Chapter Twelve: Lessons Of All Kinds

As the sun finally set, Elsa waited with her sister and brother-in-law for Alphonse to return. The mage had said little on the walk into the castle and had been gone for a while. Elsa met Anna's eye and smiled in reassurance, prompting the bubbly woman to do the same. Kristoff seemed to be lightly snoozing.

Elsa looked away and her smile faded. Though she seemed content, it was all a mask. Despite her smile, Elsa felt guilt and self-loathing writhe under her skin like ants. How could she had been so stupid?! She had trusted Hans, Hans!, and it had once-again almost gotten Anna killed! And just as bad, she had turned on her heel against the man who had saved her, her family, and her people on at least three occasions. And so easily, on the word of a "woman" who had seemed to have magic and a tragic background.

Elsa stiffened as the door to the sitting room opened, revealing Alphonse carrying a tea tray with two lightly steaming cups. The mage approached and set the tray down before settling into a chair and preparing to explain.

"Anna, Kristoff, this is your shortcut." He gestured at the rose-hued tea. "This tea is brewed from the berries of a special tree and will allow you to contact your Remnant through your dreams. This in turn will allow you to learn at a much faster rate and with far more depth than I can teach you." Anna raised a hand, utterly unashamed of looking like a child during lessons. Alphonse nodded for her to ask.

"Is that how you learned magic?" Anna asked, hoping the sudden question would trip him up. Alphonse fought the urge to grimace at the princess's stubborn desire to learn about him.

"Yes and no," he answered. "I did learn from my Remnant, in a roundabout way, but not with the tea. I have used the tea for other things, though, so I know it can at least do this." He gestured to the cups. "Drink quickly and go to bed immediately. The effects will make you drowsy." He quirked the tiniest of grins. "And you won't enjoy the morning," he added.

Anna and Kristoff glanced at each other. Both had felt hangovers before (Kristoff was experienced and Anna was adventurous) and neither looked forward to that. Anna shook off her moment of hesitance and downed her tea in one go, Kristoff not a moment behind. Both stood and made it halfway to the door before Anna swayed and collapsed. Kristoff caught her and didn't make it another step before Alphonse had to rise and catch him, grunting under the weight of the larger man.

"Maybe I shouldn't have made it so strong," Alphonse grunted. He tried to reposition Kristoff without letting the mountain man drop his wife. After a few moments, and rapidly losing stamina, Alphonse simply laid them down. The mage sighed and rubbed his forehead, thinking about how to get these two to their room.

"Allow me," Elsa said. She waved her hand, conjuring a pair of small whirlwind that settled into two eight-foot, lumbering snow creatures. As Alphonse watched in surprise, the giants scooped up the princess and her consort and carried them away. Elsa smiled, almost giggling at the dumbstruck look on Alphonse's face. The mage shook it off and prepared to leave.

"Wait," Elsa said unthinkingly. Alphonse stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. Elsa bit her lip, a habit her mother had not approved of growing up, and tried to think over what she was to say. "I-" she started, tripping over her words, "I'm sorry," she settled on, knowing full-well that it was a mediocre apology. Alphonse shrugged in response.

"You were under a Persuasion," Alphonse said. "Loki's silver tongue was not just a gift for persuasive speech, but a literal piece of magic. He could weave subtle enchantment on the unwary, leaving them open to suggestion. You have nothing to apologize for." He turned to leave again but Elsa grabbed his arm, stopping him.

"Yes, I do," she said, steel in her voice. "I turned on you, Alphonse. And I am sorry. I trusted a person I had barely met over you. And I'm sorry." She tried to convey her guilt and sorrow in those words, but the mage seemed unaffected. He gave a small smile, almost a grimace, and shrugged again.

"You've barely met me," he said with a humorless chuckle, "how is that a betrayal?" Elsa grit her teeth, a flash of anger granting her thoughts focus. How could he not see that she was sorry? That she would take it back if she could? That he was so infinitely different than "Ester" could ever be, even if she had been real? With no other way to explain, Elsa did something that anyone who knew the queen would have had to see to believe. She wrapped her arms around Alphonse's shoulders and ... hugged him.

