AN: Thanks for all the new reviewers and followers!
RECENTLY RE-EDITED (6/16/19)
Disclaimer: I don't own Frozen or its characters.
In light of more recent encounters with the bandit gang, it could finally be said by both Elsa and Logan that this wasn't the worst situation any one person could be in.
Over the next two days, things were different between the two travelers. The air between them wasn't quite as tense as before and the silences didn't last as long. Conversation came a little easier after the marketplace brawl, both of them coming to an unspoken understanding since then. Unfair judgment and half-cocked assumptions had been in an abundance since their first meeting and it wasn't lost on either of them that they were both at fault for their rocky start.
Making the effort to get along better certainly wasn't something they had to do. They could've picked up where they had left off before stopping for supplies; ignoring and snapping at each other at every given opportunity. But they agreed that that was far too boring to keep up for much longer.
Through the course of their journey so far, Logan allowed himself enough freedom to let his guard down in regards to Elsa, despite the annoying fact that he was constantly "bending" his rules for her (God knows why). Other than being an excellent conductor for rotten luck, he didn't perceive the woman as much of a threat. Perhaps a bit of a spazz at times - with her awkward, too formal conversational skills, her ramrod posture that made her look like she had a steel bar stuck up her backside, her weird thing with the gloves, and that funny, lemon-pinched face she always pulled when Logan said something particularly aberrant (she claimed it pretentious, he preferred witty), but certainly nothing hazardous to his health.
On Elsa's end, Logan had, annoyingly enough, been able to weasel his way up into the category of "decent human being" in her mind. A level right below "potential friend", and just above "scum of the earth" (or in laymen's terms, the Arendelle council board).
He certainly proved himself back at the market, but the queen still found him too cocky. Another possibly misplaced assumption, but she wasn't used to being around someone so barefaced and confident. More specifically, someone barefaced and confident who wasn't also a rich, self-absorbed duke or count, looking to brown-nose his way into the queen's good graces in hopes of gaining more power and privilege. He was someone who was entirely comfortable in his own skin, and because of that, had the means of making the queen a little jealous. He was unpredictable to her, to the point where it was infuriating.
After the market, Elsa had gotten sick. It was sudden and she didn't know why it had happened since she didn't really feel nauseous at the time. Logan said it was the adrenaline, going through a more bodily reaction when it finally stopped. Whatever caused it, it was embarrassing and she felt her cheeks burn red with humiliation when she clambered off her horse and stumbled towards some nearby bushes like a clumsy drunkard. It was even worse when her guide stepped down from his own horse and came around to hold back her messy braid while she heaved. Logan dismissed it, claiming it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before and reminding her that vomiting wasn't a voluntary thing.
Between that comment and the hair holding, Logan landed himself on a higher level of regard in her mind. It was one of the weirdest gestures of good will that she had ever received from anybody other than Anna and Olaf, but it was appreciated all the same. His tone was surprisingly gentle as he told her to get it out of her system while his face remained void of any judgmental notions. It was both comforting and disquieting in the sense that Elsa had no idea that Logan was capable of being tender - unless the capability had always been there and she just hadn't noticed.
After her brief bout of sickness, they got back on the trail, soon falling back into the routine of rising at dawn, riding horseback all day, and setting up camp at dusk, but the hours didn't go by nearly as slow now that they were on speaking terms.
When talking about the weather, and the trees, and that weird old guy wearing a purple sunhat they had passed a few miles back, finally ran its course, Logan and Elsa were forced to talk about themselves. Understandably, that was something they both wanted to avoid, but for the lack of any better ideas, they decided to try it.
Logan offered up some information about himself first as a show of good faith, being both open and vague about his answers. He traveled a lot because of his job, but he originally hailed from a small town (where, exactly, he didn't say). He was an only child, raised mostly by his mother; an emotionally distant woman, seemingly trapped in a permanent state of heartbreak after being abandoned by his father not long before Logan was born. He admitted that he had been a bit of a troublemaker when he was a boy. His mother wasn't always the most attentive parent that ever was, so it allowed him the freedom to get away with a lot of things.
When asked where his mother was now, he said he assumed she was still living in the town he was born in, with his step-father; also an emotionally stunted individual. He was never fond of Logan and the feeling was very much mutual. They fought constantly when he was growing up, never really forming a connection that would allow them to see each other as family. He wasn't close to either parent, which enabled him to skip town the first chance he got with little inhibitions about leaving his childhood home behind.
Elsa had a suspicion that it wasn't as cut-and-dry as he made it all seem, but she felt it rude to pry further. The fact that he felt compelled enough to leave behind his mother - the person who gave him life and raised him - and pursue a life of questionable attributes, painted a telling picture on its own.
It was a difficult thing to comprehend, even for someone like Elsa. Although there were many, many intense feelings of doubt and fear and lingering resentments surrounding her relationship with her parents, underneath it all, there was always love. Despite everything, Elsa had loved her parents and they had loved her.
Yes, on her worst days, the queen felt bitter towards her mother and father for a lot of things in her life. For not realizing that simple love and acceptance was the key to finally controlling her powers. For allowing their own fear to feed Elsa's. For causing the decade-long fissure between her and Anna that still needed healing even to this day. But she had long-since come to terms with the past and had realized that her isolation was just as much her fault as it was theirs.
