It always started the same way…

A soft humming from the other side of the door. The gentle sound of a chair rocking back and forth. A beautiful voice.

"Who's there?"

Aaron would walk in, a guilty look on his face. Thirteen years old, old enough to want to defy your mother but still petrified of making her angry. He clutched something behind his back, and only after some coaxing would he reveal it. His mother would look at him with those big emerald eyes, filled with something between disappointment and surprise.

"Can you make it better?"

"Just this once," she would say. "But remember. This is our little secret."

Then she would reach out and it would be done, just like that.

And then he would be there, turning the room into a sauna and causing beads of sweat to pool on Aaron's forehead. His eyes were green then, and his hair was short and neatly combed, looking like a taller, meeker version of his brother.

He was so soft-spoken then, so fearful, especially around her. It had all started innocently enough. He had been calm, even somewhat happy. But that was the night Aaron found out just how quickly his uncle could turn.

When the first flame was cast, Aaron screamed, and Fi would come running, running from her room down the hall to find her brother, to make sure everything was alright.

But it was not alright; nothing was alright. The wall of flame would block the twins off from their mother who was pleading, begging for her life, for her children's lives, and they could do nothing but watch and scream and cry and hold onto each other until it was all over.

When she was gone, there was nothing left of her, not even a piece of clothing or a lock of hair to remember her by. All that Aaron recovered that night was the book she had been reading, a large purple tome with golden script on the cover, somehow untouched by the flames as if its contents provided some sort of protection from the very thing it sought to understand. A History of Royal Magic.

And just like it always ended, there would be a low cackle and a pair of glowing yellow eyes piercing the flames as Aaron and Sophie ran off, sparing one last glance at the scene that changed their lives forever, and they would start anew, reduced to the status of Panther and Swan, the history of Astor re-written in boiling blood.

Aaron jolted awake, soaked in a cold sweat.

Arendelle.

He was in Arendelle.

He stood, deciding sleep would be a hopeless endeavor, and paced his guest room. How long had it been since he last had that dream? He thought he was past it, but the memory of that night was never far from his mind. Apparently he had just become adept at ignoring it.

He opened the curtains to let the moonlight flood the room and walked over to the desk to stare at himself in the mirror, only half his face illuminated by the white light from the window.

He had decided to keep the beard, although he trimmed it properly so it wasn't the unruly mess it had been when he first landed in Arendelle. He also kept his hair longer and un-parted, lying loosely down over his forehead right above his brow, a slightly messy bed-head at the moment.

He barely recognized himself, he realized, but thought that was appropriate. He would no longer be the Panther of Astor after all this was over. A new look for a new man. Maybe that was just what he needed.

A sudden jolt of pain surged through Aaron's head as if an electric current were passing through his brain. Thousands of miles away, across an endless ocean, in the castle of Calidae, Princess Sophie clutched her head and winced in response.

"Something wrong?" Alexander asked, noticing his niece's sudden discomfort as she turned to leave the throne room.

"No, I… I'm fine," Sophie responded, regaining composure, and took a couple steps towards the door.

"I know your brother is alive," Alexander said suddenly, halting Sophie in her tracks. "You can feel him, can't you? Your blood is magical, after all. You try to hide it, but I know there's some sort of link between you and your twin."

He chuckled as Sophie turned to face him again, stone-faced. "Do not be afraid. I am not angry. You are loyal, my Black Swan. And for that you will be rewarded. If Aaron is with the Ice Queen when our plan goes forward, you may be the one to strike him down. You do want that, don't you?"

Sophie kept her chin lowered, but her response was clear. "I do."

Alexander leaned back in the throne, a smug pleasure plastered across his face and said, "Good."

Sophie bowed and turned to leave again. As she opened the door, Alexander called out once more. "You look more like her every day, you know. Your mother. She would be very proud of you."

Sophie clenched her teeth, fighting the urge to turn and scream at Alexander, to ask what gave him the right to speak of her mother, the woman he murdered; but she surprised herself by keeping her cool and quietly shutting the large steel door behind her, disappearing without a word.

She made her way down the winding marble staircase and through the residential hallway until she came to a door that she quietly opened, making sure to shut it silently. She walked over to the large bed at the center of the dark room where her father slept, his black beard damp with sweat and his face pale and strained as if trapped in a nightmare. Sophie sat on the side of the bed, being careful not to wake him, and put her hand in his before kissing him on the cheek.

"Just hang in there… Dad."

The castle of Arendelle was in chaos.

Or, at least, it would be without Elsa, Anna, and Captain Holdt holding everything together. By evening the day Aaron awoke, news of Astor's plans had spread to everyone that needed to know within the castle. There were mixed responses, ranging from a strange excitement (as was the case with the Captain) to pure panic and despair (Kai looked about ready to wet himself when he heard the news from Elsa).

The guard was put into full action, but the men themselves had been completely blindsided by a sudden threat to the kingdom, and morale was looking bleak.

