Olaf and Sven were never far apart. The closer the date of Anna and Kristoff's wedding came, the more they seemed to be on their own. Not that Olaf couldn't—or didn't—have free range of the castle of Arendelle; he could go to see Anna or Elsa whenever he wanted, and roamed where he pleased. The issue with that, with Anna's wedding one week away, was that they seemed so busy. Olaf would turn up, his personal snow flurry hanging over his head, and be good-naturedly bustled around. It didn't hurt his feelings—a royal wedding that included trolls must be a nightmare to plan, logistically. So he would find a place to sit out of the way and enjoy the show.
Most surprising to him was the arrival of Hans for the wedding. Given the way Anna's last meeting with him ended, Olaf hadn't thought he would be on the guest list. No one had explained anything, however, and Olaf had only seen Hans briefly, sitting in a bed with two strangers beside him in chairs—one had introduced himself as Egon later—and wondered how he was going to attend the wedding in a bed, since he never left it. But, alas, Olaf moved on to find something more entertaining.
That afternoon, "more entertaining" was watching Kristoff having his wedding suit tailored. He was poked and measured and re-measured, and had to stand and model as the tailor made alterations.
"So that's what you're wearing to your wedding?" Olaf finally asked, having a captive audience.
"Um… yeah," Kristoff answered, looking over his shoulder at the animate snowman. "It's supposed to be 'traditional,' for the groom."
"I think you looked better when the trolls dressed you," Olaf said, "Less like a white peacock."
Hans convalesced in bed, Linnéa being the most common fixture in his small room. A doctor had dressed his wound and showed the gentle woman how to do it as well, giving them a salve that was supposed to help keep it clean and close the wound. He slept most of the first day, part of the second, then sat in his bed uncomfortably through the third. The third day was also when Egon caught the ex-prince up on what had happened to the bounty hunter.
The same day that the altercation happened, four guards from the Southern Isles were escorted from the docks to the castle. They had, they said, been sent by the Crown Prince to, if the bounty hunters found their target—a nameless prisoner who had been freed by a veteran named Egon—pay the men off and send word to Prince Dorian, permitting the prisoner to stay where he was. Queen Elsa received the communiqué they from the Elder Prince and, as Egon reported, was somewhat irked. She said that a letter was on its way back to Prince Dorian via the first two bounty hunters intercepted. "She's letting two of the guards stay in Arendelle, but only so long as they stay in an Inn and be watched by her own people. The other two are taking Lumpy back to the Southern Isles. Your brother will probably get her letter before the guards make it back home." Egon and his wife had taken to calling the bounty hunter "Lumpy" for no apparent reason—when asked, Egon said the man was just… lumpy. Hans was just happy that the big man was leaving, probably not to be let back into Arendelle, ever.
After that update, Hans asked if anything else was happening in the castle. Egon was reluctant in saying, "Princess Anna's wedding is in a week." The veteran's brown eyes hovered on Hans, trying to gage his reaction. Hans wondered vaguely if it betrayed anything that he didn't know he felt—any jealousy, any remorse, or any aggravation—because he was feeling particularly… numb. "Oh," was his response.
"She and you were engaged once, aye?" Egon asked. Hans looked at his…—well, Egon was perhaps the closest thing he had to a friend—before saying, "We were, though I was simply trying to marry into the Throne. Our engagement was a sham. I took advantage of how lonely Princess Anna was, and when I thought she was going to die, I left her to her fate. Then I tried to kill Queen Elsa. It would have all worked out for me if Anna had died—I would have had the kingdom all to myself—but she did not, and I did not kill Elsa. They sent me back to the Southern Isles, and… well, you know the rest."
Steadily, Hans met Egon's saddened gaze, until the veteran looked away. "I do know the rest. And I knew all that, too, son."
"You hadn't heard it from me, though," Hans countered, having the veteran look at him again. Egon nodded, quiet for a moment before saying, "No. I hadn't… Do you regret it?"
Again, Hans was numb. His answer was the finale of the conversation, Egon leaving shortly after, subdued and seemingly unhappy;
"Does it matter now?"
After his fitting, Kristoff went down to the stables to see Sven, finding Anna there as well, though she didn't notice him right away, too busy tickling Sven's chin. Kristoff enjoyed the uninterrupted view, and when her back was turned to him, snuck in to surprise her and steal a kiss. Barely a squeak escaped her before their lips met, and even surprised, Anna kissed back with a breathtaking passion. In fact, both were somewhat panting when they finally pulled apart. It was an unspoken thought between the two: Not yet. One more week.
The closer their wedding came, the more the pair seemed to have to tell themselves "not yet."
"How's the dress fitting going?" Kristoff asked after a few exchanges of small talk, and some exchanges with Sven, including a carrot, that helped get their minds off kissing. Anna made a face, "You'd think that all the time I've spent having dresses fitted would've prepared me for this one, but it's so different than anything I've ever worn before. Not to say it isn't pretty. It is. But I'm starting to feel glad that I only have to wear it once… What about you? How's the fitting going?"
"Well, I guess. I've never had to deal that much with being poked and prodded. Olaf said I looked like a white peacock," Kristoff laughed at the end of his sentence, though after said comment, Olaf had had to go and find something else to do. "He said I had looked better when the trolls had dressed me."
