Meltdown
by Concolor44
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Chapter 20: Completion
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Wednesday 28 July 1841, 1:05pm
Anna's head jerked up. "Was that … thunder?"
Kristoff gave her a puzzled look and tried to peer up through the thick, green canopy that currently arched over them. "Huh. I don't know. When we were up the mountain two hours ago the sky was clear to the horizon." He pointed out where the occasional ray of sun filtered through the trees. "Doesn't look cloudy to me. And I never heard of thunder from a clear sky."
Anna turned and stared hard back the way they had come.
Kristoff pulled up on Sven's reins, bringing them to a halt; the reindeer craned his neck back to glare at him in irritation. Kristoff ignored it, placing a hand gently on Anna's shoulder. "You want to go back?"
She held her pose for another quarter-minute before flopping back down in her seat. "No. She's okay."
Puzzled grew into thoroughly-nonplussed. "She's okay?"
"Yep."
"And you know this … how?"
"I just do." She waved a hand down the trail. "Go on. Lots to do before the ball."
He gave her a few incredulous blinks, shook his head, and tschik-tschikked Sven back into a trot. The haughty set of the reindeer's withers conveyed what he thought of silly, double-minded humans.
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Back at what's left of Elsa's Ice Palace
Some of the pulverized ice had whiffed into vapor. Some of it had converted to projectiles, riddling the near trees. Some of it coated the ground. But better than a third of it just hung in the air, a sparkling, hazy fog whirling in place. And in the center of that fog, two figures floated … though to any observer, they wouldn't have looked like two figures.
The Melding may have lifted her to the heights that pleasure could reach. It may have been soul-racking agony to rival Hell's pits. Elsa couldn't tell, and couldn't be bothered to care because the intensity was simply all-consuming. Her blood sang as the near-infinite power of their combined magicks moved and ran and flowed around them, burning all else to ash. She could feel everything, but nothing at any specific point. She curved into the contours of Carlos's body, skin on skin everywhere possible since the explosion had disintegrated their clothing, but that was only one aspect of sensation, and not even a major one. It was the twining of their spirits, the marriage of their minds, the overwhelming, exhilarating
COMPLETION
It's funny, a tiny part of her mind whispered, that I never knew I'd been creeping around blind and deaf and crippled all my life.
Carlos could swear his skin was incapable of containing such volumes of joy. It was as if he was swelling, growing in some heretofore unknown dimensions, and with that growth came new knowledge, new vistas, new power.
Oh, the POWER! It vibrated all around him, sharpening his vision, echoing his ecstasy, drawing him on, laughing with him …
And then he did laugh. The force of it shook boulders free for several hundred paces in a wide arc in front of him, and started a small landslide. His exultation mounting, he looked down again at the ethereal being in his arms, her eyes twin windows of liquid light, and kissed her again in giddy glee. So this is what ultimate happiness tastes like.
Their power pulled magic from the ground, redirected any ley line within two hours' walk, and bound it all in a ferocious cyclone of eldritch energy that threatened to scour the mountainside down to bedrock. Very faintly, Elsa heard something over the tempest:
"Mommy!"
Gasping, she turned away from Carlos, breaking all contact but for one trailing hand. "Marshmallow!"
The ice golem was just barely managing to cling to what was left of the crag where her castle had stood. Had she not already reinforced his form, he would have been reduced to his component crystals. Instantly, the pair shot down to where he was, the perceived peril damping both their magical enthusiasm and the arcane maelstrom. But Elsa didn't let go of his hand.
If Marshmallow had been able to breathe, he would have been panting. As it was, he seemed quite dazed. "Mommy?"
"I'm here, Sweetie!" She and Carlos, apparently taking this new levitation ability completely in stride, floated up in front of his face. "Are you hurt? Are you broken anywhere? Can you –"
"Mommy!" He grabbed them both and held them close against him. "Marshmallow worried! Thought Mommy be hurt!"
