Autumn Must Always Concede to Winter

But Winter Concedes in the End

Story Notes: I never thought I'd be writing a Frozen fic, but here we are. I find Elsa and Hans' characters incredibly intriguing. Please forgive inconsistencies with the lore if there are any.

He blew in like a breeze, though he should have lumbered in like a falling log as far as Elsa was concerned. What business he thought he had being in Arendelle of all places after the stunt he'd pulled on her and her sister (and the whole kingdom, for that matter) was beyond anything she could surmise. It wouldn't be proper for her to have him beheaded right away, however. She was a civilized queen, after all. The beheading could wait until morning.

She didn't tell Anna what she knew - that Hans of the Southern Isles was going to be in Arendelle – to spare her sister the trouble of whatever trauma that might cause, although Anna seemed to be doing well now regardless of being nearly murdered to death by her first, impetuous love. Her sister was quite pleased with the big lump of a man she'd dug out of the troll pits or wherever he'd sprung from. It almost seemed as if men like Kristoff grew out of the trunks of the towering pines, fully formed. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing to have happened in Arendelle.

Thus, she kept the visit of Prince Hans of Westregaarde of the Glorious and Sunny Southron Isles on the downlow. He was not allowed to visit her formally. She wasn't even sure if she'd allow him to visit her formally even if it were not for her caution for Anna's delicate sensibilities, because she really didn't want him visiting at all and it was only her supreme patience that allowed the scarcest level of entertainment of whatever it was he wanted to present to her. She hoped it was his head on a platter. She was prepared to be disappointed. She knew he was a survivalist.

She tried to keep the chill out of the air - she really did - because she knew it could actually become deadly when she was involved. Despite it all, she lifted her chin like chiseled ice: sharp, pointed, and impassable. And he came blowing in like the first stirrings of autumn in the air: subtle, but specific.

The room was relatively small where they met and her guards flanked her with as much imposition as could be mustered, though she didn't need them since she was deadlier than all of them combined. It was a warm room, quaint... perhaps it could have been cozy. But it felt decidedly un-cozy today. She raked her eyes over Hans in harsh judgment; his clothes were impeccable, vainly so; the cut making the most of the breadth of his shoulders and the lean waist; the colors – autumnal - complimenting the darkening ginger shade of his hair and the tireless sprinkle of suntan which he must always have – for she'd never seen him otherwise – and the eyes: moss green like the moss that grew in the loamy, rain-soaked deepest heart of the forest. But why was he so incongruous?

She narrowed her eyes and tightened her scrutiny further as he approached, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when he shivered involuntarily at the sharp bite of chill in the air, though she kept the smirk that threatened to reveal itself tightly locked away. Schadenfreude wasn't a good look on a queen.

Upon his approach he fell to one knee in a bow - perfectly executed - with utter deference. His form was as impeccable as his clothes. It gave her the urge to knock him over and mess it all up.

"Your Majesty," he said, his eyes lowered in false humility.

"What do you want," she expelled.

He froze, though not from her direct influence. He seemed to be warring within himself on whether to leave his eyes upon the rug beneath them or to deign look upon her. It was certainly charming, but in a supremely annoying way. Making a cautious, meandering path, his eyes lifted eventually to hers and unexpectedly locked in, like a bullet cocked in the pipe of a rifle. That look. There he was. Calculating. Unpredictable. Nerve-wracking. Her breath wanted to catch, and she made it stay smooth through intensity of willpower. How dare he?

"My queen -" he began, but was stopped short by her interjection:

"I am not your queen," she declared frostily.

There was only a hair's breadth of a pause.

"Queen of Arendelle," he revised, yet there was something tricksy to him, like he was too agreeable, too permissive. Too bendy.

"That is correct," she allowed.

"If I may make a request -" he began, yet she could not stop herself from once again shattering his prose.

