They had agreed to meet in a hideaway far, far north. Even in the shadow of the North Mountain, the younger and weaker minded above them feared discovery. True, the Queen's ice palace and given them all a turn, but Alvilda was nothing if not able to adapt.

Adaptable and merciless.

"My lady, the merchant-" he started.

"Silence," she commanded, waving a hand in irritation.

He knelt lower. There was nothing else he could do to save himself.

"My lady," Eyvindur said, rising from his seat at the base of her throne. "We did take into account this possibility. If this merchant is, in fact, the Afli, we must take action."

Alvilda rose, sweeping past him like he was no more than the dirt beneath her feet. "He is," she declared. "I know him of old. He will not act unless his hand is forced."

"Then we must force his hand," a lesser advisor said.

"No. We must not," Eyvindur stated solemnly. "But what of the Queen? She has the power to threaten us."

"The power, yes, but neither the knowledge nor the control. We must ensure it remains thus if our plan is to succeed."

"And how will we do that?" another lieutenant asked.

Alvilda crouched down where he knelt, fixing him with her burning gaze. "Are you willing to die for me?" she asked.

"Yes," he whispered and knew in his heart that it was true. "Yes. I am."

She smiled kindly. "Good."

Her hand closed over his forehead and she began to chant. As his sight darkened, he thought that maybe, just maybe he had finally pleased her.

Torben was just finishing up his breakfast when Elva drifted downstairs.

"Good morning," he said politely. Their marriage wasn't a particularly unpleasant one, but it was a marriage of convenience, not of love.

"Good morning," Elva replied. "I'm visiting Annelise today. We probably aren't going to be able to find an excuse to be alone together, not with her parents watching."

Torben grimaced. "Send her my regards and send Henrik my love."

Elva chuckled. "Naturally."

Their daily interaction finished, Torben walked down to his personal shipyard. He didn't know anywhere near as much about ship building as he wanted to, but the Red Sky at Night would be the pride of the Southern Isles Navy when it was finished and for an island nation, that was saying a lot.

He loved watching the workers build it. He didn't have any pressing duties at the moment, so he planned to spend the whole day just watching, but his aide, Nicoline, appeared at his side just before lunchtime.

"What is it?" he asked, worried. Nicoline knew better than to disturb him for anything left than an emergency.

"Your brother is here to see you, Admiral," Nicoline said.

"Which one?" It would be fine as long as it wasn't-

"Gustav, Admiral."

Well, damn. "What does he want?" Torben asked.

"He didn't say," Nicoline said wryly. Torben rolled his eyes. "He indicated that it was only for you to know."

Double damn. And he was having such a nice day.

Much to Kristoff's surprise, Gunnar was awake before the dawn, so they got an early start.

The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon when Gunnar spoke.

"So how did you come to be adopted by trolls?" he asked. "That's not exactly normal."

"How come the Southern Isles has three Speakers?" Kristoff shot back. "That's not exactly normal either."

Gunnar really didn't want to tell the story, but it was a good question. "Story for a story?" he suggested.

Kristoff considered the offer. "Fair enough," he decided. "It's a bit of a long story."

"Okay, so first you have to know I have a huge family. Two huge families, actually, but we're talking about my human family," he began. "I mean, thirteen kids is a lot, sure, but I've got something like twenty older brothers and fifteen or so older sisters. I can't keep track of them. Problem was, neither could Mother.

"I'm one of triplets and by the time we were born, Mother had gone a little bit crazy. Father was away ice harvesting, it's a family thing, so it was just us and Mother for a while."

"How crazy was your mother?" Gunnar asked, intrigued.

Kristoff just stared at him. "Let's put it this way," he said warily. "My sister's named Christine and my brother's named Christopher."

Gunnar winced. Kristoff snorted.

"So anyway, Mother started to get confused about how many of us there and me and Christopher stayed out of each other's ways anyway, so by the time Father came home and found himself with more children, he thought he had twins, not triplets.

"I met Sven here-" he patted the reindeer "-somewhere along the way and for a while, he was pretty much my only friend. We took to following the ice harvesters around during the summer, but they weren't too fond of us. We always got underfoot. One year, they kind of forgot about us, which we were pretty much used to, but we fell behind a little and then I see two horses galloping past and one of them is trailing ice.

"So of course, we had to follow it. I probably can't tell you the rest of the story, state secrets or something, but long story short, that's how I met the trolls. Mama Bulda, you'll meet her soon, took a liking to us, so we decided to stay."

"And Hans complains about being ignored," Gunnar whispered.

"Oh, he probably is," Kristoff said. "And that makes it partially your fault that he tried to kill Anna and Elsa. But what about you? How'd you end up with so many Speakers?"

Gunnar opened his mouth, either to answer or to get angry, he hadn't decided yet, but he was cut off by a howl.

Kristoff sighed dramatically. "You have got to be kidding me," he said. "Sven, run."

