Hi. I'm back for more! A big shout out to my first reviewer and reader! Here is chapter 2 of my story.
"OW! Not so rough!" Hans complained as he was forcibly escorted to the dungeons. It was dark and damp, just as it was when he had placed, visited and prepared to kill, Elsa when she was incarcerated inside.
Besides the royal guards, Hans was going to have company during his stay in the dungeon. Residing inside were the two thugs from Weselton who tried to assassinate Elsa in her ice castle and failed. They shared a cell room and were trying to keep warm from the cold air. More of it invaded the dungeon from the cell that formerly housed Elsa, a result of her escape not too long ago.
The heard the scuffle from outside their cell and they peeked through the door's bars and saw Hans being brought inside, struggling and expressing anguish.
The thugs were surprised to see what was happening with him. The very man who aided Arendelle during Anna's absence after the princess rode into the forest to find Elsa and won the people over with his charm and good graces was now being treated like a prisoner and they wondered why.
The last time they saw Hans, they accompanied him and several Arendelle guards in searching for Queen Elsa.
The prince and the guards were unaware that they intended to kill Elsa as requested by the Duke of Weselton.
During the scuffle in Elsa's ice castle, while pinned to a wall by ice spikes, one of the thugs attempted to shoot the snow queen with his crossbow while the magical monarch was distracted from something Hans said that made her lower her defenses. Seeing what he was about to do, Hans immediately stopped the man by deflecting his weapon, causing him to shoot the ceiling's chandelier instead and the resulting crash knocked Elsa unconscious.
With the queen incapacitated and vulnerable, the two assassins freed themselves from their restraints and went for Elsa as she laid defenseless on the floor, but Hans and the guards stopped and arrested them before they could make their move. When the party returned, the men were placed in the prison along with a still-unconscious Elsa who was put in a different cell.
Back to the present, the would-be killers watched as the Southern Isles prince was led to his own cell and was shoved inside. While they couldn't see what was going on anymore, they heard the sound of rattling chains, telling them that the guards were restraining Hans with cuffs.
Making good on their mental promise, the guards encased Hans' hands in shackles that greatly mirrored the ones Elsa's hands were placed in.
"Unlock these damned things at once!" Hans hissed, feeling completely humiliated at being manhandled like this.
"No can do, Hans. You have earned them from the moment you lied to us all and plotted against our queen and princess." said the guard who put him in the restraints.
Despite Hans' royal status, the guards simply refused to address him as "prince", "Sire", "Your Highness", "Your Majesty", or any other title signifying importance since they felt he was now unworthy of them. The only title the man deserved, if one were to ever exist, was a prince of evil and lies.
"You call that inhuman creature a queen!? She cursed you people with her winter magic and killed her own sister by freezing her to death and yet you still show respect to her!?" Hans asked in outrage.
"Yes we do. While what you said about what she did is true, she is still our queen and her actions were unintentional and beyond her own control. Her having ice magic does not make her an evil person at all and we swore to protect and serve her and her family for years.
"She should be facing the treason and murder charges I applied against her for those heinous acts and be stripped of her title!" said Hans.
"It is rather you that should experience those things Hans, which we are certain you will eventually. You may not have magic like Queen Elsa does, but after seeing what you have tried to do out there, the real inhuman monster around here is you. Well, you and those two people from Weselton who tried to kill her before you." said the guard.
Hearing that made the two thugs learn why Hans was being imprisoned with them. He tried to finish what they could not and now he was sharing the same fate as them.
"I was trying to save Arendelle from Elsa! My order to have her executed was my way of achieving this!" Hans argued, trying to justify his actions of regicide.
"Well, after what we've seen out there a few minutes ago, we've come to realize that it was a mistake for us to help carry it out and take your word for it. Plus, we admit that it was foolish of us to believe that you and Princess Anna had married as there was no one there to conduct a wedding ceremony for you and her, which further nullifies your so-called marriage and of your position as king of Arendelle. We're lucky that she hasn't frozen us all in revenge for invading her mountain castle and imprisoning her in here and we wouldn't blame her if she did." they told him.
Realizing that he was not going to get anywhere with this argument, Hans looked down at his hand shackles.
"You can't leave me in these restraints! What if I need to, you know, have some . . . private time?" Hans was embarrassed for even thinking to ask that kind of question.