Anna's turn to laugh; Kristoff had a harder time keeping his lips to himself when she laughed. She smiled and said, "That was so much easier than having it at the castle. No dignitaries to invite, troll or otherwise, and they did all of the work."
"We could go right now and probably be married before the sun sets," Kristoff said, half-joking. Anna laughed again, but shook her head, copper hair catching the light of the lantern and the natural window lights. "Probably, but… Elsa wouldn't be there. Besides, the guests are already on their way; it'd be rude to elope before they got here."
Kristoff had to agree that Anna was right, reminding himself that it was just one more week. He let Sven out of the stall and suggested the three of them go for a walk, out into the town or through the gardens. Between Anna and Sven, the gardens were chosen, and so off the trio went, Sven firmly keeping a bodily barrier between the two, perhaps playfully prudish. Kristoff wondered if it wasn't his four-legged friend's turn to find a member of the opposite sex. Maybe sometime after the wedding, Sven and he would go into the mountains again to see if any herds of reindeer roamed the great expanses. Anna and Kristoff had chatted easily about menial things throughout the walk, both having chances to make the other laugh, fingers sliding together in Sven's fur as though by accident.
Just one more week…
The following day—six days to the wedding—the first of the wedding guests arrived, a rather wealthy lordling and his widowed mother, who were welcome to either stay on their ship or take their pick of the suites of rooms in the Queen's castle. Naturally, the pair found the castle a much more hospitable place. Their early arrival—considering that the lordship was only a day's journey by boat—was due to a mistaken date on the invitation. The former lord had died in the same shipwreck that had killed Anna and Elsa's parents, his life swallowed up in the waves with King Agdar and Queen Idun, so, naturally, the widow and son were invited to Anna's wedding.
Elsa entertained them briefly until Anna and Kristoff could receive them, and having nothing on her itinerary for the next few hours, found herself seeking less-traversed paths in the castle, the direction being towards the servants quarters, being towards the place where Hans was convalescing. At first she didn't realize that she was doing it on purpose, just going there out of some unintelligible feeling; Elsa quickly recognized, however, that she really was going to see Hans, but couldn't quite pick out what she was going to say.
The day was bleak with a monotonous rain, subduing most everyone in the castle, including the Queen. That morning she'd dressed in a toned-down light-blue ice gown, feet clad in flat ice slippers rather than her normal heels, her hair pleated in the normal way. Summer needed the rain, she knew—rain grew the crops, crops fed the people, she led the people—but it was not nearly as comforting to her as snow. The gloomy, muddy mess that rain created seemed to only deepen the subdued feeling in the castle. Perhaps having rain so close to Anna and Kristoff's wedding would ward off showers or storms on the wedding day.
Halting her impromptu walk, Elsa stood at the corner between the main hallway and the one that led to Hans' room, eyeing the corridor as though it might contain some harmful entity. It could, couldn't it? She could continue down the hall and be back in her suite, stand in the doorway to her balcony and watch the rain fall for a while before her next scheduled item. It would be a soggy view, and the humidity would likely cling to her as tightly as a bodice, but it would less mentally taxing than what she entertained doing. Plucking up her resolve like it was a dropped glove, Elsa went down the hallway and knocked on Hans' door, three beats, all firm.
Linnéa answered the door, eyes widening at the sight of the Queen in the doorway. At such a close distance, Elsa discerned that the woman had brown eyes, lighter than Kristoff's by several shades, and that while few lines marred the adult face, there were pronounced feet at the corners of her eyes, and the beginning of a line near her brow. Elsa guessed that she was in her early to mid-thirties, though Linnéa's husband was a man of at least forty, if not mid-forties. It crossed Elsa's mind to ask this woman about her life, but right then was not the time.
"Hullo," Elsa said, not yet granted access into the room. Linnéa had frozen in the doorway, unmoving. The woman answered with a very similar tone, saying, "Hullo," as if she were shocked.
"I was hoping to speak to Hans, Mrs.… Linnéa, and I was hoping I could do so alone. Would you be so kind as to allow us some privacy?"
Linnéa moved quite quickly as she sidestepped the doorway, saying, "Pardon me, Your Grace. Of course you may."
When Elsa had entered past her, Linnéa made her exit, shutting the door behind her. Elsa's eyes went to Hans, who sat propped up against pillows, legs under the covers, a plain shirt covering his upper half. The auburn hair that had been tied back from his face each time she'd seen him was now lose and fell in thick waves behind and around his shoulders. He was looking back at her with a passive askance, expectant, perhaps. Elsa went to the set by his bed, where Linnéa had left some sort of mending or embroidering, which the Queen moved, and composed herself in the chair. Though she meant to speak first, no words came to mind, and she stared in silence at the patterns in her skirt.
"Why did you stop that man, Queen Elsa?" Hans asked in a quiet voice, prompting the monarch to look up and into green eyes. She couldn't answer right away, and when the stare-down reached an intolerable length, Hans was the first to look away. Finally, she found words that were not charged with her own emotions. "I said I would shelter you until your elder brother arrives. That man meant to either do you harm or make off with you, back to your other brothers. It would reflect poorly on me if I did not keep my word."
