Apologies for the shortness of the chapter. This is pretty much my practice at writing longer things.
Thanks for the reviews so far!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the words.
This will be multi-chaptered, but will have no particular updating system.
After an pressuring, undetermined amount of time, Hans has grown accustomed to the concrete walls and metal bars and hard straw bed of his own cage. He is no more sane than he was, spurred by heartbreak and loneliness and no small amount of anger, and he takes to humming to fill the silence. Once or twice, some come to visit him- his oldest brother, Elsa, his mother, but never Anna. He stares at them till they dissolve into thin wisps of fading mists, and he is left to wonder if they were really real or not. He recalls childhood memories, happy or otherwise- he was really left alone as a child anyways- his parents tending to the kingdom and his other, older brothers, and he spent many a day in his room planning out strategies and reading books of all kinds. Politically, no one had any reason to suck up to the youngest prince, after all, he gave them no reason to.
Hans knows solitude, and he tells himself this is no different, but really, he should know better by now. No one will come for him, that he definitely knows, so he appreciates the small company of his hallucinations, counts the small freckles on his mother's face, numbers every strand of silvery hair. He traces every crack in the walls, writes stories untold in the dust, remembers every tear shed. It is comforting, but sometimes he longs to breathe fresh air, leave tracks in the powdery winter snow, feel the stifling heat of summer across his skin. He feels trapped, isolated, and he can do nothing for his hurt except burying it beneath layers of everything else, but it rots and festers inside him, and some days he thinks he can feel the green seeping beneath his mind again, and he claws it out with the strength of a madman. He cannot breathe for a while afterwards, and he is left a shaking mess of rags and torn feelings.
The only way he has to track the passage of time is a small, barred window (just like everything else- his mind, his heart, shut from the world), and he numbers every day with another streak of black soot in a corner in the wall. He counts down years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, every tick of the clock, the bell he can hear in the distance and all that is in between.
On day 756, the door to his cell swings open, and he knows it is not an illusion this time, because he can hear every creak, the grinding of rusty hinges. The illusions never open the doors. His mother steps through- as fair as the last day he saw her, freckles and beautiful red hair and glimmering forest green eyes, not bright like emeralds (never toxic green.) The sight of her burns, and he looks away, wrapping another layer of rope binding his still bleeding heart together. It squeezes so tight he cannot draw in another breath for a moment. He can feel the metallic tang beneath his tongue. It is all he can do not to fall apart.
"Hans... Your father has made a new decision. Come," she says, no more, no less, a beckoning lilt to her voice, and her look is unreadable as the heart's wiles as she glances down at him. Hans cannot see any recognition, any love, any grief. It sends another piece of shrapnel spiraling in his chest. She turns without looking back to see if he is still coming, and this time, he is on the other side of the door as it clangs shut, the sound reverberating down the hallway. His footsteps are slow but steady, and he follows behind his mother, leaving the clinging scent of musky roses and sharp thorns behind, but the chains of darkness and crushing metal still drag him down.
Clemency, he says. Exile for the rest of your imprisonment term, stripped of all titles, and personal effects borne of any princely or royal value. Hans does not argue. He never cared, and never will, not again. He longs to see the wind, feel the breeze against his skin. This will be a chance at mending what could have been, forge a new life out of the bleeding green, for as long as his ripped heart pounds in his chest, for as long as it takes to free his bound mind of rose thorns and chains and broken love and greed and jealousy and envy, at least till he can recognize himself in the mirror once more. He never intends to come back. There is nothing for him here.
The slamming of the heavy, strong, carved oak doors of the palace as it shuts behind him reminds him of the grinding of rusty metal doors, and the crimson light turns his hands a sharp red and Victoria's beige mane a bleeding orange. The snow is the same color as his hands, and Victoria's hooves step in the color of blood red as snowflakes fall from the sky.
He leaves on day 756 by sunset, and does not look back.
Anna rushes out of the palace as fast as she can, on the galloping hooves of Clementine, and her chestnut mane is the only constant thing in Anna's vision- everything else is nothing but a blur, and she can barely the biting chill against her skin. They stop once, and only once, and even then it is quick and hurried, for Anna did not bring much. She charters a boat when she can go no further, and gold is nothing in the desperation and pain that clutches her heart.
When she finally reaches the Southern Isles, Hans is long gone, the flurry of snow descending from above covering any footsteps he may have left behind, and Anna watches as the truth falls from her quivering fingers and shatters against the ground in deadly shards. She picks up the pieces and watches as her fingers bleed onto the snow.
She whispers to the retreating darkness of the forest, but the harsh blizzard winds snatch her words away, and she smells the scent of roses whiter than any snow and redder than any crimson blood. Anna feels it pulling her down as she turns away, and the chains on her hands seem even heavier than ever. The stars laugh at her as she turns to leave, and she feels a vengeance curling itself around her chest.
( She will find him. Until then, her heart has no rest. )