Battle || Elsa
The clatter of metal jolted Elsa awake. She leapt to her feet, tripping over blankets and landing right back on the ground. She scrambled to get free, even slashing cloth with magic to escape. Around her, friends fight with mercenaries, sword against sword. They're about evenly matched without her, meaning that with her, the mercenaries stood no chance.
Unless Hans switched sides.
He must have freed himself during the fighting. He still had metal cuffed around his wrists, but all other bindings were gone, and he held an enemy sword. It looked awkward, as the cuffs prevented his usual hand movements, but awkward didn't mean unfunctional.
From across the clearing, their eyes met. Elsa waited for him to open his mouth and make a demand, one that any unsuspecting fighter would have to obey. He said nothing. Hans turned to the nearest fight, Gwen against a stranger, and joined in without magic.
Elsa leapt into the battle nearest to her, where Elyan dueled with two of their enemies alone. For unknown reasons, Hans hadn't turned against them, and she didn't have the time to sit and contemplate her options. She gathered ice into her hands, forming it into a sword as fierce as any metal blade, and dived at an enemy. Keeping them distracted with the minimum of swordplay, she circled them with snow and ice until they had no opportunities to turn the tide in their favor. In minutes, the mercenaries lost the fight. One dead, others injured, but not enough they couldn't run, and one trapped by ice. Elsa thawed the surrounding shell of ice, his joints slowly lurching into action when he realized he could try to make a run for it.
As the last soldier fled through the trees, Elsa returned her gaze to Hans. He still held a sword in his chained hands, and still hadn't said anything to gain freedom or turn the group against each other.
"What are you planning?" Elsa asked.
Hans glanced behind him as if Elsa could have been asking anyone else.
He shrugged.
The prince of speaking with a silver tongue held his silence, even without force. It could only mean one thing: either he couldn't speak, or he knew something they didn't. Goose bumps raised on her arms, and Elsa briefly returned her mind to drawing in warmth. It took more intentional focus than it did to bring in the cold, but she succeeded. In seconds, a small fireball rested in her palm. She raised it threateningly, hoping Hans had missed the look of surprise on her face when she actually succeeded.
"Tell us what you know about what we're walking into. You haven't even tried to escape or use magic. State your reasons. Now."
Hans hesitated, but after another look at Elsa's fireball, Merlin's magic-ready stance, and four swords pointed in his direction, and he reconsidered keeping his silence.
"I might need your help."
Gwaine snickered. "Like we'd ever give you anything resembling help."
"You might not have a choice. I think we may share an enemy." When they didn't lower their weapons, Hans kept talking. "Morgause and I didn't find each other by chance. We worked together under the suggestion of a sorceress by the name of Hero. When we lost, we expected her to be angry, but didn't even check in with us for months, and that made me suspect she never intended for us to win. We were a test, a trial run, or maybe a distraction for whatever she really wants."
"And this 'Hero,' she's powerful?"
"Very. If my voice simply makes me more persuasive, her magic makes her no less than a chess master, with us as her pieces. Neither Morgause nor I ever had the strength to directly oppose her."
"That still doesn't explain why you haven't been trying to use magic. Or why you want to go back to Arendelle in the first place."
"I think she might track my presence using some kind of remnant I leave when I use magic. Not using my magic is the best strategy I've come up with to prevent her from following me. And I don't want to be followed. Whatever power I want, you have to believe that I never want to be controlled by Hero again. I'm starting over. Arendelle isn't my ultimate destination, the Southern Isles are, assuming my sister really is there."
Elsa detected nothing insincere in his words, and the tug of magic his words often had never appeared. After retrieving the sword from their prisoner, she consulted with the rest of the group.
"What do you think? Can we trust what he says?"
Gwaine and Elyan shook their heads without hesitation. "We should consider what he says as we go forward, but he could still be lying."
Gwen and Leon shared a look of disagreement.
"I think he's telling the truth," Leon said. "We never questioned how Hans and Morgause found each other, but it seems unlikely they'd meet up by chance."
Only Merlin hadn't made any sort of input, and everyone waited for him to speak.
"It might be the truth, but it's not the whole truth. I doubt he knows the whole truth if so much of it depends on Hero. What's she after? Why haven't there been any signs of her until the spell over Arendelle? Why Arendelle, and is she only after Arendelle or will she keep expanding her power?"
They didn't discuss whether to redo the binds around Hans, but no one moved to do it. They agreed silently to leave him in only the cuffs for the time being. His statement brought some clarity to their mission, but it also offered more questions they couldn't answer.
