Princess Anna's life in the last year had become fuller than she would have ever imagined; years of hearing little more than her own feet in the empty halls, her own voice supplying the voices of dolls or paintings, and the sound of silence when outside of her sister's blue door. The attaining of lofty goals from having a relationship with her sister again, to having found romantic love, and even to having left the gates open, was like living in a dream world come true.
Only three months before, during a ball for the coming of spring, Kristoff had proposed. Olaf and Sven cried for thirty minutes together as soon Anna had accepted. It was much different from the proposal she had received and accepted before; if what she had felt for the prince of the Southern Isles had been as fast as lightning, bright and dazzling, what Anna felt for Kristoff was more like the Northern Lights: it lasted much longer, was much more wondrous, and never heralded destruction or storms. She had a ring this time as well, presented at the time of his asking: a beautiful, delicate golden hoop with an intricate flowering setting for the stones, six triangular jade stones surrounding a diamond. Her surprise at such a beautiful, valuable ring was nothing she hid, and when Kristoff had the chance, he explained that the Queen had only helped to commission the ring. He had worked selling ice in the outer towns to buy the ring himself. With a small portion of comedy, she realized that she didn't really need to know. Just that she loved it and him and was ready to start their married life together.
Particularly, she wanted Kristoff beside her when she slept. Although she was ever yet the maiden, and was partially naïve to what a wedding night really meant, the idea of having a sleeping Kristoff to ward off the nightmare was calming. Of the nightmare, Anna tried not to dwell. She didn't talk about it with Elsa or run to her sister's—at long last—comforting embrace. She wouldn't, because it was about the freezing. After love had thawed her out, Anna barely gave the minute she spent as solid ice a second thought, until the dream began. Sometimes it varied.
Sometimes, Anna was running towards Elsa and Hans, but she was freezing too fast, and never made it in time to save her sister. She would watch as Hans graphically hacked into Elsa, one blow to render her immobile, one to savage the ice with blood, and one last stab to pierce Elsa's heart. Sometimes, the nightmare was about shattering as she tried to stop Hans' blade. Sometimes, it was that Anna had frozen, and Elsa, instead of being heartbroken, was impassive, killing Hans and going back to her ice castle to keep Arendelle in an endless winter. Anna would wake holding in a scream. One nightmare, and she couldn't go back to sleep at all. She would spend the rest of the night or early morning waiting for the sun to melt off the chill she acquired from the lurid dream.
Anna and Kristoff's wedding would happen the day after the Summer Solstice, the first night available to them in summer. That was a good two weeks away, but Anna didn't feel as though she were rushing it. Rushing had only caused problems for her before.
As she left her room, closing the door, she realized that a great many normal things were already buzzing in the castle. Just in her hallway, two maids walked past with fresh linens and brisk purpose. They smiled at her, but left her un-accosted. Hoping that the Queen would already be awake, Anna went to her sister's study.
No luck. If the Queen was up, she was elsewhere.
Anna's next target was her fiancé. Checking the rooms he was given to stay in until they were married, she found those were empty. Unable to help the servants much in their daily tasks, she elected to go and look for Kristoff in the town.
Egon wasn't sure how to go about acquiring an audience with Queen Elsa. The ship would dock before sundown in Arendelle, and he and his wife, Linnéa, and their charge would need to be on the list to see the Queen, at least. Somehow, Hans' fear of being followed had infected the old veteran. Fear wasn't the word; paranoia was a better fit. In his mind, he could see a force of men storming onto a ship, and through sheer force of will, making it catch their ship. Linnéa had developed the same sense of foreboding.
The sun was tilting down when the shore came into view, the port of the castle-town glittering in the summer sun. Egon stood on the deck, his wife below with Hans, getting him ready, as best she could, for an audience with the Queen. She dressed him in her husband's best clothes, which fit him loosely, but came down too short on his legs and arms. Egon's wife aimed to take scissors to his auburn hair, grown down to touch the plates of his shoulders—which she had cleaned vigorously with salty sea water—and cut it into the style worn by most noblemen, but Hans waved her off and refused her. She did pleat it and let it rest against the back of his neck. Linnéa, who Hans had come to learn was an ex-whore, made enough faces at his beard that he relented when she asked, for the umpteenth time, to neaten it up. The ex-prince told her that he had worn muttonchops, but that he wanted to simply shave it all off.