Her parents did not fear Elsa. They did not shy away from her, ever. Even on those bad days where Elsa couldn't control her emotions and the walls of her room became too much to bare and she covered every inch of them with ice. The king and queen never feared their eldest daughter, but they feared what she was able to do, what she was capable of. They feared another accident like the one in the ballroom, one that would essentially rob them of both of their daughters. They loved her so much, they were willing to lock her away from the world. To protect her from both the people outside the castle walls, and from herself.
Knowing what she knew now, of course her isolation seemed entirely unnecessary. All they needed was Anna, the very thing that Elsa had been kept from, and she couldn't help feeling resentful towards herself and her parents. But Elsa's relationship with all members of her family was, above all else, complicated. She still deeply missed her parents, though, and she still laid in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom (or in this case, a sky full of stars), wishing to be held in their arms, if only for one last goodbye.
In regard to what Logan had told her, it was difficult to understand someone who, more or less, still had a set of parents, alive and (she'd assume) well, and not be close to them at all. But again, it was too personal. If he wanted her to know, he would've told her. He wasn't opposed to answering personal questions if she asked him, but it was clear that there were some things he'd rather keep private.
Home life was one of them and his life after leaving his village was another. A big one, apparently.
He was nothing but flippant when talking about his childhood, but he was incredibly vague when Elsa asked about his life afterwards. He was strangely reserved, though understandably so. As an adult, one could get into far worse trouble than as a child. Trouble with more serious consequences that bred things like remorse, guilt, and regret. Things that most would rather keep buried where no one could see. Able to relate to this, Elsa respectfully let the matter drop.
When the conversation shifted focus on her, she told him about Arendelle.
She told him everything she could think of about her kingdom. To the territory lines stretching as far as the North mountain, to the ship docks and the quaint little shops where her and Anna used to go shopping. To the castle courtyard on one side of the kingdom and Oaken's Trading Post on the other, and every festival and special event in between. She spared almost no detail when it came to her kingdom, knowing she didn't have to be as careful when she was visually describing her home. However, much like Logan, she grew vague when it came to the people and happenings within the castle walls, only elaborating when there wasn't a risk of her accidentally giving herself away, or possible holes that Logan could prick into her cover story.
She spun a tale of what it was like to live as a chambermaid for a princess. She drew inspiration from the many servants of her castle, namely Gerda, the real chambermaid to the royal sisters. Feeling particularly brave, she even shared some of her and Anna's adventures and exploits, though there weren't that many to share. Not as many as she would've liked.
With even more confidence, she told him about Kristoff and Sven (while purposely leaving out Olaf, because talking snowmen were always difficult to explain). They were much safer topics and definitely more entertaining than a pair of sisters trying to rebuild their relationship through awkward gestures and overzealous attempts at bonding that never go as planned, i.e. Anna's "perfect day" birthday celebration (stupid immune system).
Granted, she might've gotten a little carried away, riding on the nostalgia and fondness she felt when talking about her loved ones and the few happy times they spent together, but Logan didn't say anything about it. He listened and allowed her to indulge in her memories, probably knowing that it was something she desperately needed right now, even if she couldn't admit it. If she had accidentally let something slip at any point during her stories, he didn't call her out on it.
When she finally ran out of things to say about herself and her home, the two talked about anything and everything half-interesting that crossed their minds. The conversations would go smoothly for a while, sometimes even taking on a playful nature depending on the topic, but eventually one of them would say something to annoy or insult the other and another argument would ensue, followed by a cold shoulder for the faulting party. It had become a pattern between them. In a bleak situation that neither of them had much of a choice in participating in, it was a comfort to know what to expect, despite the sour endings. As Elsa knew very well, it was better to have just a little control over something rather than no control at all.
She wouldn't go as far as to say this new change in routine was nice, but their exchanges were okay, at the very least.
However, the relative peace wouldn't last much longer. They had another run-in with the bandits.
They both knew that even though they had escaped the marketplace, the sighting of the queen gave the bandits a new trail to follow. It went unsaid that it would only be a matter of time before they crossed paths again. Logan did his best to put as much distance between them and the bandits as he could, laying a few diversions to throw them off the trail and give him and Elsa more miles, but he knew there wasn't much chance that their makeshift booby-traps would succeed, and if one did, it would only give them a few hours advantage at best.
They had been setting up camp. Logan had stricken up another topic of conversation for them, one a little more personal than the others, while they idled around their temporary campsite.
"So what's your situation?" he asked. "You gotta fella back home waiting for you? Is that why you're so desperate to get back?"
Elsa scoffed.
A woman couldn't do anything crazy and ill-advised unless it was for a lover, could they? She couldn't be insane just on her own, could she? She felt disappointed. Had he listened to a single word that she said? The queen was just starting to enjoy her conversations with the man, rather than just tolerating them.
"I already told you, I have to get back to warn the princess about the bandits. Eventually their leader is going to realize I'm not her - assuming he hasn't already - and when he does, he's going to go after her instead, and I can't let that happen. We've already been blindsided by those bandits once before. I'm not going to sit by and wait for them to take Anna when there's still a chance I can stop it."
