Princeslayer: House Arendelle would not fall easily, even with their queen in chains. After some negotiations with Princess Anna, Lady Helen releases the queen (under Ser Lucius's ward) on the condition that Dash and Violet were to return home safely. It wasn't until they were captured by Syndrome's men did Lucius discovers the truth of Princess Anna's fiancé; the late Prince Hans. Game of Thrones AU
Warning: language, implied attempted rape, blood, body horror, Hans
Lucius is a proud man; a strong, honorable knight just like he always wanted to be. He was not going sully his name by giving this woman what she rightfully deserved - someone to put her in her place.
The Snow Queen looked terrible; the once flawless queen of Arendelle walked before him, clothes sagged from her birdlike shoulders and hung from her limbs. Finely brushed back platinum hair had become matted and dirtied so much that there was no visible difference where the end of her braid meets the collar of her coronation dress. Still, she'd turn to him every now and then and tug on the chains and demand what was keeping him.
Proud little shit.
He picks up the pace so the chain slacks between them. "I'm supposed to be escorting you back to Arendelle, your majesty."
He received a hum in response. "You keep telling yourself that, sellsword."
She wouldn't make it beyond fifty paces,he thought. She is unskilled in weaponry, sinks in heavy armor and cannot cast magick while her hands were locked away. She needed him - that's what he kept telling himself whenever his seemingly endless patience has run its course. The queen tested his patience, and he hated every moment with her.
Once she had been bold and demanded him to release her hands. He told her to do without; he'd urinated without using his hands before - why couldn't she? Her face flushed darkly and she proceeded to cue him into the details of a woman's anatomy and how she lacked (and thus, she does not think with) a cock.
Red with embarrassment, he unlocked one of her hands, freed it from it's cage. Then all hell broke loose. Icicles reached towards the stars as she tried to break free of the second chain. The queen didn't count on Lucius's own ice countering her own.
With one hand still trapped in its metal prison, he defeated her easily and slapped the chains back on. Since then, ice always seemed to be leaking from her feet. He would slip and jerk on the chains, and she- she would give him the most innocent look of shock at the ice. The ice came from her and she blamed him for it.
Ice bitch.
"Can't we take a break?" she huffed, her thin shoulders seemingly creaking under an unseen weight.
"We've got quite a bit of ground to cover." He muttered as he pushed her along. "Come, we haven't got all day."
She stilled again, not budging. "You can very well pretend respect for the queen, can you not?"
He tugged on her manacles. "I have orders from Lady Helen. The sooner Ser Dash and Lady Violet are safe, the sooner I can rest." Another tug, and judging from the discomfort on her face, the metal might be biting into her wrists. He almost felt sorry.
Almost.
"Your majesty, Arendelle awaits."
Some days later, they were captured by Syndrome's men. These men were craven, having torn away his armor and leather, leaving him in nothing but thin see-through breeches in the night air. They had a bit of fun with him; throwing rocks from every direction and then tying him up and throwing him face-down in the ground. Lucius had come a little too close to being used for their amusement.
Thankfully the Ice Queen stepped in, suggesting that his father might reward them for his son's safe return and his honor intact.
He didn't have the heart to correct Elsa; his family had no money - that she didn't need to stand up for a lowly knight of the caliber. But she did, and she saved him from whatever torture they had planned that night. And for that he couldn't be more thankful.
Syndrome's men wouldn't touch the queen; they can't- not with her body's automatic defense. (Once, he kicked her awake when it was just been the two of them, only to realize his boot was completely frosted over from where the rubber touched her skin.) The Ice Queen was too valuable; too valuable to taint, too valuable to waste.
Far too valuable to waste.
So when the Snow Queen spares Lucius, Syndrome takes her leg.
A tourniquet was applied and the bleeding stemmed but the queen was too lost in her own pain to register their capture.
"You think you have power here, Snow Queen?" Syndrome's lilt laughter danced hauntingly in the still air. "We're not in Arendelle, and Daddy's not here to save you." He threw them both in the back of his sleigh, and they whisked off to rendezvous with Lady Mirage.
