*Puts on Hans' voice*
"Oh Kai… if only you had minded your own business."
In a sense, Elsa should be grateful towards Hans. If he hadn't chosen that moment to put his evil plan into action, she would've been dragged into pig-wrestling with Anna in Chapter 3.
WARNING: some profanity and sexual innuendo.
Chapter 10:
Your kingdom isn't the only thing you're losing tonight. Hans chuckled at his clever play on words. Elsa was clearly terrified and fully aware of what he was about to do. But she was still disoriented, and managed a flimsy resistance at best. Puffs of snow collided harmlessly against his face. Hans removed one of his gloves and forced it roughly into her mouth, stifling any screams she might attempt to make. He would have her screaming soon enough, anyways.
Hans leered in sadistic triumph. He had won this one. The witch was completely at his mercy, and in a few moments he would break her spirit for good. With great vigor, the disgraced prince of the Southern Isles gripped the front of her dress and tore it open. He grinned childishly as he prepared to dig in to that soft, vulnerable flesh.
Hans had always been on the receiving end of abuse and injustice. For the first time in forever, the tables were turned. For the first time in forever, someone was powerless against him. He had earned this right. Hans wanted to inflict pain on her. She had no idea what he had been through. Not to mention that Elsa was the microcosm of everything that was unfair and unhappy about his life. She was psychologically raping him simply by existing. He was only leveling the playing field.
There was also the enticing appeal of claiming her as a trophy on his belt. Who would've thought that the youngest son would have the pleasure of defiling the most coveted woman on Earth? The witch closed her eyes and turned her face away, visibly trembling as he advanced. Her terror only fueled his lust.
Then he hesitated. Some mysterious inhibition made him think twice. An invisible barrier of ambivalence held him back.
Come on Hans, give this frigid prude what she deserves!
You would be no different from your father or brothers if you did this.
Bullshit! You will go down in history as the man who reduced the mighty Snow Queen to a common whore.
No, you'd become the most hated man in all of Arendelle.
Remember your brothers bragging about their conquests every night? How your father never even let you try to court anyone? How your brothers got all the women? Here's your chance to prove yourself!
What honor is there in kicking someone who is already down?
Playing fair never did anyone any good. Nice guys finish last!
She could've had you put to death three years ago. Hans, you owe a debt of mercy.
It was too easy. That perfect, angelic form lying there so helpless and vulnerable, just waiting for him to have his way with her. It was an early Christmas present hand-wrapped and personally delivered to Hans from God himself. The thirteenth prince had done plenty of shameful and repugnant things in his life. He had lost his moral compass long ago, and nothing was beneath him.
But he was once again reminded of the debt he owed. Memories of that fateful summer flooded back to his mind. Hans couldn't deny that he did get off easy. People had been tortured and killed, and wars had been declared over far less. Elsa would've been more than justified in having him drawn and quartered after his attempted usurpation. No one could've blamed her, had she decided to reduce Weselton and the Southern Isles into an icy wasteland.
Hans slowly rose to his feet. He couldn't do it. With his gloved hand, he stroked Elsa's bruised cheek and wiped her tears before leaving the room. My debt is repaid.
Kai slowly walked up and down the Great Hall, passing through row after row of incapacitated victims. What on earth could have befallen these poor people? Guards had to be stationed in the room to restrain people from tearing the castle apart, as they desperately tried to end their own lives. Last night, Kristoff's sled had been destroyed when the ice master swerved to avoid hitting a man who had thrown himself under Sven's hooves.
What ailment could be so gut-wrenchingly torturous that it made death a physical impossibility, yet compelled its sufferers to attempt suicide at every turn? Kai sighed and rubbed his forehead. It simply made no sense.
Every flare-up of symptoms occurred almost precisely four hours after the previous one finished. Kai glanced at his watch. There was still an hour to go before the next conflagration. But the castle was still eerily quiet.
