Anna, standing with eyes downcast, had been doing her best to imitate the meekest of castle servants back home. Because of the day's humiliation, the borrowed dress she still wore looked far less elegant than it had started out, but she couldn't do anything about it. Hans looked her over. She thought he would be angry about one of his pirated treasures being wrecked, but he seemed oddly pleased, instead, at her diminished appearance.

"Anna," Hans said in a slow, contemplative tone. He surveyed her work. He smiled. "You may dine with me." He pulled out a chair for her.

Hating the feeling of gratitude that welled up in her, Anna sat. Maybe she was pretending too well and fooling herself, too.

While Hans was around, she pretended obedience. She pretended he had broken her spirit, and that she was afraid of him. She was afraid of him, but under her grief for Kristoff was a need to avenge him that blazed like the hottest fire. She wasn't going to wait around, wishing for rescue. It didn't matter that she was a princess. She was Anna; she was clever; she believed in herself. Most of all, she needed to see Hans pay, even if it was the last thing she ever did.

"See, isn't this nicer?" Hans asked. "You do what I say. We have a nice meal together," he enumerated. "It's pleasant. You've lost guest privileges, but you don't have to suffer. And the work isn't all that hard." He flicked a gesture at their surroundings. Anna had tidied the cabin per instructions.

It had given her an opportunity to closely study the maps. Unfortunately, Hans had taken away the one charting their course. She was good at geography, so the remaining maps didn't give her any new information. As for the rest of the cleaning, Anna had done the minimum needed, then made use of the time by sleeping, so that she could stay awake through the night. She didn't know anything about polishing boots. She had rubbed them shiny, then put her attention to polishing up the reflective bottom surface of a small, metal box, used for holding char cloth, that she had found among Hans's possessions. It would work as a signal mirror.

Hans must have wanted to be satisfied with her efforts. The appearance of her obedience meant more than the quality of her work.

She kept her hands in her lap. The smell of the food, nothing fancier than slices of meat, cheese, and bread again, nonetheless made her mouth water. She didn't know how much of her hunger she should let Hans see. She licked her lips but didn't stare at the food on the table.

He poured her a glass from a decanter of dark red liquid before sitting back. His smug gaze rested on her as he sipped his drink. Anna sipped. It was the same cold herbal tea that was served before. Anna's curiosity made her ask, "What is this made of?" before she considered her query. It seemed harmless enough, anyway. She risked a glance up at Hans and saw that he liked her question.

"Hibiscus flowers," he said. "My personal stash. I like it sweeter, but we're running low on sugar at the moment."

"It looks like red wine," Anna commented. She had wanted it to be wine.

"It tastes better though, don't you think?" Hans asked. "I hate the taste of wine".

Anna mentally crossed off plan A, which relied on Hans drinking himself into a stupor. Better to find that out about him sooner than later, she thought. In adventure stories, the villain always drank heavily with his meals. One more reminder not to assume he would act a certain way.

"Especially warm, mulled wine." He prattled on. "Yule is the worst holiday." His glance flickered her way and he sneered. "You and I both have monsters for old siblings, you know," he said. "You're lucky she was sent away."

She wanted to ask why, after all these years, he was still fixated on her sister, but she held back. It didn't matter. She didn't want to get to know him, no more than she needed to in order to trick him and get out of the locked room. She carefully ate the food on her plate and thought about something to say that he would like to hear. She needed him to stay in a relaxed mood and let his guard down.

Hans laughed suddenly. "I wonder if you know about your sister," he said. "Did they keep you in the dark, I wonder?"

Anna couldn't help herself. "What do you mean?"

"No," Hans responded dismissively. "It will ruin dinner." He portioned out a plate for each of them.

Although Anna was used to being served, she nevertheless noted that Hans was serving her, instead of the reverse. It didn't strike her as deliberate. He still seemed distracted by his own thoughts. It occurred to her than Hans was used to being the one to do the serving. He was a youngest child, she remembered because of his earlier comment. Southern Isles wasn't a wealthy kingdom, but they still should have had servants tending the princes. His comments about his brothers made her wonder if they had made him serve.

