Frozen Destinies

Two

That very next day Raven's stuff was moved into a room across the hall from Starfire's, and the younger girl couldn't come to terms as of why. She had in fact dreamed a rather strange dream last night, but beyond that she couldn't fathom why her sister would suddenly pull away.

She pulled on her brave face and hastened over to her sister's new room, where unbeknownst to her Raven was trying to keep her powers from coming out and blasting her bed with ice and snow.

"Raven?" a small knock had come before her name, and Raven turned her small eyes warily towards the door where Starfire was undoubtedly standing. "Do you want to build the snowman? Come on let's go and play! I never see you anymore, come out the door, it's like you've gone away!" she called out. Raven smiled a little at her sister's sweet tendency to have everything rhyme and at her odd way of speaking.

"Do you want to build the snowman, it doesn't have to be a snowman!" Starfire pleaded, pressing her lips against the keyhole in order to project her voice into the room.

"Go away, Starfire!" Raven called back, her eyes turning downcast as she looked away and towards the window. She heard a shuffling of feet on the other side of the door.

"Okay, bye..." Starfire replied before heading away.

Raven then turned towards the window and looked outside longingly, wishing she could be a part of the world once more. She placed her hands delicately on the windowsill, where upon contact ice spread out with a crackle and coated part of the window.

She retracted her hands in fear, calling out for her father instantly. Soon he was there, and she explained everything with a wobble in her voice. He comforted her briefly before pulling something out of his pocket.

"Here, the gloves will help" he explained, covering her hands in two small white gloves that were almost as pale as her own skin. "Remember what we've been practicing... Conceal it," he started.

"Don't feel it. Don't let it show" they both finished together, and Raven allowed a small smile to grace her features.

Princess Starfire was saddened throughout the coming years as she attempted time and time again to connect with her older sister Princess Raven, yet each time she tried she was met with a door slamming in her face or a muffled dismissal from the other side of it.

Raven, on the other hand, was struggling with her powers as they continued to grow. She hated shutting out her sister, but it was for her own good and the good of everyone else that she hid herself away and practiced. 'Conceal, don't feel' she would tell herself.

As they years progressed, Gar and Robin became close friends and went on many adventures together. The trolls were kind to them all, including Sven who grew larger and larger until he could seat both boys without a problem. Gar would often float over to the castle in order to watch as the girl with similar powers as his own continued to become more and more powerful.

"Why is she suppressing them? She should use them, learn, practice! She's got a gift, that girl" he once whined to Robin. The young ice-harvester's business was helped along by Gar, who even during the summer would create huge blocks of ice for Robin to cut down to shape and sell.

"Maybe you didn't realize it, but she's a Princess and the kingdom will eventually be under her rule someday. I doubt they'd take kindly to this sort of thing, they'd chalk it up to witchcraft or something" Robin reasoned, twirling his pick expertly before chopping off another bit of ice.

"I guess, but it's never good to push your powers down. Keeping them hidden will only make them explode out with even more viciousness when they do. Because they will some day." Gar finished this thought with a sense of dread, wondering just what was going on. He knew that the Man in the Moon had something to do with this, but it was beyond him as to what it could be.

"Have you talked to the other Guardians recently?" Robin asked. Gar made a face.

"Yuck, they're all a bunch of responsible workaholics. No fun! Plus why would I talk to the Guardians? I'm not a Guardian, I have no business with them" he replied.

"Yeah, but they might be able to help you figure this out" Robin suggested, pulling a carrot out of his pocket and offering a bite of it to Sven before taking a bite for himself.

"I don't want them to get involved. If they find out about her, who knows what sort of meddling they'd do. Especially that weirdo Bunny" Gar said, mumbling that last bit to himself.

He didn't have a great relationship with Garth Aster Bunnymund, also known as the Easter Bunny. They were always fighting and trying to one up each other, which made Gar's distaste for the Guardians only grow and he increasingly wanted nothing to do with them. The only one who he could stand to see from time to time was Victor St. North, or Santa Cyborg as he was known around the world.

Robin seemed to know this, however, as he crossed his arms menacingly and glared at his non-aging friend. "Grow up and go visit Santa, then. He'll be able to give you some advice for sure, then come back and report. No excuses!" he ordered, waggling the carrot at Gar as if it were a weapon.

Gar let out a puff of air, mumbling a bit before he created a small snowball in his hand and then whispered something into it; it began to glow like the northern lights, and then with a heave he threw it onto the ground and a portal opened with a loud boom.

"See you around, Rob!" he said with a small grin, and jumped headfirst into the portal. Robin shook his head and then got back to work.

