CHAPTER 11: FIERAN DICE
As Elsa resumed sitting on her bench (after being released from Hans' air restraints, which was the second time one of them had physically bound the other in a single carriage ride, a dysfunctional fact which Elsa preferred to analyze later), Hans remained kneeling upon the floor of the carriage at Elsa's feet, his posture subjugated, even emitting shades of broken, as if he had seen what the eventual outcome of their mutual dissent might be (mutual destruction) and he wanted to circumnavigate it, to avoid it at all costs, even with the most uncomfortable, horrific of payments – sharing his feelings.
His eyes remained on her knees for a long moment, his arms braced on the bench on either side of her, though the voluminous fabric of her skirts hid most of his sleeves from sight. She sat patiently, her hands folded on her lap, and waited for him – demanding with her chilly silence that he extract from his inner workings some verdant ore worthy of display.
As he considered how to continue, he brought one of his hands up, folding his arm over her knees, his palm resting gently on the curve of one knee.
"Elsa," he said, and she didn't miss he used his most beguiling, colorfully-layered caramel voice – but she wasn't sure if it was intentional, or if it was how he spoke when his words meant something. It could have been both at once. His eyes glanced up momentarily at her but didn't remain. He plucked at her skirt restlessly, his mind seeming anxious to form an approach that would result in less anguish, though he appeared to be struggling terribly to find one. He drew a breath like a man resigned to leaping off a cliff.
"Do you recall the letter I wrote you about my conundrum?" he asked. "The one about whether to betray my family or the western king?"
"Of course, I do," replied Elsa. "I froze all of the Southern Isles because of it."
"Ah, yes," replied Hans, clearing his throat. "Well, this is the part of my story where internal conflict arises. You see, normally the conflict would have been which path to take; should I double-cross King Rhothe to gain favor with my family or should I finally be rid of my father and brothers? To be honest, I most likely would have chosen the latter. But either way, that choice would have been an easy one to make; it was simply a choice between which was the most advantageous, which was the most likely to work, which would have the best outcome, et cetera. It's really just a logic problem. I wouldn't have lost any sleep over it, to be sure."
"Oh," replied Elsa, and Hans looked up at her.
"I know what you're thinking," he said.
"Tell me what I'm thinking," she replied.
"How could I choose between the continued existence of one person or another and not find it difficult?" he said.
"I suppose I was thinking something along those lines," she admitted.
"I'll tell you how," he said. "I didn't care. When there's no emotional involvement in a matter, choices are easy to make."
Elsa regarded him silently, thinking about the highly emotional letter he had written to her. He seemed to notice and glanced away, returning to fidget at the fabric on her knee, and then as he prepared himself to go on, he shifted to sit more comfortably, sideways, resting himself against the bench on one side of her legs, one arm across her knees as the other hand dropped to her ankles, and his gaze drove, without focus, past the carriage wall.
"I had set everything up so perfectly, Elsa," he said. "I could have had everything I'd ever wanted. But when the time came to act, I was paralyzed - frozen, if you will - and not literally." He glanced up at her with a wry expression and said, "Though you did try your best to do so."
She smiled back unapologetically and laid her hand on his wrist.
"You didn't have to freeze the Southern Isles to stop me, Elsa," he said, dropping his eyes to stare at her hand where it lay over his. "I had already been rendered unable to follow through with it. I wouldn't have been able to do it, and when the full realization of it overtook me, I found myself in a state of shock. How could this have happened to me? What exactly had happened to me?"
He drew a shaking breath and let it out, and his eyes made a slow, heavy ascent to hers, as if labored by the effort, as if burdened by remembrance and admittance.
"You broke me, Elsa," he expelled, as if it took effort to say it, his voice coming out with a breathless intensity. "And I didn't know it until the damage had already been done."
Stunned by his confession, she could only shake her head a little at him, as if to make the tiniest attempt to show she'd never intended such a result.
"And I thought," he said, his eyes falling once again to stare past the carriage walls, "How could she do this to me? How dare she do this to me? Who was she to dictate what I was to do, even from a hundred miles abroad?"
"What dark magic had she used? What evil spell had she cast upon me?" He drove his eyes back to hers, and there was a simmering resentment within them, "What enchanted shard of ice did she wield, driven deep and cruel into my heart?"
"I didn't—" she whispered, but he stopped her.
"I know," he replied gently, his voice falling to a whisper, as well, his expression pained. "But regardless, I bleed."
"Hans," she returned, not knowing anything else to say.
"I suddenly hated you," he said, and his gaze upon her turned impassive and cold, but melted gradually in the unfolding acceleration of his emotions. "I resented you… what a burden you had placed upon me! I hated the limits you imposed upon me just by existing; I hated the fact that suddenly I could think of nothing but how to see you again – I was so averse to anything that would keep me away from you, from being near you again, from the thrill of coaxing you and your countenance from cold cruelty to radiant warmth in a glorious, exhilarating bloom."
He exhaled and dropped his forehead to her hand where it lay over his, and she passed her other hand gently through his hair, hoping to provide him with some meager comfort.
"I hated you," he said, remaining downcast on her hand, his expressive voice falling into her skirts, across her knees, "Because I knew… I had come to love you."