Daylight streaming from the tops of trees, Lucius awoke to the weight of the queen's head on his bare shoulders, her complexion a sickly pallid and a layer of sweat on her brow. He can see the he's still bound from last night and she, still in tattered garb and chains. The horse jerks violently to the left and...
"Someone catch her! Her majesty is gonna - "
She falls off the moving vehicle, dust settling around her prone form as Lucius watches helplessly over his shoulder. One of the grey faced men yells for help and the horses stop moving.
Afraid to touch her, they hesitated. Surrounding the fallen queen with outstretched hands, they took a step back as the queen struggled to stand. Armed with thick gloves, Syndrome reached down and wrenched her on her foot, not caring when the queen teeters dangerously, unbalanced. "Get up!"
"You can't be real." Lucius mutters. One of the grey men smacks the butt of the sword to the back of his head. Not missing a beat, Syndrome turns to him. "Oh, I'm real enough! I'm real enough to defeat you two!"
The queen is thrown, and one of the men makes the move to catch her. In one blast, she blew a wall of slush, the icy mess blanketing Syndrome and his men. The metal of her manacle contacts the grey faced men and it knocks his helmet aside. Straddling another, she's prepared to to bring down the black metal when the crack of a pistol butt stills her movements and she collapses on her side.
Lucius had been silently cheering for her. His face tightens as the fallen soldiers recollect themselves and Syndrome towers over her weakened form.
With his wild hair plastering his face, Syndrome yanks her braid and pulls her back to meet his eyes. "You try that again," he whispered, "and I'll take your other leg."
He didn't think the fight left her, but a look in her eyes and his heart fell. Now sharing a prisoner's cage, he gestured toward her dinner- a small ration from Syndrome but food nonetheless.
"What do you think you're doing?" He whispered.
"What does it look like, Ser Lucius?" The Snow Queen deadpanned, dull blue eyes glances at his from under her bangs. "I'm dying."
"You're not dying here, your majesty."
A dry laugh, her voice hollow. "I was born to Arendelle, I should die in Arendelle but yet here I am."
"All the more reason to live." He mused, finding some humor despite still being shaken up from last night. "The longer you live, the less the gods have to take."
Her head fell against the metal bars and he can see the protruding bones of her neck. She looked even sicklier under candlelight. A glimpse at her leg and he can see yellow stains where the tourniquet was applied - the infection beginning to take its toll.
"Milady." Lucius licked his lips as he mulled over his next words. "Princess Anna awaits your return."
"...Anna?"
He waited with bated breath as her thin arms reached for a slice of bread and the queen began to eat.
It wasn't the first time he saw a woman naked but it was the first time he saw the queen without her clothes. Oh gods, if he thought the queen looked ill before then she looked like she was upon death's door. He can see the contours of her rib cage poking through the thin skin and how each breath shook her skeletal form. There are blisters along her wrists where skin met metal.
"There are other baths, you know." He swallowed, afraid that she'd slip on the wet tiles and shatter.
"I'm well aware." The queen slowly lowers herself in and his eyes glance at the stump of her left leg as it submerged under the hot bath water.
An uncomfortable silence settles in the small bathhouse with he at one end of the bath, and she staring at him from the other. Subconsciously, he crosses his arms over his chest and his legs together. "Your majesty."
He thinks the flush on her face is due to the heat but he can't be sure. Her eyes narrow and the redness is gone. "Why is my name so difficult to you?"
"I am a knight, your majesty."
"All but Anna." she whispers, unperturbed by his answer. "Only my sister can speak my name as it is and not as a curse. Why?"
His fingers tingled and his hands clench painfully around his arms. "You murdered Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. I did not think her majesty of Arendelle to be so daft in terms of-"
"Such remarks are unbecoming of a sellsword."
"I am a knight." Hands now clench into fists and no longer covering his front, he willed himself to calm - assaulting the queen during her bath would not be without consequences to himself and to his cause. Breathing deeply, he continued. "In regards to -that- incidence with Ser Syndrome, I offer you my humblest thanks; without milady's word I'd-."
