Pitch
After that horrible Halloween night, I had left Elsa alone for quite a while. The loss of her fear had been a great blow, so for a week, I busied myself frightening small children, hiding under their beds and in their closets, and spooking them awake whenever they dozed off during their studies. Of course, I couldn't avoid Elsa entirely. Her fear may have been what attracted me to her in the first place, not to mention her lineage, but even with her new boldness, I found her to be an intriguing individual, one worth keeping an eye on.
I stayed away from the castle, of course. Despite my curiosity about the queen's secret, I wasn't suicidal, and I knew that Elsa must be on the lookout for me, no matter how infatuated she was with her new companion. I saw them walking through the streets brazenly in broad daylight, arm in arm as the ever charming Prince Hans escorted her through the town. She spoke less formally with him now and used her powers more openly to please the children that ran up to the royals, and all the while the prince would smile at her and gaze upon her as if she were an angel.
Oh, but I could sense his fear! I felt it every time she rested a hand on his arm and every time one of her snowflakes drifted too close, and I almost laughed out loud, keeping my mouth shut only because I didn't feel like being frozen, thank you very much. She really had no idea how afraid of her he was, how he must be thinking monster every time she cast a spell and monster every time she touched him. Truly, I couldn't understand why he forced himself to be near her, but if there was one thing I learned not-from-experience, it was that love made people do crazy things, and he certainly played the part of a lover well.
It was a week before I returned to the castle - a long, agonizing week I spent scraping the bottom of the barrel for little phobias and girlish screams to keep myself fed. There came a night when I felt a pull of fear so strong that I just had to investigate, so I snuck my way in through the shadows and stuck to them all the way down the halls, following a fear so great, so ingrained that it was like a cool drink of water after being stranded in the desert for me. It was wonderful.
Inside, the residents of the castle were settling down for the night. Servants returned to their quarters for a well-earned rest, and visiting dignitaries retired to the lavish guest rooms, but the resident royals were wide awake and active. On my path through the castle, I first passed through the ballroom, catching the annoyingly bubbly Princess Anna and her consort after what appeared to be one particularly disastrous dance lesson, which was nothing new. I paused to observe.
"It's alright, Kristoff. Don't beat yourself up about it," Anna tried to tell him as she kicked off her boots informally and rubbed her sore toes.
"It's a miracle I haven't broken your foot yet," he continued to complain despite her assurances. I had to agree with him there.
"You're just tired. It's not fair that you have to work so much and keep up with all these lessons."
"Tell me about it," he grumbled. "It's not fair to you, either, having to wait up so late for me to learn all of this."
She waved it off. "It's not so bad. Besides, I try to learn it earlier in the day so we can focus on you more. It's made it a lot easier, actually."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Whenever I get some free time, Hans and I get together with the instructor and - what is it?" It took only a grunt from Kristoff to interrupt Anna's thought.
"Prince Hans?"
"Yeah. He offered, and he's been so helpful, Kristoff. You really have no idea."
"I'm sure he has," Kristoff muttered.
Anna pursed her lips and asked, "Why are you so against him?"
He shrugged and simply replied, "I don't know."
"No, really. Why?" she demanded.
"I don't know!" Kristoff repeated. "We just don't get along, I guess. I'm not sure why, but it's just that way. We're not exactly from the same world."
"Neither are we," Anna pointed out. "But I think we get along just fine. Maybe if you just tried a little harder to like him, like Elsa, things would actually turn out fine."
"Well, it's not like I'm around enough to go sight-seeing with him or take dance lessons with him or - what now?" Kristoff was interrupted by Anna's laughter.
"You're jealous!"
"I am not!"
"You so are!" Anna leaned closer.
"Am not!" Kristoff copied her.
"Are too!" Anna abruptly put the argument to rest by closing the gap between them and kissing him, and I had to restrain myself from gagging at the sugary sweetness of the moment. She pulled away and smiled at a stunned Kristoff. "I love you. Bad dancing and all." Kristoff laughed at this, and suddenly, Anna jumped up and down as a new idea came to her. "Oh! Oh! Wanna do something fun?"
Kristoff never got the chance to answer as Anna darted out of the ballroom and into the hallway, her socked feet slipping on the newly polished floor. I could hear the clanking of suits of armor in the distance, and a moment later, Anna returned with two swords, handing one of them to Kristoff. "Wait, what?" he asked.
"I can teach you how to swordfight! It's great fun!" she said, setting herself naturally in a fighting stance. Kristoff awkwardly copied her.
"How did you learn how to swordfight?"