Kai realized that he had not seen Hans or Elsa since they made the news of their engagement public. He felt a strange sense of foreboding. Hans hadn't done anything overtly suspicious at the announcement, but Kai had noticed uncomfortable Elsa appeared when he pulled her into the kiss. She made no move to reciprocate, and had frankly appeared quite scared and disgusted. That was all he needed to see. Kai was absolutely convinced that foul play was at work.
He wasn't going to learn anything by talking to Hans. The soon-to-be king would only continue to bombard Kai with a barrage of shallow and syrupy comments professing his love for Elsa. He had also tried to obtain information from Anna and Kristoff. The princess and the ice master clearly knew something that he didn't. But they were both reluctant to talk, and always became very conspicuously uneasy whenever Hans was mentioned.
Perhaps Elsa could shed some light on this mysterious state of affairs. Kai patrolled through the castle, checking through the places where Elsa could normally be found. Perhaps she was in the library, indulging in its vast repertoire of books or completing some paperwork? Or resting in the guest room where she was temporarily residing? Or in her actual bedroom, which was now occupied by the little red-haired girl? Could she be in the castle gardens, enjoying a quiet afternoon?
But the Snow Queen was nowhere to be found. Kai was about to postpone his search, when a draft of icy wind gave him a hint. He tiptoed down a small, sparsely-traveled corridor and pushed open the door to a room that he barely even knew existed. His mouth dropped open and he nearly fell to his knees at the appalling sight that greeted him.
The beautiful, intelligent, angelic young woman he had taken care of since infancy was curled up on a sofa, with a flood of tears pouring down her cheeks. Her blonde hair was messy and disheveled, and deep purple bruises adorned her face and arms. Kai gasped aloud in horror when he saw that her dress was torn and hanging off of one shoulder, exposing her undergarments and more bruises on her skin. Every inch of the walls were coated with thick blue ice that reflected a harsh, unwelcoming glow across the room.
A crumpled white glove lay on the floor at the foot of the sofa. It took Kai a moment to recognize the glove and its owner, and he instantly realized what must have happened. A whirlwind of emotions swirled violently through his head. He hated Hans with every ounce of his being, but the man blamed and despised himself to a far greater degree. He failed to protect her. He failed to act in a timely manner. Perhaps he had even been responsible for eliciting this behavior from Hans, by confronting him earlier that day. Tears of guilt and shame burned his cheeks. I'm so sorry Adgar. I failed you in the worst way.
Kai slowly sat down on the sofa and tried to wrap his large, beefy arm around Elsa's slender form as gently as he could, careful to avoid her bruises. She feebly pushed him away without making eye contact.
"Your Majesty," Kai began.
Elsa let out a choked sob. "Please, don't call me that. I don't deserve it."
"Of course you do. If your mother and father were here today, they would be so proud of everything you've done for Arendelle. They couldn't have asked for better daughters."
Finally, she fell into his embrace and wept uncontrollably for nearly ten minutes. Huge, shuddering spasms of grief that only began to reflect the horror within. The fatherly servant could feel his heart break as he held her trembling body. When she began to calm down, Kai spoke. He chose his words carefully, mindful of her emotional state but still needing to get his message across. "Elsa, I don't know why Prince Hans is in Arendelle, or what leverage he has." He stroked her hair affectionately. "But none of that matters anymore. Today he went too far. What he did is unforgivable, and he deserves nothing short of death."
Elsa lifted her head and looked at him with teary, half-closed eyes. "He didn't do it," she whispered.
Kai raised his eyebrows incredulously. "He didn't?"
"He tried. He almost did, but he stopped."
Relief washed over Kai like a cool, fresh mountain spring. He was overjoyed that the unthinkable had not happened, but his rational convictions reminded him that not all was well. This was nothing to celebrate. The corpulent man cleared his throat. "The fact remains that he is capable of doing such a thing. That he only cares about his own desires. This is not someone you want to spend your life with."