She was smarter than to let him use the blade on his own, leaving small sideburns, but otherwise taking his beard down to the skin from ear to ear. It was startling the effect that being clean shaven had on Hans. He acted less like a haggard and dejected prisoner, and more like man who would face his possible death with dignity. No trace of a smile touched his young face. His eyes were melancholy. She was struck by just how… noble he looked, even thin and underfed.
Egon came down when they were to dock, and scrutinized the man he had rescued with unconcealed bemusement. As though he didn't understand what he saw. The three of them left the ship without much ado, wheeling the cart they had packed onto the ship down a plank onto the streets. Egon spoke quietly with his wife, his hands on the reigns, both of them riding on the little bench at the front, Hans in amongst their belongings wrapped in a blanket. He told her that he thought they should find someplace to stay the night, leave their things there and take Hans to the castle when the sun went down. She had nothing to add to his plan, which surprised him. They found an Inn at the edge of the castle-town, paid a stable boy to keep their cart packed, and waited for the last light of the day before setting out toward the castle.
To Hans, they seemed to have walked the length and breadth of the earth before the lights of the castle of Arendelle came into view. Both Egon and his wife had taken to supporting the ex-prince as he walked along—not without protests at first—but let go when he murmured something about not looking like an invalid before his executor. His weakness came from his injuries. Walking had made it feel as though a Hellish chafing ran from his toes to his navel. He might as well have been wearing pants woven with glass, as irritated as his skin was.
In the marketplace before the castle, Hans, Egon, and Linnéa encountered a crowd—the festivities of the first day of summer were to begin soon, and trading had already picked up. Hans wasn't a crowd sort of man, not only preferring to be at the front of it, but not liking the proximity of so many bodies. Compounded by the paranoia of being chased, Hans felt a current of anxiety begin in him; the bounty hunters could be any one of these unfamiliar faces. His hands shook, naked feeling without gloves, until they found fistfuls of his shirt to hold onto.
Linnéa noticed first, and being a woman of astute intuition, said candidly to Hans, "Don't think about them being here, being anybody. Think about how hard you'll be to find in this mess, about being anybody." It wasn't bad advice, and it was calming to imagine himself being another face in the crowd, but nothing short of a full pardon or death would really calm his nerves. Chattering voices made it hard to keep an ear out for shadowing footsteps, the brush of another person as they passed too close made him think of the poisons that could drop him in a moment, wherein the bounty hunters could scoop him up and take him back to his brothers. Back to the men who he should never have had to fear, but who had tortured him, all of them choosing their own form. It seemed like all thought paths went back to that. He took the woman's advice and pictured himself different from what the supposed bounty hunters were looking for; Hans imagined that he was thin man, tall but having a frame meant for more weight, that he would have hair much longer than anyone in Arendelle had ever seen on him, that the face that was handsome once would be much thinner and more feral, his chin elongated by the lack of sideburns, and his eyes sunken in with a pervading tiredness to them. He would look different than even the last prince to see him had seen him. He would look different than Princess Anna or Queen Elsa had seen him. And that was a comfort. In the crowd, Hans was simply a gaunt, tall man in slightly billowy, slightly short clothes.
They were weaving their way through the marketplace, making good time, when his borrowed boot, a size tighter than he wore, caught a table leg and he and all the merchandise went cluttering to the cobblestones. He hit awkwardly, and the pain was immediate, from the assaulted toes to the injured fingers and now bleeding palms, his whole front hitting before his face could. It was so stunning that all he heard for the next fifteen seconds or so was the sound of his heartbeat hammering in his ears. The merchant, he heard as his hearing returned and the roar of his blood died down, was squawking already about his broken things. Egon was apologizing in a gush, he and Linnéa lifting the table first, Egon setting the textiles, the baskets, the wooden figurines back up while his wife lifted Hans to his feet, where he wobbled with half a mind to vomit all over the table and the merchandise. The retching urge was one of the things he had learned to control in the last year, however, keeping him from adding insult to injury.
