A/N: Thanks for the continued support and reviews, they keep me going. It's going to get a bit dark from here, there are still a few more chapters lined up to do with the war focusing on Agnarr's character development which will play a huge role later in the story. I have a vision for the story and a possible sequel titled 'after it all' that takes place in between frozen 1 and 2 where the sisters find out about what went on with their parents and Elsa, particularly during the years of separation. These chapters may slightly ruin Agnarr but remember he is also a victim here.
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A smattering of dust fell from the roof of the bunker. Agnarr jerked awake, the muddy clay trickling down his neck; he itched and scratched desperately as the dirt irritated his skin behind him, forcing him from his slumber. A second explosion above him made him duck for cover instantly, but when his eyes grew used to the darkness, he realised his surroundings in the bunker. Sighing in relief he crawled out from underneath the bench and observed the cramped room. The atmosphere was hot and heavy the multitudes of men stuffed into the dark and dank interior heated it up like a primordial oven, not to mention the humid July air suffocated what breeze there was, leaving a choking thickness in its wake.
"Which company are you" he managed to get out, looking to no one in particular.
"The Svalbard Regiment Your majesty" a voice piped up from the murky blackness.
"Where's the rest of you?" he asked again, replying to the blackness in the edges of the room. A man crouched on the floor, musket leaning against his shoulder pulled on his sleeve, making Agnarr look down.
"They're all out there" the man said, gesturing to the wooden door sealing them in from the outside. "They're all dead"
Agnarr rubbed his hand through his hair, slumping down on the bench once more. A soldier next to him offered him a pipe which he accepted. Taking a draft of the smoke through his lungs he spluttered a bit but was grateful for the soft relief that followed. The man that had been laid on the floor now looked grey and drawn out, his forest green tunic lay sprawled out from his chest as bloodied bandages, now a dark brown with the long night, bound his chest together like some demented thread. The man's face was pale and his breathing light but hoarse; his wheezing and crackling never stopped; a ceaseless nightmare of wheezes filling the room. Agnarr got up again and inspected the other wounded. In the small bunker there were ten stretchers filled with men; some with blown off limbs, other with holes in chests and stomachs. One man's arm had gone a green black with the dampness of the air, the putrid odour near him making Agnarr fight against the retch building in his throat. Another thud above him made the boy flinch, all the men in the room looking up apprehensively at the ceiling threatening to suffocate the life out of them. He returned once more to the hard bench and waited.
Waited
And Waited.
The sun never hit the crevice he was hiding in, the long passageway long since smothering its warm light. Undoubtedly the fog would still be there waiting and taunting them menacingly, whether it was night or day no one could tell; Agnarr's watch had long since stopped ticking with the fiery thunder of battle. A louder crash above them now and the entire earth shuddered with its force; Agnarr instinctively reached for the bible in his tunic, pulling it out and began sending silent prayers in the murky air. A solider joined next to him repeating the mumbled passages amid the roar of the gunfire above them; soon enough most of the room had joined in with the gentle homily amid the slaughter that threatened to devour them. Agnarr continued reading from his bible, the quiet words sometimes being drowned out by a crashing shell. At the end of each passage a unified prayer was whispered by the men, their humming voices momentarily drowning the bands and booms above them. They kept at this, the unseen sun rising slowly above them in the sky, its light never touching the faces of the men buried in the bunker. Eventually the crashes became less and less regular, until a deathly silence fell above them. A soldier dared to peer out of the wooden door, travelling up the passageway. He reached the gaping mouth of the entrance and peered into the trenches. Obliterated ruins lay before him; splinters of steel, wood and bone stuck up at oblique angles in the wed mud. The fog still hung around them like a blanket, choking the sunlight from the ground and still marring the earth with a dull greyness that hung about like a rotting smell. In the air hung the tangy sweet smell of death, the odd gust of wind bringing with it a new sensation of brutality from the quagmire battlefield. Agnarr ventured out after him followed by some more of the men. Bodies lay mangled in the ruins, their charred flesh and splintered bone sprayed out in the utter annihilation raged on by the bombardment.
