Can You Face What the River Knows?
"This is his plan," Thord realized numbly, running his hand over the image. "This was his plot the whole time. But-but what about the bear? Where does it fit in?"
"I've read the story of Mor'du. An indestructible, cursed bear, I think? Think about it. The full power of the mirror encased in a nearly indestructible form. What could stop it?" Ryder said gravely.
"Something would have to be able to," Thord said.
"The power of another bear, the legend claimed, but if the one within the bear form can also managed to switch at will from bear form to man? Carabis could help Hans master it like that. Then who could even know?" Ryder said.
"Chameleon prince," Thord realized numbly. "Hans could blend in anywhere. No one would even suspect. He could wreak havoc!"
"Controlled havoc," Honeymaren said. "Far as I understand this, with the mirror shattered Carabis has no control of where it goes or what it affects. Maybe he wants that control back again. His faerie side can't stand the disorder. The mirror inside Hans and then Hans inside the bear? It's like a double locked door."
"Shit this is bad," Thord said. "They suspected something like this, I think, but as bad as what's in front of us now? Not a chance."
The image changed, causing them to gasp. They saw Hans in it now, as he ran through the depths of Ahtohallan. They heard the walls around them creak and groan. The focus turned to the shards inside of the young king again, as Hans ran, and the icy walls suddenly cracked into a spiderweb, crawling all the way up. The three gasped, falling back.
"He's the reason Ahtohallan has become disturbed," Honeymaren realized, stepping towards the icy walls again. "The shards within him… The corrupted memories were only the beginning. A warning. We haven't begun to witness what may come of Elsa's husband's presence here! If he stays… Thord, gods know what's going to happen to him? To Ahtohallan or even the Forest! His presence taints it. All of it! He… he has to go… And maybe when he goes, the darkness Carabis brought will go with him."
"We can't exile the queen's husband!" Ryder protested.
"We might not have a choice," Honeymaren replied.
"She might not have a choice," Thord grimly corrected. It would be Elsa, who would have to make a call like that. He shook his head. "It won't be so bad. He'll go to Arendelle, probably, and that's not all that far away. Elsa will follow him, there's no way she'll stay here without him."
"And she'll walk right into Carabis' war path," Honeymaren said.
"She isn't Carabis' focus!" Thord insisted.
"She'll stand in his way of getting the mirror. Of getting Hans," Ryder stated solemnly.
"Dammit," Thord hissed under his breath. He looked into the ice again, where the spiderweb fracture hadn't reached. "Show me Carabis," he said to it. The scene swirled and revealed the faerie banquet right after they had taken their leave of it…
"I will withdraw the darkness from the forest," Carabis said to the faerie rulers. He did so there and then as a show of good faith.
"Of course you will. You had no choice," the elf king replied. "But where will you put it now?"
"Upon Arendelle," Carabis answered defiantly. The Nokk, in horse formed, whinnied with ferocity, rearing up and stomping the water powerfully, causing the river to churn and swirl. The nacken sat by, still smirking its eerie smirk and playing his haunting tune, allowing his subject the authority it had taken over the river.
"Hold off on your war, Jotun. You are very careless in it, you know," the elfin king stated, sitting on his throne then lounging upon it, a leg rested over top of one of the arms as he silently examined Carabis. "You can go about it much wiser than that. But of course, you will not. Nor will I offer you advice in carrying out your whim."
"Where do I go wrong?" Carabis demanded.
"In that you do not realize what you face or where you are facing it," the elven king replied.
"What do I face?" he asked. The elf king looked amused by him.
"You face the daughter of a child of the air," the faerie queen Clarion, spoke up. Carabis looked sharply at her. "The reason her mother was bound so closely to the northwind," the queen continued, smile growing in its amusement. "Come now, you haven't pieced it together? The north wind did so love Queen Iduna. Very, very much. The north wind did so strive to protect her…" Carabis' eyes slowly widened. Clarion's smirk grew. "You captured Vertigo. You beheld an aspect of nature's personified form and trapped it. Did you not reason that other aspects of nature may have personified forms as well? Or that the North Wind may not have been merely an aspect of the nature at all…?" Silence met her prodding. Her smile became a grin somewhat cruel in its nature. "Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining…" she sang softly, and Carabis shuddered.
"What?" Thord breathed, stepping towards the ice more in disbelief.