Elsa shook her head violently. "Please, can't we just forget about this? Nothing happened, really."
Kai knew that this was far from the truth. But he knew Elsa well enough to understand that the more he pressed her with questions, the more she would clam up. She would talk once she was ready. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Very well, I trust your judgment. But as your father's oldest friend and advisor, it is my duty to remind you that such occurrences are rarely a one-time thing. Be wary of this man."
Elsa nodded gratefully as Kai left the room. His fatherly affection warmed her heart. But she was also quite unnerved at how close he had come to uncovering the truth. This would certainly not work to the benefit of those poisoned. Elsa was starting to have some serious doubts whether or not this façade could last another five days, until the wedding ceremony. She needed answers quickly. She needed to create distractions for Hans and buy herself some more space and privacy, as she continued her inquiries.
It had been a long and difficult day, and Elsa wanted nothing more than to soothe her aching, bruised body in a hot bath, and nap until dinnertime. But there was no time to waste, and the mystery wasn't going to solve itself. She dissipated the ice and rolled off the sofa with a wince of pain, before heading back to the castle library.
Elsa flipped carefully through the flaky pages of the ancient Latin Bible. Men will seek death, but death shall escape them. She was quite certain that the Book of Revelations didn't contain the identity of the mysterious poison, but the coincidence was too compelling to ignore. Her eyes scanned the adjacent verses.
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth… Their torment was as the sting of a scorpion…And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, who in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Apollyon. Excitement exploded in the pit of her stomach, as the word triggered a distant, repressed memory deep within her subconscious. She was certain that she had encountered that esoteric name in one of her previous readings. Perhaps she had skimmed unseeingly over it just yesterday, or perhaps she had encountered it years ago as a child poring through books to alleviate boredom and numbness. With no thought of how crude and uncouth her gestures would have seemed to any outsider, Elsa snatched a dozen books off the shelf and threw the covers open with tremendous vigor.
Five hours of unflagging patience and meticulousness finally paid off. There it was, in miniscule writing scrawled in faded ink on the parchment. Buried in a sea of archaic vocabulary and pedantic scribbling and mind-numbingly convoluted run-on sentences. Why couldn't these ancient writers simply say what they mean? She skimmed through several dozen pages of redundant ramblings, picking out just the important details.
Apollyon's Elixir…The most fearsome entity the brightest and boldest minds in alchemy ever dared to imagine... A devilish concoction trickling slowly and surreptitiously through the blood and lymph, as the trail of trichinella through the tracts of unsuspecting swine... Compels its victims to yearnings of death unattainable, until death shall mercifully claim them when as many days have elapsed as there are vertices in the tetractys of Pythagoras…A brew so grotesquely noxious and sadistically inexorable, Satan himself eyes its sufferers with compassion and contrition, and forbids its usage against the vilest souls in the deepest quarries of fire and brimstone…
This was it! Arendelle was saved, and Hans had lost his only weapon. But premature celebration would not be her downfall. Elsa reminded herself that she was only halfway there. She marked the page and continued scanning through the text, eyes peeled for any tidbit of information pertaining to a treatment.
Bang bang bang! Someone was pounding on the library door with great conviction. Elsa caught herself just before she screamed in frustration and unleashed a massive barrage of expletives. Of all the moments this clueless, bungling idiot could have chosen to interrupt her! She plugged her ears and continued reading. But the knocking grew in volume and frequency.
Elsa nearly kicked the door off its hinges. She was far too irritated to notice or care how unqueenly she must have appeared. "Whoever you are, I swear I will have you beheaded if—"
It was Kai. His face was flushed and sweat glistened on his balding forehead. "Your Majesty," he wheezed. "Arendelle is under attack. Enemy ship spotted along Northwestern border."
Looks like Hans didn't do the unthinkable after all. He stopped on his own, as opposed to having someone else stop him. This is the beginning of his transformation.