Frozen Heart

"I've noticed your brother trying to keep you and Elsa apart. Why?" Abigail asked Hans curiously as he walked with her and her children in the courtyard, silently fuming. Iscawin had swept Elsa off for a ride, and though she'd at first been hesitant, Moren and Lars both had pressed for her to go with him, so she'd agreed.

"Hmm?" he said, snapping back to himself and turning to her. "Oh. That. It's nothing," he replied.

"Hans, I know it's something," Abigail said, looking concerned.

He paused, looking back towards the castle. "Because Moren prefers to have pawns to loyalists," he finally replied more than a little bitterly.

"Now you're being unfair," Abigail said, frowning.

"Don't bet on it," Hans deadpanned.

"Does it have to do with me?" a voice asked. They sharply turned. Greta. "He's been trying to get you to spend more time with me, and he places us together at the table… What's going on, Prince Hans? Maybe I can help you," Greta pressed, coming up to them.

Hans was quiet, jaw twitching. "I don't know. Something happened and now suddenly he doesn't approve of my engagement to Elsa. He… he advocates for my union to you," he answered.

"Wait, what?" Abigail demanded.

Greta blushed brightly. "Me? Really? Why?" she asked.

"That's a question for him, not me," Hans answered. "He can forget it. It isn't that you aren't a wonderful woman, my lady, it's just I'm not interested in you that way and won't ever be. I have no doubts you'll find a good man one day, but it can't be me."

"Maybe… maybe he advocates for you and I because he knows that I'm the one who will make you truly happy and love you as much as you truly deserve. Maybe he just wants what's best for you," she said.

"Greta!" Abigail exclaimed in shock as Hans shot the girl a glare.

"Don't look at me like that. How many times has Elsa said you're a marriage of convenience? Tell me you don't understand that that means she doesn't love you. Maybe she's the one who wants a pawn, not your brother," Greta said.

"Enough," Hans firmly said. He was losing track of how many times he'd told this woman that enough was enough. "Why I'm marrying her or she's marrying me is none of your business. At all. I choose her. He won't threaten me out of it."

"Threaten?" Abigail asked.

Hans tensed up and shifted a little uneasily. "He threatened to either have me locked in a tower or have her condemned to death," he admitted.

"Oh my goodness. Hans, that can't be let go! Why haven't you told anyone?" Abigail demanded. What was even going on? Weird things had been happening as of late, yes, but this?

"Because he's all talk. He won't do it. Not now. Maybe once he would have, not even very long ago, but now? No. He's all talk," Hans answered. At least with him and the rest of their brothers he was. "He's weak like that," he added before missing a step, surprised those words had left his mouth and hoping Abigail and Greta didn't catch on.

"What if he isn't this time?" Greta asked.

"Then he's going to end up in a war he never wanted. With me," Hans replied more coldly than he'd intended to. It almost reminded him of then…

"Why won't you let me love you?" Greta asked, bowing her head sadly with tears burning in her eyes. "She'll never care for you like I do. She's said as much."

"I stopped putting weight in words long ago," Hans replied. It was action that mattered. "Words can easily be disguised. Words can easily be masked. You can sound so much more menacing than you would ever actually be. You can sound so much more distant from someone than you actually are. Words are the easiest thing in the world to disguise, and they can convince even you of your sincerity, but actions… That's something not so easily hidden or denied."

"You want her to love you," Greta said. "But you're only lying to yourself. You're living a dream world, Hans! The Queen of Arendelle has no interest in love whatsoever, and you know that." He was quiet. "You want to be the exception, I see that you do, but you aren't… Maybe your brother does know best, have you thought of that?"

"Goodbye, Greta," he answered, walking away from her quickly and firmly.

"Hans!" she called. He didn't even look back.

Abigail gave her an apologetic look. "I'm sorry about this, Greta," she apologized. Quickly she went after her brother in law, calling her children to her. Maybe they could sooth their uncle's anger. He seemed to have a soft spot for children. On more than one occasion she'd caught him spoiling them if they decided to get into his space.

Frozen

Greta frowned after him and scoffed. Unbelievable. "What do I have to do? Strip down and beg him to take me?" she muttered to herself.

It seems not all men so easily fall to desire and lust as you thought, hmm?

"Oh shut up," she replied with a scowl. She couldn't be entirely angry, though. It was his voice. Vertigo's.

The Southern Isles don't understand reason and love and devotion. The concepts are totally foreign to them and only newly registering with the princes. What they understand is threat and manipulation and deceit and treachery… Which is all the better, because I don't believe I can watch you give yourself to another man and still come back from it.

