Author's Note – Responding!

To!

Some!

Reeeeeeeeeeeeviews!

Heisenberg – Holy crap, please don't kill me.

Producciones Escudo – Dude…at this point I just interpret one of your reviews that's all caps as a good one and one that isn't as a bad one. I tried. Just couldn't understand.

Fire Wolf – Doing my best. Sorry if it takes long.

Maronn – I'm sorry I made you cry. *Hands tissue*

LovelySheree – Didn't know I put a pun in chapter nine…

Thatirishblond – Wow. +1 Self esteem for me. Thanks!

Car Door – Uhhh...okay. I'll se what I can do there, good buddy.

Chapter 10 – Truth

Elsa timidly followed the old man back towards the castle as he carried the lifeless Ignus. She didn't quite know what to say.

"Um…so you're the fire spirit?"

"Maybe we could chat after I put down the dying person in my arms."

Well, now she knew what not to say…

Fraxinus briskly walked to the front gate of the castle. Waiting there were Anna, Rapunzel and company.

"Elsa! And…oh no, is he okay?"

Fraxinus opened his mouth, but Anna wasn't done.

"What happened? Why did he fall? And is this guy the fire spirit 'Fraxy'? Can you help Ig-"

"I'm starting to wish it wasn't this guy that was unconscious." Fraxinus said testily as he stalked by Anna.

Anna looked like someone had flicked her nose for no reason at all.

"He's…a bit grumpy." Elsa offered.

"Fraxy!"

Isen had run up to the old man and hugged him.

"I missed you so much! How's are you? How've you been?" She looked overjoyed.

"I enjoyed the quiet while it lasted." Fraxinus said, not returning the hug.

Isen simply beamed at him, to the general confusion of everyone.

"We need to get him on a table. Somewhere I can properly look at him." Fraxinus said, looking at the castle.

"Please…use the castle. We have places you can put him."

Fraxinus looked at the one who had spoken. King Thomas looked weary as he leaned against the wall of the gate. Fraxinus grimaced.

"Hm. I'm guessing you were the one who set this kid off?"

The King said nothing, ashamed.

"Figures. Even over thousands of years, royal paranoia never changes." And he walked inside.

Isen bobbed after him, smiling radiantly.

"Isn't he great?"

Shocked faces answered her question.

Eugene whistled. "Quite the gentleman."

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Fraxinus laid down Ignus on a table in the castle. Elsa stood beside him, worried sick. Anna, Isen and Kristoff followed.

Ignus' face was sweaty, contrasting the ice that covered more than half of it. He had a pained expression on his face, like he was having nightmares. He was still hot to the touch.

Elsa looked helplessly at Fraxinus. "What's happening to him?"

Fraxinus frowned, looking him over. "Shush."

Elsa was silent.

After a minute, Fraxinus picked up Ignus' frozen arm and inspected it.

"Bingo."

He was pointing at the wound where Elsa had first frozen him.

Elsa felt a pang of shame. "Yes…that's where it started."

"I know. Now shush."

Elsa was once again silent, though her patience was beginning to fray.

After another few minutes, she couldn't take it.

"What's happening to him? Please!"

Fraxinus said nothing at first. Then he sighed and looked at Elsa.

"To explain properly, I have to talk about some things. It'll take a while."

"I need to understand." Elsa looked earnest.

Fraxinus saw the honesty in her eyes. He looked at Isen.

"Let me talk to her alone. Take the chatterbox and the lug with you."

"Okay!" Isen promptly grabbed Kristoff and Anna's hands and walked out. Elsa could hear Anna's protests as she was dragged out.

"I don't mind if they listen as well-"

"I do. I don't like audiences."

He looked at her with his good, smoldering brown eye.

"Pull up a chair, then, Miss Ice Queen, we've got some ground to cover."

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

King Thomas gathered his men in gurneys and stretchers, ordering servants to treat them as soon as possible.

He had never felt so old. When he was a younger man he had never made such rash, paranoid decisions.

Now his misjudgment had caused each of the injuries on his soldiers' bodies.

He walked towards the edge of an overlook over his kingdom.

His pride, his heart, his life.

He looked down and sighed deeply, guilt washing over him in waves.

He then felt a small, smooth hand slip into his.

Turning, he saw Rapunzel standing beside him, looking at him with shining, compassionate eyes.

The King squeezed his eyes shut. "You must hate me for doing that."

Rapunzel shook her head.

"That was your friend, and I…"

"Dad…it's okay."

"It's not, Rapunzel. I…I made a mistake. And it cost me. It cost everyone."

"Even kings make mistakes."

He looked at her again. She had a small smile on her face.

"But when they do, it only makes them wiser."

The King was silent. Then a small smile formed on his face.

