Adventures of John: The Adventurer and the Snow Queen
Chapter 3 (Improved)
"Out where?"
"We are going to blow stuff up."
"What?" she asked, staring at me incredulously.
In answer, I snapped my fingers, and we transported instantly to the mountains, far away from the city, but not far from Elsa's ice palace. With a wave of my hand, the mountain we stood on was covered with an array of obstacle courses, shooting ranges, and human-shaped targets. "Welcome to John the Adventurer's magical training grounds, where all the world's greatest wizards and witches come to train in the mystic arts."
"John the Adventurer?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.
"Why not? You get to be Elsa the Snow Queen! Why can't I get a cool title?"
"I thought you couldn't use your powers without knocking yourself out," she said, changing the subject. "How can you suddenly do all this?"
"Suddenly?" I laughed. "I think that after over three weeks spent in recovery, much of that in bed, I am well enough to use magic again. Plus, we have been practicing this whole time with the little models we've been making."
"Are you really comparing that to this?" she said, gesturing at my training grounds.
"Never reveal your cards in the first round," I told her, grinning.
She smiled back. "And where did you learn that piece of wisdom?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. Come on now little Princess. We have some training to do."
The next several hours were spent dodging shooting spikes, rolling boulders, and other deadly obstacles, along with creating various constructs to reach our destinations.
"Why are we doing this exactly?" she yelled to me as she slid down an icy slide.
"Well," I said, forcing my hang glider closer to her, "for one thing, it's fun. And another, well, your a bit of a novice when it comes to your powers."
"Novice!" she cried, apparently offended. "We'll see who's the novice!" With that, she froze my hang glider, leading to a sudden loss of altitude on my part.
"Not fair!" I told her.
"You're a natural with your powers," I told her as we looked down the shooting range. "Not many people can make a giant palace their first day. But you still don't know how to fight." I summoned up a band of scary-looking monsters and sent them running up the range. "The sad truth is, their are a lot more things out there like the Trickster. Some of them are even more powerful, more dangerous." She shot a volley of icicles, skewering the creatures one by one. "But they won't be your only enemies."
I then summoned up a group of Aztec warriors and sent them charging. "Not all your enemies will be magical in nature. Many of them will be ordinary, run of the mill humans. People fear that which they don't understand. Some seek to destroy what they fear, while others will want to control it." She sent out another volley of icicles, which shattered on the warriors' shields. "But when it comes to humans, it's usually best to use non-lethal measures." With a flick of her wrist, the warriors were covered in ice from head to foot.
"Why are you teaching me these things?" she asked as we battled a group of skin-changers I conjured up.
"Because I care about you, Princess. Duck!" she ducked, and I blasted the were-lion that was about the eat her. "And the others, of course. I want you all to be safe."
"I think I can handle myself," she told me as she flash-froze a group of werewolves.
"Yes," I told her, blasting the last of the creatures. "Now that I've taught you how."
"Now that YOU have taught me?" she protested. "We'll see about that!" Then she shot a blast of icy energy at me, freezing me solid. "How about that?" She asked the frozen statue.
"Not bad," I told her, materialising behind her. "But it would be best to make sure the one you are freezing is more than a simple construct before you attack." I sent a blast of energy at the ground below her feet, intending to spray her with snow, but instead the blast went out of control, becoming far too strong, and instead of spraying her with snow it sent her flying into a nearby snowbank. At first this worried me, but then she counter-attacked and I forgot all about it.
And so our training session dissolved into the magical equivalent of a pillow fight, each of us trying to best the other, her using ice and snow, me using everything from monstrous plants to flaming cages. A little into our fight, I began to hear music in the air around me. Now, I've always been musically inclined, but I have never been able to make up songs on the fly. Yet, while we were fighting, I began to sing. I have always wondered what it is like living in a musical, where you spontaneous start singing. Honestly, its not as weird as you would think. It actually felt oddly natural. I would only find out later that the song was only half of a duet, and that Elsa was singing the other half. During the song there were a lot of hidden glances an such things, along with the, you know, magical fighting. I'm not sure I remember all of it, but I'm pretty sure it went a lot like this.