Inwardly she agreed. She was partially glad for it too. "So you're saying that the prince is more likely to believe someone would betray and hurt him than he is to believe someone could ever truly love and be loyal to him; and he will think it precisely what he should have expected and precisely what he deserves," she said. "And the Queen?"

Much the same, though for different reasons. Because for so long she was so totally emotionally isolated and lost. Because she still does not understand, and the past… It isn't so easily forgotten, as much as she tries to make it be.

"She will believe treachery over loyalty," Greta said, smiling coldly to herself.

No. But if the Princes suddenly turn on her it will be what she presumes first, if nothing else. How could anyone have ever trusted a sorceress, after all? How could she ever have believed they had accepted her? That will be all you need, Ice Maiden, to set it all in motion.

"No more games?" she asked.

Not for much longer. Play on lust, if you must, though it sickens me to see you hang off of that mortal, but remember terror always, as you have been doing as of late. He is concerned, not necessarily scared. Now make him shudder.

Coldly the Ice Maiden smiled.

Frozen

Hans looked towards the stables waiting for Iscawin and Elsa to come back. They'd been gone for hours. What were they even doing out there? At least guards had gone with them, he told himself. No chance to act on temptation with them around. He hated wondering, though, because wondering gave way to him thinking over Greta's words to him.

You want her to love you… But men like you don't get happily ever afters.

Inwardly Hans scoffed. Happily ever after was about the biggest crock anyone had ever come up with. He made it a point to avoid them in almost all of his stories, because hey, life just wasn't that simple. No one could claim otherwise.

Greta is offering you happily ever after.

Greta is a deceiver. Something isn't right.

Must everything good that happens to you have an ulterior motive behind it?

Yes. Or most everything at least.

He shook his head, inwardly damning the warring voices within. He sighed, turning from the window and walking back through the palace in silent thought. Just then he heard laughter and looked up. That sounded like Elsa. Curiously he went towards the noise. Maybe they'd come back another way. He turned down another corridor and spotted her walking down the adjacent hall "Elsa?!" he called, hurrying to catch up to her. He looked for her again and saw her enter a room. He frowned curiously and followed. He pushed open the door and looked inside. Down at the end of the room he saw her, but she wasn't alone. He felt his heart stop. The one with her was his brother. Iscawin. He held her in his arms and Hans looked on in disbelief as his sibling bent and took her lips softly while she returned in full… He quickly shut the door and…

Frozen

His eyes opened exhaustedly. It would be a dream like that, wouldn't it, he dryly wondered to himself. Inwardly he damned Greta and Iscawin both. Greta for her words to him in the courtyard, Iscawin for having feelings towards Elsa that aroused more jealousy in him than he'd ever admit in a million years. He sighed and closed his eyes to try and sleep again… Until he noticed a touch on his shoulder. Like a hand grasping it. And a body pressed against his back. His eyes flew open and he gasped, spinning around in terror with eyes wide. There was… nothing there? He looked frantically around then dove for a candle and lit it. Nothing… But he knew he felt it. That touch… It had been too real to be his imagination! Then again the imagination was a powerful and tricky thing, especially when one had just woken up and was still stuck in a half dream-like state.

He looked at the pillow next to him and for a moment there was a stab of fear when he thought he saw the imprint of a head on it, but he relaxed shortly after, deciding it was just a trick of the candlelight. No one was around and there were no mirrors, so he put out the candle and laid back down. He wouldn't be driven out of his own bed again, dammit! He shook his head in frustration and laid back down to try and sleep again. It wasn't long before he dozed off. It was even shorter of a time before he began to dream again…

"Hans," he heard someone whisper. A woman next to him. Oddly enough it felt domestic, so he wasn't afraid. He opened his eyes to look at her. It was Greta, he noticed. Contrary to the freak out he had thought he would have, he just stayed still, looking at her. After all, dreams were funny things.

"You're not supposed to be here," he said.

She smiled at him gently. "Aren't I?" she answered. "This feels right, doesn't it? Tell me it doesn't feel right. You here. At my side."

He shook his head coldly at her and closed his eyes again. "Dreams are the greatest deceivers of all," he replied simply. "And I'm through with you."

"No. You've only just started with me, wicked prince," she answered.

