The Snow Queen Acts

(A/N: Hidden H.C. Andersen quote in this one. See if you can find it.)

The massive bear stood, hardly fazed by the drop, and roared in what seemed to be rage, charging the prince. Hans caught his breath and drew his pistol, immediately firing into the creature. A flaming bullet departed the gun and struck the bear's forehead, making it roar in anguish and bat at its face to put out the flames. It was better than a normal bullet would be at least, Hans—more than a little surprised at the flaming bullet, but also immensely relieved—decided. Not that he believed even a bullet from a hunting rifle would stop this thing. Not if the stories of the curse's power were true. What was it? Only the strength of another bear would defeat him? Something like that, at least. Of course, guns were stronger than bears, but he doubted that's what the curse had meant. After all, this thing was technically undead anyway. It became apparent blindingly fast that the gun, flaming ammo or not, stood no chance. The bear leapt on him, knocking him to the ground and sending his pistol sliding away. He drew his sword and barely managed to get it up in time to block the massive jaws.

In its eyes he saw the outline of a man he couldn't make out but felt he knew…

Scowling, Hans pulled back his sword then drove it, the white flame burning hot, into the mouth of the beast. It went right in and through the head. Mor'du froze, and for a moment Hans hoped he'd killed it after all. Slowly, though, it stood, pulling itself off the sword. Hans watched, eyes slowly widening in horror. All at once Mor'du roared and slashed with his massive claws, ripping long and deep gashes into the prince's side, stomach, and part of his back. Hans screamed in agony as blood poured from the wounds unchecked. The bear went for another blow, but Hans rolled out of the way and shot a fireball at it before trying to drag himself away from the creature. He looked at his hands in surprise. Wow. This could be handy. He might stand a chance despite the severe injuries from the bear's claws that were gushing blood at a rate that didn't bode well for him.

Hans staggered up and turned to face Mor'du, scowling. He couldn't keep burning for long. This plateau was ice, and the longer he used this power, wherever it had come from, the more it melted. He threw another fireball at his cursed ancestor, whichever ancestor that was, making Mor'du roar in anguish, staggering back and frantically pawing at his face. Hans thrust another, then another, and soon the bear was ablaze with fire. In anguish and rage is bellowed and charged despite burning alive. Hans's eyes widened in horror, his mouth agape. He felt like he was watching some unholy beast from the darkest depths of Hades. He cried out in agony as Mor'du tackled him, attempting to maul him to within an inch of his life. Hans frantically struggled to get free or burn it or something, but Mor'du had him in a death grip now and it only took seconds before Hans realized that Mor'du had decided that if he was going down, he was bringing Hans with him.

"No!" Elsa's voice suddenly cried out as a powerful snow attack struck the creature, knocking it from Hans, although with the unfortunate side effect of putting out the flames that had burned off more than half its fur. Which, terrifyingly enough, made it look more horrific than it already did. The bear looked sharply back and roared furiously on seeing the Snow Queen descending in a flurry.

The moment she reached the ground, she sent out another attack at it. Mor'du roared, thrashing his head side to side, then charged her. Elsa caught her breath as it barrelled down. All at once Vertigo appeared with a vengeance, throwing himself into Mor'du and savagely ingraining his essence into the beast's mind. Mor'du lost all sense of balance, roaring in alarm as he staggered blindly, frantically trying to get his balance back before he ended up slipping right off the plateau! Vertigo, though, had no intentions of letting this go. Suddenly a whole side of the plateau Elsa had crafted crumbled, putting Mor'du right at the edge. Elsa looked up and saw the Ice Maiden, eyes narrowed, imposing her will. Mor'du gave a roar as he lost his balance at the edge and tumbled over, falling down, down, down, to the hard ground far below. The Ice Maiden hissed and dove after Mor'du in case something went wrong and Vertigo needed help.

Frozen

Heart pounding as she slowly processed the danger was gone, Elsa caught her breath and turned quickly to Hans, eyes wide. He wasn't moving! She raced to the young prince's side, sliding next to him. She gathered him into her arms a gazed at his injuries in shock and alarm. He was losing so much blood! Hans, painfully drawing in sharp gasps of air, looked up at her and swallowed tightly as he met her eyes.

Will you mourn the monster, Snow Queen? Gods I hope not. I'm not worth your pain.

