Nathan, Elsa and Anna spent several hours in the library, just lounging around, reading and talking. After about an hour the conversation turned from random topics like favorite colors or seasons, to powers and magic. Elsa was the first to bring the topic up.

She looked up to Nathan from a book in her lap and addressed him. "Hey, Nathan?"

He peaked out from behind a bookshelf and called back "Yea?"

Elsa beckoned to him and said "come here."

Nathan walked out from behind the bookshelf and blinked right in front of her. She gave a little yelp and jumped, but then smiled mischievously at Nathan. "I'll get you back for that." She said in a mock-threatening tone.

Nathan waved a hand dismissively and said "of course you will." In a sarcastic tone.

From somewhere in the rows of bookshelves Anna's voice rang out. "She's not joking, she's going to get you!"

Nathan threw his head up and turned to the shelves, shouting to Anna. "Yea, I'm quaking in my boots right now!"

Elsa smirked, already planning her revenge. But that wasn't why she called him over. She had serious questions she wanted to ask him. She motioned to a chair across from her and said "Please, sit."

Nathan raised an eyebrow and said "Just after you threaten me?" He turned and looked at the chair inspecting it for signs of sabotage. He didn't see any telltale signs of a trap, but he was still hesitant to sit.

Elsa rolled her eyes and said exasperatedly "I didn't do anything to the chair." Nathan shrugged and sat down slowly. When he settled into the chair he gave it a few experimental shakes than seemed satisfied. He looked up at Elsa expectantly. "I wanted to ask you" she said "about your powers." She watched Nathan's face carefully. When she mentioned his powers the joking look on his face faded and were replaced by a business like visage. He sat up straighter in his chair and focused more on Elsa.

She took a deep breath and readied herself. Something about the way he reacted set her on edge. She continued, "What does it feel like when you use your power?"

Nathan thought for a moment. Did he trust Elsa enough to tell her this? Yes, he didn't have much choice there. He had already pledged himself to her, so he had already sort of made that decision. He would tell her about her powers, but he wouldn't have to go into detail. Something that he had been wondering himself, though, would help him explain it to her. "Well… what does It feel like for you? What do you do that starts a spell?"

Elsa held a hand up to her eyes and summoned a small blast of cold air, blowing several snowflakes towards the ceiling. She did it again and focused on what made it happen. It was a thought, a will to make it happen. "It's… it's like my…" she shook her head, trying to put the feeling into words. "…my wanting to make it happen and… and my belief, my thought, just… makes it happen." She looked at Nathan to see if he understood.

Nathan nodded. There was a feeling of dread somewhere deep in his chest. It didn't come from any real discernable source, but Nathan defiantly felt… intimidated by what she said. She hadn't said anything about her power tiring her out. If what she said was true, than her powers were not limited by any raw power restrictions. She could use her powers without limitation, as if it were her heart beating. Knowing that such a person even existed was scary. It was as if someone had a crossbow aimed at his head and Nathan didn't know where the bow was.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was in her service, not her enemy. As long as it stayed that way he would have nothing to fear. He turned his thoughts instead to his own powers. "I have a much more… controlled way to use my powers. It's like my powers are another limb, I use them in much the same way. And, as if my power was a limb, it can tire and fail if put under enough pressure." He took a bone charm from one of his pockets and started working it in his hands. "But those are just the powers I use." Elsa gave him a confused look. He explained "My powers give me other benefits, ones I don't have to expend energy to use." He thought back to the fight with the golem looking for an example. "Like… like when I jumped onto the golem you summoned. That jump didn't take energy. The magic I have just pushed me into the air."

Elsa thought back and said "And when you dodged his swipe?"

Nathan nodded. "I was being pushed by my power." He hesitated. "Well, my power strengthened what I was doing." He didn't want to make it seem like he had control issues. "And the same goes for my health. I'm pretty resilient to getting sick, and…" He snorted, remembering a few fights from his childhood "…I can take a hell of a beating."

Elsa nodded and said "Wow, that's incredible. I sort of wish I had things that just… happened like that." She thought back to the first time she had ever fought with her powers. "I mean, I've done things like stop an arrow, but it was a more reaction kind of thing, it didn't just happen."

Nathan shrugged. "Well, I have to want to do it, it doesn't just happen from nowhere. All my other powers use up my energy."

Elsa looked at him, puzzled. He clarified "After I use my powers a lot I can get too tired to keep using them. There are some things I can do to keep from running out altogether, but I prefer to just not burn too much energy."

