Meltdown
by Concolor44
Author's Note: And here we will observe the wild demonic contagion in its natural habitat ...
. . .
. . .
Chapter 35: Galvanization
. . .
. . .
Monday 02 August 1841, 9:10pm
Shimmering patterns danced against the stone of the castle, multi-hued glory reflected off the rippling waters of the fjord as the sun sank toward its evening berth. Some of them played over the windows, refracting through the cut-glass arrays and sending shafts of gold and copper, crimson and magenta dancing around the interior of the western-facing rooms. Strolling along the seawall at this time of day was a common pastime of courting couples, the natural beauty of the setting lending itself to favorable comparisons with one's love interest.
Elsa saw none of it, though she had arguably the best spot in Arendelle to do so, leaning on her elbows at one of the high parapets, her face cupped in her hands. Though she had managed to conceal her grief from the officers and men who had followed her and found her on the shore, here, alone, she could allow herself the outlet of tears.
"It's not your fault, you know."
Stiffening, and then subtly wiping at her eyes, she straightened her back and turned to face Anna. "I thought you were with Kristoff."
The younger woman stepped up close and took her sister in her arms. "No one blames you. Not a single citizen of Arendelle." Giving Elsa an extra squeeze, she added, "He's asleep."
"Oh." How does she always know exactly what troubles me?
"He needs the sleep."
The Queen allowed her head to droop until her chin rested on Anna's shoulder. "Anna … I am so sorry."
"Don't be silly."
"I'm not. If it weren't for these stupid powers, he never would have-"
"If you didn't have your ice powers, Arendelle would still be trying to recover from that horrible storm, just like every other coastal kingdom between here and Africa." She got a pensive expression on her face for a moment. "And besides that, if you hadn't shown everyone what you could do, you know, at your coronation, I probably wouldn't have figured out what a snake Hans was until after the wedding, and maybe not until he tried to kill us both. Your powers are a blessing, so just stop it."
Elsa sniffled again. She couldn't come up with anything to say to that.
"I ran into Jørgen on the way here."
The non-sequitur made Elsa blink. "… Oh?"
"Turns out he already had one of the kidnappers."
Pulling back to look Anna in the face, she asked, "How?"
"He's one of the ones that attacked us. They killed two of the four guards by ambush, but the other two guards fought back and beat 'em off. Killed one, wounded one. The crowd got the wounded one." A severe grimace of satisfaction crept over her face. "Two of the witnesses say he's the one that stabbed Kristoff. Jørgen said they're 'interrogating' him."
Elsa caught the 'air quotes' and her brow wrinkled. "You mean torturing him?!"
A prim expression preceded, "I can neither deny nor affirm your assertion."
"Oh, don't you get all legal with me little missy! I've read WAY more law books than you have!"
A careless shrug answered her. "You'll have to ask the Captain. All I know is, they've got him and they're asking him questions. The specifics of the methods used are obviously not something I'd be a party to."
"Well, I should hope n-"
"Jørgen did promise me he'd make him cry, though."
"Anna!"
"What? He's gonna be executed anyway."
"… Anna … didn't you hear anything Morana said? We aren't going to …"
"Please don't tell me you're actually gonna do that! That's a crazy plan!"
Elsa's mouth fell open as she took half a step back. "But I thought … you said … but we weren't supposed to kill them!"
"And why not? It's what the people expect. Elsa … it's the law."
That stopped the blonde. Attempted regicide was punishable by death, and the circumstances rarely mattered. If (to cite the most glaring example) she'd executed Hans after his first attempt on her life, they would have avoided a great deal of needless bloodshed. Anna had a point, and a valid one. "So … what? We just have a … a mass execution?"
"I'd recommend hanging."
"… But …"
"One at a time."
The Queen half turned, pressing her fist against her forehead.
"Elsa, what's wrong?" Anna laid a hand against the side of her sister's face. "Just earlier today you said you weren't in favor of a miscarriage of justice. And it was, what, a week ago? Yeah, a week ago you had to defend yourself against a bunch of assassins, and had to kill a lot of 'em. And you didn't have a problem with executing those impostor-type assassins last spring. You know, the ones that came with-"
"Yes. I know. I recall. All too vividly."
"Okay, then." She turned Elsa back to face her and took her upper arms in a light grip. "Elsa … I know this is … distasteful. But they tried to kill Kristoff. Tried to kill you." Moving closer, she eased into a warm embrace. "I can't just … forgive them for that. I can't … can't take the chance. I can't lose you, either one of you. And I heard them talking, after I came to, talking about what they planned to do to me, what that 'Jan' character planned to do to you, and I'm pretty sure I'll have nightmares about it. Trust me, you really don't want to know. Leaving them alive … that's not an option."
