"A-fancy pants! A-fancy pants! There you are! Come! Come! I made a whole new lesson for you today!" A bubbly brunette cried out, running towards him as he walked the other way.
"He'esth la vitha sie looth. Hi'ssa lissa." His face was set in a deep frown no matter how much he craved to hear her voice, he could not stand that nickname.
"No, talk normal!" The girl scolded heatedly, spinning him around by his shoulders to face her.
"Stop calling me that. Stupid girl." He repeated in her language, his heart fluttering at her anger with him.
"Now was that so hard?" She grinned and then kissed him lovingly on his blushing cheek. "Hi'ssa lisso." ("Stupid boy.") She jeered into his ear, and he poked her hard in the ribs, and she yelped but when she saw him smiling at her discomfort she outright tackled him in the hallway, tickling him profusely, and on he cursed her in his dragon tongue as he howled with laughter.
He woke up drenched in sweat. That was the most he's ever seen of that girl. It pained him to wake up from her. He didn't even know who she was, or, he just couldn't remember, and he was positive it was the former. He actually felt tears rise up in his eyes for the first time in his life. Well, this present life, at least. He slapped his face raw to get rid of them. Tears are for the weak willed. Pain is for the weak minded. He was neither.
It had been two days since that first morning with Viktor, and Elsa was finding every excuse she could to not see him, and he would humbly accept them and go off to bother someone else. Anna was a sure target, but he simply followed her until she closed her bedroom door in his face, saying she needed to change her son, and he doesn't want to see that, and it'll take a while.
Elsa was so determined to avoid him that she rarely saw anyone for those two days, except Peter. She went and slept beside him every night. She hardly saw Anna either and that was what really started to gnaw at her bored brain as she sat alone in her study with nothing to do because she had already finished everything that had to be worked on. She had never accomplished so much in one day, let alone two. She still lied and said that she would be very busy all day so that she wouldn't be bothered.
Finally after an hour she couldn't stand the complete silence that let every tiny noise sound amplified ten times, and she left her office for the first time in seven hours. She didn't know where she really wanted to go, and so she ended up just wandering around in no particular direction.
She ran into someone very particular though. "Is the ever diligent queen finally taking a break?" Viktor called out from the end of the hallway and Elsa looked up to find the face for the voice, being completely zoned out. She looked around him and found she was near the meeting room. There was no getting away and so she didn't even try. "Face him head on, head on. It'll be over soon." She thought to herself.
"Would you like to walk with me? I was about to revisit the courtyard. It's so lovely outside. I've never felt summer down on the earth before."
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to pump some fresh air into me." She said rubbing at her temples to soothe away her headache from reading books for the past three hours straight, his loud voice making her realize it was there.
They fell in step and went to go for a walk through the courtyard nestled in the middle of the palace. He kept trying to walk very close to her side, but she would veer off a little, but he would come back again.
"Again, I must say you have a wonderful place. And, a lovely sister as well. You must feel very lucky to have someone so close to you to help you run your kingdom."
"Yes, it is nice. She always feels like I don't let her help enough though. I am the queen and so I take responsibility for everything that happens to Arendelle, and she thinks I should share it with her."
"So, you're saying you do most everything? Do you not think she is capable of your responsibilities?"
"Of course she is! She can handle anything, I'm sure. I just don't want her to. She has a family of her own now, finally. It took a few tries, and I want her to spend all the time she can with them. Her and I still have our whole lives to be together, we don't need to spend them working all the time, I can do that alone." She chided herself for saying so much about Anna's difficulties on having a baby. "You idiot! Why did you say that?!" She was just so tired from reading.
"Why do you think you need to do everything yourself?" Viktor asked, duly noting how Robert wasn't very easy to obtain for his parents.
"I don't!"
"Forgive me, but what you are saying sounds a lot like that. What if you took ill, and could not perform your duties, whatsoever? Would Anna know how to do everything? Does she know your schedule?"
"A queen would never let a cold keep her from working." Elsa spoke with an assertive resonance.
"Then, my lady, you shall work yourself to death." He clasped his hands together, loudly, behind him, to strengthen how valid his argument was.
"Anna would do fine as a queen, but I'm not going to prepare for that happening anytime soon."
"Forgive me again, but that just sounds beyond foolish. If a cold won't stave you off the throne, then how will your sister ever learn how to sit in it?"
"She doesn't need to. I will always be here. She knows how to sit in a throne anyway. It's not that difficult for a princess, or anyone for that matter to learn."
"So, when you go off, to travel the land, does she sit in it?"
"Well, no. She always comes with, where ever I go."
"Then who stays here? To govern your people?"