"Iduna was my daughter," a voice stated from behind, airy and light and almost not there.
Frozen
The trio gasped in fear, spinning around. There before them stood a man none of them had seen before. His hair and robes blew as if a constant wind felt only by him swirled forever around his body. They moved nervously back, their unease palpable. The man disappeared, becoming wind once more and whipping up the ice shards and snowy flakes within the cave, bringing to their vision a memory.
An icy stream of wind surrounded the form of a beautiful woman, though not Iduna, standing on a hill who spoke to it as lightly it tossed her hair and played with her skirts. The scene switched to the same woman strolling along a lake, speaking to the wind and playing with it, pretending that it was sentient and could understand her. Acting as if the wind was an imaginary friend of some sort.
"She was mortal, but descended of gods," the windy voice explained in regards to the unknown woman. "She was so beautiful… I longed too greatly for that which I should not have taken…" he said.
The memory returned and depicted the stream of wind approach the woman from behind and take on the form of a man, who covered the distance between them in human form. The woman turned to see him and seemed surprised at his presence. The two engaged in conversation, the woman unaware of who, or what, she was speaking to, and then the image switched once more to sometime after, the man pulling the woman down to the ground playfully and rolling over her, his intent clear and her willingness apparent. The memory spared them the details of that little interlude, at least.
"A human form?" Honeymaren said in wonder. "Wait… Like the Vertigo Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Hans mentioned?" she said. "A personified aspect of nature?"
"Or a deity of the wind," Thord answered. He looked at where the man had been.
Ryder's eyes slowly widened. "Ullr," he whispered. Thord and Honeymaren looked quickly to him.
"What?" Honeymaren asked.
"Ullr, Honeymaren, Ullr!" Thord exclaimed. "Norse god of winter!"
"Uh, I wasn't serious," Thord said.
"But you were not wrong," the man's airy voice spoke again. They looked over with gasps quickly as he reappeared to them, walking towards them. With every step he took, sharp icicles crept up from the ground beneath his feet, and crystals of ice swirled around him in the wind constantly present there. The memories began to appear in the man's visage now. Thord, Honeymaren, and Ryder cowered back until they were pressed against the icy walls and could go no further, only stare numbly at the entity approaching them. The memories reflected plainly before them.
The wind that had taken on the form of a man now stood at the bedside of the woman he had loved, who held a little child in her arms. A baby girl. The woman died shortly after in silence, leaving the wind—the wind that they assumed was Gale—to hold the infant in his arms and gaze dully down at it, fingers softly brushing the skin. The man faded away once more, and the next image was the little girl more grown now, playing with the wind and laughing in glee.
"Who is…?" Thord began. Wait… He squinted and his eyes slowly widened. "The old queen," he realized in shock.
"The daughter of the North Wind," the ethereal man declared. "The Greeks knew me as Boreas. Boreas who was the god of the cold north wind… And the bringer of winter." Their lips slowly parted as they began to piece it together. "The Norse knew me as Ullr. The Germans used the epithet Wulpuz," 'Gale' declared. "Yet others used the title Old Man Winter. Or the title Father Winter…"
"Holy shit… we were right," Thord realized numbly, recalling his speculation with Raynold what seemed like forever ago at this point, but really wasn't that long ago. And more accurately, they had been right in part.
"Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining…" the deity sang eerily.
"Born of cold and winter air. Born of you," Honeymaren said numbly. "Just second generation."
"Hmm…" the deity before them mused. "It was a complicated matter," he answered presently.
"Demigods can be born both mortal and immortal," Thord groaned in realization, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Iduna was mortal. Maybe not entirely without powers, she probably just chose never to use them if she had them at all, but even if she didn't possess abilities like Elsa's in the physical sense, she had power of another sort. Her ties to Ahtohallan. Her very nature and lineage. It was why her voice could call her daughter to her even long after she was 'gone', it was why her presence was so palpable here when Elsa found her. It was why she seemed to respond to her daughter in real time, because even though she was 'gone' forever from her children's lives, she was never truly gone..."
"She did not choose to follow the path I desired her to walk. She left the forest. She fell in love with a mortal man. She chose a mortal life and forsook all she was, but it was not as if what she was stopped existing," he said.
"It manifested in Elsa later on," Thord realized in awe.