He felt himself waking up again and opened his eyes almost tentatively. No one was there and he sighed, closing them again. Oh boy, this was going to be one of those nights. He frowned, feeling something under his hand. He sat up and saw that said hand was under the pillow next to him. He blinked then quickly seized the object and pulled it out. He looked down at it and screamed, actually screamed, before dropping it like the plague and leaping out of the bed. A mirror! A tiny mirror of ice!

"Prince Hans!" a guard called as the door was thrown open and three of them raced in.

"Get it out," Hans said, pointing shakily at the bed. They looked at him in surprise and some measure of concern before one finally tentatively approached the bed.

"Get… what out, my lord?" he asked.

"What?" Hans whispered. He sprang across the room. Nothing was there. He felt the bed where it had been and there was a wetness. Like it had just melted away. He considered telling the guards, but they probably thought he was insane as it was. "I… I'm sorry. It-it must have just been a dream," he said. They looked concernedly at him but didn't protest. Instead they walked out. He stared at the spot where the mirror had been, then backed away and sat on the floor in a corner, staring at the bed.

In a corner you're safe. In a corner nothing can sneak up on you.

He shook his head and swallowed. It was going to be a long, long night. Eventually he fell into a light and fitful sleep against the wall. A sleep plagued by nightmares of treachery, deceit, and death…

Frozen

His silence was the first thing Elsa noticed. His silence and the distance he was putting between not only them, but his brothers as well. Every time anyone pressed for answers, he would say everything was fine and he just didn't feel well. Not even his little nieces and nephews could reach him, when Abigail had set them on the prince. Eventually everyone had to just stop questioning it. He wasn't going to open up. Elsa watched from a window as Moren and Hans got into a vicious argument down below. She wished she could hear it, but the wind took their voices far away. It came to blows at one point, but the guards were quick to step in and pull the two apart. Hans jerked away from them and stormed off. Moren was released when Hans was out of sight and just glared after him before heading in the opposite direction for some cool-down time. She drew the curtains and worriedly went to find her fiancé. Maybe he would tell her what was going on finally. She wasn't holding out hope, but it was possible, right?

She turned a corner that led to the stairs down and stopped. Greta was already with him, she saw, holding his hands and prodding him to tell her what was wrong. He wouldn't meet her eyes, which was a good sign, but then… then he did… Then he did and he told her what he wouldn't tell anyone else. Not even her. Greta tried to draw him into a hug but he pulled away from her which was a good sign again, Elsa thought, but it didn't take away from the pain she felt to know he'd told Greta what was wrong and no one else. He was coming up the stairs. She quickly moved back out of sight and debated whether to meet him or get away while she still could. No. No more running. She had to face things, not run from them. She took a breath, looking up.

He rounded the corner and stopped. "Elsa?" he said.

She smiled. "Hi," she replied.

"Hi," he said. "What's up?"

She shifted. "Hans, I… I feel like there's been a lot of distance between us lately and… Well I just want to know if things are okay."

He was quiet. Finally he sighed. "I know. I get things have felt weird, but…"

"Not just weird, but like… like suddenly we're afraid of one another or don't trust one another or… I don't know," she said. He was quiet. "I saw you talking to Greta. How did she get you to tell her what was wrong where not even your brothers could? Or me?"

He looked at her again, summing her silently up. "I have to go," he said, walking passed her. She looked after him, hurt. What was going on?

"Hans, don't walk away, please!" she called.

"What do you want me to say, Elsa?" he asked, turning to her.

"I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to stay. To show me that everything's going to be alright and that you aren't… That you aren't running away!" she said.

"You're the one who runs, my Queen," he answered. He was the one who hid. She started at his words, cut to the quick. He shook his head and walked away again. She didn't go after him this time. Tears burned her eyes and she looked down.

"Elsa?" Abigail asked, peering out from a room. "Elsa, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, Abby," Elsa whispered. She wiped her eyes and Abigail became concerned. Gently she pulled Elsa into the room and sat her down to talk.

"Lucile, take your siblings and try to talk to your Uncle Hans again," Abigail told her oldest daughter.

"Yes mama," Lucile replied. Gathering her siblings together she herded them away. Abigail smiled. Her daughter would make a find leader one day.

Frozen

Hans moved through the hallway distractedly. "Uncle Hans? Uncle Hans!" he heard David call. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was in no mood to deal with children right now. Nonetheless, he put on a smile and turned.

A smile? You mean a mask.

"Hello, little ones," Hans said, kneeling down.

"Uncle Hans, why are you and the Queen fighting?" Kenan asked.

Hans's jaw twitched. "We weren't fighting, Kenan. I just... wanted some alone time." And still did, but he doubted the children would get the hint or care even if they did.