In different circumstances, she might have asked him about his childhood, if his family had been cold to him, if his brothers had bullied him, and why. They might have had common ground, as youngest children. She would have known a lonely world, had she grown up without Kristoff for a friend.

Without Kristoff.

All curiosity about Hans snapped back like a broken thread. No matter what kind of life had made him as he was, he was her enemy. He had been horrid back when Elsa first warned her about him. Now he was a pirate: a thief and a murder of innocent people. The reason why didn't matter to Anna, and it never would.

ooo

After dinner, Hans left again for many hours. Anna guessed that it was past midnight when he returned.

The rocking of the ship had lost the smooth rhythm of calm travel. The ship rode uneven waves. Through the little porthole, she couldn't see much, but there was no rain or lightning. The sky was mostly clear, with the clouds moving quickly, only briefly covering the starry sky in patches.

She had given more thought to what she could do once she escaped the cabin. There were too many possibilities, and not a lot of chances for successful escape. Her best chance would be to get out to the deck at first light. If there was any land or ship in view, she would signal them with the polished surface of the metal box.

Wisely, he had left her without a lighted lamp. The escape plan that included lighting the ship on fire had been lower down the list, but Anna had been prepared to start it by casting swaths of burning mattress filling out the little porthole window until one of them caught fire to the tarred ropes. Instead, she kneeled on the cabin's bed and observed what she could of the night sky through the porthole, looking for the north star or a bright planet or any star pattern that would indicate where the ship was on the sea, and which direction it was heading.

She heard Hans inserting the key in the lock and scrambled down from his bed. He caught her smoothing the blankets.

"I'm not sharing my bed," he snapped at her. He had spoken out of tiredness, revealing genuine feeling, it seemed. The ghost of uncertainty passed through his countenance, uncertainty quickly chased away by snobbish posturing. "You're a little young for me," he said. "Maybe in a few years." He locked the door and tucked the key back away in his vest pocket.

"Where will I sleep?" Anna asked. It was a mountain of effort to keep all disgust out of her expression at Han's insinuation. She kept her eyes averted, watching him from the corner of her eye.

He put down the lantern he carried and flopped onto his bed, still fully dressed, as if to punctuate his ownership. He kicked off his boots; each dropped to the floor with a thud. "Your vixen sister would be a different matter," he persisted. "You're more of... a nipping pup." He laughed. "Or a puppy, really. Yes... and like a good puppy, a blanket by your master's door will be your reward." He was clearly pleased by his own wit. He sat up just long enough to grab the blanket off the trunk at the foot of the bed and toss the blanket at her before flopping back again.

Anna darted a glance at him as she picked the blanket off the floor. Plans Q through Z, where she had to use her feminine charms on him, were no longer needed, and she was infinitely glad to never find out if she could go through with any of those desperate plans. She was honest with herself, admitting that her first impression of Hans had been attraction. If she hadn't already been in love with Kristoff, she would have been captivated by the classically handsome nose, brilliant green eyes, perfect body, and auburn hair nearly the same color as her own. Now, he was like rotten fruit full of bugs wrapped up in pretty packaging, and she was repulsed by the slime.

Lying back with his hands behind his head, Hans appeared comfortable for the moment. She doubted he would fall asleep still dressed from coat to hose, however. Inevitably, he would have to get up and disrobe, and the cabin didn't have a dressing screen.

Moving casually, she carried her blanket toward the locked cabin door. As she passed the lighted lamp on the desk, she snuffed the light. Without the flame, the cabin was dark except for a little illumination from the porthole.

"Hey!" Hans yelled. "I haven't readied for bed yet!"

"Oops. Sorry," Anna said.

Hans growled in irritation. "It's too much trouble to light it again," he complained. "Now I have to undress in the dark." Almost as an obligation, he added, "Stupid girl!" She heard the sounds of buttons and buckles and Hans huffing in annoyance as he climbed under the covers. He didn't drop his coat and other layers on the floor, and as her eyes adjusted, she discerned a pile laid out at the foot of the bed.