The good thing about spending the first part of their journey in silence was that it gave Elsa the time to work on her cover story. She was able to think up a few more details to make it sound more convincing, just in case it was ever brought up again. With almost no effort, the queen found herself falling into the role of Elsa Snow. It was almost jarring how fast her story began to build around itself and how complex it became when given time to grow in her mind. After so many days, she was convinced it was now solid enough to withstand any scrutiny from her overly perceptive guide.
"How noble of you," Logan remarked dryly, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. "You must really care about her if you're willing to put up with a guy like me to save her."
"Now you're starting to understand my pain, finally," she breathed, drawing a snicker from Logan.
Smart and sassy. He liked this side of Blondie. Much better than reserved and brooding. He could understand wanting to keep things professional, but she took standoffish to a whole new level.
"I told you, we've lived in the castle together our whole lives. We're practically sisters."
"Really? The whole 'princess-servant' thing never got in the way of your relationship?"
No more than letting a locked door and a childhood accident come between a pair of actual sisters, Elsa thought bitterly. She shook her head, letting another silence fall between them until Logan spoke up again.
"Why do you have to take all this on? Doesn't your kingdom have some sort of royal guard or police force whose job it is to protect the princess? Where were they when the bandits were attacking?"
"I've been wondering that myself," she grumbled, more to herself than Logan. "Obviously, whoever's in charge is going to have to make a few changes in the future. They never stood a chance against those bandits."
Logan snickered again at her peeved expression.
"So, is that a 'no' on the fella thing?"
"No, there's no fella," she rolled her eyes before giving him a wary look. "Why do you want to know so badly?"
"Asking a question once doesn't constitute someone wanting to know something badly," he argued, "but to answer your question - I want to know, but not for the reason you're thinking, Sugar. Remember what I said about flattering yourself?
"Yes. No need to remind me."
"I just want to make sure I don't have an angry boyfriend or husband trying to kick my head off my shoulders as soon as we show up in your little kingdom together. That sort of thing always happens to me whenever I take a job from a woman," he said before adding: "no offense."
"Really? Every time?" she asked dubiously.
"Yeah. There's always a misunderstanding. The boyfriend sees me hanging around his girl, thinks we're fooling around, gets angry, and next thing I know, I'm getting punched in the face just for doing my job."
"Well, you did say your job requires a certain level of risk," Elsa remarked, her face twisting up in a effort not to laugh at the amusing image that popped into her head.
"That's not risk. That's drama, and I'll have none of it," he said with a grunt as he pulled a particularly heavy pack off his horse and tossed it the ground. "I'd rather face off with a large, inbred mountain man, wielding an axe and a short temper than get in between a pair of 'love birds' when they're having a domestic. Even I have my limits."
"Really? You seem like the kind of person who would be a magnet for drama," she said, before adding; "no offense."
"Well, you're not wrong, so none taken."
When Logan finished unpacking the supplies they needed for the night, he and Elsa set about collecting foliage to build a fire with. Once they had enough material to burn, Elsa took a seat on a nearby log and watched as Logan stacked the sticks accordingly before reaching over to a nearby bag and pulling out a box of matches. He easily lit the dry foliage with one match, something that the queen had taken notice of early in their journey. She knew next to nothing about camping and forest survival skills, but the act of using just one match reminded her of something Kristoff once said.
It had been one of his stories. The one where it was the dead of winter and he and Sven got separated from the rest of the ice harvesters, finding themselves lost in the middle of a bad blizzard. The weather was so bad, they couldn't navigate and had to take shelter in a cave near the North mountain. He had talked about how cold and scared he had been, having only been about thirteen at the time. He managed to collect enough material to build a fire, but he almost ran through an entire box of matches before the young teen was finally able to start it. He had said that lighting a fire with one match was really hard to do and a skill that he had yet to be taught. And although the storm dissipated enough by dawn the next morning for him and his reindeer to find their way back to Arendelle, Kristoff described it as one of the roughest nights of his life.
The story earned him a sympathetic "aww" and a peck on the cheek from Anna that, no doubt, made everything alright in Kristoff's mind, but that story (and the many others that involved her sister's boyfriend battling the element that Elsa had an unexplained control over) stuck with the queen. Watching Logan build a fire with just one match had her mind drifting back to the image she had of teenage Kristoff, huddling in a dark cave somewhere near the lonely mountains with Sven, desperately trying to set the pitiful stack of twigs on the ground in front of him ablaze with fingers that refused to co-operate because they were stiff from cold.
Long streams of smoke started to drift up from the now burning sticks as Logan coaxed the growing flame into spreading. When their campfire was big enough, he finally pulled his hands back and climbed to his feet, looking down at it with a satisfied smirk.
"Alright, be honest with me," he said while plopping down next to Elsa on the log and startling her out of her thoughts. "What's with the gloves?"
Her hands moved closer together on her lap at the mentioning, twisting her fingers out of nervous habit. It wasn't the most intrusive question he could've asked, but she still felt herself become defensive, unable to help herself. She looked away from him and stared down at her lap. The light blue gloves on her hands seemed to tighten against her skin, trapping the digits inside a familiar prison of cotton and thread.
"It's nothing. I just..."
"You got a thing about dirt? Because I once knew this guy-"
"No," she sighed, cutting him off. "It's not that. It's more of a comfort thing. I used to have a pair of gloves just like these when I was young and I had this habit of putting them on whenever I was feeling anxious or overwhelmed. It was something that my father thought up to help me cope and control my emotions better. I broke the habit for a couple of years, but with everything that has happened recently, I figured I could use every bit of comfort I could get. Anna would be horrified if she saw me wearing these."
