Elsa had no idea what was going on. She'd woken up to Anna tugging at her and been dragged through the halls without any kind of coherent explanation at all. It was really kinda scary. Anna looked panicked, and there were little sparks coming off her. Every time a spark touched Elsa before dying out on its own, it popped out of existence with an audible fizzle, leaving tiny holes in her dress, and she couldn't concentrate enough to fix them.
Anna pulled her through the door of one of the guest rooms. The window was broken, the whole room smoldering. At first, she wanted to smile with relief. Her own reaction the first time she'd loosed ice all about her room had been one of shock, but it was hardly cause for so much upset. Then she saw Hans lying on the floor, and the forming smile vanished. The prince looked as if he'd tried to wrestle a bonfire, and he wasn't moving.
Shaking more than a little inside, she knelt down beside him. She wasn't quite sure what to do, but she remembered reading a story about a fiery knight wounded in battle against an ice demon. The knight had fallen, and her comrade had looked for a pulse to see if she was still alive. Elsa reached over and touched Hans' neck in the same place the book had described. There was a pulse, but it was racing and unsteady, and his skin was flushed, almost as hot as Anna's. She looked up at Anna. "Anna, what happened?"
To her relief, Anna seemed to be calming down a little. "He kept saying I was nothing, and he wouldn't stop, and I was scared, and angry, and there was a..." She wrapped her arms around herself as if cold. "There was fire, all around. I didn't mean to, Elsa, it just came out!"
Elsa shivered, remembering all too clearly a moment not very long ago when her own terror had unleashed a wave of sheer ice that had nearly killed her sister. "Neither did I..." She looked down at Hans' contorted expression, wondering fleetingly whether he could hear what they were saying, then up at Anna again. "Anna, I don't know how to undo your magic. I couldn't even stop mine until after you were already..." She trailed off, unwilling to say it.
She was caught by surprise when Anna reached over and grabbed her hand. "Maybe I can just do what you did!" She sat down on the other side of the motionless Hans and pulled his hands away from his chest.
Elsa was amazed, and more than a little frightened, to see a mass of roiling red energy just under Hans' skin, seemingly wrapped around his heart. She could feel the heat of it from where she knelt, enough to know it'd burn her if she touched it. She looked at her sister, but found no comfort in Anna's nervous, uneasy expression. She knew her own power was driven by her feelings. If the same was true of Anna... What could he have said to her that made her do this? I never should have listened to him!
If Anna was spending any time on self-recrimination for Hans' state, she wasn't showing it, placing her hands over the harsh light and closing her eyes. Elsa wondered fleetingly at her sister's immunity to the heat, then gave a tiny inner smile, remembering something she'd said to herself on the mountain. The cold never bothered me anyway.
A brilliant yellow light, sparkles of white dancing throughout, formed around Anna's body, and spread quickly to Hans'. In stark contrast to the burning of the duller energy twisting inside him, this new brilliance was a soft, comforting warmth, as if Anna was projecting the comfort of being in her arms outward. The yellow surrounded the red, flickering as would a fire in a hearth, and the angry turmoil began to calm. It became steady, pulsing in time with Hans' heartbeat. The yellow light faded into the red, which now looked rather stately.
Anna looked over at Elsa, face flushed, eyes wide, as she lifted her hands away. The energies followed her motion, leaving Hans' form entirely and rising into the air. Elsa stared. Anna was trying to mimick what she'd done to call back the eternal winter: gathering the power, giving it new purpose, and letting it loose.
Hans started breathing calmly, his face restful, but Anna was struggling. The energy she'd pulled loose from him was now pulling itself loose from her. Elsa shrank away as the red light became angry again, and then snapped free of the invisible boundary that had contained it. The unleashed power streaked about the room, leaving scorch marks on the already blackened walls, turning still-smoldering embers into full-blown flame, and finally launching itself directly at her.
Anna cried out in protest, trying to get in the way before it reached her sister, but Elsa reacted faster. Frost spread across the entire room in an instant, putting out every flame, every smolder. Sparkling blue light formed a wall of ice between her and the firebolt. The bolt splashed against the wall, melting most of the way through before finally dissipating altogether.
Breathing heavily, terrified by the close call and winded by the effort of using her powers, Elsa gave Anna a very shaky smile. "I guess part of you really doesn't think I should've let him stay here."
She'd meant it as a joke, but pain stabbed through her chest when Anna glared at her instead of smiling back. "No! I'd never hurt you, Elsa! I didn't even know you were the one who let him out!"
She had no chance to answer. Hans reached up suddenly and grabbed for Anna's neck, but missed the mark and got a grip on the front of her dress instead. He yanked her down, snarling his words two inches from her face. "Now do you see it? She is the source of your power." He heaved with all his strength, lifting Anna a few inches and sending her crashing into Elsa as he sat up, groaning in pain.
