The Captain finished barking orders to his men and looked out over the defensive wall of the tower and across the flat plane that was the fjord. The ominous green cloud blocked much of the view that was normally there, and was the source of much tension. The men had been briefed, of course, but the cloud really put things into perspective for them. They were going up against something very big and very powerful. If the Royal protector was to be believed in his reports than there was little hope for a successful defense without the assistance of the Queen, and he had demonstrated large amounts of hesitance at using her powers on such a scale. She doubted her ability to control her power, and though he would never say it out loud, so did he.
His thoughts flicked back to a small piece of information that his mind seemed intent on reminding him of. She had killed his predecessor. Perhaps she didn't mean too, perhaps she had been under the influence of a powerful spell, but that didn't change the fact that he had died by her hand. as though that wasn't enough of a source of trepidation, he had been told by the medical staff that the man had not died peacefully. "Eviscerated from the inside out" were the exact words they had used. He had no desire to find out what that felt like.
One of his men came up from behind and saluted, saying "Sir!" he turned and found himself face to face with one of the officers he had put in charge of organizing the lookouts. Glad for the distraction from his own thoughts, he gave the man a hard look and gave him the token "At ease" that signified he didn't care too much for the formalities of the military at the moment. There were larger issues at the moment.
The man bowed his head and said "Thank you sir." The captain gave a terse nod and said "What is it, has something been spotted?"
He shook his head and said "No sir, but it does concern the lookouts. The mist…" he said, pointing out at the rolling cloud "…is posing a significant problem to visibility. Those who are posted furthest out are complaining about near zero visibility conditions."
The Captain put a hand to his chin and thought a moment. The fog would pose a significant detriment to their chances of catching the attackers, which was likely exactly what they wanted. From what the Royal Protector had said, this attack was some kind of last-ditch effort, so he doubted that they would even be stalled if the fog were to be dispersed. He thought about another thing that the Royal Protector had said, and he asked "Are the men complaining about breathing conditions? Is the gas dangerous?"
The man shook his head again and said "No sir, it seems to be just as breathable as regular air." The Captain nodded. He didn't anticipate that lasting for long. He would have to go and speak with the Queen again about using her powers, but this time it wouldn't have anything to do with the Protector's plan.
He looked down again at the man and said "Dismissed." in a sharp voice. He bowed his head again and turned to leave. The Captain was about to turn and bark another order at some men when he was interrupted by a mighty crash from behind him. He spun, putting his hand on the hilt of his blade and striking a battle stance. What he found himself facing was something that he wasn't entirely sure he was seeing correctly.
The Royal Protector was practically flying across the courtyard towards him, moving so fast that he could have sworn he saw outlines of the man behind him. A few of the men noticed both the crash and the blur speeding towards their Captain and pulled their blades. He couldn't help but feel slightly confused. He had said his power was in shadows, so how was he moving so fast? Before he could come up with an answer to this question, the Protector closed the distance between them and stopped running, his feet skidding on the stone quite a bit. He straightened up and collected himself.
The Captain stared at him expectantly, trying very hard to not betray his puzzlement by any kind of reaction. "Can I help you?" he asked, knowing that the Protector cared little for the formalities that his position would normally bring.
Nathan smiled and said "More like can I help you." The Captain gave him an uncertain look, and Nathan continued "I've been busy doing stuff… don't worry about that. Anyways, I wanted to show you a few things about the enemies that we'll be facing off against."
The Captain gave him a questioning look and said "Wait, we? I thought that you would be guarding the Queen and the Princess." Nathan shrugged and said "I figure that if I can stop them from even reaching Arendelle than I'll be doing my job even better." He waved the thought of dismissively "But to do that I'll need some help. And that help is going to need some knowledge."
He pulled the last remaining pearl out of his pocket and held it out to the Captain. "This" he said "is the most important thing about fighting them. For those guys that are nothing but gas, this is the only way that you're going to do any damage." The Captain examined the orb and took it from Nathan's hand. "It's like their heart. It's the only thing that keeps their gas form together."
The Captain wrapped it a few times with his knuckles. The dull thudding sound indicated that it was indeed a solid object. He offered it back to Nathan and asked "What is it made of? More importantly, what does it take to break it?" Nathan shrugged and said "Musket shot at about twenty paces completely shattered one, and I was able to smash one up pretty well with just a stomp." The Captain nodded and asked "What affect will partial damage have on the whole thing?"