"Go right ahead if you need to. Nobody's stopping you. There's an empty bucket in the cell for you to use to which we provide all prisoners." said the guards and they walked out of Hans' cell, closed the door and took their leave out of the dungeon, leaving the three prisoners to themselves.
Growling, Hans saw the bucket the guards were referring to and kicked it in anger, causing it to slam against one of the cell's walls.
"Damn that Elsa! If only that stupid chandelier had killed her rather than render her unconscious, I wouldn't be in this particular mess and Arendelle would be mine to rule!" Hans said aloud.
"Then why didn't you kill her when she was in here?" asked one of the duke's bodyguards.
Hans heard that.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"When the queen was chained up in here, that was your chance to kill her when nobody but us was around to see it. Then afterward, while you were still trustworthy around here, you could have convinced everyone later on that she was acting crazy with her magic and that you had no choice but to kill her to protect yourself. It would have been the perfect crime. If we were in your shoes and we wanted the throne to this damned kingdom, we certainly would've done the same thing to her. Who's really the smart one around here 'your highness'?" the thug sneered. His partner joined him.
Hans disliked the attitude of that thug, but what he had just said poked a huge, metaphorical hole in Hans and realized he was right. Of course. It would have been the perfect crime had he resorted to that plan instead of biding his time by playing the innocent prince.
With Elsa's hands locked in shackles and unable to fight back (or so he believed before she escaped even with the cuffs), she was wide open for any kind of fatal blow and Hans was too blind then to notice the opportunity that had befallen upon him and now that opportunity was gone.
Elsa laid on her bed facedown, crying again. This might have sounded unqueen-like to some, but she couldn't help it.
While she sobbed, her room became covered in frost as a result of her emotions, just like three years ago when she was a teenager.
While the death of Anna really hit her hard, it wasn't the only thing she was upset about. She was also upset because she could not undo her winter spell over Arendelle. Her people could suffer and die from the endless winter and that would haunt her for the rest of her life, knowing that she would be the cause of it if those things ever were to come to pass. To her, she may have doomed her own home.
In her mind, she guessed that if her parents were around during these events, they'd disown her in the blink of an eye and either put her back in the dungeon, banish her or have her executed. But in reality, if they were here, they they would have tried to comfort her and tell her that they still love her regardless of what she had done.
After a while of moping, Elsa sat upright and wiped her tears from her face and eyes and sat there in silence. Like before, she was alone, like she said she wanted minutes ago.
She saw the frost and snow all over her room and, like her winter curse, she also didn't know how to remove that either. She couldn't even remember how the frost disappeared from her room three years back.
A knock was heard from her room's door. She remembered Anna using a signature knock of hers every day back from when they were separated.
"Elsa?" a voice asked from the other side. It was Olaf.
Aside from expelling him out of her ice palace hours ago, something she now regretted doing, even in her sadness, Elsa didn't have it in her to dismiss her own creation away. A mistake she often did with Anna for years.
"Come in." she said.
The door opened and in stepped the lovable snowman.
"Hi Elsa. Are you okay?" Olaf asked.
"Oh, I'm peachy. I'm just dealing with the fact that I killed my baby sister and cursed my own kingdom and people with a limitless winter that I don't know how to end." Elsa answered with a hint of non-angered sarcasm.
Olaf didn't know if he should be hurt by her tone or not, but knew she was right.
"Elsa, it's okay. Nobody hates you for doing those things. They know you didn't mean them and they even said so themselves that they still want you around and you saw their expressions of sadness and sympathy when you came back." he said.
"But do they accept me because they really do want me or is it because they think I'll do to them what I did to Anna if they turn me away?" Elsa questioned, turning her head away from Olaf to hide her tears running down her face again.
She got the feeling that the second option may be true. However, even if she was rejected, which she believed she deserved despite everybody siding with her, she still hated the idea of using her powers to terrorize people and vowed to never do that to anyone to further show her good side.
That got to Olaf who didn't really think of that type of possibility. He then doubted that the people and servants secretly wished Elsa to be gone otherwise they would have never invited her back into the castle to help her cope with today in the first place.
