Author's note: Wow. Well, I asked for opinions and you guys have not been shy with them. Very well, since the vote was unanimous, please find here the original epilogue. The only thing I've changed is a reference to something Hercules originally said in the previous chapter and which I removed as it was pure foreshadowing and when I originally didn't plan to post this I took it out.
Enjoy
Legacy: Epilogue
It was a quiet night in Arendelle, as Elsa lie in bed, arms behind her head and not even bothering to try and sleep. Hovering maybe a foot above her head, spinning lazily around its own axis was a small ball of ice.
It hung in the air in the exact same way that bricks don't, and Elsa's gaze was only partially on it, as her mind replayed the dream she'd had every night since returning from Corona. A dream in which they had slain Maleficent, been rewarded and Hercules had departed on a cryptic note.
A more cryptic one than even her family knew, for as he departed his voice had whispered something into Elsa's mind. Something meant for her and her alone and even through Elsa didn't even notice the cold these days, something deep within her shivered at the memory.
'You will understand, when you understand the difference between snow and ice.'
As cryptic bullshit went, it was a doozy.
She hadn't even been sure she had heard it the first time, and for the few days that they had remained in Corona things had been fine. Or as fine as a capital containing tens of thousands of residents, plus transient population and traders could be when a majority of them had been forced to confront their deepest, and darkest fears.
It was the reason that Anna and herself had cut their visit short. Rapunzel had her hands full helping and healing those who were struggling most with the after effects of what had been done to them. There had been precious little rioting and violence, but that hadn't meant everything had been calm.
Not everyone had been able to come to terms with what happened. They turned inwards, hurting themselves. Others had taken another route and had become violent and the city guard had been hard pressed to deal with all the incidences since many of them had been similarly affected.
Some had died anyway despite everyone's best efforts. By mutual assent, they'd agreed that the Arendellians had been a distraction that Rapunzel couldn't afford while trying to take care of, and arrange for the assistance of thousands of people-cum-heartless.
Kristoff had actually come through his experience better than most, and his and Anna's relationship had no doubt played a significant part in that. His life, while undoubtedly hard had not had many great tragedies and it helped that he was an incredibly level headed young man. Despite that, he too had needed someone to cling too, and Anna had been there for him.
The Thunderchild was a small vessel after all, and there were some sounds that Elsa would spend the rest of her life hoping she never heard again when it involved her sister. It made her absurdly glad that Anna's rooms were some distance from her own in the palace. It had however brought the issue of his and Anna's relationship to the fore, and Elsa hadn't hesitated in publicly proclaiming her support of their new status.
The people of Arendelle had taken the official announcement of Anna's courtship well, and being willing to ignore how untraditional it was. They had taken it far better than Elsa had expected actually. It turned out that while they respected and liked Elsa, her sister's behaviour during the crisis, and Kristoff's part in her adventure to North Mountain had made her a princess of the people. The knowledge that she'd chosen one of their own, a local boy and a commoner to boot had been greeted with cheers.
Of Flynn Rider... there had been no sign by the time they'd left.
Rapunzel and Eugene had promised to look for him, and while they had done their best to reassure her that he was probably alive and just hadn't been found yet, they seemed to have their doubts.
Elsa didn't. It wasn't something she could have explained if asked, but she was sure he was alive, and so she had resolved to simply wait. Despite the fact that two ships had since arrived with messages from her cousin, neither mentioning him.
She knew Merida had returned home to Ireland, but she had returned with new friendships with new kingdoms. Not to mention that she had apparently been given a bag of gifts from Hades that she hadn't shared with any of them, but which she had promised she'd put to good use. There was something about that statement which should have terrified Elsa, but it wasn't her call to make, and Merida had saved their lives.
It was only when Elsa had slept in her own bed again for the first night back that the dream had come to her. Crystal clear in her mind as it replayed those final moments before Hercules' departure and his message. She had spent two weeks since their return experimenting with her powers, trying to understand the riddle Hercules had posed her before a chance request for some water had given her the Eureka moment she needed.
