Egon, veteran of the Southern Isles was a wanted man. He was seen to have entered the prison of the sixth Prince, Prince Adelbert, but not leave. A prisoner of high value was taken, and it was believed that Egon had helped him escape, if not stole him away. The princes of the Southern Isles from six to twelve were in a state of frenzy, something the eldest prince could not understand. Still, he sent bounty hunters out into the prison's city, on request, to recover Egon and anyone in his company. The eldest brother was not aware that his youngest brother still lived, being among those who thought he had died on the gallows, punishment from princes five through twelve. Though he had voted to disown and imprison Hans for the rest of his life, the eldest brother bore the youngest no ill will, and would not have allowed the death sentence had there not been a majority after it—the majority that would still be around to cause him problems when he became King. It had been Hans' defense of his actions that brokered no leniency on his part.
A year before, Hans returned from Arendelle in chains, having tried to kill the young Queen and succeeding only in straining relationships between the two kingdoms. The King of the Southern Isles had passed off punishment to his sons, unwilling to pass judgment on his youngest son and believing that his brothers would deal with him justly. If the twelve would have stopped with the eldest prince's punishment, it would have been. Before passing collective judgment on his brother with the rest of the princes, the eldest prince visited Hans in the cushy "cell" he had been given to await a sentence—a courtiers room—to speak.
Suspicion had been the first thing to cross Hans' youthful face. They were fifteen years apart, the eldest, Dorian, and the youngest, Hans. They had never been close, but despite the age difference and their distance, the elder considered it the right thing to do to see what his youngest brother had to say for himself.
"Why, Hans?" Dorian asked after closing the door after him, disappointed, "What in Creation possessed you to try and wile and kill your way onto the throne of Arendelle?"
A nameless spasm of emotion crossed Hans' face, and he turned away for a moment, as if to collect himself. When he turned back, he looked nothing like the young prince Dorian had thought he knew, but vindictive and smug, "You ask me this? You, who are heir to the Throne? I shouldn't even try to explain it to you." Hans said, a cold, yet superior glare trained on his elder brother. Dorian did not look away, fingers of one hand going to the other to fondle the Signet Ring of the Crown Prince, his station. "You should be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of women. Our Mother would be disappointed," the elder brother chided
Hans vaulted over the lounge chair between them and stopped short of tackling the heir. His hands made fists, opening again, as if he would strangle his brother. "Do not speak of her… please. I'll explain it to you, Dorian, but do not speak of her," Hans negotiated, straightening and putting distance between them again. The smug façade had cracked when Dorian had mentioned the dead Queen Mother—salt in an old wound. The heir knew just why Hans was so touchy about their mother: the woman had never seemed particularly interested in the last sons, having long before given up on the notion of a daughter, and managed to tell Hans at five years old that he was a mistake. When reproached for it, the Queen argued that he was a child, and couldn't understand, much less remember it later, so it didn't matter. That had been the basis of their relationship until her death when Hans was ten.
Dorian took a seat on the chair Hans had jumped over, while Hans set on the bed and tapped his foot. He got up again to pace, then came to a stop at the window, composure taking him over again at last. Facing Dorian again, he had the cold, superior look restored, "How easy it must have been for you, to know your purpose all your life, to have been taught and groomed to be Heir. I'm certain it has been easy for Henrik as well, being your spare, though I imagine his life is like waiting for a lightning strike to touch down at his feet, a second shoe to drop." Dorian's brows drew, thinking about his next-down brother, the second-in-line. Dorian was married, though he and his wife had no children yet. "Vilppu has ever been the general at heart, though most of our brothers are warriors in their own rights, excepting the poets like Iefan and Aleksander. They've all found something to do with their lives. From between the time that Mother… passed… and when you married, I never felt as though I were fulfilling my purpose. I tried a little of everything, I think you know. But the only things I excelled at were things as useless to me as I was to anything else." Hans paused, composure holding, to let it sink in.
Dorian took the time to think of what it was that Hans spoke of, "Leadership…?"
Hans' face cracked for a smile, unsettling in its bitterness, "Yes. I manage well, but not as a Bookkeeper or Captain. I've got the same blood in me that you do—I was born able to lead the people. At first, the idea brought me nothing more than depression, considering what my situation was… We've heard tales of other Kingdom's whose power has been usurped by murdering siblings, but even as the thought came to me, I knew I could do it…"
Dorian had been allowed enough time to be horrified at the idea of murder to climb to the throne, but Hans's words hadn't brought as much relief as they had an uncomfortable squirm in his stomach . "You couldn't murder us," Dorian stated, disbelief in this being false, "We're your brothers."
