Sharp and Sheer

Summary: Elsa's magic pushed Hans backwards, away from Anna, but it also pierced the most vital of places on him. With no ability to love, or be loved by, Hans feels the effects of the curse, slowly freezing to death in the middle of summer.

Rating: T

Notes: I've seen Frozen four times in theaters already. Oops.

Disclaimer: I don't own Frozen.

Sharp and Sheer

Chapter 4

Really, it hadn't taken Kristoff that long to reach his home, considering how long the trek with Anna up the North Mountain had taken the first time around. Sven was, of course, his travel companion of choice, and being with the reindeer always seemed to make the time slip by quickly. Sven had a way of reading his emotions – just like Kristoff was able to understand what the animal was thinking.

It was the perfect relationship; the two of them were like brothers, and the blond wouldn't have it any other way. Sans the trolls, Kristoff hadn't really had anyone else there for him, and neither had Sven.

Orphaned at a young age, he found a baby Sven being hunted in the woods and threw rocks at the men pursuing him. The hunters were distracted enough to let the reindeer dash away – straight into Kristoff. It seemed destiny was strange like that, bringing them together when they both needed a friend the most. Recalling it made Kristoff smile, and he tended to give Sven the bigger bites of the carrots they shared when it popped into his memory again.

"I can't believe we're doing this, Sven," he huffed, shaking his head and crossing his arms in disappointment. Anna didn't think, that much was clear – and though he didn't know the girl that well, he knew that she had a way of making people do what she wanted, despite her inexperience at ruling.

The reindeer gave a snort and seemed to give a head tilt that resembled a shrug. Kristoff dove into his deeper 'Sven dubbing' tone immediately, if only to keep himself entertained and give his companion a chance to 'speak'.

"But we don't have a choice, do we?" He groaned in the silly-sounding tongue, giving the animal a scoff and an annoyed look of his own in response to his own words. It was all a very strange scenario for an outsider, he was sure, but Sven had had a voice since he was little; Kristoff just had to provide it for him.

"No, I guess not."

"Because you can't say no to Anna."

How dare Sven say that?! Kristoff pursed his lips, almost in a pout, and retorted, "I can say no to her! I am a strong, independent man."

Another snort followed, and Sven 'replied,' "Yeah, sure."

"I mean it, Sven! In fact, I swear, when we get back, I'll tell Anna up front that she does not control what I do, and she'll agree and we'll both come to an understanding on it."

"You have a better chance of Hans surviving this."

The blond froze, as did the reindeer, both of them realizing at the same time that Sven had not been thinking that – that the animal would never think that, he would never take Hans's unfortunate fate as a joke, and what was said was not a true representation of his thoughts.

So... were those Kristoff's thoughts? Had he really been so cut off from humanity he was joking about Hans's inevitable death now? A shiver ran through him, and he knew he couldn't use the cold as an excuse anymore (as it was summer again); no, he was quite certain it was his own dread at his cruel joke.

"Sorry," he mumbled, more to himself than Sven. "I don't want him to die, exactly, but... I can't see him surviving, you know? And I know that Grand Pabbie will say the same thing he did before..."

Sven 'interrupted'. "Only an act of true love will save him."

"Yeah, exactly! Jeez, how do you always know what I'm thinking?" the blond asked, giving his friend a sheepish grin. As he stalked up the mountain towards the flattened field just before the hill sloped upwards, Kristoff had a hard time not slipping or stepping through mud, as what was once a frozen tundra was now a wet forest. The blond's boots were slopped with the damp dirt, and he felt... disgusting, really.

Before he could voice Sven's reaction, Kristoff noticed they had made it to the clearing, the defining rocks decorating the plains. He relaxed, instantly, as the presence of his family always did cheer him up. Though sometimes they were... abrasive, the blond always felt safe and at home with them.

"Hey! I'm back," he announced, realizing the last time he'd seen them, it'd been when they tried to wed him to Anna. His face flushed at the memory; he supposed families were meant to be embarrassing, but really?