"My chief of court. He's filled in for my parents before, and he knows the ins and out of Arendelle. It's his job to know."
"I'm just curious as to why you don't give your sister a chance."
"She's had chances before, and they are none of your business." Elsa's words started turning white hot, and Viktor felt them sear in his ears.
"Please, forgive once more. I am speaking much to freely."
"May I ask just why you are so interested in my sister's ability to uphold the crown if I were absent?" She felt very irritated and her voice conveyed it as well.
"I just want to see how defensive you are. You are very strong headed. I admire that. It's refreshing to see it in a woman." He flattered, looking straight ahead, seeing her reaction with his peripheral vision, and not being let down.
"Do you not have women in your mountains?" She asked with a tiny blush. He was testing her alright.
"That my dear queen is why I am still a bachelor. There are very few women there. It's not a thriving place at the moment."
"Then why have you left it?"
"To find someone to help me make it come back alive."
"I thought it was to see if the rumors of me were right."
"That as well."
"Why don't you just come out with it then." Elsa stopped in her tracks, her anger boiling inside her, threatening to steam out of her ears, her blush was completely gone now. "Why are you really here." She didn't ask it. She already knew why.
"Fine." He stopped as well and strode over to her behind him. He grabbed her hands delicately, and gazed into her eyes, her ice hard eyes, that he was determined to melt.
"I have come all this way to ask you to come with me, back to Adalinda, to rule with me. I have never met anyone with such passion! I know, I understand it will be heartbreaking to leave the only home you have ever known, but I urge you to consider my proposition. I have heard many reasons why you ran off when your extraordinary powers were revealed. Mostly you were afraid. Afraid for your people, your sister, your life. With me, in Adalinda, you will never have to be afraid again. There is very little you could harm there. My people will look to you in all your greatness and love you. Why, you will be revered as a goddess to them! They wouldn't dare disturb you to invoke a devastating response from your gift. You would never have to worry about hurting anyone ever again Elsa, as my queen. I will protect you from your fear. I will show you how great you can really become, completely free from fear."
Her heart stopped. It just stopped beating. Her pupils threatened to disappear from view completely, constricting into tiny specks. He talked of never fearing her powers again, of never having to worry about hurting anyone ever again. She already didn't, but words are so dangerous to the repaired heart.
Doubt cast it's ugly shadow over her face. She felt like she was breaking again, as his eyes seemed to peer into her soul, scavenging for her thoughts. She stood in silence, willing the ice beneath her skin, embedded in her bones, to stay put, to stop advancing to the surface, to not give her away.
"I know I am crossing every line you've probably ever drawn, but I can't help but believe that we were meant to be. The fates have drawn our hands together in the stars. I feel connected to you Elsa. We could rule worlds if given the chance, I know it." He smiled and kissed her knuckles of both her hands. His voice was so warm, so... enticing.
"I can't." Her lungs squeezed out every tiny ounce of air they held and her voice was nothing but air, no tone to it, but it was as heavy as a sunken ship. She closed her eyes to block his eager face from view, she closed them so tight. He wouldn't relent.
She racked her frozen mind for something else to say, not just anything, although that sounded like a good enough idea. She need something specific. "I can't leave Anna. She's all I have." She opened her eyes again, his expression unchanged. "She's all I want." She continued. Her voice weighed even more now as a confident tone latched on to it again. "In this whole wide world, all I need is in that girl. I can't leave her again. Never again."
"Does she feel the same?" He asked with an innocent pout, and it took all Elsa had to not slap him. "You don't think you're stifling her full potential?" Her hand flinched hard, but his grasp tightened with expectancy, and his eyes smiled as he felt his seed begin to grow inside her mind.
"Yes, she feels the same. She is my sister, and she loves me, no matter what, and I will never leave her again." His seed died right there before his very eyes. "You may leave now." She tore her hands away from his. "You have stayed your welcome." And with that she swiftly turned to storm back to the castle.
His plan failed. He stayed in place and his soul swirled inside him maddeningly, driving him insane. His plans never fail. He never fails. Viktor never fails. He didn't go after her. He just stood there dumbfounded.
Elsa's nose was smarting from pinpricks and the floodgates of her tear ducts came tumbling down as she entered her home again. Her whole body was shaking. She was shivering and she wasn't even cold. She was just panicking. She held her hands under her arms: one, to hold herself together, two, to not destroy everything in sight, to keep the rage, the hurt, the doubt inside her. Her body felt like it was exploding from the emotions clawing at her skin yearning to break through. Her bones felt brittle, and her breath was hard to come by as her chest felt like it was starting to cave in.