"Oh, Sweetie, no, we're fine. Are you fine, too?"
The golem nodded. "Storm was scary." He looked behind him and shook his head. "Castle gone. Marshmallow sorry."
Carlos patted his face. "Don't worry about it, Marshmallow, old boy. Elsa can build another one if she wants to."
That seemed to brighten him up. "Marshmallow help?"
"Absolutely! You can go find us a good place for the new one."
"Marshmallow look! Marshmallow find!" And he ran off to seek a likely spot.
The Snow Queen finally realized two things: they were floating about three man-heights off the ground, and they were totally naked. She blushed to her roots and turned away from Carlos. "Um … uh … Carlos? How did … where … your, um, clothes …"
He looked down at himself, and started in shock. "Whoa."
Elsa quickly fabricated a practical cover-all for herself, trying very hard not to stare at the (Oh My God Now THAT Is What A Man Is Supposed To Look Like!) naked fellow beside her.
"Hey, can you do one for me, too?"
"… But you'll just melt it."
"Not if you make it out of the same stuff as Nic's sword. It's not so cold that my system would react."
She mulled that over for a second, drew a long breath and faced him. A few quick motions with her free hand, and he stood (floated?) in a fine-link chain-mail suit of solidified water that was harder and tougher than any refractory super-alloy.
He grinned at her. "I didn't see that coming."
Huffing hard, she replied, "Neither did I." Then her eyes widened considerably as something else slammed home to her poor, overworked brain. "Wait!"
"What?"
"You love me!"
"… I beg your …"
"Carlos, we were just inside each other's minds. I know everything."
He realized then that he did, too, and shuddered hard as certain of her memories and experiences suddenly bobbed to the top of his mind. "Oh … Oh … Elsa … how could you stand all the … by the saints! … How did you bear it?" The sudden flood of loneliness and isolation nearly left him breathless. "So … so alone. And you did it all for love? Elsa!" Tears tracked down his cheeks as he stared in wonder at the woman in his arms. They began to drift down toward the earth.
Tears filled Elsa's eyes as well. "Carlos! Your family! Oh, God, how? … Belinda! Oh, no! And your daughters! My God, the same year? And … and …" She grabbed onto him, her breath catching hard. "How did you even manage to live?"
They settled to the bare rock. He leaned back, making a lap, and took her up on it. Then they simply held each other in a silence occasionally punctuated by sobs and gasps for almost twenty minutes while the new feelings and experiences and memories got settled and sorted.
Finally she looked up, frowning, and accused, "You were going to leave?" Her lip trembled.
"I was wrong." He stroked her cheek and rested his forehead against hers. "About many things."
Giving him a watery smile, she admitted, "You DO love me."
He nodded without hesitation. "I do. It makes very, very little sense, given that we've known each other all of six days, but yes." He tightened his grip, pulling her in so that her head was cradled against his neck. "I never believed an emotion this strong could exist."
"Neither did I."
A tiny grin sped across his lips. "Does that mean you love me back?"
"Since the very thought of being apart from you causes physical pain and threatens my sanity, I'm gonna have to go with 'Yes' on that one."
"Good. Then we seem to be in agreement."
A rough, cracked voice intruded. "How sickeningly sentimental."
Both Fey-touched jumped to their feet and whipped around to face the newcomer. She stood some ten paces away, a short, thin-but-recognizably-female figure in a long blue cloak. Her stringy, black hair hung in twisted hanks to her waist, and a sneer of utter contempt dominated her pale, pinched face.
Carlos wrapped a protective arm around Elsa, bringing her close to his side. "Who are you?"
Instead of answering, the woman let her gaze shift back and forth between them a few times. "So which one of you is it?"
"Which one is what?" asked Elsa.
"Ice powers. Which one of you controls the winter?"
Elsa raised her chin. "That would be me."
"Ah. And how did you happen to come by them?"
"What business is that of yours?" Carlos wanted to know.