And, as if on cue, the stones trembled and rolled forward, pushed by a seemingly unknown force (which, in actuality, was their own will to move), turning upwards just as they reached the man and showing their true identities as trolls.

So many faces stared up at him, a wide variety of expressions – happiness, relief, and for some, traces worry – displayed on their rocky features. Bulda, his adoptive mother, had a bright smile on her face, toddling up to him with her short arms outstretched.

"Kristoff's home!" she cried, and it was like a trigger; the rest of the trolls cheered and whooped out his name in happiness, scampering up to him to show him what he'd missed (in the day or so since he'd been up here).

"Look, Kristoff! Look at my crystal!"

"How's Anna? Did you kiss her?"

"Did you bring her back to see us?"

"When's the wedding, Kristoff?!"

A few of them jumped onto Sven, stroking his fur. The reindeer grinned and licked them, his rough tongue clearly not bothered by their course 'skin'. The little ones always loved Sven; must be the nature and animal connection. Kristoff crossed his arms and smirked, amused.

Bulda hopped on top of three other trolls to meet his eye level, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them.

"Kristoff! Tell us! What's become of Anna? Is she alright?"

He shook his head to clear it, her actions causing him to be dizzy (hey, she was a stone), and nodded. "Y-Yeah, Anna's just fine."

"I knew it! It was you, wasn't it? Ooooh, I can see it in your eyes, Kristoff!"

He rolled said eyes, quirking an eyebrow. "How 'bout now?" he snorted, sweeping his gaze across the clearing. "Nah, I... I do like her, yeah. Anna's great. She's feisty, and determined, reckless... but pretty adorable..."

Cliff, Kristoff and Sven's 'father,' hopped up to his 'son' and gave him a swift, playful punch in his ankle. Given the troll's hand was made of pure rock, Kristoff flinched and grabbed at his foot, bouncing on one leg in pain.

"Ow! What was that for?" he demanded, huffing.

His father merely laughed. "Our boy, Kristoff, finally found a lady! Sure, she's a bit of a fixer-upper, but that's no problem! You are, too! And you know what they say..."

"The only fixer-upper fixer that can fix a fixer-upper is true love!" Bulda finished enthusiastically.

Kristoff groaned, smacking a hand down his face. Sure, he loved them, but his family was embarrassing – especially with the whole 'fixer-upper' thing. How was he a fixer-upper? They were trolls! Rolling his eyes, he retorted, "Look, I do like Anna. And she is going to be fine after what happened. But it wasn't me that healed her in the end, alright?"

"Ah... the fiancée, huh? You didn't get him out of the way?"

The blond scoffed, shaking his head. "About that..."

Quickly, he retold the accounts of the events that happened after he left; how he rode Sven across a frozen tundra to meet Anna after realizing that he could be her true love, and vice versa, how Hans wasn't anything like Anna perceived him to be and attempted to murder both sisters to seize the throne, and how the princess sacrificed herself to save the Queen – only for that to become her act of true love, and thawed out with the rest of the surrounding ice.

The trolls chattered on after he told the story, curious questions aimed at him all at once.

"How fast did you run?! How cold was it?"

"There's no more winter? I did see it all thaw out...!"

"Hans was a bad guy?"

But one deep voice ran out among the chirps of the tinier trolls. It was Grand Pabbie, making his way to the center of the plain. The rest of the trolls quieted at the sight of the head of the tribe, nodding towards him to speak.

"Kristoff, did I hear correctly? Anna has survived her heart's plague? And it was an act of true love towards Elsa that saved her?"

"Yeah," the man replied with a nod of his own. "She's better now. The love she has for her sister is strong." He smiled a little, happy that everything turned out okay in the end.

Well, for most of them.

Pabbie seemed to sense that something was wrong – or at least, that something was missing. Given that Kristoff had come back to the mountains, perhaps he had realized that if things were okay, he'd probably stay with Anna in the castle? Or maybe it was Kristoff's expression; he couldn't imagine that the grimace he was wearing was particularly comforting of things being alright.