"But Queen Elsa cwying," little Cameron protested in confusion.

Hans shifted slightly uncomfortably, a stab of guilt going through him. "Oh... I didn't... I'll have to apologize to her later, then," he answered.

"Why not now?" Madeline asked.

"Because," Hans said slightly sharper than intended. The children jumped, blinking at him in surprise. "I'm sorry, kids, it's just... It's been a rough few days."

"You won't make the bad days better if you don't face them and try to make them happy again," Lucile said.

"You're right, sweetie. You're right," Hans answered. "Just right now I'm not in a good place. I'm afraid that if I tried I'd just end up getting mad and then we really would fight."

"Oh," Lucile said, obviously still not getting it but making a valiant effort to understand.

"Do you love Queen Elsa, Uncle?" Madeline questioned. Hans was silent.

Yes... I love the Queen of Arendelle... Maybe that's why you want to distance yourself from her. Drive her away before she can hurt you. She will, you know.

"I... Hey, you guys want me to tell you a story before bed tonight?" he asked, changing the subject quickly.

"Yeah!" they all cheered together, forgetting their line of questioning.

"Tell 'tory about duckling," Cameron insisted.

"If you insist, darling," Hans answered, grinning at the toddler and poking his tummy, making him giggle.

He started as suddenly all of Jurgen's children were hugging him. "Don't feel sad, Uncle Hans. You don't need to anymore. You don't need to be scared either," David stated.

"Yeah! We can protect you," Kenan said.

"I'm sure you can, little ones, if you're anything like your father," Hans replied, smirking. Not that Jürgen had ever been any kind of protector, he dryly added to himself. More like a tormentor. He was one of the Brute Squad, after all, and a damn heartless bastard if he wanted to be. "Now I have to go do some things, children. I'll see you later tonight, okay?"

"Yes Uncle," Kenan said. Quickly the five children hurried off again, Hans watching after them with a gentle smile. As they disappeared, his smile fell and he looked down. With a heavy sigh he stood again and continued to walk and think. He hated thinking, he decided. It was too much effort and stress.

Frozen

Hans entered the library and shut the door behind him. He drew a breath, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the door. What was wrong with him? It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with her, but Moren's constant threats to him to break it off with her, and the fact they couldn't seem to go anywhere together without Greta stepping in, and the fact it was like everything and anything was working to keep them apart, plus the dreams and the weird stalking mirrors thing… What even was happening anymore? He opened his eyes. He needed to stop hiding, he realized. He needed to go to her and make things right again, or pretend that none of the bad was happening and just assure her that she was the good that made the bad all worthwhile even if she didn't feel the same.

Shaking his head, he turned to the door and opened it intending to find Elsa. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, jumping in surprise when he nearly ran into Greta. "Greta, what are you…? Are you following me?" he asked, frowning suspiciously.

"I'm worried about you," she replied.

"That's nice, but I can take care of myself. I'd really appreciate it if you, you know, stopped showing up everywhere," he said. He was feeling like the weird icy mirrors weren't his only stalkers anymore.

"It's meant to be, what can I say?" she replied, smiling.

"No. It's not," Hans firmly said. "And you need to stop."

"Hans, I…" she began. She stopped, looking passed him. "Oh my gods…" she said. He frowned and turned. He gasped, paling. Icy mirrors were starting to form and creep towards them through the library! His eyes widened in horror. "Hans, are those…?"

"Run," he cut off.

"What?" she asked.

"Run!" he shot, seizing her hand and racing from the library. As if reacting, the mirrors shot after him, spreading over the roof, walls, and floors.

"What's happening?! Is this Elsa's doing?!" Greta demanded. "What if she saw us talking and just got mad? Maybe an apology would…"

"It isn't Elsa!" Hans shot. "That isn't the way her gift feels!"

"Hans!" Greta exclaimed, pointing ahead. He slid to a stop, gasping. Mirrors had blocked off the hall. He cried out in pain as a stabbing agony shot through his head and eyes. Then his chest. Frantically he shook his head. "This way!" she said, pulling him behind her. He looked up, following. She raced into a room. Hers he knew, but as long as he was away from those mirrors he was beyond caring. The door began to freeze over. Hans watched it in numb horror. "Here!" she said, pulling him through the darkness and darting into a closet, shutting the door behind them. He nearly panicked.

"You've trapped us!" he exclaimed.