"Do I have a choice?" she asked. "Because if I do, I'm not sure why you've bothered to show your face before me, considering what you did to my sister and tried to do to me. I would say you've proven yourself to be a villainous snake in Arendelle, and I can't think of a single reason why I should allow you to air a request in my presence, let alone grant one."

Whatever his next word would have been only escaped partially from his mouth before his lips tightened together and she watched his eyes shutter. She knew he was thinking due to the rifling that was going on within his eyes. Irritation was first - no wait - there was an instant of injury, then irritation, then he regrouped, replanned, built a position and locked it in, like a ball loaded into a cannon; the fuse was lit, the burning, the preparation, the stretch of emptiness just before cannon-fire, and then:

"There is no one else to whom I can go," he said, taking the strategic route of humility.

"Surely there is a world of people to which you can go," she replied.

"Not for this purpose," he argued.

"Is that purpose gross negligence?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I seek your wisdom."

"I impart to you the wisdom that you should not try to murder people," she said, and there was a flash in his eyes.

"Neither should you," he shot back with a viper's precision, as if he'd waited for the moment.

"I beg your pardon!" she reviled.

"Do not feign innocence, my queen," he replied. "You know what you did, and nearly did to all of Arendelle."

"I –" she began, being struck unexpectedly in a hard place.

"No one freezes an entire country and gets to point the finger of judgment for a few minor infractions," he said.

"A 'few minor infractions'?" she asked in outrage.

"Not to mention that you tried to kill the men who came to your ice palace," he said, having fully shifted towards the offense.

"That was self-defense!" she said.

"You grossly outpowered them, my queen," he said.

"I am not your queen!" she exclaimed, even more furious at the fact that he'd made her this furious, furious at his machinations, furious at her inadequacies, at her failures, at his manipulative moss-green eyes. She felt something rise in her that she hadn't felt in a long time: panic. And that panic made her panic.

"The threat and property damage that ensued from your outbursts make me marvel at your ability to retain your throne," he said smoothly, as if he had her exactly where he wanted her. "It is a miracle that you are anyone's queen."

Elsa saw white, hot white, cold-hot white, and it emerged from her before she could stop it: a barrage of winter's curse spewed forth from her hands, ice, snow, and destruction meant to save her, to protect her, to eliminate the threat, to satiate a savage need, and with it came guilt, regret, shame.

But it didn't reach its mark. Miraculously, it wasn't blocked, per se, it was shifted. It was edged. It flowed aside, blown asunder by a force of will and wind and autumn leaves that burst from Hans himself. Though still kneeling on the floor, his right arm had swept upward and across his body in a graceful arc of subtle power, his hand splayed eloquently towards the sky. His eyes immediately fell upon her as if watching, waiting to know how she would reply to such a singular act. And there was something else in his eyes; it was a desperation, a mirrored panic, and though it was hidden well, she recognized it with wonder as being like her own.

The silence after cannon-fire while waiting for the dust to settle, to incorporate the changes - the losses and gains of a new reality - stretched through one, and then two ragged breaths.

"Queen Elsa," he said, "Forgive me, but I was required to antagonize you, for that was the only way I could show you my… quandary."

She merely watched him, still stunned from perception, from the possibility of another like this, from the miserable luck that of all people it would be him.

"I cannot control it," he said. "It bursts from me whenever I am threatened."

"Yes," she said, the word barely escaping her mouth, knowing.

At this moment she came to herself, that is: she came back to the awareness of those who were also in the room with them, those being the guards, and she found them terrified, edged to the very walls of the room, viewing both she and Hans as monsters. But that was something new. She wasn't the only monster, for once.

The guards saw her attention upon them and tried to recover, assuming a cautious, guarded position for her protection, and she was moved with pity.

"You may go," she told them.

"Your Majesty," said the nearest one, his eyes shifting towards Hans and back to her, "It does not appear to be safe. Should we leave you with such a… a…"

The guard didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence, since anything he might say might be construed as directed at her, as well, since she was also a person from whom dangerous weather patterns seemed to expel.