Hans was again meeting the Queen's gaze, steadily, and held for a moment after she stopped her explanation, face almost unreadable, before simply nodding. They went another long moment without speaking. Elsa ventured a question of her own: "How's your leg?" Though both were tucked under the blankets, she could see that one was raised up, perhaps on a pillow. He answered without looking at it, without looking away from her, "It will be fine. My threshold for pain has gotten higher in the last year." Green eyes still on her, expecting something: a reaction from her.
Elsa didn't look away for a moment, and her face stayed quite expressionless for that time. Her mind was trying to conjure up some image of the torment faced by this man, his words about being beaten, whipped, drowned, having his fingernails and toenails removed, being hung, repeating in her head. She looked down all of a sudden, unwilling to show that she pitied him. That she was somewhat guilty at having been the one to send Hans back home. How could she have known that his brothers were such vicious beings? Well, she'd had one example, but to think that a family existed where thoughts twisted to violence and misplaced vengeance—even to one of their own—was incomprehensible.
"Egon told, didn't he?" Hans asked Elsa. She pretended to be confused when she looked up, but when she caught sight of his serious expression, she let that drop. Elsa answered with a nod.
Tension visibly drained from the ex-prince, though Elsa wondered if it wasn't defeat that hunched his wide shoulders. "He told just after he knocked you out. He also told me what else happened to you, and while I won't ask you about it, I wanted you to know… that I know."
"And you? Did you tell anyone else? Anna? Kristoff?"
"Anna. I had to, though I didn't reveal everything."
Elsa had looked at the lamp when she lost the nerve to look at Hans. The steady illumination was easy on her eyes, and the flame in the globe flickered slowly. The quiet between them signaled the end, Elsa thought, to their talk, and she made the move to get up off the chair and leave. His voice reached out to grab her as surely as a hand would have.
"You could have let him take me," he said, "No one would have blamed you."
The words hit her with the immediate effect of making her quietly, coldly angry. Her eyes narrowed as she turned, and though she was completely in control, the temperature in the room dropped so that both hers and Hans' breath hung in the air. "If I wanted you dead, it would be well within my power to do so. If I wanted you tortured, I'm sure I could come up with something on my own. You said it yourself that the punishment was mine alone to deal out. I've already decided not to punish you, but you can call it a debt to me that keeps you safe under my domain."
With that, Elsa left Hans, quick stride making for a fast track back to her rooms. In a fit of rather explosive anger, she slammed the door shut behind her, icy touch making a sheet of ice blossom up and down the woodwork like climbing vines. It only served to make her more irritated. She wanted to be on the North Mountain again, able to let her powers fly and spare Arendelle. As it was, she could only walk through her sitting room into her bedroom, grab one of the pillows and scream into it until she was almost blue in the face. The exercise didn't release all of her tension, but it left her rather breathless as she flopped back on the bed, un-lady-like.
"'You could have let him take me,' he says," Elsa mocked, trying to release the last of her aggravation, "'No one would have blamed you.' So, why not? Why not let some ruffian thief steal you back to your brothers? They surely wouldn't have stuck you in a nice room with a bed, given you clothes, fed you…! I would have blamed me!" It surprised her to hear it come out of her mouth, so much so that while her brain continued on, her mouth did not.
It would have weighed on her mind that she had let someone go back to that kind of maltreatment. Even if that someone was an enemy once, she… she didn't wish that on him. She hadn't wished it when she had sent Hans back to his brothers. There had been a corner of her mind where the guilt had lived that believed she had had a hand in his "death." And to think, no one would have blamed her if she sent him back? Were there so few caring individuals in her kingdom? It hadn't seemed like it when she made an ice-rink out of the courtyard, but, then again, wasn't it the mob's prerogative to be influenced into revolting madness by pretty words? If she asked each person, "Would you send him back so that his brothers could torture him daily until he died; until he was used and spent and broken? Would you do the same to me if I ever made a terrible mistake again?" she wondered that she would get "no" across the board, but if she were to ask these questions of a crowd, wouldn't all those no's become yeses?
Perhaps Prince Dorian would take Hans off her hands, and she would be able to go on thinking that she had no further role in any mistreatment. That would be the optimal situation; right up until someone delivered another note telling of his death…perhaps with a head for good measure. Worst-case scenario, she told herself, but, then again, hadn't the worst-case happened to Hans already. Death had not stopped his living hell.
How complicated, all of it.
Throwing herself into a wedding preparation seemed the safer and easier choice. Elsa left her bedroom, shutting the door as resolutely as she shut off the thoughts pertaining to her prisoner and his future. She thawed her other door easily, picturing Anna, as she always did, just after love had thawed her out. The words were there in her heart, an anchor for when her emotions overwhelmed her: "You sacrificed yourself, for me?" to which her brave little sister replied, "I love you."
Five days before the wedding, a rather ugly incident occurred, involving Linnéa and another maid as they were working on the laundry. The head-butler was the first to brave the flying fists and raging tempers, pulling the women apart as a schoolmaster might, disapproving robustly and making a good barricade of himself. Since he could get neither a coherent answer nor a non-obscene one from either woman, he sent them off to their corners of the castle and said that should either be caught fighting again, they could both find some other place to work.