Elsa did her best to catch Anna, but between her sister's flailing and her own breathlessness, the result was a tangle of arms and legs and dresses, and a small explosion of snowflakes and sparks. In other circumstances, Elsa would have laughed, but she was too busy trying to keep a grip on a very upset Anna. She was more confused than ever. That was what Hans had said? That she was important to Anna? How in the world had that caused all this?
As the cloud of magic settled, Hans got to his feet, sneering down at the girls. "Have you considered following her example less completely, Queen Elsa?" He stumbled, catching himself against the ice wall. "I can only imagine having your heart turn slowly to ice is less painful than having it incinerated!"
Anna tried to stand, but she slipped on Elsa's dress. Elsa grimaced as Anna landed on her arm, but her sister didn't even seem to notice. "First of all, you wouldn't know! Secondly, it was an accident! And third, you're welcome for not just deciding you got what you deserved!"
He snorted. "Empty threats don't become you, Anna. If it were in your nature to let me die, you wouldn't have bothered to fish me out of the fjord after punching me in the face."
Elsa dragged herself loose from Anna's weight, sighing. "Enough, both of you. You're so alike, can't you even try to be nice to each other, just pretend for the sake of everyone's peace of mind? Two days ago you wanted to get married."
Hans' instant protesting "I'm not some fool child!" overlapped with Anna's, "I'm nothing like him!"
She shook her head. "Anna, I've never seen you like this. It's scaring me..." She reached for Anna's hand. "Your powers are amazing, and Hans is just trying to upset you, and there's nothing to actually be upset about."
She was relieved when Anna stood up and hugged her, but Hans gave her little chance to enjoy it. "In case you've forgotten, Queen Elsa, my attempt at wooing your sister was hardly born of affection."
"Liar!" Anna glared at him, though her position snuggling Elsa robbed the expression of most of its effect. "You'd just said you actually did like me and you're just too mean to care!"
Hans stumbled his way back to the nearby chair, as charred as it now was, and sat heavily in it. Elsa wondered unhappily how much pain he must have been in if he was showing it so easily. The idea of Anna hurting someone that badly or even at all, especially on her behalf, was unsettling at best. He sneered at them both. "Wasted effort. You only accepted me out of sheer desperation, and left me behind in an instant when she needed you." He gestured angrily at Elsa. "I take it back, Princess. She's right. You abandoned me, only came back in a useless attempt to save your own skin, and have since behaved as if my betrayal erased every feeling of 'true love' you claimed to have for me. You don't even bother to pretend that I did any more to you than wound your pride. All your anger is because I would've killed your precious sister to spare her living with thinking she'd killed you." He smirked. "You're more like me than I thought."
Elsa just barely managed to hold Anna back, summoning her powers to cool her body and draw some of the burning from Anna's. "Anna, stop it, you're just gonna prove him right!" Using every ounce of strength, she forced Anna to turn and look at her instead of Hans. "Anna, please calm down! Please, you're not like this!"
To her surprise, Hans didn't offer any comments, and the terrifying red that had begun to fill Anna's eyes receded. She almost collapsed with renewed relief, hugging herself tightly to her sister, and Anna clung to her in return.
A few moments passed before anyone spoke, but even Hans' tone was, if not kind, at least more muted than it had been. "Her magic will try to do to her what yours tried to do to you, Elsa." He crossed his arms, wincing slightly as the motion shifted his bruised ribs. "She has to learn control, or the moment you leave her alone she'll burn herself to ash and take you, and me, and probably all of Arendelle with her. You know better than anyone, such power will control you if you do not control it first."
Similar, if much less extreme, thoughts had been running through Elsa's head, but she had no idea how to even begin helping Anna learn to handle fire. "Hans, do you know anything about controlling magic?" She ignored Anna's eyeroll; she'd meant the question earnestly.
"Not a thing." He shrugged. "But I know plenty about self-control in general, to which your sister can attest. That, by the way, isn't something you have either. You're controlling your powers by virtue of not being afraid anymore, not because you can handle your fear."
She started to nod, then blinked. "How do you know that?"
He rose from the chair and walked towards them. Anna tried to get out in front of Elsa, but Elsa held her back. Couldn't Anna see that he wasn't threatening them? Sure enough, he stopped a full pace away, giving her a look full of something almost like pity. "My dear Elsa, it is as plain as the nose on your face. You two have been locked in this empty castle all your lives, a furnished dungeon to assuage your parents' fears. You know nothing about people. You even know that! 'Oh Anna, what do you know about true love?'" His imitation of Elsa's words was, while octaves lower, nonetheless rather precise.