"Get the wounded to the field hospital whilst we can" he ordered a lieutenant now clambering out of the destroyed hole leading to the bunker. He nodded and set about ordering men to dragging the stretchers to the road leading to the hospital. Agnarr ventured further up the trench, taking a musket slung over his shoulder. What was left of the defences began to swarm with life, screaming men that had been holed up in the bunkers now were being dragged on stretchers through the thick mud, all heading towards the main escape point, mangled uniforms and bodies mixed with the muddy water, creating a grim soup of forest green fabric and ruddy-brown sludge that sunk into ever pitfall. He saw a wooden box with a bright red cross drawn on it, seemingly undamaged. He reached for it and irked it out of the mud, a soft heavy object hitting his legs as he lifted the box of supplies. Looking down at his feet to try and find the offending object. What lay before him was a barren arm, ripped from the stem of its owners; charred flesh and green veins sprawling across its surface, fingers reaching out fin a never-ending grasp for relief. Agnarr dropped the box and ran back down the trench, the supplies sprawled out in the mud. He ran back down into the bunker and curled up into the dank corner, the putrid smell still hanging miserably in the choking air. Tears streaming down his face he broke, the snapped shards of his humanity dissolving in the morbid soup of inhumanity surrounding him. The bodies, the flesh, the fire and the death all mixing to form some monster looming within in him, impregnating his soul with the horror around him. He stayed there shivering, the sobs racking his young body as the horror and guilt set in. When he looked up, he found an older soldier holding out his and. Wiping his eyes he took it and lifted himself up. The soldier gave him a knowing look and offered a silver flask. Agnarr took a swig, the burning liquid warming up the numbness in his bones. Silently thanking the man, they moved off together back out into the defences. The trenches had now been cleared of wounded, all that was remaining were the twisted remains of soldiers smattered in the depths and sides of the trench.
"Why aren't the dead being buried?" Agnarr asked the man who helped him.
"It's not worth it sir, we might get picked off by the men up top" he gestured with his head to the ridge staring down above them through the dense mist. Agnarr nodded in agreement, ears ringing slightly from the relentless explosions minutes before.
"What's your name?" the king asked the man.
"Corporal Amundsen sir, Thomas Amundsen."
"Agnarr" he replied, "Well if we ever make it out of this alive, we need to meet up back in Arendelle." Agnarr smiled wistfully and Amundsen nodded in agreement. The two slumped down into the sagging wall of the defences, exhaustion filling them.
"How is that girl of yours your majesty?" Amundsen asked, cracking open the flask once again.
"Please call me Agnarr, and she's doing well. I haven't heard from her, but I sent a letter before we got sent here"
"I have a wife back home, two kids too." he took a swig and offered it to the king.
"You are a very lucky man" Agnarr accepted the flask and took another sip.
"Have you found god Agnarr?" Amundsen asked, putting the flask in his webbing.
"I think I may have found him here" Agnarr replied honestly. He laughed, at the absurdity of finding god in the most desolate, destructive place in the world. Amundsen joined him, the two laughing amid the brutality surrounding them at the absurdity of it all. When they died down, Amundsen spoke up.
"God has been what has kept us alive. Without him we would have died on that ridge"
"Agreed, truth be told the night before the attack a witch came to me and said we were all cursed. I'm inclined to believe her now" Agnarr took a draw from the pipe Amundsen lit up. "If I manage to get back and marry Iduna, I am going to raise my kids to be the best Christians in the world" he handed the pipe back to the man.
"Why?" Amundsen asked, breathing out the smoke through his nostrils.
"Because if god can protect them has as well as he has protected me then they will never face any hardship" Agnarr opened a wrapper of meat from his webbing, handing some to Amundsen.
"That is a good idea; my daughter is learning the bible off by heart" Amundsen's face lit up, pride swelling in his chest. "Tell you what, when we get back to camp, I'll take you to the chapel. The Minister there is very good" he took a bite into the cured meat, smiling at the salty taste. As he said that, soldiers clad in bright crimson uniforms began to permeate the trenches. A man dressed in a gold and red tunic stepped forward to Agnarr and shook his hand.
"Your Majesty I am Colonel Gilliard of His Majesties own Rifles. I am here to swap over duties with your army" the announcement was brief and Agnarr nodded curtly. Telling a messenger to alert the remaining officers. With a shake of the hand Agnarr headed towards the exit point of the trenches. Men in Forest green uniforms filed out of the destroyed trenches and back onto the main road heading back to the camp. Behind them trails of carts carried wounded and dead men, wrapped in brown sheets with a crocus laden flag draped haphazardly over them.
