Arendelle

The Queen's Office

"I believe you." Anna said, sighing and rubbing her hand across her face in frustration. Kristoff sat alone in a chair before the Queen's desk. Despite his wife's assurances, and Kai's quiet observation, her husband looked as though he had been under hours of interrogation and not a five minute conversation. "But I don't understand why she acted the way she did."

"I don't know, but she sounds pretty torn up over that wolf attack. Maybe she's just traumatized."

"She is accusing you of attempting to force yourself on her." Kai pointed out from his place by the door. "It is a serious accusation."

"I didn't. I caught her from falling and then she grabbed me. Sven saw everything!" Kristoff exclaimed.

"Unfortunately, I do not believe a reindeer's testimony will count in any formal proceedings"

"There won't be any proceedings." Anna said firmly. The anger in it caught both Kai and Kristoff by surprise. "I am the Queen, and I have made my decision. I trust my husband."

"Your majesty, while you have that authority, I would advise you consider what sort of appearances that may cause."

"My decision has been made, Kai." Anna replied, walking around to the back of her desk. "I would also like 'Lisbet' to be relocated to new accommodations. Could we find her a room at the inn, maybe? Or maybe a family has a room for her to stay in."

"It will be a challenge, your majesty. Between the usual arrivals for winter and our new friends from Britain we are running out of room." Kai admitted. "I have reached out to some our carpenter's and masons about at least building some temporary shelters, but that will depend heavily on what happens with the weather, ma'am.

Anna tapped her finger on her desk and tried to give a reassuring smile to Kristoff.

"And it's only going to get worse if we evacuate all the outlying villages, isn't it?" Kai nodded back, and Anna sighed. She wondered if this was why Elsa had quit. Everywhere she looked, she felt like all she could see were bad answers. "Then we'll make additional room in the castle. Move everything we can into the vaults and cellars.

"Wait, what's going on?" Kristoff asked.

Copenhagen

Frederiksberg Palace

Early Evening

Hans watched Ariel and Eric dancing with no lack of jealousy, but he wasn't the only one. The Crown Prince of Denmark and his wife easily stole the attention of the entire room. It wasn't hard either, for between Ariel's sea-green dress and alluring beauty and Eric's brimming confidence in his Admiral's uniform even the most jealous of husbands or wives couldn't fault the other for looking. At the center of the hall was the blooming flower of a new age in Denmark, and it was a promising one.

And then there was Melody, in her bright gold and crimson dress, a star herself and the center of attention for all the younger gentlemen in attendance. Hans watched as she laughed, she danced, and she played her own games with young men who were willing to promise the world to her for just a glance. It was a far cry from the sad, lonely girl Hans first met when they were children. He couldn't be happier for her.

Hans easily down his champagne before walking out to the nearby balcony. He was dressed in the blue uniform of the Guard's Hussars with a bright red Attila jacket. Eric had pulled a few favors to have Hans commissioned as a Colonel within the regiment as a favor, and it was his first time wearing the uniform. Melody teased him how much of a roguish figure he cut in the uniform.

"The moustache helps too." She told him, and Hans ran a finger across it as he leaned against the balcony rail. He had started to let it grow during his recovery, and he kind of liked it. It was apparently fashionable these days.

Hans took in the cool breeze. It felt good to be out in the open air and not in the crammed ballroom. Years ago he might have enjoyed such an event and the little intrigues that might happen through the night, or the occasional tryst. Then he had gone to Arendelle, and now all he felt was the pressure of sidelong stares, whispers, and laughter of gossipers. Even if he had wanted a dance none of the women, or their ever watchful escorts, would have allowed it.

Hans looked over the balcony. He might be able to make the jump and scurry off into the night. He'd change his clothes and find a tavern in town, have a drink, and enjoy himself with actual people. It wouldn't be the first time he did so, and there was something so much better about common people than the majority of the attendees of the ball. At least everything felt real around them, and not the fairy tale most of the people inside were attempting to insert themselves into.