He was bleeding, suffering. His eyes were starting to glaze as he clung tightly to her. She felt his grip weakening as he struggled to stay alive. His hand reached up, fingertips lightly brushing her cheek. He swallowed painfully. She shook her head. "Don't," she whispered to him.

"Ah love… It is a wonderful thing to play with, don't you think? And among the best methods of torture, I believe," a voice, Carabis's, said in a garbled tone that was only very slowly recovering. The hobgoblin, maimed and bloodied but determined to the point of self-destruction, began stalking towards them. Elsa hardly registered the danger she was in.

"Don't go," the queen pled to the prince. "Hold on… Please…" Hans met her eyes and swallowed. His body was becoming limp… But he was nothing if not a fighter, and she felt in his grip that he wasn't willing to let go yet. Not like this.

"This is where love got you," Carabis hissed. "You and the Ice Maiden both."

Elsa, shaking, looked back towards Carabis. Her shaking was no longer from emotion or fear, though… Now she shook with rage against this creature, this thing, who had stepped from some nightmarish story book and into their lives. This thing… this thing would not take anything more from her. Gently she turned to Hans, laying him on the ground and pressing her hand to his body, forming an ice covering over the gashes. He was no longer conscious, she noted. "Be here when I come back," she whispered to him. With that, she rose. She turned to the evil hobgoblin and saw surprise fill Carabis's eyes. Good… Then she must be quite the sight to behold indeed.

Frozen

Carabis stared in shocked disbelief at the woman before him. Shock slowly started to become something akin to fear, and he moved back before he could stop himself. The icy force standing in front of him suddenly seemed so much more terrifying. Her eyes… They had become white and blank, and suddenly it wasn't a woman he was looking at. It was a ghostly apparition cloaked in a snow and ice so heavy you could only barely make out she was a woman at all. Immediately Elsa sent forth a howling, stinging wind at the evil hobgoblin, cutting off his vision and hearing immediately. Swiftly she moved through the snow at a rapid rate, as if she were a part of it, covering the distance between her and the figure of the twisted sprite-like being.

Carabis had expected the Ice Maiden and Vertigo to come find him. He had been prepared for the Ice Maiden's retribution, not the Snow Queen's. The Ice Maiden controlled only ice. The Snow Queen, though… She controlled every aspect of winter there was to control… Within reason. When Vertigo and the Ice Maiden hadn't come to enact vengeance on him, he'd gone to seek them. He'd arrived in time to watch them take Mor'du off of the plateau and send him tumbling down to the earth far below. Now he was facing the woman he wasn't ready to face, and he may have been determined, but he wasn't stupid. Growling in anger, he prepared to vanish while the escaping was good. He was weakened enough as it was. He didn't dare try his luck against this spectacle.

Before he could flee, something struck him. He cried out in pain and alarm, toppling to the ground. He tried to recover, but barely managed. All he managed to process was the face of the one attacking her. The Snow Queen! When and how had she gotten there?! Elsa, moving back once more in an almost ghostly manner—were her feet even touching the ground, Carabis almost wondered?—quickly summoned two snow beasts that roared in fury and struck the hobgoblin from behind. They were easily destroyed and broken by a spell, but they regenerated quickly in the blizzard that fed them. The evil troll fought desperately with all he had, forcing them back as best he could while also trying to find Elsa amidst the snow and the smoke that still hung in the air from that unnatural forest fire that had sprung up in the prince's wake, but that was slowly being extinguished by the Snow Queen's will.

"You will pay dearly, if you have taken him from me. You may be some unnatural amalgamation from the realms of the Fair Folk, but I am the Snow Queen! And you have taken something of mine, so you will suffer the consequences of your audacity," she said in a tone far darker than he could have ever imagined coming from her mouth. Again and again assault after assault was hurled at him from all angles until he couldn't even tell anymore from which direction the attack was coming or where the woman assailing him was. Then suddenly he realized he couldn't move.

What? What was this?! Snow. Snow that was enveloping him in a tomb! It wouldn't hold him long, but it would hold him fast for the time he was trapped. "Damn you, Snow Queen! Damn you!" he viciously shouted. "I will be free again, do you hear me? I will be free again!"

