Updated: 01/11/2020

Chapter 2: The Dragon King

Gathered around a darkened council room, the tired members of the queen's council waited patiently for their queen. Riots and looting began soon after the dragons had left. Through the combined efforts of the soldier and everyone in the council room did they calm down the citizens of Arendelle by midnight. With a loud rattle the large double doors opened for Queen Elsa with Princess Anna and General Grahm following closely behind. The council members all stood up from their chairs to greet their queen.

"Sit down everyone. We should start this meeting immediately," Elsa ordered.

Once everyone was settled back into their chairs the general walked forward to the center of the room to give his report. After the big spectacle at the docks controlling the rumors and gossip that spread like wild fire was an impossible feat. The General's report was meant to separate the rumors from the facts.

"At approximately eleven this morning flying beasts that would be best described as dragons and a white dragon the size of a small mountain appeared at the docks. After talking to all of the soldiers stationed at the docks the most consistent answer that I was given is that the dragon came out of a portal that appeared a few kilometers away. The dragons maintained their position until the queen and I arrived approximately 20 minutes after. Our queen spoke to what seemed to be the only human among the dragons. The man has a medium build, with brown hair, green eyes, and was wearing what looked to be leather. When he was asked what he wanted, his exact answer was simply "Elsa" before leaving the docks on his black dragon along with the rest of the dragons. The human and the dragons now reside in an island mountain that is covered with ice from the white dragon. We have yet to send any scouts for proper surveillance of their ice fortress. Despite their invasion, Arendelle has remains untouched by the dragons."

After Grahm's report everyone remained silent for a few moment to digest the information.

"Is he a viking?" Councilor Reithan Isigrin asked.

"The man did not tell us that he was a viking nor is there sufficient proof of him being one," Grahm replied.

"But we do have some evidence to suggest that he might be a viking," Master Helgen, head educator, historian and personal physician to the royal family chimed in. "The time before proper recorded history is often convoluted and biased. However, in this case what we know of vikings is consistent everywhere. We all know how the story goes. Vikings who have disappeared for a time returned to the world riding dragons, pillaging and burning everything in their path. They were unstoppable and at the time it seemed like the vikings would bring the entire world down on their knees. But then the vikings mysteriously disappeared once again. No one has seen a viking or a dragon since. Many expeditions have been made in search for them but the treacherous waters have proven to be too perilous.

"Which is why I don't understand how we can be talking about this when we should be taking action." Councilor Mia Seranov said, "That man is clearly a blood thirsty viking. He has come out of hiding to continue on the legacy of his savage race. We should be rallying the troops and forming alliances with other kingdoms to remove this threat from the world befor-

"Absolutely not!" A pregnant pause in the room as everyone turned their attention to the Queen. What they did not realize was that Elsa was caught in surprise by her own outburst. Elsa had no idea why she said that but needed roll with it. "Dragon scouts would easily spot any army coming to Arendelle days before they could arrive. Their ice fortress is right outside our doorsteps making Arendelle the battlefield. If we were to win this fight, after the smoke cleared, there would be nothing left of Arendelle."

"If fighting is not an option then we have no choice but to give into his terms," Councilor Eric Kedron said taking his turn to talk. "Although his term is a bit ambiguous. As queen her highness can be seen as Arendelle itself. Does he want Arendelle? Does he want to marry Queen Elsa? In that case he becomes king by default and rules Arendelle anyways. Or does he mean to take the queen away from Arendelle? Each one is subtly different but each one requires a different response."

Listening to the councilor's list of reasons, Anna tried her best to keep her head down, and tried her best to hold in her emotions. An emotional outburst would accomplish nothing. Whenever she thought that Elsa would be with her forever, fate seemed to always come back to tear them apart. Elsa was the only family she had left and was the person she loved the most besides Kristoff. She didn't want to lose Elsa.

As the conversations carried on, Elsa sneaked a peek at her sister in the corner of her eye. Elsa could see that Anna had her head down, her hair covered her face just enough to hide the tears that threatened to break out. Seeing her sister in such a crestfallen state, Elsa felt like she would break out into tears as well. Elsa was still confused about her feeling towards the dragon king. But Elsa had to remain strong for Arendelle and for her sister. Reaching out from under the table, Elsa grabbed Anna's hand in comfort before taking control of the room.

"Tomorrow we shall prepare for every possible outcome. It is probably best that we don't keep him waiting for long. After the preparations are done I shall go to the Dragon King," Elsa said. The queen's voice was calm, collected, and the perfect embodiment of the person called the Snow Queen. But in one of those rare moments, the queen's face softened as she gave them a promise. "Whatever the Dragon King wants of me, I promise you all that this is not goodbye."

Getting up from their chairs the members of the court bowed their heads to give their respects to the queen. One by one, everyone started to leave until it was only Anna and Elsa left in the dark room. Slowly Elsa pulled her sister into a warm hug to continue their talk in quiet whispers.