She put her blanket down on the floor. It was a drafty spot. The wet, salty air pushed through the cracks around the door whenever ever a gust whistled past. She could hear noises of rigging being shaken in high wind. It would have been awful to try to sleep in the draft.

Sleeping during the day had been a good idea for many reasons. She needed to be awake. Once Hans was deeply asleep, she would sneak the key out of his clothes. At first light, she would unlock the door and begin her escape.

Hans tossed and turned in bed. Every few minutes, he shifted his body around, fluffed his pillow, or flipped the covers on or off. Anna listened with growing frustration. What a jinx on her plan it would be if Hans couldn't sleep. He needed to be asleep so she could steal the door key!

"Are you still awake?" he grumbled, after a while.

Anna feigned sleep. She didn't answer.

"Anna?" Hans insisted, slightly louder. "Anna!" She heard him sit up.

"Hmm... what?" she answered, pretending she had been woken from slumber.

"In a few years, you'll be old enough to marry," he said. "No one will want your sister. You can make a strategic marriage that would benefit two kingdoms."

Anna didn't comment.

"If you were obedient to your royal husband, you could have a nice life. One day, you would rule a kingdom together. Maybe even both." His voice took on a tone of glee. "You and I were just meant to be, Anna. What a lucky thing that I picked you up after that shipwreck. War is a dangerous time, even for kings and princes. If they aren't killed in battle, there's always the danger of assassins."

What is he saying? That's crazy! Anna thought, muffling her involuntary reaction noise. With the blanket pressed to her face, she held her breath until she calmed down.

"Well?" Hans asked.

She had to say something crazier. "I know I won't get to choose my husband, when you take me to Southern Isles. If only it could be you." A knot in her throat made her feel as if she might throw up. "I guess there's nothing I can do about whatever happens when you leave me in Southern Isles. It will be up to your older brothers." She wasn't subtle. He had to get what she was hinting at.

He must have, because of the displeased noise of consideration he made. The restless sound of his shifting his weight around gave further evidence of his thoughts.

Staying on the ship until they put in to port somewhere she could find an ally was plan N, not a plan she was thrilled about, but if she could lay the foundation for any of her escape plans, she had to do it. It had a better chance than making contact with a ship, and then getting away on that ship from the pirates; if Kristoff hadn't been able to succeed, she didn't have a lot of hope that it would work for her.

Hans growled out, "I can't go home empty-handed, anyway. Which means, as I said before, a ship. After I plunder some easy targets, I'll think about what to do with you. You can use that time to show me how well-behaved you can be."

Now, to Anna's dismay, Han's bare feet sounded against the floor. He was out of bed. He struck a light and the lantern brightened the room again. Hans wore only his shirt, the hem brushing just above his knees. He carried his pants and coat to the closet, hung them up, fished out the door key, and took the key back to tuck it under his mattress.

Jinx again, Anna thought. What bad luck!

When he sat down in a chair, the shirt draped further, like a short nightgown, for which Anna was grateful. The sight of his bare legs gave her an odd feeling she didn't want to acknowledge. He rotated his shoulders back with a pouty frown on his face.

"Come here and rub my shoulders. I can't sleep."

Not seeing any way out of it, Anna got up and crossed the room to Hans. She stood behind his chair. Thinking of her father or anyone else at all, she put her hands on Hans's shoulders, pressed her palms against his collar, and massaged with her fingers. He was tense. The muscles felt more like wood than flesh.

"Really get your thumbs in," he demanded.

Her father would let her soften up his stiff neck and shoulders, at times, when he had been sitting at his desk for many hours. She felt an intense longing to see her father and mother again, to see home again. She became lost in thought, wondering what they thought had happened, what they were thinking, what they were doing with her gone. If they thought she was dead, would they go through her room? Would they find her diary? Would they find all the letters from Elsa that Anna was supposed to have destroyed? Elsa would be so angry when she found out! Everyone would be angry with her, when she turned out not to be dead!

Hans, complaining, broke her reverie. "Not so hard!"