"Shh. Maybe they won't know," she hissed. He bit his tongue. He doubted it would do any good, but it was something. He heard the icy mirrors creaking through the room and groaning. Oh his head was killing him, and his chest… It felt like he was going to have a massive heart attack. He moaned softly and she covered his mouth, taking one of his hands in her free one and squeezing tightly. He squeezed painfully back, in too much agony to be worried he might be hurting her. "Shh…" she soothed as he whimpered, pushing herself closer to him. "They'll leave soon." He shifted uncomfortably. For some reason the pain was getting worse… Like it had when he had been thrust into the mirror room in the Duke of Cumberland's palace…

The creaking and groaning of the mirrors started to die. With it went some of the pain. She removed her hand from his mouth. "It-it's the-the mirror. Oh god… It hurts," he whispered.

"Do you know where they've come from?" she questioned softly.

He shook his head. "No. No, I don't, I…" he began before cutting himself off to swallow. "The wicked mirror," he finally said. Some-something here has-has it. Or parts of it or… I don't know. I don't know where they've come from."

"Shh, darling, shh… I do," she whispered, and something in the way she said it… He looked towards her, though he couldn't see her in the darkness of the closet. "I know where they come from. I think I can stop it, you know. The pain, the confusion, the uncertainty. I can make it all go away."

"What are you talk…?" he began before trailing off. Oh. God. Oh god! Suddenly he was acutely aware of a very permeating cold in the closet. Suddenly he could smell the scent of the perfume that had been on his bed. Before he could think he threw open the closet door, darting out of it. He cried out in agony immediately, collapsing to the ground and closing his eyes, covering his ears. He gasped, looking up. The room was filled with the ice mirrors! The room had become the one from the Cumberland palace! He could only gawk in horror. He gave a strangled cry and tried to scramble up to get to the door, but she caught him from behind and turned him to her. On seeing her he went white. She was no longer human… Facing him was a woman made of ice, smirking far more than a little maliciously.

Frozen

"Who are you?" the woman whispered to the prince who suddenly found himself frozen in place, unable to move no matter how he tried. The chill seizing his heart, the sting in his eyes and the headache… His heart beat so loudly… But it was dimming, dying. It was stopping…

It is freezing.

The woman enveloped him in her embrace, body pressed so closely and tightly to his. An embrace no woman who wasn't married to you should ever be giving. Her lips hovered over his. He felt her icy breath. Her hand entangled in his hair as her free arm wrapped around his neck. She let her lips drag up and down his neck, to his jawline, to his mouth. He swallowed, closing his eyes. This couldn't be happening to him. What was this?! Please, please let this be a nightmare. "Answer me, prince of the Southern Isles," she said.

"I am Prince Hans Westergaard," he answered obediently. He almost felt like he had no control, like his body wasn't his own, like the response hadn't been his…

"No. Perhaps in title and name, but that is not who you are. There lived thirteen princes, once upon a time, and though they were young and strong and vibrant, they were liars and deceivers and murderers too, and evil permeated their every action and every thought, but one more than the others. You see, there was darkness within the soul of the youngest worse than that of all his brothers combined. His soul but not heart, because he had no heart. It was frozen," she whispered before kissing the side of his mouth. He couldn't hear his heartbeat anymore, he realized with a chill. The pain was dying. He was starting to feel… He was starting to feel numb. Empty. Then like something was trying to crawl into him. "There was no way that what was once the heart of the young prince could ever be mined, and it was wonderful because there was an age old curse that would grant him so much power… He had once wanted that power under his authority so very badly."

"Mor'du," he whispered. The curse he realized, eyes widening slightly. He regretted it because suddenly they were stinging that much more.

"But then came a queen. A queen with a heart just as frozen as his, but in another way, and she reached something in him. Some faint remembrance. One faint question. What if? What if he had been anything other than what he was? And that question burned in him and he stewed on it, and something shifted in the balance… When he went back to her land… When he went back, that was the end, because piece by piece she chipped away at the icy prison encasing the heart that should never have been revived. Mining, mining, mining… Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining… This icy force both foul and fair has a frozen heart worth mining," she sang softly. She looked into his eyes. "Cut through the heart, cold and clear…" He grunted as he felt a stabbing pain in his heart as if it had been cut. "Strike for love and strike for fear, there's beauty and there's danger here. Split the ice apart. Beware the frozen heart…" Hans swallowed, shutting his eyes again. "Half the song, the prophecy, was hers, the first bit. But the second half… It was all you." He was silent. "It won't do, you know. Her uncovering that shrivelled little organ you try to insist to yourself is a heart. I need you to be with me. So you will leave her, and you will marry me, because if you don't your brothers and their families, your country and hers, all suffer more than you could have imagined possible."

