A/N: This presently marks the longest piece in the collection. I will warn you now: There are some EXTREMELY DARK images ahead. If you are squeamish or don't wish to think badly of me (or my writing), I cannot very well tell you to turn around or to condone my writing, but please don't force yourself to keep reading if at any time you feel it's too much to handle.
And as a side note, what comes ahead is the "shortened" version of what I intended to write. Thanks to my wonderful beta Seas of Sorrow, I'll be further expanding on this story just for our sick, twisted delight. If anyone would like the final version of what comes up, PM me your email or something and I'll shoot a copy over.
This piece could conceivably be Rated AO for Adults Only, but I don't know that I pushed it far enough for that.
The Slipshod Collection
Elsanna Week 2014, Prompt 3: Nightmare
The sound of metal scrubbing against a leather-and-steel hilt brought Anna's head swiveling to face the sound, the ice between her bones grating painfully in her ears as they focused on the source of the noise. Hans, brandishing his forged steel blade with a dexterous arm, took a menacing step toward the fallen queen, glaring at her hunched figure with malice and sadistic pleasure.
Elsa!
Without thinking, Anna forced her legs to surge, fighting the chatter in her teeth and the ice in her bones. She planted her right leg against the ice, pushing for all her worth to slam the left leg down after, nearly to the point of crawling forward toward her sister. Hans twirled the blade experimentally. She took two more steps, shuffling closer across the treacherous ice. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, crystallizing in the icy air as they slid down cheeks that were slowly turning to frozen glass. She blinked, eyelids sticking to frozen eyeballs, despair tugging at her feeble heart as it beat angrily against her breast, thrumming her blood past the clots that had formed in her knees and elbows. Another step forward. And another.
He lifted the blade over his head. Elsa's neck lay bare, unguarded by even the smallest bit of white-blonde hair. Anna choked down a sob, tears freezing her eyes open as she struggled forward against the cloying bonds of unconsciousness, beckoning her closer to a frozen hell she fought to prolong if only to save her beloved sister.
Her last step. She was so close. His toothy smirk, his maniacal eyes, the gleeful spring in his step as he moved forward. The blade whistled down. Anna brought her arm up.
Whack.
The unexpected sound of steel striking flesh rang loud and clear across the frozen fjord, splitting the silence like a gunshot. Anna blinked. Warmth had surged back through her veins, the once-solid tears resuming their journey down her cheeks. She brought her head back down to gaze at Hans with level eyes, his jaw agape. She blinked again.
The sound of water dripping nearby grabbed her attention. She looked down at the lowered blade and noted the splash of scarlet that lisped from its hardened edge, staining the beautiful patterns encrusted within the ice below. She gazed in a stupor at the spot above her forearm where her hand was.
Had been.
Her hand lay frozen on the ice just in front of Hans's boots. Her arm ended at the wrist, capped by a cauterized stump of unspilled blood. The fingers twitched with the feeble remnants of a robbed life before freezing into glass, the curse siphoned away from her heart and her head. She felt woozy at seeing part of her body detached from its former residence. Memories of a past she hadn't known flooded her head. She recalled dancing in a frozen ballroom with her sister. Building a snowman. Jumping from drift to drift, higher and higher. She remembered the ice crashing against her forehead. She remembered. She remembered.
She lowered her arm. Hans blinked, his jaw flapping in the frozen air. Anna felt her cloak stir behind her, felt Elsa standing, shaking, shivering. She heard the queen gasp, felt the numbness at the end of her arm tingling incessantly, felt her hearing drift away and her head grow light.
"A-Anna!"
Her knee buckled. She fell forward, striking the ice hard. Pain lanced at her hip and ankle.
"Anna, no!"
Black.
Elsa felt a thrumming in her head that refused to cease and desist. The thought of angry hornets running rampant within her head came slowly to fruition as needles of angry outrage lashed at her consciousness with a vicious rapidity that left her near tears. She grit her teeth, grinding molars as she forced her aching eyes to open.
