A steady breeze flutters through the pleats in Anna's tattered dress; the girl clutches the thin shawl around her shoulders and lifts her watery gaze to the horizon. She tries to register some sort of emotion at the two columns of horses topped with soldiers flying the flags of Arendelle - relief, joy, anticipation, but finds only a sickening numbness swirling around in the pit of her belly.

The thudding of hooves rise into a roaring gallop as the soldiers head directly to the single stream of black smoke Anna had stoked from a stack of smouldering twigs. The princess watches the entourage pause by the dragon's carcass, lying stone cold dead on the savannah. Even at this distance, she can see the trepidation written on their faces as they slow to a trot and maneuver around its scaly body.

Monster, a voice whispers within her, they probably think you're even more of one than your sister.

Anna shuts her eyes and tries to shake off the disgust within her directed at herself. With the wind threatening to force the tears from her eyes, she heads into the house and kneels by Elsa's side. The queen's pale skin glows beneath the sunlight streaming through the cobwebbed window panes, but besides the gentle heave of her chest - an unsettling stillness encases her body. The sight of Elsa's radiant features eases the ache in Anna's chest, but the persistent sleep causes the knot inside her to tighten with every breath she takes.

"Elsa," Anna whispers, smoothening the tousled blonde curls from her cold and clammy face, "the Palace guards have come to take you home."

The princess grasps her sister's hands and waits for a reply, but all she feels is faint throbbing in Elsa's wrists.

"Please," Anna begs, peering at Elsa's shut eyes and willing them to open, "please wake up."

With trembling fingers, Anna tightens her clasp on Elsa's hand, hoping the pain would wake her sister up. The queen's hands fading from pink to sleet-white, but Elsa remains locked away in her slumber, oblivious to her sister's pleas.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Anna stutters, muttering the words she's said over and over for the past few days, "I'm sorry for everything – just...please wake up?"

A creaking sound draws a gasp from Anna, and she releases Elsa's fingers from her grasp. At once, a spurt of pain races up her fingers into her elbows, bringing with it a wave of panic and disgust. The reddened, half-healed blisters in her hands come into view and Anna furiously rubs away at the imaginary pulses of electricity flowing through her fingers, repeating to herself I don't want any of this, I don't want any of this.

"Oh god, Elsa, please!" Anna shrieks, throwing herself at the queen and yanking her shoulders to and fro, "the guards are coming and I've no idea what to tell them, what to say, what to do-"

Despite Anna's violent shaking, Elsa's slumber remains resolute, and her body slumps into the sheets like a dead weight when she lets go of her.

A sudden chilly draft raises the hair on Anna's skin, sending her scrambling to her feet. The captain of the royal guard enters the room and stares at the girl before him; her freckled skin stained with patches of dried blood, and her dress dotted with burnt-out holes. His eyes dart between the blonde figure lying in the bed and the sorry excuse for a princess before him. Struggling to comprehend the scene, his mind puts together the pieces before coming to a conclusion.

"Y-your Highness," the captain says with a bow, still unwilling to believe that the girl before him is indeed the princess of Arendelle, "is her Majesty...?"

The numbness gnawing at Anna's stomach from earlier refuses to lift, and she stares at the man in his gleaming armour with apathy in her eyes. Receiving no reply from the princess, the captain reaches into his satchel and retrieves the royal crown.

"The Queen is-"

"No!" Anna shrieks, striding across the room and shoving the crown back into his bag, "No! She's not dead! Just...a little out of it. I've been having a hard time trying to wake her up."

"Oh, thank god," the captain sighs, making the sign of the cross, "did...did it have something to do with the dead dragon we saw in the valley?"

The memory of the beast's hair-scorching roar and its fiery scales invades Anna's mind; her voice falters for a second, before she nods. The guard steps aside and allows the palace physician to enter; with the solemnity of a funeral, they gaze upon Elsa as he checks her pulse. He tilts her head and lifts her eyelids to the sunlight. Anna bunches her hands around the tattered remnants of her dress and bites down hard on her lip as the blues in Elsa's eyes come into view; glistening in the light but filled with a deathly cold..

"Her Majesty is unconscious," the physician concludes, pressing a palm to her forehead, "we must get her back to the palace for treatment without delay."