"I am not able to do it unless I'm threatened," said Hans to the guards, though his eyes remained on her. "So, she will not be harmed."

The guard, following Hans' remark, looked dubious and glanced to Elsa for confirmation, which she gave with a nod.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," said the guard, bowing and exiting with the others. He gave Hans a glare as he left: "We will be just outside the door."

The moment the door was shut, she whirled on Hans.

"How long?"

"Always," he replied.

"That cannot be," she said.

"It was mild, before," he said.

"Then what?"

"It has been aggravated," he said, without proper explanation.

She looked at him quietly for a moment, not sure what to do with him.

"When did you become aware of it?" she asked.

"In my childhood," he said. "It led to some family… problems."

"Of what sort?"

"Ostracization."

"Mmn," she said. "Isolation for me."

"I suppose that explains the oddness," he considered, glancing over her.

"I'm not odd!" she retorted.

He gave her a slow side-eye.

"At least I'm not a psychopath," she defended.

"At least," he grumbled. "Can I get up off my knees, now?"

"Not until you tell me what you want," she said.

"I want you to teach me," he said.

"Ha!" she said.

"What?" he inquired.

"The blind shall lead the blind, then?" she asked.

"At least you have some semblance of control," he said.

"At least it doesn't spew forth from you at inopportune times," she said.

"Perhaps it does," he replied.

"And even if it does, why should I help you at all?" she asked.

"You shouldn't," he replied.

She was caught by that reply, which wasn't what she'd expected. She'd expected an argument, a coercion, something sly, something tricksy, and not the admittance of truth. Maybe it was all part of the manipulation.

"Correct. I'm glad we had this talk. Shall you be on your way?" she asked.

He merely knelt and looked at her, as if not even deigning to recognize her reply with a response. As if it wasn't even worth caring about. As if he would now proceed to wait patiently for the real, more reasonable reply that surely must come next.

"I can call a boat," she said, pointing aside.

"Mn, I don't want a boat," he replied.

"It's not very nice to swim," she said. "It's a long way."

"I'd rather not swim, either," he said.

"Will you be moving to the woods, then?" she asked helpfully.

"No," he said.

"Then I'm not really sure how you'll get home, Prince of Westergaarden," she said, finding a puerile pleasure in mispronouncing his stupid name.

At this point he stood, like a heretic in the presence of the queen.

"Show me how to control it," he demanded, as if he were in the position to demand anything.

"I will show you how to be frozen into a thousand shards if you don't defer to the reigning power in the land in which you stand," she demanded equally.

Then his demand shifted, edged into a smile. It was a small smile, something that was like the first tints of red on the last edge of summer.

"Of course, my queen," he said, bowing.

"I am not your queen," she sighed with little volume, now bored of pointing it out.

"I beg of the compassion of your heart to have mercy on me and… please… show me what you know," he said. "I will not stay long enough to be a burden."

"You've already failed on that front," she remarked.

"I will pledge myself to your service for the duration of my time here," he said.

"How trustworthy is that?" she asked. "You nearly tricked my sister into marrying you."

"There is little more I can offer," he said. "Except…"

"Except?" she inquired.

"Well," he said. "I know no others like this but us. There may be more, for those who show these traits may also be isolated or ostracized, or even worse, but for now this is all we know. Would you like to combine our wits towards research? Knowledge? Perhaps even finding more of us?"

"Ah," she said, knowing the idea of not being alone was an appealing one. She glanced him over, considering. "I will allow you to stay temporarily on this basis, because you are the only one like this that I know, besides myself, and because who knows who you might end up killing – accidentally this time – because you've no idea how to stop yourself from leafing them to death or whatever it is you do."

"I suppose we'll find out, won't we?" he asked with a smile too tricksy for her liking.

"But there's just one burning question I have," she said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Why did it have to be you?"

"Why either of us?"

"Don't wax philosophical."

"You did it first."

"Get out," she said in dismissal. "I'll find you in the morning, at the north palace glade."