"I look forward to it," the Snow Queen answered, appearing in front of him. He bellowed in rage once more as the snow covered over his head, entombing him within. Then and only then did Elsa let the blizzard disperse, when her enemy was so deeply buried that there would be no getting out for a good long while. Strange… Usually after expending such raw power she was drained. This time? This time she didn't feel it at all. All she felt was a sense of urgency.

The prince…

Frozen

The Snow Queen caught her breath and looked sharply towards Hans. After a moment, she approached him, kneeling at his side and leaning over him. Her powers died down until she appeared normal once more. Sorrow filled her gaze, and gently she reached out, brushing a hand lightly over his cheek. His skin was so hot that it almost burned to touch… Gently she began to cool the fevered flesh. "Open your eyes," she whispered. "You're safe now… Open them… Please…" No response. She swallowed and rested her forehead against his. "I want to thank you. For everything you've done for me. For the courage you gave me, for all that you helped me to become when I felt I could go no further. Thank you… For all of it. For more than you'll ever know. Maybe more than even I'll ever know… You made me feel powerful again. Free again. I thought I was free before…"

"It's you who deserves to be given all the thanks and praise in the world. For what you did for me. For my brothers. For all of us. For what you showed us, for what you helped us become," she heard him answer. She looked down at him hopefully. His eyes opened exhaustedly, resting on her then closing again as he winced, cringing in pain.

"Shh, be calm," she said.

"Everything I am is because of you. Everything I will ever be is because of you," he said, meeting her gaze once more. She sniffed again, smiling at him gently. He raised his hand, gently brushing his fingertips over her cheek. "I wish you would let me go," he said.

"But I won't. Never ask me to again…" she replied. "I… I love you…"

"Why?" he asked. "Why do you love me?"

"Because I have seen who you truly are. Because I have seen how you have changed for the better and fought to be so much more than the traitor prince. I love you because I have read your stories, and in them I see your whole soul and heart bared in all its complexities and nuances… You are a storybook that could be read for all eternity, and I would still learn from it and grow and find layer after layer within. I love you because you have shown me more within my heart than I knew was there, and for so many other things… I love you." He swallowed over a tightening in his throat and turned away. She felt her heart sink. "Don't look away from me like that. Please don't look away. Do you really hate me so much?"

"I wish I still hated you… Hatred is so much simpler. Hatred hurts so much less…" he answered. He looked up at her. "But even when I try, even when I fight to despise you, I can't… Not anymore… Because at some point I stopped despising you, and I don't even know when or how. I can't even fathom."

"And now?" she asked.

He was quiet, watching her. "I love you…" he heard himself say before he could stop himself. "I love you."

"Why do you love me, Hans?" she questioned.

He closed his eyes. "If you looked down to the bottom of my soul, you would understand fully the source of my longing and pity me. Even the open, transparent lake has its unknown depths, which no divers know…" he said.

"Hans…" she whispered.

"I love you because you are everything I'm not. You are what brings out the best in me. Everything I am now and will ever be from here on is because of you. I've worn so many masks that I forgot who I was long ago… But he called out for you, and before I knew it, for your sake he began to return to me. I am whole once more. I'm no longer a stranger to myself. For love of you, I found my heart again."

She bent, pressing her lips to his. After a moment she drew back, running her fingers through his hair. "Don't go. Not now. We have a wedding to plan, remember?" she said with an attempt at a teasing smile.

"You would still have me after all of this? You're a mad woman, I think," he replied, grinning weakly back at her.

"I am," she answered. Gently she lifted and cradled his body close to her chest. She heard his brothers calling his name and she dared believe that maybe now everything would be okay…

Frozen

His siblings, when they had seen their brother's flight and the flames that had grown in its wake and consumed him, had been stunned. As had Kristoff. The moment they pulled Elsa and Hans back up onto solid ground and stabilized their brother, questions poured. "Where the hell did that even come from?!" Franz demanded of Hans, who was quickly becoming flustered.

"Where on earth would you have even gotten fire powers?!" Rhun demanded. "It's not like anyone in our ancestry was super powered!"

"I don't know!" Hans insisted. "I have no clue what happened to me!"

"The mirror?" Kelin-Sel asked.

"Impossible. That isn't within its abilities," Hans answered.

"Vertigo?!" Kelin-Sel asked.

"The heck does vertigo have to do with fire?" Connyn bit sharply.

"Perhaps it came about in you the same way my powers came about in me," Lars said.

"The troll itself?" Moren questioned.