Elsa nodded. She understood, at least, better than she had before. Another thing she had been wondering popped into her mind, and she asked "Were you born with your powers?"

Nathan shook his head and said "No, I got them when I was…" he realized he didn't actually know how old he had been when he got them. It didn't bother him, it was just strange to think about. He decided to guess. "… probably about ten or eleven."

Elsa leaned forward at this. "Really? How did you get them?" she asked incredulously.

Nathan sighed. He considered showing her the mark emblazoned on the back of his left hand. He didn't particularly want to, but at this point there wasn't much harm it could do considering everything else he had told her.

He peeled off the elbow length leather glove and turned the back of his hand to Elsa. She took his hand and examined the mark carefully. As she did Nathan said "It was given to me by the Outsider." He stopped and asked "You… do know the Outsider, right?" Elsa nodded and he continued. "I got pretty messed up in a fight with some older kids. While I was unconscious the Outsider appeared to me and told me that he would give me some of his power. I woke up with that-"he indicated the mark on his hand "- and I've have had the power ever since."

Elsa let go of his hand and gasped. "You were fighting when you were ten?" she said worriedly. "Why didn't your parents stop you?"

Nathan laughed at this. It was a genuine laugh, but it came out sounding bitter. "My parents were long dead by the time this fight happened. And I was fighting long before ten, I was losing a lot up until ten."

Elsa looked cringed and looked down. "I… I'm sorry. I didn't-"

Nathan cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Don't be, I'm glad they weren't around." He assured her.

She looked at him sympathetically and said "But… but who took care of you?"

Nathan figured that all caution may as well just be thrown to the wind at this point. "I stayed at an orphanage for a while. It didn't have much money, so not all the kids got food. I tried to help out by stealing from shops around town."

He paused for breath, Elsa nodded and said "Anna told me about that. You started stealing jewelry and stuff after a while."

Nathan smiled. "News spreads fast among siblings, eh?"

Elsa smiled and nodded, saying "Very."

Nathan chuckled and said "Whatever, after a while I was raking in more money than the orphanage needed. To feed the kids, at least. I started setting some of the money aside and buying gear for myself and some other kid who helped me on jobs." He paused, thinking. "I… can't seem to remember his name, though." He rested his chin on his knuckles and said "Huh… I can't remember his name at all." He dismissed the thought and continued. "Anyways, I bought us gear. You know, shoes, gloves, lock picks, rope, whatever we needed to get more stuff. Me and him were the ones who took care of the other kids. He was the one who dealt with them personally, and I was the one who got most of the food."

It was strange, telling his story to someone else. He used spent most of his time alone, so he had had a lot of time to think about what happened to him. Telling the story to another person gave it perspective. He didn't think he had a sad past, but Elsa's reactions to what he said were what he would expect if he was telling her some sob story.

Elsa looked at him sadly. Nathan saw something new in her eyes, something he wasn't used too. Pity, he realized, was what he saw. He felt strange, knowing someone actually felt bad for him. He didn't like it. He didn't want her thinking less of him or looking down at him.

He started to speak, but the sound caught in his throat, resulting in a strangled gurgling noise. Elsa looked at him worriedly as he cleared his throat and beat his chest. He felt his cheeks burn red again as he slid his hand back into his glove and tried again, wondering why his voice caught. "It's not bad, it just happened."

Elsa looked him in the eyes and said incredulously "Not that bad? But you… you must have needed a parent at some point! What kind of childhood is having to care for an orphanage full of other kids?" she looked at him sadly again "you must not have had a childhood at all."

Nathan felt like he needed to change the mood at this point. He gave Elsa a joking smile and said "or maybe I'm still living it."

Her reaction wasn't exactly the laughter he had been hoping for, but he would take the small smile he got. He stood from the chair, feeling the conversation was over. He turned and started to walk back to the bookshelves, looking over his shoulder at Elsa. She was gazing back down at the book in her lap. He could tell that she wasn't reading it, though, as her eyes were glazed over and not moving.

…..

It was about half an hour later when Nathan found himself laying on top on one of the bookshelves, holding a small leather-bound medical journal over his head reading. He was reading a fascinating study on the spread of diseases, something that he had always been semi-interested in. He liked to think that if he hadn't gotten the Outsider's mark that he would have grown to be some kind of doctor or surgeon. He had always had a precision with blades and a disregard for blood, both things he thought would help in a surgery.

