Here's chapter two!
Thanks to my reviewers: Luckenhaft, The Keeper of Worlds (repeat offender, you are), and org13 is best! I appreciate the kind words~
Chapter two: many enemies
The air outside is warmer than in the palace. Elsa doesn't care for it.
She draws the towering doors shut with her powers and glances up. The palace's outer edifice ebbs and flows into cascading spires and smooth buttresses. It nestles into the side of the mountain in such a way that she is spared the view of Castletown but granted a perfect visage of the setting sun over the northern mountains. If Sora succeeds in ending this winter, it won't be here when she gets back… Elsa can always make it again.
Sora proposes they jump off the mountain because that will be fastest. He trails off as he notices her aghast expression.
"The snow's really soft!" he protests. "And besides, I can use an aero —air magic— to cushion our fall." At the mention of a third magic, her esteem of him rises from the ocean floor it fell to when he mentioned jumping off a mountain peak.
"Walking will suffice, I think," she says. She examines her shoes. While they are perfect, they won't do for marching in the snow; she'll slip right through the top layers. She flicks her wrist and draws the shape of her shoe out and up. The end product is an elegant turquoise boot that's still the kind of thing her advisor would cry if he saw her wearing, but also good for walking atop the snow.
Sora's eyes are wide and awed. She flicks her hair, pleased with herself. "Shall we?" she asks.
The two fall in-step. After a few moments, she presses, "Where are your friends now? Donald and Goofy, was it?"
"It's funny you mention that. They got thrown off the mountain by your snow golem thing." His laughter trails off when he notices her staring with no little dismay.
"They're fine," he qualifies. "Like I said, the snow is so soft here! That's like our second or third fall, to be honest. I wasn't on the cliff that broke off, so I ducked your guard and went back to the palace."
She continues staring.
"What?" he drags out the syllable.
"It's simply impressive how someone can fall off a mountain twice in such a short period of time." Saying it aloud, she laughs to herself daintily. Then pauses, as she realizes Sora is about as far from the court life as anyone can get.
She laughs again and it's louder, not quite ugly like that snorting thing Anna does, but it's a good sound; a new, and unusual thing ferried by the outside air. Merry, she thinks, trying out the word.
Sora joins in even though it's at his expense. "I'm glad to be walking down the mountain," he says. "That avalanche was no fun!"
Elsa sees him flinch before ducking a sudden spray of ice.
Whipping around, Elsa sees the same creatures that attacked her before. Deerlike, but not deer, and some flying blue figures. They all feel eerie and wrong in their dissimilitude to everything she knows is natural.
Heartless, Goofy had called them. They feel that way, like small pockets of absence.
"Looks like we're going to start our practice now!" Sora says, summoning his weapon. Elsa grips her fists against the instinctual flight instinct and digs her boot in the ground for good footing.
Three of the deer charge her at once. She throws ice at one, freezing it into an ice block and then running out of the way from the others. The deer in the ice block blinks eerie yellow eyes before Sora appears and shatters the form.
The creeping feeling slackens as the Heartless disperses and light escapes the shadowy remnants.
"Here!" She catches what he throws. In her hands is some kind of rod.
"It should boost your magic and it's great for whacking things!" Sora says. Elsa feels sick at the thought of stronger magic. Even holding it she can feel her power surging like a wave gathering strength to crash down and wreak havoc—
She makes an ice glove to hold it and uses her hands to freeze the creatures. She swings the rod to shatter the ice. Stronger powers won't help and aren't necessary. She has more than enough strength.
They finish the rush of enemies and Elsa exhales.
"Wow! You're really good at this."
"Thanks." She offers him a small smile. "But be careful you don't get in the way of my magic!" she warns him again.
"Right, right." Sora twirls his weapon. His eyes dart to a copse of trees. She traces his gaze and does a doubletake at the purple ladies spinning their parasols amidst the blizzard. Her first instinct is to assume they're guests from the coronation… who wandered up the mountain? She doubts it. As they edge closer, she feels the same uneasy sensation as with the deer. Heartless, she's sure.
"Hope you're ready for more. They shoot lasers from their umbrellas," Sora says.
"What's a las—"
Sora knocks her feet out and she watches a burning purple beam shoot over her head and ignite a tree behind her.
