Flynn sat in the ugly duckling nursing a beer that was poured for him by the barman into a dirty glass.
Everyone was discussing in undertones the war that was brewing between Arendelle and the Southern Iles.
So far Corona had remained neutral, but being situated smack dab in the middle of the two was not going to make that easy. The men on the stools adjacent to Flynn were discussing the likelihood of Corona taking either side.
"It's got to be Arendelle, you know their late Queen was the sister of ours. Plus didn't our King and Queen go to the coronation ceremony of Queen Elsa? Cutting it close to the Lost Princess's birthday if you ask me," said one man knowingly.
"I think they'll side with the Southern Iles personally. Arendelle kidnapped one of their princes! Our Princess got kidnapped! They can bond over that-" replied another.
"But they have eleven Princes left, how many Princes does one Kingdom need?" the first man retorted.
"We haven't got any Princes; maybe they'll lend us one!" yelled a drunk intruding on their conversation.
The men spared him a disdainful look before returning to their debate.
It was all anyone could talk about for the past week. Although not directly involved, the King and Queen of Corona had issued a draft asking that all able bodied men report to the castle for service. Naturally, the clientele of the Ugly Duckling were avoiding that call.
Suddenly a woman kicked open the door to the bar so forcefully that she knocked out Grover who'd been standing in the way. As she stepped over his prone body casually, everyone in the inn stared, gobsmacked.
She was wearing all leather, black leather pants, trench coat, boots; even her corset was black leather. There was whip coiled in black loops at her waist and her left hand lay on the handle lightly, obviously ready to lash out if provoked. Her black hair was tied back in a long braid, and her eyes were rimmed heavily with kohl.
Her face was beautiful, devastatingly so, only marred by a thin scar across her temple and the expression on her face. It was so cold and calculating that it was frightening.
While everyone else stared and shuffled out of the woman's way gingerly, Flynn Rider's keen eyes picked up a few pertinent things.
She had a whip so she must have horses, and if she had a team of horses she must have arrived in a carriage or at the very least a phaeton.
The brand of boots she was wearing didn't come cheap. In fact, leather was very expensive and her whole outfit was so immaculate and well-constructed that Flynn was sure the woman must have paid an arm and a leg to have everything custom made. Definitely custom made considering the perfectly tight fit.
She was obviously rich so Flynn drew the conclusion that her carriage more than likely contained expensive items, or was at the very least made of expensive materials. Expensive items or materials, Flynn wasn't fussed. He planned on pilfering either.
Flynn slipped out the back exit way stealthily as the woman demanded the best room for the night from the barman.
Sure enough, parked out front there was an elaborate carriage with a team of four black horses to pull it. Flynn ran a hand along the side of the carriage appreciatively. Fresh lacquer, black with a gold trim. Flynn whistled appreciatively. The knobs on the carriage door alone would fetch a good price, they appeared to be pure gold, but even if they were plated he was glib enough to pass them off as solid if it came to it...
"You there! What are you doing?" a large brutish man with features reminiscent of a potato strode towards him as quickly as he could while doing up his fly. He'd obviously gone to take care of business in one of the bushes surrounding the inn.
"The lady sent me to look after the carriage. She told me to tell you to head in and kick back, maybe grab a pint at the bar."
The man looked taken aback for a moment, and then he shrugged.
He threw Flynn a silver coin and headed in without a second glance back.
Flynn smirked to himself.
He quickly pulled on the door to the carriage, only to find that it was locked. He pulled a piece of wire from his satchel and easily picked the lock. The door sprang open with a satisfying click.
The sight that met Flynn's eyes was not one he expected.
Rather than the expensive luxury items he was hoping for, inside the carriage there was an unconscious woman. Her clothing was exquisite, just from looking at it Flynn could tell the thread count of the dark green dress was off the charts.
Then the noticed a few more things. Her white blonde hair was coming undone from what had obviously once been a very elegant up-do. The exquisite dress was very rumpled and the hem was torn in several places. There was a rather large bump on her left temple, and most damning of all, her hands and feet were tied together with lengths of black cloth.
Flynn swore under his breath. He hated when things like this happened – clear cut moral decisions. He vastly preferred ambiguity.
What he wanted to do was shut the door and lock it and pretend like he hadn't seen a thing. The right thing to do would be to untie the pretty lady and assist her since she had quite clearly been abducted.
Already annoyed at himself, Flynn scooped up the lady and slung her over one shoulder and took her into the woods away from the carriage least her captors come out. This was why he hated clear cut moral decisions; he always went with right and it inevitably ended up with him regretting he had ever tried to be good in the first place.
He walked for about ten minutes until he found a good clearing then he unceremoniously placed the woman on the ground. He rifled through his satchel to find his pocket knife before cutting through the bindings at her ankles.
As he was cutting through the restraints binding her wrists together, he couldn't help but notice her gloves.
They were the most exquisite gloves Flynn had ever seen in his life, and that was saying something because he stole pretty gloves all the time. They were pure white with intricate blue stitching depicting snowflakes near her elbow.
The fabric they were made of seemed almost iridescent, glowing slightly in the diminished light of the early evening.
Flynn pulled off one of the gloves in a smooth practiced motion and rubbed the fabric between his index finger and thumb, scrutinizing the blue stitching carefully. He didn't notice the women's hand twitch
Considering the state of the rest of the woman's fancy clothing, it was nothing short of amazing that the gloves didn't have a speck of dirt on them.
