Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers! Please enjoy this early release of the next chapter as a token of my gratitude for following and commenting on this story.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed since Hans had first brought her to that room; it felt like months, though somehow she doubted that could be the case.
He doesn't come as often, now.
He had long since stopped badgering her to eat after realizing that she did so only when he was gone, her fuller figure and rosier cheeks being evidence enough that she had given up on starvation. He had also left her to tend to her own wounds and cleaning, once he had judged her well enough to do so.
It feels strange.
It would have been easy, in the past, for her to rejoice in his absence; after all, he had ensured, with his first few weeks of jabs and veiled threats at her, that she would not miss him should he ever suddenly disappear for good.
But it's . . . different now, somehow.
She frowned at the thought as she sat by the window, its curtains open only the slightest bit to allow for some form of light to enter the dark room.
Why should things be different, though?
Looking out at the capitol, it seemed just as desolate and miserable as ever—the square was barren, long since abandoned by local traders who, like everyone else in the kingdom, had shut themselves indoors for whatever little warmth could be had.
Things certainly look just as bad as before.
Wanting to distract herself from the sight, her eyes headed north, and trained themselves upon the mountain she had briefly called home. Her stare tightened with remorse as she remembered her fleeting happiness there, finally free from the harsh judgment of strangers and her own self-hatred.
But as her gaze moved down again from the North Mountain, she could see that her joy there had been as empty as the square below was now—and that, in fact, that little piece of bliss had been won only with the lives of many innocent people.
Perhaps that guard was right—that I have to die in order for this storm to pass.
Such dark thoughts had crossed her mind during many of her dreary, endless days, usually when she was too tired to pretend that she felt any real interest in browsing the many thick tomes in her father's library and too morose to relive the few memories she had of her parents in that room.
He wouldn't let me do it, though.
That was the conclusion she always circled back to, though in truth, she knew that there were many ways in which she could do it without him being able to stop her—especially since his visits during the daylight hours had grown so infrequent.
But he still comes every night.
She wasn't sure when that particularly perturbing habit of his had started, but she also hadn't said a word as she'd laid in the bed at night, pretending to sleep but sensing his presence all the while. On the few occasions that she had wanted to suddenly sit up and tell him to get out, however, she found her body immovable and her tongue stiff in her mouth.
She supposed it was because, in an unexpected way, the knowledge of his nightly visits to the room had somehow obtained the power of staying her morbid ideas, if only briefly. Perhaps it was the idea that he should discover her dead in the night that was too frightening to contemplate; the other explanations, anyway, were too confusing to consider.
Is that really the only reason I haven't done it?
No, she thought with a grimace, of course it wasn't.
She was afraid, too.
I don't want to die.
She hated her selfishness, and resented her cowardice at being unable to do such a simple thing—the Gods knew there were plenty of items around the room that she could have used to aid herself in committing the act—but still, she could not bring herself to do it.
And who knows if that will really break the curse, anyway?
She knew it was a feeble excuse to get out of trying, but the notion that not even her own death would lift this winter terrified her just as much, if not more, than the thought that she might live out the rest of her days in the hollow, dying castle which she had once called home.
There's no home for me now.
"You're looking better this afternoon."
The voice of the man to whom she owed her life—as well as her future—roused her from her dismal musings.
"If you say so," she replied despondently, sending him a flickering glance of acknowledgment. Her eyes glazed over as she looked out the window again. "How much longer do you plan on hiding me in here, Hans?"
His voice sounded tired when he spoke again. "Would you rather be back in that cell, then?"
She whipped her head around to stare at him accusingly, her long, white braid laid against her chest.
"Is this not a cell as well?" she snapped, gesturing to the drawn curtains. "Aside from an actual bed and some books, I fail to see the difference between the two."
His anger was immediate, but she noticed—with some surprise—that he spoke with little of his usual bite.
"Then you are blind, your highness," he said, frowning, "and ungrateful, too."
She laughed suddenly at that word, catching him off guard, and stood from her seat with a stormy look.
"'Ungrateful'? Forgive me, your highness," she mocked him in his same tone, "if I am so well-kept under your gracious protection as to seem ungrateful for it." Her eyes narrowed, and her cynical smile disappeared in an instant. "I'll be sure to keep myself more humble in the future."
He regarded her look for a long while—hours, it felt like to her—before he finally sighed, walked over to the bed, and plopped wearily down on top of it.
"I don't have the energy to argue with you about this," he said as her eyes widened. "It's too tiresome."
The response was so contradictory to everything she had come to expect from him that she couldn't help but simply stare at Hans, wondering in silence.