"Anna …" Pulling away far enough to rest her forehead against her sister's, Elsa sighed and continued, "I see them. Most nights."
"Huh?"
"The men I killed. They walk in my dreams. I see their faces, their mangled bodies, all the … all the blood."
"Elsa, you …"
"No. Please. Just let me." She held Anna close, whispering into her hair. "I know I had to do it. Had to protect Arendelle. This is … it's what goes with being the Queen. I understand that, and I've accepted it. But, Anna … I went almost a decade without feeling anyone else's skin against mine. I lived for thirteen years with the fear that I might kill you accidentally. You or Mama or … or Papa or Ger-Gerda or …" The sniffles caught her back up.
Anna just held her and let Elsa's tears soak into her braid.
Finally she heaved a long breath. "It took … months … before I could hug you without that niggling little worry telling me it was wrong. Months more to get really comfortable with it. And it was JUST you. No one else. No one at all."
"Elsa, I …"
"Shhhhh. Not yet." She cleared her throat with a wet cough. "You've been my rock. I really don't think you have any idea of just how much I rely on you, how much your love and support mean to me. How much I truly do love you. Oh, Anna, when Gerda found me and … and started to tell me you'd been … I was terrified! So afraid you'd been … killed … shot, like Carlos, and I wasn't there for you, and for that long, long moment it felt like death … like the earth was going to open up and swallow me. Then she said … kidnapped … you were … and-and Kri-Kris …"
It was several more minutes before her throat was un-constricted enough to continue. Anna simply held her, respecting her need for silence.
"Anna, there's been so much death," she continued after a minute. "So much. Why do people do these things? It's so … useless. I really don't think we ever understood how big a debt we owe to Papa and Grandfather … and even his father … for keeping Arendelle out of war. We haven't seen the ravages, haven't had to deal with the death. And then those … those assassins …"
"Yeah. That felt like war. At least I guess that's sort of what it would feel like. Losing so many."
Elsa nodded. "And I've been distracting myself … letting Carlos distract me … just because I couldn't … couldn't handle it. The enormity of what I did. So many dead …"
"And I'm sorry you had to. But, Elsa," and here she made sure Elsa was looking her straight in the eye, "I wouldn't have had it go the other way."
"… Neither would I."
"If keeping you alive and safe meant heaps and mounds of dead enemies, well, then, I'm sorry they made that choice, and it sucks to be them, but their deaths are not on you."
Elsa held her stare, sniffling a couple of times, and nodded. "I know. That's what I meant about being Queen. And Mikael, bless him, told me just hours ago that for all practical purposes, I AM Arendelle. I understand that, too."
"Heh. If you were some nasty, bitchy Queen, it might be easier on you."
A perfect eyebrow cocked in question.
"Just sayin'. The people love you. Practically every last citizen. That's why it's so important to keep you safe. You're the best symbol this kingdom's had in … well, probably generations. You put a face on everything about Arendelle that's good."
The Queen blushed deeply. "You have a real gift for hyperbole."
"Not at all. And I don't think you'd get any disagreement from any random man you stopped in the street."
Drawing her sister back into a hug, Elsa stated, "You really are too good for me, you know."
"Am not."
"Are, too."
"Am not."
"Are, too."
"You know you won't win that fight. You might as well concede."
"As long as I can keep hugging you." As long as I can feel that you're real and alive and here and close.
"Works for me."
. . .
. . .
10:20pm
"You'll get him back, you know."
Elsa glanced up from her plate, meeting her sister's light-teal eyes with her own red-rimmed ones. "What?"
"Carlos. You'll get him back. You'll save him. I know you will."
Not bothering to ask how Anna knew what was weighing on her mind, the Queen dropped her gaze back to her plate, and the mostly-uneaten cod en croûte she was pushing around with her fork. "I'm glad you're so confident."
"It's just healing, right? Yeah, you said the poisons were evil, and that 'Jan' had used magic to make 'em. But your healing aura is magic, too." She reached across the table and laid a hand on Elsa's wrist. "And you're stronger."
A sigh managed to escape before she could corral it. "Am I? Am I strong enough? Anna, you weren't there. You don't know … didn't feel … such hate. Deep hate, everlasting. Hate given physical form." She lifted a trembling hand to her head, fighting to keep her voice even. "Hate that's an actual, living thing. Hate that's a … disease."
"Okay. So what can I do to help?"
Elsa just blinked at her. "How would I …"
"You aren't planning to just give up. I know you better than that."
"No!"
"Well, then. What's your next move?"
Her answer was barely audible. "I don't know."
"Fine. I'll tell you, then." She leaned over and took Elsa's hands. "You get some sleep."
"… Sleep? You expect me to …"
"Yes. I do. You're exhausted, and it's no wonder. If you're not capable of being practical right now – and you're not, and I don't blame you – then I get to be practical for you." She gave the Queen a tiny grin. "You should write the date down, you know, for posterity or something."