She did her best to describe her history with gloves. Even after almost a week of traveling with him, Elsa still couldn't decide what would be a bigger shock for Logan; finding out about her powers, or finding out that she was really a queen. Neither sounded pleasant.
"Why do you wear your gloves?" she asked him, casually trying to divert the focus off of her.
He looked down at his fingerless work gloves, frayed from the wear and tear of his rough lifestyle.
"For a much more practical reason, believe me. A few years back, when I was first starting out on my own, I got this really bad cut on my palm. I cut it climbing through a broken window and didn't tell anyone. I was still learning how to fight at the time, still considered a 'pup' to the guy that was training me and I didn't want it to seem like I was whining over something stupid like a little kid. My pride screwed me over. The cut got infected and I got sick."
He held his left hand out to her and pulled back his glove for her to see.
"It wasn't anything life-threatening, but I can guarantee you, it wasn't any fun."
Elsa leaned in closer to get a better look. It wasn't that big of a scar, only about an inch long, but she could spot the thin line of knitted skin along the junction of his thumb easily because of how much paler the scar was against the rest of his palm.
"Doesn't seem like much," she remarked.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said with a light chuckle, pulling his glove back into place. "I should've known better. I've always had to be careful when it comes to cuts and open wounds. It's never a good thing when I get them."
"Isn't it never a good thing for anybody to get them?" She glanced up at him with a small smirk, thinking he was just trying to be facetious.
To her surprise, he didn't return the smirk. He shrugged his shoulders and diverted his gaze from hers.
"Yeah, usually, but me especially, Sugar. My cuts are always bleeders. I've got the royal disease."
Elsa blinked at him. Royal disease? What was he talking about?
"What do you mean?"
"It's nothing," he dismissed as he leaned behind the log to pick up a stick to use as a fire poker, "just something an old friend of mine called it. I don't know what its real name is."
Confused by Logan's sudden change in demeanor, she was half inclined to ask what "it" was, but his stiff body language convinced her not to. Instead, she backtracked a bit in their conversation.
"Do you have any other scars?"
Logan tensed even more at the question. He paused for a second from stoking the flames before continuing.
"Yeah. A couple others."
It was a short answer that didn't leave room for further elaboration and effectively ended the conversation. She pretended not to notice the way his arm moved into his chest when he set down the stick and moved to rest his forearms on his knees, letting his hands hang down between them.
Elsa had only one scar. It was just below her kneecap, nearly invisible against the pallor of her skin. She had gotten it from a piece of ice when she was nineteen. It was the day that the kingdom of Arendelle had received the news of their rulers' shipwreck. Leaving Gerda to comfort a wailing Anna, Kai had made the long trek to Elsa's room and regretfully told the eldest princess through her door that her parents were presumed dead. It had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it was too surreal to face.
At the news, Elsa paced back and forth across her bedroom, her mind frantically trying to figure out how she was going to manage her secret without her parents acting as a buffer between her and the outside world. The fact that her parents were dead, permanently gone, never to return, hadn't quite permeated her mind yet.
It was like selective denial; she accepted that her secret might be compromised, but she couldn't accept what caused it. She was so deep in the act of keeping her powers hidden, it was the first thing that came to mind when she was told the news of her parent's watery demise. When she should've been crying and asking "Why? Why them? I still need them", she was thinking "what am I going to do about my powers now?". It was always about her powers, even when it wasn't. It made her feel like she was a spoiled child who thought the world revolved around her and her problems.
She didn't know how much time she spent pacing her bedroom floor - pacing, fidgeting, and panicking, but not grieving. She had become blind to her surroundings, not noticing the way her ice crawled along the surface of her room, coating it in clouded frost until her foot snagged on a protruding icicle coming up from the ground. It sent her sprawling on to her rug. Her knee came in contact with another icicle and she yelped when she felt it bite into her skin. She laid on the ground for a few moments, stunned, before rolling on to her back and sitting up.
With a pained hiss, she pulled back the skirt of her dress and spotted the sliver of ice embedded just below her knee. A stain of red blood blossomed around the edges of the ice, discoloring her white stockings. The sharp bolts of pain shooting up her leg helped her brain finally process what had happened, that her parents were dead. She had broken down afterwards, crying for the first time in years.
"Logan?" the queen spoke up, her mouth working to keep herself from drifting into dark places.
"Hmm?"
"How much longer do we have to go until we reach Arendelle?"
It had taken her a while, but she finally asked it.
"Another week maybe. If the weather holds up," he replied, moving to pull out his knife with the intentions of sharpening it.
She flinched at the answer.
A week? They had been traveling for five days straight and they still had a week to go? It made Elsa wonder just how long she had been gone from her kingdom. The journey from Arendelle to the bandits' hideout had been nothing more than a confusing blur, but she had assumed it had to be at least a week or so. Now, she was starting to dread that it had been much longer than that. Was it going on a month now? Two? How long has the bandit leader kept her stolen from her kingdom? How much more time did she have before people started to presume her dead, too, if they haven't already?
