Note: We're getting into post-movie territory, and spoiler territory now, so if you haven't seen Frozen and you care about going in spoiler-free (And if you haven't, you really should see it somehow), then don't read until you do. We're also getting into darker territory as well. So prepare yourselves.
I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.
In the Old World
Chapter 2
Hans sat, lazing in his cell in the dungeons of his home in the Southern Isles. Gazing out the solitary window that had a view up into the courtyard, he could just make out the moon, shining in the night. It was the sound of footsteps that drew his gaze to his cell door. There was a soft metal jingling, and the door slid open. On the other side was a man clad in dark red leather, a white mask covering his face, an emblem of black fire emblazoned beneath the left eyehole.
"Don't you think it's a bit risky, to strut around the dungeons so openly?" Hans asked.
"There are none here left to see us." The man replied. He'd said his name was Mortemer. He walked into the cell and undid locks on the chains wrapped around Hans' wrists, then lead him out of the cell. They passed by body of Wallace, captain of the Watch. He was at his chair, his throat covered in bruises, his face purple and staring. Hans felt a pang of guilt as they passed the body. Wallace had always been a good man. A fair man, even to Hans, even when he'd come home in disgrace, charged with attempted regicide and usurpation of Arendelle's throne. But this group Mortemer represented, they'd promised him that which he had always craved. Power; kingship. He'd thought he'd since left such ambitions behind, but their promises stirred something in him. And, he reflected, no passing of power went without some blood. Especially that of good men.
As they wandered through the halls of the palace, Hans couldn't help but wonder where all the staff and guards had gone. It wasn't until they reached the doors to the Royal Dining Room that he began to feel unnerved, that maybe he was out of his depth where these men where concerned.
When the doors opened, revealing the bodies of several servants, and the entirety of the Hans' family, he knew he had made a terrible mistake.
"So, how would you prefer the story be told?" Mortemer asked. "We might have killed them with poison, but that doesn't mean we can't make it look like something else. Though given you're fairly infamous activities, your right of inheritance of power could be suspect." The man stopped, and placed a hand over his chin, thinking. "Perhaps we, that is to say, the Brothers and myself, fell upon them, as assassins from another kingdom. You heard the screaming, broke out of your cell through sheer determination, and fought us off, though you were tragically too late to save your family." Mortemer nodded. "Yes. That strikes me as a suitable tale, King Hans." He drew his long, serrated sword and started towards the body of Edmund, the oldest brother.
Hans had barely heard a word. He had been staring, dumbstruck, at the death around him. It was as though, for the first time in months, he could see and think clearly.
He saw himself, saw what he had tried to do, what he was now responsible for, and what he truly meant to the people who had murdered his entire family.
"No." He finally said.
"No?" Mortemer asked, amused. "So you'll happily lie and kill others in far-off lands, but when it's your family of tormentors who pay the price for your power, that's the line you draw?" He shook his head. "You've a strange sense of honor."
"Whatever schemes, whatever plans you and your kind have, I'll not be a part of them. I'll not be your puppet." Hans reached down to the body of a nearby guard and drew the man's sword, holding it out before him. "And I'll not let you leave without answering for the death my family."
Mortemer held up his free hand, and a dark green light burst into existence within his fingers. Hans' head suddenly felt as though it would split open, and he dropped to his knees in agony.
"Wrong. On all counts." Mortemer said. "We won't answer for your family. You are going to help us, Hans. Whether you want to or not."
Marius shifted on the small stool in his tent. It had taken almost half a year, and the aid over half of the Fourteenth Company, to at last bring down the Drakelord and exterminate its spawn. As always, when the Fourteenth gathered en masse, they worried about how many would still be standing at the battle's end. There were so few of them. Each man and women was as valuable as a mountain full of diamonds and gold, and every loss was keenly felt by all.
What Marius needed was some good news. Or at the very least, something not quite so big as a Drakelord that he and the Fourteenth could sink their blades into to distract themselves.
The detachment from the South had brought perhaps one of those.
Diomedes and Vitalion had headed the Fourteenth's detachment in the Southern part of the world. Diomedes, the combat surgeon and alchemist without peer, and Vitalion, former commander of the Twelfth, an aging veteran of countless wars, yet strong enough to fight off a dozen men at once without breaking a sweat.
Marius emerged form his tent and greeted his old comrades warmly, though the mood all but evaporated upon hearing the news the two bore with them.
"The royal family of the Southern Isles has been murdered. All but one. As far as any know, he's fled the kingdom, fled his crime. But Diomedes and I got a look in. This wasn't the work of an angry, neglected princeling. This was the work of the Covenant." Marius could feel the hands of the knights in the camp tightening on swords at the news that their old enemies had thrown another kingdom into chaos. "There's more," Vitalion said, pulling a large map from his belt. He spread it out over the ground. "My personal network has noticed, at no small risk to themselves, a great deal of activity on the Covenant's part. As best as they can tell, Brotherhood Acolytes and Embers are massing, as much as they can mass, at these locations." He tapped several circles drawn over the map. "Notice anything?"
Marius took a closer look.
"They're surrounding Arendelle." He finally said.
"We've all heard of the winter the kingdom was thrown into," Diomedes put in. "Maybe that has something to do with it."
"I was there, at the start. Nearly froze solid after a Acolyte dragged me into a pool before the flash-freeze." Marius looked up from the map to quizzical gazes. "Well, Stilicho told me he'd found the last of the Drakelords." Marius said defensively. "I wasn't going to hang around and investigate a winter in the middle of summer. Besides, you know I don't care for cold."
"Regardless," Vitalion said. "The Covenant is making moves. For them, some sort of game is on."
Marius stepped up from the map.
"Well, we'd better make sure that they don't win it." He intoned. He turned to face the camp and called out. "Everyone! Pack it in. Get the wounded ready to move, and prepare the ships for an assault. We're going to Arendelle."
Yeah, not a whole lot of humor here, but it's hard to put in humor in a situation of familial assassination and the aftermath of fighting a super-dragon and said dragon's brood. I have some ideas for funny bits later down the line, but right now, with such a focus on set-up and introducing the Frozen gang to the new (well, technically old) factions they'll be dealing with, there isn't a whole lot of room for silliness. Which stinks.