The sting of acrid, black smoke burns its way down Elsa's throat and she coughs herself awake in a choking sputter. Immediately, the pounding in her head makes an appearance, and with every throb – searing pain courses its way through her limbs and sets every one of nerves on fire. Blood, she mutters as her eyes flutter open, oh no. A stream of scarlet stains her clothes: a thick swaddling of sackcloth and blankets. She coughs up soot from her lungs, sending more blood dripping from her nose.
The scarlet plummets towards her knee like the last leaf falling from an autumn tree, and when it slops onto the fabric – the memories smash into her head faster than a cannonball. Anna. Sex. Military. Hans. General. Betrayed. With pain ripping through her arms, Elsa snaps her head up and gasps at the sight before her; now she can add fire to her list of words. An industrial furnace roars before her eyes, blurring the air with its ferocious heat; its open jaws look like the gateway to Hades itself – flames flickering and licking every trace of ash and grime from its black metal. As if the furnace wasn't enough to boil the very air in the cell, two rows of brazier troughs hold piles of grey coals – radiating a blistering heat that melts the very walls holding her captive.
The heat burns into her face like a firestorm; unable to bear the infernal temperature searing into her eyeballs, she tilts away and chokes one more time, and the clanking echoes in her ears like a funeral bell. Lifting her hands before her, Elsa discovers the source of the fiery pain tearing into her fingers: iron gauntlets shackled around her hands. Elsa pulls away at the metal and gasps as the chains drag across the floor, forming a metal trail directly into the furnace. The links nearest to the blazing inferno glow white-hot beneath the flicker of the furnace's fire, and they fade into a cherry-red glow.
In a fit of panic, Elsa yanks away at the chains and attempts to stand, stumbling back onto the floor as another pair of shackles dig into her ankles. The blood around her knees begin to boil as she realizes they've kept her kneeling for what must've been hours on end. She regains her composure and tries to make sense of her surroundings. The slight tilting of the floor suggests she's imprisoned onboard a ship, although the nausea and constant throbbing pain in her head hints that she really could be anywhere.
Her sanity begins to unravel at the hopelessness of her situation. "Help!" Elsa shrieks. The hoarse, croaking sound bubbling up from her parched throat feels like she's coughing out sand, and she reconsiders making another plea for help.
"Can I help you?" a deep voice snarls behind her.
A huge man with greying hair steps into Elsa's view; from the signet ring on his finger – she immediately recognizes him: King Adolphus of the Southern Isles; the eldest of fourteen who masterminded a coup against his own parents which left them slaughtered in cold blood. A brief civil war followed his assent to the throne, leaving scores of citizens dead and his power firmly consolidated under the fearful support of his brothers. Elsa recalled watching the boats overladen with refugees from her window as a young girl, and her parents' trembling explanations about how royalty in other Kingdoms really worked.
"Please, get this off me," Elsa pleads, holding up her chains to his knees, "it-"
"It burns?" Adolphus chuckles, picking up a hefty chunk of firewood and tossing it into the furnace, "Haven't experienced that before huh?"
He lowers himself to Elsa's height and wipes at the layer of sweat and ash plastered to her forehead. Sweat drips from the King's chin and splatters on her gauntlets; a smirk forms on his face as the moisture hisses against the searing-hot metal.
"Why are you keeping me here?" Elsa asks, pulling on the shackles and trying to inch her face away from the King.
"Because I can," he replies, running a gloved hand across her cheek. The touch of leather to Elsa's face sends goosebumps prickling along her sweat-stained skin, and she jerks her head away from him.
"And also, I need some things from you before I dispose of your wretched life," Adolphus scowls.
"You..what?"
"Did you dump the crown in a pig's pen or what? I'm sure Anna would hate having to wear such a tarnished and hideous-looking piece of-"
Elsa's eyes widen at her sister's name, "What did you do with Anna?" she exclaims.
"Oh don't worry, there won't be a hair harmed on your precious sister's head. We need her intact for your throne. As for you, however…"
Adolphus slams a hand around Elsa's throat and tightens his grasp, eliciting a muffled squeal from her throat, "you'll die in pieces if you don't tell me where the Royal seal and Signet ring are."
Her mind flutters back to the tweed-cotton bag she's left by Anna's feet at the pier, and she sputters out, "I'm not telling you anything."
The relief of Adolphus loosening his grip fades away into a crackling pain across her cheekbone. Her left eye throbs violently when she opens it, and she gasps at the sight of blood and tears on the floor. The shock of being struck across the face for the first time in her life is dented immediately when Adolphus grabs Elsa by the hair and yanks her head back so far she thinks her neck will snap any moment.
"I could do this all day," he grins as Elsa's neck creaks further backwards and tears stream from her eyes, "you'll forget your name, your sister's name, your parents' name, by the time I'm done with you. Anna will forget your name."
Elsa groans under his grip with the words 'no, she won't' sputtering from her lips, but it's hard to when her neck is ready to fracture.
"You'll roast to death in this oven, and Arendelle will forget you ever existed – your legacy, wiped off the face of this earth. No one will remember you-"
With her fists clenched in their metal prisons and her windpipe fraying beneath the pressure, Elsa grits her teeth and hisses, "I'm not like you!"
Stars cross her eyes as Adolphus slams her head into the floor. By the time she looks up from the pool of blood leaking out her nose, the cell door has slammed shut behind his stomping feet, leaving Elsa curled up on the wooden planks whimpering Anna's name. Despite her age and the helplessness of her situation, Elsa knows full well the game in play here. After all – it's happened to at least a dozen other monarchs across Europe: the military or an enemy state launches a coup on the reigning King or Queen, executing them in as vicious of a way as possible and installing a younger sibling on the throne as a puppet.
"Come on," Elsa mutters, focusing her thoughts on Anna and trying to direct as much of her energy into the shackles. The searing hot metal cools slightly around her quivering hands; for a brief second she imagines seeing a snowflake appear on the gauntlets, but it fades away into the roaring furnace heat.
"That won't be much help here," a voice scowls behind her.
She'd never imagine cold could exist in an infernal room like this – but a chill surges through her spine and her blood turns to ice at his voice.
"No, oh no," Elsa whispers, the words barely audible above the crackling coals. Her hands hang limp by her side and she drops her gaze to the floor in defeat. Gone is the smooth, confident intonation of Han's words, now just a drawl dripping with malice. A gloved hand holds out a bottle beneath her nose and Elsa recoils from the stench of chloroform.
"Where is Anna?" Elsa hisses, yanking at the chains and lurching towards the silhouette of Hans strolling to the coals.
Hans holds a handkerchief to his face and pours a steady stream of chloroform onto the hissing coals. A cloud of steam rises from the ashes and fills the room in a sickly scent. Elsa looks away and tries to hold her breath, but the smell possesses a will of its own, invading her nostrils and saturating her brain with sleep. Even beneath his covered face, she sees a smirk dancing in his eyes as he watches her eyes start to close. The last thing she notices before completely passing out are his green eyes narrowing to slits barely an inch before her – and a muffled voice rife with hatred.
"Before she takes your place, I'm going to relish fucking your sister like the whore she is."