***Thanks for supporting and following guys! Sorry for a longer wait, but this is a lengthier chapter and I've been in training pretty hard for sports. Hoping to get a new chapter out in a couple days though! Thanks again!

I was so ready to get some answers, to finally see who I was and why I was this way, this curse of destruction that I am forced to bear. But, before I could say another thing other than my name, my body remembered all the fire I had exerted earlier, and it's like, "Hey man you wanna talk to this new person that could possibly be a solution to your existence? That's cool. You sleep now." and I blacked out, face-planting in the snow I had just landed in.

When I came to, I was laying down on my back, freezing on the icy ground. Elsa, looking worried, was standing over me, holding a chunk of ice wrapped in some torn clothing. With an uneasy look on her face, she put the ice on my forehead, trying to relieve the throbbing headache I had. As my eyes fluttered open, I noticed the sun peaking over the mountains. I had been out for quite a few hours. Seeing I was awake, Elsa's eyes widened and helped me sit up. My whole body ached from the sheer mass of power it had generated in the chase. In a worried tone, Elsa asked, "Are you okay? We landed and I wasn't sure if you had hit your head, and I'm not a doctor," she rambled on, but at the end just said, relieved, "I'm just glad you're alive. That would've been awful if you had died."

"Yeah that would've complicated things a bit," I agreed, finally getting a good look at this interesting stranger. I guess it was the adrenaline or the darkness earlier, but I now realized how beautiful she was. There's cute, and then there's pretty, but this girl was stunning. Tall, skinny frame, extremely light blonde hair, and big blue eyes. Her eyes were like a lake, about to freeze before winter, not so much as to retain it's darkness, but just enough so it's light to foreshadow it's inevitable, icy future.

Elsa smirked at my earlier comment, and helped me to my feet. She said, "Those horsemen haven't found us yet, I doubt that they've even caught up."

Man, I must've flown pretty far if they hadn't gotten to us yet. "How long has it been since we crashed?" I asked, inspecting our surroundings. We were still encompassed by mountains, but just a few hundred feet from where we crashed was the edge of the gorge that I had saw us passing earlier.

"A few hours, maybe three. You were out for quite some time." she responded. I shakily walked over to the cliff, peering down. The dropoff was huge, at least six hundred feet. At the bottom of the a craggy, cold canyon was a river, long frozen from a cold winter. There was no way that Restauga's mounted forces could get across this. " Why were those men after you?" Elsa questioned.

"It's a long story, not one I like to talk about," I said quickly. "Let's just say I'm not exactly welcome back home." I looked over to her. She looked a bit hurt that I wouldn't indulge her, but if I did tell her then there's no way that she'd ever look at me as a human being again. I'm sure she respects secrets, she probably had a lot to keep with her own gifts.

Almost as soon as we started talking about them, the mountain on the other side of the gorge had an entire division of men riding down it. "Speak of the devil." I said. Elsa looked over at me worriedly, but I paid her no attention. My eyes were focused on the leader of the unit that was advancing towards us, none other than the Paladin of Restauga himself. My jaw clenched. Clad in all white iron armor, the young captain stopped at the edge of the opposite side of the impasse, deciding what he was going to do next. Out of options, he decided that the only thing was to yell at me. He dismounted his steed, shaking his fist at me.

"Jeram!" he called. "You know you can't run forever! We'll never stop chasing you!"

I clenched my fists."Captain, chasing me is like trying to catch smoke. You can try and seize it as much as you want, but no matter how hard you try, it always manages to slip through your fingers."

The man smirked. "Oh, but Jeram, haven't you heard? We're not here to catch you," He brought out a scroll and unrolled it. They were orders from my father, the king. He started reading. "By order of His Majesty the King, Prince Jeram Igneal is hereby sentenced to death, by any means necessary." The captain repeated the phrase. "By any means necessary."

Elsa turned to me. "Prince?" she asked, shocked. I responded by stepping in between her and Restauga's forces, the last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt or God forbid killed by people she isn't even involved with.

"So what do you say, brother? You want to come and die as a criminal at home, or get slayed like an animal here?" he called over.

"Jeral, frostbite poses a greater threat to me than you. Last time I checked, there isn't a horse alive that can jump a hundred feet across a gorge." I replied.

"Have it your way." And with a smug grin, he raised his sword, and a volley of arrows were released into the open, blue sky. Thinking that this was the end, I stared at my traitor of a brother, a wide, evil grin on his face. Long ago we were the best of friends, nothing could keep us apart. But, as my powers had started to develop, I posed a greater and greater threat to him, I was removed from his room, and most contact with other people was limited at best. As I accepted the fact that he had won, Elsa dashed in front of me, creating a barrier of ice with her magic. It quickly froze to protect us from any pointed projectile shot at us. Most of the arrows skidded off of the slippery ice, but few sunk a few inches into the thick sheet of packed, frozen barricade. I quickly took one and broke the tip off, leaving the weapon only a half of a foot long in my hand. I concealed it so Jeral couldn't suspect what I was about to do.

I turned to the sorceress next to me. "That was amazing Elsa, thank you." She smiled at me, proud of saving a life. As soon as the men had exhausted their arrow supply, Elsa shrank down the wall until it was eventually as if it was never there. I looked at Jeral again, his expression had changed from satisfied to utterly baffled.

"How did you-" he muttered, in shock.