"How do you feel Elsa?" Anna asked.

"I don't know," Elsa said simply and letting our a nervous laugh, "Fear, anger, hatred that is what I should be feeling but is somehow the exact opposite."

Anna stared back in surprise. "You feel something off too? I thought I was going crazy. Despite all that has has happened there is something deep inside me. It's holding back and telling me that everything will be okay."

"I know what you are saying Anna," Elsa paused for a brief moment hesitant to tell Anna. "What had happened this morning at the docks. I keep replaying it over and over again. At the start, I thought it was my memories that were playing tricks on me but now I believe it more and more as time goes on."

Elsa pulled her sister up with a serious look on her face. "It was the briefest of flashes but I saw it. His pale and soft skin, his scruffy hair and green eyes, I had already knew what the Dragon King looked like before he had taken his helmet off ."

Instinctively Anna had wanted to reject that conclusion to say that her memories were playing tricks on her. But staring back at Elsa and how she looked, Anna somehow knew that she wasn't wrong. It was that damn feeling inside of her again! It popped up from out of nowhere and beats downs her fears down into submission.

"So it's exactly like me then," Anna said confiding in her sister. "We are on the verge of being invaded by dragons and somehow I am not scared at all."

"You are wrong about that Anna, I am still very much scared," Elsa holding back her tears that threatened to come out once more. "But not because of the dragons, not because of the Dragon king. You didn't see it but I had tears in my eyes. I don't know why but I was crying at the mere site of him. I'm scared because I don't what's happening to me."

"Tears? Well I didn't quite have that powerful of a reaction," Anna said frowning, "Magic then? it has to be the only explanation."

"So in the end, the only way to get answers is get it straight from him then." Elsa said

"But I don't want you to leave, Elsa," Anna mumbled scared of not know what would happen.

"I don't want to leave either Anna, but we will see each other again, this won't goodbye. I promise."

"Can I sleep in your room tonight?"

"Sure,"

It was not until 2am, that the girls went to bed. But while Anna slept soundly, Elsa could not. At first it was anger. Elsa felt angry at the world asking why things that were out of her control kept happening. First it was her powers. Elsa didn't ask for her powers they were there when she was first born and as a result she lost out on her entire childhood and almost her sister because of it. And despite all of her protest Elsa did want to get married, to fall in love. Elsa was patient, she didn't want to rush into a relationship and wanted to find the right guy. But fate seemed to like to toy with her with feelings she did not understand.

Elsa was jealous. Fate loved her sister Anna it seemed. As the younger one, Anna didn't have to worry about running a kingdom. The stress, the frustration, the long hours of work, Anna didn't have to worry about any of it. And when she almost made the worst decision of her life in marrying Hans, she got lucky and that things worked out in the end while also finding her true love in Kristoff.

"No, I shouldn't be jealous of Anna," Elsa told herself, "I love Anna I should be happy for her good fortune."

Turning her body the other way, Elsa tried to go back to sleep. In the end despite her unknown feelings she needed to prepare for the worst, in case of all of it was just a lie brought on by that man. There was going to be a lot of work needed to be done before she left. Closing her eyes, Elsa tried her best to fall asleep.

OoOoO

Step, step, step, Elsa's heavy footsteps echoed in the dark tunnels. With a heavy breath, she continued to run as fast as she could. Loud roars were heard from behind telling her that the dragons were getting closer. Scared and with tears in her eyes, Elsa flickered her hands but nothing happened. No matter what she did or how hard she tried, nothing happened. It was as if she had forgotten how to use her ice powers. With no way to defend herself, she had no choice but to keep running. She didn't know where she was running to but the only other choice was to let the dragons catch up to her. The tunnel seemed to be endless.

After what seemed like an eternity, a white light appeared indicating the end of the tunnel. With nothing to lose, she kept running and was blinded by the white light. Slowly her eyes adjusted to find herself in a large open ice cavern. Ice spikes protruded all over the walls and ceiling that gave out a brilliant shimmer. But that wasn't the first thing that caught Elsa's eye. At the very center of the cavern was a giant ice sculpture of a wolf. Sculpted in its sleeping form the head of the wolf rested on top of its front paws and the tail rested by the side of its body. However, Elsa didn't have time to marvel at its craftsmanship. Elsa looked all over the cavern snapping her head from left to right looking for an exit but there was none to be found. The cavern was a dead end.

Turning around to the entrance she just came from Elsa wondered how much longer she had until the dragons emerged. But she was completely surprised to see that the entrance behind her was gone, replaced by a wall of ice. Elsa touched the wall trying to figure where the ice had came from and to comprehend what was going on. The sound of ice cracking was heard from behind her. Turning around Elsa was scared witless to see the eyes of the wolf sculpture open and stared back at her. The ice sculpture had moved.

