eDiNbUrgh: Hi there, thanks for commenting, hope you continue to enjoy it.
Funvince: I'm glad you're enjoying it. I just love the idea of everything happening more or less in the same universe. Regarding Rapunzel, when I was putting the ideas for this story together, I wanted Anna, Elsa and Rapunzel to all have agency, and Elsa's powers are a bit of a game-breaker normally.
A friendly warning. The next few chapters are undeniably dark, with some very un-Disney like violence.
Chapter Nine: Darkness Rising
"Well I am happy to say after years and years of asking," Eugene said about an hour and a half and a few yawns later. "I finally said yes."
There was a dutiful round of chuckles from his audience, and the punch to his shoulder that he received from his loving wife wasn't nearly strong enough to bruise. He was quite sure of that, even as he held up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay, I asked her."
An arm snaked around his and pulled him close. "And we're living happily ever after," Rapunzel said, then frowned as she looked at where they were and what they'd just been through. "Well, for the most part anyway. And that's the story."
"It's a good story," Flynn admitted, a gentle smile on his face. He'd been an attentive listener for the entire story, reacting appropriately at all the right points, and if at the very end his eyes had misted over slightly, then he was quite sure no one could have faulted him. Having said that, it was time to comment. "Very engaging and romantic, and sacrificing your life for your love. Other than that rubbish about the magic hair, it's a brilliant story. That bit was absurd, I mean hair that glows when you sing a song and can heal injuries? I can buy the friendly relationship with the lizard, I can even buy the randomly breaking into song, but the magic hair is just a step too far."
"You've seen the shadow creature that Hans summoned, this Maleficent thing, why so sceptical?" Eugene asked lazily. His own reaction to Rapunzels magic had hardly been the stuff of legend, and it wasn't as if the other man had actually seen any magic done yet.
It was Flynn's turn to frown and he said nothing for a moment as if organising his thoughts. "I suppose I find it easier to believe in dark magic than healing magic," he finally said. "Maybe that's cynical of me, but the idea that evil has access to magic just seems more likely than good people."
Rapunzel sighed, and her eyes locked with Elsa, who raised a single eyebrow in return. "I've got to learn how to do that," Rapunzel said before nodding. "Elsa, would you be a dear and show Flynn some leg?"
Flynn's jaw dropped in an almost comical way at the way she put it, but his head obediently turned to where Elsa was pulling the left leg of her breeches up, showing the injury he'd bandaged up. There was a faintly amused smile on her face, and he couldn't help but feel he was heading straight towards being the butt of some sort of joke. His thoughts slithered to a halt as she uncovered completely smooth, apparently uninjured skin. There was the faintest trace of dried blood, but that was nothing more than residue. Without even being aware of it, he found himself moving over and crouching down by her leg, and his eyes met hers.
"May I?" he asked, his right hand reaching out hesitantly, and after a long moment Elsa nodded. He gently pressed his fingers into her leg, feeling the unblemished skin, even though he knew for a fact that the gash she'd suffered should have taken at least a week of uninterrupted bed-rest to heal. His mind ran in circles as he found himself faced with two insurmountable and contradictory facts.
On the one hand, Elsa had been injured, and injuries didn't just vanish. On the other hand, her injuries had vanished. It was absurd on the face of it, but when confronted with only one explanation, however outlandish, he had to accept it. He suddenly realised that he'd had his hand resting on her leg for a good long while as he considered the situation, and his eyes flicked up to meet hers.
She was apparently well aware of that fact, as her face was ever so slightly flushed, and he snatched his hand back as if it was on fire. Neither of them noticed the look that passed from Rapunzel to Eugene, or the smirk he sent back.
"So are you going to freak out?" Rapunzel asked into the sudden silence. "Because Eugene didn't, I mean not really, and I kind of want to see someone freak out about it."
Eugene laughed at that, even as Flynn's eyes stayed locked on Elsa. He cleared his throat and finally tore his gaze away from her, even as she rolled the leg of her breeches back down again. "No, I don't think I am." He finally said turning to the young Princess and ignoring her disappointed pout.