~.~.~.~.~

Starfire had long since given up on trying to pull her solitary sister out of her shell; at the ages of 18 and 15 the two Princesses barely saw one another save at family mealtime at dinner. One day, however, Raven was forced to emerge from her room in order to say goodbye to their parents who were heading on a journey to the nearby country of Germany where their closest partners in trade, Weselton, were awaiting.

Starfire had already run over to her parents' room in order to hug them fiercely, both at the same time.

"I shall see you in two weeks!" she said, optimism lacing her voice as she masked how much she would miss her parents during these upcoming days; yet she hoped at the same time that with her parents gone she might be able to get out a little more and explore, even if it be only the castle grounds themselves.

Later on, as the King and Queen were at the stairs of the entrance hallway with their possessions being taken out towards the loading point, Raven had followed them with a poised and careful step, curtsying in front of them with fear in her eyes.

"Do you really have to go?" she asked softly. Her mother smiled at her and opened her arms for a quick hug that Raven only allowed because of the warning she was given; she hated sudden contact, after all that she had gone through to control her powers she would hate to lash out at someone.

"We'll be back sooner than you'll know" her father replied, placing his hand on her shoulder slowly. She nodded gracefully, and once they had made their way out of the castle she once again retreated up into her room.

Starfire caught a glimpse of her as she did so; she had no doubts that she would no longer be seeing her sister at meals starting tonight, as their parents were the only thing that could make her come out.

As Raven closed the door behind her, however, she felt an unfamiliar presence in the room; it was as if someone was staring at her. She whirled around and there was no-one there, of course. She was just being silly.

Suddenly a large snowball smacked her square in the face, and she let out a yelp in surprise. 'Did I do that?' she thought, frantically scraping the snow off with her gloves and realizing that it didn't do any good. Removing the gloves carefully, she used her powers to pull the snow off of her and reformed the snowball in her hand.

"What on Earth..." she muttered. "How did I do that?" she asked herself aloud, wondering at how she had managed to do any of this, without her gloves on to start off with no less.

"You didn't. I did" a male voice replied matter-of-factly from right behind her. She let out a small scream and threw the only thing she had in her hand, that same snowball, right at whatever was behind her.

It was a boy, he looked to be a few years older than her. His hair was pure white, and he wore what looked to be a blue snowflake-encrusted hoodie, while holding a shepherd's staff that was covered in ice. His face was obscured by all the white powder that had exploded upon contact, and Raven fearfully backed away as he seemed to laugh as he scraped it off.

"I'm Gar Frost, at your service" he said once the snow was mostly gone. His eyes were a deep emerald while his lips were pulled into a large grin; one of his canines was shaped into a fang that stuck up a little.

"You don't mean as in nipping at your nose, do you?" Raven blurted out sarcastically before she even thought about it. She flushed a little as his grin widened.

"How'd you know?" he exclaimed, floating over to her. Her eyes grew wide as he did this, but he simply shrugged. "I'm the spirit of winter and I'm here to help you with your powers. We've got some pretty similar gifts, see?" he said, pulling another snowball into existence in his hands before he caused it to explode into the air, forming small pieces of ice and snowflakes that coated the room.

"H...How did you know about me?" Raven asked, startled. She definitely believed what was going on, as the temperature in the room had dropped and she felt one of the snowflakes land on her nose.

"I've known about you for a long time, but I finally found some answers about how to approach you, I guess, and was given the go ahead to do so." His reply was enigmatic, but Raven was also too mesmerized by what what happening to think about it.

"Who told you to go ahead?" she asked anyway, reaching her hand up to catch some of the frosty flakes in her own and marvel as they didn't melt upon contact with her skin.

"Santa Cyborg, he's got a way of directly contacting the guy who's behind all of this, and of course I'll explain it all to you when you're ready to hear it... But for now, how about we get to know one another?" he asked, confusing her a bit further but she thought perhaps not to ask as she figured he wouldn't tell her anything of use just yet.

He reached out to try and touch her hand, then, and she pulled it away quickly.

"Don't touch me! You mustn't!" she exclaimed fearfully, her eyes searching for her gloves.

"Why not? We're one and the same, you can't hurt me" he said with an encouraging smile, holding up his palm and beckoning her with his eyes.

Tentatively, she took a deep breath and approached his hand with her own. Their palms connected, and a spark of blue magic flew up from around their skin to form a perfectly unique snowflake right above their connected hands.

"What does it mean?" she gasped in wonder, staring from him back to the magic that their hands had produced.

"It means that we're going to have a lot of good things from now on" Gar replied, his smile at its widest yet.

