On one end of the bedchamber hallway, a mob of dozens of hulking, muscular men. On the other, a waifish young girl. The mob collectively took a few steps back.
"You came into my home." Elsa's voice was neither timid nor angry. It was tranquil. "And set it on fire. In front of children." She held out an arm. "You have one chance to surrender."
A second ago, the rioters had been armed with flaming torches. Now they were armed with smoking, black hunks of wood. There was a clatter of countless hunks falling to the ground.
Elsa allowed herself a smile. But then the moment was ruined by the Admiral drawing his sword and bellowing, "She can't take us all!" The horde bull rushed Elsa. Honestly, she'd been kind of hoping they'd do that.
When Hans's men had stormed her Ice Palace, Elsa had been caught off guard. She'd been wet behind the ears with her powers, and it'd nearly gotten her killed. And so, while she detested violence, after that day Elsa had often found herself planning out what she'd have done differently. Meaning the instant the rebels charged, she readily sent them off their feet. After all, charging at full force is a pretty bad idea when the floor can turn into ice at a moment's notice.
With a quick swish of her arms, Elsa trapped as many fallen men as she could under blankets of ice, pinning them by their limbs and torsos. This evened up the odds quite a bit, but there was still a handful of thugs who'd escaped her opening volley. They skidded across the ice, and some even made it close enough to swing at Elsa, but they fell short of actually reaching her, instead tipping and landing on their faces. This was likely because Elsa had frozen their feet to the floor.
Now that natural selection had done its thing, Elsa was staring down only the most skilled fighters. About three of them immediately threw punches her way, but Elsa raised an ice-wall at the last minute, and her attackers were left cursing and clutching their broken knuckles.
The remaining brawlers backed away slowly. Erring on the side of caution, were they? Elsa responded to this by dropping the ice-wall, blinking innocently, and letting out a girlish giggle. It seemed to do the trick.
"Die, you two-piece harlot!"
"Stupid strumpet!"
For the last few enemies, Elsa decided to go the more direct route. She hurled a snowball into the eyes of the nearest one, blinding him long enough for her to smash a blunt icicle into his gut. For the next one, Elsa summoned a cloud over his head with hail big enough to leave a nasty concussion. And for the one after that, Elsa went the most direct route of all and trapped him in a cage of icicles. The man almost looked disappointed.
There was one last rebel who'd slipped away during the chaos. He tried to sneak up on Elsa from behind, but she sent a fist-shaped hunk of ice into his face without so much as turning around.
Now the only man standing was the Admiral. He'd hung back by the staircase, not even attempting to make a move against the Snow Queen. This was probably wise seeing as Elsa had just single-handedly schooled every other rebel without so much as leaving the spot she was standing on.
"What was that you were saying?" smirked Elsa.
When the tremendous wall of ice charged at the Admiral, he turned and ran.
There was no longer any fire lining the charred, black castle hallways, but there was still a thick cloud of smoke. This allowed the Admiral to put some distance between himself and the pursuing queen, especially when coupled with the high heels on her feet. Lord, was she still wearing those things? Elsa furiously kicked the footwear off so she could sprint barefoot. The floor was still scorching hot, but it grew cooler with each footfall.
Unlike when Elsa had fled, the Admiral seemed to know exactly where he was going. He took sharp twists and sudden turns without a moment's hesitation. Elsa tried to hurl some bolts of ice at him, but he was too nimble and she was too out-of-breath.
The chase took the pair back outside to the courtyard. The Admiral made a dash for the entrance gates, but instead of going through them, he turned to smile at Elsa. Elsa hesitated at the center of the yard. That smirk couldn't be good news. Sure enough, a second later a swarm of arrows was raining down on her. Elsa yelped and impulsively threw up an ice wall, trapping all the arrows mid-flight. One of them was millimeters from the tip of her nose.
Hmm, that was a bit closer than the last time a crossbow had fired at her. She must have been losing her touch.
Another volley of arrows was quickly launched, but all failed to penetrate the ice-wall. Elsa followed their flight paths to locate the archers. She could faintly make out a handful of men atop the watchtower, crossbows aimed at her position, adorned in the emerald uniforms of the royal guard.
Well, they were fired.
Elsa tried to shoot ice at the tower, but it was too far away. Of course, the range of Elsa's powers was at least the size of Arendelle, but that didn't automatically make her great at aiming at something she couldn't see. Not only were the archers just barely on the border of her field of vision, but since she was seeing them through her ice-shield, they looked distorted, too.
Elsa fired her ice at the tower blindly, which managed to hit exactly zero rebellious guards. She supposed she could just blanket the whole watchtower indiscriminately, except Elsa didn't want to risk killing anyone if it could be avoided – Not that her enemies reserved the same formality for her. Besides, what if there were innocent people up there?
Elsa closed her eyes. She had limitless power over the ice and snow. She could take a few bows and arrows. She can do anything – She just have to get creative enough. What would Anna do?
