So,

Thank you very much for reading what there's been of Spun so far! I really appreciate it, and hope you're enjoying it! To those who have left me reviews or PMed me, I'm very grateful you took the time to do it. I couldn't be happier to hear (read?) from you, and I hope I can keep up the surprises. :)

ssg.x.

CHAPTER 7
IMMERSION

Elsa was quiet for so long that eventually Hans returned to looking out the window. The only other place in the room to sit was the bench at the foot of the bed. The tour had left her exhausted, but she didn't trust Hans enough to sit down just yet.

"Does it please you?" he asked, not turning to look at her.

"Does what please me?" Elsa asked in return, tossing her head of platinum hair with as much false bravado as she could muster in the hopes of making up for the tremble that still lingered in her voice.

"That you'll soon be rid of me for good," he said, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. Elsa smirked. He was clearly trying to employ the same tricks she'd been employing to get herself here. He was trying not to look like the frightened boy he was.

Elsa took a few steps towards the window. Hans' drew up his shoulders and crossed his arms. She could see his breath and the frost that began to gather in the corners of the window frame. He was too proud to otherwise acknowledge the cold. Elsa couldn't help the smug little smile that tugged at her lips.

For Anna, she thought.

"I'm rid of you whether you live or die," Elsa said at last. "If you're asking me if I'll be happy when you're dead, the answer is no. I'm not like you. I don't take pleasure in the misfortune of others. I don't prey on the weak or take advantage of -"

Hans chuckled.

"Oh, come now. I wouldn't have taken that much pleasure in your deaths. They would have merely been a means to an end." he said, standing and crossing the room towards the bed, causing Elsa to take several footfalls back to keep out of his way. He reached for a pair of braces that were lying on the bed and began buttoning them to the waist of his trousers. He tucked in his shirt and slipped one arm, then the other through the braces, bringing them over his shoulders.

Elsa stared down at her shoes. She moved the toe of one around on the floor in a little circle, leaving an imprint in the bit of snow that had gathered beneath her skirt where she was standing. He knows how attractive he is, she thought, briefly looking up again to see if he was done dressing himself. He was reaching into the wooden wardrobe by the bed and drawing out an olive waistcoat.

"Don't you find it's a little chilly tonight?" he asked innocently, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. Elsa rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, I wanted the crown. I wasn't going to kill you because I take any pleasure in the kill. Are we speaking frankly here?"

She arched her eyebrow. "I don't know. Are you capable of that?"

Hans grinned and wagged a finger at her. "Funny," he said. He buttoned up the waistcoat and smoothed it out. "I take pleasure in being good at what I do. I like being proven right about things. I'm a good judge of character, you know."

Elsa crossed her arms. "Are you, now?" she said, deciding to humour the slimy little creep for a bit.

Hans grabbed a pair of gloves from the table by his bed and slipped them on.

"Oh, I am. Look at the way I played you and your sister, for instance. That requires real, organic talent. It isn't a learned skill. If it was, and we had more time together, I'd offer to teach you. A queen can't be expected to protect her kingdom if she's too weak and foolish to even protect herself, after all."

Elsa's eyes narrowed and her hands balled into fists at her sides. "Don't talk about my kingdom. And don't," she growled, "talk about my sister."

An ethereal electricity hovered in the air around them then, tangible enough that even Hans' eyes widened with a sort of curious awe. Snow began to fall from somewhere above them, and there was a crackling coming from the windows as a shimmery blue frost rapidly reached across the window panes.

"I should leave," Elsa said, unclenching her fists and making her way briskly towards the doors. "Freezing to death is a far more painful way to go than…" her voice trailed off.

"Poisoning," Hans said flatly, finishing her sentence.

"The letter you sent me," she asked, still not looking at him. "Were you trying to make me angry so I'd come see you? You wanted me to…"

Hans was silent. Elsa shook her head, her voice catching in her throat. "I wouldn't. I would never…God, I can't even say the words."

"What?" Hans exclaimed. "You think I was trying to goad you into killing me? Of course not. That would be suicide, and I'm no coward," he snapped. "Actually," he said, raising an eyebrow at her and grinning, "my plan was to seduce you and get you to break me out of here."

Elsa turned around to face him but he very sharply turned his back to her. She stared at him sadly. His shoulders were slumped. His head drooped as though he'd been holding it up for far too long.

"No," she said quietly, understanding him then more than she wanted to. "It wasn't."

"If you don't do it, they'll win," he said softly by way of explanation after an extended silence. "If I'm going to die, I'm going to do it on my own terms. If anyone has just cause to end my life, it's you, Queen Elsa. I choose you."

Against her better judgement, Elsa approached Hans slowly.

"I don't understand. Why are your parents doing this?" she asked. "And why would they tell everyone you're dying of influenza? If the law states –"

"It has nothing to do with the law. It's about keeping up appearances," Hans muttered. "Do you think anyone else knows what really happened in Arendelle besides the men who brought me home and a few dignitaries? Silences were bought and paid for. I was brought here and shut up in this room and the whole incident was covered up."

Elsa had no reason to believe anything that came out of this man's mouth, but what he said would certainly explain King Enoch and Queen Alma's odd behaviour, and their refusal to let her see Hans. Until she made them, anyways. If they were expecting her to keep their secret once she left this room, however, they had another thing com-

Oh, no…

Elsa gasped and ran for the doors. She grabbed the handles and tried to turn them. Neither would budge. She banged on the doors, calling out to the guards who were supposed to be waiting for her on the other side, but no one answered.

"They've locked you in here with me, haven't they?" Hans asked, chuckling sourly. "You know too much, I guess. I've got dibs on the bed."

Elsa took her gloves off and tossed them over her shoulder. "Here, hold these. I hope you have a warm coat in that wardrobe of yours," she said, raising her arms up and taking aim at the door. The freeze hummed throughout her entire body and pooled in the palms of her hands.

She threw her arms out in front of her and the entire room lit up with an explosion of snow and ice that burst forth from Elsa's hands like a spectacular shower of stars. Instead of penetrating the doors, however, the blast seemed to bounce off of them, turning her attack back on her. Hans dropped to the floor and grabbed Elsa's ankle, pulling it out from under her so she ended up beside him, out of harm's way.

"What just happened?" she groaned, raising herself up on her elbow. Every bone in her body howled.

"Whatever just happened, it happened to almost everything in the room except that door," Hans replied. He looked back over his shoulder. "And that window."

Elsa stood on wobbly legs and looked around. The wardrobe and bedside table had both tipped completely over. The bench that had been at the foot of the bed was now on the opposite side of the room. From its placement in the room and the angle it was lying at, Elsa deduced that it had somehow managed to bounce off the window, which was almost as troubling as the doors having remained completely intact, even after such a battering. She hadn't considered the window when she targeted the doors, which was incredibly reckless in hindsight. The window might have shattered and sliced both she and Hans to ribbons.

Hans got back on his feet and put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the damage. The whole inside of the room was coated floor to ceiling with rime. Icicles hung from the brass canopy bedframe and the wooden rafters high above them.

"It's pretty, if anything," he said, brushing the snow off his shoulders.

Elsa glared daggers at him.

"Remember what I said earlier about not having it in me to kill you?" she asked.

"Yes?" Hans replied, offering her back her gloves.

She grabbed him by the collar of his waistcoat with both fists, dragging him down so she could look him in the eye. "If I find out this was all one big ruse set up by you and your maniacal parents to capture me and hold me for ransom, I may just have to dig deep down until I find 'it'."