Egon was trying to give him what money he could spare to cover the broken things, but the merchant would have nothing but exactly what they cost—likely grossly overestimated—and he would come after Hans to get it. Tense words were flying very quickly until the merchant pushed at Egon to get to Hans, the veteran pushing back. They were shoving, Linnéa almost dropping her support of Hans as she shouted vulgarities at the pair of them for fighting. Didn't they know that the guards would be coming?
Someone else beat the guards to it, crashing through the throng of spectators to break Egon away from the merchant and put two strong hands out on either's chest to keep them apart. Blonde hair lay on his forehead, a strong frame with no sign of malnourishment or underuse, about the size of Egon, and a familiarity to him in conjunction to Princess Anna. His name escaped Hans until the clatter of hooves and the appearance of a reindeer heralded the arrival of someone who said the name; "Kristoff?"
Princess Anna slid off the back of the great huffing beast just as more soldiers skidded to a halt behind the reindeer. She was the thing that let the air out of the merchant and the situation. Kristoff was able to drop his hands as the merchant backed up and Egon, scrappy old veteran that he was, backed up as well, realizing who she was, though he was a stranger to the kingdom.
"What's going on here?" she asked, voice like a clarion. All he could do was stare at her, Linnéa blocking half of him where she had unconsciously put herself between Hans and Egon. The merchant started babbling right away, saying how nice it was to see the Princess, and that he was so sorry that she and Kristoff had had to bother with breaking up a misunderstanding. "…That man there knocked down my whole display," the merchant said, pointing at Hans, who quickly dropped his eyes and bowed his head somewhat, "I cannot sell broken things, and I need the money to live on until harvest. This man says he is the other's father and offered me only a pittance to cover the broken things. Look at them! They look nothing alike, and that woman isn't old enough to be the man's mother. He's got his own money, certainly. I just need the money to pay for what I cannot sell."
On and on the merchant went, and Kristoff joined in saying that Hans and Egon should buy the things broken in Hans' fall, but no word had come from Anna. Hans had a sick feeling in his stomach that Anna was looking at him too closely. Footsteps on the cobbles, and Linnéa moving aside like someone was getting closer, until Hans saw a dress hem and toes of shining feminine boots.
"Look at me," she said in a small voice, ignoring the confused tone of Kristoff's voice calling her name. Hans felt his stomach drop, but the small ounce of pride in him wouldn't face any of this as a coward. Hans looked up, shoulders squaring in a royal way, green eyes locking on the pair of blue, which widened at the sight of him. Princess Anna's brows drew together, but her eyes were just as wide and staring as before, almost horrified. She might have started to say something, but her mouth pressed into a firm line.
Hans was expecting it before it came, but Anna's punch still hurt. The slight crunch of his nose sounded like it had been re-broken—a small part of his mind thought about hoping it was straight again—and a burst of blue dots blinded him, painful but not as bad as the pain throughout his whole body. Certainly not the most painful thing he had gone through in the last year, and not the strongest punch. His hand went up to his face as he staggered back, a fount of blood trying to pass through his fingers. Linnéa was back between him and her, shouting and keeping the Princess at arm's length until Kristoff had seized her, Egon and his wife caught up by the troop of soldiers.
"Bring them to the castle and put them in the dungeon," Anna ordered, angry and rightfully so, Hans supposed. Before she was out of earshot, however, Hans heard her say to Kristoff, "It's Hans." Incredulous, Kristoff looked back, partly scowling and partly bewildered. The rough hands of the guards seized hold of Hans, and he, Egon, and Linnéa were pushed along behind the Princess, a reindeer, and Kristoff.