Luckily, the Captain was more than just a figurehead – he was a leader. There was a rare twinkle in his eye as he began to prepare, sizing up the city's defense and going over strategies for a sea-side attack. "My soldiers are a bunch of twinkle-toed pansies at the moment," he told Elsa. "But two months? Aye, there's not a man I can't break in two months. Trust me."

And Elsa did trust him. She had to.

There wasn't a military bone in the queen's body. She was never formally trained in warfare in any capacity, and she briefly wondered if that was ever in the plan, wondered if it was supposed to be someone's job to teach her what to do in this kind of scenario and they just never did it, hoping there would be no need.

Elsa fumed at the thought before realizing that the only one who would have ever taught her this kind of thing without her asking would have been her father; it was just one of many things he never got the chance to teach her, she thought.

While the Captain and Elsa rallied the guard, Anna did as her sister asked and sent out a public notice for the chance of a sudden evacuation. Unfortunately, people were more demanding about information than she had hoped.

It didn't help that Olaf had obliviously decided to bring Marshmallow down from the mountains in broad daylight right through the center of the city, turning heads and causing a ripple of fear. Just what was going on that required the assistance of a giant snow-beast?

Soon, there were people at the castle looking for answers. And then a few more showed up. And then more. It didn't take long for it to grow out of control.

Anna, Kristoff, and Aaron stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard watching a mob outside the gates grow larger and larger as more people came demanding to see the Queen. Marshmallow was posted right outside the gates, trying to push people back without hurting them, but even the giant snowbeast wasn't intimidating the mob as they gained more momentum and people started gaining confidence in their cause.

"Looks like the cat's out of the bag," said Aaron. "And Elsa's busy with the Captain. What are you going to do?"

"We have to tell them the truth!" Anna said.

"Didn't you hear Elsa? We can't tell them everything or else there will be a panic," Kristoff said, and Anna turned to him angrily.

"Like this is any better? Besides, when did you become Elsa's little yes-man?"

"Well, she is my employer, technically," Kristoff replied and Anna punched his chest.

"And I'm your fiancée! I pay you in ways that she never could," the redhead said, causing Kristoff to immediately turn bright red as Aaron snickered. "Besides, Elsa might pretend to know what she's doing, but she doesn't. Our people deserve to know what's going on."

And with that, Anna took off and Kristoff and Aaron exchanged a glance, silently agreeing that there was no stopping her. Instead, they followed.

Anna made it to the gates and threw them open, causing the mob to stand back a ways as the princess grabbed their attention. She looked around for something to stand on, but after seeing nothing she called up to Marshmallow. "Hey, big guy! Give me a lift, will you?"

Marshmallow looked confused for a second, but understood. He suddenly grabbed Anna by the back of her dress and lifted her effortlessly before tossing her onto his back as she let out a startled "Whoa!"

After a second of regaining composure, Anna patted Marshmallow and addressed the crowd from her new ten-foot-high vantage point. "Everyone, listen to me! I know you're all wondering what's going on and I will tell you, but I need you to keep calm!"

The crowd simmered and fell quiet. There must have been almost five hundred people gathered on the bridge now, all listening intently to their princess. Anna peered out at the sea of angry eyes and pictured the mob with torches and pitchforks even though they had none. For a second she had a hint of stage fright, but managed to gather her courage and speak as loudly as she could:

"My sister, Queen Elsa, is not the only one who has magical powers. There is a powerful dictator across the sea who commands fire and rules over the kingdom of Astor. We have been warned that he will be attacking Arendelle with an army in just two months."

The crowd immediately responded, gasping and yelling, someone even shrieked in fear, and it took Anna a moment to quiet them again.

"I know, I know, this is awful news, but everyone needs to pull together now. We know of the attack well ahead of time and we can be prepared for it. All I ask is that we all do our part. We'll need volunteers to –"

A man near the front of the crowd interrupted, "Why should we? What did we ever do to this Astor place or its dictator, anyway?" he asked, and there were some shouts of agreement.

Anna hesitated before responding. "He heard there was another magic-user, our Queen, and – "

"So it's Queen Elsa he wants!" the man said, and turned to shout to the crowd. "If he's only interested in the Queen, why should we all suffer? I say she should turn herself over to him and be done with it! I knew having a Queen like her would come back to bite us as a kingdom one day, I knew it!"

The crowd was riled up again, some shouting in disapproval and others agreeing. Anna heard someone yell, "Yeah! Give her up!"

"No! We can't give in to him! He's –" Anna started, but it was no use. She had lost them.

It was clear that not all of the people there agreed that giving Elsa up was the best option, but the mere prospect of it caused a maelstrom of emotion and debate, and there would be no civil conversation happening here, at least not now.

Anna climbed down from Marshmallow who was now batting people away from the gates. "Go now – I protect," he said. With some effort, Anna eventually managed to make it back inside where Kristoff and Aaron were standing listening, at a loss for words.

"Well," Anna said, brushing herself off. "That didn't go so well."

A/N: Sorry for the wait here folks. This is the first part of a longer chapter I had in mind but I'm going to just post this part for now. The next part will be out very soon though! Thanks for reading!