She was surprised at the huge grin on his face. "Mind you, I might just come over there and hug you," he said cheerfully.
"Uh, okay. Why would you be doing that exactly?" she responded with something that managed to mix concern with amusement. There was obviously no threat, and it wasn't as if she didn't like hugs, but nothing she'd seen out of the taciturn fellow had suggested he was a hugger.
"Because when I woke up this morning, there was no magic in the world, then there was evil magic and the world was a more miserable place, and now there's healing magic. No matter what else happens, today the world has good, happy magic in it, and that makes it a better day than yesterday." There was such cheer in his voice that it made the contrast with his normal behaviour even more evident. For what Rapunzel had considered a major, but ultimately unspectacular event of healing her cousin, appeared to have completely revitalised his view of the world.
"You are a strange man," Rapunzel said looking at him for a long moment.
He glanced momentarily at Elsa, "So I've been told."
"Does that change your opinion about Royals at all?" She asked, thinking back to his earlier comments. She didn't know why, but his obvious and bluntly professed dislike for Royalty bothered her. If not for her own sake, then probably for Elsa's as he was still in the dark about her own status. Perhaps she could use this as a lever to try and soften his opinion ahead of the inevitable revelation.
"No, not really," he responded, dashing her hopes. He noted the way her expression fell and shrugged. "Changes my opinion about you though, if it helps."
"What have you got against Royals?" she finally demanded. "You did promise to tell us your story if we told you ours."
"Deals a deal I suppose," he said with a sigh before sitting down next to his pack and grabbing the water-skin. It was beginning to run low and he made a mental note to refill it before going to bed. The faintest hint of light beginning to touch the eastern horizon suggested they'd been up far too late anyway. He shrugged mentally, it wasn't as if they couldn't afford to sleep in. "I don't like Royalty because by en large, they take far more than they give, and if they decide to take something you value, and you're not rich and powerful, you can't stop them. There's exceptions of course, royals who actually go out and do things, like exploring ancient castles, but mostly, I think the world would be better off with less Royals."
There was a genuine bitterness that he couldn't keep out of his voice as he spoke. It wasn't the whole story that much was obvious, and even now he wasn't sure he could share all of it with them. There were promises he'd made, secrets he'd been sworn too, and he might be many things, but an oath breaker wasn't one of them. Still, he could tell them almost all of the story.
Even as the thoughts flitted through his mind, Elsa's hand snaked over and placed itself gently on his shoulder, and as he glanced at her he saw compassion in her eyes. "If you really don't want to tell us," she began but he shook his head.
"It's okay Elsa, I gave my word, and I try and keep it when I do. Might as well tell the story to the three of you."
He was about to begin his own tale when a voice interrupted the peace of their campsite. "Story time, how very touching."
The voice, rich with venom and malice was such an intrusion into the pleasant little campfire that it hit all of them like a shock of cold water. But where Elsa and Rapunzel hesitated, neither Eugene nor Flynn did. Both for their own reasons had plenty of experience with the occasional need to do sudden violence.
Eugene surged to his feet, arms protectively wrapping around Rapunzel and sweeping her behind him, even as his hand snapped down and seized the ever present frying pan. Flynn on the other hand moved on the offensive, and spun and moved like a striking serpent, his left hand reaching up to pull his hood over his head, his right drawing his sword. He turned even as he did that, and the point of his blade was steady as a rock as finely honed flight or fight reflexes kicked in and pointed straight at 'fight'.
Unfortunately for him, Maleficent had expected an attack, and she simply raised her staff. As fast as Flynn was getting off the mark, the shadows were faster still, seizing both his wrists and pulling them up and apart. It was so quick, and sudden that if not for the shadows holding him up, Flynn would have stumbled and fallen, instead he found himself hanging in the air in front of the tall dark witch.
Her lips pulled apart in something that couldn't ever be called a smile as she contemplated Flynn even as Eugene kept himself between Rapunzel and Maleficent, and Elsa surged to her feet. "They're so brave at first are they not? All fire and energy and willingness to fight?" A finger gently traced around his neck, the threat obvious to everyone present, and Elsa's eyes narrowed in anger.