"In part. Much of what Elsa possessed was inherited from me and from my eldest child," Gale stated.
"Eldest child? Wait… The Ice Maiden," Thord said, eyes widening slowly.
"The lady with powers almost interchangeable with Elsa's," Ryder said with a groan.
"They were the Elsa and Anna before Elsa and Anna," Thord realized in disbelief.
The North wind, Boreas, whatever the heck they were supposed to call him now, waved his hand gently, calling forth another memory of his two daughters at play, one much older than the other. Iduna looked upset, a little distressed… "She felt inferior. Because she was born 'mortal' and her sister was not, she believed she was loved less. That she was a spare and little else. I desired to reassure her she was loved every bit as dearly. She was to have the place of the fifth entity, 'spirit' as you called them, guarding this forest. She was to make Ahtohallan her home and reside there as its mistress. But the tragedy that befell her people was too great for her to weather, and so she fled the forest, escaped it with the mortal boy that would become her husband, and chose a life with him for herself instead of the inheritance I desired to give her… So I gave it instead to her firstborn child, though Iduna was not aware at first that her daughter's powers had come from me. Nor did I volunteer such information, leaving it instead to be discovered by her."
"That's what the fae were implying to Carabis. That he faces the daughter of a demigoddess," Honeymaren said. "And when the fairy queen told him that the wind spirit may not be just a mere aspect of nature at all, she hinted at Ullr. She hinted at the North wind being something far more than just the wind, and far more powerful than what Carabis could ever hope to face."
"Did Carabis piece it together? Did he back off?" Ryder worriedly asked.
"In part," 'Gale' answered. "He cowered, for the fae and the Jotun cannot ultimately stand against gods, except the choice few that are gods themselves. Carabis is not one of those. He cowered and retreated from their midst. Now he acts in a panic. Acts to weaken Arendelle and its queen as much as he can not knowing that it is not Elsa's powers he needs to fear so much as he needs to fear awakening my wrath. But it is not my fight. If I must, I will step in for the sake of my granddaughter, but this is her and her husband's war to wage. They are capable of standing to it, though they may not think they are."
"Is her husband capable of weathering the mirror?" Thord asked gravely.
"Hmm… That is not for me to answer," Gale answered.
"Because you don't know!" Thord said, trying to bait him into getting angry and proving that he did in fact know.
"It is not for me to answer," Gale simply repeated. "Or to intervene in." Was that a hint, Thord suspiciously wondered? If it was, it didn't sound like a promising one…
"What is Carabis plotting?" Honeymaren asked.
"He draws together his army, intending to march through the mountains and descend upon the kingdom and destroy it or take utter possession. He acts foolishly in this. As the elf king said," the deity replied.
"How so?" Ryder asked.
"Because it's winter. Elsa is a new mother in her absolute element. Her and the Ice Maiden both. Wrapped in their father or grandfather's embrace, which is winter, and protected by it. Invigorated in it. Elsa's all consuming instinct to protect her child and her family and her land will cause her to be able to end their march before it even begins, with the Ice Maiden's help. Carabis is acting too careless, too rash. He could pull it off if he planned it out, but he hasn't," Thord said. "All around him are resources in abundance that are at Elsa's disposal. Weapons to use against him to stop him without having to sacrifice a single soldier. Carabis' march is doomed to failure, as long as Elsa acts fast. It won't be the end of it, from what I've heard of the thing it'll try again and next time won't be so careless, but for a while things will be quiet."
"He's panicking. He knows the dangerous game he's playing in facing the granddaughter of a deity," Honeymaren said. "Maybe, just maybe, this is the start of his ultimate downfall… The fae were being entirely too accommodating to him, I think. They do nothing without price."
Thord turned to the deity among them again. "What about Hans?" he asked. "The shards within him, the way Ahtohallan is reacting to them… What does it mean? What will happen to this place or to him?"
"You saw Carabis' plan," the north wind replied.
"Elsa will never let him take her husband," Honeymaren answered quickly.