I certainly wouldn't want to end up in a fairy tale. I don't know one with a happy ending. Especially by Mr. Anderson or the Brothers Grimm. Hans told himself. He judged the distance once more, swung one leg over, and promptly heard a woman gasp.

"I hope you weren't thinking of harming yourself." The young woman said. She was pretty, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes that seemed to reflect the moonlight. "I feel like it would ruin what has been a pleasant evening."

"Actually I was aiming to land in the bushes. If I landed it right I might have a few bruises but that's not a small price to pay." Hans replied. "But, since you've caught me…." He swung his leg back onto the balcony and rose to face her. "Hold on, you're Miss Lind, aren't you?"

"I am." The singer replied as though that was the thousandth time she had heard that phrase during the evening.

"Thank you for your performance earlier. I could tell my brother and his family greatly enjoyed it. His wife used to sing for him, you know, until her voice was damaged."

"Your brother …. " The realization hit Lind hard and she immediately curtsied. "Your highness, my apologies."

"There's nothing to apologize for, Miss Lind. You're addressing the black sheep of the family."

"Oh. The one who tried to murder the Snow Queen."

"Yes. That one." Hans laughed and smiled at her. "Though as I understand it, you might be a bit of a Snow Queen yourself Miss Lind. Are you sure you want to be out here with such a villain?"

"Critics will always say what they wish, your highness." Lind said as she approached the railing. She glanced over the side for just a brief moment. "I see we have a mutual friend."

"Not a friend, but he did interview me not long after everything happened." Hans said.

"I see. What irony you both have the same name. Now, how exactly did you plan to make that jump? Certainly you would break something."

"By thinking Happy Thoughts." Hans replied, and Lind broke out into a laugh. At that moment Melody was passing the doorway, saw her uncle, and quickly hurried off to tell her father.

"I suppose you think you can fly then?"

"I'd certainly like to believe a man can fly." Hans said, and with a quick hop he leapt to the top of the railing. He stretched his arms out to balance and leaned forward on one leg.

"My God, what are you trying to do!" She cried, looking back towards the ball. "Get down! Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Not at all, Miss Lind. This is nothing compared to some of what Alex and I did in the Caucasus." He stepped down and shifted into a dueling stance and hopped along the side. "We fought duels on narrow crevices and shimmied along ledges to surprise our enemies in those mountains. That's why I have this medal." He said, gesturing to the crimson decoration of a cross on his uniform. Hans suddenly realized the irony it was for the Order of St. Anna. Then he hopped down from the rail like a cat, much to the singer's relief.

"Well I can only imagine how you dance with feet like those, your highness." Lind teased.

"Are you inviting me for a dance, Miss? Aren't you worried what people might think?"

"That depends if you are worried what your family might think of you dancing with a singer." Both laughed, and they started back into the ballroom.

When they returned, however, the music was no longer playing and there was a general commotion in the ballroom. Hans led Lind through the crowd to find Eric, but he stopped just a few ranks of guests behind where his brother stood. At the entryway stood a figure in a blood red cloak flanked by ten fully grown men. The man in the red cloak wore a golden mask covered in silver lattice and fine rubies. The figure drew in loud, scratching breaths as he extended his right hand gloved in pristine white silk. A skeletal finger was adorned in a golden ring bearing a colossal pearl taken from the sea, and Hans watched as Eric kissed it. He could see Melody standing nearby with her friends. She was frozen in abject terror.

"Who is that?" Lind asked Hans. The Golden mask looked up as though it had heard her voice.

"Hansel." The voice called, and Hans went pale. "Don't hide from your father, boy. Stand here like a man." Hans looked at Lind.

"My father." Hans said, and the crowd seemed to part like a breaking wave as he stepped forward. Ten leering grins fell upon him from his middle brothers, and the golden mask continued to let out raspy breaths. Hans knelt before his father and at Eric's left hand side.

"You are not in your place, wart." King Eric VIII of Denmark and the Southern Isles said. His voice was like the sound of harsh gravel underfoot on a dry, hot day. "Did I say you could leave your exile."

"You did not." Hans said sheepishly.