She couldn't see where she was going. She was bawling too hard, there were too many tears flying from her eyelids. She ran into everything, walls, pedestals, but not people, no, no one was around, and she thanked God for that. She didn't want anyone around her.
Her feet felt like they knew where they were going and urged her drowning mind to follow a path they hadn't gone down in over a decade. Her mind complied, willing to go anywhere at the moment just to keep it's body moving, fearing what could happen if it stopped. Her feet lead her down many turns and many hallways, until they stopped and she blindly ran into a set of doors.
She fell back onto the hard stone floor, from the force of hitting the massive doors so hard, and wiped her eyes as dry as she could to see what it was she had ran into; the double doors that led into her parents room. Her breath shuddered out and she slowly got her feet. She reached out to feel the old, smooth wood, as if to make sure it was real. They were.
Without wasting another moment she strained hard and pushed them opened, the hinges rusted over from extremely rare use for five years. A small dusty gust blew out, and she could smell her mother's perfume, as clear as if she had just sprayed it.
She walked in and dashed for the bed and jumped onto it, curling herself into a ball, forcing her body to shrink, to vanish. She imagined her mother stroking her hair, her loving touch calming, magical. Her touch could cure anything, from the flu to a scraped knee. She started to cry again as her heart ached from having to pretend to feel her.
She began to outright scream, and it sounded like she was fatally wounded. She howled over and over, sometimes into the pillows, but mostly into the air. Her breath was full of ice. Her hands, clenched and tangled in the thick comforter, froze the whole bed, and the ice spread onto the floor and onto the walls. She wailed even louder when it became too cold to smell her mother's perfume anymore in the frigid air.
Thankfully, it wasn't long until she passed out from exhaustion. Her tears were frozen half way down her face. Her fractured heart bled out into her weary body, and her throat, completely raw, began it's preparations to repair itself. If only hearts could repair themselves.
Not long afterwards, Anna found her unconscious body, balled up still on the bed, and she carried her out of the room. In her sister's arms she stirred slightly and Anna looked down at her. "Go back to sleep Elsa. Everything's okay." She purred, kissing her sister's frosty hair. Her lips burned from the cold as they melted the tiny bit of snow where they touched. Elsa was thoroughly covered in a dusting her own snow. She was ice cold, but Anna held her so close her muscles actually began to feel sore from the strain, but she never faltered on her way to her old room.
The guard stationed there in the hallway quickly moved out the way and went to open the door for Anna, thinking she must be struggling to have carried her sleeping sister for quite a way. Anna was just fine, she was more known as a klutz then for her strength.
"What's wrong with her?! What happened!" Peter practically shouted as Anna came in with them, but this time Elsa didn't stir. The guard shut the door behind her.
Peter shifted to the side so that Anna could lay Elsa down beside him on the bed. She didn't know where else to go. "I don't know. If I hadn't just left the room I don't think anyone would've found her." Anna pulled the blankets over her sister, and then sat down beside her on the edge and stroked her stiff, frozen hair, trying anything to make herself feel like she was helping her.
"Where was she?"
"Our parents old room." When Anna was really sad she'd go in there, and find her mother's perfume bottle and spray it into the air to smell it. It always made her feel better. "I heard someone screaming their lungs out and when I finally made it back over there she was passed out their bed, the whole room was frozen. I don't know what happened, but what ever it was it was terrible." She bent forward and lovingly kissed Elsa's forehead and let her lips linger there for a moment, wishing her love would instantly begin to melt all the ice coating her sister.
The door was thrown open violently, and the ten men playing cards on the floor all jumped out of their skin and they scrambled onto their feet."My liege? What happened?"
"We are leaving. Pack everything, and load the ship. We leave tonight. I won't stay another day here. I've stayed my welcome... What are you standing there for?! All of you! Get moving! Now!"
The men all started to run around and grab things and stuff them into suitcases and chests.
"Two weeks." Viktor mumbled to himself, not moving out of his men's way as they did his biding. "A week to get here, just to turn around, then another week to come back. All thanks to that fucking monkey."
"I will not be made a fool!" He exclaimed to his bustling men, not really caring if they stopped to acknowledge him or not. "If she won't get out of the way willingly then I will just have to move her myself." He fully said to himself, entirely consumed with strife.
"As soon as we get back I want my brothers and sisters awakened." Now the men stopped. They all stopped completely, mid heave and mid haul, their faces blank from fear. They weren't allowed to fear, but his siblings all sent a massive chill down there meaty spines. Slowly they began to move again, and then they worked even harder to distract their minds from thinking about what to expect when they arrived back home.
"I just have one last move though before I call check." He snickered under his breath. "I must destroy her most precious pawn."
