AN: Hi everyone!
This story is set at the beginning of Frozen and after the first HTTYD, and eventually will lead to HTTYD 2 and perhaps even Frozen 2.
Any reviews are more then welcome and could help me greatly as, unfortunately, English is not my first language, and mistakes could be made.
One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain, that death's got the final word, it's laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory, feels something smiling through it. – The Thin Red Line
Chapter 1 – Prologue
She painfully dragged her feet over the heavy snow that had fallen in the last few days. She kept darting her head left and right, watching, observing. She stopped moving once she failed to see anything in the trees surrounding her. She remained silent, trying to hear, rather than see, any possible threats approaching her.
She focused on her breathing, trying to keep it steady and regular by taking long breaths. One hand was raised high in front of her, ready to strike, the other one holding a precious little bundle concealed by clothes, and close to her heart.
In the ground, before her, several shadows passed all at once. Nothing she had ever seen was that fast. Instinctively she looked up, there was a small opening amongst the treetops where, with wide eyes, she tried to scan the seemingly serene blue skies over her. There weren't many clouds that could provide concealment up there, yet, the tall pine trees still covered anything that wasn't precisely over her head.
She kept looking for the source of the shadows in the sky, the light of the sun eating away the pupils, leaving more room for her deep blue iris to glow, yet she couldn't see anything.
Frustrated, she looked back down, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling crawling in her heart. She held the bundle she'd been carrying closer to her chest, and wrinkled her nose in determination. She suddenly heard a deep thud and the unmistakable sound of broken twigs. Whatever it was, it wasn't that far. She'd stopped for too long, she had to keep moving.
The platinum blonde girl found the strength to move forward and without looking back she started running, although the snow, ironically, slowing her down. She could feel it was starting to take its toll on her. She briefly thought about thawing it, but knew she couldn't.
She kept running, panting.
Whatever it was behind her, she did not know. She could hear branches being torn apart, closing in on her. It was quickly catching up to her, far too quickly. As the noise grew in volume, and heavy footsteps shook the ground, she realized that whatever was hunting her was right behind her, and it had unleashed itself with a mighty roar. running was pointless. She shut her eyes tight, not willing to give up yet.
As she hastily turned around she was faced with shadows, and flames.
Tall before her stood a terrifying creature, the like of which, she had never seen before, its body completely engulfed in flames, his fangs stretched out trying to grasp her. She opened her eyes wide, in terror, her once blue iris completely engulfed in the inferno standing before her, reflecting the very fire she was facing.
The wretched creature directed a stream of fire towards her, the reflection of the flames growing in size in her own blue eyes. Instinctively she raised her left free hand up, summoning with all her might all the ice she could master, forming a shield between her and the blazing inferno.
The sound of the impact between ice and flames was deafening, she could see her own light blue ice almost turning red from the flames on the other side of it, and although it started to crack in the middle, it stood strong, nonetheless.
She didn't wait any longer and used this tiny advantage to put some distance between her and this devilry. She didn't look back, not even when a second shadow revealed itself on her left with a loud thud that shook the very ground, she briefly saw a flash of blue and yellow from the corner of her eyes. She heard the sound of ice shattering behind her, but didn't dare to look back.
She leaned on a tree for a few seconds, a hand lingering on her side, wheezing. She looked up before realizing she was heading straight towards a rock wall formation, too steep to climb, even if she didn't have…
She looked down at the thing she was protecting most, concealed in her arm. She had no choice. She stood short of the stone wall and decided to follow it. That's when a whistling sound was heard, and a sudden searing pain went through her leg. She screamed in agony and looked down in horror, as she saw some sort of blue spike protruding from her leg, causing her to bleed profusely. Her white dress was soon stained in her own blood.
She darted a look behind her, and saw a pair of creatures stopping a dozen meters short of her. One was bright orange, a scaly body, and twisted horns on the head. The other seemed to be smaller, brighter in colors, yet by no means, less dangerous. Fighting the pain she raised her left hand in anger, and fired a powerful blast of ice at the larger beast, striking it head on, as it fell frozen in an eerily shriek. For a moment, she thought to have seen almost a surprised reaction from the other creature, but didn't pay any mind to it.