The mage seized up at the contact, both quite surprised and unsure how to respond. He had taken the queen for someone who would not initiate contact, who was more comfortable responding than anything else. Alphonse gently placed his hands over her hips, hoping to make her feel better, to show that he bore no ill will. He meant what he said - her words had stung, but he didn't hold them against her.

They stood there for some time until Elsa finally let him go. She looked him in the eyes, those unsettling yet beautiful eyes, and decided to take a risk.

"What happened to make you like this?" she asked. To make him a magician, to make him shrug off pain and sorrow like drops of rain, to make him fight for those he didn't even know?

Alphonse felt his inner walls rising, the desire to hide from the anguish of his past, all of his past, rushing into the void she had formed with a simple embrace. But looking into those soulful blue eyes, eyes that shone with compassion and an innocent desire to know, he couldn't find it in himself to refuse. At least not totally.

"I won't tell about my past, Elsa. Not yet." Alphonse said. "But perhaps you should know about Ragnarok and why it wasn't … permanent."

Settled in their room by the snow giants, which evaporated upon completing their task, Anna and Kristoff slept deeply. But their thoughts were anything but still.

Anna sat in a clearing within a deep forest, a fire pit separating her from Freya. The woman smiled, a smile totally unlike the alluring look Anna had expected. This smile was full of joy and contentedness.

"Hello again, Princess Anna. I see Odin's Residuum has sent you to learn from me. Interesting, I must admit. The boy clearly has a smaller ego than the All-Father did." The woman stood, her dress remaining immaculate and the firelight seeming to reflect off of her and make her glow. "Shall we begin?" she asked. Anna nodded and stood, following the goddess as she led them through the trees.

"What do you think magic is?" Freya asked, the trees seeming to part for her. Anna thought about it for a moment and realized she didn't know. Freya smiled at her silence, taking it as an answer.

"Magic is a facet of nature, like the rain, wind, and light. Like gravity, motion, and heat. And by those with the talent for it, magic can be tapped into and directed to accomplish what they want to happen, woven to enact their will upon the world." Freya glanced at Anna.

"Do not misunderstand, Anna. Magic is not 'controlled' or 'wielded' like a weapon. That is, at best, a poor comparison that would better suit runic magic, which I know little of and don't care to learn." She smiled a little. "Not that I could anymore if I tried." She chuckled at her own joke and settled back into teaching.

"Our kind of magic, weaving magic, is about learning to become a part of the great power that already exists in nature, and then using that to shape the world. Runes force the world to do as they write out, like a sledgehammer to reality. Ours is more … elegant, harnessing the power that flows through the cosmos. Like the powerful wind, and we are the sails that harness that power to move."

Freya stopped in another clearing, larger than the first and marred with blackened crags, as if fires had burned the place. She turned to face Anna, smile now cool and calculating. "Be forewarned, Princess, that learning magic can be an intensive process. And, quite frankly, we have lots of time on our hands." Freya drew closer until she as mere inches from Anna.

She looked into Anna's eyes. "First step: sensing the magic around you." Freya drew close and took Anna's face in her hands before kissing her forehead. And for that single moment of contact, Anna could truly See. She perceived the latent magic that rested within all things, like masses of green-gold mist shot with streams of orange, pulsing like the ripples in a pond to the beat of some great unseen heart. She saw the currents of magic in the air, washing over the rocks and trees like a blanket. And she saw Freya blazing with power like a bonfire.

Freya pulled back and Anna reeled away, sweat pouring down her arms and face as her mind struggled to assimilate what she had just seen. She slowed her breathing and tried to relax, then turned to face her Remnant, her mentor, her former self.

"What now?" she asked. Freya grinned.

"Now you learn to open yourself up to that flow." Freya's skin began to faintly glow. "Let us begin."