He sounded so miserable at the last, crushed beneath the weight of it. His hand gripped her knee at the curve.
Elsa felt chills driven through her body as he spoke it – it was something she could have reasoned out, but she'd grown so accustomed to denial, to not facing the truth of them, that something in her had hoped they could forever remain in a state of arrested development, in a place where the obvious problems of such a development would never have to be addressed.
But now, it appeared that they had reached the point where they must address it. The only alternative was to destroy each other, for their feelings couldn't be pocketed; they were too large to be filed away, set aside, or even buried. If unrecognized, their mutual miasma of emotions would emerge destructively – because Elsa knew (and Hans as well) what happens to peculiar creatures like them when strong emotions are concealed for too long. She just didn't think Hans would be the one to bend to that realization first.
But that required Elsa to fully face her own emotions now, and she felt thrown unprepared into the fray; after so many years of concealing, of pushing down, of trying to not feel, now she had to fight against all of that old training to allow her feelings to exist, and not only exist, to look at them for what they were in the full, unyielding light of day.
It terrified her, and as Hans lifted his head, bringing his forest-moss gaze to meet with hers, she was terrified of him.
She was dismayed to hear her breath come out ragged, and she tried to still it, to calm herself.
"So I couldn't do it," he said, his voice coming out half-whispered. "My plans were all failed, Elsa. I had to delay King Rhothe, claiming a hitch that would be worked out in time, and then I supposed I would figure out what to do… though I had no idea what that might be. And when your letter came inviting me to meet you here in Weselton I came like a ghost, a spirit who had lost all mooring, driven mindlessly to the source of its greatest need with no care for anything else."
"I was so relieved that you came," she sighed out.
"How could I do anything but come?" he murmured, aggrieved.
"Hans," she sighed, touching his face.
"I love you," he sighed back, but he looked pained by it, defeated, even while he drifted helplessly into the palm of her hand, his eyes closing as his lips parted, brushing against her palm. "But what am I to do about it? Languish in obscurity? Pine for you from afar? Throw myself from a literal cliff in despair? How can I remove myself from these emotions, Elsa? I want to escape it, but no… I don't think I do… I know I cannot… I would not… the horrible truth is I want to feel this, I'm reveling in it, even while it tears me to shreds, ruins all my carefully laid plans, and turns everything I've known and wanted inside out."
He drew a breath and then, grasping her wrist, he looked up at her and said, "My miserable condition is that now I no longer have a plan – only a series of results that I desperately desire, yet no way that I can see to accomplish them… and, Elsa, I loathe not having a plan."
"But what is it that you desire, Hans?" she asked him.
"You," he replied at once, a fathom's depth of emotion driven into one word; and she suppressed a shiver.
"And what else?" she breathed out, after a moment's respite.
"The Southern Isles," he said, again at once, but his focus broadened beyond the carriage in which they rode.
"What an ambitious fellow you are," she observed, and then, when he looked up at her, she inquired, "Anything else?"
"To help Sfende realize his potential," he added, and then, "To learn more about us… who we are… what we are… where we came from, and if there are any more of us out there. Why we're all here, now, and how on earth this happened as it did."
She gazed down at him and curled her fingers lightly along his jawline in a soft, affectionate caress.
"I approve of all three of those desires," she informed him, and his breath caught, his fingers twitched at her knee. "So, the only question is… which one shall we work on first?"
Hans vaulted forward and kissed her like a man dying of hunger.
-o-o-o-
It was perhaps fortunate that the carriage stopped, arriving at the Duke's manor within moments of their final revelation, for they kissed each other with such unabashed, open fervor and adoration that they might have been forced to wed on the spot due to compromise.
Upon exiting the carriage, however, no one would have suspected anything untoward might have happened within its confines due to the perfect composition of Hans and Elsa as they departed its door and the polite esteem with which each regarded the other, and the only betrayal of deeper emotion (for the keen eye) was the intent care which Hans displayed toward escorting Elsa into the estate and into the social drawing room.
The stablehands that were responsible for the upkeep of the Duke's carriages were dismayed to find later that night that the interior of the carriage had all but been destroyed and couldn't surmise how that had happened since its previous inhabitants seemed perfectly fine upon their exit, and so they assumed a ne'er-do-well must have broken in after its return to the stable, performing a bit of vandalism.
Hans and Elsa entered the drawing room to be greeted warmly by the Duke.
"Ah! The Prince and the Queen, you have returned!" cried the Duke. "I trust your travels were smooth?"
Elsa shared a glance with Hans, who had the gall to look subtly amused.
"As smooth as could be expected," Elsa replied, secretly aware of the depths of her understatement, and she offered the Duke a polite but warm smile.
"Very good," said the Duke, who appeared satisfied.
"Sir," said Hans, drawing the Duke's attention onto him. There was the slightest shade of unease about Hans, only the faintest insecurity — Elsa doubted anyone but the most familiar with Hans would notice— as he went on to pose an inquiry: "There are some matters about which I am deeply concerned, and I had hoped for the opportunity to petition for your advice… at your convenience."
It felt very odd for Elsa to observe the humility with which Hans submitted his request to the Duke, but the Duke appeared pleased, and perhaps even kindly towards Hans in the prince's moment of vulnerability.