"Let him go," her command rang out, and even as he was concentrating on the evil witch in front of him, Flynn's eyes narrowed at the snap of command in her voice. Maleficent chuckled and waved the staff, spinning him in place so that he was facing Elsa.
"As you wish," Maleficent said, and flicked her staff again. Flynn shot sideways slamming hard into Eugene and Rapunzel, and for one precious moment, Elsa's attention was drawn away from the evil creature before her. In that instant she flowed forward, fast and silent as the shadows that surrounded her and an hand seized Elsa's wrist in a grip that felt like iron. "It's you I came for anyway."
Eugene was still rubbing his head where the three of them had crashed to the ground when a vortex of smoke and shadow engulfed Maleficent and Elsa. It took mere moments, but once the air went still again, there were only three of them at the campsite.
"Elsa," Flynn shouted as he rolled himself back to his feet. "Where did she go? where did Maleficent take her?"
Rapunzel and Eugene shook their heads as the three of them stared at the empty campsite in despair.
Elsa had never been teleported. She didn't know what the effect was, or how Maleficent had caused it, but she did know that something deep within her rebelled at what had just happened. It was like an icy fist had reached deep into her very soul and had wrenched it, dragging her body along for the ride. It only lasted a moment, for which she was grateful as she doubted she would have lasted more than a handful of moments longer, and as the scenery around her changed, from the camp they'd set up, to a clearing deep within a forest, she felt her strength leave her.
Had she been able to compare notes with Hans on the discomfort of stepping miles through shadow, she might have found to her surprise that there was at least one thing she and the Prince from the Southern Isles agreed on, this was no way to travel. Maleficent released her wrist as they came out of the vortex, and Elsa fell to the ground, her strength spent from the trip. Added on top of the exhaustion of the day, and she found a headache throbbing behind her eyes as part of her screamed to just pass out and be done with it.
Fortunately, she had no inclination towards letting her body be the final decision maker, and with an effort that was as supreme as it was sublime, she pushed herself to her knees, and then to her feet, even as Maleficent watched from a few feet away. Whatever she had brought Elsa here for, she was obviously in no great rush to achieve it.
"Look at you," the evil Queen said, her voice chill and precise. "You can barely stand. I had almost hoped for a challenge here."
Her arm flicked out, and the staff seemed to glow in the dark as a bolt of shadow lanced out and hit her dead center in the chest. There was enough force behind it to knock Elsa clean off her feet, and the young Snow Queen was left panting for breath, trying to get back to her feet. At least the shadow bolt hadn't pierced her skin, and Elsa felt an unusual sense of dread as she realised just how easy it might have been for Maleficent to kill her.
"Is this the great enemy I spent so many centuries preparing for. With a prophecy of my doom hanging over me, I was expecting more from one of your little triumvirate." She waited until Elsa had levered herself back to her feet and flung another bolt of darkness at her. Unlike the first time however, a small shaped disc of ice appeared between Elsa and the dark energy.
'Triumvirate? Prophecy?' Elsa's thoughts came quickly even as she reacted to the attack. Whatever was going on, it was obvious that she didn't have nearly enough information to be formulating plans, and Elsa's breath came in ragged bursts as she put her experiences in the castle to good use, putting the stray thoughts aside. Rather than trying to block Maleficent's attacks, she instead created a pane of shaped ice. The bolt hit it, and slid off, shooting past Elsa and slamming into a tree-trunk just beyond the clearing. Despite the pain in her chest where the previous bolt had hit, and the deep, heavy breaths she was taking, her eyes were firm and cold, and levelled at Maleficent like Ballistae.
"Why are you trying to kill me?" Elsa demanded between heaving breaths. "Is it Hans? Has he got a hold over you? Because we can protect you against him." She had her doubts about it, as there was something about Maleficent that made her spine tingle in genuine fear, but it was possible that she was just his servant.