"What's the matter, Kristoff? What is it you need help with?"

Damn. How'd he always do that? It happened all the time, growing up; every time Kristoff found he had a problem – the ice wasn't selling, Sven was eating the whole carrot and leaving him with nothing, he was growing hair in places (yikes, puberty) – Grand Pabbie always sensed it and asked that same question.

So, like always, the blond sat down in the middle of the clearing, ready to spill his heart out to the troll he considered a grandfather.

"It's... It's that guy. Hans. Anna's fiancée. Er... ex-fiancée now. He's... Ah, I don't even know why I'm telling you this." Suddenly, Kristoff felt like he was getting cold feet (no sick pun intended). He'd travelled all the way up the mountain, per Anna's request, to ask a troll about a way to treat the spoiled brat prince that was currently bundled up in one of the castle's rooms.

It was weird to take a step back and look at things.

Anyway, he paused and looked at Pabbie, a hesitant gleam in his eyes. The troll merely shook his head and smiled gently, offering a hand and patting Kristoff on the shoulder.

"It is alright. You know everything has a solution."

"Yeah... Yeah, I know the solution already..." the blond sighed, continuing, "Elsa's magic... it pierced him in the heart."

Pabbie's stony expression grew even more serious, as he seemed to understand the dire situation at hand. "I see..."

"We have him in the castle right now. I don't know if he's awake yet or anything, but... his hair did the thing. The same as Anna's. And I know it'll get worse – soon it'll be completely white, and then he'll freeze over..."

"Unless an act of true love saves him," the troll interrupted, giving a nod. "But you do not think this man is capable of loving, or being loved. Is that the problem?"

Kristoff nodded. "Anna sent me up here to ask if you could help."

"I cannot. You know the heart is difficult to mend. Had it'd been the head..."

"I know, I know. The head can be persuaded."

"Very good," Pabbie replied with a low chuckle. "I knew you were listening when we treated Anna for the first time, when you both were children."

The man's eyes widened. That was – that had been Anna, all those years ago? He supposed it made sense; not many other children were enchanted like Elsa was, nor had such platinum-blond hair. And not many little girls had a streak of white in their ginger-colored hair, either...

But still! That was... Anna? And Elsa? And the King and Queen of Arendelle?

"Whoa," he breathed, taken aback from the statement. "Uhh... Well, I – Is there anything that I can tell Anna?"

Pabbie sighed. "I cannot help the man, Kristoff. If his heart truly is frozen, inside and out, then there is no hope for him. It is... merely up to him, now, to decide if that is the case."

"Literally frozen?"

Hans's eyes narrowed at her statement, shifting his position on that uncomfortable couch ever-so-slightly. Her words implied something, something definitely beyond a snipe at his cold personality. Hell, it probably wasn't even about how cruel he was to her in the end, how he left her to die and attempted to murder his sister.

But literally? That was impossible, wasn't it?

Unless...

"What do you mean, literally?"

His voice was as frosty as his body, and he swore he saw puffs of his breath leave his mouth. Was it really that cold? Then again, Elsa's powers had seized Arendelle, freezing everything in place as she grieved. But it seemed that in the end, there was no need to grieve.

If Anna was here, now, what was it like outside?

Before listening to or watching the girl for an answer, Hans craned his neck around the back of the couch, grunting pitifully as he shifted his freezing body, attempting to keep as many blankets as he could on him for now. It was probably pathetic-looking, and the prince's pride took a few strikes from the situation, but he had no choice. He had to know – what was the weather like outside? Was it storming with ice whipping about again? Was it completely frozen over? Was the snow even still there?

Why wouldn't it be there? Elsa didn't know how to stop it – she said, back in the dungeon, that she couldn't. She didn't know how. So for it all to suddenly thaw out didn't make any sense.

"Hans-" Anna's quiet voice squeaked nearby, slight exasperation and... something else in her tone. But he couldn't place it, nor did he care to at the moment.