Kristoff, long since having met Thor and been struck by their glaring differences in temperament (and gotten past it) focused on the clear skies above them. Though it was a dream, Thor had somehow made it as close to reality as possible, simulating the challenge of controlling Mjolnir in the real world.

Kristoff lifted the hammer, his belt of strength and protective gloves securely fastened, and focused on the strange substance the weapon was made from. What he had originally taken for stone and wood was really some sort of stone-metal cross-weave, like dark-grey rock shot through with veins of silvery metal. Thor, standing to the side with his arms crossed, had told him to become familiar with the weapon to better use it as a focal point.

"Remember, Kristoff," he said in a gravelly, resonating voice that brought distant thunder to mind, "the power is yours, not the hammer's. Mjolnir is simply something to focus through, rather than simply focusing on the enormity of the sky. And that's the key: focus!"

Kristoff closed his free hand into a fist and tried to remember one of Thor's first lessons from the beginning of his dream: channeling anger rage into focus and strength. "Anger is like the lightning you can control," the Thunderer had said. "It is energy and power to decimate the things in your path. You must control it, mold it, forge it into a weapon to fight for you and not against you." Kristoff knew Thor was purposely goading him, trying to frustrate him. And he tried to harness that.

Kristoff looked to the sky, cloudless and bright, and got angry, wrapping it around himself like a cloak and forcing it into submission. The runes decorating Mjolnir's head began to faintly glow. Clouds - deep, dark thunderheads - began to roll in, lightning flickering from them like the tongues of fearsome serpents. Kristoff could feel it, the power raging in those clouds. He could feel it - and he took hold of it. He grasped it with an imagined fist and swung Mjolnir down, the lightning following his command to crash against the mountainside above him and leave a smoking crater in the distance.

Thor nodded in approval and approached. "Now a new trick," he said with a laugh. "Throw it at that tree and miss," he commanded. Kristoff looked at the burly god as if he were crazy, but shrugged and threw as hard as he could. The hammer soared into open air. And swung around to return. Kristoff yelped and held out his hand, which Mjolnir nestled into like a mother eagle.

Thor chuckled. "Cool, huh?" he asked. Kristoff smiled.

"Yeah."

Elsa sipped at a cup of tea, hastily prepared by Gerda at her request, and prepared herself to try and follow Alphonse's lecture. She was a little disappointed that the mage wouldn't reveal any of his past, but decided not to push the issue. He was being gracious enough to move past her actions and she felt that she should honor that. Besides, she was truly interested in the topic he had chosen.

Alphonse finished stirring honey into his tea and downed it in one gulp, seeming to ignore the heat. He set his cup down and twisted his neck until it audibly cracked and sighed in contentment.

"I am certain you are familiar with the stories of Ragnarok?" Alphonse asked. Elsa nodded, to which Alphonse quirked a smile.

"Ragnarok, from what I can remember from Odin's memories, as well as dreams in which I've relived it, ran fairly similarly to the prophecies laid down by an undead seeress that described it to Odin. Loki escaped his imprisonment, Fenrir broke free of his binds, the World Serpent woke, and so on. Odin and his einherjar rode to battle, Fenrir killed Odin and was killed by Vidar, Thor killed Jormungandr and died from its venom, Loki and Heimdall killed each other, Garm killed Tyr, and on and on. All of that was written beforehand." He looked Elsa in the eye. "What wasn't written was what would happen after."

Alphonse lifted a hand and placed it on Elsa's head, and everything went black. The blackness gave way to an image of a massive tree, nine clumps of green-covered stone nestled in its branches, roots, and trunk. Yggdrasil, she realized. She was looking at the World Tree. The silence was shattered by a great horn and the tree began to smoulder, and then to burn and the worlds with it. Water rushed along its branches and roots, flooding the worlds. The great ash tree trembled and collapsed into itself, the worlds smashing together. The fires were put out by the waters, the waters boiled away by the heat of the fires. All that was left was a large, roughly-spherical stone core. The mass of stones began to be covered with green ...