"When he cursed me with dark magic, and told me I would pay for my refusing him, he said also that I wouldn't be the only one to suffer. That another brother would suffer for my defiance as well," Mael stated. "He never specified how. I went to father and told him what had happened, and in probably the last act of goodness the man ever did in his life, he left to hunt Carabis down. Maybe our father stopped him before he could fully ingrain the curse in Hans, and that's why it didn't spring to life until Vertigo's immortal power, fueling a mortal body that was polluted by the evil mirror, awakened it"

"But this is only one possible explanation?" Iscawin said.

"Yes. I don't know where he got his powers from. I have only theory," Mael answered. They'd probably never truly know. Well, unless one of their guesses turned out to be right of course.

"Perhaps mother had her own dark secrets," Calcas quietly said, saddened to remember their mother.

"Another possibility," Mael agreed. "Maybe she wasn't born with powers herself, but perhaps she had some experience in mystical arts and seeing Hans's vulnerability decided to try and save her favorite."

"I was not mother's…" Hans began.

"Yes, Hans, you were her favorite," Justic slightly bitterly cut off. "You were because she believed to her dying day that if any of us could be saved, it was you. She'd given the rest of us up for lost long ago." Hans was quiet.

"Come, Hans. I think you and I have some things to talk about. In regards to controlling and harnessing your powers," Mael said, looking at his little brother.

"I suppose I'm now your newest pupil?" Hans said.

Mael smirked slightly. "Welcome to your first day of class," he answered. Hans sighed but nodded, following his brother away from the others...

Frozen

Elsa watched as Hans walked in the forest with Lars, discussing what had happened. She watched the prince form a fireball in his hand and watch it burn. She almost resented how certain he was in his control of them. He had only just learned they existed and suddenly he was an expert?

He has been adapting his whole life. He has fought to control every aspect of all he is since infancy. This is only another obstacle for the chameleon prince to overcome. He will overcome it. He always does.

Soon Lars squeezed his brother's shoulder and the two disappeared from sight. "Wow. Who would have thunk it? Hans has fire powers," Kristoff said in amazement, still hardly able to register this news.

"Thunk?" Elsa incredulously asked.

"It's a word! Well, kind of," Kristoff said.

Elsa smirked. "Whatever you say, Kristoff," she replied. Her smile fell as she recalled the books she'd read in Weselton. Shifting uneasily she turned to Moren. "Caleb?" she asked. He turned to her. "I… I want to know about the things you and your brothers did. From your mouths and not from books. I want to understand."

Caleb tensed. After a moment he sighed, muscles relaxing. "You found some interesting little tomes, I see," he said. She was quiet. He turned to her. "It's so much easier to judge by what things appear to be on the surface."

"It helped me face you all down… Though apparently that was about the biggest mistake I could have made," she answered. "I'd done judging by what things appear to be on the surface." If she had, Hans would have been dead and buried long ago.

Caleb nodded, thinking. "What were some of the things you read that most stood out?" he asked.

"The burning of an orphanage," she said.

Caleb was quiet. "Hans has always had a soft spot for children," he remarked after a moment.

"Even at his worst the last things he would ever have raised a hand against were little ones," Jürgen backed, nodding.

"During a routine 'tax collecting'…" Moren began.

"Hear 'purge'," Franz dryly cut off.

Moren gave his sibling a look then turned to Elsa again. "During his first little venture against a family, a child was killed along with his parents at the hands of our men," Moren said.

"Hans went into a state of shock. I swear the poor wretch nearly entered hysteria. Fortunately for him, I was there," Jürgen said. "And I'd seen more than my share of death of men, women, and children all. I managed to calm him and spare him the torture session that would have been his if father had learned of any sort of panic on Hans's part."

"From that point on, Hans made it his personal mission to ensure every child they happened to come across during a purge was brought to him alive. He never told the men what he did with them, but it wasn't hard for us to find out," Coth declared. "Namely Jürgen, who then shot off his mouth to father."

"I didn't expect him to order the orphanage burned!" Jürgen insisted immediately. "I tried to talk him out of it, dammit! I tried!"

"Turns out Hans had been stashing away the little ones in the orphanage for safekeeping, and when father discovered it…" Connyn began. He trailed off. He didn't have to continue.