She knew Anna would never stop looking for her, but the Arendelle royal council wasn't nearly as devoted. Elsa didn't have to be there to know that the second she had gone missing, the council was thinking of ways to wrestle away the new power that Anna had over the kingdom.
"Why is he doing this to me?" Elsa asked herself out loud in a near whisper.
What had she ever done to deserve a pack of bandits chasing after her?
One of the most frustrating things she had to deal with during her captivity was the question of why. Why did Dag take her? The one time he had spoken to her, he had made his raid on her sister's wedding sound deliberate. It was clear that she had been the target and the bandit leader knew about her ice powers. At first she thought, maybe, it was some revenge scheme. Plotted by one of the enemies that she had made during the great freeze, like Prince Hans or the Duke of Weaselton. It wasn't a possibility that was ever canceled out or disproved, but after a few days of sitting in a dungeon with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company, Elsa thought up other reasons for her kidnapping, never deciding which one seemed more plausible.
In the humid heat and suffocating air of the dungeon, everything seemed plausible. Even the ridiculous theory of the kidnapping being an elaborate set up by Marshmallow, the snow monster that guarded her ice palace, aiming for revenge on Elsa for taking back her tiara when he obviously liked wearing it.
She thought that gem up after three days of very little sleep.
"Dag's a messed up guy," Logan answered, easily guessing who Elsa was talking about. He didn't look up from where he was scraping his knife against the sharpener he had brought. "His issues have issues. I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure him out. Best anyone can do is just avoid him and hope he leaves you alone."
"How do you know him?"
He glanced at her, seeming to mull over his answer before looking back at the fire. "How's that saying go? Know thy enemy? Their hideout is a couple miles away from that town Tobias took you to. Him and his gang usually operate mainly in that area, only leaving when going on a raid. Like Toby and the townsfolk, I'm familiar with where the bandits are squatting, so I've had my fair share of run-ins with the lot."
"Do you think they're ever going to catch up with us?"
"Honestly, I really don't know, but if we keep moving forward and only stop when necessary, that should keep them from heading us off. If we stay on middle ground, I should be able to get us out of any jams we might get into because of them. We still have a few days of horseback to go, but after we reach the halfway point of our road trip, I should be able to get us a shortcut by ship which will knock a few days off."
Elsa's head perked up, but not with excitement.
"After we dock again, the rest of the trip should go smoothly. Assuming of course that we don't-"
"Ship?" she echoed, cutting him off, "did you say ship?"
There was an awkward pause as Logan looked at her. "Yes, I said ship. I know a docking port in this kingdom where a buddy of mine lives. He should be able to help us hitch a ride on a ship that trades with Arendelle."
"You never said anything about going out to sea," she replied with trepidation in her voice. Her heart started to beat a little faster and she could feel the fabric of her gloves growing stiff with cold. "The bandits didn't take me on a ship. I-I would've remembered. Why do we have to go on a ship?"
Logan blinked at her, noticing how she was starting to get worked up. "I just said it was a shortcut-"
"I'm not going on a ship, that wasn't part of our agreement," she snapped, surprising him.
Logan's eyes narrowed at her tone of voice. "Our agreement was that I would take you back to Arendelle. The question of how I was going to do that never came up."
Elsa shook her head, aware that she was acting irrational, but unable to stop. She stood up from the log and put her foot down (figuratively speaking).
"I said no," she declared. "I'm not going on any ship."
Logan let out a frustrated huff as he stood up from the log as well.
"Look, I'm sorry I didn't realize that sailing was going to be another one of your bizarre hang-ups, but you said you wanted to get back to Arendelle as soon as possible and this is the quickest way. We're not even going to be that far out into open sea. We'll be on the water for a night, just one night, and after we dock there'll be several different paths we can take to Arendelle instead of just the one. We'll have a much better chance at shaking the bandits for good."
It made sense. Of course it did. It made complete sense.
However, Elsa couldn't stop herself from focusing on the "ship" part of his plan. She hated ships. Her parents died on a ship. They died sailing the ocean to a formal event. They died in the middle of a violent storm, the dark waves swallowing their ship whole, leaving no known survivors behind. If there was one thing that Elsa had learned from that horrible experience, it was that nature was unpredictable and unconcerned with the fleshy creatures that inhabited its world. The way in which her parents had perished bred a brand new fear in Elsa. A fear of the ocean.
After her parents died, Elsa had absolutely no interest in stepping a single foot on a ship.
When they were planning the wedding, Anna had broached the subject of maybe spending her honeymoon traveling. The young princess loved the idea of jumping aboard a ship and visiting different coasts from different lands, exploring new places and meeting new people, but Elsa had shot down the idea the second it had left her sister's mouth. It wasn't something that Anna had her heart set on, but Elsa could still see the flash of disappointment in her eyes when she told her sister no. It hurt Elsa to say no. She had always done her best to give Anna whatever she wanted, to give her and Kristoff the perfect wedding. The queen wasn't opposed to Anna traveling for her honeymoon, but she couldn't approve of Anna going by ship.
She always had this fear, this unsettling image inside her head, every time she thought about either her or Anna getting on a ship and sailing out to sea. The image would start off beautiful enough, with the breathtaking scenery of the open sea. The sun would be shining and the wind would be blowing through the sails, but the peacefulness wouldn't last long.