They cleared their camp of supplies, each packing their things back onto horses. Elsa stroked her horse's neck, smiling when she leaned into her hand instead of away. She felt the warmth more distinctly now that she could harness it. All of them, horses, people, the rabbit in the bushes. They all dispelled heat, and if she skimmed a bit from the surrounding air, she could bring it inside herself. The space usually inhabited by cold became normal.
She hadn't dared to hope too much at first, not until Merlin made a simple comment when she'd touched his arm.
I thought you were Gwen for a second there. Your hands are warm for once.
They still had days until they reached Arendelle. Merlin and Elsa's magic combined could only speed them up so much by making sure their path ahead was clear of any storms or physical obstacles. One thing they hadn't accounted for was magic that wasn't their own. It wasn't Hans' either, or even the magic of another known enemy.
Elsa nudged her horse to the front of their group, but it refused, backing away when the other horses reared in fright. Sliding out of the saddle, Elsa went on foot. The others were already following her lead.
Two snarling cat-like beasts paced the space ahead of them, neither making a move to attack nor back away. Their feline bodies joined smoothly with feathered wings, and when one turned to cross the path again, its tail darted towards them, hissing from its scaled snake head.
"Do you think we could just go around?" Gwaine asked slowly.
Days. That's how long their journey had already taken, and how long still remained until it ended. They were taking the most direct route. Nothing should redirect that.
"No," Elsa said. "There's no telling how far we'd have to go around and how much it would slow us down. There's no going around unless we have to."
She took two steps towards the beasts, and one growled, turning directly towards her. The cat's mane looked even bigger with its face staring right at her.
"When would you consider this a 'have to' situation?" If Gwaine truly doubted her decision to fight, he didn't show it in his actions. Just behind her, she heard him draw his sword and prepare to fight.
Elsa charged in on her own, hoping there wouldn't be any casualties, or even injuries. She let go of the heat she'd pulled in earlier, letting the cold take over again, spilling out from her hands and from her mind, icicles as sharp as arrows flying at the creatures who may have never even experienced snow before.
They two retreated a few feet, roaring when the ice hit their skin and drew blood. One retreated farther, going on the offensive, while the other, the one with the large mane, took a flying leap at Elsa, claws aiming for her chest. Gwaine and Elyan jumped in to help, one pushing Elsa out of the way, and the other going after the snake tail Elsa had almost forgotten about. In the background, Elsa could see the other three going after the second monster.
Realizing they had to do more to defeat their human opponents, the felines brought out their own source of magic. Fire blazed from the creature's mouth, Elyan barely getting out of the way in time, and Elsa only safe behind a barrier of ice she created with not a second to lose. Fire versus ice. That was a fight ice could win. That was her strength, especially now understanding how fire magic worked.
By the time Elsa and her team had taken down the first (facing several more blasts of fire and attacking with swords and magic), Merlin's group had successfully pushed back the other into a full retreat. That's when they saw the third.
It was only about a quarter the size of the first two, mewing instead of roaring, and with wings too small to be functional. The remaining adult grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, growling as she backed away.
No one moved to follow them when they turned and ran.
"They were just defending their family," Gwen said.
"Should've known better than to build a home so close to a well-traveled path," Hans retorted. He still sat on the back of a horse, willing to sit out the fight and watch instead of fight.
Or instead of running away.
The rest of them gathered their horses in silence and resumed the journey almost as if nothing had happened, at least until they saw the dog. Large with black, shaggy fur, it watched them from the top of a hill before disappearing as soon as they reached the crest. Elsa hoped she was the only one who felt the sinking feeling of dread as soon as it had appeared.
"Probably just a stray," Merlin said, brushing off the looks of concern.
"That was no stray," Hans said darkly. "Hero's onto us. That was her dog, I know it was."
"Like I said, probably just a stray. How could it be Hero's dog, out here with no tracking spell?"
"No. It was Hero's. You felt it too, didn't you?"
"The dog is magical?"
"I doubt she'd keep a pet around just for company. She keeps it for the extra power it gives her."
They all looked at the horizon again. The dog hadn't returned, but the same feeling of dread had.
"Do you think she can track any magic?" Elsa asked. "Mine or Merlin's as well?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's not magic she's using to track me."
They considered, and moments later Hans' face fell, clearly realizing what that implied. If Hero was tracking Hans by unknown methods, why not leave Hans behind? If she tracked magic only, though, that meant she was following her or Merlin, and keeping Hans could be to their advantage.
Merlin pulled out his handheld mirror.
"Maybe we should consult with the others before deciding on this."