Sven's muscles underneath Anna's legs seemed like stone wrapped in fur, and he clopped along at a sober pace, picking up on the mood of the pair. Kristoff let his arms rest around Anna's waist, but neither of them had spoken since Kristoff had asked if it really was Hans, and Anna had answered yes. There was a lot to process for both of them, but more for Anna.
Firstly, Hans looked horrible. Haggard and frail were good adjectives for his pale, drawn visage, once so full of life and blushing with health. The last year had not been easy on him, she guessed. It wasn't in her nature to hold a grudge, but the moment she saw Hans, all Anna could think about was how he left her to freeze to death, how he told her that she would die before she had a chance to save Elsa, how she had had to choose between her own life and her sister's, how he looked as he got closer to Elsa and raised the sword… how it felt to freeze solid. All of these things came from the Hans of a year ago, and it was that Hans that Anna was sure still lived in the shell he was now. So, no matter how bad he looked now, no matter how bad the last year had been for him, Anna had it in her mind that she would trust nothing that he said.
As the guards branched off with the three prisoners, Anna and Kristoff continued through the castle, her quick stride forcing him to keep up the pace or get left behind. Sven followed, but he seemed to be giving up the idea and dropping back. Finally, Kristoff caught Anna's hand, halting their movement.
"Where are we going?" Kristoff asked. Anna's mouth pressed into a line as she looked from him to a door down the hallway. "Isn't it obvious? I'm going to go tell Elsa."
"But why are you going to tell Elsa? What do you want her to do about him?"
Anna frowned, realizing that she had no real plan other than burst into the Queen's rooms and tell her that the man who tried to kill her—who they had received word had been executed for his crimes by his brothers' demands—was in their dungeon. Her fight drained out of her, eyes finding Kristoff's face and getting moist. "I don't know… I just can't stand that he's back."
Kristoff pulled her into a hug, her head against his chest, one of the only places where she felt totally safe. "Maybe we do tell her that Hans is here and locked away," Kristoff offered, "but we suggest that she hold an audience tomorrow to find out why he's here. In public, maybe it won't be so easy for him to manipulate anyone." The "anyone" in that statement really meaning the pair of sisters.
"Okay," Anna finally said, taking his hand and walking steadily down the hall to Elsa's rooms.
Queen Elsa still suffered, somewhat, from her social anxiety and former isolation. Anna's unshaking faith in her helped, always, but the moment her sister was out of sight, the worms of doubt and fear wiggled through the cracks in her mind. She was a very good leader, having been tutored by her parents before and up to their deaths four years ago, but she was still impressionable. Love had thawed the more obvious frozen places in her heart and mind, the places connected to the familial love between her and her sister, the ability to converse with others, and the need for her gloves, but there were still places locked in ice within her. She saw Anna's happiness with Kristoff, was glad for them, and was wistful of a love like that for her own, but Elsa didn't believe herself capable of navigating romantic love. Too long had she been a prisoner to the fear of touch, of being so close to someone that it would hurt if she ever disappointed them, hurt them, or lost them. These things she had been able to determine when suitor offers trickled back in, brave kingdoms wanting to marry their princes to the Ice Queen, none of them appealing to her.
She would rather live and die alone than live with someone who she couldn't love, found herself fearing, and would ultimately drive away with her aloofness. Thoughts like these had been ever-present the closer Anna's wedding got.
There was a knock at her sitting room door, and Elsa left her place on the settee to answer it herself. Anna's face alarmed her when she saw it, pale eyes going from sister to future brother-in-law, seeing nearly the same expression on both. She stood aside, let the pair enter and sit on the blue-cushioned love seat before shutting the door and sitting across from them. Trying not to think the worst, she put on a weak smile and asked, "Having trouble with the guest list?"
Briefly, both Anna and Kristoff looked confused. Anna shook her head, "No… Um…" Kristoff held her hand like he was Anna's only anchor to the world. Elsa felt her brows constrict.