"Of course, my dear young man," offered the Duke with a chuckle, as if he wasn't surprised at all and perhaps had expected such a request… though Elsa had no idea how that might be the case. "If you would like, we can retire to my library for a time. I have an excellent brandy, you know, imported from the land beyond the South Seas, even."
"It wouldn't happen to be Carandian brandy, would it?" inquired Hans, intrigued — though Elsa had never heard of such a thing, nor place.
"Ah, I see… you're one of the few who know," replied the Duke with a wink, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially with a finger. But before they moved to leave, the Duke turned to Elsa and said, "Before I forget, my dear queen, there is someone who has requested an audience with you."
"Oh?" Elsa inquired.
"He waits outside in the garden," said the Duke, glancing at the french doors on the other side of the salon.
"He?" interjected Hans, seeming hesitant to leave Elsa with an unspecified "he" alone in the garden.
"Come along, now, Prince Westergard, all will be as it should be," said the Duke as he began to pull a reluctant Hans to the hall by the arm, though Hans grabbed Elsa's wrist and sought her eyes with his own.
"I'll be fine, darling," Elsa assured him bemusedly.
"Oh, I know you will, my dear," Hans replied. "That isn't my concern."
"Then what is?" Elsa inquired, and he drew close, confidential.
"Don't do anything… crazy," Hans murmured lowly, gazing at her sidelong. Then he shifted his look to regard her straight-on and, lifting her hand to his lips, he murmured against her fingers, "You do know what I mean, don't you?"
"Do I?" she inquired aloofly, giving him an askance glance, but she showed she knew what he meant by tingling his lips with frost, to which he pulled back with a faint gasp, then he eyed her narrowly, licking his cold lips in repose.
"Perhaps I should warn you not to do anything murderous," she murmured back him, giving him a doubtful once-over.
"I never make any promises I can't keep," he replied with a teasing shadow in his eyes, retaining his possession of her hand near his lips.
"Nor do I," she returned with equal defiance.
He took her defiance like a challenge and deftly bit down on one of her fingers, the pressure light, and just out of eyeshot of the Duke, which so easily would have been mistaken for a mere hand-kiss. She gasped sharply and drew her hand back in surprise, and as she felt her face grow hot, he smiled at her, looking very satisfied with himself.
"That Carandian brandy isn't going to drink itself, you know," interjected the Duke, reminding them both that they were currently wasting his time. He whirled his hand in the direction of the hallway and said, "Now, let's get to it, young man… the night is wasting!"
"As you wish, sir," replied Hans, blinking into an act of benign naiveté in an instant, only lingering long enough to cast Elsa a sly and unabashedly lascivious wink before disappearing into the hallway, following the Duke.
Since no one was watching, Elsa threw her eyes into a well-executed and possibly overdramatic eyeroll. The act of eyerolling being plebeian in nature and trained out of her from birth, she never would have done such a thing in the presence of polite society. Still, despite the awful, unrepentant incorrigibleness of Hans, she found she was smiling to herself, perhaps even wistfully… or possibly dreamily… as she walked out onto the veranda and descended into the garden.
Yes, she was going to have to come down to earth about this whole thing… it had been too easy to fall so deeply into it while she was away from Arendelle, but her kingdom did await, and so did Anna and the fact that her sister still was in the dark about it all. Her time in Weselton was drawing swiftly to a close; she couldn't stay longer than another day at most, and then she would have to figure out what happens next.
Hans was right about one thing; it was disconcerting, not having a plan.
Glancing back to the Duke's manor, at the glowing windows and silver-gray white architecture framed by the garden's tended bushes and blooms, their green leaves and pink blossoms dampened into shades of blue and gray in the heavy Weselton night, Elsa felt the pinprick twinge of loss – loss over something that she still possessed, but was slipping away a little bit more with every passing moment.
"Queen Elsa?" asked a voice with the accent of a strange spice.
Turning to look for the voice, she saw Prince Sfende, his reds and yellows muted in the darkness, except at the edges, where the light of a lantern down the path cast one side of his edges in golden color, like a crescent moon.
"Prince Sfende," she greeted, moving to take his hands. "You found me."
"I did," he replied, bowing over their joined hands in deference.
"You said you would," she said. "I suppose I shouldn't have doubted you."
"Well," said Sfende. "It wasn't easy to get away."
Even then, in the languishing darkness, Elsa could sense the frequency of unease within Sfende's countenance, and though she couldn't with clarity see into his eyes, she had no doubt they would be simmering with untamed fire. Their hands parted.
"Shall we sit?" she inquired, gesturing to a bench.
"As you wish," he replied, following her lead. As they settled in, he addressed her again, but as if an inquiry was incoming: "Queen Elsa?"
"Yes?" she asked.
Prince Sfende looked down at his hands, then brushed them across his trousers, over his thighs; it was an act of nervousness, or indecision, or both, as if he were preparing himself to ask something he was hesitant to broach. To Elsa, he looked as if he were constantly in the state of almost bursting into flames – so she decided to end the indecision herself.
"Prince Sfende," she said, drawing his smoldering eyes.