She found herself suspended in the air, her head lolling about as whatever vindictive power she'd been subjected to shuddered its way through her skin and her scalp. Her hands felt for her feet, the four pale limbs shackled painfully together behind her back. She attempted to freeze the shackles to break them off. The iron mittens clamped down on her hands and feet even tighter, crushing bones together beneath the skin. She whimpered, releasing her hold on the magic, hoping to alleviate some of the torment.
It was then that she noticed that her ice gown was missing. She found herself bereft of any clothing whatsoever, suspended in a room lit by a single lantern suspended on a short pole a scant distance away. She blinked at it, bleary eyes swimming with hazy nonrecognition. She craned her neck, attempting to look around.
Her ears and eyes immediately snapped toward the sound of clinking chains across the room. She swallowed past a dry lump in her throat.
"Who's there?"
The chains clinked more. A cough rang out. "E-Elsa?"
"Anna?!"
The heavy wooden door to Elsa's left swung open on silent hinges, revealing the bastard who'd attempted to kill both members of the royal family in one fell swoop. She growled.
"Hans."
He chuckled, shutting the door and twisting the key in the lock. "I must say, you two make quite the pair. I mean, with Anna losing her hand and you passing out on top of her, it was just too easy to have you dragged back here and hoisted. All it took was finding stunt doubles to die for your crimes of treason against Arendelle."
"How did anyone even believe you?"
"Well, back when our dear princess over here was dying in that parlor and you were chained away in the basement, I let slip that she and I had given our marriage vows to the silence of the room. It was all too easy to fool those pathetic inbred members of the court that I was the rightful ruler to sentence you two to death by guillotine."
"In front of the townspeople!"
"Of course! How else could I have had any real enjoyment? You should've seen how they cringed at the blood. It was wonderful."
"You monster."
He laughed, the cruel sound echoing around the walls. He plucked a torch from the wall and lit it with the lantern, striding slowly around the room to ignite the others like it. "Is that why I'm King of Arendelle and you were exiled to the north mountain? Is that why that so-called 'act of true love' the snowman spoke of left you both down here with me now? Is that why you were 'beheaded' for your crimes?"
The room had begun to warm up a small amount, the flickering of the firelight finally granting Elsa permission to see her sister, strung up by only three limbs, her fourth dangling limply toward the floor. Red sores shone clearly around the binding chains snaked round creamy joints. Breasts hung, small and limp, pointed dejectedly at the floor with her stump. The hazy fear and pain in her eyes made Elsa want to scream.
"Y'know, it's actually quite pathetic that you're both so desperate for affection. I mean, let's take dear Anna here for example," he drawled, waltzing closer to her limp form. Elsa could see her sister attempting to flee from the man in vain. "You were so willing to marry a man you didn't know a thing about, just because you were so innocent...so naive...so fucking stupid."
With his free hand, he drew a knife from his belt. The blade glinted in the firelight. Elsa's mouth ran dry. "What are you doing?"
"Well, marriage is a sacred act of uniting two parties together interminably. Anna here was willing to sacrifice that sanctuary...all for someone like me. That's poor judgment. And as we thirteen brothers were taught back in my home kingdom, bad judgment leads to punishment of equal value."
Anna whimpered. Elsa growled. "Don't you dare-"
"Or what? What can you do, hanging from the ceiling like a piñata from Spain? Even your ice powers have been restricted by my shackles. They'll crush your hands and feet if you attempt to freeze them."
Elsa cringed. "Don't do this, Hans. Don't touch her."
"I already took her hand," he chuckled. "Now I intend to take her vow."
He raised the blade, small and unimpressive, and brought it down with a slow, deliberate stroke. The silver point dug into the space between the palm and knuckle of Anna's left ring finger. She shrieked, tears spilling from her eyes, blood running red and strong from the incision.
"Hurts to be betrayed by your 'true love,' doesn't it?"
He stabbed again. Anna let fly another scream. Elsa swallowed, tears leaking down her cheeks.
"Hans, stop this!"
The final slice left the finger to drop to the floor, blood staining the cobblestone. He held the lit torch up to the missing digit and let the wound flare shut. Anna continued to sob, the violent exclamations echoing off the walls of the empty room.