Elsa began the duet during a pause in the fighting when she could see the whole of me, standing above her, grinning like a child. "What is this feeling, that I feel inside? Could this be the love from which I've always tried to hide?"
I saw the way that she was looking at me, and couldn't bring myself to believe it."What is this feeling? Could this be true? Could this lovely queen tru-ly be in-to you?"
We then chased each other around, and as we laughed together the same thought went through our minds. "What is this feeling? Oh, what could it be? What on this earth is happening to me?"
I then flew up into the sky, vanishing into the clouds. Elsa sang as she stood their, gazing into the sky. "He's honest and true, and more than a lit-tle brave. He risked his life for those of us he did not have to save!" As she sang this, she had a flashback of our battle against the Trickster and how I stood against him.
As I flew, I used my magic to see her far below, and stare at her beauty. "A more lovely being, I've never seen in my life! Then there's all the things she survived, all that pain and strife!" I remembered our conversation earlier, as well as what I saw in the movie. I could hardly believe that she had survived all that, much less come out stronger from it!
I flew down and sprayed her with snow, laughing. She responded with mirth of her own, creating a mound of snow above my head, sending it crashing down on me. "He's smart, he's kind, and knows just what to do! Have you really let his boyish charm get to-oo you?"
As we play fought, I remembered the fight we had against the Trickster and how she stood bravely against him despite never facing anything like him before. "She's strong, she's brave, and won't back down from a fight! Could this really work, I think it just might!"
This next part we sang together as we both took to the sky, me creating fiery wings and her shooting frigid energy behind her, carrying her upwards. "He's-" "She's-" We spiralled around each other, fire and ice creating a beautiful light show.
"-perfect, in every possible way! Though I know I need to go, I really want to stay!"
We both came back to earth as we remembered the duties waiting for us. She was a queen, and I wasn't even from this world. As we separated, the doubts began to creep in.
"But what if-" she began.
"But what if-" I echoed.
Elsa remembered the way Hans had tricked her sister into falling for him, and suddenly wondered if she was falling for a similar trick. "But what if it's all a lie?"
Meanwhile, I realised the impossibility of it all. I was a kid from Las Vegas! I went to school and did homework and had a boring, ordinary life(when I wasn't traveling to other dimensions). Why would she fall for me? "What if it's all in my head?"
Elsa thought of all the things she didn't know about me, and how little I had actually told her. "I do not know this boy, he simply dropped from the sky!"
I myself was thinking of the incident that had brought me there in the first place. "I do not belong in this world, by all rights I should be dead!"
Elsa continued down her train of thought, thinking of the secrets that she knew I was keeping. "What guarantee do I have, of his honesty? I know he's hiding something, what won't he let me see?"
I thought once again of my feelings for her, and what they were. Can someone fall in love with a person that they used to believe was fictional? "I don't even know what I feel, how can I know what she feels for me? If I tell her what I think I feel, what would that mean for we?"
The moment was beginning to get awkward, as neither of us could look the other in the eye. "Would it be better, if I let it lie? If left on its own, would it simply die?" Elsa and I both thought about the danger of admitting our feelings, Elsa worrying about me taking advantage of her, and I worrying about her rejecting me.
But then Elsa remembered the joy that she felt that night she first truly used her powers, and realised that sometimes, the joy is worth the possibility of pain. "Or should I let it go?"
I thought back to all the other times I let things go unsaid, and how well that worked out. I realised that if there is even a chance of success, isn't it worth the possibility of rejection? "Should I let her know?"
We walked towards each other, prepared to reveal the depth of our feelings, if we could understand them ourselves.
"What is this feeling?"
"What is this feeling?"
Elsa came up to me, barely able to restrain herself. She knew she wouldn't let this moment pass. "Could this be- (gasp!)"
Unfortunately, our beautiful Disney moment was interrupted by me falling to the ground clutching my chest in pain. I didn't know what was wrong, only that it felt like my insides were on fire.
"Are you okay?" Elsa asked as she ran over. "What's happening?"
I tried to tell her, tried to say something, anything to her, but I couldn't. My body wasn't doing what I was telling it to. Elsa created an icy sleigh from the snow around me and took me back to Arendelle as fast as she could, leaving a trail of ice behind her in her fear for me. I was too busy dying to care, for that was what I was doing. I was dying.