"Did I say you could live in one of my properties?"

"You did not."

"Did I give you permission to ride my horses and eat my food?" The King began to carefully remove his left glove to expose a pale hand covered in lesions and blisters.

"You did not."

"Father, this was my doing not Hans'." Eric complained, trying to rise to his feet, but a glare from the king sent him back to his knees and looking at the floor. "If anyone should be punished it should be me."

"Why Eric, my son, I would never harm you." The King said as he regarded the Crown Prince. Then he looked back to Has, raised his left hand, and struck him across the face. A second, backhanded strike followed soon after. Blood and pus lay in splotches across Hans' face.

"Welcome home, little Hansel." King Eric hissed. "Let that be the first reminder of your place."

Hans didn't react except for a single small tear that rolled down his cheek. He wanted to lung forward and lock his hands around the man's throat, but deep down he knew he did not have the strength. He had never had the strength to stand up to his father. None of them did.

"I expect to see you both in the morning. We will discuss this further in private." And with those words, the king turned and began to walk away, the only sound the thump of his cane against the marble floors.

Hans rose to his feet. Eric tried to say something, but his words failed him, and Ariel couldn't even look him in the eye. He saw Jenny quietly begin to fade into the crowd, and Melody was too busy being comforted by her friends. He stood alone in the center of that ballroom, more of a leper than his father, and then Hans turned to make his own exit from the affair.

Hans was running a brush along Maria's back when he heard stall doors open.

"I figured I'd find you here." Eric said as Hans acknowledged his brother with a look, but he kept his focus on the patient strokes of the brush. For a long time neither brother could say anything, and the only sound was the scrish of brush against horsehair.

"Do you remember that dog I had when I was a boy, Eric? Or had you left by then?"

"It was that little black mutt, right? With the short hair?"

"Yes that one. His name was Argos."

"A good name for a dog." Eric replied. "He was a ship's mutt, right? What ever happened to it?"

"I misbehaved one day, so father decided to teach me a lesson on what it meant to rule." Hans said before moving to a different section of the Lippizan. "He started to force me to beat Argos with a stick, and if I refused he would beat me. I tried to get him to run away, to go somewhere safe, but Argos kept coming back. And at the same time he ordered the staff Argos was never to be allowed to eat, and if anyone caught me trying to feed him I would be beaten by Caleb or Arn or one of the others. Then one day, father gave me a steak and told me to feed Argos. My punishment was over, he said. So I went to feed Argos, but by that point my dog wasn't there anymore, Eric. He lunged at me when I approached him, and he bit me. Father, of course, had a great laugh at this and then shot Argos right in front of me. He told me, Hansel, take that as your first lesson of ruling. You can beat your people, abuse them, make them suffer, but they will still come back to you because they love you. But the moment you show any weakness, any goodwill, and they will immediately turn against you. That's what killed King Louis in France."

Eric said nothing. He had heard stories about how cruel his father could get, especially to Hans, but he had never heard something so specific.

"I loved that dog, Eric." Hans said. "And sometimes I think that dog was the only thing in the world that has ever loved me."

"You can't seriously say that Hans. I'm sure your mother loved-"

"My mother died giving birth to me, Eric. But you don't remember that because you've been off having your perfect little life with Ariel and Melody and mermaids and all this wonderful magic and adventures across the world. When have you ever had something go wrong for you Eric, and I don't mean like a minor struggle, but when have you ever been forced to watch something you love so much fall apart before your very eyes."

"I never have, Hans, and I pray I never will." Eric responded calmly. He stepped closer to his brother. "I promised you I was here to make things better now."

"Really?" Hans laughed. "How? Because as I remember you shot down all of my ideas."

"And maybe I was wrong, Hans."

The youngest son of King Eric looked up at the eldest.

"I know you hate him for your own reasons, Hans, and I can never come anywhere close to knowing that. I keep using the excuse that he wasn't like this when I was young, it's his sickness, he's still our father, and yet tonight I saw that look of absolute terror in Melody's eyes that no father should ever see in his child. And I hate him for causing that."