"Shut up," he hissed under his breath in response, wrenching himself to a sitting position and shakily got to his feet. With a few deep breaths, he forced his trembling legs to move, limping over to the window to draw the curtains.

His unstable, cuffed hands latched onto the fabric, and he attempted to pull at it, only to fall to his knees in a huff. Why was he so weak all of a sudden? Had he hit his head that hard?

Tinier hands were on his shoulders, and Hans shivered at the touch; damn it, what was wrong with him? Why wasn't his body moving the way his mind commanded it to? He attempted to stand up once more, nearly falling again but managing to keep his balance long enough to cling to the curtains.

Pathetic, he hissed to himself. This was what had become of Prince Hans?

Again, Anna's grating voice sounded in the small room, booming at him as the beginnings of a headache closed in on him. "Hans, don't-!"

"Be quiet!"

She flinched, and he immediately felt his mouth open, but no words escaped his lips. Almost instinctively, he was ready to apologize for offending a lady, a princess no less, but in truth, he couldn't care less. It was all fake, just like everything else; he was a desperate prince with a charming face and smooth, honeyed words. Apologizing for making her wince at the volume of his voice wouldn't be practical, given that she knew his true self. Of course, it wasn't like him to yell anyway. It wasn't princely, it wasn't polite, it wasn't him. He wasn't a beast, at least. But at the current moment, his mask had cracked; he merely had to reach the outside, to see what was going on, and nothing was about to stop him – not even his own pride or composure. With another deep sigh, he shoved the fabric away, taking a long look out at Arendelle.

It was... colorful.

Green, and yellow, and red, and so many colors – so many colors that weren't white. There was no white, none whatsoever; the ships were not frozen in place, but sailing across the deep cerulean water. Children danced in the streets, grasping flowers with petals of gold in their tiny fingers. Mothers watched them play, discarding the long cloak Hans had given them when things were frozen over to reveal bright purple dresses. So many happy faces, so bright and full of such life – Hans had nearly forgotten what Arendelle looked like when he first arrived.

It was just so... overwhelmingly inviting. Dogs barked, people laughed, couples kissed, children giggled.

Everything was alive again.

That brought a problem, of course; if the kingdom had been thawed out, if Elsa had managed to figure out how to do it herself, and if everything was warm again... Why was he still so cold? Why was he locked in a room with handcuffs and blankets and a fire, instead of being put on a ship back to the Southern Isles to await trial?

"Love thawed Elsa's winter," Anna explained, giving a warm, gentle gaze towards her kingdom outside.

Hans screwed his eyes shut for a moment, unable to believe any of this. Arendelle was saved by someone other than the brave prince. Hans's plans went up in flames – or, in ice in this case – and he was now seen as a villain rather than the hero he wanted to be.

And to make matters worse, he couldn't stop shivering.

"A-Anna..." he heard himself mumble, "What happened to me?" His voice sounded so unbearably unlike him, so quiet and hoarse, that if he hadn't seen his lips move in his reflection in the window, he wouldn't have thought he'd even said it.

The girl silently approached him, her reflection showing nearby, staring back directly at him, but not catching his gaze (perhaps on purpose).

"Hans..." Mirror-Anna's mouth moved, and he finally noticed how unsure her expression was. Eyebrows scrunched and lips pressed together into a thin line, her eyes darted about, avoiding his at all costs. "Hans, you were shot with Elsa's magic. Through your heart."

For a moment, he swore he hadn't heard her correctly. He blinked, narrowed green eyes muddied with confusion, as his lips drew open to allow a question through. However, no such question came, and he closed his mouth once more, thinking it over.

It just seemed so... preposterous to him. Of course, in actuality, it made perfect sense – he was freezing in this warmed room (in summer, no less), he'd been numb for so long laying on that ice, and Anna looked so hesitant to tell him the truth.

Though it made sense, he couldn't believe it, merely because he didn't want to.