"Hans," Anna began again, the name like a curse among the pair of them, "… he's in our dungeons." Something like a slight wave of relief let the air out of Elsa. That was the least of the horrors she had imagined. But right after, confusion took over. "But isn't he—," Elsa started.
"Dead? I thought so, too," Anna said, frowning, "But it's the truth. He's alive, and he's in our dungeons. Tell her, Kristoff." Elsa looked to him, and he nodded, adding, "I didn't get as good of a look as Anna, but I saw him."
Elsa stood, turning away from them, needing a minute to process without them seeing her reaction. At first, she was blank aside from a gnawing remembrance of thinking Anna was frozen solid forever. Next, a part of her felt a guilty twinge of relief. Elsa had sent Hans back to the Southern Isles to face his brothers' judgment, not thinking that they would execute him. She hadn't wanted him dead, even if he had wanted her dead. Having the power to kill others on her own had made her the least bloodthirsty monarch in Arendelle's history. Life was something she had the power to give—Olaf and Marshmallow—or take—the Duke of Wiseltown's men. Knowing that Hans had not actually died as his brothers' announcement said took away some of the troubling weight of believing she had sent him to his death that had been on her since.
"Well," she said, turning back around, "I gather you have a plan."
Another night in a dungeon.
What he wouldn't have given to go back to sleeping in feather mattresses with pillows and blankets of rich softness; Hans thought about what he had done to get there, and knew he would have given up his ploy to rule Arendelle all on his own. It would stand to reason that sleeping on stone was familiar enough by now that Hans could have done it anywhere, but he found that he could do little else than stand with his back to a corner and his eyes facing the bars. When his legs started to shake and he needed to sit, he did so by making himself as small a target as he could, even if it made him uncomfortable to sit as such. Memories of nights spent in terror and dread came back to him. His eyes began getting heavy in the wee hours of the morning, until sleep, and a nightmare, stole over him.
He was in a courtyard, square and beautiful except for the large post that had been erected in the center of a square, stone platform. Above him was a balcony, set up like a gallery for onlookers, including his brothers, Vilppu to Gustav, and several eager looking courtiers. Hans was being taken to the post, which had an ominous ring at the top. His manacles were tied to the ring using rope, though the girth was big enough that he couldn't have reached around it and touched his fingers together. He had been stripped to the waist before they had secured him with his face to the gallery.
From the balcony, Vilppu's voice boomed over the courtyard, the dream distorting all but a few words: "thirty lashes." He was turned to face the well-used pillory, the rope twisting close to the ring. His eyes caught that detail, his nose caught the scent of blood, sweat, and something else. The courtyard became so quiet that a bug on a blade of grass would have sounded like a monster crashing through trees. When the whip was uncoiled, and when its length dropped heavily to the stone cobbles, it sounded like thunder.
The first lash stole his breath and felt like it had cleaved meat from bone. The second was far enough apart for Hans to feel sweat trickle into the fresh wound. Bile rose from his stomach at the third strike, and his heartbeat pounded his ears like a company of drummers. He was conscious for each lash, though his field of vision had gone red and black somewhere around fifteen. In his head, he counted along, and when thirty was up, he expected to be left alone to die of the pain. A thirty-first lash cracked across him, no voice telling the wielder to halt. Four more followed slowly before a voice did call out that it was enough.
The dream, or memory, as it had turned out to be, was vivid enough that Hans awoke in a sweat, the scars running across his back throbbing with such ferocity that he could have given a detailed description of where each ugly weal was on his back. He stumbled over to the waist bucket and wretched up everything in his stomach, which wasn't much. Breathless, Hans sat against the wall and let the coolness of the stone calm his feverish heat.