Hans smiled.

"It's nice of you to finally join the club."

Arendelle

The Town

Supper

They thought they could keep her locked away with just a few inches of wood and an iron lock. Lily thought it might have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Other humans might have been more cautious with her at this point, but there was something about the Arendellians that was just so trusting and so nice. It would have made her want to vomit if she still had the capacity too. That wasn't to say there weren't wards on the castle, the Trolls had made sure of that on top of the usual consecrations, but they had invited Lily in. It was always the inviting and welcoming that were the easiest for her to enter.

She glided among the shadows, a blur in the corner of the eye, and made her way through the entire castle. As she moved, she whispered in the ears of the guards and staff and anyone else she passed along her way. They were simple things, really. A suggestion of lust between a guard and a maid, prodding a long standing feud between two men, or an encouragement to take just one more drink at the tavern. By the time she was finished she'd have half of Arendelle on edge, and the other half at each other's throats.

Sceadugenga. "Shadow-Walker." That's what they had called her once, and Lily had always liked that particular epithet. She had liked it, that is, until that brute Beowulf murdered her children and drove her away. It happened every time Lily thought she had found some sort of happiness. Men would come with fire and sword and murder her children and everything she had built: and they would call those murderers heroes. But not for much longer. Her time was coming.

As she passed through the city one house in particular caught her attention: one man in the house, that is. General Mattias sat at his dinner table chatting with his wife over stew, and Lily smiled. This one had seen the master's glory. This one had potential.

"The Master smiles upon you." Lily whispered, wrapping unseen arms around Mattias' neck. "It wishes for you to be whole again."

"Halima, do you hear something?" Mattias asked, looking up from his food. "... must be the wind."

"Let me show you what awaits you." She said, rubbing a hand along Mattias' flesh. Damaged nerves regained feeling and singed flesh returned to normal. Mattias shivered in his seat.

"Did we leave a window open?"

"Are you feeling alright, Mattias?" Halima asked.

"Actually … I feel really good!" Mattias said, rising to his feet. He looked down at his hands and flexed them. "What did you put in this soup, Halima? I feel … I feel like a young man again."

"You look like one too!" Halima laughed. "Your grey is going away!" And as she spoke, Lily laid her hands upon Halima. A tired back and weary bones suddenly felt youthful again, and lines from years of stress and worry melted from a face.

"And look at you!" Mattias said exclaimed. "What's causing this?"

"I don't know, but I don't want it to go away." Halima laughed. "Maybe it was some of those herbs you brought back from the forest."

"Maybe it was. Or maybe God's just decided to smile down on us tonight."

"But just remember." Lily smiled as she floated out through a crack in the windows.. "If you get what you want, you're going to have to give up what you have…"

She whisked away into the night again as the husband and wife celebrated their good fortune. There was still far more to do and so little time to do so.

Denmark

Christiansborg Palace

The face Hans looked upon was not the one he remembered. He remembered his father at least having the appearance of a man, but now the seated figure of King Eric VIII of Denmark matched the soul within him.

Syphilis had taken his nose and his hair, and Leprosy had turned his skin into something closer to a reptilian hide. Combined with his cracked lips leaving his teeth constantly exposed, there was something very crocodilian in his appearance and the King's bloodshot stare from sunken eyes did little to dissuade this feeling. He wore white silken robes and a pair of slippers as a servant rubbed some kind of balm on his body. All of this, of course, was topped off by the smell: a pungent mixture of flours, perfumes, and the scent of rotting flesh coalesced in the air and made Hans fight to keep his gag reflex down. His father loved every minute of his discomfort.

"Do I not cut a handsome figure, Hansel?" He had asked. Eric, for his part, remained stoically silent the entire time. The King sat back and wiped some dribble from his face with the back of his hand. "Enjoy your looks now, boy, for this is what awaits you with age."

Hans gave no reply.

"I suppose it is fortuitous that all my sons are here now." The King mused. "I am sure there I will find some use for you Hansel. Today is a glorious day after all."

