The Veil

by Calenheniel

[Hans x Elsa; Victorian AU; twoshot.] She's always been mysterious—too mysterious, at first, for him—and that thin, black shroud, matching her black dress, and purse, and shoes, and gloves, makes her even more inscrutable. But he's determined to see her, to know her, and so he sits with her in gardens, in lounges, in cafes, watching the hours, days, months pass. And watching her.

2. Part II

Part II

They always take tea in the parlour.

Everyone else has gone, leaving them alone—him sitting across from her, admiring her elegance, enjoying the silence—and he dares not say a word, lest he break the illusion that time has stopped.

The room is darker than usual, the curtains drawn, the scent of dark roses heavy in the air; he wonders how she isn't bothered by it.

He knows, though, that there are still so many things he doesn't understand about her, even now—even after the long walks in the rain, the quiet evenings in the library, the small conversations by the fire.

Even after she took off the gloves, placed her shaking hands in his, and spoke her vows.

But when he remembers that moment, and how she looked at him, finally, as hers, and not her sister's—and he remembers how she placed the papers in his grasp, and spoke of in case anything happens to me, please, Hans, keep these close—he knows that she's not as mysterious as she once was, because she trusts him.

And as he smooths a hand over his vest, feeling the papers beneath it, he realises, again—

Her trust is precious to him.

There's something like victory dancing in his eyes as he considers her, his carefully-tended flower; something like fondness touching the edges of his lips as he recalls the endless months of waiting, his patience, her unbearable silence.

It was worth it all, he knows, to see her bloom as she did—to hear his name in sighs falling from red lips, to see pale cheeks flush with desire, to feel blue eyes branding his skin—and even now, looking at her, she's as beautiful as she was then.

No, he thinks, smiling—more beautiful.

Her silence, in retrospect, was better than the endless blathering of others—the shocked gasps following the announcement, the murmurs of betrayal, the reminders that he wasn't supposed to be hers in the first place—and he's thankful that she accepted him, against her better judgment.

(Against their better judgment.)

He'd never been able, in all that time, to dispel her suspicions about him—not on cold nights spent curled beside her, whispering against a trembling ear, nor on warm ones when the air was so thin, and humid, that they could scarcely breathe.

But suspicions, he supposes, are normal, are healthy, alongside trust—because her sister didn't have any, and now she's nothing more than a distant memory, encased in ice, suspended in time.

Just like you, he breathes out, standing from his chair; instinctively, he glances at the mantelpiece to check the hour, before he remembers:

There's no such thing as time in that room.

He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, and frowns—it's not proper, not correct, and so he is quick to conceal the offending object with black fabric.

That's better, he says, mostly to himself, though he's sure she'd be pleased, and that she'd agree—if she could speak.

She can't, of course, but her silence is somehow less deafening now than it was at the start; in fact, there's a kind of strange serenity upon her lovely face, in the hollows of her closed eyes, on the smooth, unworried surface of her forehead.

It's a wonder to him, then, that people could have ever said she was like the Snow Queen in the fairy tale—not when she looks so peaceful, framed by oak, flowers weaved into her white hair—but when he sees how her soft, fair skin is tainted blue, he supposes that they might have had a point.

Oh, Elsa, he says pityingly, you should be with the ones you loved–and who loved you in return.

He draws the veil back over her—over lips that once sighed his name, over pale cheeks whose blush he'd seen even on the blackest of nights, over blue eyes that will forever burn in his memories—and once it is done, he pauses, silent again.

Absently, his hand drifts, caresses the side of her face; then, his fingers trace the outlines of her mouth, and his head dips down to meet hers.

Instead, you only have me.

He presses a kiss to those red lips, and he pretends that he can feel them through the shroud, the darkness—and he pretends that she isn't colder than the stones at the bottom of a riverbed, and that he isn't choking on the stench of the roses.

He wishes she were bothered by it.