"Does that hurt?" Hans asked. The pain evident in Anna's eyes did nothing to soften his malicious smirk. He rounded on Elsa, a withering glare searing the skin from his haughty face.
"You know what else? Had you not been dragged back from the mountain, your sister would have filled in as queen of Arendelle. She almost got the chance to be her own woman, to be the heir...leaving you as the spare. And then you came back and took that all away from her. I'd give you the honor of making the change permanent, but...well, we can't have you killing the new ruler of Arendelle, can we? I suppose I should do it for you, seeing as you both sacrificed your royalty to me."
He wedged the torch into the stones below his feet, traipsing toward the sniveling young woman suspended helplessly in the air. He drew up one of the long, delicate braids hanging limply from Anna's head.
"One red braid for royalty," he drew out with slow sarcasm, letting the blade reflect the light of the fire. He dragged it across the strands, splitting them from the base of Anna's neck upward toward the top of her head. Slow, twanging splinters popped and ticked in the room, sound glancing off the walls to echo incessantly against Elsa's ear drums. She could see the pain in Anna's eyes, from losing her hand, her finger, her hair.
The braid came off in his hand, dangling with graceful pleats and woven strands of meticulous labor by the castle hands. He crossed to the torch and smiled.
"Taken away by the former Queen Elsa."
He lowered the braid into the hungry flame of the torch, watching intently as the strands smouldered and burnt to ash. Elsa couldn't speak past the dried lump in her hollow throat. Her heart seemed to beat its way into silence, her breathing ceased.
"And one red braid for infertility," he lisped once the braid was little more than ash on the floor. He stepped back to Anna, drawing the second strand of meticulously-woven hair into the air to glow in the light. Elsa winced as the smell of baked vanilla reached her nostrils.
"Taken away by yours truly."
He dropped the second strand into the fire, stepping slowly around Anna's withered figure. He grinned.
"And to think, her dear friend Kristoff isn't here to enjoy taking this for himself."
"Hans…"
"Something to say, Elsa?"
She struggled to choke back her sobs, watching as he twirled the knife in his hands. "Not Anna. Please...please not Anna."
"And what power have you to stop me?"
"I...I'm the Ice Queen. Let it be me, just...not Anna, please...please...please…"
He laughed, cold and cruel. "What's this? You're doing the sacrificing this time? Paying back the favor she offered you in saving your life?"
He stepped back around Anna. Elsa felt her insides writhing at her helplessness, at the inability to rescue the sister who had saved her a gruesome beheading out on the ice. Hans shook his head.
"Do you love her, Elsa?"
"I…"
He flicked the blade against Anna's exposed throat, hoisting her head backward by the hacked tufts of hair. Anna's eyes were closed, breathing uneven, face stricken by tears.
"Yes! ...yes, yes, I love her, I love her, please, don't hurt her, no, no, no, I do, I do, I do, I do I do I do I do…"
Hans nodded slowly. He pulled the blade away and gazed long and hard at Elsa, still holding Anna's head aloft on a limp, strained neck.
Without warning, he backhanded the young woman, knife still in hand. A nasty gash arced its way across both cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She squealed, fighting to pull her head back down, to hide, to flee, to do anything.
"You're both so fucking disgusting. I knew it was you the moment she tried to break the news of our engagement to you at your blessed party. I knew you lusted after her, could see it in your eyes, could smell it that far away, the stench oozing from between your legs the way you women with your lack of restraint are wont to do. Your sister, Elsa."
He shoved her head down with manic force, drawing himself up to his full height. To say he towered over the women would have been an understatement. "I mean, taking a liking to women is fine. Acceptable, even, to take after your own gender. The Greeks and Romans did it all the time, what with all the faggot bastards that were enlisted in the army butt-fucking each other to victory. I mean, hell, at the time, fudge-stuffing was so common it might as well have been a plague! So, really, taking toward women is of no consequence."