Even though they had only been reunited a few years ago, he felt like he had been her father his whole life.

Rapunzel hugged him softly, The King returning it. He wondered what he did to deserve a daughter like her.

"Your majesty…"

The King looked up to see a squire standing before him.

"Yes?"

"Sir, all men have been taken care of. We believe they all will make full recoveries."

The King's eyes widened. Even when he had angered him, the boy had refrained from seriously hurting his men.

"He is something…"

"Sir, there is a problem…"

He looked up immediately. "What is it?"

"Well…we had seventy-two men at the ready to move on the boy."

"Yes?"

"We only recovered seventy…two are missing."

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The two missing guards were hiding out in an alleyway.

"Well, that went well."

"Don't start."

"Fine. But man…ol' cinder-shoes sure is scary when you tick him off."

Fenrir tore off the guard uniform he had stolen at the castle and threw it on the ground.

"Well…aside from the fact that it failed, it was a great plan. Pretend to be Coronian guards, kill the boy, then King Beardo the magnificent gets all the blame. Devious and effective."

The other guard reached into a nearby trash can and fished out a rusty helmet. He put it on.

"You said he wouldn't be a problem."

"I thought he wouldn't. I assumed the ice was freezing him over."

"Well, it's not. It's only slowly increased since we last saw him." The man in the helmet answered testily.

"I know, I know. There's a different connection…it's not a matter of time. We'll just have to figure out what it is."

"How do we do that?"

"They have both spirits on their side now…we need some kind of advantage. Right now we're outnumbered and outpowered."

The man in the helmet said nothing for a moment.

Then he stood.

"I know what we need to do."

He walked away.

Fenrir rolled his eyes. "You could tell me your plan once in a while. I'm not gonna tell on you."

"Shut up."

The duo slunk away into the shadows of the alleys.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

"Isen and I are not spirits."

Elsa blinked.

"But…the legends…"

"Are human phony-baloney hogwash. You think I don't know what I am?"

"Wh-no! I'm sorry if i-"

"Well, I don't actually. Never did. I just know were not spirits."

Elsa was now just baffled. This guy…

"We were simply beings. We both existed. That's all we ever knew. From the earliest point in time, we simply were…there. And we had powers."

"That's…that's it? You don't know who or what created you?"

"No. Part of me thinks I never will. Most of me doesn't care. Maybe a god, maybe the universe, maybe some kind of freak accident or explosion. To me, it was always about what we were going to do now that we were here, existing."

"Then you and Isen have known each other a long time?"

Fraxinus rolled his eyes. "You get used to her."

Elsa felt a bit offended. "I think she's wonderful."

"Hmm."

He moved on.

"Soon enough, we came across humans. Well, we didn't use call them that. We didn't know what to call them. They were just things that didn't have powers like me and her."

"At first we just let them be. But soon Isen wanted to meet them. She started to feel lonely."

"She got a bit tired of being around you all the time? Surprising." Elsa said, slyly.

"Oh, how cute. The little princess thinks she can be bitter."

"I'm a Queen."

"Same thing. You want me to continue?"

Annoyed, Elsa nodded.

"Swell. Anyways, Isen ended up being a hit with the humans, with her powers and all. She made houses, bridges, constructs, anything the humans asked her to make."

Elsa smiled, feeling a connection to the little girl.

"The humans seemed to think they owned her. They had her do everything for them. They didn't know how to live on their own. That's when I stepped in."

Elsa felt a sense of foreshadowing.

"I demonstrated my powers. They weren't as fond of it."

"Why not? Fire can be as beautif-"

"It can be. It usually is. But the humans didn't take to it kindly. They were frightened, even angry at me."

He looked briefly at Ignus. "Guess he and I both know how that feels."

Elsa felt her heart squeeze a little.

"His friends turned on him back then..."

"They always do. As soon as they feel threatened, humans will turn on their own loved ones. Just look at your majesty out there, attacking this kid."

"But he was worried about his kingdom, not about himse-"

"They stopped asking Isen for help after i showed them how dangerous we could be." Fraxinus continued, leaving Elsa huffing angrily. "She and I then only talked to them from afar. We were silent guardians."

"For a long time it went on like that. Isen and I were eventually hailed as gods, with the people believing that we created seasons like summer and winter."

"Did you?" Elsa asked, curiously.

Fraxinus looked at her. "Maybe."

"Anyways, that's how it went. Isen was said to bring shelter, beauty and fun, as well as fear and pain."

Elsa stiffened a bit. She didn't like associating fear and pain with ice powers.

Fraxinus noticed. "Two sides to every coin, Miss Ice Queen. Up and down, good and bad. I was said to bring hope, prosperity, and comfort, while also bringing hardship, pestilence and disease."