The stern glare of Joan of Arc flashed through Elsa's mind.
The tower guards kept their bows fixed on the ice-wall in the courtyard below, waiting for their window.
Of course, most of these guards were actually rebels put on the squad by the Admiral. The only "real" guards were bound by ropes and chains and left discarded on the floor. Their numbers were few, and the ones not unconscious were simply gagged. But other than beating up the queen's loyal staff, the rebel-guards hadn't expected much action. The Admiral had regulated them to guard duty, which, while necessary, was hard to feel enthusiastic about when all your friends were getting to light stuff on fire.
Firing crossbows at the queen had been a backup plan in case the fire plan went south. The rebels had assumed the queen couldn't fight back from this distance – which had seemingly been confirmed when Elsa sent a wave of ice at the tower and missed her attackers by several feet.
Two of the men traded glances, then burst out laughing.
"This is the legendary Snow Queen?"
"Ooh, look out, she might freeze something in your general vicinity!"
"What a let-down," scoffed another one. "Here I was expecting a challenge. We've got her like a trapped rat. All we gotta do now is wait for her to come out of hiding behind that ice. Man, I can't believe this is the sorceress everyone's making such a big deal abou-"
"Wait, look, she's lowering her ice-wall!" another suddenly said.
The rebels eagerly released their crossbow bolts, but not a single one reached its target. Apparently, the queen had dropped her barrier so she could charge straight towards the watchtower. This boldness was possible because her ice-dress had morphed into a new form – chainmail mixed with thick plate armor. The arrows that didn't bounce off were embedded in the ice a safe distance from her skin.
"Very clever," snarled the rebel, "but she still can't possibly reach us from-"
As he spoke, Elsa shot her magic towards her own feet. This sent her ascending skywards on a pillar of ice. And from the top of this ice-tower, Elsa's view of the archers was perfectly clear.
The rebels' screams sounded strikingly similar to four-year-old girls.
Most of the bedchambers hallway was now filled with ice, and most of the ice was now filled with rebels. The ones who weren't unconscious struggled wordlessly against their restraints. No good.
There was a long silence.
"…Maybe this was a bad idea," said the man in the icicle-cage.
"Shut up, Greg. Just shut up."
The instant the Admiral saw the ice-tower and realized his archers wouldn't be protecting him quite as well in a few seconds, he bolted for the gates. Unfortunately for him, that "few seconds" part was literal. He barely covered a couple of feet before the tower vanished and Elsa surfed back down towards the courtyard on a stream of ice.
A sky-blue knight landed between the Admiral and the gate. The Admiral immediately dropped his sword and put his hands in the air. "I surrender!"
The ice-knight stood still, back perfectly straight. Her helmet dissolved away, revealing Elsa's face. Any trace of its usual softness had vanished. "When I said you only had one chance, I wasn't kidding." A massive tidal wave of frost instantly overtook the Admiral, trapping his entire body from the neck down in a jagged glacier.
And that was the end of the rebellion.
The Admiral squirmed, but it was useless. Elsa leisurely strolled closer to look him in the eyes. "I take it you're behind this?" she asked, her voice perfectly even. "Giving all the new staff positions to your band of rebels so the mob could slip past the castle's defenses? Makes sense. But why? You've been working here since I was a little girl."
"Oh? And you think I enjoyed it, do you?" The Admiral stared Elsa right in the eye, unflinching. "Spending years of my life watching your parents scramble to pacify you? Unable to tell anyone about you under penalty of treason, not that anyone would've believed me? Seeing you be groomed for the throne, you disgusting unbaptized changeling? The crown wasn't meant for your kind." A sneer crossed his face. "Know why you've got that curse? Your parents had you out of wedlock. God was punishing them. When I heard what happened to 'em on their little cruise, I laughed for days. Couldn't have happened to better people."
Elsa's face twitched the slightest amount.
"I woulda acted sooner, but seeing as your condition wasn't exactly public knowledge, I had trouble rallying enough people to the cause. But then you took care of that problem for me coronation night, didn't you?" The Admiral chuckled to himself. "You don't belong here. Go back to your room, freak." He spat on her.
Elsa slowly wiped her cheek. "Well," she said mildly, "I hope that was worth the treason charge."
When they heard approaching footsteps, the children and snowman immediately huddled behind Anders. The dungeon door swung open to reveal a stunning sight – an overweight man on the other side of middle-aged.
"Thank goodness you're alright!" Kai sighed in relief. "We're all safe now. It would appear our queen, err, singlehandedly quashed the rebellion."
Cheers of amazement and joy rang out from the gathered children.
"Cunning trick," whispered Olaf, nodding his head in approval.
The young ones were sent home with some interesting stories to tell their parents, while Olaf and Anders went straight to the courtyard. Several staff members were out and about by now. It was pretty obvious which ones were still loyal to the queen since they were the ones who'd been taken hostage and hadn't just tried to light her on fire.