"He has been taken. Long before my granddaughter knew him," Gale, Ullr, stated. "Carabis chose Hans as his vassal. The new casing for his wicked mirror. That corrupted, wicked mirror walks among us as we speak. He is the reason Ahtohallan has become disturbed, as you reasoned. The calamity that the Fair Folk and the Jotun fear befalling this place has not yet fully begun to be unfolded. The corrupted memories are only a warning. Just the start. The longer King Hans is here, the worse it will become. The worse it may become regardless. Especially for him… Ahtohallan wants to destroy him. Him and anyone who it feels has been 'corrupted' by him. By the shards. Just as certain creatures and aspects of nature self-repair and cut off or detach what is dead, injured, trapped, or a detriment to them, so Ahtohallan works to push the corrupted pieces stolen from its depths away from itself and replace them with something new and pure. The mirror is a dead or mangled limb to be shed and restored. I marvel that the river has not destroyed the young man already. The longer he remains, the more likely Ahtohallan is to start viewing the Enchanted Forest, even the Northuldra themselves, as corrupted by that mirror. It and all mortals that reside in it will be the casualties, if Hans stays any longer than he already has. Remove the dying, gangrenous appendage from the living, whole body, and the infection will stop spreading. All will be well. Let it stay, the damage done by it may be too great to reverse, and all will be lost for the Enchanted Forest and the Northuldra."
"Calamity is prevented only if Hans is removed," Ryder gloomily said, looking down. Man that sucked… Especially for Elsa.
"And never reattached," the deity added. "Attach infected, dying skin or limbs to an otherwise recovered body, and the infection will return again. Then either that infection alone will be killed off by the body, or it will spread until the limb must be removed again and replaced properly."
"Hans is the dying, gangrenous limb… Ahtohallan is the healthy body," Thord said, looking down. He looked back up. "Is he dying?" he asked, almost afraid to know the answer.
The deity was silent. "Yes," he finally replied. "But even the dying can yet recover form their ailments. The worse it becomes, the less likely it is, but it remains possible until the last breaths depart his body."
"If Carabis succeeds and transforms Hans into the mirror. The full mirror…" Thord began.
"Pray it does not happen… But if per chance it should, well… until he should die proper, there will yet be a chance he makes it through," Ullr repeated, emphasizing the previous point he had made.
"But right now he is dying," Thord repeated, sounding strained. And the Arendellian king didn't even know it, a disturbed part of him noted all too clearly.
"He has been dying for years and years," Ullr confirmed, becoming his wind form again and vanishing. "Take heart that Elsa has already stopped him from taking a turn for the worse…"
Frozen
Thord, Honeymaren, and Ryder stayed put, silenced by all they had been told. "What do we do?" Honeymaren finally asked.
"We tell the others everything we learned," Thord answered.
"Thord, maybe… maybe we leave out the dying Hans part? At least for now?" Ryder uncertainly said. "At least until Elsa deals with Carabis' march on Arendelle. So she won't be distracted thinking about that while trying to subdue and army with her apparent aunt."
"Maybe," Thord replied. They'd see where the conversation led, he guessed. "We need to go. The sooner we let them know what's happening with Arendelle, the better."
"And our people need to know we can go home," Honeymaren said, a faint smile dancing across her pretty lips. It faded. "The danger is gone from here now… Except for one part of it…"
"So we avoid the whole 'hey, your husband's dying' part and just focus on the whole 'hey, your husband's the cause of all the misery befalling this forest and if he doesn't leave, he'll cause Ahtohallan and the mirror to destroy us all' thing," Ryder said. Thord grimaced. Why had Ryder had to put it like that, he inwardly groaned? Gods this was going to be hell…
Frozen
The others listened in mortification as Thord, Honeymaren, and Ryder explained to them everything they had learned and been told about the mirror. The trio… kind of avoided the whole lineage matter, for now. And the whole 'Hans is dying' part. They'd deal with that when and if it came up. Elsa looked physically ill at the revelations. Anna seemed green. Kristoff looked stunned. The Northuldra seemed uncertain what to think or how to react to this news or to the foreign prince among them. Jurgen was white as a sheet, hands covering his mouth and stress levels visible. Hans was the only one who couldn't be read, expression and posture stiff and absolutely stoic as he digested the information.
"I knew he wanted me to become the mirror… I didn't think he meant literally," Hans finally and numbly said. Jurgen gagged this time. The mental imagery of his little brother's insides encased and trapped in an icy mirror, a thin layer of skin all that hid the truth from the casual observer, sickened him.