She held up her hand between them, and allowed a burst of snowflakes to flow out, just a few inches into the air, curling through and around themselves and falling across Elsa and Sfende's legs as they sat.
Sfende's breath caught, and he reached out a finger – she noticed a faint trembling about his fingertip - to touch one of the flakes upon his knee. It melted at once, then evaporated beneath his heated touch. Drawing his hand back, he lifted his eyes to meet hers, a wonder in them, a deep-rooted fear, but also a measure of defiance.
It seemed as if something snapped within him, as if he were shrugging off the burden from his shoulders of a lifetime of restriction and letting it go.
He lifted his hand and it burst madly into flame, causing Elsa to draw back, gasping in surprise and in caution at the puff of heat which struck her face from being so near it.
Bursting from his hand was a wild, brilliant, colorful flame of oranges and reds writhing in a maddened voracious dance around a core of sharp, pale blue. The light from it threw his face into stark brightness against the wet, dark night, with deep shadows clinging to his angles, and he gazed at her all the while, as if gauging her response, as if defiant against all those who had forced him to hide it, but also… there was a shadow of fear that harangued him; it was a shadow of terror at his own vast power and whether it could be controlled.
Allowing the flame to dim but leaving enough to stave off the night between them, he said, "I have heard rumors of a snow queen in the north."
"What do those rumors say?" she inquired.
"She will place a frozen sliver in your heart," he said. "And you become slave to her ice kingdom."
"What madness!" she objected, though she recalled Hans' similar complaints, earlier.
"Perhaps," he said. "Others say she destroys kingdoms with ice."
"I would never do such a thing," said Elsa, but she also recalled her tendency to freeze entire countries for brief periods of time. "Not purposefully, anyway," she amended, shifting her weight on the bench.
"Then it is you," said Sfende. "You're the snow queen."
"I suppose I am," she admitted.
"You don't seem terrible, or evil," he observed.
"Nor do you," she replied. "But perhaps you've also experienced some judgment that seemed unfair?"
"My people will not tolerate my powers," said Sfende. "If they are made known. Nor would they tolerate yours."
"Or Hans'," she added gently.
Sfende's mouth opened, then closed, as if he were surprised and needed a moment to form a response.
"The tailor is one of us?" he asked in disbelief.
"Well, he's not actually a tailor," said Elsa, chuckling. "But yes, Hans has his own realm of power. He controls the wind, the air. And I suppose there's some autumn to his … ah… essence, I suppose? At times autumn leaves emerge when he uses it, but not always."
"Fascinating," said Sfende. "So, if you're winter, and he's autumn, then am I summer?"
"I don't know," said Elsa. "He and I have just started trying to piece this together, but with how your powers work, with such intense heat… maybe."
"Then that would lead one to think that somewhere out there is a spring," said Sfende.
"I never thought of it that way," said Elsa, considering. "But perhaps. How long have you known about your powers?"
"Most of my life," he said. "They emerged in childhood, though not as powerful as they are, now. I was able to control fire from and early age, however… and I've never been harmed by heat or flames."
"Ah," said Elsa. "I am impervious to cold."
"Then we are the same, you and I," he said to her. "But opposites, I suppose, for I dislike being cold above all things. It's exceedingly unpleasant for me."
"I just always assumed I was vulnerable to fire in a normal way, since most people are," said Elsa. "But I suppose I prefer colder climates. I feel most at home in the snow."
"We will never choose the same location to dwell," said Sfende, chuckling. "I can tolerate the cool dampness of Weselton, but that is enough… I can't imagine snow."
"Doesn't it snow in the Western Kingdom?" she asked.
"Almost never," he said. "Fortunately."
Elsa smiled wryly.
"Would you tell me about the war you spoke of earlier? The one two thousand years ago?" she asked.
"Do you truly know nothing of it?" he asked her.
"No," she said. "Nothing at all."
"Hmm," he said, considering her. "Perhaps it is because those who suffered most are less likely to forget. But you and I, and now Hans, should consider what I'm about to tell you very carefully."
"The War of the Sesons is also remembered by my people as a time of great suffering. It took many generations to recover from the depths of that war, so destroyed was everything in its aftermath. All the surrounding lands were involved – the people of your land, of Prince Hans', mine… and perhaps elsewhere. Not everything was preserved, but the warning was. Therefore my people are distrustful of the outside world; it is a defensive measure. We have been taught for generations not to trust your people or anyone else; we were almost wiped out by the war," he said.
"But what was the war about?" she asked.
"What is any war about? Territory, resources, power, control… these are all the things that always lead to war," he replied. "Reasons to go to war fade, but the thing that we remember is the lastin devastation. Is it ever worth it?"
"I would imagine not," said Elsa.
"Good, I'm glad you feel that way," he said. "Because your ancestors did not."
Elsa frowned.
"Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't," she said. "What your people remember may not be perfectly true to what really happened."
"I suppose that's fair enough," replied Sfende. "But it was terrible enough for us to remember for thousands of years, and to avoid war to the extent that we avoid most interactions with other peoples."
"Do you think that there may be a connection to that and your people having an intense distrust of magic like they do? Could it have been a magical war?" she asked.
"Possibly," he considered.
"Could it have been between people like us? Elementalists?" she ventured. "Can you imagine the devastation we could wreak, were we to war with each other?"