"What's going on? I've heard nothing." Eric replied, and the king laughed. "I'm sorry. I've had your brothers working this particular piece in secret. It's really a gift for you, Eric. Today is the beginning of a new and glorious age!"

Both Hans and Eric looked at their father in confusion.

"Don't you boys remember what I always told you of that Bastard Bernadotte?"

"That he convinced the Emperor to steal your crown." Both replied simultaneously. It was a story they had heard a thousand-thousand times before. Their father had always claimed he had been one of Bonaparte's Marshals. He claimed Napoleon promised him to rule over all Scandinavia as a reward of his service. Their father had always claimed a lot of things.

"Marmont and Suchet were on my side, as was Poniatowski. We were the outsiders, but the Old Guard wanted one of their own to have it. We all knew deep down Bernadotte was not loyal, but they gave him the crown and instead of having an allied army of Scandinavia at Leipzig there were 25,000 Swedes marching against us!"

"I remember." Eric said quietly.

"Yes, my good Eric Jozef." The King replied. "You have always been so fearless like he was. We were so young then, so full of hope and dreams. I imagine it was much the same in Alexander's day, or Caesar's. A dream of a unity. How foolish we were."

Hans was honestly shocked. He'd alway assumed his father's stories had been just another set of lies created by him to build some sense of grandeur or accomplishment. It wouldn't be the first time he had. But if Eric was at least going along with the story, especially since he would have been old enough to remember…

But that had always been the story of their father, Hans reflected. At any other period in history and the rise of Eric Westergaard would have been a pivotal moment. His father's story was that of a bastard, Swedish orphan of the Pomeranian wars who somehow worked his way into a position of influence within Bonaparte's command. A bastard, Swedish orphan who declared himself king of an independent Faroe islands after the end of Napoleon's reign and had somehow managed to make himself King of Denmark without a single blink of the Great Power's eyes and not a peep from Metternich. Hans was not an expert on the inner workings of geo-politics, that was always Alex's skill, but even he knew it was absurd.

But, then again, their father was also in an era that saw the British, Spanish, and French beaten by colonial rabble, the death of the Ancien Regime, Bonaparte of course, machines, steam engines, and seemingly stranger things with each and every passing day. It was the Weltgeist Alex had tried explaining to him over Vodka in the Caucuses.

His father gestured to one of the guards, and that brought Hans back from his thoughts. Two guards approached carrying a cased flag.

"- but today, boys, marks the culmination of my revenge. Years of meticulous planning and decades of denial have put me in the position where I can make my dream a reality. My dream that I will be passing on to you, Eric." The King said, slowly rising to his feet. The servants who had been massaging his legs crawled away.

"Today, Oscar I of Norway and Sweden will formally abdicate his throne for my claims." He said proudly. Neither brother could believe what they heard. Certainly the King of Norway wouldn't just capitulate on some baseless claims their father had forged. "Today, the Kalmar Union is reborn! And all of Scandinavia will once again be united under the rule of one man!"

The one of the guards removed the casing, and another quickly unfurled the flag. On it lay a crimson cross across a golden field. Eric and Hans both stepped forward, exchanging concerned looks as they went. Suddenly any plans they may have just got much, much more difficult

"All of Scandinavia under one ruler." Eric said as he touched the hem of the flag. "Never in a million lifetimes would I think he could actually pull it off. But how?"

Their father limped down from his throne and laid his hands on his eldest son.

"I did this all for you, my boy. You will lead this new Empire into a new age. The Master has promised me this."

"The Master?" Eric asked.

"Sorry, a slip of the tongue in my old age." The King laughed. "An Empire composed of all Scandinavia working together for a common goal. How marvellous it will be, my son."

Eric glanced at Hans, and his father followed his stare and frowned.

"All of Scandinavia except for one kingdom, that is." The King admitted. "I had hoped little Hansel would have taken care of that problem."

Hans looked at his oldest brother and his father, and he suddenly felt a freezing cold in his fingers he had not felt in three years.

In the blackness beyond eternity, the Black God smiled.