"It was terrifying. Your heart became solid ice, and there was nothing beating inside you anymore," Thord said in a shaky, terrified voice. "Your blood stopped running, your body stopped functioning, and all that was left was a mockery and simulation of a man. Frozen like an ice statue on the inside, but still mobile and thinking and functioning. You became the mirror. A living mirror. The mirror you are now? That's only a fraction of what you'll become if Carabis succeeds."
"I will never let him take my husband," Elsa hollowly and deeply said, voice quaking with anger and fear, fists clenched tightly at her sides and shaking.
"He already has, Elsa," Honeymaren solemnly stated, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder. "The shards are already inside of him. The transformation has already begun."
"They feel like they're moving inside of me. Pulled and pushed. Like they're trying to rip from my body, or like someone else is attempting to drag them out," Hans said.
"If this is what needs to happen, if Hans must leave, then he and I will leave," Elsa said, taking his hand firmly as she gazed at him. He wouldn't meet her eyes. She turned to the Northuldra. "You'll be safe then, when we're gone. He and I will be alright."
Anna approached her sister with Olaf. Sven and Kristoff exchanged looks, frowned, then followed her. "We're sticking together this time, Elsa. I'm serious. No tricks, no lies. Together," she said, taking her sister's free hand firmly.
"Is it worth it to point out the only one who needs to go is me?" Hans asked.
"I won't leave you," Elsa firmly said.
"Not even for the baby's sake?" Hans seriously questioned.
"For the baby's sake, I'll do anything. But he was born of you and me. Of you. And whether Ahtohallan sees that as being 'corrupted' or not isn't something I'm inclined to find out," she said.
Hans looked jolted at that statement, the thought of it clearly not having even crossed his mind until then. There was the appearance of terror briefly in his features before he turned it into determination, looking back at the tent where their infant slept. "Get the baby. We're going. Now. And whoever intends to follow can follow at their own pace." Elsa smirked a bit at the protective and agitated yet annoyed tone her husband had adopted, then quickly hurried to the tent to collect their child, wrapping him up in his frozen fire blanket and cuddling him near before returning to her family.
"You know, I could just kill him now and get it all over with fast," Xe remarked, whetting his blade.
"Draw your sword on my brother, I'll skin you alive," Jurgen threatened evenly, giving his rival a dark look.
"He wouldn't be wrong to do it," Hans somewhat bitterly replied, shaking his head. Xe gestured at Hans in a 'see?' sort of manner. Jurgen sighed, rolling his eyes. His threat stood. Elsa returned to his side.
"Kay and I will go with them. You and Raynold stay here with the Northuldra," Bedivere said to Lamiel.
"Agreed," Lamiel replied. "Be safe."
"Hold everything!" Raynold said, stopping them all. "We retreated here with the intention of figuring out a battle plan for how to get back Arendelle. Now we know Carabis' plan, but our focus has only been on Hans and his plight since Thord, Honeymaren, and Ryder returned with all this information. The jotun-fae hybrid is being careless. He can be easily stopped but we have to act now."
"He's right," Hans said, wincing a bit at the reality check. He looked seriously at Elsa. "Let me go to Arendelle ahead of you. I'll join my brother in defending it from whatever remnants of that army manage to escape you. Jurgen can come along with me, and we'll drag Xe with us whether he likes it or not because damned if he's getting one minute of opportunity to grab the greatest treasure of Arendelle for his Jotun boss. You take care of the bulk of the army, we'll take care of what's left of it when it reaches the kingdom."
"And the baby?" Elsa challenged. "We still don't know if Ahtohallan will consider him corrupted or not."
"Thus far it hasn't. If that changes, hand him to Anna—she's still nursing Gerda, so she can be a wet nurse for her nephew as well—and get her to ride the Nokk away from here to join us in Arendelle. Kristoff can follow her with baby Gerda on Sven. This is the safest plan for everyone," Hans said. "I'm literally just down the river, Elsa. It'll be fine." She was quiet, looking troubled. "You know this needs to happen," he said seriously to her.
"Go," she finally relented, closing her eyes.
He let out a breath, bowing his head, and nodded. "I'll see you soon," he promised. He turned to leave without a word more. Jurgen followed quietly with his crew. The four knights exchanged looks, silently communicating, then followed Hans and co as well. The Northuldra would be fine now. Carabis had gone, and at present the only danger left to them was departing their company within the hour. The Enchanted Forest would be alright. Arendelle was where they would be needed most at this point, they knew, and so it was to Arendelle they would go.