"In a way, the beliefs were true. Isen and I noticed over time that we were opposites, mostly. Our powers, personalities, and appearances were totally different. But our magic was the same."

Elsa's brow furrowed. "But you just said-"

"Sh. I'll get to that. As you can guess, it only took a bit of time for people to get jealous of our powers, as most people do over things they want but don't have."

Elsa's eyes widened as she remembered the legend. "The one human who attacked you two."

Fraxinus nodded. "Yeah. One of the humans trained day in and day out to attack us. And he was powerful. Isen and I had no idea how he had gathered so much strength, but he was a match for us both, almost killing us. Eventually, our battle caused a deep hole to appear in the side of a mountain, which we entered as we fought. We carved out a large cavern with the force of our blows."

"Inside, the warrior nearly had us at the end. But as a last resort, Isen and I pooled our magic together and forced it into him, nearly destroying the mountain and ripping Isen and myself to pieces. We drifted into the world, millions and millions of pieces of us flying away, alive, but disconnected."

Elsa gasped. "So those storms-"

"Were Isen and I trying to reform ourselves. But we couldn't. Not without-"

"A center, right?" Elsa said.

"Wow, good for you, have a treat."

Elsa ignored the remark, to some degree. Exhaling, she asked, "Why did the storms start only recently? Why didn't they continue for all these years?"

"Because we didn't have you two."

He pointed at Ignus and Elsa.

"Us? But…"

"We sensed your powers as soon as you were born. We kept an eye on you for your whole life, waiting for the right time to try and call out to you."

"When the time came, we tried getting your attention, popping in and out of kingdoms all over the country, in the shape of the symbol you people created about us and the battle."

"How did you know about that?" Elsa asked incredulously.

"We may have been broken, but we could still keep an eye on the world, to a degree."

Elsa suddenly realized something.

"How did Ignus and I get your powers?"

Fraxinus leaned back, folding his arms.

"The big question. Now, I'm not entirely sure myself. You and he are anomalies. But if I had to guess…I'd say that you are the magic that Isen and I combined."

Elsa was shocked. "We…are the magic you made?"

"Well, no. You carry the magic we made. After we blasted that lunatic into a million pieces, the magical energy we created was left to fly free. It was too great to be contained by the human and too powerful to dissipate on it's own. So it simply lingered in the world, causing the occasional freak storm here and there."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "These are some pretty elaborate guesses."

"I'm a smart guy. Now shush. This is the part I'm not sure about. After thousands of years, the magic decided to break apart, splitting into two different pieces, my magic and Isen's magic. Then they chose to belong to a host again."

"Wait…a host?!"

"Yes, a host! Listen! The magic chose you and Ignus when you were babies to harness their powers and control them."

Elsa was at her limit. "It…chose us? That's…insane! It's madness! You make it sound like the magic-"

"Is alive?"

Fraxinus was now talking quietly. Elsa was brought up short.

"Ever feel like your magic is helping you? Trying to protect you? Shield you from harm?"

"No! I don't!" Elsa was indignant. "My magic kept me isolated my whole life!"

"No, you kept you isolated your whole life. Magic doesn't control you. You control it. Your emotions, your fear of your powers, it led the magic to do the only thing it could: help you isolate yourself. It lashed out at those who came to close to appease your desire to be left alone."

Elsa's head was spinning. "But…I didn't want to be alone…" she whispered.

"No, you didn't." Fraxinus now had a more gentle tone to his voice. "You didn't want to hurt anyone. But your magic was confused. It didn't know how to help you. It couldn't simply cease to be, nor could it keep holding itself in. So it helped you not to hurt anyone by helping to keep you isolated, to fear the very thing that was trying to help you."

Elsa's mouth was open, her breath rapid and heavy.

"But once you knew how to love…once you knew you could control your powers, your magic took its first breath of relief. You no longer wanted to be alone, you wanted to love those you cared about, and you wanted to be loved. So it could finally show itself in all it's beauty."

Fraxinus smirked. "Or at least, that's my guess."

Elsa put a hand on the table, steadying herself.

"It…it chose me and Ignus? Why?"

Fraxinus shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe they just picked randomly. Maybe they chose you two because you were born under a lucky star. We may never know."

Elsa tried to calm herself. Her magic was alive?

She let a puff of frost fly out of her hand. It seemed to twinkle and spiral more so than usual.

Elsa smiled in wonder.

Then stopped as soon as she realized her mistake.

Looking in terror at Ignus, she saw the ice creep ever-so-slightly more across his face.

She put her face in her hands.

Fraxinus was silent. Then…

"I was going to ask you to do that, actually."

Elsa looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"That," He walked over and held up Ignus' arm. "Is what told me what's happening to this kid."

