A/N: You don't know how excited I am to share this chapter. May contain disturbing scenes (15 age rating as a guideline.) The poems are my own. :)
Chapter seven
Wicked soul
.
In and out
Count to ten
You are reborn
All over again
.
"Stop it!" Hans cried. He was Eleven years old.
His brother Andersen was Sixteen years old. He was the second youngest of thirteen. He had the same fiery red hair as him, the same green eyes, only his where flecked with gold that gleamed predator-like in the candle light.
Andersen was destroying Hans' favourite book.
"Stop it! Please!" Hans pleaded, tears streaming down his cheeks. His eyes where blown huge with fright and distress, powerless as his brothers long fingers tore away page after page.
Rippp
Rippp
Rippp
Andersen sniggered. "You're pathetic, you know? Mother is the only person who likes you. You can't even get real friends, so you just read this garbage."
Hans watched the pages flutter to the ground, silent and pale.
"You are nothing." Andersen sneered.
Something broke inside Hans then, something at his very core. It was as if his soul was like a twig, snapped in two, and instead of pain he simply felt anger. His brother laughed as Hans growled, small fists balling up inside his tweed jacket sleeves.
Hans saw the double candlestick, propped onto the table in the hall. The flames seemed to beckon him, and before he knew what he was doing, Hans ran over and grabbed it by it's brass middle. Wax dripped down onto his childish fingers, scalding them. He didn't seem to feel it, being extremely one-track minded in that moment. He glared at his brother, who only begun to laugh harder at the little boy who barely seemed intimidating in his oversized jacket.
Andersen scrunched up a page in one hand and grinned. It was an awful, menacing grin, cast into shadows by the candle.
Hans ran at him... and thrust the flames into his cheek.
There was a disturbing hiss.
Andersen screamed.
Hans kept going, deaf to his brothers pleading, pushing the slick, melting sticks into his skin.
"HANS!" Cried a female voice from the other end of the hall. It was his mother. She sounded absolutely furious. Her delicate voice had distorted into an ugly sharpness, no longer the sweet, smooth pitch that would sing him to sleep.
The small boy looked up, terrified as he registered what he'd just done. The deformed candles dropped from his fingers, now extinguished, and rolled across the floor over his maimed book pages. Andersen begun to cry, clawing at his face which was blistering horrifically.
A navy satin skirt obscured Hans' view momentarily, swishing past his ankles. He saw The Queen kneel on the floor, her back to him, cradling her second youngest son.
"I'm sorry." Hans whimpered, his own tears appearing.
His mother turned and looked at him with piercing emerald eyes. She didn't look angry... just sad. Somehow that was worse.
"Oh, Hans." She breathed.
He could see Andersen writhing.
Hans couldn't stand there any longer, or he would drown within that sorrowful, disappointed gaze and break.
The youngest Prince of The Southern Isles turned and sprinted, his heart hammering in his ears all the way up to his room.
.
Twelve months later
Hans was pouting.
Sat on his bed, he gazed longingly across the room to the balcony windows overlooking the grounds from his tower bedroom. The sky was a deep blue.
(blue, like navy satin swishing in his view)
The stars blinked across it.
From below, sounds of polished laughter and hushed chatter rose amongst the playing of a violin. He could almost smell the atmosphere, the rich wines, the aroma of chocolate mingled with tobacco. There might even be princesses there, lovely in all their finery and ringing laughter.
But Hans wasn't allowed to join his eldest brothers wedding party. The royal physician had advised against it, deeming Hans to be still "Too emotionally sensitive and traumatised to be around his brothers, or large crowds for that matter. Certainly not sweet princesses."
Andersen had smirked across the room at him, his right cheek a grotesque red entanglement of skin. Hans wondered if that's why he smirked rather than grinned like he used too - because it pained him.
Hans didn't regret what he'd done. He only regretted that his Mother saw him do it.
His brothers had never been very kind to him. Mother told him it was because he was innocent. Hans didn't really get this at the time, on account he was only five when she said it. He nodded anyway, convinced his mothers words where the universal truth.
His father died when he was born.
Hans thought maybe that's really why they hated him. Unlucky thirteen, caused his father to perish on sight.
Because they did. They hated him. He saw it in their eyes. Not that his father was that great a king, having three wives and not even bothering to divorce before he went ahead and made more unfortunate princes. But he supposed he was their father.
Hans' mother loved him the most of all her five children.