She used the momentum to take a couple of steps back, limping her way towards an opening in the stone wall as her hand gripped over the spike embedded in her leg. She lingered over the entrance as she realized it had no way out; it was a dead end. She tried to dart past the crevice when a winged monster landed right in front of her, cutting her way out. This one was completely green, and she realized, horrified, that this one had two heads as well. She couldn't go forward, nor she could go back. Cornered and surrounded, she went for the crevice.
It was larger than what she had thought, almost twenty meters wide, and surrounded by walls on all the sides. She limped her way towards the further back of the pit, hoping to use its walls as cover, out of better options, when she suddenly saw one, two, three, even more, shadows darting at inhuman speed across the ground and subsequently heard several thuds all behind her.
Her heart was now racing, she had lost any control over her breathing and was starting to wheeze heavily, the wound in her leg was pulsing, the adrenaline almost wearing out. In a moment of lucidity she realized to be in a sort of horseshoe shaped terrain, and the only way out was now blocked out by the very things that were trying to kill her.
She refused to let panic take over her, she couldn't.
She furiously glanced around, trying to find another way out, but found none. She started stepping back, facing the only entrance of the pit. She stopped breathing once she saw several shapes, dozens of them, creeping up towards her. Few of them, she realized terrified, were even approaching her from up above, from the stone walls. She was completely surrounded.
Entrapped, with her back almost into the wall and nowhere to run, she sent two more ice blasts towards her foes. The first blast felt its mark as she heard an animalesque cry of pain from one of the creature above her, the closest to her she had targeted. Blue and yellow scales and spikes disappeared from behind the bushes that dotted the top border of the cliff.
As the creatures realized she was still dangerous, they moved more cautiously, the second blast missed its target as the winged beast hastily moved out of the way, not willing to end up like its companion.
She tried to think of a way out of this one, but in her panic, she couldn't come up with anything.
The more she waited the more it seemed they took courage and stepped closer, she could see more and more features on them as they closed in for the kill. There were so many, and all of them seemed to be different from each other, only few of them were actually similar in shape, size, or color she realized. She hesitated for a moment, discouraged by the way she was being severely outnumbered.
They must have felt her indecision for suddenly one large bright orange beast raced for the center of the pit and lighting itself on fire, proceeded to blast the Snow Queen with its infernal flames. Once again she raised her ice shield. It stood, but barely. It crumpled to the ground after a few seconds of non-stopping flames, but it was enough to stop the blast. She answered immediately, striking fiercely with her own magic, the first blast shattered hard on the farther wall, covering it in frost. She struck again at the moving target, it was trying to circle the blonde girl. This thing moved fast, she briefly considered, as it avoided two more blasts. It had too much freedom of movement. Realizing it, she created a wall in the foreseen direction the beast was gliding to, successfully halting it. She created another ice wall on his way back to cut off any possible retreat, successfully restraining its movements and therefore its ability to avoid her blasts. She almost saw the fear in the creature as she dealt a powerful blow on him, knocking him to the ground between a sea of ice shards.
Her small victory was short lived tough, for she barely had the time to register the whistling sound before she was struck down by one of the spikes those beasts were covered with. It embedded itself deeply in her left shoulder almost causing her to fall on her back for the shock. She cried in pain trying instinctively to take it off, but in the end she couldn't.
This time more creatures descended into the pit with her. She kept taking few tentative steps away from them until her back touched the cold stone wall, cutting her retreat, and leaving her with no way to go. It was over.
She glanced briefly at the wall, and in her desperation, saw the tinies of crevices, right next to her. It was way too big for her, but small enough to conceal the little bundle she had been carefully protecting all of this time. She lowered herself near the opening, hidden by a few well-placed rocks, and gracefully laid the little thing in the narrow space she had found. A couple of scared eyes searched for her owns. She raised a single finger to her mouth, motioning for the little girl to remain quiet, while she tried to fight back the tears that loomed in her eyes.
She stood up, distancing herself from the crevice, and faced the beasts once more. She winced at the pain in her shoulder, the pain in her leg. The adrenaline had long run over, her muscles refused to respond on her commands, contracted by the strain her own magic was causing.