Elsa usually dressed quietly without the help of her maids. She had become so unaccustomed to wearing the cloth creations of thread and needle that all the dresses in her possession stayed in their closet. She would stand before her mirror and fashion her own gown of ice, ice so finely woven that it acted as cloth did. It was usually thin on her arms and shoulders, allowing for movement. She usually had a train of gossamer-like ice crystals, and aside from those staples, she tended to look different every day. A maid would come in to pleat her hair however she asked, if she did, sometimes foregoing the simple signature braid for a series of complex ones wound about her head—those were usually left to the maid. She liked to keep it simple, however, and the braid seemed most common, dropped over one shoulder the way she liked it. Elsa never wore her hair plainly down—it didn't befit a queen—though it was thick and slightly wavy, and fell to the small of her back, and would have looked gorgeous down.
The morning of the audience with Hans found Elsa already awake and dressed, her face turned to the tardy sun and arms crossed. Kristoff's suggestion that Hans be dealt with publicly caused Elsa to sleep uneasily with nervousness fluttering about her stomach like a swarm of bugs. She had awoken to find a thin layer of frost patterned across her bed and on the ceiling. She began trying to tell herself it was silly to be nervous about talking to a supposedly dead man who had tired and almost succeeded in killing her and taking her kingdom.
Perhaps it wasn't that silly. Then again, Anna had tried to stress that the Hans she had imprisoned was a sorry shadow of the man he used to be, by the looks of him, likely maltreated over the last five or six months. Who knew? It had been a year. How long ago had that missive arrived?
A knock at her door let in the maid who re-brushed the Queen's hair and wound it up like Elsa asked. The maid left in time for breakfast to be served and Anna and Kristoff to arrive. Elsa was glad to see both looking stately, like the three of them would be a united front before the former Prince. Anna had also coiled her hair up, rather than her pigtails, looking older and perhaps a little haggard, like she hadn't slept well. Kristoff was well-dressed, blonde hair combed and not smelling strongly of his reindeer.
"How soon can we get this over with?" Anna asked fairly quickly, having only just sat down to be served a cup of tea and a biscuit. Kristoff looked at her with what Elsa could only term as sympathy.
"Just before noon," Elsa answered, having thought about it already. Anna let out a breath, drinking tea and managing not to look too miserable. Elsa wondered at her sister's strong reaction, attributing it to the old sentiment "Hell hath no fury…" After all, Anna had been the one to think a night's infatuation was true love, had accepted a marriage proposal, and had been betrayed all of that, left to die, and then sacrificed her life to save Elsa from Hans. Thinking about all those things again made her feel like screaming at their prisoner, perhaps getting her own punch in. She wasn't angry enough to want him dead, however, and the thought never actually crossed her mind. Kristoff and Elsa made small talk, Anna uncharacteristically introverted, all three passing through breakfast absentmindedly. Surely, they had the same thing keeping their thoughts occupied: Hans.
The palace guards what came to collect Egon, Linnéa, and Hans, seemed as quiet and reposed as if they were to march prisoners marked for death. It boded ill. The veteran had had an easier time sleeping than did his charge, and his wife never complained one way or the other for herself, even if she looked slightly stricken that Hans was put in a separate cell.
Egon marched after Hans, his wife following him, and they were led up through the castle's bowels to what he saw as lavish suites and rooms. Having lived most his life on campaign or poor, Egon had to hold in a whistle. The floors were polished so that one might actually see themselves mirrored beneath them. The woodwork around the doorframes and banisters were also polished—not so much that one could not take in the detailed work of knots, figures, and patterns for the luster. Where the wood became covered in paint, or in cloth—Egon couldn't be sure without touching it, such was its effect—it was just as beautiful.
They were brought into a large room with a vaulted ceiling, and to either side of an isle stood grim-faced people. Egon was surprised. Was this a public hearing? Why?
At the end of the room was a dais which raised a throne of somewhat understated authority up by only two steps. He was impressed not by the throne, or the people, but by the Queen who sat upon it, alone on the dais. She was beautiful, Egon thought, and regal. Shades of white and blue seemed to constitute every aspect of her appearance; hair so pale blonde it could have been the color of dawn on snow, skin a shade darker than ivory, a gown that looked crafted from a winter's wind. Linnéa, he heard, sucked in an appreciative breath. In front of him, he heard nothing from Hans except the tall man's boots hitting the floor.