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The reflection stared at Agnarr, and Agnarr stared back.
He wasn't sure what shocked him more.
The mud?
The dried blood caking his face?
The ripped fabric that was his tunic?
He decided after some time, the thing that shocked him most was the deathly look buried deep within his eyes. His once bright green eyes had taken on a darker colour, the horror and trauma set deep behind his glassy orbs reflected in the glinting mirror of the tent. With a shake he ignored the creeping tingling on his spine and plunged his body into the icy cold water of the copper bathtub.
Purged of the dirt and blood he returned to the desk in the office and waited for Frederick's return. When the sun sank below the horizon he grew worried and found an Aide.
"Where is King Frederick?"
"he was badly Injured your majesty and has returned to Corona to recover your majesty"
"Have the wounded and dead been returned? What were our casualties?"
"The wounded and dead have been returned and all have been accounted for. We have three thousand dead and a further two thousand wounded your majesty"
"Thankyou" Agnarr left the tent and found Amundsen at the Chapel. They both went in and took a seat in the middle of the church. Soon after the minister joined them on the stage in front of the altar.
"My children" he started "Today has been a sad day, indeed we have lost many friends and relatives in the battle. But fear not, for god has a plan for you." he stepped down and walked along the aisle, looking at the weary faces of the men in uniforms. "Each one of you here today has survived hellfire; each of you has stood against the test of Satan and prevailed. We ask each other why have our comrades forgone and failed? The answer is clear; we ourselves are pure, we ourselves have forsaken sins of the flesh, sins of magic and of cruelty and have risen above them. Standing here today not only have we proven to ourselves that we are strong, but we have proven to god that we are strong in the face of sin and the devil. We must pray for our brother's souls, and I am certain that god may show them mercy and allow them into the kingdom of heaven. Furthermore, by dedicating our lives to God and his law we will triumph in life over sin. Over the abomination of homosexuality, the crime of magic and the devil's work of selfishness we will triumph in his face and be victorious in both life and death. By god's name and by the name of all the saints in heaven; Praise to thee!" The speech ended in a crescendo, the old man surprising Agnarr with the tenacity and fire in his voce. The service ended in a series of prayer before the men filed out. Outside the chapel a long deep trench lay out before him. Men lined its banks as inside shroud after shroud lined the floor. Agnarr joined the men yet more bodies were lowered down into the ground. The endless hite bags hit the mangled horrors underneath them; the sweet smell of death hung in the air like a great vulture, spurred on by the humid July air. Agnarr watched and watched as countless bodies were laid down. Eventually some were piled on top of each other, a bedraggled Arendellian flag draped over the corpses whilst they were carried down by some men. At long last the final body was laid down. Each man flicked a coin into the mass grave, some crying as the mangled remains of brothers and friends lay in the ditch. Agnarr cleared his voice looking to the multitudes of men surrounding him. Some whispered It's the King whilst others just stared expectantly. He looked at their faces, some contorted with weariness, others puffy with sorrow.
"These men died for their country" he started, eyes settling on a particularly small shroud piled on top of a larger one. "For those of you that have family when we go home remember to hug them tightly. It is for them that you fight, not for me. It is for them that these men died, For Arendelle, For god. May we be so lucky as to die for that which we believe in. May we be so lucky as to die for a cause. These martyrs here today have not died in vain. Rather their blood will be the fuel that protects our country, their bodies will be the pillar from which our defences our built and their tears are the water that will keep our fields fertile. It is only through their sacrifices and through our own that we will triumph over our enemies. It is only through our sacrifices together that Arendelle will be kept safe." the speech ended, and the men were silent. "For God. And for Arendelle!" Agnarr Shouted, followed by cheers from the men, the chants eventually morphed into 'God save the king' as Agnarr looked at the soldiers gathered around the grave in awe and pride; the men cheering their young king on amidst the horrors of war.
Never had the crown felt so heavy on Agnarr's head.
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A/N: Dealing with the aftermath here, more war is on the way though for Agnarr and the remaining Arendelle forces. For those of you that haven't added two and two together Frederick Is the father of rapunzel when he was younger. For more information I'm putting their Ages in this as Agnarr being 16 (Most armies had soldiers join at 12) and Frederick as 18 or 19.