"That wasn't the problem," Hans said, callously, shocking Dorian, "You all could rot in the depths of Hell, as far as I care. It's that it would have been insane to try and kill you all."
The heir's eyes stared in wide horror at his youngest brother, and Hans laughed, "You should see your face: so much surprise at the idea that I resent you all so much. Well, where was your love and concern when I was young and had no champions? Where were you, the greatest of my brothers, when I was ignored and belittled? No… I care nothing for you twelve, my tormentors. I simply found it impossible to assassinate each one of you before someone took notice and stopped me.
"I decided, instead, to find a Kingdom to marry into. I tried here and there, but all the princesses were long-missing, lowly in the ranks, or already married. Arendelle was preferable, but all suitors to Queen Elsa had been turned away. My intention was to woo the second daughter, Princess Anna, make her my wife and arrange for Elsa an accident. I would be the steady hand on Anna's as we ascended the throne.
"Then, Elsa showed herself to be cursed or… whatever it is that she is… bewitching… and turned Arendelle to winter. Anna left me in charge, and I felt like I was truly doing what it was that I was made to do, leading the fretful people in their time of need, and doing a good job of it. Anna did not return, though her horse did, and this led to that until I was leading men up the North Mountain to save her from her sister. I saved Elsa's life; did you know that?"
Dorian had been listening for long enough that he was fumbling for an answer to a question he did not expect, "N-No… I did not." Hans nodded, making a face as though he were tasting the answer, mulling over a quick reply.
"I expected that that was forgotten," Hans finally said, "Considering that I tried to take her life. Wiselton's men would have killed her, though she did well protecting herself until I stopped her." Hans' eyes swept out of the present, and he paused before continuing, "'Do not be the monster they fear you are,' I said to her, and she stopped, though it nearly cost her a bolt to the heart. The arrow meant to take her life damaged a piece in her ice castle,—though I suppose everyone thinks I aimed the arrow now—which nearly crushed her. She hit her head, and remembered nothing of me bringing her back to Arendelle. I was gentle, though… Dorian, you've never seen a more beautiful, fair maiden in all your life. Hair like the winter sun… eyes like ice, delicate. Had she not been as frigid as her ice to the charms of men, I would have chosen her over her sister, since the marriage would only have been for power, though Anna made a prettier bride than I hoped for. I deviate.
"I was a perfect gentleman with the Queen, from the moment I lifted her onto my saddle, to the time I tucked her into a cot in the dungeons of her own castle. No one suspected. All Anna had to do was return in one piece, and we could continue as I had planned, Elsa either imprisoned all her life or executed for cursing her Kingdom, either way losing her crown. But Anna came back wounded, desperate for true love's kiss to save her from freezing. I knew my kiss would not save her, and as we were alone, I knew my cover would be broken. I told her everything, starting with how I didn't love her. My plans… ruined. I was cruel to her. I would have to make all new plans, and I was thinking on my feet, thinking that if I let her die, and if Elsa were to die as well, blamed for Anna's death, I would become the new monarch, free of having to truly marry anyone for it, though I told the others that she and I had said our wedding vows before she died."
Hans slapped his hand down on the seal of the window, making his brother jump, "But she didn't die. Anna escaped onto the ice where I chased Elsa, freezing quickly in the blowing snow. Elsa was devastated when she thought she had killed her sister… I think she would not have fought me before I killed her, her grief overtaking her good sense. She would have died quickly, though I'm not sure where I aimed. As I brought my sword down, Anna was there, standing between us, freezing solid as my sword hit her. I was blown back, knocked out, and when I woke up, she was alive, and fine, and the winter was gone. I was returned here just after that." The younger prince reached the end of his tale, and he seemed to have no remorse, no shame, and no qualms. The elder didn't recognize the stranger standing at the window.
Dorian thought of how he had left without a word, his mind made up that Hans deserved the punishment that would come to him from the princes. The eldest thought it would be one punishment, agreed upon by all his brothers except Hans. He had been prepared to hand him over. The day that he passed judgment, he disowned Hans, ordered him imprisoned for all the rest of his days. Then Henrik had spoken up, taking all Hans' wealth to divvy up amongst the others, with Vilppu ordered him whipped, and the rest claiming that they would punish him as well. It was frightening, and ever since, Dorian had not wished to earn the ire of his brothers. So he sent the bounty hunters, three. Their names mattered not, but, if they had to have names, Dorian might would have called those he sent after the prisoner—and the veteran Egon— Flaxen, Bent, and Dodgy. Not a one of them looked like reputable characters, each like wayward thieves, each built thickly in their own way. Flaxen thick in muscle, Bent thick in fat, and Dodgy thick in hair, which was greasy and black, making him the dodgiest of the three. It was their reputations as dogged bounty hunters that lent the prince confidence in them.