Nathan shrugged. "No clue." He said as if it wasn't an issue. To him it wasn't, but the guardsmen couldn't blink, shoot ice from their fingertips, or animate their own shadows. The Captain turned his attention back to the billowing form in the distance. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to be getting closer. Nathan noticed the shift in focus, but decided to continue talking about the tactics that they would need. "The rest of the guys should be fairly easy to deal with. As far as I could tell, a lot of them were still mostly made of meat." His unusual choice of the word meat seemed to grab the Captain's attention again, so he pressed on, smiling a little to himself. "Though, there do seem to be some in-between type of guys. Guys who have skin, but nothing but smoke on the inside. Their orbs don't seem strong enough to let them move the gas on its own, so just do enough damage to let the gas out, and they're done."
The Captain nodded and said "I'll pass that on to the men." He looked up once again at the oncoming mist, and a thought occurred to him. "While I do that, you can go and speak to the Queen about clearing this up." Nathan raised an eyebrow and pocketed the pearl, saying "What difference do you think my voice will make? She's surely seen it by now, and hasn't done anything. I think that means that she isn't too keen on doing that. All we really need her to do is to freeze the fjord, and that's all she seems willing to try."
The Captain gave Nathan a look like an elder explaining something to a child that didn't understand something. "She thinks very highly of you. Whether you realize it or not, she looks up to you in some way." He rolled his eyes sarcastically "Though why she would do that is beyond me."
Nathan laughed and slapped the man on the back. "I knew that there was a person somewhere under all that military bravado!" he exclaimed loudly. The Captain broke a smile. It was small, but it was there. He said quietly "Yep, you caught me. I'm a human." Nathan snorted jokingly and turned to leave. It was only after the Captain started barking orders again that Nathan realized his clever dodge of having to talk to Elsa about using her power. He wondered if what the Captain had said about her looking up to him was true. He knew the Captain had been joking when he said it, but Nathan couldn't think of a reason either.
Nathan started off back towards the main building, thinking of what he would say to Elsa. She had said to Anna that she would try and help, but the key word there was "try". One could do nothing but hesitate and say that they "tried" to do something. Nathan sighed.
Then there was the pressure of protecting not just herself, but an entire kingdom full of people who expected nothing less of her. It was true that people tended to work better under pressure, but Nathan wasn't sure that Elsa could be grouped with "most people". He shook his head as he pushed the great doors open and walked in. the warmth washed over him in a wave and seemed to highlight how cold it was outside. Nathan didn't think much of it, preferring cold climates to warm, but Arendelle was a very cold place. It wasn't enough to immobilize Gothel's people, but he hoped that it would at least slow them.
He found his way to the spiral staircase and started plodding up. What had the Captain meant when he said "she looks up to you"? Nathan Assumed that Elsa had expressed some kind of romantic interest in him given Anna's little slip, but the Captain's words seemed to resonate with Nathan on a whole other level. She was the one with the incredible amounts of power. She was the one with the one with an entire kingdom under her total control, and citizens that loved her. What did he have that she didn't, something that would prompt respect, a feeling almost inseparable from envy?
He recalled a few scenes in his memory of ice creeping across walls and floors. When it happened, it was always in the background, when there was something else to focus on. Another clearer memory surfaced in his mind, and he flinched as he remembered being thrown against the wall like a ragdoll by Elsa. His hand went to the white streak in his hair and tugged a few strands of it down far enough for him to see. Even the ice magic that he used was difficult to handle. It was as if it had a mind of its own. His shadow, however, was more than willing to bend to his will. Almost like it awaited the opportunity to lend itself to Nathan's needs. Maybe that was it… control. Nathan had never once accidentally cast a spell, yet he could think of several occasions in the relatively short time he had known her he had seen Elsa cast many spells on accident.
He reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner to the hall. The afternoon sun streamed in through the window. The door to Elsa's room stood silently closed, as if waiting for him. Nathan brought his fist up to the door and hesitated for a moment. He took a deep breath and brought his knuckles against the wooden door.
Silence hung in the air for several moments before the handle on the other side of the door turned, and the door opened just a crack. Elsa peered out, saying "Hello?" before her one visible eye fell on Nathan and she pulled the door open all the way. "Oh, its you. What do you need Nathan?"