~.~.~.~.~

Over the next two weeks, Gar and Raven spent their time in her room practicing on helping her control her magic and he told her that all the stories she had learned as a child were true, such as that a half-man half-robot called Santa Cyborg would build toys and goodies for children and bring them as presents every Christmas, and that once a child lost a tooth a fairy called Karen Toothiana or the Tooth Fairy would collect them from under their pillows and leave a piece of candy or a coin in its place.

Raven's mind was opened to a whole new level of understanding, but as the time went on she knew that her parents would probably not take it too kindly that someone else, be it the spirit of winter or not, knew her secret. Time continued to pass, however, and it was already past two weeks and her parents had not returned.

"If they were delayed they would have told us, they would have written!" Raven worried; she withdrew into herself a bit more, avoiding her sister even more than before.

Starfire on the other hand was more optimistic as usual, but she still worried. More importantly, she had heard her sister speaking to someone in her room from time to time, and she hoped that Raven wasn't going crazy. On the other hand, for the first week and a half of their parent's departure, Raven had actually emerged for meals and had actually been polite to Starfire; what the redhead didn't know was that this change was caused by Raven's newfound confidence in getting some answers from Gar, and learning how to control her powers was key of course.

This change was missed greatly by Starfire once Raven had retreated completely to her room as their parents had seemingly vanished.

"What if something happened to them?" Raven worried one day, clutching her ungloved hands to her hair and causing a burst of snowflakes to crystallize over her dark locks.

"Will it make you feel better if I go check? I can fly over there and be back in no time" Gar suggested, trying to reach out to touch her hair and remove the snowflakes. Raven pulled away from him sharply, eyes wild with fear.

"Please, Gar. I need to know they'll be coming home" she said desperately.

"Alright, Raven. I'll be right back... But remember what I told you, you can't give in to fear. It's the most important lesson we've been learning" he warned, thinking of what he was told by Santa.

She nodded slowly, and with that he floated out the window and began manipulating the currents to pull him away from the castle. On his way out, he spotted Robin and Sven pulling a cart of fresh ice towards the town; he stopped and changed course towards them.

"How's it going?" Robin asked, jerking his head towards the castle. Gar let out a breath of frosty air.

"The King and Queen haven't returned yet; Weselton hasn't sent us anything either, and Raven's a wreck. Starfire seems cheery as usual, but I bet that's a lie" he replied, throwing in that last bit for Robin's benefit. The ice-harvester flushed and waved his friend away.

"Go and do what you gotta do, alright?" he said, while Sven seemed to have understood everything and was sending Gar knowing looks. With a smirk, the spirit of winter took off once more, and with the wind pushing him along he reached the North Sea.

Scanning the water, he wasn't surprised to find it a bit choppy. There had been a few large storms from what he could feel in his gut, as he controlled many of these windy currents himself to an extent.

Suddenly, a large piece of driftwood caught his eye and he swooped downward to inspect it. Upon reaching it, however, his cold temperature seemed to drop a few degrees as dread fell across him at what he knew had happened to the King and Queen's ship.

~.~.~.~.~

Raven was inconsolable. She refused to emerge even for the funeral, and stayed in her room crying all day. Starfire had to put on a brave face once again and donned her black mourning clothes as she stood as the only family member for the burial and remembrance of her parents.

Gar stayed with Raven for as much as he could, but he soon learned for a fact that her powers were driven by emotion and any time he tried to console her spikes of ice would jet out and nearly skewer him.

Starfire had returned from the funeral, and her sadness seemed to reflect the entire kingdom's. She reached her sister's door, staring through blurry eyes at the blue snowflake patterns it had painted on it.

"Raven?" she knocked softly. "Please, I know you're in there... People are asking where you've been. They say 'have courage' and I'm trying to... I'm right out here for you, just let me in?" she began, the sadness permeating her voice causing Raven herself to choke back a loud sob as she collapsed to the ground on the other side of the door, clutching her knees close to her.

"We only have each other" Starfire continued, "It's just you and me... What are we gonna do?" she asked, sliding down herself to sit with her back against the door unknowing that Raven was doing the exact same thing.

"Do you want to build the snowman?" she said, her voice cracking a bit as tears began to fall down her tanned cheeks.

Upon hearing this, Raven's body convulsed and a spiral of snowy magic burst out of her and coated the room in a sheet of ice and snowy crystals floating everywhere; she let out a sob and pulled her knees close, her heart wide open and vulnerable for the dark shard of fear that had been waiting for so long to penetrate it.

Here's the next part!

Hope you aren't too lost, I know for a fact that everything will be made clear soon! We'll meet new characters next chapter of course, and for all those asking the plot will for the most part towards the beginning follow the Frozen plotline, but I'll throw in some RotG points as well and many little details will deviate of course, such as you could probably see in this chapter itself.

Please leave me a review, I really appreciate them! :)