He paused. "But royalty is usually keen on keeping secrets hidden from the public. And, forgive me, but I didn't see much discretion between you two. It was so blatantly obvious that you two were waiting for the party to end. And sure, while a woman would have been fine for you, you chose the one woman that led you to this unfortunate predicament."
He stepped closer, making each scuffing footfall echo ominously off the stone walls. "How disgustingly lewd do you have to be to taint your sister, your own flesh and blood? Your baby. sister. That's a double offense. Incest for sake of royalty isn't unheard of, but homoerotic incest? With your baby sister? The darling pride and joy of Arendelle? Perhaps the ice that you cast has frozen some part of your brain and left you in need of being institutionalized. I've never heard of something so unnatural, so perverted, so...sickening. That's the opposite of what a queen should be. You were never fit to rule, just as you were never fit to be Anna's older sister, you uncontrolled, irresolute, deceptive cunt."
He then backhanded her, the knife digging far deeper into her face than it had Anna's. She was thankful for the physical pain, if only for it outweighing the emotional. She was a coward. A fool. Hans was right. Hans knew best. He'd had twelve older brothers to learn him well of the world.
"Well, I see all of it, Elsa. I see all that you've done to yourself and your sister. I'm here to fix this, to fix both of you. I'm here to make you see the errors of your ways and turn you into normal, pathetic human beings, just as ordinary and well-adjusted as the common folk. And I've decided to start by busting the candy out of this piñata."
Elsa watched with glassy eyes as he strode to the far wall and plucked a large, heavy plank of wood from the floor. Her brain failed to inform her of the inevitable outcome that would follow, instead leaving her to fend for herself with nothing but mute resignation.
Thus, when the plank cracked against her ribs with the force of a horse-drawn buggy, she let fly a scream that roused Anna's dangling head, which watched as the board was brought down with vicious force against the queen's back.
"Those are for being spineless and gutless."
He crashed the board against her other side, splitting two ribs. Elsa coughed and spluttered, the pain doubling as blood dripped from her mouth. She failed to fight the sob that choked its way from her aching throat.
"That's for the heartlessness you've shown your sister."
The plank sang as it whipped through the air, crashing against Elsa's forearms. She felt one of them splinter, the bone disintegrating within her strung-up arm. Pieces of the ruined arm lumped unnaturally beneath the skin. More screaming, echoing ceaselessly around the walls of the tiny, confined chamber.
"That's for not making use of arms to hold her."
Her legs were next, and the feel of crushed bone splitting through soft, pale skin nearly sent Elsa into a new concussive wave of agony. She felt faint, dizzy, and her body sent such bouts of spasming agony to her brain that she developed a headache and retched, spewing more blood along the cobble.
"That's for not standing up for her."
He then swung the solid piece of wood upward into her gut, knocking the breath clear from her lungs and crushing her organs upon themselves; she was powerless to stop the stream of urine that splashed along the floor below as she moaned, more blood spilling over her once-pearly teeth.
"And that's for not keeping to your promise to never hurt her."
He brandished the board like a sword, striding slowly back within her line of sight. He waited for the stream to sputter and die, waited for her body to sag, limp and immobile, held only by the cruel restraints that had opened bloody welts across her wrists and ankles. Her ruined arm blazed white rage through her shoulder; her splintered leg threatened to take her consciousness away with each slowly passing second. Her ribs ached; one of her lungs felt shriveled and useless, the other fighting to breathe for what was left of her body. Her organs felt crushed. The fine fuzz around her groin glistened as the last vestiges of her bladder dripped over the once maintained strands. She shuddered, head lolling forward, eyes blank and unseeing beyond the mind-numbing pain and unending terror that loomed dark and omnipotent above her. And it with all its decrepit, maniacal glory gazed down at her with angry green eyes and sweat-laden sideburns.
"You were never queen. You weren't even her sister. You couldn't keep any of your promises, and you failed to keep the one person who you claim to love safe. You're pathetic."
"What...gives...you...that right...to say...that?"
He blinked, holding the board level with the end of her nose, mere inches from her face. "I'm an objective third-party to this whole ordeal. And as the new King of Arendelle, and you as the victims of death by beheading, it is my job to make sure that the scum of the earth such as yourselves are fixed. Permanently."