He was bothered by the Princes' agitation, deciding that no expense from their pockets was too great to pay for what they demanded of him. Dorian had a suspicion that the prisoner was not just some thief or transgressor, but perhaps, someone he thought dead. Someone who might have been spared the death he was sentenced to for a worse fate… Hans.
Flaxen was the first to find a lead on Egon. He'd already been by the house—if one could call it that—where the veteran had lived with his wife, and found nothing, so, went back to the area around the prison, following a fading cart trail, running in the direction of the docks. He found a man who might know a man who was friends with Egon, quickly paying him for the name, then finding said friend, who he muscled into talking. Surely, Bent and Dodgy would not be long behind. The veteran was bound for Arendelle with the prisoner. All that was left was to charter a boat to catch up with the one already on the way.
Dorian decided to have the bounty hunters followed by a quintet of his father's finest guards, more loyal than even his brothers. They were given orders to, if the bounty hunters found Egon and the prisoner, pay them off and allow the pair of hunted to stay where they were, but to send word to himself, so he might see the prisoner for his own eyes. If it was Hans, Dorian needed to know.
Hans came out of his fever in his sleep, and when he awoke, he awoke in the company of strangers, a man with short grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and a thin, weepy woman, both dressed as he would expect the working-class poor to. Confusedly, Hans scrambled back to the corner of the bed to take in his surroundings. Wooden interior, a store room, perhaps, and everything in the place made a noise like it leaned and groaned; Hans was on a ship. It had only taken his first movement in throwing the blankets back to feel the pain his whole body was in, but he didn't remember what could have caused it until he realized that both the grey man and the crying woman were staring at him as if expecting something more from him.
His brother, Gustav, the twelfth prince, had ordered him cut, and they had done it. Not these people, but a brutish man who might have made it his life's work to torture other men. Hans had to look, digging past layers of clothes with mangled fingers, horror gripping him when he had confirmed, indeed, that he had been cut. For a moment, he was frozen with horror and then he was gripped with grief, crushing him into putting his head in his hands and sobbing. A hand touched his foot, reminding him that he was not alone, and he jerked his bearded face up, seeing both the woman and man leaning towards him. "Leave me be!" Hans growled, rashly kicking his foot out to knock the hand away, body screaming at him in protest to stop, lancing pain up into his brain. His addled eyes found the door and he awkwardly bolted for it, new lances tearing into him as he loped out on wrecked feet, a wounded animal escaping by the only open opportunity. He was up on the deck, stars dancing in his eyes, not sure how he found his way out, but blinded momentarily by the afternoon sun on the ocean. The edge of the boat was but a couple of strides away, and it looked like the friendliest death he would be granted.
Hans wanted to die, after all he'd been through. He wanted to jump into the water and breathe deep until he drowned. If his brothers caught him—and he suspected, rightly, that there were already men after him—they would stop at nothing until he was little more than a slab of meat, wishing for the death they would never grant. As Hans crossed the deck, one stride from the edge, he was tackled down. The man who held him fast was the same man with short grey hair and his neat beard from below.
"Don't you dare, son," he said, exerting a physical power that belied his age, "I know you're hurt, and I know you're scared, but don't you dare." Familiarity shot through Hans, and he remembered, not a tormentor, but his caretaker from the prison, Egon. The ex-prince's face convulsed, flashing through emotions as they ran through him; frustration, fear, anger, and sadness, cycling through until he came to pleading. "They'll come for me. As fast as they can, they'll send their dogs after me. And they'll catch me. And nothing you can do will save me from them. Just let me die, please… while I still can?"
"No," Egon said, using his weight to keep Hans down until he had his feet under him and was able to lift him from the deck and wrap a vice-like grip around his shoulder, "Don't give up hope just yet, son. We're on our way to Arendelle. If anyone can put an end to all of this, it would be Queen Elsa. Come back below deck. We'll keep you safe; we've got to, or nowhere's safe for us, either."
Like a child, Egon led Hans back down to the storeroom, only a few of the crew having paid any attention to his break for the ledge, and none thinking more of it than need be. The ex-prince needed time to process what had happened to him, but once put back into bed was overcome by exhaustion and pain, sleeping as though he were already dead.
Sorry again if there is anything wrong with this format. I'm totally... well, kind-of computer/website illiterate. Thanks for reading!