"Please!" Anna cries out, grabbing the doctor and startling him with the intensity of her pleas. The men's faces falter at the Princess's voice breaking into a sob, and the captain hauls Elsa away in his arms before Anna's mental state deteriorates any further. Anna stumbles as she tries to follow him out, and she's stopped in her tracks by a hand on her shoulders. She attempts to rise and follow her sister, but the sight of Elsa being loaded unconscious into the royal carriage sends a tide of grief into her body, and she buckles onto the floor. The fatigue from days past catches up with her; in her wrecked physical state, Kai picks her up and seats her in a chair like a child.

"Look, Anna," Kai's voice starts, "you've obviously been through a lot, but we need to talk-"

"I tried, I tried!" Anna stutters, holding her shaking, blistered hands in front of his face, "I did everything I could to save her and...and...and...it wasn't enough!"

"Please, your Highness, the valiant struggle you and her Majesty have undertaken to keep Arendelle safe will not be forgotten. But for now, we need to discuss-"

"I can't, I just can't anymore!" Anna shrieks, clutching the edges of her chair and shaking violently, "I should have died in her place!"

"You must be strong!" Kai urges, clutching Anna's hand like he often did when he caught her stealing pastries from the kitchen during her childish youth. The palace-master's furious stare and the way he said the word strong jogs Anna's memory back to a time when she didn't have to be. Nonetheless, Anna's trembling subsides into stillness, but the tears in her eyes remain.

"I have none left," Anna whispers, "I thought I...I could do it, but I..."

"You have to, your Highness, the Kingdom depends on you. The memory of your parents depend on you," Kai says, before sighing and continuing, "Elsa depends on you."

Anna stares at the floor. She makes a feeble attempt to fight off the numbness creeping back into her soul, but gives in to the relief that it brings. With her voice barely a whisper from her lips, she asks Kai,

"What do I have to do?"

"Anna, we talked about this at your parents' funeral, about what would happen if Elsa was ever incapable of ruling. You are next in Arendelle's line, after you there is no other."

"It's happened once already, and I sure did a good job with that," Anna mutters, keeping her icy-cold stare locked on the floor, "I might as well have handed the crown over to Hans."

"It was of no fault of yours, all of us were stricken with her departure after the coronation. But we must look to more pressing matters now-"

"You're looking at the wrong person, I can't even-"

"Arendelle needs you-"

"Why don't you make the decisions?" Anna snaps.

"They will seize power from Elsa!" Kai yells, his shaking fingers rattling the birdcage in his hand. Anna recoils from his voice, and at once the furious tweeting of a carrier pigeon in the cage brings her senses back.

"Who will?" Anna asks.

"Men," Kai starts, dropping his gaze to Anna's feet, "evil men who'll stop at nothing to usurp your sister's throne. Their scheming will start once Elsa reaches the Palace gates and they realize she's unable to rein in their ambitions."

"Jesus," Anna sighs, slumping into the chair and clutching her forehead, "it's happened before."

Before she's even able to recover from the revelation, Kai lays the Princess's signet ring on the table, polished and unused.

"We need orders," Kai says, scribbling on a strip of parchment, "to clear any doubt who's in charge."

A shudder goes through Anna's bones at his words, and she asks, "orders about what?"

Kai stops writing and tightens his grip on the quill.

"Each day Prince Karl remains on the throne of the Southern Isles, their Kingdom grows stronger. Each day Arendelle cowers behind her borders, their shipyards toil relentlessly, rebuilding what they lost in our Fjords."

"They're rebuilding their navy?" Anna asks.

"It's not that hard to observe, even from afar: the flickering lights dotting their yards at night could only mean they're working around the clock, using the endless wagons of wood heading down the road from Weselton."

"But...but…" Anna says, unsure of what to say or do, "oh no, Elsa's…"

"I fear her Majesty did us more harm than good when she set their sailors free; mercy was never a wise option for those who spare none. And it won't be long before some corrupt bastard from our courts leaks the news of Elsa's misfortune to the Southern Isles."

"They'll be here in less than a week if that happens," Anna says. With the thought of taking responsibility for thousands of lives falling upon her shoulders, she feels the room begin to spin, and her head aching under the pressure.

"I need to issue an order, your Highness, what will it be?" Kai asks, quill poised on the parchment.

"I don't...I don't know," Anna stutters, clutching the chair and trying to keep her balance, "Jesus, I've never- Who did Elsa consult when she made decisions about military matters?"

