The trio walked into the dining hall and started to collect their food. The food that they got was essentially the same as what they had gotten during lunch, with the exception of Elsa getting far less food than she normally would, as opposed to the mountain of food she had during lunch.
As they approached an empty table several of Elsa's advisors approached them. Nathan and Elsa stopped dead in their tracks while Anna just kept walking, not realizing that the others had stopped. The advisors were grinning at each other like there was some joke between them.
Nathan didn't like them. He didn't like the way they carried themselves, he didn't like the way they looked at him, he didn't like the way they talked, and he didn't like them. Maybe they reminded him of the people who used to hire him, maybe he just didn't like them. He couldn't entirely tell which it was, but the feeling was defiantly there.
One of the larger men bowed to Elsa and said "My queen" in an almost mock-respectful tone. He rose from his bow and looked at Nathan distastefully. Nathan returned his look with as aggressive a glare as he could muster.
The man looked back to Elsa and said "My queen, there is something we would like to speak to you about." He looked Nathan right in the eyes "In private." And he motioned to the other side of the room, indicating a table at which sat a few more advisors.
Elsa hesitated, looking from Anna to Nathan to the table. After a few moments of consideration she gave a defeated sigh. "Nathan, just go eat with Anna." and she turned to walk to the table of advisors.
Nathan was about to speak against Elsa being commandeered by the men, but thought better of it. He her would watch from his table, and if they left the hall he would follow. He stalked unhappily to the table Anna was seated at and sat next to her. She looked from him to Elsa, and back again. "Is that it? You're just going to let them take her?" she asked in a puzzled and slightly indignant voice.
Nathan nodded solemnly and started digging into his food, looking up through his hair, fixing his gaze on Elsa at the far table. He separated himself from his food and said "They can't do anything against her, not here, not in front of so many people. If they leave I'll follow." Anna nodded and started eating. What Nathan said didn't lay her fears to rest, but they did comfort her knowing that Nathan would keep a constant watch.
The meal passed in silence. Nathan ate his food quickly and pushed his plate across the table away from him, sitting and waiting for something to happen at Elsa's table. Anna ate much slower than Nathan. She didn't know how he could stand eating with Elsa being so close to those she said she was afraid of. Eventually even Anna finished her meal. Elsa was engaged in a heated argument with her advisors, all of whom were smirking and smiling at each other in the same way they had that had made Nathan feel aggression building just by watching them.
Elsa, from what Nathan could tell, had similar feelings. As she argued with them her movements became much more animated and wild as she gestured around at things Nathan couldn't see. Her face grew more and more red and her expression gradually turned to an almost beast-like snarl. And through all this the men just sat, speaking calmly to one another and laughing. Nathan had never cared much for the formalities that royals usually insisted on, such as demanding they be called a certain name or demanding that other bow in their presence, but their blatant lack of respect for Elsa only infuriated him further.
At long last Elsa stood from the table and began stomping her way towards Nathan's and Anna's table. When she reached the table both stood and looked at her questioningly, wondering what they could have said that would infuriate Elsa so much. Wordlessly Elsa motioned for them to follow her, and she stomped her way out of the hall. Nathan and Anna looked at each other hesitantly before following.
When they reached the halls Elsa kept walking about another half a minute before she just stopped, breathing heavily. Anna put her hand gently on her shoulder and said "Elsa… are you o-ok?"
Elsa turned on her heels quickly, bringing her to face Anna. Anna took a fearful step back from Elsa and hid behind Nathan, who stood stock-still. Elsa looked completely enraged. Her normally calm face was contorted by anger, making her look like some kind of beast. Anna whimpered something from behind Nathan that nobody could make out.
Elsa's breathing lightened and her face fell. Nathan could see tears welling up in her eyes and her body start to shudder. Her knees started to shake and she brought her hands to her eyes. She started to drop, and Nathan lurched forwards to catch her by the shoulders. He stopped her from hitting the ground and set her down gently. He looked back at Anna with a concerned look on his face, and Anna came forwards to help.
"Elsa? Elsa it's… It's ok. What's wrong, Elsa?" Anna was looking Elsa over with a frantic demeanor asking "What's wrong? What's wrong?" over and over again. Elsa embraced Anna and started weeping into her shoulder. Nathan looked around them, making sure there was no one watching them. He didn't find anyone so he turned his focus back to the sisters on the ground.