"I am in your debt, my queen," bowed Hans, lugubriously.

"I said get out!" she said, pointing sharply at the door.

She realized afterward how much work she was going to have to do to make sure none of this exchange could possibly reach the knowledge of Anna. First, she went to the guards and swore them to confidence. They were generally sworn to confidence, anyway, but she made them extra swear to confidence.

Then, she had to make sure Anna was in no way anywhere near the north palace glade in the morning. Generally Anna slept late - she was a late sleeper, after all - and generally she was never anywhere near the north palace glade, but Elsa didn't want to leave anything to chance, knowing that if she wasn't careful about it, this would just happen to be the one day that Anna decided, for whatever reason, to take an early morning stroll in the north palace glade.

"You called for me?" the large lumberjack of a man Anna'd taken a liking to inquired from the doorway.

"Ah, yes," she said, rising from her desk. "Thank you for coming."

Kristoff smelled like the outdoors. And was very tall.

"How are you?" she inquired awkwardly.

He smiled.

"Good," he said.

"Yes, well, very good," she said, having no idea what to do with him. "Anyway, I was wondering if you'd take Anna to the docks for some fishing in the morning. I'd like her out of the palace."

"Uh, sure," he said, uncertain.

"Excellent," she said, returning to her desk.

After a moment or two, she realized he was still there, and she looked at him inquiringly.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, attempting a normal smile. "Everything is fine."

"Okay," he said, and she assumed he wandered off because she didn't hear anything more from him for the rest of the day. At least he could take orders decently. Perhaps Anna had made a good choice. Elsa supposed she could take some time to get to know him a bit better. It was just so difficult.

After that was taken care of, she had to worry about whether or not Hans had the good sense to come covertly and not announce himself before the entire palace before showing up in the glade like she'd commanded. There wasn't much she could do about that worry since she had no idea where Hans had spirited himself off to in the meantime, so she simply had to sit and stew on it, and eventually she decided to trust that he wasn't a total moron and would sneak in properly.

The rest of the day she had to live with the flip-flopping of her stomach over the whole ordeal while trying to take care of the business of running a country, and she concluded that it was definitely not worth the hassle. If only he hadn't cajoled her so. If only he weren't so very manipulative. It wasn't fair, really, the social skills some people had. She had to spend all her time trying not to feel like a horrific lump, sticking out and obvious and terrible at knowing how to relate to humans. It wasn't fair.

She supposed nothing about life was fair, anyway.

The morning dawned bright and horrific just like she'd known it would.

The glade was fine. It was laced with mist - just the slightest traces of it - like drifting smoke in a hookah den, and the sun hadn't permeated the grass yet, so the ground was damp and soaked through the toes of her silk shoes. A few leaves had fallen as if too eager to properly wait for autumn. She wiggled the cold, wet toes in her shoes and grumbled in irritation, looking around for her least favorite person in the world to arrive.

From which shadow would he come? From between which trees would he saunter? Would he be lost and unsure, or know exactly what he was doing, as if he'd been there a thousand times? She hated waiting because it made her think, and when she thought, she got lost in it. Trying to blend into the shadow of a tree, she narrowed her eyes at the distant mist, at the blooming rays of sun just reaching bits of the fog through the branches, threatening annihilation, but not yet. The sunbeams weren't strong enough yet.

"I should like to announce myself before I bring you any surprise, Your Majesty," said Hans from nearby.

She turned to see Hans partially shrouded by fog and the rest of the way shrouded by a… shroud. She supposed it was a hooded cloak. Good, it seemed like he had at least some sense about being covert about the whole thing. She doubted anyone would notice him being out of the ordinary this morning.

"There you are," she observed. "From whence did you come?"

"From thence," he replied, waving a vague hand behind him, as if it shouldn't matter.

"Did anyone recognize you?" she inquired.

He paused a moment in consideration.

"You exude anxiety, my queen," he said.

"I am not your queen," she replied, a knee-jerk response.

"Are you perchance hesitant to be seen with me?" he meandered.