"Sorry," she whispered around the tightness in her throat. Since her hands were already forming into fists, she lightly pummeled Hans's back.

"OK. Enough," Hans said, finishing with a yawn. "Sleep." Without giving her any more attention, he carried the lamp over to the bedside, climbed under his covers, and put out the light, leaving Anna standing in the dark.

Glad he wouldn't be able to see her choking back tears, she stumbled along the floor until she found her blanket. She hid her face into it and forced herself to be silent.

ooo

"Kay. Get up. Wake up, please."

She couldn't lift him. She lacked the strength of body and of spirit to move Kay from the deck of the ship to the ice mountain. She sat beside him and watched snow coat the iceberg until it looked just like the peak of a real mountain, full of shadowed crags and forbidding slopes that ended in abrupt cliffs.

She couldn't feel any difference between the cold of her surroundings and her own temperature. She wouldn't even know for certain that it was cold, if not for the thin clouds if Kay's warm exhalations. He shivered, though he remained unresponsive to her attempts to wake him up. She touched his wrist, and his skin felt prickly. Her own skin felt smooth as bone china and neither cold nor warm, but inside her felt cold, and hollow now, as if the storm had all gotten out and left her with emptiness.

Kay would have to stay on the ship. Elsa would have to go. She thought of jumping over the side of the ship, dropping into the restless, dark water. Where was Anna? She didn't even know if she was close to where Anna had drowned. Would they be reunited in death, if Elsa drowned herself? She had no guarantee. Perhaps she would only succeed in killing her humanity, leaving what remained to be fully a witch, maybe a monster in the deep, a menace in the sea, sinking innocents as her storm had done.

It seemed so easy. One small step over the edge, like one small step into the ravine. And yet... and yet...

The ice crystals in the air forming from Kay's breath had knit together in a kind of covering that tented over Elsa's shoulders. Elsa pushed herself up, made herself stand, and the sheer covering draped like a long cloak. She pushed it back off her shoulders, but it clung to her dress as if stitched on. She let it drag behind her. It weighed nothing, gossamer.

The ship rocked against the iceberg. She stepped up to the ship's railing, and then launched off – not into the sea, but onto a filigree staircase of ice that she made with a flick of her wrists. The ice stairway climbed up the slope with the twisting path of frost on a window, but fast, urged on as Elsa ran up its steps, new steps appearing moments before her feet made contact. She ran until she reached the peak, the last slope. There she spun around. She turned her power downward, letting go her despair and horror and self -hate as a blast of magic that shattered the staircase.

She spread her arms out and the hillside slid away.

She raised her hands and the ice mountain crumbled around her. Snow blew upward in a cloud. Ice dust crusted her arms and her clothes, and her hair, pulled loose, blew wildly in the explosion. When the air cleared, Elsa looked down.

Below, pushed by the tumultuous waves caused by the splitting iceberg, the ship – with Kay on it – floated away. Soon he would be clear of her storm. He would be safe from her. Churning with snow and broken ice, the water around what was left of the iceberg looked like a field of stones, obscuring the wide base of the iceberg still beneath water level. What was left of the iceberg jutted up, a tall, transparent column, wetly catching and refracting the pre-dawn light.

She sat down on the roof-like slope. Ice spangles coated her body like a ballgown. Only her hands were bare. She rubbed them together. She pulled her knees in close and dropped her face onto her folded arms.

When she looked up, there was the dawn sky. The silhouette of a ship bobbed on the waves. She thought it was Kay, drifting to safety, and gave it no further attention. The sun broke over the horizon.

On the sea between the kingdoms of Arendelle and Corona, a single tower stood on what appeared to be a small, isolated island. From base to roof, the tower sparkled from the colors of a new day reflected on its hard surfaces as if covered in cut crystal and gems. There were no doors into the tower, but there was the frame of a window, implying a room beneath the pointed roof where someone might dwell, away from the world.

Atop the tower sat Elsa, a young woman with loose hair catching the wind. When she could no longer bear the wind and sky, she made her way down through the window and shut herself away.

ooo