Elsa stood, and her weeping got lighter. She said to Anna "T-they told me…" she choked back another sob and continued "I-if I didn't d-do what they said that t-they would…" she looked at Nathan with big, desperate eyes. "We ha-have to…"
Nathan nodded. He helped Elsa to her feet and said "I want you to come too." Elsa looked at him and nodded, steeling herself against the storm of emotion she felt and her crying subsided. Nathan put a hand on her back and said "Where would they be now?"
Elsa took the lead again. She walked unsteadily with Anna under her arm providing support. They walked for several minutes before coming to a stop in front of a small door. Elsa turned to Nathan and pointed to the door, saying "they're in there." In an anxious voice. Nathan put his eye to the lock on the door and strained to see what was inside.
It was a scene right out of many of his assassination jobs, with about seven rich looking men sitting around a table with drinks in their hands. Nathan didn't see any weapons among them, so he was confident in his ability to intimidate them and, if it came down to it, take them down. Part of him hoped that he would have an excuse to kill them.
He pulled away from the door and looked back to Elsa and Anna. He motioned for Elsa to go in first, saying "You have to talk to them first, I can't do anything until they do something."
Elsa nodded silently and went to open the door. She tried to turn the handle, but found it stuck firmly in place. She took a step back and tried again, throwing her weight against the door. It still refused to budge.
Nathan stepped forwards, about to offer o kick the door down but before he could, Elsa put a hand to the lock. Frost formed over the top of the lock, and Nathan was sure there was more on the inside. Elsa jerked the handle down. The sound of the tumblers in the lock shattering was surprisingly loud.
Elsa swung the door open and didn't even flinch as it hit the wall with a loud crash. She strode in confidently and shouted to the room "Hello, gentlemen!"
Nathan was a bit taken aback by the sudden change in Elsa's demeanor. First she's going berserk, than terrified, now she's confident? He grew more and more suspicious of the advisors every moment.
Elsa entered into the room and as soon as her foot fell onto the floor, frost started spreading over the floor and creeping up the furniture of the room. Two of the men rose from their seats and started to walk towards Elsa, but stopped abruptly. Nathan was puzzled as to why they stopped, than he looked at the floor. The frost had moved over their feet and was holding them in place.
He thought about stepping forward and pointing this out to Elsa, but she had already started speaking. "As some of you may know-" she glared daggers at the seated four "-I have been under a lot of pressure as of late."
One of the four men still seated interrupted her, saying "Ah, excellent my queen. Would you care to join us for a drink?" he poured a new glass of what looked to Nathan like brandy and offered it to the queen. Nathan almost missed it, but h saw the man dip a finger into the drink before holding it out.
Nathan had never been poisoned, but he had poisoned a fair number of people over the course of his contracts, and that finger was a definite red flag. He glanced at Elsa, concerned she might not have seen the motion.
Elsa took the glass from the man and held it to her nose, smelling it. Her face scrunched up and she held the glass away from her. The liquid inside the glass froze solid and she dropped it. The glass skittered across the floor and came to rest under some off piece of furniture. Elsa ignored the glass and looked at the man who handed it to her.
She said angrily "Do you take me for a fool, Tillman?"
The man looked confusedly at Elsa and said "No… my lady, what's troubling you?" he tried to stand, but found himself frozen to the cushioned couch he was sitting on. He looked angry now, and asked "Why are you doing this, my lady?" sounding frustrated.
Elsa threw an arm towards the man and a spike of ice shot out of the floor, stopping just short of the man's throat. "I think you know exactly what I'm talking about, Mr. Tillman. I'm talking about what you've been doing the past weeks."
The man reeled back in his seat away from the spike and shouted in a panicked voice "Queen, please! I don't know what you're talking about!"
Nathan stepped forward and put a hand on Elsa's shoulder. He felt like he had to intervene here. She wasn't talking to the man, she was just threatening him. "Elsa, perhaps you should…" he paused a second and thought "… speak your reasons for this. Give him the option to leave, perhaps."
Elsa looked over her shoulder at him and her face fell. It was like she realized she was doing something very bad. Nathan saw something in her eyes that he saw a lot in the eyes of his targets. Shame. She felt bad for what she had done so far. She lowered her arm and the spike retracted back into the floor. The man looked frightened in-between the two and said "What's the meaning of this?"