Sven bolted, faster than Gunnar had thought possible, but the wolves were close at their heels.

Kristoff lit a torch to hold them, looking more irritated than worried as he did so. Gunnar watched in reluctant awe until an urgent moo from Sven caught his attention. They were headed straight for a cliff.

Kristoff grabbed Sig and threw him into Sven's back. Gunnar followed to make sure he stayed on. Kristoff stayed in the sled.

"Jump, Sven!" he called as they neared the chasm, cutting the harness free.

Sven landed safely on the other side just as Kristoff leaped clear from the sled, somehow managed to roll himself up to Sven.

Beneath them, the sled inexplicably burst into flames.

"Oh, come on!" Kristoff yelled into the gorge. "Is this what's gonna happen? Is this gonna be a thing now?"

"We should probably get going," Gunnar said.

"Yeah, yeah," Kristoff sighed. "You know, that's the second time in a row that's happened." He picked Sig up and threw him over his shoulders. "We should get to the Valley of the Living Rock in a few hours."

Gunnar couldn't hide his nervousness. "Are you sure they can help Sig?" he asked.

"No," Kristoff replied bluntly. "But Grandma Taika's been helping Speakers with various Speaker-related troubles for centuries. If she and Pabbie can't help, no one can."

Unsurprisingly, Hans'd had trouble sleeping after Aron's not-quite-threat, but he managed in the end to get a few hours of rest.

Dawn came too soon, accompanied by Thyra yanking him out of bed and onto the floor.

"You could have at least tried to wake me up normally," Hans sighed from the ground.

"Yeah, I probably could've," Thyra agreed, "but this isn't pomegranate season."

Hans blinked. "I'm not even going to ask." He pulled himself to his feet.

"Clean yourself up," Thyra ordered. "It's your first initiation day. Her majesty'll be coming by in an hour. You'll want to look pretty for the Queen, won't ya?"

Dread coiled in the pit of Hans's stomach. Thyra slapped him in the shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be comforting.

"Don't worry," she advised. "If she wanted to kill you, she'd make a spectacle of it."

Or maybe not.

Unfortunately, he had bathed the night before, so he only needed to shave and change into fresh clothes, which left plenty of time to pace nervously.

Fifteen minutes before Elsa was due to arrive, Aron took pity on him and introduced him to Simon, an exceptionally tall, if also exceptionally scrawny, man, and the two of them spent the rest of the time discussing the various merits of arsenic versus cyanide.

Finally, the main door opened and the Queen of Arendelle entered.

Hans freely admitted that he had never really seen Elsa as anything more than someone he could manipulate, or else as a force of nature. She was always either a puppet to him or a hurricane.

Standing in the doorway, it was plain that she was neither.

She stood tall and regal, free of pride, or perhaps completely above it. She wore no crown, but her hair was decorated with a circlet of ice. Despite the bitter cold of the encroaching winter, her sleeves were sheer and her dress was slit up to her knee on one side.

She was beautiful and terrible and every inch a ruler.

Almost without being aware of it, Hans sank to one knee. The Blue Cloaks did the same.

"Prince Hans of the Southern Isles," Elsa intoned. "You have knowingly and deliberately attacked all surviving members of the royal family of Arendelle in an attempt to unjustly take the throne of Arendelle for yourself. For those crimes, you deserve death."

For a moment, Hans stopped breathing, sure she had decided to have him killed after all.

"However, it has been decided that you are to live. You are being offered a second chance at life. The Queen's Eyes will give you the opportunity to become a better person. Take it or leave it as you will, but know that this is your final chance. If you betray us again, you will be killed on the spot. Do you accept these terms?"

There was very obviously only one right answer. "I do, your grace," Hans said as humbly as he could manage without sounding insincere.

Elsa waved her hand and a cloak of ice settled over his shoulders, surprisingly warm. Then she brought forth an auga and placed it around his neck. It seemed to weigh nothing, but it was astonishingly heavy at the same time.

"Rise, Hans of the Queen's Eyes," Elsa commanded.

Hans rose to his feet.

"May you in time be forgiven," Elsa finished and swept out the door.

At first, Hans could only stare after her in shock. Her presence was overwhelming.

"Well, at least that's over with," he said.

Thyra started giggling.

He was so screwed.


A/N:

Part one of Kristoff's Tragic Backstory (tm) comes to light.

Torben's relationships are kind of confusing. Long story short, Torben/Henrik is a thing, Elva/Annelise is a thing, Henrik/Elva is occasionally a thing, Torben and Elva are married, Annelise and Henrik are married.

Also, it's kind of ironic that Gustav's a Speaker, given that he's mute.

The only ships I have decided to include are Kristanna and Torben's relationship stuff. Anything else is still a possibility, but I can't say for sure yet. If there is Helsa, it will be the slowest of slow burns.