"How do you think I passed the time with my royal guard babysitters while locked in a castle for thirteen years?"
If possible, Kristoff looked even more nervous at this. "Um, I don't think..."
Anna again never gave him a chance to speak as she suddenly lunged at him, and he had to focus all of his attention on blocking her attacks. She smiled as she darted about him, spinning and swinging and twirling her sword expertly. At first, it was all Kristoff could do to fend her off, but after a while, he found some sort of rhythm in the fight and began to counter some of her moves. The fight became a sort of dance as they learned to match each other's steps perfectly and swing their swords at the right time, and the cacophony of crashing metal as their swords collided became their music. I watched this with amusement for a while before continuing on through the castle.
A few moments later, I stumbled upon Elsa and her new favorite escort walking together down the hall. Elsa was very, very tired, if the fact that her head rested on his shoulder was any indication. Intimacy was never her forte, not even with her family, and only after long days of studying, waltzing, mingling with the public, being dragged around by little brats, bonding with her sister, practicing her magic, and entertaining foreign dignitaries well into the night did she ever touch people freely or show her emotions so openly, no matter how fond she was of somebody.
I followed the two of them as they walked to her room, pausing by the door. "Prince Hans, have you noticed that you have spent well over a month in Corona?" Elsa asked.
"Why, yes, I am, and I am grateful to you and your family for being incredibly hospitable towards me during my extended stay."
"But why is it extended? Negotiations of peace and trade with the Southern Isles were resolved long ago. After that, why did you stay?"
The prince leaned toward her and replied in a low voice, "Perhaps it is because I met someone who gave me a reason to."
Elsa's blush betrayed her, and she opened the door to her room so as to escape the unfamiliar situation. "Goodnight, Prince Hans."
The prince caught her hand before she left and pressed a kiss to it, and on this rare occasion, she allowed it. "Goodnight, Princess Elsa." They shared a smile, and Elsa disappeared inside her room, but as the door closed, leaving Hans to shadows, I saw him drop the illusion of comfort and peace and caught him grimacing. With a sigh, he turned and headed down the hall towards his room, slipping off his gloves as he went.
I began to follow him. There was something about that boy that I didn't like and that I didn't want anywhere near my Elsa, and it went beyond him being secretly afraid of her (a fact which I actually didn't mind and found immensely amusing). It was something dark lurking just beneath the surface, and darkness being my home, I recognized it well, better than anyone else who might have sensed it, like that Kristoff, for example, but I had to give the prince credit for being able to keep up the façade.
Suddenly, I stopped, remembering the reason I had risked returning to the castle in the first place. I abandoned trailing the foreign prince for a moment and tried to focus on the fear that had drawn me and felt that it was fading. It lacked its initial impact - something similar to how a heart pounds against the ribs in shock - and existed only in strong tremors, now - aftershocks, if you will. While it certainly was not as delicious as before, I followed it again out of curiosity.
Strangely, it led me to the Queen's chambers, and when I slunk in through the shadows in the corners left by the lamplight, I found Rapunzel sitting at the foot of the bed, her golden hair draped all around her. She was the source of the great fear that I had felt, if her quiet sobs were any indication. She wrung a long lock of hair between her hands worriedly, and then, as if disgusted, she suddenly tossed it away from her and sobbed again. I approached her from behind so that she would not see me, meaning to bask more in this fear, but as I did, she suddenly shivered, clutching her arms as if cold, and I wondered if she might sense my presence.
A second later, I realized that the temperature actually had dropped, and it was not me that she sensed, but her husband. Immediately, I returned to hiding, feeling ashamed for doing so, and as I did, the Queen also stood and ran, taking refuge in the lavish bathroom connected to the bedroom. She had only just pulled the last lock of hair in behind her and locked the door when Jack flew in, and for my own safety, I also retreated to the bathroom. It was brighter in there, harder to hide in, but I found some shade behind the curtains where I continued to watch.
"Rapunzel?" Jack's muffled voice called just as she turned on the sink.
"I...I'm in the bathroom," she replied, unable to hide a tremor in her voice.
"Okay." His voice suddenly became clearer as he flew over to stand right on the other side of the door. "Are you alright?"
Rapunzel splashed her face with the water, trying to wash away the tear stains. "Y-yeah. I'm fine." She took a plush towel and dried her face, but when she looked back in the mirror, she frowned at how red her eyes still were. "I'm fine. I'll be out in just a minute." As she set the towel down, her eyes fell upon a pair of scissors sitting on top of some drawers that she had probably used recently to give Anna a haircut. "I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeated again hollowly.
