Author's Note: Warning, this chapter includes mass murder/genocide (?), rape, killing of children, burning corpses, and other graphic and gory images and events. If you are under 18 or if you feel uncomfortable with any of this, then please hit your browser's back button.
So, this is the third to last chapter and things are about to get a lot more interesting. As dramatic and heart-wrenching as this chapter is, the true climax will actually be in the next chapter when Elsa and Anna face off against Amunde.
I know I am sadistic bastard for writing this. Oh, dear readers, please forgive me for taking you into the dark recesses of my mind. I am really sorry. Or am I?
Elsa and Anna entered the ice palace and looked around.
"Elsa, you have no furniture in here! Where did you sleep when you stayed here?", Anna questioned her sister, concerned.
"I slept on the floor, but don't worry. I'll make us a bed," Elsa quickly reassured Anna.
She set to work making a bed frame out of solid ice, a mattress out of snow, and a blanket made out of the same thin fabric-like ice that her ice cape on her dress was made out of.
"I'm sorry it's going to be cold, Anna, but this is the best I could do," Elsa said regretfully.
"Don't be sorry. I love it! It's beautiful and amazing, just like you. And cuddling with you will be more than enough to keep me warm," Anna answered lovingly.
"Thank you," Elsa said softly as she pulled her sister into a gentle hug.
Anna's stomach grumbled against Elsa.
"Oops. Sorry," she apologized, embarrassed.
"Are you hungry?", Elsa asked, concerned.
"Yeah."
"I'll go get you something."
"You have food here?", Anna questioned.
"Well, not exactly. I'll be back though. You can rest in the bed if you'd like while I'm gone."
"Ok, but just promise me that you'll come back."
Anna sat clumsily down on the snow bed, almost falling on the ground instead of the bed, but Elsa caught her and helped her up.
Elsa then planted a quick, gentle kiss on her lips.
"I promise, my love. Wait for me."
Elsa scanned the snow-covered horizon when she finally spotted a rabbit.
"I'm sorry, but Anna and I have to eat," she told the fluffy creature sadly.
A spike of ice shot out of her hand, hitting the rabbit with accurate and deadly precision.
The creature twitched involuntarily on the ground, impaled with the spike of ice, before its body went limp.
Elsa felt bad and hoped she had made the death as quick and painless as possible. She went over to the dead creature and picked it up.
"Oh noble and gentle creature, thank you for giving your life so that Anna and I may live," she prayed in thanks to its spirit.
She found some fallen logs and put them together as a fire pit. She rubbed some twigs she found together and when the fire started, she roasted the rabbit.
She carried the cooked rabbit back to her ice castle.
Anna sprung eagerly from the bed the moment she saw the doors to the castle begin to open, not so much because she was hungry, but because she was excited to see Elsa again.
"I hope you like rabbit," Elsa told her sister.
"I'm so hungry I could eat anything," Anna mused.
Elsa laughed, Anna joining in.
They sat down on the bed next to each other and ate their meal.
"How did you manage to get rabbit, Elsa?", Anna asked curiously.
"Erm….My powers. I don't really like to use them for that kind of thing, but we needed to eat so," Elsa answered uncomfortably.
"Ah. I guess they do come in handy for that. Don't feel bad," Anna comforted her sister.
"I love you, Anna. So much. You have no idea how much I love you. I don't know what I'd do without you in my life," Elsa confessed.
"If its anything like the love I feel for you, then I think I have a pretty good idea how much, Elsa. My life wouldn't be the same without you. I mean, I feel a little bad for breaking up with Kristoff a couple of days after the Great Thaw, but things wouldn't have worked out between us. I realized I saw him as nothing more than a friend. But you, Elsa, what I feel for you, it's real, it's true, true love. You're my true love, Elsa" Anna confessed.
"And you're my true love, Anna," Elsa answered warmly.
The two sisters kissed passionately and deeply.
Anna broke from the kiss, saying, "Promise to be with me forever, Elsa. Ok? Promise to never leave my side."
"I promise. Will you do the same, Anna?"