Elsa placed a cautionary hand on his forearm and caught his eyes for a moment. Turning back to the interloper, she said, "I was born with them. As far as I know, it took my parents completely by surprise, so I had no idea how I got them." She glanced up at Carlos. "But I've recently found out that I may have some kind of connection with the Fey."
The other snorted. "Some connection. That's rich."
"I ask again," insisted Carlos, "what is it to you?"
She ignored him, staring hard at Elsa and walking slowly toward them. "Yes. I begin to feel it now."
Elsa frowned. "Feel what?"
"It has been quite some time, I'll give you that. I'd completely forgotten about him."
"… Him, who?"
The being now stood maybe three paces from them. "The power is diluted. Weak. Watered down. And you have a truly frightful tendency toward mercy." She raised a skinny arm. "No matter. I'll have that corrected in –"
Carlos jumped between them, his hands lighting with brilliant yellow flame. "Stay away from her!"
Contemptuously, she flicked a hand, and Carlos went sailing off to the side some twenty paces, hitting the steep ground hard, and rolling. She sneered again, said, "Fire elementals," and turned her gaze back to Elsa … just in time to get hit with a small mountain of jagged, super-hard blocks of ice. She was blown back and back and back, and finally buried under the frigid cairn.
"You Will Not Touch Him!" Elsa hissed.
Carlos had regained his feet, none the worse for wear. His innate toughness combined with the nearly-indestructible clothing saw to that. He trotted back over to Elsa. "Are you okay?"
Nodding once, she answered, "Fine. But who –"
A crackling rumble preceded a fierce blast of light from the pile of ice. The eldritch being pushed aside some of the rubble and sat up, wiping the dark ichor off her cut lip with the back of her hand. "So. Perhaps not completely weak, then."
Elsa took Carlos's hand.
The creature stood, black eyes snapping, a look of menace dominating her face. "So be it. You want to do this the hard way? I have absolutely no problem with that." She spread her arms wide and began a chant.
Gripping her companion's hand hard, Elsa started mumbling under her breath. Carlos could make out some of it, recognizing it as a ward of a sort, but couldn't tell what it was for until a faintly-glowing aura surrounded them. His eyes widened. I hope this works!
Their opponent reached some kind of climax in her chant and brought her hands together in a thunderous clap. Instantly, a score of gargantuan lightning bolts stabbed at them from the clear sky … and ricocheted straight over into the eldritch woman, blowing a huge chunk out of the mountain and obscuring the entire area with a storm of superheated dust.
"By the saints! I never saw you do that before!"
"It's a modified form of the ward I placed on Nicolai."
"We would have been fried!"
"I know."
"Do you think it –"
A hideous roar shook the ground, knocking them off their feet. Wild winds swept the slope clean, revealing their tormentor, who had grown to some fifteen man-heights and loomed over them. In a voice like a carload of gravel, she said, "This Ends Now." She glared at them in hate … raised a fist over her head … brought it whistling down on the cringing couple, who clearly saw their impending deaths …
… only to encounter a crystalline wall of rainbow hues. The monstrous fist simply stopped, and the raging being quickly shrank to 'normal' size.
She shook her head … shook it again and looked around blearily, finally focusing on yet another being that had appeared nearby. Carlos could clearly hear her teeth grinding as she spat, "Litania?"
"Hello, Morana." The newcomer was a strikingly handsome woman of well above average height, with skin darker than Carlos's, long, long greenish-tan hair, and eyes that glowed golden.
"Litania! Why in the Nine Hells are you sticking your prissy nose into my business?"
"One might ask you the same thing," she retorted evenly.
Morana lowered a black-clawed finger in Elsa's direction. "She's one of my get. But she ended up with some of my power. I'm taking it back."
"You gave it away. It is not yours to demand."
"You have no right to interfere!"
"No? And how do you come by that conclusion?"
"I …" Morana paused, narrowing her eyes and considering her rival closely. Then she glanced at Carlos for long moments before asking, "Is he one of yours?"
