Hey guys! Sorry if this isn't the best chapter... I was at my grandpa's funeral today and yesterday and felt bad this evening about not giving you all a new chapter. I hope it's good enough, the next one should be a lot better - maybe I'll even edit this one if you don't like it as much... but just a little something to tide you over! :) Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen or Disney
The prince whistles with his good hand, surprising Elsa who was always impressed by people who were able to do such things – Anna had tried to teach her when she was younger, but she could never quite get it. A tanned horse sluggishly trots out, hating to leave the warmth of the stable.
"Come on, boy!" Hans smiles taking the reins, he can still recall Sitron when he was smaller than him - now it's Hans who needs to hop up to reach the horse's height.
The Prince helps the Queen onto the animal, her comfort with the creature was slowly growing. Her gloves brush through the thick hair that decorates the horse's body. She hesitates a moment, but slowly removes one of her gloves allowing her fingers to tickle the mane and melt within the softness of the horse's personality.
"Hold on," is all the warning Hans gives before he bares down on the reins and barrels off with Queen in tow. Elsa replaces her glove quickly, pulling down on each individual finger, then her hands quickly find their place around the Prince's well defined waist, but instead of a terrified scowl her face lights with a grin.
The scenery flashes past them and mixes with the falling snow, creating a flash motion of all the trees surrounding them. The evergreen's shake with heaviness as the snow pounding into them curses down on their branches, threatening to break them. The Ice Queen had done quite a number.
"So..." The Prince makes a strange face with a goofy smile as he stares ahead at the fields of white fluff, "King, huh?"
Elsa shakes her head and stops herself from hitting her forehead. She had felt so stupid when she said that, referring back to her fib at the Trading Post, "I know, it was such a bad lie... sorry to make you feel awkward," her voice trails off as the wind howls over.
Hans tries to stop the warmth he starts to feel in his cheeks and through his throat, "Ooh, no, I just thought it was funny. You know, me, your king?" He takes a breath to add more, but doesn't say anything else.
Elsa looks up to the back of his thick auburn hair, trying to sense his tone. She forces a laugh to match this humor Hans seems to have mentioned, "Yea, I mean how ridiculous... you my king? It's funny..."
Hans's smile turns into a frown, forced with mixed emotions. So the Queen had meant it as a joke, "heh, yea... ridiculous..."
Elsa's hands almost recoil from his tense middle, had she said the wrong thing? Usually it was Anna who did that, who couldn't sense the room just right... and Anna had a laugh that could make all forgiven. Elsa didn't have any of that. The two sit in silence until her eyes squint through the flurry and spot what she's looking for. The wilting elm!
"Hans! The cave is just past that tree!"
His eyes jolt up to the awkwardly jutting rocks. None of it seemed natural, but he didn't doubt her, he pulled Sitron's reins with a tight grip as the horse switches movements. The cave seemed dark, and he hadn't packed a lantern, expecting to travel in day.
The horse's muffled hooves were suddenly musical as his feet hit the rocky surface of the cave.
"It should just be through here a while, then we'll see a light and know when to come out into the clearing," she looks over the Prince's shoulder and further into the dank cavern. It wasn't the friendliest place in Arendelle.
Sitron's neck starts to twitch quickly, moving side to side in the icy cave as he must navigate the slippery stone without any light. He was never a horse for the dark. The walls of the cave seem to inch up and rub against the party's shoulders, and at other moments it feels as if they could walk on either side of the cave for a good mile before meeting any rock.
Water drips creating an eery tone adding to the very existence of the cave. The only thing keeping the trio afloat are the heartbeats of its members. Elsa leans her ear against Hans's back, trying to inch out her negative thoughts of the cave.
Only a light growl interrupts the otherwise tranquil music of nature. Hans turns suddenly, to place the noise with its owner, he scans the dark cave; his eyes playing tricks on him at every jagged turn. The Prince's experience matches little with that involving caves, but he attempts to spot any sort of nasty enemy in his surroundings.
He places his conscious at ease, finding nothing mysterious in the fuzzy blackness of what he can see. Hans replaces his hands on the horse's reins, only to feel a heavy, somewhat sticky, warm breath on his neck. Was Elsa really that close to him?
"H-hans..." the Queen's voice is shaky and almost a whisper, "is that your hairy leg I feel?"