"I promise. We'll always be together."
A month passed with Anna and Elsa going through their daily lives in the ice castle, their former kingdom forgotten until one day their peace was shatter.
A knock on the castle doors startled the sisters.
Had the townspeople come to take them away? Were they wrong about being able to live the rest of their lives together if they ran away?
Those were the kinds of thoughts that ran through Elsa and Anna's minds.
"I'm going to check the door, Anna. Stay behind me," Elsa ordered.
Anna obeyed, hiding beyond Elsa as her sister slowly and cautiously opened the door.
It was a man wrapped tightly in a traveling cloak, his face partially obscured by the hood.
"Queen Elsa, Princess Anna, please, you have to help us. Your people are suffering, dying even, at the cruel hands of Amunde," he pleaded the sisters, his voice filled with despair.
Elsa considered this for a moment, not sure if she could trust the man. Was he telling the truth or was this some kind of trick or trap?
Elsa decided to set up a test of her own.
"I have no people. The moment they turned their back on me, they were no longer my people," Elsa answered coldly with a hint of anger and hurt betrayal in her voice.
The man stood firm and remained persistent, although his voice began to crack as he spoke.
"Please, Your Majesty," the man pleaded, removing his hood.
His face was so thin that you could see every bone in it, his eyes running with infection, gunk seemingly coated underneath them permanently, and a bedraggled, unkempt beard covered much of his face.
Elsa took pity and softened her voice once she saw the man's appearance.
"I am no longer a "Your Majesty", having been overthrown by my own people. However, I am a merciful person who hates to see others suffer, so I will help."
"Oh, thank you so much, Your Majesty," the man sobbed, falling to his knees in front of the former queen.
"But if I'm going to help you, first you have to tell me everything that's going on," she told him.
"Yes, Your Majesty. I'll start from the beginning."
"In the beginning, Amunde seemed nice enough. He gave us fire wood, soup, and cloaks to keep us warm from the winter," he began, careful not to mention that the month long unnatural winter was caused by the queen herself, lest he offend her and she refuse to help.
"Go on," Elsa encouraged him.
"We were loyal to Amunde, serving him obediently and loving him dearly, until one day, he just changed right before our eyes. He decided that he wanted everyone in his kingdom to be perfect, that he didn't want any imperfection tainting his kingdom. He began killing his own people. If they had pimples or freckles or any other facial blemishes, he ordered the guards to kill them," the man continued, sending a glance at the freckled former princess.
Elsa and Anna shuddered at the stranger's words.
"If he caught people who he knew were related, hugging, even if it was just a non-romantic hug, he would kill them on sight. He would kill people who were crippled, blind, deaf, or mute. He would even kill same-sex couples. He killed my husband," the man continued, choking back a sob at the last sentence.
"What? Why would the guards listen to him? Why has he not been overthrown?", Elsa interrupted angrily.
"They are afraid, my Queen. Anyone who disagrees with him is killed on sight. I should relay to you a tale of one of his most horrific acts and one of the worse days in the kingdom, so that you may know why."
Elsa nodded and the man began his story.
Amunde stood in front of a large crowd of townspeople.
"I think I need a wife," he sneered as he grabbed a woman forcefully from the crowd.
"Mother!", a little boy no more than 6 or 7 years of age screamed out in fright.
Amunde turned his attention to the boy.
"Ah, you already have a child from another man, I see. If you're going to give me an heir, he can't have competition, now can he?", he sneered hatefully to the woman.
"Guards, kill him," Amunde ordered.
"But he's just a boy, sir," one of the guards protested.
"How dare you question me!", Amunde snapped as he slit the guard's throat with his hunting knife.
He then took the bow from the dead man's hands and shot the little boy in the head with the arrow, killing him.
"No!", his mother screamed.
"Shut up and let me have my way with you," Amunde lashed at the woman.
Then, he turned to another one of his guards and motioned to the boy, saying, "Put him with the rest."
"Y-yes, King Amunde," the guard stuttered with fright.