Today, she's learned the word wizard and the word laser.
Articulating the utter bewilderment on her lips has to wait because the purple ladies are soon taking aim again. Elsa pushes up a thick ice shield and Sora appears at her side. Purple lasers bombard the shield, forcing her to reinforce the structure.
"Can you make another shield by that rock?" Sora points.
With one hand rebuilding the disintegrating shield, she uses her other to draw up another wall. Sora slides out of their cover and fires his own energy beams. Elsa watches, impressed, as he mows one enemy down before ducking into the other wall. Rapid fire, she draws up three more. While she hurls ice spears, Sora darts through the landscape of walls to fire upon their enemies.
Soon, the last purple lady unravels into shadows. Sora whoops and gives Elsa a high five before she can jerk away.
"You ready for more?" he asks.
Her eyes narrow at the challenge. She admits the strategic aspect of the battles interests her. Years of her life have been sunk into mastering the art of battle command. While this is no cavalry unit or naval battle, her adept mind stretches to bridge the gap between her studies and their impending scuffles. Her own battle prowess was never meant to be part of the equation, but it gives them an edge. Tallying their advantages, she's pleased to find that between the two of them and their magic, the possibilities are numerous. Sora senses it too and gives her a toothy grin.
They continue down the mountain and encounter more. Fighting is frightening, Elsa finds, but also exhilarating.
Constantly keeping aware of Sora's location is mentally taxing with how much he flips, jumps, and all but flies from enemy to enemy. She manages it most of the time, but the moments she loses track she finds the ice sticks to her hand, trapped by her fear of hitting him. Then he swoops into her periphery once more and her grip slackens.
She must keep a tight rein on her powers again but that's the price of human company, she supposes. Sora does make good company, despite the reason for his arrival. Fighting with her magic feels strange after fearing it for so long, but Sora eases her in with his breezy manner. It starts with him asking for walls or ramps, but her strategic mind soon overtakes her cautious heart and in no time, she is anticipating Sora's needs and creating new ice structures for him to spin and skate on. Her ice meets her demand in surplus and she innovates as more enemies crop up. Projectiles, traps, and even blades— her power feels useful in a way incongruous with the burden she's always known it as. She even saves Sora from time to time, and it's bizarre realizing her magic is doing it. He smiles and says an easy thanks before casting more fire towards their enemies.
Each time they defeat one something crystal and light floats through the air and Elsa feels high on the joy of it.
After a strong wave, they rest on an outcropping.
Elsa pants for air. While she does take care of her body, she hasn't done anything this cardio heavy in a while.
"Is your magic tired?" Sora asks. She despises him for how unexhausted he remains, but she's gathered he does this quite often considering his ease of skill and manner.
She shakes her head, saving precious breath.
"Your magic is something special," he says, smiling. "Most people would be exhausted after that much casting. And you freezing ice-based enemies is seriously cool!"
His words are meant to encourage but Elsa finds herself pulling back into the darker corners of her mind. She also noticed that Sora cast one ice spell (seemingly on accident) and that the recipient seemed only stronger afterward. She's beginning to worry that her magic is too dissimilar to his. Maybe it's too 'special' for him to help her with.
"Here," he says. She looks down, wonders when her arms pulled back into herself.
Sora seems not to know what she's thinking, instead proffering up a bottle of green liquid. "Are your ribs bothering you? That Heartless got you pretty hard earlier."
She unfolds the cage she made around her chest and grasps the bottle. "Do I drink it?"
"Yeah, it'll help you feel better!" Some kind of tonic then. Most of her suspicion about Sora has been shelved as she's gotten to know him. More than his good spirit, something about him seems… trustworthy.
She pops the cork and takes a small sip. Her faith is rewarded as a soothing energy spreads from her core. The pain cradled by her ribs disperses after drinking half of it. She holds the remainder out to Sora.
"I have plenty, you take it! And I'm not that hurt yet," Sora says. Elsa sees the edges of frost clinging to his elbows. (What is he doing in such bare clothes, she wonders not for the first time.)
"I'm healed now. Please," she says.