Elsa coughed, crying out at the pain of a ruptured lung as she spat dark droplets of crimson life onto the floor. They sparkled as they fell, blinking and glistening in the firelight until they hit the floor with an unimpressive display of spattering and flattening.
"But talk is very cheap," Hans continued. "Actions speak far louder than words."
He drew the blade once again, stepping close to Elsa's limp frame. She lacked even the willpower to gaze up at him and so focused on the cooling puddle of yellow underneath her, using it as a reminder to keep awake, that it would be Anna's red if she lost the fight.
More red coated the ground as he lacerated both of her dangling breasts, cutting the firm flesh to merely sting and drip across the floor, red mixing with yellow and staining the entire puddle orange. Like Olaf's nose.
A second cut across each breast, deeper. More blood rained down. She coughed again, finally letting a yelp pass by her clenched teeth, the pain in her lungs and chest too great to fight any further. Her arm burned, her leg burned, her body burned all over. Being dragged down a rocky mountain path behind a horse for a mile would have been preferred to the fixing she was getting. She fought to stay awake even as sleep cloyed at her brain, dragging her deeper, deeper, the sirens singing a pleasant song for her to fall prey for.
The gashes that followed along her biceps and thighs didn't matter, nor did the grievous X-shaped wound across her back. The dull burning in her limbs and the pounding of her blood in her skull were the only two things she was aware of, other than the sound of Hans walking, talking, breathing, existing.
"And now that I've finished with your body, I think it's high time we start with Anna's...and work a bit on your mind."
Never had Elsa seen a more heartbroken Anna than the moment she finally chose to look up and observe what Hans was doing next. She saw that losing a hand, a finger, and her hair pales in comparison to what was likely a fatal amount of damage to her lithe body. Elsa could see that Anna knew she would have broken less easily, stood a better chance, she who had thicker skin, more courage, better curves, a fullness Elsa had never achieved. She was lanky and icy, where Anna was full and bright and bubbly.
But the undying love in Anna's eyes told Elsa that no amount of pain, suffering, or separation would ever break what they held for each other.
Within the encroaching blackness, Elsa managed to force a bloody grin across her face.
"I...I want...to help y-you…" cough "Anna...I...I" cough "l-love you...s-s-so much" cough "it hurts...seeing you there...and know" cough "knowing I...can't help…" cough "I" sob "I'm so sorry…"
She couldn't hear the words Anna was surely speaking with that beautiful mouth, lips and tongue rolling and joining sounds to form words. All she saw was Hans, stepping up behind her sister, his breeches tossed on the floor behind him, a lustful smirk on his face. All she heard was Anna's sharp intake of breath. All she knew was that Anna was to be ruined, defiled right before her very eyes, and she was powerless to stop it.
And as the darkness finally drew across her eyes and she fell into the abyss, the echoing plea of her sister's tortured voice rang loud and clear across her eardrums, a cacophony of sound that
kicked her awake.
Elsa sat bolt upright, arms clutching tightly at her stomach as she heaved, dry sobs wracking her body, her cries echoing throughout the room. She stumbled from her bed, crashing against the bedpost as she tripped over the rug, lunging at the door with an unqueenly fervor. She fought against the wood edifice, nails scrabbling at the handle until it finally turned. She tossed the door wide, blind in the darkness the new moon brought that night, and tumbled into the hallway, a sobbing, retching mess. Water bubbled from her stomach to stain the carpet below, a small puddle of her night's suffering. She failed to notice. Her legs, shaking and vibrating all to hell, had already forced her body upright and let her stagger down the hall as quickly as she could, wobbling and crashing into things as though she were a newborn deer or an overly inebriated drunkard. She knocked a one-of-a-kind vase from its pedestal, shattering the kiln-fired piece of pottery and ruining its four thousand year legacy in a single move. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but Anna. Several clay busts met similar fates as Elsa bobbled and bounced from pedestal to pedestal, shredding paintings from the walls and cracking her knees and ankles against tables, chairs, plants and their pots. Nothing mattered; nothing even registered in her brain except Anna, dear sweet beloved Anna just a scant few feet away.