He turned the page and found a small sketch of a hand that detailed all the various muscles and tendons. Next to it was a sketch with the same hand but with considerable damage, with the muscles withering away. A small paragraph next to the second sketch said that the drawing was of the hand of a sick man who had agreed to let the doctor study the damage that a sickness caused his body.

Nathan held up his own hand next to the sketch and wondered what it would feel like to be reduced to such a state. He clenched his fist and felt the muscles pull taught. After a moment he unclenched his fist and shook his head, dismissing the thought. He turned the page again and found two more sketches, both of faces. One was of a healthy enough looking face, the other of a face sunken in and covered in boils and sores. An accompanying paragraph described the development of the sickness as frighteningly quick, but the nature of the disease to be not contagious.

He was about to turn the page again when he heard hushed whispering. He looked to where Elsa had been sitting when he last talked to her and found her gone. He gazed around the room, looking over many tables, chairs, and bookshelves but didn't see her or Anna anywhere. The whispering continued, and Nathan set the journal down. He stood from the flat position he had been in and looked around again.

Still, he saw nothing. He felt like he should find them. It seemed the proper thing to do, him being the bodyguard and all. He blinked to the next bookshelf over and looked over the side, searching for the two women. He did this twice more but did not find them.

He stopped and knelt down, listening intently to the whispering, trying to locate it. The library was large and furnished well, leaving hundreds of small echoes bouncing around to confuse him. He closed his eyes and focused, letting his power leak out slowly into the shadows of the room. He felt the shadows of the books, shelves, and other furnishings all static and unmoving. He also felt the movement of people. Human shadows, moving around as if talking.

He stood and turned to the direction of the shadows. They were on the other side of the room in-between two shelves. The bookshelf closest to him was just within blinking range, luckily enough. He focused and blinked onto the top of it, crouching down and taking care to make his footfalls as quiet as possible. He crept closer to the pair to better her what they were saying.

As he came into earshot the whispers started to form real words and sentences. He stopped moving and knelt down on one knee, listening intensely.

"... just feel bad for him, that's all." That was defiantly Elsa's voice. He felt a twinge of annoyance that she was still pitying him.

Anna spoke next "I know, so do I. But he wants to help!"

Elsa sighed. "I know, but my advisors made it very clear I was making a mistake."

Anna spoke again sounding exasperated "They were also going to let Hans kill you! Elsa, why do you keep them around now? You handle almost everything anyways, and you always say how much you hate them, so why keep them?"

Elsa spoke softly now. "Mama and Papa told me to trust them."

There was a moment of silence between the two. Nathan had to doubt the wisdom of Elsa's and Anna's parents if they had said that to their own children. They should have known that on matter how much they trusted their own advisors. They shouldn't let their children trust them like that. Not without some basis for the trust, and their word wasn't enough.

Anna broke the silence. "Well… I'm starting to doubt that you should. Maybe Mama and Papa trusted them, but I think they've changed since the accident."

Nathan heard footsteps and knew by the sound that it was Elsa walking. She walked to the other end of the bookshelf and Nathan followed from above. Anna rushed to follow behind her.

Elsa stopped and turned sharply at the end of the shelf to Anna, saying "You think I don't know that? They were telling me to declare a war today, Anna! A war!" she took a deep breath, calmed herself, and continued. "Sorry…I… I haven't been sleeping well. I think I'm going to seek out some new advisors."

Nathan heard both Anna and Elsa gasp at the same time. He peered over the side of the bookshelf and saw what they were gasping about.

A thin layer of frost had started to creep out from Elsa's feet, covering the floor around her and starting to work up the side of the bookshelf. Anna and Elsa were looking at it with shocked expressions. Nathan felt the dread he had felt earlier return. Elsa closed her eyes and scrunched her face up, obviously trying very hard to do something. After a few moments of this the frost receded back across the floor and back to her feet.

Nathan was starting to feel bad about listening in on a private conversation. He crept back across the top of the bookshelf and dropped back to the floor silently. He stepped out into the row of book that they were in and announced himself by clearing his throat loudly and saying "Ah, there you are, I was looking for you."

Both of them looked at Nathan, surprised by his sudden appearance. They both took a step back from him and readjusted themselves quickly so they looked more comfortable than they really were. Nathan raised his hands apologetically and said "Did… I interrupt something?"

They both looked at each other uncomfortably, Elsa turned back to Nathan and said "No, no you didn't interrupt anything. We were just… talking."