Sora gives a small smile and takes the bottle. "Thanks," he says, before finishing it off. "I guess I should keep my health up. I haven't fought without Donald and Goofy for a while… I'm glad I'm not doing it alone." He smiles at her, bright and easy like it's a natural response to her being there. Like her ice is a real help and her company is welcome and he's… he's gotten her wrong somewhere along the way.
She doesn't have the heart to correct him.
Elsa's gaze twitches from Sora. He seems to notice her pulling away and from the corner of her eye, she sees him rolling words around his mouth, searching. His lips part but— he tenses, a quirk Elsa knows means encroaching danger.
Elsa takes a strong stance. Her ice gathers in her palms, ready to fire at whatever Heartless come their way. She isn't expecting to see humans. Soldiers in her kingdom's colors approach with caution, fear filling their eyes.
Dread swells in her.
"Go away. Get away from me!" She dismisses the ice from her hands and brings them to her chest, defensive.
Someone descends from a horse and she recognizes the figure. "Prince Hans?"
The prince Anna was so taken with appears, as regal and well-intentioned as he was the night of her coronation. She wonders if her sister has found her political journal and read all her suspicions about the sons of the Western Isle that were too gauche to say in nonprivate settings. He's here, so she imagines not, though why he's without Anna is a mystery she's sure is about to unravel before her.
Hans approaches her with two soldiers, hand hovering above his sword. He hesitates over the moment to bow and lets it pass them. "Queen Elsa, we must ask you to accompany us back down the mountain to release this unearthly weather you've cast on the land."
"Funny, cause' that's what we're on our way to do," Sora says, all ease of manner, but Elsa sees his weapon is still out.
"All the better," Prince Hans says. "Considering your most recent outbursts, we hoped you might consent to a few restrictions."
"Restrictions?" Elsa echoes.
"For our safety. Your power is very dangerous, Queen Elsa. For the safety of your men I do hope you'll consent to some chains."
Clinking. Her eyes jerk to the side where a third soldier holds shackles and something only large enough to wrap around a throat. A bolt of fear shoots through her veins, locking her limbs and jaw as she remembers fears stirred in the corner of her mind as a teenager about what people would do if they ever found out. But this nightmare is a living, haunting thing. Just when she thought she cast those chains away, thought she let things go of her shame— fear has made itself tangible and she trembles.
"Her power isn't dangerous, it's amazing!" Sora says, but his words don't pierce the fog of her mind.
Even as the two continue talking, Elsa feels her stress mounting. What happened to Anna is still fresh in her mind. The soldiers look twitchy around her and why shouldn't they be? If anything, it's smart to be wary around her. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, but she never wanted to hurt Anna.
Look what that's led to.
The soldiers start approaching her, fear shifting into anger. The chains clink and Elsa's tension ratchets. She staggers back to give herself some distance, some room to breath, some room for them to be safe.
"Get away from me. I don't want to hurt you!" she says. With shaking hands, she draws up ice spears to stop their path forward. The jutting ice rests inches away from their bodies, warning but not harmful.
They glare at her, real anger for what she has wrought on her kingdom, but they are contained, which is all that matters.
In her concentration, it isn't until the last moment that she realizes Prince Hans is no longer in front of her but has navigated behind her. She jerks around just in time to see the butt of his sword descending.
She gasps, freezes his hand in reflex. He howls.
Sora's tower-like weapon appears and beats back Prince Han's sword.
"She struck me!" Hans cries, trying to rid himself of the ice covering his hand with frantic swipes. "Detain her before she hurts anyone else!" The soldiers charge and it takes all of Elsa's concertation not to lash out at them as they near.
The sound of buzzing air reaches her ears.
A shield flies towards them and knocks their weapons away. Donald and Goofy shove their way through the ranks, retrieving the shield and then standing at her side.
"You won't hurt Elsa," Donald says, brandishing a staff not unlike her own.
"That's right!" Goofy says. "We'll make sure of it." Sora appears as the final component and she gazes at the profiles on either side of her with frustration and mute appreciation. Why are they beside her? They saw what she did.
She hurt someone again. Even if it was self-defense, it wasn't her choice to do it. Prince Hans might be irreparably damaged if he doesn't treat the wound soon. Elsa looks at him and sees the fury in his eyes, dark and serious even as he presses forward, frozen hand twitching atop his sword. He must be in incredible pain. Beneath the glove, she doesn't doubt his skin has turned purple or blue.