In that case, being able to turn her enemies against each other was just good strategy, and if not, then it might buy her a bit of time to regain her balance, her breath and a bit of her energy. Rapunzel had done wonders in healing the physical damage from the fall, but it had been a very long day, almost a full twenty-four hours since she'd slept, and she was exhausted.
Not enough that she'd been up for so long, she'd also spent a good chunk of the day riding, then exploring, and doing battle. Sleep would be nice, but she had a feeling that she had at least one major confrontation to go before she could drift off into dreamland. So any extra time Maleficent was willing to give her, she'd take and be grateful about it.
Maleficent cackled at that. "Work for him? Hardly. I merely loaned him a fraction of my power in order to reclaim my body. He was a small man, with small ambitions."
"Then who are you?" Elsa demanded. For all her many and varied issues, she was a Queen, and had long since developed the proper snap of command when she needed it. There was an art to it, one of the many things her father had taught her in between trying to control her powers. How to be kind, and courteous, but to never let people who worked for you forget who was in charge. Maleficent however, did not seem overly impressed.
"You truly do not know?" she asked, and the first tinge of something other than supreme arrogance touched her voice. Elsa kept silent, leaving the ball in the older woman's court. "Astonishing. Very well, I shall tell you. You had an ancestor once, one who failed to do me the courtesy of inviting me to the celebration of the birth of his daughter. So I punished him, by condemning her daughter to death."
She waved her hand, and for the first time genuine anger appeared on her face. "But there were meddlers, there always are, and instead she slept rather than dying. Her prince," the voice turned ugly and hateful. "He chased me to my castle, and destroyed my body. It took me centuries to regain my power, and plan the death of all those who would call themselves Aurora's kin."
There was a moment of silence as dark power crackled around Maleficent, and then Elsa just shook her head. "Really?" she asked, her tone both disbelieving and faintly mocking. "You've got all this power, you've spent centuries planning and you're trying to kill me because you got snubbed for a birthday? That's remarkably petty."
"Careful young Queen," Maleficent responded, the anger in her voice obvious. "I will not be mocked by anyone, least of all you, daughter of Aurora's line."
"And that's another thing. I'd never even heard of Aurora until you mentioned her," Elsa snapped, a matching anger seeping into her own voice. "You've spent centuries looking for revenge when you could be doing something useful with that time and power. You're looking for revenge against someone who has done you no wrong, to avenge a slight so small you could have just got over it. You're acting like a child."
Maleficent snarled in rage, and she flung her arms forward, half a dozen bolts of darkness shooting towards the Snow Queen who reacted as quickly as she could to deflect or block all of the attacks. She succeeded, but the last one was so close that she flinched, and as before a moments inattention held a price, as Maleficent strode forward behind her attack. Her staff slammed into the young girl like a sledgehammer and knocked her clean off her feet.
'Oh well done Elsa,' she thought to herself as she slammed into the ground and cried out in pain. 'Well, you made her mad. Now what?'
The staff slammed down towards her midsection, and she rolled aside. She felt the staff miss her by inches, and flung an arm towards Maleficent, a shard of ice heading straight towards Maleficent and forcing her to defend herself. Elsa used the surge of adrenaline being pushed into a combat situation had given her to scramble back to her feet and face the dark Queen.
For all that Maleficent had to spend effort to block Elsa's shot, it was a minor effort, but it was enough. In a reversal of their earlier situation, it had caused a momentary distraction, and that was all the opening the young Queen needed. A pillar of ice rose beneath Maleficent, staggering her and drawing her attention even as she lightly stepped aside. As she did, Elsa leapt forward, arms towards Maleficent and hands reaching for her face.
She had thought a lot about the last time she'd used her powers in battle. During the attack on her palace of Ice on North Mountain she had been trying not to kill anyone. Even the giant Snowlem that Olaf had christened Marshmallow had been mostly defensive in nature. Sure, he had chased Anna and Kristoff down the mountain, but even Anna was willing to admit that she'd thrown the first snowball in that battle. Moreover, the giant Snowlem had let them go while it held their lives, quite literally by a thread.
