Pride || Elsa

"You cannot change what you are, only what you do."
– Philip Pullman

For such a heavily guarded castle, the place was easy enough to break into at first. Arthur was in the lead, dressed in chainmail with his sword raised ahead of him. Behind Elsa, Elyan ran without armour, Gwaine was covered in the chainmail of ice Elsa had offered, and Leon took the rear, the only one of the three that actually looked like a conventional knight of Camelot.

"Remember," Elsa whispered, "You have to keep your mind on task. Think about the people you care about. That's the best defence if we come across Hans." She hoped that they wouldn't. At the same time, if they didn't meet Hans at some point, it was likely that Merlin and Lancelot would, and they had a more important mission to accomplish.

With that reminder, Gwaine and Kristoff split off from the group on their own quest: prevent the alarm bells from ringing.

Arthur nodded and continued to slip through hallways until they reached the dungeon. He held out an arm to keep the others back while he peered around a stone corner. "Two guards. That's it. I don't see any keys though."

"What are we waiting for?" Elyan said. "Let's go."

On Arthur's signal, they all came out from behind the dungeon wall. The guards were easily defeated but got right back up again after having a sword thrust through their chests.

For the sake of saving her energy, Elsa had used her powers to make herself a sword of solid ice, but she realized that saving her powers was the least of her worries. She threw her hands out toward the guards, freezing them in place. They might not have been able to die, but they could be kept frozen alive.

"No keys," Elyan said. He circled the ice statues that had been the guards. "Any other ideas? I could try picking the lock." The knights trapped behind the bars shrugged, not having any useful information.

"No need." Hans laughed from the entrance to the passageway.

"Hans," Elsa hissed.

Hans smiled. "You want the keys?" He twirled them on the ends of his fingers. "Here." He threw them at Elyan. "Have them if you want."

Elyan looked from Hans to Elsa to Arthur. "Do I unlock the cells? This has to be a trap."

Elsa agreed. It had to be a trap.

When no one answered, Elyan slipped the key into the locks and the knights of Camelot filed out.

Hans smiled.

"Knights of Camelot," he said, "Your prince has betrayed you. You follow me now." His voice passed over them like silk, each falling under his spell almost instantly. The newly knighted Percival and Elyan blinked, struggling to resist.

"I will never follow you," Leon said, his resolve unwavering.

Elsa drew in a breath. If Leon could face Hans' magic, surely the others could too.

Hans scowled. "You," he pointed at Percival. "Knock him out."

Leon's eyes widened and he started to turn, but one swift blow to the head and he was out.

"Take their weapons." Hans waved a hand, directing Camelot's own knights to take Arthur and Elsa's swords. They were the only two standing and resisting with Leon knocked out. Percival and Elyan blinked confusedly but moved as Hans directed them.

"What do you gain from this?" Elsa asked Hans, ice sword no longer at her side, but ice powers never were taken from her. The cold still made a home for itself under her skin and in the air around her. She could feel the heat coming off of all the bodies in the room and knew she could cover it, hide it, destroy it if she wanted to.

Hans smiled slyly, still acting as though he had won a war single-handedly. The amount of arrogant pride was nauseating.

"It's not all about what I gain, Elsa. I'm not completely selfish. What about the people of Camelot, now free to practice magic? It just so happens that the gain for the people comes with destroying you and creating allies I might need in the future. Now, I think Morgause will want to speak with you before your execution -"

"And we'll talk," Elsa snarled, "but it will before her execution, not mine."

Hans clicked his tongue in mocking disapproval. "Violence! I never would have thought. What do you think, Prince Arthur, has the magic finally gone to her head and corrupted her?"

Arthur swung his head around to get a better look at Hans but said nothing. Both his arms were held firmly by two blank-faced knights who didn't respond to Hans' sarcasm.

Elsa pushed the cold from inside her into the hands of the knights holding her captive. They yelped in surprise and pulled their hands away, the pain momentarily freeing them from their orders and permanently freeing Elsa from their grasp.

Elsa pushed them, and all but the knights holding Arthur to the edges of the room with a sudden snowstorm in miniature. It was nothing to her. She had more power than she was using, she knew it, she had felt it up on the mountain when she had first run away from the people who didn't trust her.

"You'll never win, Hans."