Xe, surprisingly, tagged along with his own crew without much for protest, looking more annoyed and inconvenienced than anything. "Why are you sticking with us?" Jurgen asked him, frowning.
"Because only an idiot stays in league with Fair Folk and Jotun," Xe replied. "But make no mistake, I'm not sticking with you. I have every intention of washing my hands of this whole mess and sailing away, leaving you to deal with it yourself. I have plunder to relish in."
"You return to that cave, you'll be killed with all your men who stayed behind," Hans said. "They kidnapped a good deal of Arendellian citizens. One was Elsa's lady's maid who has a very powerful, very influential, very deadly family that won't take kindly to learning their loved one became a pirate's whore. They'll destroy everyone they find in that cavern, mark me well. You'll be lucky if they don't hunt you down too." Xe was quiet, though the tightening of his jaw told them he was uneasy now. They spoke no further on the matter. Xe's decisions were his own from that point on. As they left the cave, Hans paused. Out in the sea he saw the Nokk standing tall and proud, glaring across at them with eyes cold and unsettling. Almost dead. Those eyes were upon him, he knew. He felt it… Had it too determined he was the danger to this place? Did it believe he was a danger to Elsa? Was he? Perhaps that was the more jarring and unsettling question of all… If his presence was poison to Ahtohallan and the Enchanted Forest, was it poison as well to she who was linked so strongly to them…?
She was so much more than he was…
She was pure and he was tainted and deadly and… and poisonous… The Nokk, the kelpie, snorted as if it had read his thoughts and was agreeing with them, condemning him and reminding him of his place. Reminding him not to forget what he really was in the end even despite his attempts to fight it. Then it turned and trotted away before working its way into a gallop and disappearing into the sea beneath the waves…
Frozen
Elsa slept fitfully that night, her peace disturbed constantly by dreams or snippets of dreams. Memories too, or scenes she couldn't make sense of but knew somehow were important. "You are so far beyond him," a deep male voice said. Her eyes opened in her dream. She knew it was a dream, because she was sitting beside a brook in the dream. Though… it felt real…
He lures.
It's what he does.
Sometimes you don't even realize…
She registered then, in a daze, that she was staring at a man. Not just any man. The nokk in his human form… She stared at him silently, unable to find words. She looked down at herself, covered in her thin, transparent nightgown of crystals. She felt suddenly very, very exposed and crossed her arms over her chest, gripping her shoulders and staring at him again, feeling suddenly numb. Maybe even a little frightened. His eyes were on her face, though. Of course they would be. It was not like mortal kind.
"Where is my baby?" she asked.
"I would not harm your baby," he answered.
"Where is my husband?" she asked.
A look of annoyance and a measure of anger and frustration flashed in its expression, and a cold sense she'd said the wrong thing washed over her. "Alive," it finally chose to answer.
Elsa was quiet. "For now," she finished for him, sensing the unspoken words. With a just a whisper from her, or if he were in a particularly cruel mood a wrong word, he would ensure her love didn't stay that way. "Where were you?" she whispered to it finally.
"A strange face in the palace or by the sea, a suitor rejected or discouraged from his pursuit… I was there," he said. "In the rain, in the waters, I was there. But your heart had already set itself upon him. Long before you even realized it had," he answered. "I was… late… Too late." She was quiet, bowing her head low and sniffing a bit. Of fear or guilt was hard to tell. "You are so far beyond him…" he repeated.
"You want to think so," she answered.
"You do not know who you are…" he murmured. "But you will. Soon enough." She looked up at him. He reached out, cupping her cheek. Her breathing became shallow, shuddering. She wanted to lean into the hand or towards him, but she knew that was not wholly of her own accord so fought the urge. "Descendant of gods, daughter of a child of the air," he murmured. A shaking breath drawn in as she tried but failed to puzzle out his meaning.
"What?" she asked in a whisper. His hand trailed down her face and the side of her neck before sliding down her collarbone towards the space between her breasts. She held her arms tighter against herself. "Stop," she commanded. He did so, but didn't withdraw his hand. At least he'd stopped…
He looked up at her again. "You do not know whose child your mother was," he stated. Elsa was quiet, swallowing a bit nervously and feeling tears stinging her eyes unbidden for reasons she didn't understand. "She was a child of the air. A child of the god of the cold north wind," he said, voice almost a menacing growl. Elsa caught her breath, entire body tensing. It was a dream, she told herself again, but she knew she was only deluding herself at this point. She became aware of cold water running around her ankles and glanced down. For how long had her feet been in the river water? She looked up at him again, shaking her head in denial and confusion.