The difference between snow and ice, was primarily one of temperature.
Her eyes gazed at the ball of ice and she reached out with her powers, and watched it change. It was more instinctual than understanding, but she knew she was raising the temperature of the ice, and changing its state from solid to something less solid as it turned to a ball of snow.
She had already discovered she could push the temperature down to something close to absolute zero when she had turned the massive gates of Corona into wood that was brittle enough to be shattered with a single motion of her powers, and now she was slowly but surely beginning to be able to do the reverse.
The ball of snow changed again, not to ice, but to water.
Elsa felt a shudder run through her body as it did. This was something she had shared with no one, not even Anna. There were new messages every week from foreign powers expressing concern, making threats or offering bribes in order to find an angle to ensure the Snow Queen of Arendelle didn't disrupt Atlantic or North Sea trade by covering the oceans in ice.
How much worse would those message get if the people who wrote them realised that it wasn't just snow and ice she could manipulate and control.
Within a day of figuring it out, a book had mysteriously appeared in her room, and she suspected that while they couldn't act openly, the Gods from whom she was descended were nudging information towards her. The book had been written in ancient Greek, and she had needed another book about the language on the desk beside her to make heads or tails of it, but she had done so.
It was a story about Icarus, who had flown too close to the sun and had his wings melt. However unlike the story that she had learned as a child, this book appeared to be collected writings of people who had known Icarus, and they had used a peculiar term to describe him. It had taken her a week of solid work to find a translation, and even then things hadn't clicked until she had found a set of synonyms that made sense to her.
The book described Icarus as having not just the wings, but an ability to control the very winds. The book described him as having the ability to twist the skies, to master the winds, but it was a different term she had come to describe him in her own mind.
A term that felt right.
The term airbender.
And so she had ordered any ships leaving Arendelle to carry covert messages to allied states and people, asking about any rumours of people with similar powers to hers. People who could move the winds, and the earth and the very flame itself.
Just as she could bend the very water to her will.
Her musing was interrupted by a sharp knock on the window, and the moments distraction caused the ball of water to drop and splash her in the face. Despite that she virtually shot out of her bed, because that same sense of rightness that had infused her when she'd come across the term Airbender was filling her again.
There was only one person she could imagine would be knocking on her balcony window in the middle of the night, and despite the fact that her face and hair was soaking wet, she was intent on the door as she threw it open.
"Flynn?" she breathed, looking at the smiling face of the man perched on the railing of the balcony. She had no idea how he'd climbed several stories up, not to mention got past the guards without a single alert being raised.
And she realised she didn't care as he hopped off the balcony and stepped towards her, wrapping her in a hug that she didn't hesitate to return.
"Where have you been?" she demanded after a moment, pushing him off slightly and taking in the puzzled expression on his face. What was drawing her attention wasn't the look on his face, but the haunted gaze in his eyes. Whatever he'd experienced under Maleficent's spell had been hard on him.
"You don't seem surprised to see me?" he said diffidently. "I was expecting something like 'Oh my God, you're alive?"
Elsa chuckled at that. "I never doubted. What happened to you?"
"When Maleficent's power wore off, some friendly Coronan lady took me in to take care of me. Seems Rapunzel had asked everyone who could help, to do it, and it took a while before she got in touch with the palace to ask if I anyone knew who I was," he explained as he leaned back against the balcony railing.
"After that, Rapunzel and Eugene got me through the worst of the nightmares. I had to run a quick errand and I hopped the next boat to Arendelle," he paused and his voice had an edge to it when he spoke again. "I had to find you."
Elsa looked at him with an amused disbelieving look on her face. "So you decided to break into my palace?"
He had the good grace to look abashed at that. "Well, I didn't exactly know where to start looking, but Eugene suggested that if I couldn't find you, I go ask the Queen. Gave me a letter of introduction and everything and assured me that she was a kind person who would help a weary traveller."