After staring off at the wall for a few breaths, Elsa asked, "And I'm just supposed to nod off to dreamland? Turn off my mind? I can't stop thinking about …"
"Take a dose of laudanum."
"… What?"
"Get some from the chirurgeon. It'll help you sleep, and it won't give you a hangover. Then, in the morning, when your mind's clear, you'll know what to do."
"I don't think it's that simple."
"Maybe not. But you aren't doing him any good dithering like this, and …"
The door opened and one of the maids came in. Dropping a curtsy, she said, "Your Highness, you asked to be told when the Prince awoke."
"Right! Yes, thanks!" She jumped up and started piling food on a plate, talking to Elsa the while. "Get some rest, 'cause you sure as heck can't think straight now, as tired as you are. And sleep is how humans recharge, even those that have Faery ancestors." Grabbing a final brace of pears, she charged out of the room. "Gotta go feed my husband!"
Something Anna had just said made the Queen frown. There was a connection … if only her mind weren't so fuzzy. She knew Anna was right, but she also knew how impossible it would be for her to sleep, with the maelstrom of worries clogging her mind. Yet sleep was the only …
A concept was trying to hammer its way into the light, making her blink.
… sleep was the only way she could …
… could … recharge …
… . . . … wait …
Eyes widening considerably, Elsa straightened up so quickly her neck popped. "That's it!"
The two servants at the far end of the table both jumped in surprise at her yell.
Not a second was wasted in her sprint to the wine cellar.
. . .
. . .
Tuesday 03 August 1841, 8:35am
Anna stumbled into the wine cellar with her usual demonstration of grace and style … meaning that she didn't quite knock over the two guards at the entrance of the domed room where Carlos lay in temporal stasis.
"Elsa?" She stepped over and peered around the end of the mirror-surfaced lozenge sitting on the floor, immediately spotting her sister. The Queen lay stretched out on one of the Marine cot mattresses … and was glowing with a strong, blue light. "Elsa!"
When her eyes opened, brighter light spilled out. Anna could see no features, and could barely even look her sister in the face.
"Anna?" She seemed a little disoriented. "What … what time is it?"
"Are you okay?! You're glowing!"
"Oh." She looked down at one hand, clenched her fist, and then grinned (though it was hard for Anna to tell). "YES!"
"Elsa … you're scaring your sister. You know, the one you said you loved and relied on?"
Popping immediately to her feet, the Queen bounced over and gave Anna a crushing hug. "I feel it! I feel it!"
"… Feel … what?" Anna managed to squeak out.
"The POWER! I slept in the ley line and it pooled up inside and I can feel it just waiting for me to use it but I won't waste it on a giant icicle this time because he's hurt and poisoned and I'm gonna SAVE HIM!" She dropped Anna (who staggered a bit before regaining her balance) and turned to the stasis field. "Anna … I think you should probably back away. Go wait with the guards in the next chamber."
"Not 'til you tell me what-"
Her answer came out in a burst of words as she caressed the surface of Carlos's cocoon. "The short answer is that there are pathways of natural magic all over the world like all the ones in the high valley of the trolls but in Arendelle there's only one of any consequence, and it passes through this room." She pulled a quick breath. "It's power I can use, Anna! But I don't know what kind of leakage there might be, so please wait out there with the guards."
Anna backed away slowly. "Well. Okay. If you're sure. I'll be right out here. With the, ah, guards. Okay?"
"Fine." Elsa wasn't looking at her.
The men in question stiffened slightly when she stepped between them. One of them cleared his throat and stated, "Her Majesty told us to stay here and keep everyone out … except you."
"Yeah. She needed to, um," Anna searched for a word for a moment, "to recharge. So she can save Car- um, Senor de la Maria."
"Yes'm."
"So, um, I guess we'll just wait here. Right here. For Elsa. I mean the Queen. 'cause she's gonna be doing magic. In there." She stared hard at the doorway.
Elsa was examining the power investing her, getting used to the flow as it swirled around and through her. Borrowing from her ability with the stuff of the astral plane, she practiced bending it to her will until she was sure there would be no glitches, no hiccups when she called on it to battle the poisons. Then, as prepared as she thought she could be, she turned her attention to the temporal sarcophagus and began raveling its ward.
As soon as she felt the edges of the healing aura, she merged it with her own … and staggered against the wall, nearly falling. The corruption had spread! As the stasis field vanished, she could see instantly that the evil veins stretching away from the wound site were longer and more numerous, wider and deeper, and as Carlos re-entered real time his laboring heart shuddered, faltered …
NO!
Flooding his system with her power, and reinforcing the healing magic with her own, she doubled her former effort … doubled it again.
His heart beat. Once.