She approached the scissors slowly and reached out for them, hesitating at first, but with a sudden surge of anger, she snatched them up and held them to her hair. She looked defiantly at her face in the mirror, daring herself to do it, to make that first cut, but after a long pause where she still didn't move, that expression in the mirror fell, and she tried repeatedly to cut the closest lock of hair to her face with shaking hands. This went on for several seconds before she gave up, throwing the scissors across the bathroom with a cry of frustration before sinking to the cold, tile floor with another sob.
The cry alerted Jack that something was seriously wrong, and he unlocked the door and burst in almost immediately. Again, for my own safety, I retreated, allowing Jack and Rapunzel to sort out this mess for themselves, but somehow, I knew that Rapunzel was going to continue lying to him.
I stalked off to a secluded, shadowy corner of the palace gardens, only to find that I wasn't alone, which was in and of itself very odd. This was a common sanctuary for me, so set off from the rest of the grounds that even the royal gardener forgot to trim the unruly hedges every once in a while. What was even stranger was my new company, consisting of Prince Hans and that strange woman I had seen with the queen before. "And the plot thickens," I mused to myself, sticking to the shadows as I caught the end of their conversation.
"How long must I keep this up, Gothel?" Hans was complaining.
"Have you won over the eldest?" the woman, apparently named Gothel, asked in reply.
Hans gave an agitated nod. "Yes, I believe so, and you still want me to break her heart?" he asked incredulously. For some reason, this revelation infuriated me.
"Aw, you don't really care for her do you?" Gothel mocked. "You wouldn't rather marry her, would you?"
"Of course not! I simply find the thought being turned into an ice sculpture disagreeable."
"Trust me. It is far worse than that, and trust me when I say that if you can get the other to love you, as well, Elsa wouldn't dare harm you, no matter how angry she is. The fact remains: we need Elsa distracted, or else she or her curious sister will find out about our plans, and being an ice statue will be the least of our worries. Now, off to bed with you before someone questions why you are up so late."
"I am not a child," Hans grumbled, yet he still complied. Gothel watched him go before she turned around so that she was facing my direction. I had to be deluded. It seemed like her bulbous eyes were watching me expectantly. For a long moment, I stared back.
Finally, she said, "Come on out, Pitch Black. You have no need to be afraid of me."
So, she could see me. Despite being somewhat shocked by this, I emerged anyway, grimacing. "I don't see why I would be."
"There are reasons," she said cryptically. "Nevertheless, none of them should matter because I have been dying to speak with you. I was only just wondering how long it would take for you to seek me out." I found her bloated sense of self-confidence to be grating.
"Why on earth would I come to you?"
"Because we're on the same side," she told me happily.
"And what side would that be?"
"The one that wants to tear this family apart, to take away their happily-ever-after. Of course, I'm managing just fine on my own, but with your magic, my plan could really-"
"What plan are you referring to?" I interrupted, simply so that I could get her to stop talking for just one moment.
"I simply plan on taking back what's mine, on whisking my daughter back home so we can live peacefully together. Forever."
"Your daughter - Queen Rapunzel?"
"Look who's catching on. Of course, I need some help with creating enough of a distraction so that her disappearance goes largely unnoticed among the chaos."
"Which is why you have that prince on a leash."
Gothel laughed. "Not much of a prince if you ask me, but he fits the bill nicely, despite all of his complaints, and all he wants is the crown of Corona in return. The question is: what do you want?"
"Excuse me?
"Other than Jack Frost's despair, that is, which you will get. I hear you two have a history," she continued.
"No."
"Excuse me?" she parroted.
"I said 'no.' I'm not interested in your plan. In fact, I plan on doing whatever I can to stop it." Was it just me, or did that sound horribly heroic? I nearly gagged. I really was spending too much time around that family.
"I don't understand," she said with a nervous laugh. "We want the same thing here."
"Perhaps," I conceded, "but if anyone is going to destroy Jack's happiness, it will be me, and I will do it alone. My answer is 'no.' I refuse to help you."
Gothel went from surprised to downright murderous in under two seconds. She held up a warning finger. "Then, I'll make sure you won't become a hindrance," she said in a low voice. "You must never tell anyone of what you saw or heard here tonight."
I nearly scoffed at her. Although, I could have sworn that the night's fog had suddenly thickened, and that for a moment, my throat tightened, and it was hard to breathe. It was only my sick and twisted imagination, though. Despite myself, I felt inexplicably worried that I would be unable to speak when I opened my mouth. "Whatever," I said, deadpan, releasing a sigh of relief only when I was once again safe within the shadows of the castle's interior.