"Oh, do you think?" she replied, thick with sarcasm.

"Surely hardly anyone remembers," he said, waving a dismissive hand.

She could only make a choked scoff in response before he went on.

"I mean," he said. "I would assume the average Arendellian assumes I was killed, or I merely wandered off, or doesn't even think about where I went because I simply disappeared from public life after the whole weird blizzard debacle."

Opening her mouth to speak, she found he filled the space before she could.

"Surely what they remember is the unnatural depths of winter and how things impacted them directly, not some foreign elite who may or may not have handed them a blanket once," he said, coming to lean on the next tree nearest her. "I doubt most of them really remember Anna was ever engaged."

"You aren't allowed to say her name," spat Elsa.

At this, Hans actually looked surprised. Whether it was sincere or not she left up to her internal debate, but she was leaning towards at least mostly sincere because he didn't address it, at least not directly.

"At the very least they probably don't remember her being engaged to me. She is currently engaged to someone else, isn't she?" he said, inspecting his nails. "Wasn't he the… second… marriageable man she ever met?"

Elsa straightened up and found her fists tightening into balls at his irreverence towards Anna and her sister's proclivity towards falling in love with men she'd just met, in the order in which she met them.

"And where did he come from, anyway? The woods? The ice fields? The… troll pits?" he asked, and then his eyes flicked up as if he'd meticulously crafted a cocktail and was now to enjoy the fruit of his labors.

She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a response, so she merely glared at him in silence. He returned her gaze for a moment, his expression intrigued, and then he drew a breath and looked away, shifting his weight from the tree upon which he'd leant.

"You make the perfect ice queen, did you know?" he remarked. "Your bearing, that way you hold your chin… even your coloring. It's quite perfect. You're cold."

"Are you trying to bring me to attack you again?" she asked, her words coming out clipped.

He glanced askance at her.

"Maybe," he said.

"'Maybe' isn't a very good plan," she said. "That's a very dangerous plan. What if you can't block me? What if you slip?"

"What have I got to lose?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest and regarding the fading mist, shredded by the rising sun.

She realized it was possible Hans didn't even care very much if he were to die.

"What happened to you after we sent you back to the Southern Isles?" she asked, curious.

"Do you mean why am I here and not in a cell rotting away?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "I suppose that's what I mean."

"Do you think that's where I should be?" he asked, edging his way around the topic.

"Would it make a difference?" she asked.

"Only if you threw me in one of your own cells to rot away," he said.

"Of course I can't do that," she said, "for the diplomacy disaster that would create."

"I'm pretty sure no one back home would notice," he said.

Immediately that struck Elsa as horribly tragic, despite how much she might loathe Hans, and despite how she really did think he was probably a homicidal maniac who shouldn't be allowed to roam free.

"Oh, don't get that look on your face," he chided, showing irritability for the first time she could remember. "I find pity quite repulsive."

"I'm not pitying you," she scoffed, bristling, even though she was definitely just previously pitying him for his lack of people who notice his existence, especially the very people who should always be very concerned with his existence. "Just tell me how you have come to be back in Arendelle."

"For this reason," he said, raising a hand to mean his 'powers'. "I can no longer be held in bondage. I suppose I am now a monster."

He didn't seem very upset about the idea. He seemed only resigned, acceptant, and perhaps ready to see where this might go. How curious it was to Elsa, who had lived a life in fear of herself and her power.

"Are you not worried you might hurt someone you care about?" she asked.

"Who do I care about?" he asked her.

"Oh, mercy. What a miserable existence," she whispered.

He watched her and smiled.

"I have found it to be liberating," he said.

"And empty, I would assume," she said.

"There is good and bad in all means of existence," he said philosophically.

"I don't like your worldview."

"Teach me otherwise," he challenged.

"I have not the time nor the inclination," she replied frostily.

"Then why are you here?" he asked, as if he'd caught her in something.

"To teach you how to avoid killing someone with your innate recklessness," she said.