Black storm clouds would come out of nowhere and shroud them in darkness as lightening replaced the sun. They would be caught in the middle of a raging storm, just like their parents, with the sea crashing harshly against the sides of the vessel, threatening to capsize and drown the people on board. Elsa would reach out to her sister and hold her close as they fought to keep their balance. Her powers would react and spiral out of control. Her ice would converge around her and Anna, freezing them both in a block of ice. They would fight to break free, but the storm would knock them overboard and send them into the water where they would sink down into eternal darkness and join their parents in a graveyard at the bottom of the ocean.
As foolish as it was, she couldn't see past her fear and realize how much a shortcut would benefit them. And she couldn't stop and think about it rationally because every second that passed with the idea plaguing her mind, Elsa felt her powers build up inside her, ready to burst free at the first opportunity.
"I'm sorry," she shook her head again, "but I can't. I can't go on a ship."
"Why not?" Logan asked, his arms folded across his chest.
"It's..it's complicated. I can't really explain..."
She casted a regretful look at Logan, but the man shook his head unsympathetically and turned away from her with a scoff.
"Unbelievable."
He began to walk off, only stopping to pick up his knife from the ground and put it back in its holster before continuing on. Elsa watched as he moved to leave the camp and head off into the surrounding forest.
"Where are you going?" she called after him.
He didn't reply as he disappeared into the trees.
~O~
Logan backtracked to the main trail and walked along the dirt path, kicking at the rocks on the ground while mumbling under his breath. He had his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants and his shoulders hunched up almost to his ears to ward off the cold breeze that was starting to blow in.
He would eventually turn around and make his way back to camp, but he needed to sulk for a little while without having Elsa nearby, watching him with her wide, blue eyes.
Sugar confused him more than anybody he had ever known. In his experience, people were always straightforward and easy to understand, and when they weren't, that usually meant they were lying or trying to pull some kind of trick on him, in which case he would deal with them accordingly, but Blondie was difficult to get a read on. She didn't look like much, but he just knew there was something funny about her. Whatever it was, it rubbed raw on his nerves and sat heavily underneath his skin like a tick.
He had no idea where that recent episode came from. He went out of his way to come up with a faster route to Arendelle that would help them avoid the bandits better, and the woman didn't want to take it? He practically handed her a better solution to their biggest problem on a silver platter and she said no? What kind of game was she playing? She had just spent half a day talking about her home and her family like they were the one and only saving grace she had in her entire world. She had told him repeatedly how important it was that she return home as soon as possible so she could warn them about the approaching danger. Why would she say no to a shortcut?
It was obvious that the idea of sailing bothered her very much, but from what Logan knew of her so far, he hadn't expected her to bow down to that fear. He didn't peg her as someone who was ruled by it. She wasn't the most competent person he had ever known, especially under pressure, but she had guts, and he admired her for that. There weren't many people out there who were willing to do what Elsa has done to get back to a kingdom that, honestly, probably wasn't even looking for her. She may be a close friend of the princess, but Logan couldn't imagine any kingdom going out of its way to look for a simple chambermaid when they could easily get a replacement. Royal politics just didn't work that way.
Still, the woman kept at it.
Up until then, he had thought Elsa knew what she was up against - who she was up against, but now, he wasn't so sure. He was not kidding around when he said Dag was a screwed up person, and the men who followed him weren't much better.
The bandit gang that had been chasing Elsa called themselves "The Demon's Fang". Not exactly Logan's first choice for a name, especially since Demon Fang Gang wasn't the original name for the group, but Dag had changed it when he came into power after the original leader died. The gang was more of a clan back then. A clan that Logan had no qualms being a part of.
But things were different now - had been different, and just like the name would imply, it wasn't exactly a collection of men a young woman like Elsa would want to be followed by.
She was right about one thing, though. Dag would eventually realize she wasn't Princess Anna, and when he did, he would kill her without hesitation if he had her in his possession. He didn't hold on to anything that wasn't useful, and that included people. And Logan would definitely be in some trouble of his own for helping Elsa.
Despite how he acted, this wasn't just some run-of-the-mill escort mission for him. He was at just as much risk as Elsa, and it would be in both their best interests if she would just get over herself and get on a goddamn ship. After everything they had been through so far, and what they still had to face, sailing should be the least of her worries.
In any case, there wasn't much he could do about it now. They were still a few days off from the kingdom he planned to hitch a boat ride from and they still had the bandits to worry about. So until then, he would do what he could to try to convince Elsa to change her mind. If she didn't, then he would have no choice than to come up with some sort of ultimatum. He wasn't sure what that would be, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
Logan didn't know how long he had spent walking along the trail, but by the time he finally pulled his head out of his ass and noticed his surroundings, it was too late to do anything evasive when he spotted three figures standing at the base of a fork in the road, about twenty feet in front of him. He could see the red and black of their uniforms even with the sun now completely set. He stopped abruptly in his tracks and let out a curse.
It was another trio of bandits, different than the ones he took down in the market. He didn't recognize the two cronies hanging back, but he knew the one standing in front. He was a dark-skinned, Spanish man with curly black hair, undistinguished brown eyes, and a closely cut mustache and goatee. He stood tall despite his short height, easily establishing his status as patrol leader with his arrogant way of holding himself; shoulders cocked back like a preening rooster and head held high.