Fuming, Linnéa sought refuge in the quiet room where Hans made a few passes at walking on his injured leg. When she barged in, he seemed rather shocked. For the most part, Hans had never seen Linnéa angry, and it did not escape him that she was capable of being entirely frightening. Though, after a good couple of seconds of having had the door closed, the woman burst into tears. Totally bewildered, Hans could only stand and watch as the woman cried herself out. When she was little more than sniffles and shaky attempts at deep breaths, Linnéa took a few steps to sit on Hans's bed. Hans took the chair after a minute of indecision.
"What is it?" he asked, confusion still working his brain. In a weak voice, Linnéa tried, "M'not welcome here." Her head snapped up, brown eyes almost green with how red they'd become, and she tried to clarify, adding, "Not that that's what got me upset."
"What did cause you to be so upset?"
Linnéa let out a breath, the shake having gone out of her, "I used to make money lying down—whoring, you know. I was a girl when my ma died of consumption, and the only lady what would take me in and feed me was a Madam for a brothel. I did what I had to. I survived. I'm not ashamed of that." She took a minute to decide where she was going with the story, it seemed. Hans' thoughts turned to the few whores he'd lain with before his brothers made him a half-man, and he felt a disturbing connection to them. If they did what they did to survive, he knew how it felt. Linnéa continued, "I was washing clothes, minding my own, and I feel something stuck to my back…" Twisting where she sat, the ex-whore showed Hans a red W dead center on her back, tacked with tar, then returned to how she had been. "It wasn't what got my goat, so to speak. I can handle the snickers and the disapproval. Wearing what I was isn't something I won't do proudly. The bitch—the maid, I mean, didn't get her rise like she was hoping for, so she started talking down to me—like that hasn't been tried. I didn't hit her until she called Egon a sorry-boy-buggering-get and you a sniveling, conniving coward."
Hans could feel his face responding to the words, the pull of his eyebrows together and up, the widening of his eyes, and the press of his lips together. She smiled a little, saying, "I know what you did, but I like you all the same. Not everyone gets a second chance. Anyhow, I popped her in the mouth for saying those things about you and Egon because neither of you deserves that. I still wasn't very upset because I've fought plenty of angry women, and a few men, too, and came out alright. Sure, I was calling her every name I could think of, but I was only angry, not upset. The butler, now he's the one who got me; said that if we got in another fight, we'd be finding another place to work. What a trap. I'll fight anyone who calls my husband names."
Linnéa paused to reach out and take one of Hans' hands, stubs of fingernails the only evidence that he had them at all. She pet the top with such affection that Hans almost pulled it back from her out of embarrassment. "I'd fight them for saying things about you, too. I know I'm not quite old enough, but I suppose you've become the son me and Egon never could have."
Hans did pull his hand back with those words, feeling the urge to run from Linnéa, but knowing he'd only collapse in the room and have to have her help him up. "But… you've known me barely two weeks. I am a man, not a boy, and you might be… ten years older than I am?"
This wasn't the reaction she was hoping for, evidently, though one she might have expected, "You're right, Hans. I only meant that you're dear to both me and my husband. Like family."
"Get out," Hans said, calm on the outside, "Get out, now, please."
Linnéa stared at the ex-prince in a stricken way, but finally did move toward the door, looking back to him just before slipping out. When she was gone, Hans felt as chilled as he had when Elsa left, the day before. His eyes were on the wall opposite, back rigid in the chair.
"Like family." What did he want with family? He never asked for Egon's help, nor for Linnéa's, but help from them flowed forth in leaps and bounds. They'd broke him out of prison, ended the cycle of cruelty at his brothers' hands, and brought him to the one place that he might actually get fair treatment. He didn't want their charity. He didn't want Egon's protection. He didn't want Linnéa's pity. He didn't want to be in debt to them, too.
Denied death, denied freedom, Hans wondered if anyone would deny him strong mead. He'd never been a particularly heavy drinker, but so few releases were available to him now. Impotently, he sat on the chair and wallowed in misery and self-pity.
Two days left before the wedding, and a ship sailed into the Arendelle's harbor, its flag the distinctly recognizable colors of the Southern Isles. It caused quite a stir docking so boldly at the port. Gossip was that one of the princes had come to seek Elsa's hand and attend the wedding. They didn't realize that Prince Dorian was already married, nor did they know that he was there only because Bent and Dodgy had returned with letters from Elsa about holding Hans until he came himself, the other brothers to be left at home.
The Heir-apparent and a set of similarly loyal guards rode off the planks on horseback. Dorian's steed was the very same that Hans had lost when he was returned to the Southern Isles in disgrace. Though the horse moved when driven forward, turned when prompted by the bit, the elder prince could tell that it disliked him. It had a restive step when given the chance, and Heaven forbid it ever got its head. They met two of the guards he had sent after Flaxen and the others near the market.
When asked, they said they had been instructed to stay while the other two escorted a bounty hunter back to the Southern Isles, as directed by Queen Elsa of Arendelle, per the similar direction from himself. Dorian let it hit him again that his youngest brother was alive, there, in that castle.
An octet, seven guards and himself, Dorian and his men, rode to the outer gates of the castle of Arendelle. They were asked to state their business, Dorian answering that he had come for an audience with the Queen. As expected, someone ran off inside, leaving the octet under the watchful eye of perhaps a dozen of Arendelle's finest. It took perhaps ten minutes for the call to be made to open the gates to Prince Dorian of the Southern Isles.