"Very good, shall we begin?" he inquired.

"If I may remind you: I am the ruling monarch here, and I will direct when, where, and how we shall begin, if we shall even begin at all," she said. "You shall not direct nor instruct me on any article of how I choose to lend instruction to you, which, I will also remind you, is done out of the kindness and charity of my exceedingly valuable time and energy."

"Which is why I wonder," he said, his gaze upon her as if searching, delighting in curiosity, "why you are here. It doesn't make sense, does it? Surely you have better things to be doing."

"Are you trying to convince me not to be here?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he said.

"You're so very incongruous, Prince of Westergaard."

He considered her statement sideways.

"I've been told that before," he said thoughtfully.

"Tell me all the ways your powers present themselves," she said, changing tack.

"Wind, mostly," he said, "Exceptionally powerful gusts of wind. I should say my powers are mostly defensive – I haven't outright attacked anyone yet – and present when I… ah… feel a certain panic. It's a bit of a self-preservation thing, I suppose. And the leaves, by the stars, I don't know what they mean other than some window dressing or a ridiculous joke by some higher power, or perhaps lower power if you think too much about it… the leaves can do little to harm a person I'd think, besides give the odd paper cut. The wind, though. It can be… something."

Hans appeared uncomfortable at this last statement, as if he'd seen some things he'd rather not describe.

"That panic… tell me about it," she prompted.

He cleared his throat and fell to considering, as if trying to discern how to put into words a thing that can only be felt. Elsa waited, her stomach sinking, wondering how much he might be like her in this way. How great and how terrible that would be if he were.

"It comes from a place inside me that I am not aware exists until it erupts… it erupts in a white-hotness. Blinding – it's as if I go blind, all my senses are like they've been eclipsed by a blinding explosion, yet I can see, I can still see – I… I'm not explaining it very well," he said, his words coming out in a broken recitative, and his countenance exuding a lack of confidence she'd never seen in him. But she knew.

"Please, go on," she said.

"It's as if in a blinding flash all my senses are overcome, and that other part of me – the one that I am not usually aware of – takes over. Defend at all costs," he said, running a hand through his hair. "At too much cost, I think. But I can't –"

"Control it," she finished softly.

"No," he replied with the same softness.

She drew a light breath and let it out, feeling the niggling urge to cry at finally understanding and feeling understood, but also at the treachery of him and that he could not be trusted.

"Why did it have to be you?" she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Asking that again still won't change it," he grumbled, leaning back against the tree; a withdrawal.

"Do you have to keep your gloves on to help control it?" she asked, stepping closer as her curiosity began to take over.

He glanced at her, down at her gloved hands.

"Do you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Hm," he said. "I hadn't thought about it, to be honest. But I suppose I have more and more had the tendency to keep my gloves on; I do wonder if it is a subconscious method to cope. Perhaps there is something to what you say."

Elsa laced her gloved fingers neatly in front of her.

"It does help," she offered.

"Noted," he said, and he straightened his coat and cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"I am not an expert by any means," she said. "So I'm afraid there's not much I will be able to teach you, but I will share what I can."

He gave a nod, again showing thanks.

"I suppose the first thing we should do is see to you using your powers purposefully," she said.

"I can't," he said.

"Oh, but you can," she said, feeling a slight smile cross her lips.

"But I—"

"You can," she informed him.

"I haven't—"

"Hans."

It was as if his mind tripped a moment as she addressed him by his first name. His eyes shuttered and his lips parted, and, after a moment of recovery, he recognized her address.

"Yes?" he asked, and it seemed as if there was the minutest of pauses, as if he briefly cast about for how to address her, but that he found all socially acceptable titles to be inadequate for the moment. Perhaps he'd wanted to call her "Elsa". She wondered if she would slap him if he did.

"I will show you," she said, feeling quite certain of herself.

"As you wish… Your Majesty," he replied – opting for the safest of choices.

"Very good," she replied with a smile. "Shall we begin?"