"That's Master Amunde to you, worthless fool. All you pathetic slaves will bow down to me and worship me like a god," Amunde snarled both at the guard and the townspeople as he shot the guard in the head with the bow.
The townspeople stepped back in fright.
Amunde turned to another guard.
"Put them both with the rest," he told this guard.
"Yes, Master Amunde," the guard answered, prostrating before the king.
He then picked up the bodies and threw them onto the mountain of corpses that lie in the town square.
"Very good. Now set them to burn again since new bodies have been added," Amunde ordered.
The guard obliged, picking up the torch that was planted in the ground next to the corpse mountain and lit all the bodies ablaze.
The scent of rotting, burning flesh assaulted the townspeople.
"Good boy, dog. You have served me well. But do you know what happens to a dog after his usefulness wears out?", Amunde half-heartedly praised and threatened the guard at the same time, raising the bow.
"Master, please, no! Have mercy!", the guard pleaded for his life.
"I have no mercy," Amunde chuckled darkly as he pulled the trigger, killing the guard.
Then, he turned to the crowd to answer his own question.
"When a dog's usefulness runs out, its Master shoots it. Let this be a lesson to you all."
The townspeople gulped in fright.
Amunde forcefully pulled off his self-proclaimed wife's clothes and plunged into her.
"No! Please!", she screamed, sobbing as he raped her.
She struggled to escape from him, his fingernail accidentally scratching her cheek in the process.
"Oh my! What a pity! You would've made such a wonderful wife too, but now with that unsightly scratch…I could wait for it to heal, but that would take too long and I'd have to stare at that ugly imperfection and we can't have that, can we?", he growled, still plunging in and out of her.
"Please!" she cried as he slit her throat, only removing himself from her after her body had ceased its death throes and lie still.
He threw her on the still burning pile himself.
Then he scanned the crowd until he saw a young girl, about 13 years of age.
"Perhaps a younger wife would be less trouble," he sneered ominously.
He pulled the young girl forcefully up to him as the townspeople gasped in horror.
The girl punched him in the face and made a run for it, but he caught her, putting his hunting knife to her throat and slitting it.
"Too bad. I was looking forward to tasting her. I still could but it would be no fun without the screams," he laughed hatefully.
"Well, I think I've had enough fun for one day. You are dismissed, slaves," he told the townspeople.
They scurried back to their houses, shutting themselves inside and locking their doors tightly.
"That's awful. Amunde did that to my people?! How dare he!", Elsa responded indignantly when the stranger had finished the story.
"So you'll help?", the man asked hopefully.
"Of course. This is all my fault. If I hadn't ran away-", Elsa began sadly.
"It's not your fault, Elsa," Anna reassured her lover.
"Thanks, Anna. You stay here and look after the castle while I go and take back the throne," she ordered her sister.
"What? No way, Elsa! I'm coming with you!", Anna protested, annoyed.
"No, you aren't," Elsa said forcefully as she trapped Anna in a cage made of ice.
"I'm sorry, Anna, but I have to protect you. Amunde is dangerous and I don't want you getting hurt," she apologized to her sister.
Anna punched at the bars of the cage until her knuckles bled, alarming Elsa.
Elsa freed Anna from her icy prison.
"Please don't hurt yourself, my love," Elsa said sadly as she wrapped Anna's hands in bandages made of ice and then kissed the bandage-wrapped hands gently.
"Then don't leave me! Let me come with you!", Anna pleaded.
Elsa sighed. "If it's the only way I can get you to not hurt yourself, then I suppose-" she began, but was interrupted by Anna pummeling her in a tight hug.
"Thank you, Elsa," the younger girl said cheerfully.
"I am not letting you go without something to protect yourself though. Here," she told Anna as she conjured up a sword made out of ice.
"It's beautiful, Elsa," Anna answered in awe as she took the sword from her sister's hands.
"And also dangerous, so be careful with it, Anna," Elsa warned her sister.
"I will."
Elsa, Anna, and the stranger headed for Arendelle to defeat Amunde once-and-for-all and for Anna and Elsa to reclaim what was rightfully theirs and free their people.