"He sent three of us to deal with the matter. So we did. But not before taking a page from Hans's book. We managed to spirit away about a third of the orphans before it was too late. Rescue them and send them somewhere safe where father would never find them. We didn't tell Hans that, but we didn't need to."

"He found it out through Caleb's journal. Which fortunately enough he stumbled upon while in the middle of plotting fratricide for the burning of the orphanage," Rhun said. "So Caleb got to live another day."

"The family of the man who wrote the book 'The Wicked Prince'?" Elsa asked.

"The book was found by the royal family. Father ordered the man executed and sent Hans off to carry it out. Instead, our brother gave the man a sum of money and five minutes to run with his family like hell itself was on his heels. Hans uttered the simple threat that if the man wasn't far enough away that Hans couldn't track him, in that time, then he and all those he loved would perish. Not that Hans searched hard for them," Kelin-Sel stated. "I think he was impressed with how gutsy the man was... Pretty sure he's working on his own variation of The Wicked Prince now. In story format." He'd been keeping a particular manuscript under lock and key lately.

"Don't believe all the evil we did had a secret motive behind it. Sometimes the evil we did was just that. Evil with no redeeming quality to it," Iscawin stated. "And yes, Hans was the worst of all."

Frozen

Elsa was quiet, looking towards the forest. "It doesn't matter now," she finally said. "That man is gone. The men all of you once were are gone. Now you're free to move forward. Have you changed the opinions of your people, my lords?"

Caleb was quiet. "More than we ever thought we could… In no small part thanks to you and Anna," he answered, turning to her with a soft smile.

Elsa nodded, smiling back. Her smile soon fell to a serious expression. "I'm sorry… About your families. Everything you lost because of… I'm so sorry…" she said. Jürgen closed his eyes tightly, swallowing painfully as he was reminded that when he went home, he wouldn't be greeted by his wife and his children swarming around him. Only Madeline and Cameron. There would be no true joy in his reuniting with them because all any of them would be able to think of was all they'd lost.

Duach closed his eyes tightly, swallowing. He could hear her laughter in his memory, see her eyes gazing into his… She had been dropping hints about starting a family, he knew. He'd played stupid for so long… And then he'd begun to consider it, and then… then she was gone… Rhun was stoic, gazing ahead at nothing; just willing away the tears he felt threatening his eyes for his lost children and his wife… He needed to go home and hug his last remaining child, little Anne, so tightly she'd hardly be able to breathe anymore… And Moren? The King closed his eyes tightly, damning the agony he felt tearing through him. To know that he would never see two thirds of his children again… The thought was almost too much for him to take. To know they'd screamed for him… He'd failed them… He'd failed them so miserably… What could he tell his three remaining little ones anymore? He half wondered if his oldest would ever speak to him again... He dreaded facing them and telling them their siblings were all gone...

"I wish that I could bring them back," a voice said. The Princes, Kristoff, Elsa, and the King quickly turned, catching their breath. There appeared the Ice Maiden, gazing at them expressionlessly.

"You!" Jürgen furiously shot, nearly lunging at her. Fortunately, the triplets caught him. "You killed them! You killed my babies, my wife! Lucile, David, Kenan, Abigail, you killed them all!"

"I froze them all. Yes," the Ice Maiden answered, observing the grieving father and husband silently. "But killed…?" She trailed off and looked upwards. After a moment, she faced Jürgen again. "That's another matter entirely."

Meilic tensed, eyes widening. Wait… "What?" he asked in a whisper.

"I cannot bring back the children of your brothers, or their wives. I wish that I could, but it was at Carabis's hands that they died. I hold no power over them, for my kiss never touched them… But yours… At my hand they froze to death, and at my hand they can be revived. You need only say the word. I will take the sunbeams with me and we will reach into their tombs. I will do what I can to withdraw my icy curse, and the sunbeams will kiss them to life. You can hold your children in your arms again. Your wife." She turned to the others. "But as for the rest of you… I'm so, so sorry. There's nothing I can do, any of us. We aren't gods." She turned back to Jürgen. "You need only say the word, and I will try," she repeated. Jürgen was silent, pale.

(A/N: And here is where I give my readers/reviewers a choice of whether or not I should write the bittersweet ending the Ice Maiden offered. Up to you how the next chapter opens.

Also, if you have theories regarding the origin of Hans's fire powers, I'd love to hear them.)