Maleficent wasn't here to capture her however, and Elsa was faced with a threat that apparently could not be bargained with, could not be reasoned with, and would not stop until she was dead. Even before the battle at North Mountain she had always tried to be careful with her powers. When she had faced off with the Wessleton soldiers in her palace, she had used her ice somewhat indirectly, to trap or manoeuvre. That wasn't to say that she wouldn't have killed them if pushed, and while she would never admit it to a living soul, Hans reminding her that she wasn't a monster had probably stopped her from becoming one.
Here for the first time Elsa took the metaphorical gloves off, summoned her powers to her, and fed them through the rage and fear she was feeling and encased Maleficent's head entirely in ice.
The dark witch screamed in anger and pain as the ice sealed around her head, and she staggered forward. It didn't last long however as she brought both her hands to her face, one still holding the staff, and forced her power into the ice. Fast as it was, it still seemed to take ages before the ice turned dark and cracked, before shattering into fragments.
The rage on Maleficent's face at having been played like that, even for a moment was terrifying to behold, or it would have been had there been anyone left in the clearing to see it. A sneer appeared on the dark witch's face as she realised that Elsa had taken the opportunity to flee, and she raised her voice.
"Run Elsa," she called into the dark forest. "Run fast, but I will find you, and when I do I will kill you."
Elsa ran as hard and fast as her body would let her. At night, in an unfamiliar forest, it was amazing she made it as far as she did before she stumbled, in this case tripping over a root she didn't see. Somewhere behind her, she heard the sounds of anger and rage as Maleficent tried to smoke her out by the simple expedient of breaking things, in this case trees. For all her own power, and Elsa had no doubt that in any kind of straight fight she would lose, especially coming of a long and exhausting day. It might have been different had she been at the top of her game, fully rested and ready, but there was something tickling at the back of her mind that suggested that maybe not even then.
It was the reference to a prophecy, she finally decided. If Maleficent was working towards a plan, then she would have taken care to not show herself openly unless she believed she had enough raw power to overcome any obstacles that would be thrown in her path, and if Elsa had no idea what prophecy the other woman was referring to then it didn't mean that Maleficent wasn't planning to defeat her anyway.
In which case it was likely she did have the sheer power to take her in a clean fight. Elsa's power was impressive enough when used against normal people, but Maleficent had powers of her own, and the level of fine control she seemed to have put Elsa's efforts to shame. What's more, the dark Queen had more or less admitted that she had been around for centuries, and that meant she had an experience edge that was far too wide to overcome with youth and enthusiasm.
Maleficent had her own share of mental blind spots however, and apparently didn't enjoy being talked back to. 'I can use that,' she thought to herself even as she tried to push herself to her feet. 'She may be powerful, but she isn't some kind of omniscient creature. I can hide, and run and if pushed, I can probably get her to make a mistake.'
Sweat dripped from her forehead and her hair had come loose at some point, and she knew that she was well past her exhaustion limit. Her arms felt like they had no strength in them, and simply getting to her feet was an exercise in pain. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to run much further, she instead went with the other side of her flight instinct, and pushed herself deep into a hollow in a nearby tree. It wasn't a perfect hiding place by any means, but it would do, and Elsa tried to take deep slow breaths as her heart hammered in her chest.
A small bitter part of her thought that this was not what she had in mind when it came to going on an adventure. However she had limited options. She could continue to hide, and hope Maleficent didn't find her. She could run, if she could find the strength, or she could confront her, and probably lose. None of those options were good ones. If only she had some way of signalling the others.
At least in theory she could try sending up a giant snowflake as a beacon, not too dissimilar to the one she'd created during the thaw of Arendelle after Anna had given her the key to controlling her powers, but setting aside that this forest wasn't exactly covered in snow and ice, there was another problem. She glanced down at where her hands were gripping the trunk of the tree, and noted the ice climbing slowly up the trunk.
Fear was the enemy, and Elsa was honest enough to admit that she was deathly afraid at the moment. She was losing control of her powers, and she could not afford to send Corona into a deep freeze. Setting aside the fact that it wouldn't help beat Maleficent, the long term damage it would do to her attempts to prove to the world at large that she was in fact in control of her abilities would be catastrophic.
