting swiftly, her skirts billowing around her in an embellished way, the Queen maneuvered through the snow in her most likely thin boots until she came to my side. "Surely you have one."
"I've learned to never trust my own intuitions when in the presence of a royal." My breath caught as I realized how boorish the statement must've sounded. "Royalty, I mean. In the presence of royalty, like yourself, Your Highness." I turned away from her and berated myself silently.
You just called her 'a royal' you piss pot! What in God's name is wrong with you? Did you think it would go unnoticed by her? She's probably spent years analyzing shit mouths like you and has it down to a science. Wait, hush, I think she's speaking to you, you daft fuck.
"Pardon?" my hands shook minutely as I whispered the words into my shoulder.
"You're really hard of hearing today, aren't you Captain?" Am I truly still a Captain?
I sent her a meek smile and a halfhearted shrug when she tied her horse to the tree nearest to the fissure. "I suppose I'm simply lost in thought," I breathed.
"Well, since my dear Captain decided not to listen," she laughed, taking my hand before turning back and smiling in that childish way that was unbefitting of a graceful person like herself. "I'll simply let you observe." Breaking our gaze, she hopped into the crevasse, obviously not worried about dangerous things like what exactly was down there, if there was anything to catch us after the fall, or if I was even prepared for the leap. Relying only on instincts, I caught my glove on my belt's buckle, ripping it – and some of the skin underneath it – off once I realized that the drop was large enough to cause some serious damage. I glanced over to see Anna's eyes scrunched shut and finally made my decision to release a cloud of light and dry snow towards the bottom where we would most likely land, but also where it was make sense that snow would fall. I tucked Queen Anna into my front and turned midair so I was the one who would take the brunt of the pain. If I measured right, it should be just like –
Everything went dark as I went under the surface of the white powder, and I remember hoping that Anna was still above the snow bank because it was indefinitely difficult to breathe. I also remember wanting to stay in to now blue-ish haze that I'd created. It felt familiar. Not the type of familiar that home was, with its never-ending pastures, looming and poetic weeping willows trees, winding-snake streams, and my mother (above all, of course), but a type of familiarity. It was the kind that made you nostalgic about your home, the kind that made you look back into your past with open arms and unfiltered eyes rather than apprehension and disappointment and anger and a solemn heart. It sent shivers down my spine – though now that I think about it, that could've been a reaction from the way Anna's hands and legs were tangled with mine and how her forehead pressed closely against my chest, halfway in the bank and halfway out. Remembering my place and responsibilities, I worked my way up out of the slightly colored snow, holding Anna to my chest, making sure she wasn't hurt. "My Queen?"
This seemed to stir the royal, as she sprung up from me with a smile and maniacal laughter. "Just like a pillow!" she cried out, placing her palms on my chest to help herself up, unintentionally placing more pressure on my tied up breasts. I groaned softly in my throat until she sat straight, noticing my discomfort. Truly though, the feeling of her hips straddling my own, moving and applying pressure every time she twisted around, investigating the cavern that was larger than I originally thought. But in hindsight, I didn't have time to really think about how big the cavern was before Anna decided to throw me into it. "See? I think ahead." An enormous smile adorned her face as her eyes met mine in a sort of youthful trust and hilarity. I tore my gaze from the place where our bodies connected and trace her face with them. They memorized the way her eyes had miniature grinning-wrinkles at their corners, how the splay of freckles on her cheeks and her nose were more stunning than all the stars and galaxies in a clear midnight sky, the way her nose glided into a soft button, the twitching of her lips into a smile as I stared at her as if I was dumb, the mere depth of her azure irises and how they sunk hooks into my skin painlessly and dragged me into them, as if they wanted to drown me in her, and it was all without my consent. Past the haze that the Queen unintentionally put me into, I felt my lips fall open and stretch into a kind of half smile at her, at her smug grin, at her eyes, at her skin, at her everything.