"The Ice Maiden is the daughter of the air," she said numbly.
"And so was your mother," he stated. "Her half-sister…"
Elsa let out the breath of air, sharp but controlled. "No," she said, shaking her head in denial.
"Believe me or don't. The truth is what it is. Daughter of a demigoddess… You are so far beyond him…" the creature said, voice becoming menacing. "He does not deserve you… Would he love you still, if he knew? Would he stay?"
"Yes," she immediately answered. She hated how uncertain she was.
"Your lies… insult me," he darkly, menacingly growled. Nearly snarled. His grip on her arm that she just realized he held tightened, cold fingers digging into her skin. She let out a fearful breath.
It drowns all those whose hearts it senses are full of lies.
She heard eerie, soft singing from the trees around them.
The Fair Folk dance, the Fair Folk Sing, the Fair Folk step in the magic ring;
Tread not here 'til the light of day or the Fair Folk steal your soul away…
She felt her tears slipping from her eyes now as she bit her lower lip, trying hard not to cry. There was little for mercy or pity in his unwavering gaze.
He was so close yet so far from human… Their love did not work in the same way as mortal love did…
The wind began to blow around her, comforting her ever so slightly. The nokk's gaze tore from her briefly, at last, and she sensed unease wash through him for a moment as the subtle warning before the wind died again and he recovered himself, turning those faerie eyes on her. "I don't know," she answered, voice breaking a little. "I hope he would." Yet if what it said was true…
The North Wind a god. The North Wind her grandfather. The Ice Maiden her aunt… It was so much to take in.
"But I don't know," she finished, voice weak and coming out squeakier than she wanted it to.
"You are so far beyond him… But not beyond me," the kelpie stated. She realized, now, she was in the water, his arm around her back keeping her head and neck afloat while the rest of her he held submerged beneath it.
His love… So dark, but somehow truer, deeper, sincerer, than anything she had ever experienced before, say for her husband's love. The familial love of her sister she didn't count, little could defeat that sort of love, but as far as this sort of love went? She had felt nothing remotely similar to it before, say for from Hans. "I am his and he is mine," she said, willing her tone to become firmer. The icy water pricked at her throat. She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the shock of it, then opened them again to stare up at him. "Stop," she commanded again. He didn't move, staring quietly down at her as he examined her, read her, stared through her heart and soul and it was so, so unsettling, but she had never experienced anything that felt so intimate before… Not necessarily intimate in the sense of physical intimacy, but after another fashion… It terrified her, chilled her through to the bone, to realize she had never experienced something like this even with her husband… That wasn't to say it was intimate in the 'I love you' sort of sense, it was just… she didn't know.
"I know," he finally admitted, pulling her up. She was all too relieved when she felt her feet touch the riverbed below. "I know," he repeated again, sounding exhausted.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Do not be for long," he darkly answered. He looked up at her. "Your husband is already dead." She stiffened in his arms, grief and denial and betrayal and unease all together filling her expression. "He died the day those shards pierced into his eyes and his heart," the kelpie stated. "He is only dying… slower, than most would. Much, much slower… When he has passed away, when the mirror has consumed and finished him finally, then you will be mine… If I am fortunate, you will be mine before. If he threatens to do you harm, if I sense he is a danger to you, if I sense his… corruption reaching out for you… Your tears will not save his life then, and I will drown him before your very eyes."
"How can you think I would ever be with you then?" she asked.
"Because you will have no choice," he growled darkly, cupping her cheek with his hand.
"That isn't love," she said.
"Perhaps not in the sense mortals know it," he answered. "It does mean something so different to your ilk than mine."
"It isn't love," she insisted.
"Your having no choice will not necessarily be because of me, my queenly love. My mistress fair," he whispered against her forehead, lips icy against her skin. Icier than she had thought they could be. Icier than anything she had ever known. She almost felt as if she was freezing all over again…
When next she awakened with a gasp, she found herself in her bed… Her nightgown was still damp…