Elsa gasped as Alphonse pulled away, her vision returning. "That was the grand scheme of Ragnarok," he explained. "The gods died and the worlds ended." He grinned. "But the world, our world, emerged from the cataclysm. Our modern Earth is the remains of the Nine Worlds coming together."

Elsa looked away to process this revelation, one that Alphonse seemed to utterly believe. And, she had to admit, it did make a lot of sense. "What happened to Yggdrasil?" she asked. Alphonse smiled at the question and produced a pad of paper and a charcoal pencil from his bag and began drawing.

"Are you familiar with the agricultural practice of 'striking'?" he asked. Elsa nodded, remembering her childhood tutors explaining the process during her lessons on agriculture (all heirs were meant to have at least a working knowledge of the harvest). The practice referred to removing small pieces of a plant's stem or roots, then replanting them in moist soil. The cutting, if the striking was done properly, would grow into a new, smaller version of the original plant.

"Well," Alphonse continued, "during Ragnarok, you saw that Yggdrasil itself shook and collapsed into itself, bringing the Nine Worlds crashing together. It was burned to cinders and quenched in the void of Ginnungagap. But splinters survived the destruction." He looked at Elsa as if waiting for her to realize something. Elsa thought over what he had said about spl- wait a moment. Splinters from that tree?! A splinter from that would be larger than this very castle, at the least!

"Now you see my point," he said. "These splinters landed in the remains of the Nine Worlds, the cradle of our own world, and many took root. As our own world was reborn and began to grow, so did they." He showed her what he had drawn, a rough illustration of the modern world, from the coast of China to the Americas. And dotting the continents, connected by dashed lines, were small shapes that resembled clovers. "These cuttings, Scions we call them, litter the world and keep it rooted together."

Elsa took the paper and studied it more closely. "Is this accurate?" she asked. Alphonse shrugged.

"About as accurate as I can get. I'm not even certain Hugin and Munin know the exact number of Scions." Elsa nodded at his answer and passed the diagram back.

"In the old stories, people could travel between worlds on the branches of Yggdrasil," Elsa mentioned. "Can these 'Scions' do something similar?" Alphonse nodded.

"All of the Scions are offshoots of the original cosmic parent plant. In a metaphysical sense, they are all connected by magic, by the binding force of the universe. Using that connection, one knowledgeable in magic can use a Scion to travel to any other of its kind, allowing them to traverse hundreds or thousands of miles in mere moments." Alphonse gave a slight grimace. "The experience is … both exhilarating and frightening."

Elsa giggled at his look, bringing him back from whatever memory he had been in, and he laughed with her. Another question struck her. "How do you know all of this?" she asked. Alphonse's glower forced her to backtrack. "Not that I'm prying, just … who could have taught all of this to you?" Alphonse's expression cleared and he looked away.

"A few things, really. First was the memories from Odin, which are sleeping inside me like Freya's are in Anna or Thor's in Kristoff. Another source I will not say. And the last, I was taught by those who watched it all happen: Hugin and Munin."

Elsa's eyes widened. "So, wait, they're the real Hugin and Munin? Odin's actual ravens? How did they-?"

"Survive?" Alphonse finished quickly. Elsa nodded, thinking over the vision she had seen. How could a pair of birds, even extensions of a god, survive that?

"It was one of Odin's many plans for the End," Alphonse explained. "When Heimdall blew his horn, signalling the Final Battle was upon them, Odin sealed them away, his own thoughts and memories given physical form, in some kind of container. He entrusted it to Vali, one of his sons who was predicted to survive. After everything recovered from the madness, Vali opened the container and let them out." Alphonse narrowed his eyes in thought, then decided to share a theory.

"I don't think that the modern ravens are what they were before Ragnarok," he admitted. Elsa's eyes widened in surprise, but she picked up on what he meant.

"You think they changed in that time?"

"I think they became more independent. They had too, or else they would fade away or drop dead. I think that they have ... evolved, in a way, into their own unique personalities with their own take on Odin's over-all goals in life."