He laughed, but Elsa though it lacked his usual smooth confidence.

"There may always be people more powerful than I, Elsa, but my loss is yours, can't you see that? We're not so different, you and I. We both think we know what's best for the people of Arendelle. We both have magic that we were forced to hide from the world. We even both have a younger sister we care about. And since you are so much like me, you should be able to see that the likes of him," he glared at Arthur, "will never allow people like us to be free. If I lose this war, you lose your freedom."

For a moment, his words, or maybe it was only the magic that accompanied them, made Elsa hesitate.

Hans saw her reluctance and kept going. "Do you think the people of Arendelle will ever accept you for who you are? Because if they don't, the kingdom will go to ruin. You might as well have let me take over. You know nothing of the real world, nothing of what your people face because you spent your life locked in your room it would be better to just give up."

He wanted her to lose faith in herself. He wanted her to turn against Arthur, but she wouldn't. Hans didn't know about Emrys and The Once and Future King. He didn't know about Merlin and his mission to destroy Morgause's immortal army. There was so much that she knew that he didn't.

"There is so much that you don't know, Elsa," said Hans, reversing Elsa's thoughts. "So much that I could have offered to you." He continued to circle Elsa and Arthur.

Elsa let herself release some of her anger. The sharp icicles flew at Hans, who lept out of the way, forcing Elsa to redirect the icicles so as not to hit the enchanted Camelot knights. They were everywhere, those knights, and Elsa didn't know how to be precise enough not to hit them.

She made herself another sword of ice and watched as Hans' eyes brightened with delight.

"You've chosen to fight a battle you cannot win, my dearest Elsa! How long have you practised wielding a sword? I've been training to kill since birth."

"And how long have you been training to be an egotistical pig?" Elsa jabbed back. She made the first attack with her sword that Hans easily parried. He let her continue to attack, but all she seemed to accomplish was making him more and more amused.

"Face it: you can't win without magic, but if you hurt me with magic, you'll only prove Prince Arthur right, and he'll turn on you as soon as you've won." Hans stopped toying with her and disarmed her in ten seconds. Elsa stood, his sword at her throat and Arthur still held captive behind her.

"Elsa," Arthur called out. "I may have been taught to hate magic and what it does to people, but," Elsa could almost hear the mental struggle it took to say the words, "I don't think you can be evil. If I had to have a magical ally, Elsa, I'm glad it's you. I know I can trust you, no matter how you end this fight."

It wasn't quite an acceptance, or perhaps it was. Arthur still had a long way to go, but, for now, he had given her permission to free herself from her own cage, and that was all she needed. She needed to have her own amount of pride and confidence without reaching the point of arrogance.

She thrust Hans' sword out of his hand with a gust of wind just as she let the blizzard around them fall.

"Knights of Camelot!" Hans started to call, probably intending to use their bodies like his own personal shield, but he wasn't fast enough. Elsa's ice caught his foot, tying him to one place in the dungeons. He looked down at his ice-covered leg in panic. "Knights!" His voice croaked without the usual seductive magic, and the spell broke. Percival and Elyan held back bewildered knights while Hans frantically tried to yank his foot from the ice.

"It's over now, Hans," Elsa whispered. "Surrender."

Hans glared at her furiously. "Never," he hissed. He held his hands towards his leg and whispered something Elsa couldn't hear. A burst of fire spread from his hands, melting enough ice to free him.

"Block her view!" He yelled, his magic returning to him, and Elsa was pushed over by jostling knights. When she got up again, Hans was gone. She looked for Arthur among his knights and saw him standing between the two who had held him back, both of whom were apologizing profusely.

"It's not your fault," Arthur insisted. "I understand."

He turned to Elsa. "It's not your fault either."

"I know."

And she did know. For once, she didn't feel like the blame was hers to bear.

"Thank you for trusting me," she added.

Arthur was no longer listening but unlocking the cell that held his father. Uther sat in a corner, unfocused on anyone around him. He held his knees close to his chest and muttered so softly that Elsa couldn't hear.

"Father?" Arthur touched the king's shoulder. "Father, we have to leave."

That fight is over, now we just have to deal with Merlin, Morgause, and Morgana! Then a bittersweet ending and a sequel that will be a slightly shorter fic than this one, and completely original plot (this one involves a lot from a Merlin episode).

Please review!