"We could destroy everything," he said. "If we were inclined to do so. But that would be insanity, wouldn't it?"
"Haven't you ever felt, I don't know… a little crazy?" she asked him.
He looked her over for a moment.
"Maybe," he admitted at last, appearing troubled. "Perhaps it would be best if we didn't exist."
"Well, I don't think that at all," said Elsa. "I think we could really change things for the better. Haven't you ever felt like you could do a better job of ruling than your father? Have you ever considered what you could do if you were out from underneath his yoke?"
"Ah, I should not consider such ideas," he said. "My father is good at what he does. I would have no idea how to manage it…"
"But he keeps you locked away, kept near him all the time and restricted. You can't even use your powers when you want!" she objected.
"Perhaps that's a good thing," he said, looking doubtful. "I don't know what I want to do with my powers. To be honest, they frighten me."
"Well, they can be frightening," said Elsa, looking at Sfende's hand, still glowing like an ember. "And destructive. But when you keep looking at them with fear and distrust they tend to build up in an unhealthy way, and then… well. Bad things happen."
Sfende cleared his throat. "Yes, I know."
Elsa laid her hand on Sfende's arm.
"We've all done things we would rather we hadn't," she told him earnestly.
The prince drew a breath and let it out as a sigh.
"But the first step towards coming into your own is using it intentionally," she said. "You must come to realize that your powers are not inherently bad, they're just powerful."
"What are you suggesting?" he inquired.
"How would you like to have a friendly spar?" she asked.
Sfende's mouth opened, then shut as he didn't seem to come up with anything to say for a long moment.
"You mean… for us to spar with our powers?" he asked incredulously. "Here?"
"We can be careful," she said. "I can't imagine anyone who would be a better foil for your powers than me, can you?"
"I… I suppose not," said Sfende, looking cautious. "But my family mustn't know."
"Ah," said Elsa, standing and looking around. "We should to the field, there, beyond the gardens, in the heath."
She pointed off into the darkness.
"Hans and I practiced there this morning," said Elsa, glad that the darkness hid the blush that threatened to rise in her cheeks. "It's empty and damp and shan't catch fire very easily at all."
Sfende, who had followed Elsa's lead in standing, appeared to be warring inside on whether to be nervous or excited at the prospect, so she laid a hand on his arm in assurance.
"You can say it was my fault if you get in trouble," she said with a chuckle and, grabbing his hand, she began to pull him through the gardens into the darkness. "Come on!"
The field looked different in the night than it had this morning; it was exceptionally dark, so dark they could hardly see each other until their eyes were able to adjust, and even then, they were only gray shadow people, colorless in the heavy, damp night. Somewhere in the distance the dark, silent pines loomed in the shadows. Distantly, they could see the lights of the Duke's manor just over the hill, edging its curve with pale yellow.
"So then," said Elsa. "You stand there, and I'll stand over here."
She moved about twenty paces askance, then turned to face him.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Fire at will," she replied.
But nothing happened. As far as she could tell, Sfende didn't move.
"You're so fearless," Sfende remarked. "I myself am far more afraid for your safety than it seems you are."
"I'll be fine," she said. "Just… go easy on me at first, then. Just to be sure."
She heard his breath, in and out, as he prepared himself, and then – the eruption. The creation of something from nothing, the emergent, brilliant orange-yellow light, explosive and hot, flowing towards her in glowing clouds of flame. Bringing up her hands, she coursed frigid air and ice into the fire, blithely flowing it aside, edging it like Hans does, she realized.
Their elements collided and dispersed each other, each cancelling the other out, and hissing steam ripped upward in a white cloud in its place.
"Quite easy," she said, dismissive of his attempt.
"Well, then," he said, preparing himself with more confidence. "Have this, then."
As fire shot from his hands in a focused stream, his face and shoulders lit up in reflected orange light, his eyes glowing with untapped power – she'd seen that look before - and she cast up a shield of ice; dense, thick and impenetrable, against which the fire railed and thrust fruitlessly as bursts of steam billowed explosively into the sky. He was determined, however, so finally she drew back and thrust the shield forward until he was forced to retreat under its frigid advance, allowing the direct stream of fire to fade out. She let the block of ice fall, impotent, to the ground.
"You're not bad," she admitted.
"No," he agreed, informing her: "I'm not."
Then he sidestepped and threw out a whip of fire like a thin, glowing strand of magma towards her, as if hoping to catch her off-guard and gain the upper hand, which she blocked with a shot of snow, dousing the front half of the whip into cool basalt, which then crumbled to the ground, useless. Thrusting out his other hand, he expanded the first whip and threw out another, coming at her from two directions; and she cast a ring of ice around her in a sphere to head them both off and break their lengths.
Going on the offense, she stepped forward, bringing her heel down onto the ground with force, firing a round of ice spikes directly at Sfende, to which he recoiled, blasting an arc of fire, red-orange in consuming defense, driving the spikes into harmless steam.