"I came from speaking to your two most loyal servants downstairs who say they've worked for your family ever since you and Anna were children. They didn't freak out from seeing me if you're thinking that, plus they said that they were more than willing to continue serving you even during this time. They, and your workers, are not afraid of you as you might believe." said Olaf.
Elsa knew Olaf was referring to Kai and Gerda, her most trusted servants whom she indeed has known from her days as a princess before being promoted to queen.
"Really? They said that?" Elsa asked her creation, wiping her eyes again.
"Absolutely. You know, despite this freaky snow weather, and that's coming from me, a snowman made of, well, snow, the people would much rather have a magical yet kind, warm-hearted person like you as ruler of Arendelle than having that other, non-magical guy filling your shoes. I mean think about it. If he was the one calling the shots around here instead of you, he'd probably boss the heck out of everyone like a mean, selfish, iron fisted dictator, which would be really bad. That's why nobody's decided to persecute you, Elsa. You are no cold-hearted tyrant like that prince would have been, no pun intended. Good and evil are not born. They're made."
Elsa thought Olaf's words carefully and deduced that he had a point. She may have been the cause of Arendelle's crisis and Anna's horrible passing, but she still had the virtuous nature she was raised with for years and Anna's sacrifice for Elsa's safety out in the frozen fjord said it all.
Despite still in mourning, Elsa also realized that if she was going to resume her duties as queen, she had to began acting like it and one of the first steps of doing that was to do her part in helping out the village. Nobody said she had to, but sitting it out felt wrong to her. She may be royalty and be back on the throne, metaphorically speaking, but in her eyes, that did not mean she could stay in her room and laze around while everyone else had to work hard to survive the harsh winter she caused, intentional or not. If she couldn't remove the snow, she could at least try to keep her people safe as best as possible.
Elsa figured that if Anna and her parents saw her sitting in her room feeling sorry for herself, they'd tell her to not give up and that she'd make a wonderful ruler, magic or not, and that they would love her for eternity.
She was now somewhat happy that Olaf had given her a pep talk to snap her out of her emotional trance (even though she had every right to be upset) boost her will to live and to rule as queen.
"Thanks Olaf."
"You're wel-wait, what for?" Olaf asked, confused.
"For convincing me to get back on my feet.
"Oh, you know me Elsa. I'm full of cheer, friendliness and stuff, just as you made me to be. If only the same could be said about my brother." Olaf said.
Elsa knew he was talking about her ice castle guardian Marshmallow. Technically, the two living snow beings were brothers on account of her being the creator of both of them. It made sense.
She unconsciously smiled lightly at the thought and at what Olaf's description of himself.
"Wow. I haven't seen you crack a smile since the ice palace in the mountains." he said after noticing.
Elsa realized her facial expression and indeed remembering smiling after seeing Olaf alive for the first time. The sight of him walking and talking made her feel happy for a moment back there before the memory of Anna's near-death experience as a child resurfaced in her mind and ruined the moment which drove her to tell Anna and Olaf to leave her castle.
Elsa wiped her eyes again, stood up from her bed and headed to the door of her room.
"Where are you going?" Olaf asked her.
"I'm going back to help them out." she answered.
"Why?"
"Because now that I'm the queen again, my subjects need me." she said.
"Okay."
Before Elsa opened the door, she turned back to Olaf.
"Before I leave, I have something to give to you." she said.
"What is it?" Olaf asked.
Elsa knelt down to his eye level and wrapped her arms around the snowman, surprising him.
"Oh, right." Olaf said after remembering that he liked warm hugs to which he hugged her back. Back when he was first built by the royal sisters and inanimate, Elsa voiced this herself to Anna.
They disbanded and Elsa took a deep breath, tried to focus and walked back to the door, opened it and took her leave with Olaf waddling right behind her.
Despite being in mourning, she felt she had to make up for everything that had happened because of her. For her people, for her kingdom, and most importantly, for Anna.
Ta-da! I have done it again. Did you like it? I did what I can to keep the characters and mood as they would have been if this was shown in the movie. How will things turn out now that Elsa is queen once more? Can the people tolerate the winter curse a little while longer? Will Elsa be able to find a way to stop her winter curse and at least try to move on with her life without Anna? What will become of Hans and the two homicidal thugs from Weselton, or should I say, "Weasel-Town"?
Stay tuned to find out.