The toxins had multiplied! How was that even possible? How had they overcome the time-stop …
Unless it wasn't actually a time 'stop' field. Maybe it was just a time 'slow down a whole lot' field? That would explain …
She couldn't worry about that now, although a corner of her mind set up a rotating litany of self-recrimination for not starting the process the night before. If she had waited any longer …
Maybe you've already waited too long, suggested a tiny voice in her head.
Stop it.
Maybe it's already too late.
No. I WILL save him.
But the poisons …
NO! I. WILL. SAVE. HIM.
You can't know …
SHUT UP.
Carlos took a shallow breath … a wheezing, rasping breath. His heart beat again. Once.
Elsa concentrated on flushing his heart free of the invasion.
The demonic toxin seemed to realize that it was under attack again. It resisted.
She pounced, pulling it out by the roots.
Another stuttering breath made its way past the man's lips.
Carefully wrapping up the healing aura around his now-cleansed heart, Elsa turned her attention elsewhere …
The toxin bloomed in three more places.
For the next fifteen minutes, she played an eldritch version of whack-a-mole. Every time she thought she had it contained, it would spring up somewhere else. Her power level had dropped at a rather alarming rate. What she'd thought would be several times as much as she'd need (and would have been if she'd been able to simply pick up where she'd left off) was nearly gone.
Another pocket of the pustulent infection appeared next to his heart, hammering away at the protective aura. She quashed it. Two more showed up. Savagely did she fight them back. Then half a dozen oozed into existence, widely spaced throughout his torso.
She poured the rest of her reserve power into the battle, cutting off the toxic invaders and destroying them.
Three more made themselves known in his lung.
She trapped them … but could just barely hold them.
Carlos's breathing had been steady for ten minutes, but now it began to hitch.
Pulling the different bits of poison out of his body, she held them away from him and froze them out of existence.
But there were more.
So many, many more.
A quick swipe of a sleeve across her forehead kept the sweat out of her eyes.
She bolstered the healing aura around his heart, edged it into the sequestered part of his lung …
Something punched through.
He flinched. His heart skipped a beat. Skipped another.
Frantic, she smashed at the poisons, but they slipped by her.
His last breath was hardly a gasp.
She was …
His heart … she couldn't feel his heart
She was losing him.
Oh, no, I am NOT!
Another desperate prayer later, she got an inspiration. She'd been standing at his side. The ley line passed through near his head, so she scooted around until she was standing in its flow. Immediately, there was energy, force she could use …
Yes! This can work!
A minute later she was even further behind. The poison was winning.
She crafted a second healing ward, laid it in around his heart. Crafted a third and used it as a buffer.
The poison skirted the edges. It was using stealth rather than blunt force, tricking her into using her resources unwisely. How could it be …
A thought came into her mind: Don't just allow the power from the ley line to aid you: pull it out.
What?
Pull the power from the ley line.
Being at the point where she would try anything, she turned some of her concentration on the flow of the earth-magic, trying to draw it into herself, sucking it up as if through a straw. Then the straw got bigger …
Yes! More power! Fight!
The battle suddenly got fierce as the contagion realized that its tricks weren't working. Redoubling its attack on his heart, it all but melted the protective magicks, almost before Elsa could react.
More power! Pull more power!
Her head began to throb.
Another ward encased his organs. A fifth and a sixth attacked the poison head-on, blasting it to nothingness on a cell-by-cell basis.
It multiplied.
MORE POWER! PULL MORE POWER!
There was so much of it flowing through the ley line now that it took on a hazy outline of its own. Fire ran up and down her body as her system tried to adjust to the massive influx. But she used it just as soon as she absorbed it.
Another clot of corruption blossomed near his throat.
MORE POWER! PULL MORE POWER! MORE!
Her will, her mind, her heart, her very essence became a tool in her hands, digging and finding, tearing and excising as the raw, wild earth magic stormed through her. Every muscle felt as if it were being pulled in two. She didn't even slow down. The poison was holding nothing back now, and neither could she, though her bones felt burnt to ash and her vision was a field of glittering spots.
MORE POWER! MORE! MORE! MORE!
There came a final, eldritch shriek, a soundless cry of hatred and vitriol and malice that blasted her against the wall. She slumped to a heap on the floor, her ice-dress whiffing to steam from contact with her reddened skin.
Anna and the guards flinched badly as the magical detonation passed through. The Princess marched over and looked through the doorway. "Elsa? I know you said …" Her eyes widened considerably. "ELSA!"
. . .
. . .
End Note: Yes, I know. Possibly not the BEST place to stop. But it's STUPID-O'CLOCK in the morning and I can't hold out any longer. And I'd appreciate your pointing them out if you catch any typos, if you don't mind. There probably are some. Oh, and please let me know what you think of the action here.
Con