A breath, two breaths in the heavy darkness, and then Sfende moved sideways, running in a large arc around Elsa's side, casting out glowing red barbs, like tiny starbursts, as he moved; they shifted and yanked recklessly through the air as they came towards her, without rhyme nor reason, like the erratic movements of sparks exploding from a burning log. She thrust out a dense shield of frost around her, lines with spikes of ice, but one spark got through, landing low on her skirt, and sinking in like fire melts through snow, sinking through her skirts and underskirts before she managed to extinguish it, leaving a heavy ashy stain and a hole in the delicate fabric near her knee.
"Tsk," she said. "You'll pay for that."
"Ah, I," he said, his confidence suddenly replaced with caution. "I-I'm so sor-."
But she didn't let him finish. She thrust the whole of her power upon him, the whole of winter's wrath. The cruelty, the madness, the cold destruction, she fired it all upon him relentlessly – and he resisted, at first with lingering caution, and then, as she bore down upon him, with building, fiery determination; steam exploded from their combining powers in capacious billows as his will began to rival her own, with his madness born from a lifetime of repression, its genesis in his earliest memories, engrained, entrenched. The shackling. The crushing, the pressure, the insanity – he released it all, throwing it all off in a coursing, burning, slavish, exquisite release: the ecstasy and the madness of letting it go.
Their powers burned together and they turned suddenly… they shifted, it was only a faint twist, and went from combative to beguilingly cooperative, curling and twisting, melting around each other instinctively in a ferocious double-helix of whirlwinds, fire and ice, that screamed and then vaulted deep, rocket-like, explosively into the sky, accompanied by wild, curling whorls of white steam. Their powers exhausted, they fell back, both of them, into the damp grass.
Melted ice and ash fell upon them like raindrops and dark snowflakes.
Panting, Elsa twisted her fingers into the wet moss beneath her hands and attempted to recover, and it slowly dawned on her, as she watched wet soot drop on white satin, that her poor dress was positively ruined.
After a long moment, Sfende ventured to speak.
"I didn't know that's what it was like," he said, a certain wonder in his voice.
"I… didn't expect that, exactly," she admitted, glancing across the field at where he still sat, looking as overwhelmed as she was.
"Have you sparred with Prince Hans as well?" he inquired carefully.
"Many times," she said with a chuckle. "But only once did it reach such…" She cleared her throat, "Epic proportions."
Sfende fell silent, perhaps lost in his own thoughts.
"I have never felt such exhilaration," came from him softly, and at once Elsa felt an awkwardness melt through her, as if perhaps it shouldn't have taken this turn; it felt oddly intimate, but not in a way defined by normal means.
"Yes, I know," said Elsa. "It can be very… appealing."
Then she heard footsteps coming into the moor at a steady clip.
"Elsa?" she heard Hans say, and she decided it was probably time to stand up.
But before she could, he was already there and froze in his tracks when he saw her state.
"Ah, Hans," she said. "There you are."
"What happened here?" Hans demanded, staring at her current condition (which was ashy and disheveled, she knew). Coming back to himself, Hans jolted into movement, reaching to pull her from the ground.
"We sparred," she replied simply.
"I saw," said Hans, glancing at Sfende, who had also risen and was busy putting himself back to rights. "From a distance. It looked volcanic. I thought someone might have died."
"He didn't hurt you, did he? If he did… Elsa," he went on, and he seemed to be spouting every thought in his head. "I told you not to do anything crazy. Did I not tell you not to do anything crazy? This is crazy. Am I going to have to sit you down and explain to you everything that could be constituted as 'crazy'? Because it seems like you have no idea, whatsoever. What happened? Are you hurt? Your gown, Elsa!"
"I'm fine, Hans," said Elsa, brushing him off as he attempted to fix her dishevelment.
"Please allow me to replace your gown, my queen," said Sfende, approaching them from his side of the field.
"Oh, no," replied Elsa, brushing locks of hair that had come loose behind her ears. "It's quite alright. I can't say you were at fault. I should have known better than to wear white to a firefight, ha-ha."
"It's the least I can do," Sfende said, almost begging her to allow him to pay penance.
"Fine, fine… Sfende," she ceded. "If you wish, I will be grateful."
"You let him call you 'my queen'?" Hans whispered at her incredulously, seemingly outraged.
Elsa blinked at Hans, almost unable to process that he might be jealous at a moment like this, and instead of answering his question, she just soldiered on to more important matters. "So, Hans… Sfende appears to be just as powerful as we are. I think the three of us have a lot of exciting matters to discuss."
"I will attempt to convince my father to allow me to freely associate with you," Sfende said.
"Why should you have to convince anyone?" asked Hans. "If you're as powerful as Elsa and me, then you can do whatever you want."
"I value my family relationships, Prince Hans," informed Sfende.
Hans didn't seem to know how to respond to that, not traditionally having been a person who values family relationships.
"Well," said Hans after a moment. "Don't let it affect you in negative ways. We're not like other people, you and I and Elsa… we can't be silenced. We can't be suppressed. It tends to backfire. You know this, Sfende."
Sfende appeared to be aware of it, but not very happy about it since Hans had seen him at his worst – his most backfired. Perhaps the business with the South Isles ship had been Sfende's most traumatic experience with his powers.
"You belong with us," said Hans. "At least, for now. We can help you, and together we might be able to unravel why we're here, and what purpose we have."
