Adventures of John: The Adventurer and the Snow Queen
Chapter 4

I was too busy dying to care, for that was what I was doing. I was dying.

As we made our way back to Arendelle, Elsa told me everything that she had been thinking and feeling during our little duet. I so wanted to tell her that I felt the same, but I couldn't say a word. When we made it back, Elsa had me put back into my sickbed, and was pacing around it, frost covering the ground everywhere she walked. "What is happening to him?" she asked Pabbie, the old troll shaman that Kristoff had brought to the palace.
"I do not know," he told them. "This is not like anything I have ever seen before. His body seems stretched, as if he is trying to contain something that is too much for him."
Everyone watched me, worrying about what would happen to me. Even Olaf and Sven were there. But they shouldn't have been afraid for me. They should have been afraid for themselves. I had realised what was happening, and I tried to warn them. I tried to tell them to run, to flee, but I could do nothing but moan.
'Run!' I thought. 'Escape!' But nothing came out, and they stayed, as my power built up inside me. Pappie was right. I was trying to contain something that was too much for me. I realised too late that when I broke the wall keeping me from using my powers, I had unleashed something horrible. My power, which I had used so many times in my spirit form and dreamed of using in my body for so long, was too much for my body to handle. There was too much power, and by breaking that wall I had ket it all in, and now it was trying to get out. And when it did, it would do so explosively. I tried to teleport, to get myself away from those I could hurt, away from Elsa, but when I tried, random bursts of energy flew out of me, transforming a nearby vase into a frog, a couch into nacho cheese, and a window into peppermint. Luckily I hadn't hit any of those around me, but I wasn't going to take anymore I lay in my bed, watching as my friends stood there, unable to help.
Suddenly I spasmed, throwing myself out of the bed. The burning grew more intense, and I was blinded by a sudden influx of light. I saw myself then, not from my own, first person perspective, but from a third person perspective, much like I did while spirit-walking. I saw that the light that had blinded me was not from the world around me, but from ME. Golden energy streamed from my eyes, golden veins sticking out from my skin. My body became slightly transparent, the energy seeping out of me. I was going nuclear.
"Run!" I tried to tell them, tried to make my mouth move. "Run!"
But instead of running, Elsa walked up to me, frozen tears running down her eyes. Time itself seemed frozen around her, ice particles hanging suspended in the air. As she walked closer, her icy aura connect with the energy burning its way out of me, freezing it. Then she walked closer, leaned down, and kissed me.
Now, I'm sure many of you have been kissed before- on second thought, the fact that you are reading this could very well mean that many of you have not been kissed before. But either way, this was not like any other kiss. The moment her lips met mine, her icy energy swept over me, forcing my spirit back into my body and cooling the fires burning within me, first dulling the pain, and then removing it entirely. The energy coursing through my body froze, and I found that I had control of myself once again. I then did the only sensible thing I could. I kissed her back. The kiss deepened, and for I don't know how long we stood there, with nothing left in the universe other than the two of us.
That was, of course, until Kristoff's loud cough broke the spell, and our lips parted. "How did you know?" I asked her.
She looked at me and gave me that sly smile I loved so much. "I didn't."
"Well isn't this touching," a chillingly familiar voice commented as the room went dark. "The two sorcerers, now two lovebirds!" The shadows shifted and condensed into the Shadow Trickster, complete with featureless face and Victorian garb. "I would truly hate to ruin such a moving moment, but I'm afraid that I have a score to settle with the boy over here. Despite our little spat earlier, I really have no grudge against you, dear. Now, are you going to stand aside, or am I going to have to deal with you as well?"
Elsa stood between me and the Trickster, giving him a level stare.
"Well, I guess it was a little too much to hope that our new lovebirds would be split up so easily," he sighed. "It looks like I'll have to destroy the both of you."
But before he could attack, I did, sending a net of light that ensnared him and launched him out the window, down into the courtyard below. Elsa and I followed him, her sliding down on ice while I flew down with my conjured wings.
"You know, that was a dirty trick you used earlier," the Trickster told me as he snapped through my web. "Breaking the wall that protects you from your powers! I definitely wasn't expecting THAT! I had hoped that I would get to watch as your foolishness destroyed you, but it seems like I will have to do that myself!" He shot out a flurry of shadowy shards, which froze mid-air and fell to the earth.
"Are you forgetting something?" Elsa asked, frigid energy swirling around her.
"Not at all my dear," he answered, shifting towards her. "I simply wanted to save the best for last." He changed, becoming once again the Shadow Elsa. I moved to help, but Elsa gave me a look, telling me not to interfere. "This is the real you," the dark duplicate told her. "You know this to be true. What you feel for this boy is nothing more than an illusion, a way to hide from yourself the cold, hard, truth. You cannot love. Your hard is as cold and hard as ice."
Elsa looked her deathly doppelganger in the eye. "Your lies have no power over me, Trickster. The love that I and my sister share thawed her frozen heart, she paused. "And mine. These last few weeks with John reminded me of that. I am strong, stronger than you could ever be, do you know why?" Her villainous reflection stared dully back at her. "Because I know that I am loved, and love in return." Her frosty energy gathered around her. "And that is somwthing you could never understand." With those words still hanging in the air, she sent a massive blast of icy energy at the Trickster, freezing him solid and shattering him.
I looked down at the frozen pieces of the Trickster. "I thought you knew me better than that, old enemy," I told him. "I would never fall for a girl that was weak. I only fall for the best."
The shadows drifted away from the ice, coming together to form the Trickster once again. But despite this, you could tell he was beaten. He leaned heavily on his cane, and had only partially reconstructed himself. Half of his face and several portions of his chest were missing, as well as a rather large piece of his right leg. "Once again, my old foe, I must admit defeat," He told me, removing his top hat and bowing. "But it gives me great pleasure to know before I take my leave that you to lose the day."
"What do you mean?"
"That rift that you so foolishly opened, the one that brought you here," he laughed. "It has been expanding. It is the reason why I too was able to find my way to this wonderous land. Soon it will expand to the point that it will tear your world apart." He bowed to me again. "Have fun with that." And then he vanished.
"What was that?" Anna, who had just ran out into the courtyard with Kristoff and the old troll, asked.
"He was offering me a choice," I told them. "Leave this world, and all of you, forever, or watch my world burn."
"We'll help you," Elsa told me, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "We will come with you and help you fix this."
"I don't think you quite understand," I told her softly. "I came here through a rift in the universe. I can only close it by going back. But if I so close the rift, I will have no way of returning."
"Can't you just, you know, magically bring yourself back here?" Kristoff asked.
"In my world, I have no magic," I told him. "Only in places like this, where magic is everywhere, can I use my powers. My world killed off its magic long ago."
Elsa took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. "Then go back. Save your world. We will find a way back to each other."
"It's impossible!" I told her. "There is no way back."
"Nothing's impossible," she told me, smiling a sad smile. "Not for Elsa the Snow Queen and John the Adventurer."
Anna ran up and gave me a big hug, promising to tell Rapunzel and Eugene everything that happened, Kristoff gave me a manly handshake, Olaf gave me a snowy hug, and Sven licked my face.
"All things are possible," Pabbie told me, "as long as you believe."
I turned away, preparing the spell that would return me home. But before I could, Elsa ran up and gave me one last, long kiss. "Never give up."
"Never." With that, I cast the spell, and watched as the world and woman I had come to love vanish around me.