He would carry her into town and leave her with the captain. After everything she had been through she probably wouldn't even notice a missing pair of gloves, or else she'd assume that the black leather woman and potato face man had taken them.
Flynn pulled off the other glove and pocketed the pair, reasoning that it was only fair he take something as payment for saving the woman from her abductors.
That was the moment the women began to come to. Flynn was happy; this meant he didn't have to carry her into town. He could just point her in the right direction and be on his way…
It took a moment for her eyes to focus on him.
"What happened?" she croaked weakly.
"I don't know what happened, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say you were kidnapped or abducted for ransom."
Her eyes went wide at his words.
"Where are we?"
"About a half hour walk out from Corona."
"What!? Corona!? I have to send a message to Arendelle immediately!"
What happened next, Flynn wouldn't have believed had he not witnessed it with his own eyes. The woman placed a hand against the earth to push herself up, and where her hand touched the ground, it froze. Ice spread out from the spot and covered the earth in the clearing very quickly.
"What the-" said Flynn scrambling back away from her. He overbalanced and ended up on his backside.
"O-oh no!" moaned the woman in a panic. Her hands shook and glowed white, and suddenly a bolt of ice materialised in her hands before shooting forth suddenly and striking a tree. In seconds the whole tree was completely frozen. Then it happened again twice more. The woman closed her eyes and had the good sense to aim away from Flynn. One blot hit another tree which froze just as quickly, and the other bolt she sent straight up into the sky. It flew up and suddenly imploded like a firework, raining snow and hail down on them.
The woman turned towards Flynn eyes wide with fear.
"You have to get away from me! I could hurt you! I-I can't control it!" the woman tucked her hands into her armpits trying to stem the flow of magic. A strong wind whipped up around them, and before Flynn could give her back her gloves, her whole body glowed white for a moment before ice exploded from her in all directions.
Some of it hit Flynn hard in the chest and sent him flying out of the clearing a good twelve feet back.
His very heart felt like it was freezing. One of his hands reached up to claw at his chest; sure he would find a huge ice spike sticking out of it. Miraculously there was nothing, although the feeling of cold lingered. Snow was falling thick and heavily now.
Very shell-shocked and bewildered, Flynn stumbled away aimlessly.
He'd barely taken ten steps before the ground had frozen over beneath his feet. Ice crept up the trunks of trees around him, and individual leaves became coated in frost. The creeping ice was following him.
Flynn broke into a jog, realising that all the normal sounds of the forest were conspicuously absent, replaced by an unnerving silence that felt like a calm before the storm.
The storm caught up to him minutes later as a strong wind whipped through the trees carrying with it snow and hail.
Flynn broke into a sprint, barely able to see ahead of himself.
He tripped and found himself tumbling painfully down a hill he hadn't even seen. He could make out an outcropping of stone to his left, which he leaned against to get his bearings.
Suddenly he was falling again, into a small cave that was obscured by icy vines.
When he looked up, there was a tower in front of him in a clearing flanked by cliffs on all sides.
A sudden blast of could from behind him brought to his attention that ice was creeping into the clearing. He needed shelter.
He ran towards the tower a fast as his legs would carry him and circled the bottom of it trying to find an entrance.
There wasn't one.
The only opening on the tower that he could see was a single window right at the top.
Just as he was mentally debating the merits of dying of cold versus dying of falling from a great height, ice started creeping down the sides of the cliff faces on all sides, and a sudden strong wind blew ice and snow into the clearing.
Flynn felt cold seeping into his bones, freezing him from the inside out, and it hurt.
Mind made up, he started to climb the side of the tower, managing to find hand and foot grips between the mortar and the loosely packed bricks. He was lucky that whoever constructed the edifice did so with shoddy workmanship.
Reaching the top, he quickly shoved open the shutters with a forceful shoulder barge and tumbled into the room.
He got up and shut everything behind him, just as the sound of the wind became a howling. He could hear hail pelting the structure.
What in the world was going on?
Suddenly the cold that had seeped into his bones seemed to crush his chest and force the air from his very lungs, and he found himself collapsing to his knees, shivering uncontrollably and holding a shaking fist to his chest. That was where the cold seemed to be seeping from.
Flynn tried to stand, but found his legs too weak to support his weight.
Why did he need to stand up anyway? Flynn decided that lying down and not moving was a perfectly fine okay thing to do in his situation.
He blinked drowsily, suddenly very tired.
"Who are you?"
He coughed and opened his eyes again, disorientated. He must have drifted off, or else maybe he was just dreaming. There was a beautiful girl brandishing a frying pan at him.
She eyed him suspiciously.
"I-I'm r-really c-cold," he managed to get out through his chattering teeth.
"A-and tired…" he mumbled, letting his heavy eyelids fall shut.
The girl gasped suddenly.
"Why did your hair do that!?" she exclaimed. Flynn shrugged without opening his eyes. He really didn't know why his hair looked so perfect all the time after all.
He felt a small very warm hand touch his cheek. He couldn't help but turn his face towards it, it felt really good. He felt another small warm hand touch his own freezing counterpart.
"Oh my goodness you're icy! Literally ice!"
After that everything became a bit blurry. He heard singing, felt the iciness in his cheat ease, and then he passed out.