"No," he finally managed to whisper.

She gave him a dark and threatening look before smirking icily again. "Oh, you will. Because the queen is done with you now, or will be soon. More than the fact she's done with you is the fact you're done with you. She knows the futility of trying to help someone who won't be helped. She was there. She could break free, but you… Not you. It's so hard, isn't it, to fight your very nature and being, or the nature and being the shard gave you? Let it go, young prince. Let it go. It will be so much better. So much easier. Let it go. There was never anything worth saving anyway." He gasped as he felt a surge of pain shoot through him. It felt like he was freezing over as the roar of a bear echoed in his mind! And then there was black…

Frozen

His eyes flew open and he gasped, sitting up panting. What the hell? What was that? He scrambled out of bed and to the wash basin, quickly and desperately splashing water on his face to try and get a grip. A dream, it had all been a dream… Hadn't it? Hadn't it?! He gasped, looking up and towards the mirror he never looked into. He went to it and turned it around quickly as if it would have the answers… But it didn't. It was just a mirror, in the end. Just a mirror.

And in it you see what you really are… You can't help it. You reflect the truth of what those you face are inside their hearts. Including yourself. There's no escape. You're too far gone. You always were. Why do you fight your nature?

"My nature, or the nature you try to put on me, is what I make it," he replied to the reflection, frowning at it and straightening up. "This inborn desire to do everything cruel and wicked and monstrous… I'm through with it. Forever. I'm not yours. Not anymore." This time he didn't turn the mirror around. He walked away from it head held high. He needed to go find Elsa.

It wasn't a dream, was it? What happened?

Frozen

He reached out for the door but just then it opened. The one outside jumped with a gasp. "Prince Hans!" he exclaimed in no small amount of shock and horror. Who was this? Was this… His eyes widened. The coroner?

Hans tilted his head, curiously summing him up. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he finally remarked. He eyed the man and the ones behind him with an unsettling feeling. "Why do you have a death shroud and a gurney?" he questioned them, and though he felt more than a little uneasy, his tone didn't reflect it.

"You… I… We… My-my lord, you…" the coroner stammered. Hans waited patiently. "My lord, you're dead."

Hans started, blinking blankly. "I'm what? Because I'm pretty sure I feel alive," Hans replied. The men looked stunned and Hans realized with a chill that there was more to this story than he knew. "How long have I been indisposed?" he asked.

"S-sir, you-you were in a coma for-for a month! The woman, Greta, raced into the throne room the day you were found. She was in tears. She said something about mirrors of ice and told your brothers that you had collapsed in the hallway while the two of you fled from them. They raced up and tried to revive you but failed. Your eyes were open as if in death, but they could hear you breathing, hear your heart beating, and so King Caleb ordered you brought to your room and tended to with the best of care," the coroner said.

"So I don't wake up for a while and they presume I died?" Hans asked, incredulous.

"You don't understand, sir! Doctors from all manner of lands came to try and bring you back, but none succeeded. Not even your brother Lars, will all his healing knowledge and even magic despite its darkness, could bring you back… It was under his care you died, your fiancé at your side. As she had been virtually all of that time… Your heart stopped beating and your breath, and there was nothing… She tried to call you back, beg you to come back, but you didn't. She had to be forcibly removed, insisting that you were alive all the while. Mael tried and tried for so long to bring you to life, but your limbs… they grew cold and lifeless and began to stiffen as if rigor mortis had taken over, and finally… Finally he had to give you up for lost. He returned to the rest of your brothers in tears and broke down. Elsa refused to believe you were gone, begged him to go back and check on you as Abigail held her, but he told her that it was over. That you were no more… Caleb was deathly silent. It was Jürgen who finally managed to find the strength to send me up to… to retrieve your body for burial… So we came and were at your door and then you… My goodness, you're alive… You're really alive," the coroner numbly said.

Hans was quiet, stunned. "I hope I am," he finally replied, more than a little uneasy. The coroner looked passed him as if to check for a body on the bed, but there was none.

"You… you should go to them. To your brothers," the coroner said.

"I… Y-yes… Yes, I should," he replied shakily, suddenly feeling ill and unsteady. He had… Had he been truly dead? No, that-that couldn't be, it was… Something was very, very wrong here. And he got the sinking feeling it went back to the Ice Maiden, the hobgoblin, and Mor'du all. Or at least one or two of them.