Anna and Kristoff stationed themselves in the stables, emissaries to meet the eldest prince. They would allow the men to stable their steeds, straighten themselves up, and then the pair would lead the octet to where Elsa waited in the same hall that she had received Prince Dorian's brother.
The first thing Anna put to words in her mind about the Heir was that he looked just like Hans. Older, yes, with flecks of gray standing out in his otherwise auburn temples and mustache, the vigor of youth not as strong as in his younger brother, but looking very similar indeed. He rode the same horse Hans had almost knocked her into the port-waters with, and when he brought it to a stop, the animal shied and danced a little, tossing its head as Dorian made haste to dismount. When the prince was on the ground, he led the horse into a stall and closed the door, shaking his head at the antics of the animal.
"Prince Dorian," Anna said, calling his attention to her, "I am Princess Anna, and this is my fiancé, Kristoff Bjorgman. The Queen will see you in the audience hall." The prince left the stall and stood a few feet from her, then bowed, and when he looked up, she saw that his eyes were more brown than his brother's, but still somewhat green. "Thank you, Princess Anna and Kristoff Bjorgman."
Disquieted by how gentlemanly the eldest brother was, Anna and Kristoff led him out of the stables and up into the castle with very few words. When they arrived in the audience hall, the couple went past the guards meant to keep the Prince and his men back from the dais where Elsa was sitting. Anna saw the hint of a smile on Elsa's face as the couple passed her to stand on the right side of the throne. She returned it and faced the elder prince again. He looked at the audience hall somewhat awed, which almost made Anna laugh. The audience hall was already mostly decorated for Anna and Kristoff's wedding, its gables dressed up with flowering vines and streamers of the kingdom's colors. It made the hall seem monstrously big and lively, soft drafts from high up making the streamers and vines dance.
"Good afternoon, Prince Dorian," Elsa said, capturing the heir's attention, until it seemed Dorian would never look away from the Queen. He had the same awed expression looking from the ceiling to Anna's sister. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Queen Elsa," he finally responded, bowing again.
"I assume that you received my letter," Elsa stated. She'd fashioned quite the dress for this meeting, the neckline of the dress encrusted with jewel-like ice crystals, with a high collar that was only possible because she had pulled her hair all up off her neck. The dress swept down, gossamer in shades of blue, showing only her toes at the bottom, a train pooling to one side of her feet. It was stately and impressive.
"I did, indeed, Your Majesty, four days ago, almost to the hour. You said my youngest brother Hans is alive, and that you were providing shelter for him?" It sounded as though, to Anna, that Prince Dorian was truly excited by the prospect. He had had nothing to do with Hans' torture, then? He was one of the many who had been duped by the fake hanging into believing that his brother was dead? Wouldn't it be a shock, then, to see just how terrible Hans appeared now?
"Egon," Elsa called, "You can come out now."
The door opened on the left side of the dais, and the gray veteran walked out rather slowly, pausing a few paces away, hands crossing behind his back. Hans moved slowly, Egon's wife right behind him as he walked on a cane forward, into view. Anna didn't miss the look of sheer horror as it built on Dorian's face. She tried to imagine how Hans must look to his brother: thin, weak, strange without his long sideburns. In all honesty, Hans looked better now than he had when he had first arrived. The color had returned to his face, and the shallow, desperate look to his eyes had been replaced with simple tiredness. He'd gained weight, but not so much that he really looked healthy. He just didn't look as emaciated. But this was the worst that Dorian had seen, and it terrified him, Anna thought.
"Wh—what have they done to you?!" the elder brother cried out. Anna and Elsa both knew that he wasn't talking about them; the "they" was Hans and Dorian's brothers. As horrified and distressed as the older brother seemed, the younger brother gave little indication that he was moved by the display, standing in place with Egon on one side and Linnéa on the other, all three the picture of understated misery. "Hans?" Dorian asked, his frown deepening.
"Your Grace," Hans began, turning to Elsa, "Could my brother and myself be excused to speak in private?" It was a polite request, but Anna could hear that Hans' voice was calculatedly bridled, as though he really meant to shout at any moment. She looked to Elsa, who had heard the same thing.
"You may. There is a room on the other side of the door, to the right, I believe, that should work well. We will leave you to it." Elsa stood, and the audience was over. Dorian's guards would be left waiting elsewhere, and the rest of the group would likely adjourn to one of the dining rooms. Anna, though curious about what the exchange would be like, left quickly with Kristoff, Elsa, Egon, and Linnéa.
Dorian went through the door first, his escort sent to a wing of halls close to the room the pair of brothers went through, and Hans followed him. He went into the room on the right, thoughts half on Queen Elsa and half on his brother. For starters, the Queen was every bit as beautiful as Hans had described, a year earlier. She had been as impressive as her colloquial title: "the Snow Queen," but certainly a fairer maiden he had never beheld in his life. Were he not a happily married man, and were he a few years younger, he would have fallen to one knee and begged her to be his wife. Thank his lucky stars that he was not prone to such humiliating gestures. Secondly, and the larger part of his mind was preoccupied with it, Hans was a shadow of a man he had known. It seemed Death had him in His skeletal hand, and had sucked the life out of him. In his mind, Dorian couldn't equate such a change with the punishments handed out by his younger brothers.