He strained against the ice that bound him to his seat, and after a moment the ice gave with a crack. He stood and took a step towards Elsa. He spoke softly as he went, saying "My queen, can you not see?" he motioned towards Nathan "He is using you." Nathan noticed an acrid smell start spreading through the room. "He is manipulating you, like a puppet!" Elsa's eyes widened and she turned back to Nathan with a distrusting look.
Anna chose this time to interject. She spoke first from behind Nathan, saying "Elsa, are you really listening to him? We came here to get rid of him!" she pushed her way past Nathan and entered into the room. She grabbed Elsa by the arms and looked straight into her eyes. "Elsa, Elsa please! You have to snap out of it!"
She turned to Nathan and said desperately "We talked about this. They do this! They try and-" Anna's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the floor, limp.
The man, apparently called Tillman, pointed at Anna than at Nathan, whispering to Elsa "See? He has knocked her out! Will you allow this to happen?"
Elsa put a hand to her temple and said confusedly "No… I… I can't…"
Now Nathan saw the picture. The men were manipulating her, bewitching her into doing whatever they wanted. He drew his sword and stepped forward, past Elsa and over Anna, placing himself between them. "Why don't you just leave?" he said gravely and tilted his head motioning to the door.
The man laughed. It was a deep bellowing laugh that bounced off the walls of the room. The men still sitting and the two men standing looked at the man uncomfortably. He drew back a fist and threw a punch at Nathan. Nathan leaned back and avoided the punch with less than an inch between the fist and his face.
Nathan straightened back out and swiped at the man with his blade. The man moved out of the way of his blade with a strange nimbleness. It was like his entire body contorted away from the blade that would've raked a deep gash across his chest, as if the man could move his chest just like he could his arms.
Nathan saw his blade missed and took a cautionary jump back. He accidentally slammed his back into Elsa, still standing behind him, sending her to the ground. He wanted to help her, but didn't want to take his focus off the man in front of him.
The man opened his mouth and bellowed a loud booming shout. At the same time a sickly green gas started shooting from his mouth. His hit Nathan straight in the face, and he inhaled a lungful of the stuff. He instantly dropped to one knee, hacking and coughing. He felt his body struggling to get the gas out of his lungs. The entire room started to go black and he felt like he was drifting away.
He looked up and saw shadowy figures, one was a feminine form, the other a large man. They looked like they were fighting. The fat figure was making snakelike movements and the other was shooting spikes out of the ground, but missing.
He stopped coughing and forced his throat closed. He stood shakily and gripped his blade. His vision cleared slightly and he could just make out the large man who attacked him. He was now holding Elsa by the neck, breathing fumes into her face. She wasn't breathing them, though, as it looked like a clear piece of ice formed over her face.
Nathan stumbled towards the man and readied his blade. He drew up behind him and rammed his blade into the man's back as hard as he could. The man howled loudly and looked back at Nathan. Nathan gave him a groggy smile and tried to say something, but he launched back into a coughing fit.
As he was coughing, Nathan looked at the hilt of his blade in the man's back. The same sickly green gas was pouring out of the wound, rolling over Nathans leather gloved hands. He had just enough time to think about how glad he was for the gloves before he felt a stabbing pain in the hand.
He felt the world grow dull, and wondered if he was dying. He felt his head hit the floor with a dull thud, but the thudding didn't stop. It became louder and started hitting in rhythm. His eyes fluttered open and he saw the gates of Arendelle moving away from him. He tried to extend a hand towards them, but his arm refused to move. Everything faded to black again.
He came to, and found himself being carried over someone's shoulder. He couldn't see much except rock and moss, nothing that would tell him where he was. He heard voices talking to each other, but from the echo it sounded like they were speaking into barrels. He tried to move his arm again but it was still stubbornly unresponsive. The blackness overtook his vision once again.
He heard voices again, much clearer this time, and tried once again to move. He couldn't move but he could make out some of what the voices said.
"-ease, help us!"
"What happ-"
"We were-"
"dangerous magic-"
"-ould wake him."