"Would I be here otherwise?"
Her exasperation clear, Morana stomped the ground and yelled, "But why do you even care? The mortal you toyed with is long dead!"
That accusation seemed to pain her. "Morana … my cousin … please. You have not been to Court these last sixteen centuries. But surely you must recall at least some of the Old Law." She drifted over closer to the thin creature. "If you hate the World of Men so deeply, why do you spend so much time here? Why have you built yourself a permanent home, established a domain, and invested the land with your spirit if you never allow anyone to get near you?" A gentle hand came up, made slight contact with one withered shoulder.
Morana blinked and turned away. "You would not understand."
"What would I not understand? Unrequited love? I would present Tamerlain."
Morana flinched.
"What else? Betrayal? What, then, of Messic?"
Hot eyes sought hers. "That's not fair! He betrayed us all!"
"True. But whose daughter died because of it?"
Morana grew very still.
"And he is still paying the price, is he not?"
The scraggly head bowed.
"And do I not understand loneliness? Loss? What, then, of Finnegan Moore?" She moved around in front of the other and carefully lifted her chin. "Do I not understand the mortality of Men?"
Morana's mouth drew to a line. "Whatever you have suffered, I have suffered worse."
Litania held her gaze for several breaths before answering, "That, I do not deny. You have lost much."
"I have nothing left."
She drew the shorter one to her in a light embrace. "Sweet cousin, not all men are Jarilo, and not all deceit is forever."
They held the tableau for long enough that Carlos and Elsa quietly regained their feet and put an arm each around the other. They recognized that they were witnessing something that it was unlikely any other living mortal had witnessed, and the solemnity weighed on them.
Litania finally dropped a long kiss on Morana's head. The shorter being grew radiant, her features filled out, her hair became sleek and fine. "Morana, come back with me."
She looked away. "… I cannot."
"Your domain will be safe. You will see." She ducked her head to catch the other's gaze. "You know Father asks after you."
"Why does he care?"
"You are his niece. You were his favorite. You could be again, were you to let go of the hurt."
"Let it go? Just like that? You make it sound easy."
"It is NOT easy." She gave her head a quick shake. "This I know. But it IS simple."
Morana stared at her cousin until time itself seemed to strain. "I have no –"
"Sshhh." Litania placed a finger on her lips. "Oberon has kept your rooms for you."
Eyes growing round, she gasped, "What?"
Litania nodded. "Berrin wanted to use them for his sons. Oberon forbade it, for he knew you would return. They lie untouched since you left."
"But … but why was I not … Hecate said …"
A clear laugh cut her off. "Hecate? You listened to anything Hecate said? You may as well ask Hel for advice on performing charity!"
A rosy blush colored Morana's now-fair cheeks.
Litania hugged her again. "We did not tell you out of respect for your silence. But I see now that your silence has drained you. And it has gone on long enough. Come back with me. The Festival of Lughnasadh is but four days hence. Your presence would mean so much to Father."
"I …" Morana's indecision was crystal clear. "I have been away so long."
"Aye. Too long."
Morana glanced over at Elsa, frowning.
"Ah-ah! None of that. Holding a grudge is like holding a live coal in your hand. And she was merely protecting her own life. They have little enough of it already, don't you think?" Turning to the pair, Litania raised a hand. "Go in peace, mortals. Use your gifts wisely." She cocked an eye at Morana, twitched a shoulder at Elsa and Carlos.
The shorter Fey chewed on her lip for a minute, then shrugged. "I suppose you can keep it. Apparently not all mercy is folly." Her eyes hardened slightly. "But you must know when to trust and when to strike. It will go hard with you if you lack judgment. Remember that."
Elsa nodded. "I will. Thank you."
She scoffed. "Thank Litania. It was she who saved you alive."
The pair bowed low. "We do thank you."
"Ah, little mortals! Enjoy your love in the brief time you have." She made a swift downward motion with one hand, and the two Fey vanished in a brilliant crack of light.
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