Egon finally pulled his eyes from Queen Elsa long enough to look at the couple who stood to the right side of the monarch, the woman as beautiful but perhaps not as regally dignified. Remembering that Queen Elsa's sister, Anna, was the one Hans had supposedly deceived, Egon understood that the look on her face was from grievances past, not present, and was not aimed at him.
They were made to stand shoulder to shoulder, lined up before the Queen. Egon let his eyes slide to see how Hans was doing, but the ex-prince's face was schooled in calm, resigned dignity. He looked to his wife, who looked awed but nervous. Finally, he looked to the Queen and Princess.
From upon the throne, Queen Elsa looked at the three prisoners brought before her, at first searching for a forth to be brought in, unable to recognize the ex-prince Hans in any of them. With well-disguised horror, she realized that the tallest man—his longer auburn hair and shortened sideburns not the most significant change—was Hans. He was too thin, wore clothes too short and too wide for him, and, despite his dignity, was haggard and haunted looking. She had the urge to stand up, to get closer; to see for herself what hollowness now ruled his green eyes, all because she had no idea who this man was—he wasn't the same one she sent on a ship back to his kingdom.
Elsa didn't move one inch off her throne, however. Her eyes went to Anna, who seemed ready to trundle him back off to the kingdom that had supposedly hung him, her fists balled tightly and slightly hidden in her skirt. Kristoff had set his jaw, but had, perhaps, a sliver pity for the ex-fiancé of his soon-to-be-bride. With a deliberate release of her breath, she looked to the other two accompanying Hans.
"Well," Elsa began, her voice ringing in the silence of the room, clear as a bell, "Have you anything to say for yourself?" No charges had been read, no repeat of Hans' crimes. It was not him who spoke first, though his face had gone seemingly blank; it was the other man, shorter, with grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard, body obviously well-maintained so that the clothes Hans wore would have fit him perfectly.
"Pardon me, your Grace," he said, though the words came out of his mouth like roughly chewed food, "But I can explain better than he can, I believe. If I may…?" Elsa wondered at his words, but consented with a slow nod of her head, keeping her eyes on the more valuable prisoner.
"See—I mean—It was that I had been employed by a man in a fancy suit one day, about five months ago. He'd be the type to be employed by someone just under you, your Grace, like a Prince. He tells me there's someone his boss wants kept alive. All I had to do was feed him, empty his p—chamber pot," the older man had amended his speech in the presence of a Queen, Elsa supposed. "Patch him up from time to time…"
Hans' face dropped for the first time, and the Queen felt a small pang of mortification. How often was from "time to time" and what did it entail? The speaker continued, "Anyway, a few days ago, I realized who he was. His brothers had been keeping him secret, dealing out punishments they saw fit, and when… well, I had had enough, and so had he. I packed up my house, put my wife on the cart, and drove it to the prison, then jimmied Hans out and onto a ship.
"We came here to you because… well, you seem kinder than the Princes, and I was hoping you might protect me and my wife for bringing him here. Sure, he did you wrong, but I can say—honest truth, in my opinion— that he's more than paid for that."
Nothing came to mind aside from confusion. She had thought death was too harsh a punishment, but the idea that he had been tortured, as the man's brief story suggested. A response leapt off her tongue unbidden, words that she supposed were directed at Hans: "Is this true? Do you believe the punishment fit the crime?" His eyes raised, dignity composing him again, "No."
Murmurs went through the crowd. The surprise she felt played on her face. Off to the side, Anna made an undignified sound and started forward. Kristoff took hold of her arm, face grim. "No?" Elsa asked.
"No, Queen Elsa, the punishment did not fit the crime," Hans repeated, his voice quietly held in check, loud enough only to be heard, not to rail against the injustices done him. "I request that you—and you alone—pass judgment on me. I tried to take your life, not my brothers'; they had their fun. If you want the punishment to fit the crime, I suggest a swift death; that is what I had aimed to deal you."