It had taken weeks, and no few demonstrations to the British and French ambassadors to convince them that the summer freeze of Arendelle was a one off event, not to be repeated, and no threat to their nations or their commerce. Neither ambassador had been blind to the implications of her powers, or the way they could be used as both weapon of war and as a bargaining chip to keep her own nation safe, and the treaties she had signed affirmed that her powers would be essentially considered a weapon of war, and treated the same way as an army or a navy.
Freezing Corona, even if Rapunzel wasn't likely to be overly offended, treaded dangerously close to an act of war, and she closed her eyes, concentrating hard on her thoughts of Anna, her love for her sister, and the warmth and affection the younger girl had never ceased to offer her older sister. She thought of the teasing jokes that Anna had started making about her age, and the shared laughter about any number of topics and the spread of ice slowed at the very least.
A dark and sinister laugh echoed through the forest, much closer than it was before, and Elsa squeezed her eyes shut, and concentrated on happy memories, while planning her escape.
The game of hide and seek between Elsa and Maleficent seemed to last hours. Every time the dark Queen came close to finding her, Elsa would use what little energy she had husbanded to find a new place to run to, but each time it took longer and the chance of getting spotted grew, and eventually her luck had to run out. She would use her powers to generate a distraction, and use that to dash off to find a new place to hide. Whatever powers Maleficent had, she was still relying on mortal senses to find her.
Elsa kept Anna in her mind during those times when she was hiding and resting. Kept her sisters smiles and laughter in her head in order to keep her powers in check and not give away her position, but it became harder and harder as time wore on. She had long since passed fatigue, and was well into exhaustion by now, and it took its toll.
Her thoughts became foggy, and her reactions slowed down. Her escapes became fewer in number, and she waited longer before risking them trying desperately to save energy for the inevitable confrontation. In retrospect it should have ended sooner. Elsa, her vision swimming as she leaned against a tree couldn't move any further if she tried, her final energy expended.
"And so our chase ends," Maleficent sneered as she strode through the forest towards her. Elsa simply sank to the ground, her back to the tree she'd been leaning against. If this was her end, then the least she could do was face it defiantly, and she put a smirk on her face by force of will.
"You're a coward Maleficent," she said, and took a small amount of pleasure of seeing that shot hit home. The tall woman's eyebrows bunched, and her teeth were bared in something that could never be called a smile.
"So brave for one with nothing left to fight with. Your life is in my hands," came the retort, even as Elsa found herself lifted by the same shadow tentacles that had earlier been used to immobilise Flynn. She hung there, allowing herself to sag into the tentacles forcing them to do the actual work of holding her up, and Maleficent came very close, their faces inches apart. "And even now, you mock me?"
"Yes," came the defiant, if exhausted response. "Because it's true. You've got all this power, and you chased a tired, exhausted girl through a forest, determined to hurt her for a crime she didn't commit."
She turned her head to where she could see the faint stirrings of daylight through the trees. She had long since lost track of the time but there was something about seeing that first change of colour in the sky that gave her hope. What was it Anna had said when they were children, the Sky was awake, and at least for a few minutes longer, so was Elsa.
"You're the worst kind of coward too. No honourable battle for Maleficent," Elsa continued, her tongue cutting with surgical precision. "No going after the actually guilty, just going after anyone you can. Mock you? I pity you."
It was evidently the wrong thing to say as Maleficent backhanded Elsa hard. The shadow tentacles released her, and she crashed to the ground, and stayed there, having neither the inclination, nor frankly the energy to get back up. "Yup, just what I thought," Elsa mumbled, her face lying in the cool mud and dirt of the floor of the forest. "Just a big bully."
"I was going to give you a swift death," Maleficent said in something close to her normal tone. It was her eyes that told the true story, and they practically shone with rage. "But instead I think I will punish you for your insolence instead." She raised her hand and the tentacles seized Elsa by the wrists again, hauling her into the air, helpless before the darkness. A smooth, green tinged hand caressed Elsa's face, and the young Queen didn't even have the strength left to flinch away. When she refused to respond further, Maleficent spread her hands, and the tentacles began pulling in opposite directions.