A tug the muscles that controlled my heart was the only response when Queen Anna dismounted me in the smoothest way imaginable, dusting herself of the pure white snow I created from my own fingertips. I followed suit, blindly chasing after her as I made sure my swords and pistol were in check. We were ambling around a mysterious underground cave, after all. I kept close to the Queen, eyeing every dark corner or crack or barely moving shadow, attempting to be even slightly prepared to protect the women who granted my men and I safety and protection and, most importantly, a home. I knew in the bones of my forearm and the vertebrae of my spine that not even my own handmade, crystallized blade that I crafted from the strongest, most invulnerable ice would do against what the Queen was leading me to.
The cavern was… strange, to say the least, but thank God it was wide enough for the Queen and I to walk comfortably. Although, it did leave an irreplaceable shiver in my gut and left my hand shaking over the handle of my "sword" as we trekked. A slick substance seemed to cover the walls – could they really be called walls? – and though it was cold (like Queen Anna had said earlier, well below freezing) the putty like liquid was not frozen, just slick. The walls were craggy and shaped irregular, almost as if something had carved it out with its teeth or claws, not pickaxes as a man would. No, this cave was no man's. Even more evidence to prove that it belonged to a beast was the scattered corpses – no, most definitely skeletons at this point, so much so that they seemed seconds from erupting into a puff of dangerous dust – and miscellaneous weapons that were haphazardly thrown onto the floor, sometimes skewered on the well placed stalagmites that grew pompously from the floor, rising like the fear-inducing crown upon King Joseph's black mane and sickeningly pale skin (I would say Queen Anna's crown, but she lacked one, strangely, perhaps to make herself more homely with the peasants in her country?). Their mangles maws and black holes that replaced their eyes placed apprehension and despair in my heart, something they now eternally lacked.
I grabbed Anna's hand.
Queen Anna, I corrected myself silently, ignoring the royal's snickers and questioning gaze.
"I hate the dead," I hushed, afraid to speak any louder than I absolutely had to. "I hate the secrets they know." She nodded in sympathy, eyes softening (I was shocked that they could become even more enthralling) before placing her index finger on her puckered lips, her teal irises still boring into mine. She went back to paying attention to where she was leading me and I was again left to my own thoughts, which in some cases might've been horrid in every way. However, before I could become too immersed in the empty eyes and gaping mouths of every slain man – maybe woman – I felt Anna's hand squeeze mine and the cave suddenly grew lighter. It was now a kind of daybreak blue, when the sun just barely fingers the thralls of night away, and the tendrils of the spacious azure are grappling at the mountain peaks, attempting their hardest to stay, but the sun's grace pushes the poisonous fingers far away from the earth.
I brought my eyes to the massive stalagmite that tore from the center of a large room – large enough to easily fit two Man 'o Wars at least – like a pyre of the heavens. An immense trail of immaculate, pristine, sparkling to a point, snow (perhaps ice) trailed down it, imitating a spiral staircase in the Grand Hall of the grandest castle in Galaway, but it was not a staircase. I wasn't even sure if it was ice or snow. At the peak of the pretend pyre was a small opening, maybe the size of a colt but no bigger than Anna was wide. It allowed a sparkling array of sunlight to glimmer through, reflecting off of the "snow-ice" and plastering its perverted self onto the thickly-lined mucous-like liquid on the cavern's walls, the images forming magnificent snowflakes which then transformed into flurries when the snow-ice moved.
Wait.
The snow-ice was… moving?
I don't think Anna realized my fright.
"Sir, are you awake?" She tugged my hand so I'd come closer. I didn't want to come closer. I wanted to run far away. I was afraid. "I've brought you someone." Was she sacrificing me? I knew, I knew I shouldn't have trusted another damn royal!
Before I could draw my sword and sever the connection between our hands, the creature's head (?) rose from the tip of the stalagmite, nearest to my closest escape route, and I finally became aware of the fact too late, right as the white creature's eyelids split apart, revealing deep, wise blood ruby eyes that I knew knew too much.
Queen Anna walked me directly into the dragon's den.