(Had loved him. Now he was a disappointment.)
She'd called him her little comfort. Hans figured out later that she meant comfort in her husbands death.
But younger Hans had took advantage of this now and then - to the irritation of his brothers. If they hated me, I'll hate them back, he'd concluded with the logic of a child. So whenever he felt particularity victimised, he set them up, knowing full well the Queen would never believe her sweet little Hans to be the culprit. He charmed his way out of every bad situation.
Not anymore.
Suddenly full of ire, Hans stood and crossed the room with small, precise steps. He stopped at the windows and looked out, watching the trees rustle in the December gale. Saturday, two weeks from now, would be his Twelfth birthday. He'd be old enough to start learning the proper things from his tutors. Algebra, sword fighting... how to run a country. Not that it would ever come in handy, certainly not while he was stuck in his room unable to do anything about his position. It was all that he knew.
He suddenly had the desire to escape. Giddy, Hans lifted the window off its latch at thew the huge glass panes apart. An abnormally bitter-cold wind hit his face. It almost hurt. Grabbing his cloak and riding boots, Hans resolved to step onto the balcony. To his left, a small flight of stone steps led down onto the lower roof. They crumbled a little under his feet but he felt no fear. He'd done this before.
Once he reached the roof he climbed over the stone barricade and used the veranda in the Garden below in order to reach the ground. The grass was wet with rain, but it was warm as always. He found it odd, recalling the freezing wind up in his room, but having skipped most of his geography lessons he hadn't the sharpest mind when it came to weather. He thought 'maybe it was colder up there' and moved on, getting on his hands and knees to crawl through a gap in the neatly cut hedges.
Then he stood up and ran, twigs in his hair, black cloak flying behind him. The castle grounds where wide and expansive, going downhill. He laughed as he sped down the wet slope and was utterly overjoyed when it begun to snow lightly. It wouldn't settle, it was too warm, but Hans could still catch the snowflakes in his mouth.
Enamoured by the snow and his joy, Hans did not think of the advice he'd once be given. From his Mother. In a time when no one thought he was a maniac.
Never go into the woods below the castle at night.
Running at full speed, he went into the woods below the castle. At night.
Next thing he knew, he was quite lost.
There was nothing scary about the woods. They where just regular woods, tall trees and leafy grounds, rabbits or badgers peering out now and then. That's what he'd thought, all arrogant and smug, as he wandered through them that night. The moonlight was a guide, shining down a path for him to tread. He was lucky it was a cloudless tonight, because otherwise he'd be irrevocably lost.
He picked up a stick and held it high like a sword.
It wasn't scary.
Until he saw her.
She was hovering a meter off the ground, suspended above a large, mud-stained rock. Vines grew up the trees beside her; tangled, snarled, knotted vines that reminded him of his brothers face. Her hair was slick black, that too coated in mud and entangled with thorns. She donned a dress of dirty white, which hung past her feet and dissolved into the air.
Hans forgot how to breathe.
('You must never be wicked. And you must never go into the woods below the castle at night. You might meet Moira.')
Her filthy arms extended towards him. Her eyes where bright white, blinding, staring straight into him.
('Who's that mamma?')
('She's a witch. She will punish you if you are not careful, my little comfort')
Moira spoke. Her words where like splintering wood in his ears.
"Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. Thirteen in line to the Throne."
Hans was shaking uncontrollably. He tried to run but found his feet where literally rooted to the ground, with thick vines curled around his ankles.
('Where did she come from? Can't you make her go away?')
('Hush now, don't get hysterical. Some things are beyond my reach, but as long as you are good and stay away from the woods, everything will be okay.')
"W-what do you want?' Hans choked.
She ignored him. "You have done great evil for such a small boy."
He shook his head, tears spilling over his lashes. "No-no you're wrong. I haven't!"
"Liar."
Her gaze was penetrating. She knew the truth. She knew all his truths, all his deepest fears, and there was no running from her. The snow had ceased and a muggy dampness filled the air, seeping through his skin and making him squirm.
('Okay, I promise, Mamma. I will always be good.')
"You will be punished for your wicked soul."
"Please... don't hurt me!"
As he cried these words, a surge of fire erupted from her screaming face and swallowed him. It seemed to fill his veins and liquefy in his heart. His skin became sodden with sweat as the heat escalated. I'm going to die, he thought, and he fell on his knees, tears rushing down his face.
The fire crawled into his bones as he cried out in agony.