He saw the look on Elsa's face and grinned. "Yeah, Eugene is a smartass. I'll get him for that one of these days. So anyway, here I am."
"Here you are," Elsa agreed as a gust of wind blew past them. There was a definite chill to the air, but the growing heat in her face meant she barely felt it. Here he was indeed, standing on her balcony in the middle of the night, with her in a nightgown and with drops of water still dripping down the side of her head.
"And you're okay with this? I remember you saying you don't hobnob with royalty," she finally said, letting a little unwanted nervousness leak into her voice. He had made it abundantly clear at the campsite that he didn't like royalty, and Elsa was about as royal as it got. "I am the Queen you know."
"You know, I kind of got that hint when I started asking about a stunning blonde named Elsa and they kept pointing me in this direction. Even I got that hint."
Elsa made quite sure that she kept her face under control as he called her stunning, and then reached over to yank him off the railing "Good, you're a bit slow on the uptake."
He chuckled. "So I've been told."
They stood in companionable silence for a few moments. Elsa felt like she should be nervous, but she wasn't. Whatever it was that she was feeling, she was calm and at peace here in this place and time. However she knew such moments never last, so finally she looked at him, noticing for the first time that he was fractionally shorter than she was. "So what do you want from me, man who would be called Flynn?"
He took her hand again, and spent a long moment rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand even as he looked deeply into her eyes. "I want you to come on an adventure with me."
Elsa looked at him and lightly shook her head. "I can't just run off into the night." The protest sounded weak to her own ears however as she realised that she wanted to go on an adventure again. However she knew them for idle thoughts, and nothing more.
Despite everything that had happened, the trip to Corona had made Elsa realise that she couldn't just be the Queen behind the scenes as she had originally planned. She needed to be doing things, even if they were small things. All that being said, his very idea was ludicrous.
"Oh sure, it's an insane notion," Flynn agreed easily, unknowingly echoing her thoughts. However there was something mischievous in his eyes. "Now give me three reasons why you can't do it," he challenged.
"I'm the Queen," she protested almost immediately. "I have responsibilities."
"True enough, but I did asked around when I arrived. Your people love you, and your sister. By all accounts you have an excellent staff who took care of managing the kingdom for the couple of weeks you were in Corona, and I'm sure they'd do it again."
As he effortlessly demolished her argument, Elsa found herself consciously stopping herself from licking her lips at the suddenly exciting thought of doing it. His argument was far too simplistic of course. The trip to Corona had been planned for months before they actually went. It was a far cry from running off in to the night with a semi-stranger. Having competent staff and family was no excuse for what he was suggesting, but the tone of his voice made it quite clear he understood that anyway. He still wanted her to run off on an adventure with him.
It was insane.
It was mad.
It was oddly appealing.
She turned away for a long moment as he waited patiently and as she turned back there was a different expression on her face. Now it was speculative.
"Okay, how about the fact that my kingdom is at peace. Not much adventure to be had here," there was a smile on her face now, as she challenged him to explain what he had in mind for an adventure. It was one thing to run off in the middle of the night with a complete stranger, but he'd best have a good plan in mind.
"Hah," he said and his grin was wide as she began to play the game with him. "Shows what you know. I have heard from a very reliable drunk that there's an ice monster rampaging over on North Mountain, and I plan to deal with it."
He said it with an air of affected pompousness that made Elsa laugh as he twirled an imaginary moustache. "After all, if I deal with a monster in her realm, I'm sure the Queen will be grateful and reward me handsomely."
She lightly punched him in the shoulder, but the grin on his face remained. The one on hers fell though, and she found herself unwontedly serious as the third objection sprung fully formed into her mind.
"I don't even know your real name," she finally said softly.
The grin vanished, but there was still a smile in his eyes. "Etienne Devaux," he replied. "I'm from a place called Abbeville, not far from Paris."
And there it was, for the first time since Elsa had quite literally fallen into his life, she saw the real person staring back at her. A person who had come a very long way for someone he barely knew in order to invite her on an adventure.