"Logan!" The Spaniard called out with a toothy grin on his face, opening his arms out wide like he was about to greet an old friend. It made Logan want to laugh. Him and Joaquin went way back, but they were anything but friends.
The bandit was Joaquin Chavez, Dag's current right hand man and probably the most levelheaded member of the entire bunch. He had been with the bandit gang for years, originally hailing from Spain. Although the gang had traveled far and wide, picking up new members of all shapes and sizes along the way, Joaquin was the most exotic of the immigrants that ever joined the gang, and also the most skilled with a sword - being the self-proclaimed, master swordsman that he was. Logan eyed the rapier sheathed to other man's belt, his weapon of choice.
It would be stupid of him to think that his run-in with Joaquin was anything other than intentional. The trio had either been waiting for Logan to appear, or they had been on their way to his and Elsa's campsite. Someone in the last town that the two travelers had stopped in must've tipped the bandits off.
Seeing no other choice than to accept their approach, Logan straightened his back and stood defensively with his hands curled into fists at his sides.
"Out of all the trails in the forest - out of all the forests in this big, lovely rock we call home - we happen to run into you. Fancy that!"
The man spoke animatedly with a mixed accent of Spanish origin and English idioms. He was a charming bastard when he aimed to be, but Joaquin was even more pretentious with speech than Logan was.
"Yeah, fancy that," Logan replied dryly, still staring down the trio with obvious distrust.
Joaquin's brown-eyed gaze flickered across Logan's sour expression, taking note of the younger man's hostility. He didn't seem put off by it. It only made his smirk climb higher on his face as more teasing remarks pooled inside his mind. Back in the day, they always made a game of pushing each others buttons, seeing which one of them would lash out first. He was curious to see if Logan could still play as well as he used to.
He took a step forward and raised a hand to Logan, wagging a finger at him with an amused chuckle. "You know, when my boys came staggering back into camp with their tails between their legs and blood leaking from their faces, I figured you might've had something to do with it."
Logan didn't respond, but the Spaniard didn't expect him to. They hadn't stood across from each other in years, but Joaquin could tell he hadn't changed one bit.
"I know it was a bit of a stretch to assume you were the one to beat up my boys, since until two days ago I was convinced you've been dead for almost three years now, but when they told me what happened - how a ragged-haired pretty boy with a pissy temper swooped in and took away our little blonde joya, I couldn't help but think we were visited by the ghost of bandithood past. But here you are, vivo y bien! I can hardly believe my eyes!"
"What do you want, Joaquin?" Logan asked. His eyes kept skimming the treeline behind the three bandits, searching for any reinforcements that might be hiding behind the dwindling leafage.
"Message for you, from the jefe. I'm sure you remember him."
"How could I forget?" he replied in mock banter. "I would ask how Dag's been doing lately, but I think I can guess."
Joaquin tsked him. "You know he doesn't like it when outsiders interfere with his business. He knows it's you, Logan. Don't ask me how, but he does."
"I'd be disappointed if he didn't," Logan shot back coolly, trying to maintain a sense of apathy to hide the fact that his hackles were very much raised.
"He understands that there's been a mix-up with the girl. He knows you didn't mean to stand between him and his property and he's willing to let it slide if you hand her over to us now without any more violence or protest. It's a fair offer, if I say so myself."
Logan's fists tightened at his sides. He didn't know which part of that he should be more ticked off by. The fact that Joaquin thought Logan was stupid enough to fall for such a poor ruse, like Dag was some kind of tolerant individual, capable of feeling basic human emotions, and was willing to ignore Logan's defiance, even though they all knew there was no goddamn misunderstanding. Or the fact that the Spaniard had just referred to Elsa as Dag's "property".
This whole thing was bullshit. Dag didn't do parley. If he couldn't get what he wanted by burning everything in his path, then he opted to using manipulation. If Logan had to guess, Joaquin and his men were alone; sent to scout ahead while the rest of the group hung back, which meant they weren't right on top of him and Elsa and they still had a chance to avoid a confrontation. Logan had seen first hand what Dag could do when he strove to do his worst. He wasn't going to risk it. Any sugared words were snake bites in disguise. The first chance he got, Logan was going to book it back to camp, get Elsa and their supplies, and get the hell out of there.
His mind drifted to Tobias, the only person who could've possibly told Dag that Logan had become involved in their situation with Elsa. The old man was crotchety, but he would've never told Dag anything, not willingly. Telling the bandit leader would've been a death sentence for both Elsa and Logan. The possibility that Dag had gotten to him made Logan worry for the old man.
"If this is another one of his power trips, I rather you come at me now. I'm in no mood for games. If this is going to happen, then do it now. Otherwise, piss off. Your ugly mugs aggravate me," Logan challenged.
The two men stared each other down, both dominant creatures, alpha males - waiting for the moment when the precarious balance between them tipped and they were thrown into action. Logan had an advantage over the Spaniard, being taller than him, but Joaquin stood proud regardless, disregarding the fact that Logan had always been a better fighter than him, and could easily take him on should they get into it.
Joaquin had seen the state his men had been in when they returned from the market and knew he didn't have the advantage of numbers. Logan clearly hadn't let himself fall out of practice. Joaquin was proud, but he wasn't stupid. He stepped down first, knowing anything less would be counterproductive.