Than Nathan jerked awake. He tried to gasp for breath, but found his lungs still blocked by the foul gas. He started coughing again, trying to look around. He found that he was on the ground, that he was in some sort of valley, and that he was surrounded by some sort of little creatures. He saw Anna and Elsa among them, making him assume that they didn't mean to harm him.
He started feeling faint as his coughing fit continued. He knew if this kept up he wouldn't wake up again. He searched franticly in his mind for some power that might save him.
One of the creatures approached and put a small, hard hand on his forehead and said in a deep gravelly voice "Please, be still."
Nathan waved it off. He didn't need to be still, he needed to clear his lungs. He tried to focus his power but felt it blocked by something. He tried again and again to summon his magic but couldn't. After a few seconds he realized what was blocking his power.
He stopped his thrashing on the ground and brought a knee up to his chest. He then hammered it away from him in the direction of the small thing as hard as he could. It was more dense than he thought it would be, but his leg was still able to send it flying.
He heard a few gasps as the thing flew through the air, but he had bigger problems. His mind was starting to slip back into the dark of unconsciousness from lack of air. He summoned up power from his core and released the spell. It was unfocused, but it should still do what he needed it to.
His body dissolved into one big non-solid shape. He felt his physical form give way to a shadow, and his mind cleared immensely now that he didn't actually need to breathe. The spell would only last a second, but all he needed to do was move.
His shadow jerked to the side of where he had been laying on the ground into the middle of a group of the little creatures he had seen before. The ones that saw him scattered into a loose circle around him and pulled those that didn't see him out of the way.
His body formed out of the shadow and he doubled over, gasping for air. He looked over to where he had been before he shadow formed and saw a puff of the green gas that had been stuck in his lungs, choking him just a second ago.
Anna rushed over to him and put a hand on his back. She bent over to get a better look at his face and said "Are you ok? Do you need anything?"
He waved her off and straightened up. "I'm… I'm fine." He took a few more deep breaths and looked up. He hadn't paid much attention to the little things that had been surrounding him before, but they were very hard to ignore now. Most of them were just standing around, gazing at him. A few were helping the one he had kicked back to its feet. He looked at Anna with a questioning look. "The hell are these things?"
Anna laughed awkwardly and said "Well… ever heard of trolls?"
Nathan looked around at the countless faces staring at him and shrugged, saying "I thought they'd be bigger." He looked across the sea of faces at Elsa, who was still standing by where he had been standing. She was just looking at him sadly. He motioned for her to come over, and she did. She picked her way through the crowd carefully and came to his side. "Hey" he said "what happened back there, I kind of…"
Elsa interrupted him, saying "Yea, about that…" Nathan gave her a concerned look, and she just pointed to his right hand. He looked down at the glove and almost gasped.
The leather was warped and shriveled. He lifted the bottom of it and looked at the arm underneath. He wished he hadn't. The skin was all a bruised yellow color and it felt weak. He let the glove snap back down and looked back up at Elsa. She gestured to the troll he had kicked and said "He said it wasn't good, so we just left it on."
Nathan nodded "Glad you did." He saw Elsa's concerned expression and said "It's nothing, I've got stuff for things like this."
Elsa raised an eyebrow and said "Do you get poison burns often?"
Nathan gave her a smug look and jokingly said "Maybe I do."
A voice came from the crowd. The troll that Nathan kicked earlier stepped out of the crowd and said "You should count yourself lucky, boy. You were nearly killed." He stepped forward and motioned for Nathan to bend down to talk to him. He looked to Elsa and she nodded. He knelt down to hear what the troll had to say.
"Elsa told me about you, and what you've done. I've always held a great respect for those the Outsider has chosen to mark." He motioned to Nathan's hand "I've done what I could, but I have no doubt that you have more that will help, yes?" Nathan nodded and he continued. "Good, good. But I think that everyone here" he gestured around him "can agree that only rest heals wounds like that."
The trolls around him all nodded and Nathan shrugged. "I suppose so." He didn't agree completely, but he could see the reasoning.
He suddenly got a very bad feeling. The feeling he got when he was in a trap. The troll was reaching towards his head, and Nathan realized what he was about to do. He tried to jump back, to get away, to do anything, but he wasn't fast enough.
His unconscious body slumped to the ground. Elsa and Anna picked it up, thanked the trolls for their help, got Nathan back onto a horse, and rode back to Arendelle.
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