"A question which we are most anxious to answer," Elsa added.
"As am I," replied Sfende.
"Also, before you get any ideas," said Hans, and he cocked his head a little towards Elsa: "She's mine."
Elsa released a high-pitched, outraged squeak before she realized she'd done it.
"Hans!" she cried. "I didn't know that you're now in charge of deciding to whom I 'belong'."
"Well, I assumed he should know," Hans said, brushing off one sleeve of his coat – perhaps from ash.
"I'm not territory to be claimed," objected Elsa. "Excepting that I belong to Arendelle, and Arendelle alone."
"I think you've been cheating on Arendelle," Hans told her slyly.
She made an indignant noise and grabbed his arm, prepared to freeze him into submission, but he removed her hand deftly, edging it aside, a defensive maneuver and a gesture of affection all at once; his fingers laced smoothly between hers, and he said to her gently, his voice caressing: "Don't worry, I'll return to Arendelle his queen. But not for long."
Sfende expressed no opinion but being transfixed by the back-and-forth between Hans and herself.
Elsa fought back against a rising blush and glanced apologetically at Sfende, ridding herself of Hans' interlacing.
"He's incorrigible," said Elsa. "Absolutely irredeemable."
"Evasive like the wind," remarked Sfende. "But he isn't foolish, for you are beautiful, Elsa; perhaps beyond all but the most renowned in beauty – and your power itself is beautiful and cruel in its own dangerous splendor, untouchable without grievous peril, but when touched… so very exhilarating."
"Okay, one moment," interjected Hans, seeming to connect the dots and pointing between Elsa and Sfende. "Did you… did you do that thing with him?"
"What thing?" asked Elsa, playing dumb.
"You did that thing with him, too?" Hans erupted, incredulous. He looked like the most betrayed man who had ever been betrayed in the history of the world.
"It wasn't like we meant to, it just happened!" blurted Elsa, throwing up her hands.
"It was instinctual," observed Sfende.
"You wash your dirty mouth out with soap, young man," said Hans, pointing a finger at Sfende, who appeared completely unruffled.
"It's fine, Hans," said Elsa, gently pushing Hans' pointing hand down. "It's not really that big of a deal. I had to find out what Sfende's powers could do… and I did."
"I think it's a big deal," said Hans stubbornly.
"It was kind of a big deal," agreed Sfende.
"See?" remarked Hans, turning to Elsa and indicating Sfende's response as a case-in-point.
Elsa found herself groaning and burying her face her palm. Drawing a deep breath, she straightened herself up and pushed her shoulders back, and prepared to address them both in a queenly manner, despite being smattered with ash, damp, and disheveled.
"I can see we are going to have to lay some ground rules, here, for what we will from now on call 'combined use of powers'," she said. "Combined use of powers will only be done in situations of dire need or under predetermined conditions. We will each agree not to pursue combined use of powers without expressed consent of the other party under any circumstances unless they be dire or life-threatening."
She glanced at Hans, who tended to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it, and appeared to love pushing boundaries, and she said, "That applies to all of us, including you, Hans."
Hans appeared to be disappointed by that part of it.
"Do we all agree?" she asked.
"I do," said Sfende respectfully.
"If it keeps you out of his magic, yes," muttered Hans.
Sfende snorted in amusement.
"He is so very besotted, this man," said Sfende with a grin.
"Yes, but he hates it when anyone calls attention to it," she said, and Hans looked shocked at her overt statement.
"Good grief, when are you going home to your beloved husband-country?" grumbled Hans.
"Soon enough, darling," she consoled, patting his arm. But he didn't look very happy about it. "Did you have a good talk with the Duke?"
"Yes," he said, placing his hand over hers where it lay on his arm.
"Would you like to tell me about it?" she asked.
"Maybe," he replied, glancing at Sfende.
"Well, then," said Sfende, taking the hint at once and bowing to them both. "I am in your debt, my queen."
He straightened to gaze at Hans with his simmering-fire eyes. "You are never boring, Hans of the Southern Isles, Tailor-Prince."
"And you are ever polite, Prince Sfende of over that way," replied Hans, gesturing westerly with indifference.
"Until we meet again," said the fire prince, and he turned into the path to the manor at once and was gone.
In the darkness, she could simply feel the discomfort of Hans with what had happened between her and Sfende. She wasn't too sure some of that discomfort wasn't hers, as well, for she didn't exactly want to do that again with Sfende, but she also bristled at the insistence of Hans that, somehow, she was only allowed to blend her powers with Hans and Hans only, and that, by his own proclamation, she somehow overall 'belonged to him'. It made her want to push him down and stomp on his legs. The audacity.
"You're not allowed to claim me as yours either in company, or when it is just us two, or even when you are alone and you don't think anyone can hear you," she informed him. "You can't even write it down, or think it, or whisper it to a toadstool or sprinkle it in the wind."
"Mn," he replied, reserving what he might be thinking to himself.
"Do I make myself clear?" she asked him.
"I think you know you do," he rejoined.
"Then, do you understand?" she asked.
"How could I not?" he replied. "Your language is quite clear."
She peered at him.
"And so do you cede?" she inquired.
He gave her something of a half-smile. "There's the rub."