...
Green eyes opened to pitch black. The moon was gone.
So was the Witch.
Hans was on his back. He could feel the mud beneath him, soaking through his cloak and shorts, unpleasant against his legs. With a squelch, he pulled himself upright.
Am I dead? He thought.
He flexed his gloved hands. No doubt the pure white cotton would be caked in mud, too. Hans begun to peel them off, scrunching his nose at the feel of it. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. The dampness was gone too, leaving only the luke-warm air of the Southern Isles winter.
He didn't feel dead, but then again, how would he know what that felt like?
Hans balled up the gloves and shoved them in his pocket. He rose to his feet, almost slipping up on the mud. He didn't remember it being this muddy before, either. There was absolutely no light. He squinted into the nothing, hoping his eyes might adjust, or that some miraculous instance would occur and save him. He was badly shaken and wished more than anything to be back in his bedroom, reading or making paper air planes, anything anything but here.
Stumbling forward, Hans reached out to find a tree. Oddly enough, there weren't any. He was certain that he'd been stood right next to one when... she appeared.
His heart rate picked up at the thought, tremors running through his entire body. He was terrified and alone and it was dark and he had been punished.
Maybe this was the punishment, he thought, his heart rate increasing further until he felt like a hummingbird. He was lost forever in perpetual darkness. He would never see his home again or his Mother, or ride Sitron across the fields until sunset.
His fear and sorrow became greater and greater until something miraculous did happen.
Fire.
Fire erupted from his hands.
Fire, as bright as Moira's eyes, dancing in the palms of the youngest Prince of the Southern Isles.
The darkness was broken, and that's when he realised he was not standing in mud, but sodden black ash.
And in the large circle which he stood...
Every tree was reduced to smithereens.
...
A curse. It's a curse.
Hans ran to the edge of the tree line, fire blazing from his hands. As soon as he stepped within it, the moon came back like a light bulb. His fire begun to catch onto his cloak and he panicked, running madly around until he saw a puddle from the earlier rain, and dunked his hands into it. In it's reflection, his face was streaked with ash.
(There was a disturbing hiss)
He stumbled back home, panting and dripping with sweat, stuffed his singed cloak under his bed, scrubbed madly at his face and legs, all as a single thought ran through his head.
No one can know.
.
His Twelfth birthday was awful.
Sitting at the end of a long dinner table, Hans wished he could vanish every time someone mentioned his 'issues'. Which was about every five minutes.
The royal physician had ever so kindly allowed him to have his usual birthday meal (as long as he was watched by guards the entire time, of course.)
His brothers where their usual selves, fighting over chicken drumsticks and throwing food at one another when the Queen wasn't looking. Andersen sat five seats away from him, his bad cheek toward him - probably on purpose, Hans thought, bitterly.
His Mother sat at the far end. She gave him sad, almost pitying looks the entire time, bright eyes drooping. Hans fidgeted through his meal, constantly adjusting his gloves and fearing the worst; that he would erupt.
He tried to stay stoic, having discerned that his fear had made the fire flare up that night in the woods. Hans spent hours in his room after that, doing everything to put the event from his mind. He convinced himself that was another Hans back there, and what remained was a Prince who had done nothing wrong, a charming, perfect Prince. It seemed to work, being someone else. Rebirth.
The meal was rather uneventful, and Hans started to get bored around the third course, flicking balls of his torn up napkin at Edward, The eleventh in line. He was an absolute dimwit. Couldn't figure out where they where coming from, at all.
Then, at two-thirty he over heard a servant say to another,
"Bring 'im the cake, poor things going mad!"
And they brought it on a silver platter.
It was a two layered, cream filled chocolate cake from Arendelle. On any other day, Hans would've been eager to get the knife and cut it so he could scoff down heaven immediately. Everyone knew chocolate from Arendelle was the best.
Except now-a-days the name was kind of... tainted.
"Careful, Hans. If you eat that you might have to marry Princess Elsa." One of his brothers said.
The table erupted with laughter. They where a wolf pack now that Mother had gone. She had left the room earlier, on account of a migraine. The Queen seemed to be getting these quite frequently as of late.
"What?" Hans answered moodily. "Elsa will be the Queen. If I marry her, I'll be the king of the worlds best chocolate." He smiled.
This only induced further roaring laughter.
"Yeah, alright, Hans!" Chuckled Heinrich, the Fifth in line. "You're a cute little bastard." He wasn't one of the worst.