It didn't take long for the pressure to become painful, and she grunted hoarsely. It wasn't until she heard a sickening sound, and her right arm seemed to pop out of her shoulder that she began to scream however. Apparently taking that as a victory, the pressure eased, and the blinding hot pain reduced to deep throbbing ache as her dislocated shoulder was allowed some respite.
"Would you like that Elsa, to become one of my mindless servants, to obey my every whim while your mind screams in defiance, completely helpless to resist?" the voice was velvety soft, and Elsa found that she had a hitherto undiscovered level of disgust for the creature in front of her. "I think that would be a fitting punishment for you. To become my servant, and to kill your friends in my name. Can you imagine the looks on their faces, and such delicious irony to slay the daughters of Aurora with one of their own."
"You," Elsa coughed, but forced the words out. "You talk too much." Even as her head fell forward again, she saw the faintest hint of silver.
Without any idea of what was happening, she felt herself falling to the ground, and for a long time she just lie there, even as she could hear the sounds of battle around her, she just ignored them. Her whole world had shrunk down to the piece of dirt she was lying in, and that faintest hint of silver she could see all around her, and the pain from her shoulder.
As if from a great distance, she heard Maleficent saying something about spirits, and she heard the thunder of hoof beats through the forest. She ignored them too, lacking the energy to care. She wanted to sleep, more than anything else, but found herself unable, as strength seemed to flow back into her and she raised her head fractionally off the forest floor.
Standing before her, and more importantly between her and Maleficent was a person made out of silver light. Elsa couldn't see much about her, except that her entire bearing was that of royalty. She glanced past the silver apparition, which somehow made her feel better with every passing moment, to see the twisted hatred on the face of Maleficent and suddenly, almost instinctively knew who this had to be.
"Aurora," Maleficent spat, confirming her guess.
"Maleficent," the long dead Princess responded, her voice calm and precise. To Elsa's ears there was a serenity and kindness to it as well that could only have come a lifetime of knowing oneself. "This has to stop."
"It will stop, when you and your get have been wiped from the world."
There was a sad note to Aurora's voice, and if Elsa couldn't see the other woman's face, her entire body language was similarly one of sadness. "I'm sorry Maleficent, for the slights that you have suffered, but I will not let you hurt my family."
For a long moment there was silence between the two of them, and the sound of horses Elsa had heard earlier became much louder. She could barely see several figures arrive on horseback and Aurora raised her chin in defiance.
"Sun stands with Snow, and the Spirit will soon be here. You cannot win Maleficent."
"Perhaps not," she responded. "But I can make sure you lose, all the same."
Faster than Aurora could react, Maleficent vanished from sight in an explosion of shadows, reappearing above Elsa, who tried vainly and weakly to struggle backwards. Her failure was a foregone conclusion given her dislocated shoulder and exhaustion, and Maleficent placed the staff on her chest. Elsa saw Aurora turn towards her, but time itself seemed to slow down and her movements seemed sluggish to the Arendellian Queen.
"Consider this my revenge, to watch one of your line, slay the others," Maleficent hissed, and her black eyes bored into Elsa's, holding her gaze even as she laid there on the ground. "Witness the birth of a truly unstoppable Heartless."
Shadow billowed out from her staff, smothering her head in darkness, and Elsa couldn't resist it entering her nose and mouth. She tried, even with no real strength left to give, she tried, but the smoke found a way. She could no more stop breathing than she could have flown unaided and thick oily blackness took the place of oxygen in her lungs as the smoke seemed to seep into her very soul.
The world seemed to fade away, going grey and then dark and the voices of Maleficent and Aurora and the others who had just arrived became indistinct as if being heard from a long distance. As her vision darkened, images replaced eyesight. Every dark thought she'd ever had, began to flash behind her eyes, and nightmares, deeper and darker than any she had ever dreamed exploded into her mind.
And lying on the forest floor in Corona, Elsa began to scream.
TBC.