"Do explain why I shouldn't blast you into next week for non-compliance?"
"You know I don't like to lie to you," he told her. "So, I'm certainly not going to agree to something I'm not sure I can do, even if it will appease you for the moment."
"Why can't you do that?" she asked. "How hard is it?"
"Very difficult, I'm afraid," he replied.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I love you," he said, and her eyes dropped away from his – her nerves suddenly harangued her.
"Ah," she said. "Yes, I suppose there is that."
Silence reined a moment, then she heard from him a quiet chuckle.
"Yes, that," he said. "The unfortunate development that happens when a man falls in love with a woman; he doesn't want anyone else to fall in love with her."
"You know that's one of the biggest benefits of marriage, don't you?" he asked after a moment. "Keeping things in order."
"Who said anything about marriage?" she asked defensively.
"I did," he replied, unruffled. "It's so a man can have a contract that says, 'Yes, this one's yours' and nobody can question it and come in and claim her all willy-nilly. Things would just be a mess, otherwise."
"Since when did you care so much about order?" she asked.
"When I discovered the things that mattered to me," he told her. "I found I've become a quick study in order."
"Ah," she said, turning to look at the manor light illuminating the distant hilltop. Shifting a moment, she tossed out: "You're making me nervous, Hans."
"Why am I making you nervous?" he asked, relentless.
"Because you're…" and she turned her head to look him over. "You're… weirdly calm? Settled? Kind of serious? You're ponderous."
"Oh, that's interesting."
"Is that all?"
"No," he said. "Not hardly. I've a proposal to make."
She felt her breath catch in her throat, but she smoothed it over as quickly as she could.
"Oh, do you?" she inquired, trying at 'aloof' but failing miserably.
He snatched her wrist and pulled her close against him - flush, even - apparently finished with beating around the bush, and, after tearing the glove from her hand and casting it to the soggy ground as if it were the worst imposition to ever have occurred, he kissed her hand with a divine, worshipful reverence, a prescient serenity. His other arm was grappled at her waist; he had vised her to him with a maddened possessiveness which she might have disliked under some other circumstances but found strangely comforting under these.
"My darling Elsa," he murmured against her fingers. "I have come to parley."
She gazed into his eyes, knowing what was there, the moss-green, the dark heart, the deep forest, even without seeing it in the shadowed night.
"State the conditions of your surrender," she replied, and he blinked, amused in an instant.
"I'll never surrender, my dear," he demurred. "But I believe a mutual alliance will benefit us and our countries greatly, if I may posit the terms of a contract?"
"I will entertain your proposal," she allowed.
He very gently curled a fallen lock of hair behind one of her ears with the care of a watchmaker placing the most sensitive and delicate of machinations.
"I've been taken in by the idea of 'order' these days, and I'm running a little experiment," he said. "You see, I'd very much like to marry you, Elsa—"
"Oh, is that so?" she inquired.
"Yes, I know it's very surprising," he continued. "But I can't very well do that in good faith knowing I'd have to rely on you, the sole monarch between us, to be in charge of everything, including myself. I mean, it's fine, I suppose, to be a 'king consort', or what-have-you, but that's not really my style."
"Please do continue to explain," she said, amused. "You're definitely not talking yourself into a bottomless pit, right now."
"Right," agreed Hans. "So, I think the only outcome I would really be satisfied with is if I were to myself be monarch of my own kingdom, that being the Southern Isles. Have you heard of it? Oh, good. Then you can become my queen, and I shall be able to call you that all I like, and you'll have to accept it because it will be legal."
"Oh, that all makes so much sense, Hans," she said dryly. "But I'm never leaving my first husband."
"You mean Arendelle?" he asked her. "That old codger? Please. I'm much more fun."
She couldn't help but laugh.
"No, you don't have to," he said to her, more seriously. "Please don't."
"Then how can we—" she began.
"Ah, it's so nice to see you're already accepting my proposal," he said, and as she opened her mouth to object, he placed a finger across her lips to stop her. "But first things first… I must obtain my kingdom before any talk of nuptials may begin. Well… talk can begin, I guess."
"Then what is your present proposal?" she asked, though it wasn't easy with his finger on her lips, and she brushed it off afterwards.
"I'm glad you asked," he said with a smile. "I would like to propose an engagement to be engaged on the condition that I manage to acquire a kingdom of my own, first - that kingdom being the Southern Isles."
"Never heard of it," she said.
"That's too bad, we have excellent tailors."
"Maybe you can get me a new dress," she said. "This one's ruined."
"Perhaps if you hadn't been rolling about lasciviously in fields with fire princes, it wouldn't be," he chided.
"But darling," she demurred, "That's how I made you jealous enough to propose an engagement to be engaged on condition of monarchy to me."
"The surprise ending is I would have done it, anyway," he said to her.
"How shocking," she commented.
"Those are my terms," he finished.
"Of surrender?" she asked hopefully.
"Never."
She sighed in disappointment. He caught her chin and lifted it, bringing her lips just in line with his, to what seemed to be his favorite place, the almost, the nearly, the steady buzz of so-close-to-touching-but-not.
"Elsa," he said with his voice, that voice, and she shivered. "Do you accept?"
"I do."
-o-o-o-o-o-o-