Nathan looked Elsa up and down. She didn't look good. Her posture was slumped and her eyes were sunken, making her look very tired. A beam of light bounced off of one of the many crystalline objects behind Elsa and fell on Nathan's eye. He squinted and moved his head out of the way. "Ah, trying to blind me?"
He heard Elsa moving around and something that must have been ice grinding against ice. The light that had been Nathan's eyes vanished and he tried to blink away the afterimage. As his vision returned, he saw Elsa looking bashfully at him. "Sorry about that." She said Nathan shrugged and said "No problem." Dismissively.
Elsa gulped nervously and said "Is… is it time?" Nathan shook his head and said "No, not yet." Elsa looked very relieved, until Nathan continued speaking. "But we do need your help with something." Her relieved face shifted quickly to worry. Before she could ask what he needed, he told her. Pointing to the window he said "We need you to clear that away. It's a problem for visibility, and I think it could become dangerous."
Elsa looked out the window at the cloud. "Is that… is that her?" Nathan nodded wordlessly. Elsa gulped again and said "There's so much." In a distant feeling voice. Nathan did the best he could to reassure her, saying "But not very dense. A small breeze would probably be enough to get rid of it."
Elsa grimaced and said "I'll try." still sounding unsure. She walked out of her bedroom and said "I should go outside, I'll be able to control it more." Nathan nodded. Anything that would help her. The two started walking down the hall. Nathan noted Elsa's heavy breathing and decided he would try and calm her down with a little talking. "Why don't we just use the balcony in your room?"
She sighed and said tersely "I want to be facing the way I make the wind go. The balcony faces the city." Nathan nodded. He supposed it made sense the same way that he preferred to be looking where he blinked to. Another moment of silence passed between the two before Elsa asked "So how are the defenses looking?"
Nathan tried to make his voice as comforting as possible, while still keeping a businesslike visage. "The guards are prepared, I've talked to them about how to fight the enemy, and they are standing by for orders." Elsa smiled nervously and said "Good, good." nodding. Elsa waited another second before asking "Why do you need me to freeze the fjord? I mean… I know you explained it, but can you do it again please?"
Nathan smiled, glad for another chance to justify what he needed her to do. "Gothel and her people are coming by ship. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if they were just simple pirates, but they aren't. Normally I would say just pound them with cannons, but I doubt that it would do much damage to them. If you destroy the ship, I think that they would either swim or float over the water. This would let them get to a lot of places all over the city because so much of it is costal. If we freeze the ship than there's one point that they are coming from, and that point is reachable. The plan is to stop them from reaching the city altogether."
The two reached the bottom of the stairs and started to the main doors again. Elsa seemed very introverted. Nathan wondered what she was thinking about, looking down to the floor and placing each foot carefully in front of her. Nathan wished that he had the same standing as Anna, that he could just ask her how she felt. But he couldn't. Or at least he didn't feel like he could. His job was to protect her, not to be close to her. He'd seen many people fail similar jobs because of such an attachment, and more often than not he was the one to make them fail, but in the end a target was a target…
A blast of cold air slammed into his face, interrupting his thoughts. A guard posted at the door had pulled it open when he saw Elsa walking towards it. As they exited into the courtyard a few men bowed hurriedly to her before continuing on whatever task they were assigned. Elsa continued to walk slowly across the yard, Nathan trailing behind, not sure where she was going.
She walked to the gate, but instead of walking thorough into the town, she turned and walked up the steppes to the side and got onto the parapets of the wall. Those who were posted there cleared the way quickly for her, either squeezing themselves up against the banquettes or nearly stepping off the side of the wall to provide her with room. She continued walking along the wall until she came to the side of the castle that was facing the gas than stopped. She stood for a minute, starring right at the cloud, than brought her hands slowly up in front of her.
Bright blue light danced between her fingers and built up in the palms of her hands. She worked her hands together, building the power up. That threw her hands up to the sky. The blue magic flew up out of her hands and soared up into the sky, exploding into a shower of snowflakes. Almost instantly, a strong wind kicked up, and the sky darkened as thick clouds formed above them. Elsa flinched as the clouds blocked out the sun, casting their shadow over Arendelle and blocking the warmth of the sun.
Nathan turned his attention away from the sky and towards the sea again. There was a visual mark of how far the wind was reaching out, a wave traveling across the surface of the water. It sped out from the castle and seemed to charge directly at the cloud in the distance. As soon as the wave met the base of the cloud, it was like an invisible wall formed and was pushing the gas back. It didn't stop at the base however, instead it kept forcing the gas away. A smile came over Nathan's face as the green haze cleared out of the fjord and started to dissipate in the distance.