She slammed Anna's unlocked bedroom doors open, startling the young woman awake from what was surely a wonderfully lucid dream, terribly unlike the queen's own terrifying nightmare. Anna sat up, gazing at her sister with confusion and fatigue in her eyes. The queen felt her shoulders heaving, her breaths ragged and unstable, legs shaking in fear.
"El...sa?"
The blonde staggered forward, traipsing an uneven path toward a sister who was slowly standing from bed to greet her, hair akimbo, eyes bleary but filled with confusion and slowly-growing worry. In just two steps Elsa held Anna in her arms, safe, warm, secure, and sleep-ridden. She squeezed her sister the way she would squeeze a lemon in a strainer to make lemonade on a hot summer's day.
"Elsa...can't breathe…"
The blonde took her time relinquishing her hold on her sister, using the opportunity to breathe in the scent of her wonderful younger sister, blissfully alive and well. Elsa felt tears streaming down her face, knew without seeing that they were staining the slip her sister had worn to bed that night. She burrowed her face into Anna's shoulder, releasing her clenching grip.
"I'm sorry…"
And suddenly she found that she couldn't stop apologizing, repeatedly, until Anna stroked her back and her head with gentle shushing.
"Whatever you think you've done, I'm fine."
"No. No, you weren't. Hans...he, he raped you, Anna, poor, sweet Anna, Hans raped you, oh my God, and he cut off-!"
She immediately groped for Anna's hands, gleaning no sense of relief at finding them still intact and perfect. Anna blinked.
"Did you...have a bad dream, sis?"
Elsa bit her lip, a bad habit she'd gleaned from her younger sister's slight (but adorable) overbite, and nodded, eyes trained on the shiny silver button at the top of Anna's slip. The redhead sighed.
"Come on. You can cuddle up with me tonight."
"B-b-but Hans-"
"-is back on the Southern Isles where he belongs. Kai saw to it personally, remember?"
Elsa did remember. She remembered Anna freezing. She remembered the great thaw. She remembered Hans being tossed aboard the French vessel to be dropped at his home on the way out. She remembered the ice-skating party. She remembered the night in the library with the hot chocolate. She remembered the poems. She remembered Anna.
"You...you're alive."
"Well, you had me worried I might not be able to breathe for a minute there, but yeah."
A sigh of relief. "I just...horrible, horrible…"
"Whatever it was, I'm here. I've always been here, Elsa."
"...I'm so sorry, Anna."
"Let's not worry about this right now. I'm tired, you're freaked out, it's okay. Whatever it is, we can work it out together. In the morning. When it's light out and the sky's awake."
Elsa shivered and nodded, allowing Anna to lead them both back to her four-poster bed. She settled her sister under the covers and cuddled up with her nose touching the queen's.
"I...I love you, Anna. I love you so much it hurts sometimes...it hurts my heart, it hurts my body...it hurts my head."
Anna sighed, placing a gentle kiss on her sister's forehead. "And you sometimes get these terrible nightmares that we need to settle."
"This one...was the worst. It...he…"
"Shh." Another kiss to the forehead. "We'll talk in the morning. For now, get some rest."
Elsa nodded, body shaking from the stress. Anna drew her sister in tight, snuggling up under the comfort of the covers, and felt with great, sleepy joy as the queen's breathing and heart-rate dropped as her mind finally drifted off to sleep. Whatever had ailed her sister's mind was in the past.
And Anna drifted off, a smile on her lips to match the one on Elsa's.
Yeah, shoot me. Whatever. I gave you all a happy ending. Hopefully this piece broke some hearts because it was kinda fun to write it that way. Though, chances are, if it's uncomfortable for you to read then I've done well. If you don't feel it...well, then, I have a finger for you because this should have bothered you in some way. Anyways, all of my blahness aside, I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, and I will return soon with the fourth prompt for Elsanna week (which is three weeks gone, I think). ~Kyttin