Part of her wants to turn herself over to Hans, to put an end to this whole stand-off, but she knows that chains won't do anything against her power. The thought of being in close confines with people, contained in the castle again, is petrifying. Who knows who she'll hurt next? No, it's better if she stays alone… or at least alone with company that has magic to defend themselves from Elsa.
She widens her stance and meets the soldiers' eyes, letting them know she won't go with them gently or willingly. The truth of the matter is, the soldiers don't stand a chance against her ice.
Despite that fact, for the moment, it seems her soldiers have the advantage. The terrain is on the side of Prince Hans' retinue. The outcropping proves damning as the soldiers shuffle closer and closer with their spears out and Elsa and the other three are edged closer to the cliffside. She could try to force them back with her magic, but her most recent loss of control has her too petrified to cast anything close to them.
They have their spears pointed towards her, but they're still her people…
"Elsa, let's take my way down the mountain," Sora says, glancing away from the soldiers just long enough to give her a smile. "Like before, guys?"
"Not again," Donald moans.
"Gawrsh, how many times is it now?" Goofy wonders. Oddly enough, neither of them seems too upset or put out. In fact, all of them are smiling, despite the fact Sora has suggested something truly mad.
"Can you make a wall?" Sora asks.
Elsa sucks in a shallow breath and tries to center herself. A wall, just like her ice-palace. Nothing tricky. She nods.
She can do it.
"On three," Donald says. "One—"
"Three!" Sora cries.
Elsa startles in her concentration and the wall she makes is thick and tall and the opposite design she meant, but she has little time to observe the distorted rage on Han's face, almost smoky through the ice before Sora grabs her hand and they leap through the air.
Sora must give it a boost of magic because they jump much higher than any human should be able to.
Air rushes past her face, whipping her dress about and she screams and screams like she has never before. Sora's hand clasps hers and he guides her so her front faces down, catching the wind like an impossible sail as they plummet towards earth.
In the corner of her eye, she can see Arendelle rushing past, tangling around her braid.
Tears build in her eyes and she has to force the breath into her lungs. Sora's laughter echoes and the sounds chase them down a pace behind.
The ground approaches and she closes her eyes on instinct.
Sora's hand releases hers and a rush of air surrounds her. Aeroga echoes off the mountain walls, delayed. She blinks her eyes open just in time to land in the snow.
She stirs, a few feet beneath the snow, and lifts her head from the pile to stare at Sora who hasn't stopped laughing in his pit a bit away. She looks up at the speck they leaped from and chuckles, voice high and strained. She just jumped off a mountain… didn't she?
Another rush of air and Donald and Goofy land similarly deep. "I'm sick of falling off the mountain!" Donald says, muffled at first as he unburies himself.
"At least we don't have to climb up again," Goofy says, fixing his hat and giving Elsa a smile.
"It's much more fun coming down like that. I wouldn't mind going again!" Sora beams.
Donald whacks Sora over the head with his staff.
"Ow! What's that for?"
"I said on three!" Donald says
"I went on three," Sora complains.
"My three, not your three!"
"How should I know?"
They continue squabbling, play tussling physically and Elsa takes the moment to breathe. The adrenaline still courses through her body and her breath is shaky in a new way. Like the old breath was all pushed out in her screams and her lungs are now filled with fresh mountain air.
"Uh, fellas," Goofy says. "Shouldn't we head down before those soldiers catch up?"
Sora lets go of Donald's wand and the magician flails to the side.
"Oh right." Sora peers up at the mountain.
Elsa does too. The outcropping is a mere dot among the blinding white snow. Her castle is even farther away, the spire on the roof a faint impression against the late-noon sky.
She's come so far already.
Glancing at the distant visage of the castle, she knows the hardest part is still yet to come.
Sora faces Castletown as well, his pursed mouth quirking into a smile when he senses her eyes. She exhales and returns the gesture.
Elsa moves forward and Sora, Goofy, and Donald fall in-step as they continue down.
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THINGS FIXED:
Elsa and Sora fight together (fecking DUH!).
Hans actually gets some screentime as the enemy.
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Next chapter will be next week! Thanks for the support y'all! The fic is all finished so I'll be posting once a week til the end.