"It was me, you pompous bastard." called Elsa. I turned my head, surprised she had that in her. "You're leading troops on Arendelle land, and last time I checked that can be counted as a notion of war. I also recall that Restauga doesn't have the largest military, and, unfortunately for you, we do. So if I were you, I'd take your little pony gang and trot back to your desert where all you have to fight is scorpions." I looked at her again, wide eyed, even more surprised. "Daaaaang." I thought. "This girl got some serious fire in her."

Jeral, taken aback, said in reply, "And who might you be to decide the notions of war?"

Elsa straightened up her posture. "The Queen of Arendelle." she said with dignity.

Jeral, intimidated and just as astonished as I was, gave the order to turn and leave. Just as he mounted his horse and began to retreat, I threw the arrow half that I had broken off towards him like a tomahawk. I didn't want to hit him, but annoy him, so I, being a master of throwing knives, aimed for the strap of his saddle that kept him on top of his horse. As it severed, he flipped over and fell, face-first in the snow. Elsa first gasped when she saw I threw it, but started cracking up when she saw what I had actually done. I smiled and looked over at her grinning face. My brother got out of the snow, red-faced, and called,

"This isn't over Jeram! We will come for you!"

I managed to talk in between laughs. "I look forward to it! I always love embarrassing my little brother." I saw him turn and leave, mounted bareback on his stallion. The sight reminded me a lot of a dog with a tail between it's legs.

Elsa, still beaming from the earlier conversation, observed the retreat, saying, "I think that went well, don't you?"

I looked at her, still flabbergasted that I was in the presence of the queen. She caught me staring, my jaw hanging in disbelief of the coincidence of this. I turned and looked at the trodden snow and the hind tails of horses in the distance. Anger soon trumped my curiosity about her, and now I wished my kid brother would come back so I could beat the crap out of him. "It's never good when you've been sentenced to death," I said, not mad at her but she could definitely see that I wasn't in my previous, innocent mood.

"Don't worry, Arendelle is safe. I don't think they'll be coming back anytime soon." she replied in an attempt to comfort me. She put her hand on my shoulder. My rage boiled down to a simmer, enough so I could at least engage in an intelligent conversation.

I chuckled. "If there's one thing that man has, it's persistence. When he says that he's going to do something, he'll do it or die trying. I reckon we haven't seen the last of him. But until then I should be going as far away from here as possible, I don't want to get Arendelle involved in this."

"I think we're already involved. I threatened and insulted the prince, even if you aren't here, they'll raid us on the way to get to you." she replied. I was impressed with her knowledge of war and tendencies of stupid siblings.

"Well I guess I have no choice but to stay and make sure they don't do that." I said.

"Yup." she agreed triumphantly. "Come on, I'll lead you back to the palace." she turned and started going down the horse path that I had seen from the ridge last night. I picked up my staff from the ground and started trailing after her.

"Did you walk all the way out here? Don't you have a horse?" I asked.

"I did, but it got spooked about fifty miles out here, threw me off, and ran away. I couldn't find him, but his hoofprints were leading in the direction of home, so at least that's good. Ever since, I've just been trying to get back. Last night was my first day trying to return." She seemed exhausted. Her fair hair was tangled and unruly, she had bags under her eyes from being awake all night, taking care of me. I knew she wasn't saying so as she walked, but I could tell.

"I think we should stop for now, Elsa. You look drained." I told her.

"We can rest when we get back to the castle." she replied, trudging through the knee-deep snow that didn't seem to be bothering her. I ran out in front of her, grabbing her shoulders, and looking into her eyes with a serious expression.

"Elsa, the palace will still be there in a few hours. Get some rest. We'll move a lot faster when you're a hundred percent."

Droopy eyed, the queen went over to the side of the path underneath a pine tree. She sat down, fixed her garments in a comfortable position, then turned on her side to slumber. With a flick of her wrist, a wall of ice sprang up, separating us. I decided she deserved her privacy, after all she was royalty sleeping in the woods.

I walked over about ten feet by the ice-tent that Elsa had made, gathered a few logs surrounding the pine tree, sat down, and ignited the wood. I was struggling to keep warm in this environment, especially now since I had overused my powers earlier. The snow was taking its toll. Once I started to uncontrollably shiver, I extended my arm and made the fire even larger, huddling in what little clothes I had. I had to keep warm, I didn't want to worry my counterpart that lay nearby.

I sat there, thinking over where I was a few days ago, in my prison, and where I am now. I'm with someone I can actually relate to, talk to, and hopefully cultivate a friendship with. It's been so long since I had made a friend that I wasn't bludgeoning. I looked up at the morning sun. Other people say that it hurts their eyes to look at it, but it's never bothered me. It probably has something to do with my invulnerability to fire. Soon, I was yet again lost in my thoughts. The sun burned so bright, so magnificently, but was always alone, hanging above this Earth to sustain us.

I must've spaced out or fallen asleep or something because when I snapped back to reality, the ice tent was slowly melting. Elsa stood next to me. "Ready?" she asked perkily. She must be feeling a lot more rested.

"You tell me, are you going to fall asleep on the way there?" I asked, smirking. She gave a grin too.

"Yeah that rest was a good idea." she replied, still a bit groggy from just waking up. She stretched, and said, "Okay it's this way to the castle." I saw her starting off in the same direction we were headed in earlier today. I jogged to catch up with her.

"How long do you think it'll be until we get there?" I questioned.

"Well, I had hiked about ten miles in that day, but you blasted us for God knows how far, so I really don't know. It could be today or a week from now." she said, looking straight ahead with concentration, no doubt to try and get her bearings.

"It's alright," I told her. "There's worse things that could happen." She looked over at me and smiled.