He trailed off, hoping it would be left unsaid but the queen continued regardless. "Those men would have taken you every which way and left you with your throat slit."
Sucking air through his clenched teeth, he had to repeatedly remind himself that though it was the queen who reopened old wounds, it didn't change the fact that she had saved him. "I still stand by to bring you back to Arendelle."
"And a good job you are doing." She drawled. "You'd return the queen in pieces. Little wonder Dame Edna had no use of you anymo-"
Furious, he stood from the bath. No longer caring about indecency he pointed a finger at the young queen, ready to give her a piece of his mind from the weeks of pent up frustration. Just as he was about to tell her off, the queen broke off eye contact. Her face burned furiously as she tried to look at anywhere but him.
He stood upright for a few minutes- the contrast between the hot water and cold air made him uncomfortable but no, he was far too angry to back down.
When the queen finally did speak her voice was mellowed, defeated. "Forgive me, I've overspoken."
"I don't need your pity."
"That wasn't pity." She's fighting to bring her eyes to his. When blue meets brown, he can see a genuine emotion stirring within. "I was apologizing, Ser Lucius."
He slowly settled back into the bath, sinking until he felt the water lapping at his stomach. In silence they both resumed their actions, he- scrubbing his skin fervently with a wad of steel wool and she, clutching her hair as her braid tumbled down from its usual bind.
"You'd return the Snow Queen to her throne?" she whispered, tentative to break the silence. "Even now?"
"Arendelle's turmoil compromises the safety of Ser Dash and Lady Violet." he continued, scrubbing without so much as a glance.
"Even a princeslayer such as myself."
"You are all that Arendelle has left." His voice bounced with the utmost conviction. "Princeslayer and all."
Her eyes locked on his and it held the most clarity he's seen in the longest time. She sighed noisily. "Do you often wonder why? Why .. Hans's life ended in my hands?" It was like she almost spat out the former prince's name.
Lucius's hands stopped moving as he thought back, trying to piece together floating rumors. the Snow Queen... the mad prince, thirteenth in line for the throne, Princess Anna and the engagement and how the queen was forced to approve of the marriage at first but then stripped the prince of all recognition once his twelve brothers fell to the rebellion. Prince Hans had begged for his life in the middle of Arendelle's throne room with Anna pleading for his life... and how she, a thin, frail looking girl-queen had conjured her own blade and easily beheaded the screaming prince.
"He wanted my father's throne." The queen began, her lip curling with disgust. "So he tried to win my favor."
At the silence, the knight presumed that the queen was waiting for his response. "How?"
The queen leaned back, the sound of her head hitting the tub rim made a dull sound. "Gifts, sonnets, he's done it all. When I rejected his advances, he attempted to flatter Anna."
"And he succeeded."
The barest tilt of her head was more than enough to confirm his statement. "He sang to her, praised her, held her where I cannot." Her fingers brushed upon the water's surface and Lucius can see water beginning to ice over and the temperature dropped. Unperturbed by the change, the queen continued. "He asked Anna to marry him, she said yes and... you know how well it ends, do you not?"
He did. At the engagement, the Southern Isles declared war. With resources being put into military priority, the wedding was postponed. The soon-to-be prince escort wasn't pleased by this turn and he pushed for a wedding, arguing that a wedding would lift the people's spirits and morale rather than waiting for soldiers of the Southern Isles. At this, Queen Elsa and the council rejected his plea, instead favoring the aid of Corona.
Prince Hans was a charismatic man, often operating from the curtains while his puppets danced on stage. He pushed his way into the council, under the pretext of working for the queen's hand and manipulating other members of the council. It went on for quite some time until rumors rose about Southern raiders mingling in the slums.
Though he walked among the people, neither he nor the queen was able to differentiate between the common man of Arendelle, and a spy of the Southern Isles.
The rumors in the tavern bubble up from his memory and Lucius grit his teeth, almost afraid to ask. "Was it true, then? Were you going to give Arendelle a second winter?"
Her eyes glinted; the familiar blue was as cold as the bath water. "No."