"No, that's..." he stammered, mouth agape once more, "That can't be possible! When you froze over, I was just... pushed backwards. By some force, I don't know – I remember that, though."

"Y-... yes, you were sent backwards. But it was Elsa's magic, and it pierced your hear-"

He scoffed, shaking his head. This was ridiculous. He must have a fever, nothing more – it was because of being on the ice for so long. "And you were there to witness it, I suppose? I didn't realize you were able to see as a solid piece of ice, Anna."

She shook her head. "No, Hans. I didn't see it. But..." Her hand instantly went up to one of her braids, twirling the strands of hair between her index finger and thumb, humming to herself in thought. For the longest while, she simply stared at the ginger strands, almost as if she wasn't used to them being there.

He stood in that spot by the window, albeit leaning heavily on the curtains, waiting for her to continue.

Finally, her gaze snapped back up to him and the only explanation for her long silence she had was, "I wasn't kissed by a troll."

...What?

He blinked, his own features twisting in confusion. What was she talking about?

"Don't you remember?" The girl's gaze fell once more, her hand crossing over her body to clutch at her other arm. A very nervous position, Hans noted – and he knew a lot about body language (as his had to be perfect and ideal for the situation at all times). "In the garden."

Hans merely rolled his eyes. "If you think what I said to you back then was genuine, I assure you, it was-"

"That's not it!" she practically yelled, crossing her arms and glaring towards him. "Honestly, not everything is about you!"

...now that was a laugh. Nothing had ever been about him. All his life, it had been about his older brothers. The Southern Isles was their kingdom, not his. Nothing was his – it would never be his, no matter how much he wished. He would not be heard or given what he wanted, so he needed to seize things for himself.

But he wouldn't even grace her with a response; frankly, she didn't deserve one. If she thought that sort of talk was going to unsettle him, or at least make him regret snarking at her in the first place, she would be sadly mistaken.

In any case, he continued, "I still don't know what you're talking about."

With a very un-princess-like groan, she replied, "In the garden! You said you liked my hair streak... thing. The white? And I said I was born with it, that I dreamt I'd been kissed by a troll. How can you not remember that? Did you hit your head or something?"

Narrowing his eyes, he snapped, "Yes." Honestly, how ignorant could she be? With her sloppy routines and choice of words, he knew she wasn't meant for the throne from the moment he saw her, but he figured he'd be able to control Arendelle as King and have the Queen fade quietly into the background.

But even she seemed to realize she'd said something insensitive, for her eyes widened. "O-oh. Oh, gosh, that's right... You did, huh?"

Obviously. But he merely nodded, indicating for her to continue.

Brushing a braid behind her ear, she murmured, "Well... That streak isn't here anymore, as you can see. I was healed by an act of true love. I sacrificed myself for Elsa because I love her."

Ah, yes. Love. Hans was the first intended initiator of 'true love,' but had stopped short of kissing her in the end. And who could blame him? It wouldn't have worked, anyway; why give false hope to the poor, dying girl any longer than he needed to? He may have used her from the start, but even that seemed a little cruel to taunt someone who was about to perish.

Hans had more manners than that.

Anyway, he quirked a brow and replied, "So what does your hair have to do with what happened to me?"

Anna chewed on her bottom lip nervously, raising an arm to tap her fingers against the glass of the window they were both gazing out of. "Look," she whispered, the same damn pity in those blue irises as he'd seen earlier. "Look at your reflection."

"What?" He'd seen it before, of course – he didn't look the best, clearly, with his ragged clothes covered with overlapping blankets and his eyes sunken in from possible exhaustion and the sickness he was certain he had. But besides those, and the way his expression seemed so pitiful, what else was concerning?

And then, after much too long, he noticed the streak of white in his hair, and it all connected at once.

"Her skin was ice, her hair turned white..."

"You froze her heart!"

The backlash of the clarity was too much; his legs crumbled under him instantly, and he registered how strangely warm the floor was as his world went black.