"Elsa!" The instant he laid eyes on her, Anders charged towards Elsa at speeds old men seldom travel and trapped her in a tight hug. "I'm sorry!" he sobbed. "I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive a bitter old man for being cruel?" He was so overcome with emotion that he forgot to scoff at her unladylike suit of armor.
"Anders-?" Elsa was speechless. Was this elderly man crying like a baby the same sarcastic butler she knew and loved?
"I should never have said what I said to you! I had no right, no right-"
"Anders, no, I…" Elsa took a deep breath. The memories of fire and shallow breathing flashed through her head. "I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. You were trying to help me in your own way, and I was too prideful to hear it."
"But all I did was hurt you-"
"That's not true," cut in Elsa. "I… I realize now that because my rise to the throne was… premature, I've lacked people in my life to turn to for guidance, and so it's too seldom I'm told truths I don't want to hear. But your words made me realize something – I never wanted to hurt people by using my powers, but now I see that I also don't want to hurt people by not using my powers."
Anders nodded slowly.
"Anders, today I saw too clearly what some citizens think of me, and… your concern for my well-being means a lot. I'm proud to have you as my… my butler." Elsa returned the hug.
"Yay! Hugs!" And Olaf joined in, too, just for good measure.
It was at this point that Kai entered the courtyard carrying a piece of parchment. "Your Majesty," he greeted, giving Elsa a quick bow. "All staff members are present and accounted for. Although the castle took some minor structural damage from the blaze, there are no reported casualties." He looked up from the paper to beam at her. "You saved all of our lives."
Elsa ended the hug and returned the smile.
"You put out the whole fire before it could spread far at all," said Kai. "In fact, I don't think there's a single serious-" He glanced back down at the paper. "Whoops, my mistake. There was exactly one serious injury. Your bodyguard took a nasty blow to the head. He's in the infirmary right now."
"Yes, yes," said Elsa, "but what about Anna? Is she safe?"
"Erm…" Kai traded a glance with Anders, who traded it with Olaf. All three shrugged. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her today." Elsa's gut immediately twisted itself into a knot.
But then a voice called out, "Oh, oh, I saw the princess!" Gerda was standing a couple feet away from them. "She said she was going to visit her boyfriend. I saw her leave in a carriage a few minutes before the attack started. She probably missed out on the whole thing."
Elsa let out the biggest sigh of relief of her life. "Thank God."
But the relief was undercut by the sound of cold laughter. Elsa glided across the courtyard to resume glaring at the still-frozen Admiral.
"What's so funny?" she asked tightly.
"You may not want to thank Him just yet," said the Admiral. "That boyfriend you're talking about… He wouldn't happen to be that boy, would he?" His eyes pointed towards the gate.
Elsa's own eyes moved to follow his gaze… and then widened with horror. Coming through the entrance gates were the familiar faces of Kristoff and Sven. The only problem was they were both limping, bloodied, and sporting matching arrow wounds.
"Get a doctor!" Elsa dashed towards them. "Kristoff, what happened? Where's-?" She had a bad feeling she already knew the answer.
Kristoff collapsed into Elsa's arms. He managed to choke out, "He… took her…"
The next instant, Elsa descended on the Admiral. Cold air was seeping out of her clenched fists like a tea kettle fixing to boil over. "Where is she?" Elsa's voice alone sounded dangerous.
The Admiral made the mistake of laughing to her face. "'She' who?"
The next second, his mouth and nostrils were covered by a sheet of ice. Elsa waited until the Admiral's face blued before dissolving it. "Where's Anna?"
"The lake!" he said between gasps for air. "The one you froze!"
"That'd better be the truth." Elsa gave the Admiral one last glare before turning away. "For your sake."
The Admiral had gone pale as a sheet. He was beginning to seriously question Adrian's claim what the Snow Queen fancied herself above.
The wight lay belly-up on the muddy floor of his cave. His collection of skeletons had swelled by one more.
"Not bad," he said to himself. "But I'm still hungry… Yes, always hungry..." He turned to gaze at the portrait still resting against the cave's wall. "Soon you'll be dea-eh-ed!" he said in a singsong voice. "And then she'll be all mine."
The wight laughed. He was thinking about the waitress. Another, secret reason he'd chosen her was that she'd reminded the wight of his worst enemy. And while he knew better than to try to eat his real worst enemy – Where was the fun in that? – a lookalike was an acceptable substitute.
The wight laughed again. That waitress had greatly amused him. He'd liked the way she'd squirmed. And he'd especially liked the way she'd met her end with absolutely no idea how or why it had happened. The waitress's final thoughts had been panicked, unanswered questions like "What is this thing eating me?" or "How did I get here?" or "Why is there a painting of Princess Anna in its cave?"