Slowly the ice wolf got up from its resting position. The high pitch of ice shifting against itself as the ice wolf moved echoed around the cavern, prowling towards its new found prey. With nowhere to run, the only thing she could do was press her back against the wall, silently praying to herself. Praying for the ice wolf to disappear, praying for her ice powers to return, praying for anyone or anything for help. But it was all pointless as the ice wolf opened its mouth, and Elsa was consumed by the darkness.

OoOoO

With a jolt, Elsa woke up from her nightmare. Her heart beated wildly as she jerked her head left to right to regains her bearings.

"Just a nightmare Elsa, only just a nightmare," Elsa turned her ragged breaths to slow deep breaths and calmed herself down. Turning to her side, Elsa was thankful for the fact that she did not wake up Anna during her nightmare. It would only make her worry more than she probably was already. Wiping the sweat off her forehead with a nearby cloth, Elsa silently slid off the bed and was careful not to wake up her sister.

OoOoO

In her semi conscious state Anna reached out her hand across the bed. With a mind of its own the hand searched up and down the bed but grasped nothing but air. With the mission a failure the hand relayed the bad news to Anna's head.

"Elsa!" Anna yelled. Turning to her side Anna visually confirmed that her older sister was indeed missing from the bed. "Did she run away?" Anna thought as her mind slowly went into panic mode.

"I'm right here Anna, there is no need to yell," A voice said from behind.

Turning her face the other way, Anna found her sister, or what's left of her, sitting at her desk quietly scratching her pen against paper. Elsa looked absolutely terrible. Her normally perfect hair was completely frazzled with split ends protruding from every which way. Her usual bright blue eyes was now dimmed and her heavy eye bags could be seen from across the kingdom.

"You look like a zombie Elsa! Didn't you get any sleep last night?" Jumping out of bed Anna walked up to Elsa to get a better look at her.

"Couldn't sleep. Besides I still have a lot of work to do." Elsa said simply, not bothering to looks up from her papers to talk to Anna. Despite her best efforts, Anna could not break her out of depression. After hours of trying Anna was pulled away by Councilor Eric, kicking and screaming.

One by one the members of the council visited Elsa's office to give their word of encouragement and to try to cheer up their queen. But their words are wasted on deaf ears as she dismisses each one without so much as a thought to their words.

First was Mia Seranov whose advice on how to deal with men and it most likely did not apply to the dragon king. Next was the general, not particularly good with sensitive emotions the best he could do was tell her that her bravery was commendable and that her father and mother would be proud. Unfortunately Elsa had defaulted to her defense mechanism. To bury her emotions so deep that she wouldn't have to feel it. Her emotions right now were a distraction and right now she was far too busy to be bothered by distractions. The Dragon King could get impatient and come crashing down on their heads at any moment. The sooner Elsa left the sooner she could get answers and the safer everyone would be. With nothing left to say the General took his leave. Continuing on with paperwork, Elsa waited for the next interruption to arrive.

*Knock*Knock*

"Enter."

The door opened to reveal Master Helgen carrying a heavy book at his side. Flipping through the pages, he places the open book onto Elsa's desk for her to see. Sneaking a peek Elsa found a diagram of the female body.

"You taught me all of this, I know how reproduction works, I don't need a reminder," Elsa said her fatigue making her short.

"Although it wasn't said in the meeting yesterday, everyone was still thinking about it," Master Helgen explained. "This is the first viking we have seen for centuries. He might very well be the last viking. As such his goal might be to continue on his legacy and the heritage of his viking race through you.

Looking up at her teacher, Elsa gave him a bored and impatient look. She was not sure why he was telling her all of this. Understanding the confusion on her face the doctor continued his explanation.

"Which is why I bought this textbook," With his finger Master Helgen directed Elsa's attention to a single point on the female body. "Should you wish to deny him of what he wants this would be the best place to do it. Blocking it with your ice powers will guarantee that you will not bear any of his children into this world."

Still without emotion the queen thanked the doctor for his advice before kicking him out of the room to continue her work.

It wasn't until nearly midnight did Elsa finish her final preparations. Not wanting to cause a huge commotion by parading through the entire kingdom everyone decided it was best that she slipped through the town in secret with only General Grahm to accompany her. Anna protested heavily to this as she wanted to go with Elsa. Only after a thousand empty promises by Elsa, promising that she would see Anna again did she finally give in.

Standing in the very same spot where she had first met the Dragon King at the docks, Elsa looked out across the sea to the foreboding ice fortress. With her ice powers she created a frozen path to walk on. Before taking her first step onto the ice, Elsa took one last look behind her and her kingdom. She wondered if she was ever going to see her again to see Anna. Putting the hood of her heavy white cloak over her head, Elsa made her way to the ice fortress.

Cover page by Mistress of the Snow

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