Dorian ignored most things about the room—what its purpose was, what sort of furniture it held, what the light looked like coming through the drapes—and focused again upon his brother. Such a slight figure in comparison to a year ago, and so gaunt without the facial hair Dorian was used to, and so tired were his brother's eyes, why, he walked on a cane. Why?
On impulse, the Heir closed the space between himself and his brother and wrapped him in a warm hug. Hans stiffened immediately, but did not lift a finger or an arm to either push him away or hug Dorian back. Surprised, he drew back, face overflowing with the stung emotion, then with confusion.
"Do not touch me," Hans said, an answer for the surprise and confusion, "Do not—ever. Move away from me, now. Go stand by the windows." If Hans had been speaking in a haughty way, Dorian would never have complied, but the only variations in his brother's voice sizzled with anger. Unsettled, Dorian moved away on his own, standing by the windows. Hans took a seat in the chair closest to the door, moving slowly on an injured leg.
"What have they done to you, Hans?" Dorian asked again, less horrified and more mortified. He would have liked to been locked in a room with the old, brattish Hans than this version. The younger of the two looked away from his brother for a moment, no emotion crossing his face. When he looked up again, and when he spoke, he looked and sounded on the verge of shouting, "Why didn't you stop them hanging me?"
"Are you blaming me for this?" Dorian asked, shocked. Hans jerked his head once in a nod, adding, "Yes! You had it in your power to revoke their judgment. You could have had Father do it—"
"Do you think I knew they planned to fake your death? I griev—"
"I don't care what you thought might happen to me! They were going to KILL me, Dorian! You let them KILL me, and did nothing about it! And do not act as if you didn't have the power to stop them. We both know that to be horseshit."
Dorian grimaced, anger and indignation pulling up from his toes. He pressed his lips together tightly, almost too angry for words, almost. "What makes you think at that point I wanted to stop your execution?"
Such a response surprised Hans, apparently, because he finally looked somewhat hurt. It quickly simmered down into a rage in his eyes. Dorian continued, "I went to talk to you that day to decide if you were worth sparing. All I heard were the words of a man with no soul. You seemed wicked, devious, and incapable of emotions that could redeem you. I may not have wanted you dead, Hans, but I didn't oppose it because you were lost to me."
Though Hans' mouth worked, for a minute, there was quiet between them. Anger brought something of the old Hans to life again. To know he was angry was a relief to Dorian, who thought that perhaps Hans was homicidal. Finally, aforementioned murderous brother opened his mouth and spoke, "Do you know what it's like to be hung by a noose?"
Hans touched his neck for a moment, not looking at Dorian, who had no answer for him, "Despite their mechanizations to keep my neck from being broken, our brothers left it perfectly possible to feel strangled. I was marched up on top of the gallows—a walk that no man should survive—and then made to stand gagged as the crowd looked up at me being fitted with the noose. The executioner had been paid off and taught how to properly align the noose and the harness I was fitted with, and did so. The floor was dropped out, and what I felt wasn't my neck breaking, but the burn of the rope on my skin, and the helplessness of being choked slowly. I blacked out after about ten minutes, all of which I had been barely able to take a breath. When I came to, I had been put in a prison cell. That's where they exacted the rest of their punishments. I would have preferred to die on the gallows, looking back on it now."
The silence again reigned unchecked in the room. Dorian didn't know what to do to respond. His mind wheeled around the words that still hung in the air. Hans had wanted to die? Hans had lived through "punishments" that their brothers had devised? The feeling came over him that he wanted to walk over to where Hans sat and put his hand on his brother's shoulder. He wouldn't dare now, though.
"I'm…" Dorian began, "If I knew that they would have faked your death to torture you, I would have stopped it all, Hans. I'm sorry, really and truly. Even though it's very little and very late, I'm sorry I let them hang you. I'm sorry I didn't see what they were capable of. I can't ask for your forgiveness—I don't think I deserve it…"
The elder prince did move across the room, but it was to drop to eyelevel with his brother in the chair, a couple of feet away from him. "It'll get out that you're still alive. I can revoke my own punishment, and ban any further actions by the princes, but I doubt that you'll ever be able to return to the Southern Isles without one of our brothers attacking you again. Stay here in Arendelle as long as you can. I will send a ship with the possessions, or their equivalent, that we took from you. You'll have your title back, if you want it. Let me do this for you, Hans," Dorian said, "Reparations."
"Do what you please," Hans said, stabbing the cane onto the floor and standing in a less-than fluid motion. He went to the door as Dorian stood straight, then looked back at his brother, "Princess Anna's wedding is two days away. You should stay for the sakes of my hosts. Perhaps pay for my room and board with that ship full of possessions."
Dorian watched as Hans' form escaped the room in a shuffling amble. When he was gone, the Heir put his hand to his face and tried not to be overcome with sadness.
It was the evening before the wedding, and the castle was conspicuously quiet. Kristoff was down in the stables, having a last minute spell of giddy nervousness. He'd never had so many things be so right for him, and the fact that he was getting married the next day, to Anna… it was stupid to be nervous, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't name what he was nervous about, either. He knew Anna loved him. He knew that he loved her and wanted the marriage, but… but. Nothing. Kristoff had the jitters, was all. Sven watched this in his usual manner, and when Kristoff provided him a voice, Sven made the appropriate facial gestures. All in all, it was helping exponentially.