"Usually the General or the Admiral," Kai answers with a sigh, "but they're dead now."

"Dammit!" Anna cries, causing Kai to inch his chair away from the princess, "How the hell am I supposed to know what to do then?"

"It is of little importance what orders you issue. The priority is for the court to know you're the reigning monarch in your sister's-."

"I won't sit by while the shadow in the South threatens to overwhelm us anyday. We must stop them!" Anna insists, thumping her fist on the table, "What if Elsa...Elsa wakes up...and...and she realises that I fucked up the Kingdom?"

The thought of Elsa waking from her prison of sleep into a real life prison sends a chill down her spine. It doesn't take long for Anna to realise they won't be taking any chances with Elsa after how she rescued her from the furnace cell. Anna leans back in her chair and stares at the ceiling, before continuing, "We don't happen to have any ships left, do we?"

"Whatever ships we had were burnt to cinders during the Finnmark mutiny. The Southern Isles scuttled most of theirs in our Fjord when they surrendered to her Majesty. There were some salvageable ones, but mostly launches and cutters, nothing substantial enough to hold large-bore cannons."

"Oh no, and the crew?" Anna asks.

"They've been demobilized by her Majesty's demilitarisation programme. It won't take more than a day to call them up as seafaring militia, but they won't have any ships to sail with."

"No ships to crew," Anna mutters, looking at the pleats in her dress and twiddling her thumbs. She tries to recall her lessons in naval history, the boring afternoons spent in the library listening to tutors drone on about historical battles on the high seas. The princess never understood them, and she convinced herself there wasn't any use to remembering lists of dates and numbers; although she probably could use a little naval knowledge now.

"T-the...the ingredients of war are-" Anna starts, screwing her eyes shut and whispering the mnemonic 'Mary never saw winter' in her head, "Mobility, numbers, supplies and weather."

Kai sighs and rubs his forehead, "and your Highness, the point you're trying to raise is…?"

"They can't launch an invasion if they don't have all four on their side."

"The winds will shift north in a matter of weeks, not months!" Kai says, "The Southern Isles have more soldiers than we have peasants, and enough gunpowder to raze Arendelle to the ground twice over! All they need is for the fleet to be ready and then we're doomed-"

"Do you happen to know which direction their shipyards face?" Anna asks.

"I'd have to look at a map of the area, but I'm pretty sure they face west."

"And how much stocks of gunpowder do we have available for use?"

Kai ponders the Princess's question, before his eyes widen in fear, "Your Highness...you can't seriously be thinking about-"

"It's not a matter of why, but rather a question of when, and how," Anna replies, clenching and unclenching her blistered fists.

"The other states will see it as a crime," Kai warns, "an unprovoked attack outside the boundaries of war!"

"I think their reputation should more than make up for that," Anna says, pointing to the parchment beneath Kai's fingertips, "write an order to assemble the seafaring militia, every seaworthy vessel we have, and enough gunpowder to blow up the docks."

The palace master writes the message, putting great care into each stroke of the quill. He turns the nib over to Anna, and she signs at the bottom.

"You're taking a big risk with this," Kai says, watching the Princess read over the order.

The solid wax hisses as Anna passes her signet ring over the fireplace. The thought of war, violence, and death resonates through her mind, still fragile from the events of the past year. In her hesitation, she stares at the signature on the parchment, under the words Princess Anna of Arendelle, and for some reason, it gives her the strength to do what she wouldn't have thought possible.

"It's either this, or death," Anna scowls, jamming the seal over her name.

Kai ties the parchment to the carrier pigeon. With the bird cooing in his hands, they leave the house and step onto the cooled patches of lava, crumbling beneath their feet. The wind cuts into Anna's cheek as she lifts her eyes to the cloudless sky, but at once the Princess drops her gaze to the parchment tied around the pigeon's leg.

"He won't stop at anything, huh?" Anna asks with a quivering voice, "Prince Karl of the Southern Isles."

Kai looks at the bird, holding what could very well be the trigger for an all out war, and he sighs, "This man lost twelve of his brothers; you wouldn't stop at anything to exact your vengeance if someone killed Elsa. "

"No," Anna scowls, "I wouldn't."

With a swing of his arms, Kai releases the pigeon into the winds, and Anna watches as the bird sends her first royal order into the skies, and she shudders at the death it's bound to bring.