I knew what my first move must be. I found my way to that irritating Prince's room and gave him a healthy dose of Nightmares and then some. And then some more. Until he was practically screaming in his sleep. It would seem that I was excessively frustrated by him messing with my Elsa.
I left his room right before he sat straight up in bed, jolted awake after dreaming that Elsa had frozen his heart and crushed it before his eyes, and I nearly laughed. It wouldn't be the last of his Nightmares that night. Or the next. Or the one after that.
Now what? I wondered as I stood out in the hallway, basking in his fear and my sweet revenge. I decided that I needed to tell Elsa.
Elsa
It was snowing very hard, so hard that I could hardly see a few feet in front of me, and the ice was unnaturally cold against my bare feet, when usually it never bothered me. I waved my hands around to try and stop it, only causing the wind to pick up and the snow to become thicker until I was standing at the center of my own blizzard. "Help!" I screamed until I was hoarse. "Help!"
Suddenly, I paused, experiencing the strangest feeling of deja-vu. Of course! I recognized this whole situation. I'd been having this Nightmare nearly my entire life. "Pitch!" I shouted with what little voice I had left. "Pitch, show yourself!"
Abruptly, the scene changed. The whiteness of the snow melted into a dark oblivion, and from the emptiness, chains shot up around me, clamping around my hands and yanking me to my knees. While this was frightening, I swallowed the fear and forced my racing heart to slow down. Pitch emerged from the darkness and smiled down at me. "Good evening, Elsa. It's been too long."
"It's been a week. Are the shackles really necessary?" I asked, daring to roll my eyes. If he was really going to hurt me, he would have done it already.
"Being frozen in a dream is no less painful than being frozen in real life. Besides, despite appearances, I've actually come to help you."
"Or to help yourself."
"A little bit of both, actually, but that's besides the point."
"I don't want your help. Last time you offered, I froze half the world," I spat.
"Ah, good times," he teased.
"What is it you really want?"
"I only came here to warn you about-" Pitch suddenly stopped, looking very distressed. He opened his mouth repeatedly, yet no sound came out.
"Warn me about what? Get to the point!" I insisted. Pitch cupped a hand to his throat and tried to speak again, but no words escaped. Finally, he gave up on this, and he ground his teeth together, his eyes lighting up with a fury I hadn't seen in a very long time.
"That witch!" he roared. "She must have cursed me to keep me from telling you that-" Again, he was forced into silence, and he nearly tore his hair out in frustration.
"What? Telling me what? Who are you talking about?" Despite myself, he was actually scaring me, though not in the way I would expect. I was almost worried about him.
Pitch let out a heavy sigh that also sounded suspiciously like a growl. Pressing a hand to his forehead, he tried to think of a way to convey his message to me around whatever was going on with him. "Just keep an eye...on your mother, and...that Prince Hans you're so fond of. Don't...don't..." Pitch huffed in anger and finally gave up. "I'll be sticking around, Elsa. If you happen to cross my path, I ask that you not freeze me solid. Against my better judgement, I am trying to help."
Before I could even ask for clarification, I was suddenly jolted into wakefulness. I sat straight up in bed, breathing heavily and trying to process all that had happened. What did he mean about Prince Hans? And Mother? Was he really trying to help? Why else would he be so frustrated? I ran my hands through my wild hair as I thought through all this.
"Weird dream?" a voice asked. I looked up and saw Anna's figure in the moonlight by the window. She must have only recently come in because she was still in her day clothes despite the late hour.
"You have no idea."
(Look who's back from hiatus! I am so, so, so sorry about the months long wait for this story to resume, but I was desperately trying to finish up A Christmas In Burgess, which took longer than I expected. That story is now complete for those of you interested in reading it, and a sequel is being planned, but don't worry. I intend to finish this story first before I post any of that. I'm hoping - knock on wood - that I'll be able to make some more frequent updates with this story and finish it up quickly. With that being said, let's discuss this chapter because boy, was it fun to write. I've decided I love writing Pitch, and like I've said before, he's starting to play a much bigger part in this story than I originally planned. I mean, he nearly got an entire chapter to himself, here. I'm going to try and start shifting some more focus to Rapunzel, but at the same time, there's so much that has to happen with Elsa, Anna, Hans, and Kristoff. I guess we'll see what happens. Speaking of, I love hearing your thoughts on this story and theories of what might happen next. [Sometimes you might be right.] Please remember to favorite, follow, and review!)