Until someone threw a bag over his head and dragged him off.
In another part of the castle, Anna was having her own pre-marital jitters. The wedding she wasn't so much worried about. It was the wedding night that had her pacing the floor, holding her stomach, and making faces. Olaf was her only audience, and the snowman sat on the floor like a child, large eyes blinking as he followed her progress.
Anna guessed that he didn't understand. A wedding night to a snowman was probably like any other night. Olaf hadn't been born of a snowwoman—Elsa had created him. Some of her anxiety came from her naivety, because the explanations of Part A fitting into Part B hadn't been illustrated. In fact, one of her governesses, when she was young and… flowering… had scared her about how it would hurt, and it wasn't really for her, but for him, and… Olaf continued to watch her pace and make faces as she let her worries and her happiness duel in her head. Marrying Kristoff would be a-dream-come-true, but what would happen when they shared a bed that first night?
Anna was so preoccupied that she was caught totally unawares by the bag also being dropped on her head.
When the stuffy, dark sack was pulled from Kristoff's head, he was somewhere dark. There was no light to see by at first, which made the quick movements of someone backing away from him feel ominous and ghostly. There was a sound like someone catching their foot and stubbing their toes, then the sound of them swearing quietly, and more whispers as whoever else was in the darkness shushed the noisy party.
"What is this?!" Kristoff yelled, "What's going on?!"
A light on a torch suddenly appeared, far down the hall, and as it bobbed steadily closer, Kristoff felt the already-flayed nerves tighten in tune to horror. The thing carrying the torch looked like a figure made entirely of fur. It came closer, ragged breathing echoing in its maw and in the room. Kristoff decided this was it. He was going to die.
Anna's bag was not removed as she was secured to a chair. She had been gagged over the bag, as her propensity for fighting and screaming had nearly sounded the alarm in the castle. The bag was too dark to see more than hasty silhouettes dancing back and forth in her vision, lighted by a vaguely green lantern light. Beneath the bag, she started a fast verbal assault of questions.
"Who are you? What do you want from me? Do you know who I am? Do you know who my sister is? You picked the wrong Princess to mess with, buddy! You should send me back to Arendelle right now. Otherwise, she's gonna bring an eternal winter—" The bag was quickly snagged from Anna's head, and her words teetered out of her mouth, "down… on…"
Kristoff was blinded as the one torch suddenly sprang into a dozen more, with the lights of the room he was in being lit up brilliantly and simultaneously. Roaring laughter disoriented him more, to the point that when he opened his eyes, he still didn't know what was going on.
"Surprise!" yelled a chorus of male voices. His genius reply was, "What?"
"It's your Stag Party!" yelled a rather rowdy British wedding guest. The first face he recognized was the face of Egon, who seemed to have been the man in the fur. "Come on, Bjorgman! It's your last night of freedom, aye?! We've got to make sure you know what you're missing!"
"Down… on…" Anna blinked, and blinked, and almost couldn't believe her eyes. Women, most of whom she didn't know, and a few she did, were costumed most ridiculously, all looking at her with big smiles. "Bring an eternal winter down, huh? Elsa asked, her costume mostly ridiculous because it was a passable imitation of a red monkey. "Would you settle for liquor and a few games, Anna?"
"What is this?" Anna asked, blown-away but already having a good time. She was answered not by Elsa, but by Linnéa, who had already gotten into the liquor: "This is a Hen's Night, Highness! Your sister and your wedding guests thought to celebrate your last night as a maiden and give you a proper send off!"
The sunrise of the morning of the wedding found both bride and bridegroom deliciously and regretfully hung-over. In one room, Kristoff rolled out of bed, literally, and felt perfectly green, remembering bits and pieces of the night before as if they were pages of a picture-book flipped too fast. In another, Anna held the chamber-pot against her stomach, feeling dry from head to toe, but particularly like the room rotated around the porcelain epicenter. It took the servants several tries to pry both from where they felt the safest. In both cases, they told themselves that the lessened inhibitions weren't worth the trouble; they'd never dabble in alcohol again.
The servants dressed the couple in their separate rooms, knowing that the wedding march would begin at noon, and plied the pair with all manner of cures, time-proven-remedies, and a few superstitious chants over water. In the end, it was Pabbie and Bulda who came to the rescue. What else could magically fix the dehydration of alcohol but trolls?
As noon approached, the wedding guests gathered in the chapel and in the audience hall. Not a one of the guests could suppress their awe for long. As hot as the summer day was already outside, it was pleasantly cool in the castle; Queen Elsa had worked a little ice magic in the night, adding wondrous ice sculptures to the gables where the vines and streamers had been hung. Perfect snowflakes and abstract designs gave the impression that the summer and the winter met not in spring and autumn, but as old friends, able to co-exist in a tangled, loving manner.