Elsa immediately perked up. "You know what's wrong then?"

"I can guess."

Elsa felt like she could have slapped him.

"You said you froze over a part of his arm to prevent poison from killing him?"

Elsa nodded.

"Well…I got good news. The poison is no longer a problem. It's been frozen so long it's basically become a part of the ice itself. Anything done to the ice will also happen to the poison."

Elsa's heart lept. "Then I can just unfreeze him?!"

"No."

Elsa felt her heart crash back down to the ground.

"Why not?"

"Because the ice has become a part of the kid. Remember how I said the only thing Isen and I had in common was the magic?"

Elsa, once again, nodded.

"That's because while we use it in different ways, the magic we have in our bodies is the same. We simply alter it when it enters our bodies. It's why we can combine our powers like you did, into a purple sort of energy."

Elsa understood, urging him on.

"The ice in Ignus' body is confusing the magic. It's being torn in two different directions. Ignus' body naturally turns it to fire, but your ice powers have infected him, turning the magic into ice."

"Now, in honesty, this wouldn't be a problem if that were all there was to it. The problem lies in Ignus' body itself."

Now Elsa was confused. "Why?"

"His body is accustomed to the fire within him, it has been for his entire life. The ice is not agreeing with him, warping his fire-proof body. If it continues to spread, it'll eventually kill him."

"As for why it spreads when you use your powers…any guesses?"

Elsa was too anxious to speak.

"Fine then. Spoil-sport."

She gave him a furious look.

"When you use your powers, the magic in Ignus' arm picks up on it because it's still connected to you. It's trying to get the rest of Ignus' body to use your ice magic, something that he just can't handle."

Elsa gave him a blank look.

Fraxinus groaned. "Fine. Think of it like this. Ignus has a bowl of water and you have a bowl of water. Ignus puts red dye in his and you put blue dye in yours. Following?"

"Okay, now imagine that you start putting a small bit of blue dye in Ignus' bowl every time you put some in yours. The result is every time you put blue dye in your bowl, some will also get put in Ignus' bowl, changing it and making it look rather nasty."

"As for his outburst with the guards back there and his heated skin, the magical war in his body is affecting him physically and mentally, symptoms of this magical disease in a way."

Elsa trembled. She looked down at Ignus' iced face. She put a hand on his head. It was still hot.

"Is there…anything you can do?"

Fraxinus folded his arms. Elsa didn't dare to breathe.

"If he exercises his own magic…that is, if he shoots fire, it'll calm down his brain and body, serving as a small reminder to his body of who's really in charge. But the main problem…"

He sighed. "If you were to try to remove the magic in his arm, you'd risk removing every bit of magic in him. His magic can no longer tell where the difference is. If you tried to scoop out all the blue dye in Ignus' bowl, you'd be taking just as much red with you."

The room was silent. Fraxinus' words sunk in.

Elsa felt tears. "Then…there's nothing I can do?"

"No, there isn't."

She let out a small gasp as the tears fell.

"But…there may be something Isen and I could do."

Elsa's eyes shot back up to him.

"When Isen and I were torn apart by the blast, a large piece of each of us was left behind. They contain large amounts of our magic. It also contains pieces of ourselves. It's the reason why Isen lost parts of her memory and I appear somewhat….wizened."

"If you can get her and I back to the cavern, the place where Isen and I battled the warrior, and help us recover our full strength, we may have the power to split the magic in his body and pull out the ice."

Elsa felt light as a feather.

"It's not a guarantee, but It's the only think I-"

"Uuuuugh..." A third voice said.

Ignus had finally woken up. His put a hand on his head, looking dizzy.

Elsa was beside him in an instant. "Are you alright?"

Ignus groaned. "Hot. Really hot."

"Shoot some fire. Lots of it." Elsa said.

Ignus regarded her with confusion. "Uh…why?"

"Trust me!"

"Okay, fine!" Ignus said, sounding irritated. He held out his good hand and let a large stream of fire burst out of it, flying across the room.

After a few seconds, he stopped.

Elsa looked at him with concern. "How do you feel?"

Ignus looked up. His mismatching eyes twinkled.

"Good, actually. Great!"

Fraxinus nodded and started walking away.

Ignus watched him leave.

"Wait…is that?"

"Yep." Elsa said, helping him stand up.

"Then…wait, where were we going again? What's going on?"

Elsa smiled and put a hand on his face.

"We're going to fix you, Ignus. And we're going to a cavern that will help those beings do it."

Ignus contemplated this for a moment.

"So, we're headed to a destination?"

"Um…yes?"

"And I'll be fixed there?"

"...yes?"

"So…you could say this is a fixed destination?"

Elsa laughed out loud, pulling Ignus into a hug.

End Chapter 10