"More like an ugly idiot." Sneered Tomas, the Seventh in line. He wasn't one of the wittiest.
"Shut up, the lot of you. Let him enjoy his cake." That was Yorik, the eldest, whose cruelty had faded with wisdom and marriage. Although he was still spiteful when he didn't feel merciful. He sat with a book perched on his lap.
Hans still didn't understand the joke, and had even forgotten about his fire trying to figure it out. His cake remained untouched as he peered over it.
"I don't get what's so funny. What's wrong with Princess Elsa?"
All thirteen eyes blinked back at him in shock.
"Don't you remember, lad? What Mother told you on Wednesday?" Edgar, Third in line.
Hans shook his head. Wednesday had been the holiday festival in town and Hans hardly heard a word of what anyone spoke after they actually said he could attend. He spent half of his money on gingerbread houses.
"They locked her in." Said Edgar, as if he were telling a ghost story. "She hasn't had a visitor for months nor has anyone seen head or tail of her."
"Why? Is she sick?" Asked Hans, innocently.
Several of his brothers shot each other looks. No one seemed to want to tell him, some even seemed unsure of the reason, and he thought he'd have to go ask Mother to clear it up - as now curiosity had grabbed him and Hans would rather know than not.
"No."
The table fell silent.
Andersen had spoken. He rarely did that after the incident, on account of the pain it caused. The sound of his voice was somewhat eerie to hear.
His dead gaze was unwavering as he looked at Hans. One of his hands held tight onto his culturally knife, which flashed in the light.
"She injured her sibling."
Hans swallowed, his hands starting to shake under the table. Those gleaming, predator eyes, stared across at him like... no, I don't want to think of that.
"That's just a rumour, Andy." Said Tomas. "She's probably wacko like Hansy over there, though."
More laughter. Yorik gave him a pitying look, like Mother. Hans flushed, dropping his gaze to the peach table-cloth and screwing up his nose. He flexed his fingers, easing the tension.
"They say she's got a wicked soul." Andersen drawled with a whinch. The brothers went quiet again, beginning to share a mutual look of fear.
A whisper: "I don't know about everyone else...but he's freaking me the hell out,"
Hans narrowed his eyes toward Andersen. "You can't say that about someone you've never met before."
He shrugged. "I didn't. I just heard in it town."
"See!" Hollered Julian, Sixth in line. "Bunch of rumours. I heard one that called her the Ice Princess!"
"Yeah right!" Tomas again. "That's like that stupid Moira story Mother used to tell us."
The laughter seemed deafening to Hans, but all he could think of was that name. Moira.
His fingers twitched.
No.
Don't think of that.
They're wrong.
NO.
"NO!" He shrieked, although it was barely heard through the chaos. A few of his brothers lifted their heads.
"What's wrong with Hansy?"
He was feeling the hot.
"I don't know. He's an odd child."
Burning.
"I was only kidding about the cake Hans."
Scorching.
"We know you could never marry an Arendelle Princess, let alone marry into a throne."
Blazing.
"YOU'RE WRONG."
For the third time that afternoon, the entire table fell silent. All eyes where on Hans. He had climbed on his chair and was breathing heavily, hands balled up to contain the fire (this time above proper length sleeves belonging to a rather prim, fitted tailcoat he'd received as a gift from his uncle.) The guards had advanced a few steps and had their hands poised above the hilts of their swords, as if he would strike them down. Little did they know he could. Hans thought this somewhat smugly, and the fire didn't seem so wild at his finger tips for a moment.
"I will marry into the throne. I'll rule over Arendelle or Corona or any damn kingdom I please. I'll show you all." He hissed.
For once, he thought they might take him seriously. No one seemed to react for a very long time as he stood there determinedly. He had even begun to think of all the kingdoms he'd visit and how everyone would love him. Lucky Thirteen, they'd dub him instead.
"Pftt." That was Erik, the Eighth in line. "Good luck trying to keep your charm up. You're about as convincing as a brick wall."
As they laughed and chattered again, Hans sunk back into his padded chair silently. His gloves felt warm and were no doubt scorched again. He cut himself a piece of cake, eyes far-a-way as he picked up his fork and begun to eat it. It was heaven. That much was true.
One day, he thought, chewing contently, I'll meet Princess Elsa.
.
Brush off the ashes
Laugh as the flame licks
Life is your sky
You are the phoenix