The guests were all seated, and at the precise moment that the music started up, the doors were opened by Olaf and Sven. The snowman and reindeer were greeted with laughter and a round of applause as they—for lack of a better word—frolicked down the aisle, sprinkling flower petals in whatever fashion they could. The music played them up to the front where both took to standing off to one side and the other. Next, the first of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, Egon and Linnéa, walked together to the end of the chapel, standing on the floor like bookends. The next pair was also a married couple, who had been to Elsa's coronation and had just missed the eternal winter episode last year. The woman, about Elsa's age, was their cousin on their father's side, King Agdar's sister's daughter, and had a story all on her own. The man, whom Kristoff had met only the night before, had been very much a part of his wife's story, and it was to their wedding that the Arendelle royals had shipwrecked four years ago. Both the man and the woman were fast friends of the present couple, and took their places on the first step of the altar, bookends as well. Lastly came the Queen, escorted by Grand Pabbie himself, dressed in a fine gown that matched the other two bridesmaids, which was of the cloth variety. It was a tasteful sacrifice so as not to outshine Anna's, and though Elsa didn't look horrible, the dress did its best to make her plainer. Pabbie and Elsa stood on the same step as the second married couple, not really bookends in any sense.
Kristoff was the second to last to appear. He did not look as much like a white peacock as Olaf had suggested, but was far more regal than he had ever appeared. His blonde hair was combed neatly; face shaved clean, brown eyes alight with excitement. As the music hit a particular note and Kristoff was positioned on his mark, the whole crowd held their breath and turned to look at the doors.
Anna floated into view, happiness unable to be held by gravity. She was a vision in the purest white, the gown made in a halter-style, the collar of which clasped around Anna's throat, becoming a fine webbing of lace on her arms. Though it chilled her somewhat, the dress was encrusted with tiny ice crystals, which shimmered with every step she took towards Kristoff. Her skirt was folds and folds of lace, and here and there, a green light peeked out, gems from the trolls. She could have been wearing the trolls' wedding gown as much as it mattered to her, though. What mattered was the man standing at the end of the chapel, beaming at her. How silly it was to walk and not run.
She reached the end, and what began with "Dearly Beloved," blurred into happy, happy moments. Somewhere in the middle, she started crying happy tears. Kristoff's eyes watered nearly constantly. The rest of the crowd seemed moved, too, and here and there came a sniffle. Naturally, Sven and Olaf were the loudest about their proud weeping. It took nothing away from the ceremony, and when that was done, the crowd carried the newlyweds into the audience hall to break ceramic plates, a tradition to banish evil or jealous spirits, which no Arendelle wedding would feel complete without.
The couple had a few hours to mill about in the audience hall, take congratulations, and accept wedding gifts. Dancing and music took over the occasion over and over again, until just before a usual dinner might be served, the crowd put Kristoff and Anna onto Sven and paraded them out of the castle and down to the docks, where their own vessel awaited to take husband and wife on their honeymoon.
Tears and laughter were shed and shared, and when it came time to leave, Anna held Elsa the longest, then got on the boat with a cheerful wave. Elsa and most of the guests waited on the docks until Anna and Kristoff were too small to see well anymore before turning back and walking up to the castle. Bells rang as the party returned to the courtyard, where the trolls thanked Queen Elsa for hosting them and took their leave.
Several other guests disembarked, including Crown Prince Dorian of the Southern Isles. He took Queen Elsa aside to tell her what he had decided for Hans, offering her quite a few incentives for hosting the soon-to-be-reinstated prince until Dorian could deal with their brothers accordingly. She began to argue that Dorian could just take his brother back with him, but the Crown Prince would hear none of it, finally saying that he didn't think Hans would ever be safe in the Southern Isles, nor would he ever enjoy his homeland again. "Too much has happened to him there," Dorian said, "Please, Queen Elsa, host him a while longer, and when he is safe to leave, send him somewhere nice."
She thought about her words, several days ago, about how Hans owed her a debt, and gave her answer: "I will host your brother… for now. I expect the things you've offered for his keeping within this season and the next."
"Thank you, Your Grace," Dorian said, with a sad but relieved smile, "One more thing—," he removed an envelope from his jacket and held it out to the Queen, "—Would you make sure Hans gets this? I don't think he'll want to say goodbye to me. No fond hugs, I'm afraid."
Dorian left quickly after that, taking his men with him and leaving one restive dun-colored horse in the stables and hoping that his brother would read his letter.
Hans had been at the back of the chapel briefly during the wedding, not sure why he had done so, other than having a sort of closure. Despite his schemes and meddling, and despite his incursion into their lives, it seemed to him that Princess Anna and Queen Elsa lived and thrived as though he hadn't at all. The idea that his best attempt at obtaining a throne had amounted to being tortured for a year and castrated, only to be seemingly forgotten as though he never existed, left a bitter taste in his mouth. Was it that he wanted to have touched their lives in some lingering way? From his vantage point, which was terribly narrow and selfish, nothing he had done in his life had had an impact. He had returned to his room before the vows were completed, and drank two appropriated bottles of cold glogg before passing out on his bed. He felt as empty as he ever had, only now, he had no idea how to fill the void.
In the process of moving-literally. I worked more than 51 hours last week too, so... there really hasn't been time to work much on chapter 6 in the last two weeks. Not complaining, just... explaining why its taking so long. I am 4000 words below my goal for chapter 6. Anywho, thanks for reading, and I hope you can forgive my... issues. :)