He never gives up like this.
She studied him from afar, looking for any sign that indicated he was close to death—perhaps he was bleeding into the sheets below without her noticing, betrayed by one of the discontented palace guards—since she found it inconceivable, otherwise, that he would declare defeat so easily.
Her eyes finally came to rest on his face, and as they did, she cautiously proceeded towards the bed to get a closer look at it.
He's gotten thinner.
It was clear, from his drawn, paler cheeks, that even the King of Arendelle was feeling the strain of the country's resources drying up in the face of the harsh winter. She guessed that trying to answer to the demands of thousands of starving and dying people—all while most certainly fending off the many challengers seeking to lay claim to the throne during this time of crisis—had taken a great personal toll on him (though he would never admit as much to her).
It hasn't been easy for him, either.
She continued staring at his figure—still dressed in her father's suit, she noted—before her brows finally knitted in irritation at the situation.
"Do you have some reason for visiting me during the waking hours of the day?" she asked with a wrinkled nose. "Or do you just intend to remain here as a nuisance?"
His green eyes snapped open at the query, and they looked at her with consternation.
"What do you mean, 'waking hours'?" he responded, his muscles tensing.
She returned his bemusement with her own. "You haven't visited this room during the day in over a week, yet you come every night to watch me as I sleep," she explained as if the answer were obvious. She paused for a moment as she regarded his wide-eyed stare, and finally, she added:
"Why is that?"
The same blush that she had seen only once before came back, though it stained the whole of his face then—not just his cheeks—and it seemed to stun him into an uncharacteristic silence.
The expression took her aback, but not enough to put a stop to her questions, which suddenly flowed out of her in a swift, unyielding stream.
"And why—why won't you move me back to the prison, even though I am fit and healthy again? Why do you insist that I am well-fed, and bathed, and have clean clothes? How do you keep me hidden from the servants in the castle? And why do you seem so—"
"Elsa," he cut her off, his voice rising and his countenance flushed, "I think you've said enou—"
"Oh—and that's another thing," she continued, ignoring his warning tone. "Just when did you start calling me 'Elsa,' Hans?" She used his first name for effect, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw the colour of his face darken even more. "Since when are we on such . . . informal terms?"
She let that last question linger on the air, and waited with bated breath as he digested her outburst, his colour returning to its normal pallor.
"You're not the queen, Elsa," he said suddenly, and quietly—quieter than she thought he was capable of being. "It didn't make sense to go on pretending like you warranted some special title."
Normally, that would have been enough to dissuade her from pressing the matter further, but there was something . . . unconvincing about the reason he gave, and the way in which he had given it.
"I don't believe you," she said bluntly, and crossed her arms. "Try again, Hans."
He reddened at her simple, plain rejection of the explanation.
"There's nothing more to say," he replied quickly, swallowing his discomfort. "And as for those other questions," he continued, "I already told you: you're my prisoner, and so I will keep you in whatever condition I see fit."
She watched, vexed, as he finally left the bed and began to walk back to the door again; but before his hand could touch the knob, she strode towards him and grasped hold of his arm with a gloved hand, forcing him to turn and face her again.
"I don't think you would treat a normal prisoner like this, Hans," she said thinly, and ignored the openly shocked look on his face as she continued: "You can claim that you're a good and caring man all you like, but I'm certain that if I were just some common thief in the streets, you wouldn't allow me even a sliver of what I've been freely given."
His face was as red as before—just as red, and just as stubborn in its refusal to tell her the truth.
"Believe what you will, Elsa," he said, trying to extricate herself from his grip, "I've already told you the truth."
Her grip only tightened on his arm, and even through his thick, woollen coat, she knew that Hans could feel her icy fingers hidden within the glove.
"No, Hans," she said, and her expression became steely in the darkness of the room. "You know what I think?"
His green eyes filled with a vague dread. "I think that all of this—the food, the bed, these clothes, keeping me hidden—I think that all of this extravagance is just your way of making sure that I remember who . . . no, what—I really am."
She grew unexpectedly melancholy, and her hand relaxed. "Not a queen, a peasant, a farmer, a merchant, a thief," she continued, her expression darkening. "Not even a human, really—just a toy, a plaything for the King to do with what he will."
Her look turned desperately sad, and she pushed herself away from him again. "Well, Hans, there's no need for all of this, if that's what you're trying to say; I already understand—"
"You don't understand at all!"
She stared in blank silence when he turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him. As his boots clicked against the tiled floors outside, she took off her gloves, and placed her hands upon her cheeks.
They were burning.