She concentrated with all her mighty, eyes wide shut, remembering her newfound goal in life, remembering the reason why she was still fighting. Glowing blue eyes opened as she released a wave of ice all around her, hundreds of icy spikes dotting the outer part of it. Many beasts fell upon the contact with the wave, the slowest ones, who couldn't avoid the ice, got bitten by it. At once several painful shrieks spread all over the pit. More beasts came forth, more fell upon the icy blasts of the cornered Snow Queen. She looked at her many foes. It felt like for every creature that fell two more would take the place. There were just too many. Her heartbeat was throbbing in her ears.
The blue dragon, she realized, it was the one with those cursed spikes on its tail. She still had one embed in her shoulder and one in her leg, drenching her with her own blood. As on cue, it raised its tail high above its scaly head and started to hurl more of those sharpened spikes at her. This time she was ready, summoning the last strengths she had, she raised her ice shield, easily stopping the projectiles in their path. More blazing blasts came from the beasts next to it, each time she raised a shield, each time it was thinner than the last. The last explosion destroyed the barrier completely as hundreds of shards of ice started flying from the force of the explosion towards their creator, causing cuts all over her face and arms.
For the first time Elsa almost couldn't stand her ground, for the first time she almost fell on her knees, in the stained red snow. Her vision was getting blurry, she couldn't hold for much longer.
Suddenly two more shapes descended from the sky, almost landing in front of her. Squinting her eyes she saw a shape, a human form, on top of the winged creature. The two beasts both had riders. She realized that it was likely for the two of them to actually be the ones directing all the other creatures against her. She focused on the pair, she really couldn't make out their features. She paid more attentions to their beasts. One was smaller, pitch black, dark as the darkest of nights, yet unlike any others, his back seemed to be glowing of a bright blue. The other one was bright red, larger, it was just like the first one she had seen, only even bigger. She focused on the larger one, she could hear words being spoken, but was far too worn out to discern them. She focused her strength on the creature and its rider, blasting both of them with full force, successfully knocking them several feet backwards, and into the snowy ground.
More scaly mouths opened, more blasts were fired. One by one she tried her best to stop them, she even went as far as stopping the few that would have missed her, only to protect her daughter. My daughter… she thought with a smile, the best thing that ever happened in her life. It was the sole reason she was still standing. Blood drenched her face, trickling from her front to her brows and into her eyes, partially covering her vision. Her dress was torn in several places, half burned in others. She was running out of breath, her legs almost buckled, and she wavered. She slowly started to lower her hands.
She heard a couple of pebbles falls from the wall behind her, she turned around and froze in panic. There, above her, stood a woman, eyes blue as hers, hair as yellow as the sun itself, she held a bow in her hand but carried no arrow, it had already been sprung from its string. She closed her eyes resigned, bracing for the impact.
The arrow felt its mark as it pierced the Snow Queen's heart.
She fell to her knees instantly. All sounds around her gone. Her head suddenly felt heavy as it fell on her shoulders, twisting her neck and forcing her to look up at deep blue skies.
"Mommy?"
She heard a tiny voice spoke, as everything else was muffled around her. She mustered all her strength left to simply level her head to see the pair of ice blue eyes that called upon her in fear. A little girl appeared from behind her shelter, tentatively making her way to her mother, tears in her eyes.
She could no longer breath.
She shed a single tear as she cupped the little girl face, her little girl, her daughter. She was just four. Unable to breath, she was in a state of apnea. Elsa raised a hand towards the sky, releasing a stream of ice as a distress signal, sending it directly to her sister Anna, in the tiniest of hope that she could succeed where she had failed.
With every passing second she found it harder and harder to focus, the absence of oxygen slowly taking her, her once white dress now completely stained in red. She had subconsciously frozen the tear in her heart caused by the arrow, allowing her to gain but a few seconds to clutch herself into the living world, to see the one she loved most, one more time. Then all went black.
She shut her eyes, and gritting her teeth, she did the unthinkable.
Unable to breath, no longer able to see, she stood up, making one last stand.
Careful to avoid the most precious thing to her, she reached deep down into her own exhausted core, and released all the magic she had left in, with a shock wave all around her.
She fell, one more time, the last time.
She was dead before hitting the ground.
.
.
.
Elsa, the soon to be Queen of Arendelle, suddenly jolted awake from the terrific nightmare, and found herself in her own bed, in the safety of the castle's walls.