Elsa pondered this and accepted it, assuming Alphonse knew them well enough to be able to judge, at least more accurately than anyone else. Elsa thought over all she had learned, comparing it to all she had experienced in the days (had it really only been days?) since she had met Alphonse. Overall, it seemed to make some convoluted kind of sense.

"You said that Jormungandr was killed right, by Thor?" Alphonse nodded. "Then what exactly did we fight in the fjord?" she asked. "You said it was hatched from the World Serpent. I always thought Jormungandr was male." Alphonse paused, face blank, and burst out laughing. He laughed for a good five minutes before calming down, face red.

"Oh, wow," he gasped between heavy breaths, "I haven't laughed like that in a long time. A long time," he added. "As in ... years." He sobered up and cleared his throat. "To answer your question, you have to remember who fathered Jormungandr," he explained.

"Loki," Elsa said, a faint blush rising as she began to see where this was headed.

"Correct," he answered. "And Loki was a great shapeshifter, likely the best. He was only rivaled in that skill by Odin and Freya, and even then not by much. As such, as you've seen this very night, Loki was not constrained by shape, by gender even, as we are. As such, in addition to the fact that his children were literal monsters, I think they had some … leeway with biology."

Elsa looked away, blush deepening. Alphonse couldn't help but smile, idly thinking how pretty she looked like that. He felt his own face heat up at the thought and tried to banish that train of reasoning, only partly successful.

Elsa glanced at the clock sitting on top of the fireplace, surprised to see that they had been talking for almost an hour. Realizing with a twinge of bitterness that she needed to work in the morning, Elsa placed a hand on Alphonse's.

"Thank you," she said, for the talk and for moving past their argument. The queen had long since realized that she had a habit of remaining stuck in the past, the past having defined her life for so much of it. Alphonse had helped her shake that habit, at least in a small way. Elsa stood and pulled Alphonse up with her. Their rooms were across from each other (thank you Anna, she thought half-sarcastically) so it made sense to escort each other.

As they walked, Elsa realized something ominous that Alphonse had said almost casually. "You said 'we'," she said. Alphonse glanced at her in confusion. "When you were talking about the Scions, you said 'we' call them that. Not 'I'," she explained.

Alphonse sighed before answering. "The world is far larger than you realize, Elsa. Hugin and Munin are not the only survivors who remember those times, even before the other Residuum began to reveal themselves. Some creatures survived Ragnarok, unforeseen by the seeress who predicted it. The trolls, for example, are descended from trolls who lived in Midgard before that time. Those of us who keep in contact call ourselves 'Ashlanders'." He grinned. "Which means, I suppose, that Anna, Kristoff, and yourself have joined that small group."

Elsa wasn't sure how to take that, and so she let it pass. Eventually, they arrived at their rooms. Elsa turned to face the mage with a small smile. "Good night, Alphonse," she said, struck by a sense of deja vu.

"Good night, Elsa," he replied. Before he could leave, Elsa leaned in and kissed his cheek. She fled into her room, savoring the memory of the mage's dumbstruck expression. It was only later, after relaxing into her bed, that she wondered what had come over her.

What Elsa didn't see was Alphonse standing in the hallway for much longer than necessary, lightly rubbing where her lips had touched him as the spot seemed to burn with numbing fire. Only later would he realize that he had looked like a complete idiot, staring into the distance with a goofy smile on his face.

As Alphonse entered his own room, two black shadows fluttered away from the newly-repaired window and settled on the large oak tree in the castle garden, where the group had fought Hans mere hours before.

"We're losing him, Hugin," Munin grumbled. "He's going even more soft. Maybe we should just cut our losses," he said, regret tinging his gravely voice. They had worked so hard on him, and all for naught.

"I wouldn't say that just yet," Hugin replied, something dark in his tone. "Don't you remember the fate of Freyr?" Munin looked at him in curiosity.

"Love can be a powerful motive."

A thanks to all of my loyal readers for your support. This would not happen without you guys! How'd you like my explantions? Let me know, R&R!