Nathan gave her a sympathetic smile and said "You're a bad liar, Elsa." He shrugged and turned to fake examine the books lined up on the bookshelf, saying in a playful voice "I guess me Eavesdropping didn't hurt either."

Anna gasped and said "You were listening to us?" indignantly.

Nathan picked a book off the shelf at random and turned it over to look at the cover. He snorted to himself when he saw the title, and he read it out loud. "The Tales of Flynnigan Ryder. I remember this book from when I was a kid."

Anna stepped forwards and pushed the book back towards the shelf, looking Nathan in the face. "How much did you hear?"

Nathan put the book back on the shelf and took a step back from Anna. "Something about advisors giving… bad advice." He said nonchalantly.

Elsa was the next to speak, saying "Nathan, I would prefer it if you would make your presence known if you find a conversation in progress." In an official, stately manner. Nathan could tell that this was not something that she took lightly.

He put his left hand across his chest and closed his hand, so that his fist was over his heart. He bowed to Elsa and said in a very respectful tone, much different from the way he was speaking prior "Of course, Queen." She regarded his bow with a strange look, something that Nathan was used to. It was a gesture of respect was something Nathan had always used, but couldn't remember where he had seen it used.

Elsa bowed her head and said "Thank you." In an equally respectful tone.

Nathan rose from his bow and again took the book from the shelf. He opened the cover of the book and looked at the intricately written title. While looking at it, he said "So, what's to be done with the wolves?" remembering how Elsa had described them earlier.

He heard Elsa sigh, but he didn't look up from the book. There was a pause in which he could hear her breathing get ever so slightly heavier. "I…. I will speak to them, and if they refuse changing their ways…" she took another deep breath "… than they will be replaced."

Nathan turned the page to the first chapter in the book, saying darkly "And if they refuse replacement?"

Nathan heard Anna's footsteps bring her up next to Elsa. "They won't refuse." she said in an unusually dark way for her normally happy sounding voice. Nathan looked up and saw Anna with a hand on Elsa's shoulder trying to comfort her.

He didn't know if he should also try and console her or whether he should leave that up to Anna. He decided that he may as well try. "In my experience…" he spoke slowly, choosing his wording carefully "… when the advisors go bad, it's… like…" his mind raced to come up with a comparison "… ingredients in a kitchen going bad." He paused, going over the comparison in his head and shrugged. It worked. "You can keep cooking with the bad stuff, but nothing you make will be as good as it could be."

Elsa looked down, thinking. After a moment she said "I'm going to tell them tonight. I want you-" she looked from Nathan to Anna "-both of you there when I do."

Anna looked worriedly at her and asked "do you think something is going to happen?"

Nathan nodded and looked to Elsa, also curious if she was anticipating trouble.

She shook her head and said "I don't know… I'd just rather play it safe."

Nathan closed the book and put it under his arm, intending to read it later. He asked Elsa "About when do you think you're going to talk to them?"

She started massaging her temples, even despite the bone charm still around her neck. "I don't know… after dinner, I suppose."

Nathan nodded in agreement and glanced around the huge room for a clock or some other method of telling time. Finding nothing, he asked "what time is it, by the way?" to no one in particular.

Anna looked at him and shrugged, saying "I don't know, but dinner is in about an hour."

…

The hour passed excruciatingly slow for Nathan. He spent most of it sprawled out on top of a bookshelf reading the story book "Tales of Flynnigan Ryder". He didn't particularly care for the story itself, but reading it brought memories of when he was a child back. Most people wouldn't want to remember a childhood like he had, but he enjoyed looking back on it and seeing how far he had come.

It seemed like thousands of years ago when he had been huddled around a fire with a group of other kids, all trying to stave off the chilling wind that wormed its way through even the thickest walls of the orphanage. One of the older kids read from a book, The Tales of Flynnigan Rider, trying to distract the other kids from the miserable conditions. It never worked for Nathan, but that didn't stop him from listening.

After a few chapters Nathan heard a voice that snapped him out of him memories. Anna called to him from the ground "Nathan, come on, dinner time!"

He put the book down on the bookshelf and dropped from the top. He hit the ground lightly and stood up, stretching his back. Anna looked at him, shocked. He motioned to the door and said "Well? Let's go."

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Authors thing:

WOO, double digits!
so other than that, would anyone mind if i brought some tangled stuff into the mix? cuz that's kind of what I've been planing.

thanks for reading my stuff, I'll just keep posting i guess.