"That's not what the people said-"
"Prince Hans of the Southern Isles requested that I summon a winter that not even a seasoned warrior can outlive. The Southern Isles is known for its warm season; our country was safest when it was cold."
He pursed his lips. Logically, the cold would have kept the ships away but Arendelle had just come from a natural winter, and a brutish one at that. The people had very little food left from the hibernating months. If the Queen had brought another winter then...
"The people would not have survived." he continued.
"A kingdom cannot rule without her people." The adult resonance of her voice was gone and it felt as though he was speaking to a lonely child. "I couldn't do that to Arendelle, not to Corona, not again."
"Then… Prince Hans?"
"He arranged a private meeting during a time when the council was not in session and tried to force my hand." The Snow Queen absentmindedly tapped the water again before clenching her fists and wrapping her arms around her stomach, almost hunching over in the bath. "So I cursed his family and put an end to his life."
Speaking with the queen only confused him. "Forced your hand?" He looked at her and he can see the weight of the kingdom and its people burdening the queen's birdish shoulders. Her eyes meet his and it's red rimmed from a girl too young to be queen.
"Anna." Elsa croaks, her breath hitches as tears began to fall. "She begged me, begged mercy for that fool's life."
He doesn't like it when women cry. He's still angry from earlier but his expression lessened slightly. "He'd use the heir to bargain with Arendelle. The twelfth's spare to the throne of the Southern Isles - he brought a war into Arendelle. What else would you have done, milady?"
"They said I've done all that I could, but is that true?" Her tears freeze halfway down her face. "I urged him to reconsider, to ask him to speak of his brothers to surrender peacefully. We were allies, Arendelle and the Southern Isles. so why...?"
There is an ugly sound when she tried to swallow, the hollow of her neck appeared guant as though there was nothing there but skin and bones. "That's when Princess Rapunzel found me; the sword in wood and the traitor's head in the basket."
"Why didn't you tell the Princess the truth? Why let Anna and Rapunzel believe you to be the Ice Queen the countries fear?"
Her laugh is wet and broken. "You think the honorable Prince Eugene would listen to me?" All humor gone the girl queen looked away, her face a sickly pallor. "I'll never forget that look. Princess Rapunzel of Corona and her boy toy."
"How dare they." she whispered as another wave of salty ice streaked her face. "They judged me. By whose decree can the sun look down at the moon? By what right?" The queen disappears under the water, her hands failing for the brim of the bath.
"Someone help!" He rushes to her, pulling her above the water. "The Snow Queen- she's-!"
"Elsa."
Her words ghost to his ears, almost lost to the splashing bathwater. "What?"
"Elsa." She groaned, the last moment of consciousness slipped from her grasp as her weight fell into his arms. "My name is Elsa."
He's happy to finally change out of those derogatory pants and into something that fit better. Fully adored in leather, Lucius stretched. It wasn't the usual steel he was accustomed to, but much better than shivering and huddling next to Queen Elsa for warmth he'd never find.
Speaking of the queen, Lady Mirage fits her leg with one that was crafted from metal. Wood rots, creaks and cracks whereas metal would be sturdy. Of course, not everything was what it appeared to me: Mirage only released them on the condition that Elsa would not harm Syndrome's men. Should Arendelle's council ask about her leg, Lady Mirage had healed their queen from death's door. The knight grinned as he picked up a few curses under the queen's breath but Elsa agrees.
They walk along, his blunt footsteps and her clicks when metal meet stone.
He gestures to the horse, thinking it might relieve the pressure of the stump - particularly where the flesh meets the metal. She shakes her head and limps along, her arm entwined in his. Occasionally he catches her pained look but otherwise emotionless. However, he can see that her shoulders were lighter as if the weight lessened its hold ever the slightest.
"I'm supposed to be escorting you back to Arendelle, Queen Elsa."
Her hum sounded pleasant in his ears. "You keep telling yourself that, Ser Lucius."
As requested by That ManX; one of two prompts completed! I hope you like this bit of twist. I'm not a fan of Helsa but I did my best to try and meet the expectations of the prompt. Don't be afraid to send in some prompts!