Something else started to standout, however, a large dot amid the remnants of the sickly cloud in the distance. He reached for a pocket and removed a spyglass from it. Extending the thing, he placed it to his eye and focused. The dot expanded into a white square. A sail.
Elsa took notice of the small dot as well, and asked Nathan "What is that?" In answer he passed the spyglass to her and pointed in the direction to point it. She gazed through the lens and her face fell. The spyglass dropped away from her face and she continued staring off into the distance. The wind picked up a bit more, buffeting Nathan's back. Elsa didn't seem at all touched by the wind other than her hair, which didn't move drastically enough to free itself from its normal braid.
Elsa turned to Nathan and said over the now howling wind "We wait to freeze it, right?" Nathan smiled and nodded. "We wait."
The Captain of the guard ran up to Nathan and Elsa, looking up at the clouds above him and shouting "My Queen, is this wind you're doing?" Elsa nodded wordlessly, and Nathan took the spyglass from her hand gently than handed it over to the Captain, again pointing to the distant sail. The man put the lens to his eye and pointed it where Nathan pointed. He focused on the small dot for a moment, then dropped the lens away from his face as his eyes narrowed and he handed the spyglass back to Nathan. "There they are." he said, his voice a deadly low tone "Not close enough to freeze yet, though."
Nathan turned fully to the man and asked "How long do you suppose it will be until they get here?"
He shrugged and said "Half an hour, maybe less. Something other than wind is filing those sails. Something unnatural. I expect that the ship won't be slowed by the winds." He turned to Elsa "My Queen, the men stand ready." he said with a small bow. Elsa hesitated a moment "Tell… tell them…" she looked Nathan right in the face, and he saw something in her eyes harden "…tell them to wait for the fjord to freeze, than to carry out the plan."
In spite of the lack of confidence Nathan had expressed tot himself, he felt the intensity of Elsa's words and knew that she would do exactly what she had to. Elsa turned away from the Captain and started walking back towards the great hall. Nathan followed close behind, given he had little else to do. He noted to himself Elsa's major change in posture and manner of moving. Her back was straight, and she stepped quickly and surely. Although he couldn't see her face, he knew that she bore a serious glare instead of the timid or uncertain look she had before.
Nathan wondered where Anna was, and if she was adapting to the situation as well as Elsa. True, Elsa had been hesitant and perhaps a bit fearful, but that was gone now. Anna hadn't shown too much stress, but Nathan knew that looks could be deceiving. His thoughts wandered to her friend, Kristoff, and he wondered what he thought of all this. How strange it must seem, an entire army force readying for one old woman.
Nathan grinned to himself. It was the same kind of strange that he had used for years. He wondered where he would be now had he not decided to leave and carve a new life. The days of killing for money seemed so distant now, as if they had taken place in a dream. They hadn't, of course, but Nathan couldn't shake the feeling that something bigger than just his routine or allegiance had changed.
Before he knew it, Nathan found himself in the warmth of the library again. He was sitting across from the fire, looking out the window at the flakes of snow spiraling in the wind outside. The panes of glass shook rapidly, as if they were about to be pulled out of the wall. Elsa was staring into the fireplace, the dancing light reflecting in her eyes. Nathan could hardly believe how quickly the time had passed. In what seemed like a blink of an eye the half an hour the Captain had estimated had passed, leaving Nathan and Elsa sitting in the library, waiting to be called into action.
Elsa sighed loudly and said "Should we just go out and see what's happening?" Nathan hissed through his teeth for a moment before standing and saying "I suppose we should."
Both of them rose from their seats and walked to the door. Nathan took a few steps ahead of Elsa and opened the door for her. She bowed her head and said "Thank you" in a serious voice. Nathan could see that she was still on edge, and he couldn't really blame her.
As Elsa exited the door, Nathan heard footsteps pounding towards her. He moved through the doorway and let the door fall closed behind him. Turning to the direction of the footsteps, he found himself looking at a guardsman. He was panting heavily, and had an urgent look on his face. Elsa probably would've asked him what he was doing if he didn't preempt her by starting gasping out words before he stopped running.
"It's time! You two… you two are needed as soon… as soon as possible!"
Authors thing:
so chapter 34. yup.
still going.
leave some reviews because they make me happy.