Anna tried to interrupt, but he kept talking right over her. "What you think are great secrets of your souls are as obvious as your magic." He looked at Anna. "You, you're stuck in the middle between fear that I'll trick you again and fury at being tricked before. And all you want is to have Elsa to yourself so you can go back to learning what kissing her and being in her bed feels like to you. You've thought of her and only her for so long that you feel something you don't even know to call possessiveness. You run about with your ice merchant and do nothing but confuse and disappoint him, because she's your only thought. You tried to convince yourself you loved me and only succeeded in showing that you love her. You try to hate me, but hate isn't in you, so all you can do is be angry because you know that without her to tame you, to remind you of the innocent wonder that lives in your heart, you would be lost. You stupid, foolish girl, you always knew what true love was, you just didn't know to call it that."
His gaze turned back to Elsa. "And you, you're terrified of what her new power's turning her into, with a little help from me. You wonder if it'll take her away. You wonder if it, or I, will turn her into someone who doesn't care about you anymore. You don't know what to make of her affections when she shows them. You don't understand anything but happiness that she wants to be around you and relief that she's safe from your magic. Losing her would leave you so helpless that you might as well die. I will repeat what I told her: You are a child, trapped in the body of a grown woman, and your ability to be 'queenly' is nothing but imitation of her confidence and some rote training in ritual." He sniffed derisively. "And the worst of it all is, you're both sitting here listening to me rather than acting on anything I've ever said to either of you!"
Anna jumped in before he could say any more, pushing in front of Elsa again. "Stop it! You're so mean! You're talking about us like we don't have minds that go with all the feelings!" She glared at him. "We were happy before you came back, all you've done is make trouble. Of course I want to be with my sister, and I don't even know what you're going on about with kissing. How do you even know about it? Why do you even care!"
Trying to prevent another explosion, Elsa quickly stepped between them. "Please, enough! This isn't helping anyone!" She shivered. "Hans, if you want to stay here, stop trying to manipulate her. You're just being spiteful... If you really want to help, you can do it without being mean. And you're right, we shouldn't be listening to it." She took Anna's hand, pulling at her sister and hoping Anna would get the message. "When you can be polite and act as nice as I've seen you act, we'll listen." She dragged a thankfully obedient Anna out of the room.
Pulling the door closed behind her, Elsa turned to Anna. "Anna, what's wrong?" She was shaking inside, and trying to hide it. Anna was always the one who comforted her, but ever since this new magic had appeared, everything kept seeming different. It was terrifying. Was she losing Anna, just as she'd finally been able to open the door? Anna's love, her happiness, the intensity of it, had been so wonderful! Even when it became just a little strange, like laying in bed with her for hours, or like that dance where it was so intense she could barely remember it, it was wonderful...
"I don't know." The fear in Anna's voice both scared and reassured Elsa. At least Anna being scared made sense. It was the anger that was so unlike her. "I don't know how to make these powers work, and I was trying to figure it out, and I thought I was getting it, and then I ran into him and he started out sorta nice a little and then he started being mean again, and it just came out!" Anna hugged her sister tightly. "Why did you let him out, Elsa? He just messes everything up, I just want to be with you, he makes it sound like I'm not supposed to!"
Elsa couldn't help but smile. "Anna, that's just silly." She wasn't sure what Hans was going on about either, but from his tone, it sounded like he was trying to say that Anna was being mean and selfish. It was silly! Anna might be headstrong, stubborn, act without thinking, but selfish? Hurtful? Never. "He'll just have to get used to being nice. And we both know that our powers aren't always easy to control." She took Anna's hands in both her own, smiling brightly. "We'll figure it out together, just like you tried to tell me back on the mountain."
Anna smiled back at her, warming her heart. "Wow, you were actually listening?"
She giggled. "Well you did say it at least five times." She almost couldn't believe it was so easy to feel happy again, but Anna's smile was enough to push away the upset and doubt. On the mountain all she'd had was fear of hurting Anna, but that had no more power over her.
Hans paced about, ignoring the pains in his chest. Was the taunting voice in his head right? Was trying to torment those two simply doomed to failure? He barely recognized what he felt at seeing them hand-in-hand. It was a sense of wonder, of admiration! He'd hated them for their closeness, envied their powers, but it was all starting to fade away. It was as if the fire Anna had used against him, as painful as it was, had also burned away a darkness inside, though he knew that couldn't be true.
He looked around at the charred and scorched furniture, the blasted window, the little pile of ash that was all that was left of the curtains. This power could have killed him, even more easily than Elsa's ice. And there were so many possibilities to mixing such magics together. If he turned on them again, he would never see what they could do.
And Elsa really would forgive you. She is a child, but she is growing. They're not frozen in time anymore. You have a chance to be a part of this, help them, return home a greater man than any of your brothers will ever be, witness to wonders and fulfillment beyond them!