Again, muttering in the crowd, only now hissing with anger and indignation. Elsa couldn't look away from Hans. There was a calmness to him—a stillness in his body—but in his eyes there seemed to be a fire, desperate, pleading, slightly mad. She didn't know what to make of it; didn't know how to handle being asked to end his life. His fellow prisoner turned to him, eyes wide, saying, "You don't mean that, son! Surely there are better things—," Hans cut him off, though it was harder to hear as the muttering began to louden, "Better than what? Rotting away in a cage? No," Hans returned his gaze to the Queen, "Kill me. Do not send me back to my people. Do not let the men they have surely sent after me haul more than a corpse back to the Southern Isles."
From the corner, Anna's voice rose up, which was startling in its confidence, "Why shouldn't we hand you back?" The room quieted in light of the Princess' voice, "Elsa doesn't owe you anything. I don't. We were just fine and dandy thinking… thinking you were dead." Elsa heard the confidence leaking out of Anna, her anger fading in the spotlight, though what made her sister's irritation so strong, Elsa didn't know. Hans didn't seem to expect this from Anna, either. His response was still dignified, however.
"You're right to hate me, Anna," he said, though it was followed by so many howls from the crowd that he had to pause, "I cannot even apologize without it sounding like ambitious groveling,… so, I say, the decision does not rest in your hands. It is your Queen's right to decide." The room again grew loud, and Elsa became so frustrated with the crowd and with Hans that she found herself on her feet.
"We will discuss this matter in private. Please, return to your homes and your jobs," the crowd again muttered, but it was not the rebellious muttering of a mob. Just of wagging, gossiping tongues. She looked to the guards who flanked the three prisoners, and commanded, "Bring those three up to my sitting room."
Turning on one ice-hewn heel, her train coiling about her, she walked to the door off to side of the dais, gesturing for Anna and Kristoff to go through first. They waited on the other side and fell into step behind her. Neither said a word until Elsa wheeled on Anna, starting the conversation she'd meant to have with her sister since the night before, when Anna seemed too unsettled by Hans' arrival. "What is wrong, Anna?" she asked, not without force, but mostly pleading, "You worried me to death last night, and you've been so unlike yourself. So tell me why, please? What is it about Hans that has you so worked up?"
It must not have been a good time, because though Anna was momentarily surprised, she seemed to become angry again, lips pressed into a firm line, brows furrowing. She almost said something, but, seeing that she wouldn't get an answer in the present, Elsa turned away, walking quickly down the short hall and up a flight of stairs. Kristoff brought Anna along without a word, though the pair had to be held bodily together because Anna would have walked in a direction opposite than the Queen's apartments.
Having her sister angry with her was disturbing. If Elsa had one thing to count on, it was that Anna loved her and had faith in her always. She'd proven that when she sacrificed herself, freezing solid rather than letting Hans kill her. There shouldn't be any doubt that Elsa loved her sister, either. When Hans told the Queen that Anna had succumbed to the frozen heart, Elsa had hit her knees. In that moment, no one needed a blade to kill her. All the isolation, all the fear, all the attempts at control had been because she was afraid of hurting her sister again. From that moment that she saw Anna's small body flying through the air, with nothing to catch her, and being too slow to keep her safe, Elsa's life had been about keeping those she could hurt at a safe distance. Anna wouldn't push her away over Hans, Elsa resolved.
The last step on her suites' landing, Elsa paused, looking down at Kristoff and Anna following her. She set her shoulders, cleared her mind of the past, and went into her rooms.
So, here we are at the end of another chapter! Hope you enjoyed it (Though, at this point, I don't think "enjoy" applies to stories with these... themes in them) and don't mind that I still don't really know what I'm doing on (as in, how to really utilize everything.) I'll hopefully be posting not only chapter 4 soon, but maybe 5 and 6 as well. Catch to that: that's all I have so far, so another update would probably take... weeks. -_- I'm slow, and I'm sorry, but I plan on finishing this story. Hope you can bear with me! :D As always, thank you for reading!