As scared as Hans was, Elsa was doing even worse. On her desk lay the reports filed about the Black Spot pirates. She ignored them, favoring trade agreements, and tariff proposals. Those she could handle. Those she could fix. Those... had nothing to do with her sister.

"The girl was found, with no limbs. Evidence of extreme sexual abuse."

Elsa closed her eyes, focusing on things she knew how to handle, "...How do you do it?" She whispered, looking at Baragor's ship in the bay.

"...your highness?" Asked her servant.

"...nothing Kai," She sighed, re-wording a note to France asking for a slight increase in the export of pink dyes.

"If I may say so, your highness, anything you would like to discuss is not off-limits."

Elsa pondered talking to Kai momentarily. He was trustworthy. And, of course, she did need someone to talk to. Not that she needed advice, she just needed... to get it out of her head.

"It's about Hans."

Kai inclined his head, expecting that to be the answer, "...?"

Elsa leaned back in her chair, "I've read the cases. Rather; I've read what they've filed in documents about these..." She waved her hands, "Beasts. And let me say; I have never ever seen this evil. I wouldn't treat these things as men. They lost that right. By their own admission they don't even see themselves as humans. They're evil, they know they're evil, and they like being evil."

"And Hans...?"

"...Hans... he knows them. As scary as it is to say; I think he understands them."

"And what's wrong with that?" Asked Kai. After all, it's not as though Hans was the proper gentleman in the eyes of the Arendelle court.

"He fought them when he was a young man. The tactics he admitted to resorting to... in open court, mind you, not what he actually did out there in the field, I'm talking to what he told his own parents he did to the pirates... is utterly brutal."

"And that makes him evil."

"...worse, it makes him right."

"Right about what?" Kai demanded. It sounded more like Hans was just plain sick and wrong!

She met his eyes with cool determinedness, "...he knows how to fight them. Better than anyone. Because he understand evil. He can," She paused, grabbing a file out of the stack, "and I quote, '...crew was burned alive. I hid in the ashes, waiting for the enemy to get drunk on blood wine', that," She paused, adding, "...is liquor mixed with human blood, ahem, 'and fall asleep. As they did so, I fashioned a shiv from my first mate's thigh bone and proceeded to stab those guarding the row boat to death and stole away into the night' ahem," She placed the paper back on the stack, "Where he then rowed for three straight days with no food, and no water. Covered in the ashes and stench of his dead crew."

Kai swallowed.

Elsa sat silently for a moment, "I... can't do that. I can't murder people in cold blood," She tipped her head allowing herself to admit she'd come kind of close in a way, "I can't fashion blades from my servants' bones."

Kai coughed, "Appreciate that."

She nodded, and continued, "I can't chain myself to someone and leap headfirst into a rocky shore, bludgeoning him to death. Hans' heart froze to fight these pirates. How can I combat them?"

"Maybe your heart does not need to freeze, Majesty."

...Elsa let out a reluctant breath, "You want me to send Hans in?"

Kai swelled, standing up, "I think you should do whatever you conscience allows you to do."

It wasn't too much of an answer, but it quelled her fears a bit. At least she was in control.

Right?