"Alright," the Spaniard smiled, holding his hands up. "I'll tell him you weren't interested."
Logan rested his hand on the hilt of his knife, not expecting that to be the end of it.
To his surprise though, it was.
Instead of attacking like Logan expected him to, Joaquin backed up with his hands still raised and an arrogant smirk on his face. He smiled like he knew something Logan didn't. It was a look that Logan wanted to punch off his cocky face. However, it seemed like Joaquin truly intended to leave. That was the important thing. He motioned for his two men to fall back and mount their horses.
"You've always been a sly perro, haven't you, Logan? I'd keep the little joya close if I were you," Joaquin chided, unable to resist fighting Logan for the last word.
"And I'd keep walking away if I were you," Logan threw back.
Joaquin chuckled mockingly again as he finally turned on his heel and walked towards his horse. Logan didn't move from his spot until all three bandits were riding down the road, going back wherever they had come from. Only when they were completely gone from sight, did he turn himself around and retrace his steps back into the forest. He pushed through the forest as quickly as he could without seeming erratic, inching closer to the speck of orange light in the distance that signified their makeshift camp.
"Change of plans," he announced as soon as he stepped into the light of the campfire. "Pack everything up."
Elsa looked up from where she had been staring intently at the ground, startled by his sudden reappearance.
"What?"
"We're not staying out here tonight. There's a town about an hour down the road, we'll find an inn and stay there."
His tone was final, not leaving room for argument as he grabbed the first pack he could reach. He expected her to start asking questions about his desire to suddenly pack up and leave, but to his surprise, he didn't meet any resistance.
There was a moment where she looked up at him with her mouth open and her jaw slightly quivering, stuck between the motion of speaking and keeping quiet. He could tell that she wanted to say something to him, could see it in her eyes, but in the end whatever it was could apparently wait. She closed her mouth with silent resolve as she stood from the log and began packing up the supplies closest to her.
Somewhere in the back of his head, Logan noted how strange it was that she didn't protest at this seemingly random move of his. Granted, over the past few days she had gotten better at doing what he asked of her, but not without questioning him first. If he wasn't so preoccupied with packing up their stuff and avoiding a potential ambush, he would have commented on her new compliance. He wasn't sure whether to take it as a good thing or a bad thing, but it was productive, and that was all he cared about right now.
Without a word, the two collected their supplies. They established a system of packing up their stuff. Elsa would bring the packs over into a neat pile and Logan would load them up one by one. He did his best not to appear agitated or disturbed by what just happened. He didn't want to alarm the woman. The last thing he needed was for her to start panicking. It was already going to suck navigating to that town in almost complete darkness.
The strangeness didn't stop. While he was working, Logan could feel Elsa's eyes on him the entire time. Her glances were almost covert enough for him to miss, but they were frequent. Frequent enough for him to get the sensation that someone was watching him. He didn't return the glances, knowing she would just look away as soon as he did. It wasn't until they were done that Logan realized there was something really wrong.
Elsa had been walking over with another stack of supplies bundled in her arms. She moved with swift strides towards the horses, peeking over the side of her stack every now and again to make sure she wasn't going to run into anything. At one point, though, she must've missed a rock or a tree root, because in one moment she was walking without trouble towards Logan and the horses, but then in the next, her foot snagged on something and she stumbled forward with a surprised yelp.
Logan reacted when he saw her supplies fly from her arms and scatter across the ground from the corner of his eye. He rushed forward, dodging the rolled up blanket sailing towards his head, and grabbed Elsa's forearms, keeping her from falling to the ground.
"Whoa, careful," he said, taking the blunt of her weight so she could correct her footing.
Her reaction to his assistance had been less than appreciative.
As soon as she regained her balance and was stable enough to stand on her own, the woman practically yanked hers arms out of Logan's hands, not waiting for him to remove them himself. He blinked at her in surprise and confusion, but she didn't raise her eyes to meet his. She only shoved past him like he wasn't even there and collected up her fallen supplies. Her cold body language was explicit, intentionally done to show him that she didn't want him anywhere near her.
Now he was the one eyeing her. The silence between them held as Elsa straightened out her cloak and hoisted herself on to her horse where she proceeded to wait for Logan with a tight frown on her face, putting a lot of effort into keeping her eyes forward. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but when nothing came to mind, he closed it again. He couldn't figure out where Elsa's sudden animosity came from.
It could've had something to do with the whole ship thing and Logan's less than polite reaction to it, but he had an inkling that wasn't it.
Something had changed in the short time that he had been gone. He couldn't pin it down, but he knew something was up. Sugar had a stiffness to her spine and a refusal to meet his gaze that was all too familiar. Her skittishness had returned and he could feel the tension in the air again, so thick he could cut it with his knife.
Something new was brewing in Elsa's head, and Logan had a feeling it had something to do with him.
AN: The bandit gang name - kinda cheesy. I couldn't think of anything clever, so I had to use a name generator. I thought about using something more Norwegian, but the bandit gang doesn't originally come from Norway. I'm not sure yet where the gang/clan originates from, but they're more nomadic than anything, so I gave them a more generalized name. Plus, how creative can bandits be when naming their gang? Bandits are known for their stealing and raiding - not their creativity. Get off my back people. (Love you)
~Scorpiofreak~