"I barely know you," she finally admitted and he reached out a hand and took one of hers.
"That's four," he said. "But I'll give you that one. That's kind of the whole point. I'd like to get to know you Elsa, and what better way than to go deal a probably imaginary threat. I mean, rampaging Ice monsters?"
There was an amused tone to his voice, as if he was inviting her to join in the joke, but something about it struck Elsa as off. She looked up at the black haired man who had snuck in through the palace security cordon and climbed her balcony in the dead of the night in order to invite her along on an adventure.
Elsa gazed into his eyes and tried to understand what she was seeing there. He'd obviously spoken to the people of Arendelle before coming to the palace, and he must have heard the story of her coronation from someone if he was asking about her. Despite that he had yet to mention her powers, or the fact that the monster he was referring to was almost certainly the Snowlem that Olaf had christened Marshmallow.
And yet he was still treating her like a normal person. That realisation hit her like a thunderbolt. He probably did know about her powers, and he was probably smart enough to have put the clues together from Corona and whatever he'd overheard in Arendelle.
All the same he was going to pretend he didn't know until she told him about it. He was giving her a gift, silently promising that her secrets would be respected until and unless she told him about them, and something about that realisation made her heart beat faster. She had once thought that he was the first person she'd ever met who had only seen her as a person, not a Queen, not a wielder of sorcery, but just a person. Now she knew she'd been right.
"An ice monster you say?" she murmured a few seconds later, her mind made up, as she walked back into her room and began penning a note to her sister. It was a work of a few moments to sketch the situation and officially leave Anna in charge until she returned. "My my. Well, I suppose as the Queen it's my duty to be aware of any potential threats to my kingdom."
He pumped a fist into the air, an almost boyish grin on his face as she disappeared behind her blinds and got dressed before grabbing the travelling cloak Rapunzel and Eugene had gifted her. As she headed towards him, he looked at her with a surprise that was so artfully feigned, that if she didn't know better she would have believed was genuine.
"Don't you want to bring something heavier than a cloak?" Flynn asked her as she approached the balcony, wrapping her cloak around herself. Elsa looked at him and gave him a dazzling smile as she stepped up to the edge and looked over it at the long drop down.
"No," the Queen of Arendelle said with a smile as she took his hand and he helped her up onto the balcony, facing the dark and uncertainty by her side. She had no idea how they were going to get down, but she was sure it was going to be fun finding out. "The cold never bothered me anyway."
-finis-
And there you have it. The completion of Legacy, the lead in to the sequel and a metric ton of foreshadowing for some of the things that were going to happen.
Thank you all for your reviews.
I can't promise the sequel at this time, life, the universe, a career change and quite possibly a move some 18,000 miles away means that my next four to six months won't leave much time for other things.
Watch this space.
roisinthegenie: And here are your answers. :)
homers8736: I can't leave off with cryptic bullshit? but it's so much fun.
Pabulover123: There's your answer.
Ultimate Black Ace: Thank you. I might still end up writing it, but if I do I'll probably write most of it before beginning posting, because I don't want to be one of those authors who starts a sequel and has it taper out and then just vanishes. Fair point about their being more adventures. In fact, the trope /Main/AndTheAdventureContinues was pretty much foremost in my mind when I originally penned the epilogue way back in March.
16: Yup, nope, he wouldn't be much of a bad guy if he was always predictable now would he?. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Grass-eating Zombie: Not a fan of loose ends. There's always a few because else, what is a sequel made of?
MangaArtfansTwin: I'm so glad you found the Wicked fandom and have come to enjoy it. I have no idea where you live, but if you can see a production it's well worth it. Glad you enjoyed the story.
psalty: Heh, I wanted to poke a bit of fun at some of the stranger shipping fandom Frozen has, and ultimately I wanted to send the fic off on a cheerful note. I did mention much earlier that I don't really do unhappy endings.