Frozen III
Prologue: A New Enemy
The first sensation to come to Elsa was a horrible, searing pain, as though someone had taken an ice-ax and was using it to assault her frontal lobes. Groaning audibly, she was finally able to force her eyes open. As her vision cleared, Elsa looked around, finding a large cavern of ice… with her arms and legs pinned to the wall by more ice formed around her hands and feet. Gasping, Elsa quickly tried to concentrate, willing the ice to release her… but nothing happened. Try as she might, she could not feel the familiar surge of energy that accompanied her magic. All that came was an increase of the pain in her head.
Stopping to catch her breath, Elsa decided to go over her last memories, to try and make sense of this situation. "Alright… I remember… I remember pushing Anna and Olaf away… God, was that stupid, if being alone is how I ended up in this situation. I remember reaching the Ahtohallan… following it deeper and deeper into the glacier… and then… nothing. What happened after that?" Suddenly aware of the cold, Elsa shuddered, her teeth chattering. "So cold… cold? I never GET cold. What is happening here?"
"Ah," came a voice from somewhere to Elsa's left. "I see you finally woke up. Good. It's been horribly lonely down here while I waited for you to thaw out of my little trap." Elsa's eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the sight of the being striding into the light. For all intents and purposes, it was HER, only… NOT her at the same time. The being certainly resembled Elsa, yes, but there were distinct differences. This other woman was noticeably paler, with long, vanilla-blonde hair that hung loose around her shoulders, and was dressed in an almost obnoxiously white dress with a long cape draped behind her.
"Who… who or what in the name of God Almighty ARE you," Elsa demanded, her cheeks flushing with the rage she now felt. "And what sort of sorry excuse for a masquerade costume do you have me wearing?! Open toed flats? I wouldn't caught DEAD in such shoes! If you are attempting to pass yourself off as me, you won't fool anyone in the kingdom!"
The other woman simply broke out into a raucous cackle at Elsa's outburst. "Oh, I'm sorry! I KNOW this must be a shock at first, but you see… I'm not IMITATING anyone. I AM you, Elsa. Or, that is to say, I am you NOW, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to my humble home, your majesty." The woman made a grand show of dipping into a regal curtsy, only to pause midway. "Oh, that's right. You're not a queen anymore."
"What do you mean by that? I am the born queen of Arendelle."
"Not anymore! I've been VERY busy while you thawed out down here. Oh, you should have SEEN the look on poor, pitiable Anna's face when her beloved sister told her she had no intention of returning home and was going to stay in the Enchanted Forest and run around like a little girl pretending to be a fairy! HA! Oh, she made a great show of being strong, but we both know this is DESTROYING her!"
"Preposterous! I would NEVER do that! Prophecy or no prophecy, I would NEVER abandon my sister like that! She's had almost no training in running a country. The stress alone could be dangerous for her. Besides, for that to even be legal, I'd need…"
"An official decree of abdication of the throne? Written and signed in your own hand?" The other woman paused from examining her snow-white nails produce a sheet of parchment from behind her back. "Oh, don't look so shocked. I'm a VERY skilled actor… or actress, as the case might be at the moment. OH, and that reminds me… that prophecy? It's BUNK!"
"What?"
"You heard me. It was all a LIE! I made it up! The WHOLE thing. A clever trap I've used to lure people like you down here for CENTURIES! A few well-whispered words in the form a Northuldra shaman, and those savages make it into a legend. All I need do then is wait until some elementally-empowered magic-user wanders up here looking for the answers they want, and I give them the answers on a silver platter, every single thing drawing them ever closer to the exact situation you're in now!"
"Then… you mean…"
"The "spirits", your parents' ship's wreckage, the fancy ice statues… that was all ME, working through proxies to lure you here to me!"
"What ARE you?"
"If I had a 1,000 years to explain, it wouldn't begin to scratch the surface of my truest self. Needless to say, I am a being who has existed for millenia, feeding off the magics of those blessed like you. Oh, it has been CENTURIES since I've tasted the sweet mana of an Ice-Witch, and one so powerful as you… will surely whet my appetite while I wait for the chaos I've sown to bring on the main course of chaos and suffering!" The stranger strode up to Elsa, allowing the young woman to look on in shock as her nails extended into claws and her pearly white teeth became long and razor-sharp. "Well, here's to the kill… or should I say breakfast?"