The beastly bear roars as Hans smacks the reins, escaping the inevitable claw aimed for his head. The creature's paws scratch the rock loudly as Sitron's hooves veer off in jagged, scared direction.
Hans tries to control his jolted horse as Elsa lets out a yelp aiming her ice behind her without knowing where the creature stands. The cave is pitch black, "I can't see, Han-"
Sitron misses the slight bump in front of him, his legs slip and the humans fall off with a bounce as the scared animal continues its dash through the cave.
"Sitron!" Hans yells trying to regain himself from the fall. He rubs his head as his eyes try to pinpoint his horse only to be required by the struggling Queen. His gloved hands feel around the ground only listening for her faint pained breaths. Suddenly their hands meet, and neither recoil from the other. In this darkness they both gladly accept the hand of a human – of a friend.
"Hans, we have bigger problems!" The bear begins picking up speed almost as if he can smell the human intruders. Elsa aims her freezing magic in every direction, but nothing helps, sounds bounce off the walls of the cave and she is blind in the hall of darkness.
Both their ears seem to perk up as their skin starts to crawl with the bear's loud howl now mere feet away from them.
Elsa tries to remain sharp and quiet, "I don't know where he is Hans!"
The bear's sniffling starts to echo through the cave. Millions of dreadful thoughts run through both their heads, and yet Elsa keeps her hand intertwined with the Prince's.
The bear shuffles closer, causing both their bodies to tense. Forcing Hans to feel the wrath of Elsa's cold, shaky, fingers.
"Don't. Move," Hans only whispers.
Elsa can't even count the minutes that pass as she holds the Prince's hands in hers. Both were scared, but it seemed lesser with his hand in hers. The bear's anger seems to have subdued from all they can hear as the creature's paws tap the stones in front of Elsa.
Their hands break apart as Elsa slowly shuffles her body backwards, away from the paw.
Hans tries to keep his eyes open, he tries to reshape the jutting stones of the cave, the bear, Elsa. He needs to see them. But in order to see them he needs some form of illumination, and he just can't.
Slowly the Prince starts to tug on his glove, feeling the empty fabric without his strong fingers hidden beneath it. Conceal don't feel. The act of taking his gloves off seems to have shaken him more than the actual bear itself.
Elsa slowly inches closer to the edge wall of the cave, unknowingly. The bear follows, hearing her icy breaths in the dank cavern. Her heart stops as her back brushes up against the crudely cut stones. She was stuck.
The Queen positions her hands, ready to freeze and attack the creature at any given moment. As soon as it touches her, she'll know where the creature stands and she will not hesitate to recoil.
But before even shooting any ice she lets out a scream as her face begins to swell with fiery pain – the bear had clawed her. Her eyes fill with panic as she awaits the bear's second attack. And suddenly everything is illuminated. The bear's fur. The curve of the cave. It was as if someone had lit a fire.
The bear howls, its attention redirected as it turns. Hans slowly pushes to a stand, holding his left arm towards the bear, the red hot fire shining intimidatingly near its puffy cheeks as it shoots out of the Prince's palm. The bear stares at it, breathing heavily.
Hans waves his arm, trying to push the bear out of their way. The bear slowly starts to step back. Its eyes aflame with the image of burning before it. Hans slowly moves closer to the creature, carefully, but nonetheless in a powerful manner. He sees the creature. He sees the cracks in the walls. The bumps in the stone. The light of his fire has lit the cave.
Everything is silent, even the faint water droplets have ceased, only the crackling from the Prince's hot hands can be heard. Elsa's eyes grow wide. With fear, with distrust, with confusion... she never knew. She thought she was the only one...
Hans manages to make one more flash of his arm to scare off the beast and send it scurrying back into the darker turns of the cave. His eyes slowly turn towards Elsa still illuminating the tight rock around them.
"Queen Elsa, your face!" His body moves quickly, holding the flame towards Elsa's cheeks. He examines the deep gash near her cheek, but she pulls away.
"You... why..." Elsa shakes her head in disbelief, checking her own hands as if reassuring herself of who she is, "why didn't you tell me?"
Hans's fingers tangle around one another in anticipation for the conversation sure to ensue, "I never wanted anyone to know."
Elsa laughs in mock sarcasm, "and of all the people you couldn't tell... you really didn't think you could tell me?"
"I'm sorry," it's all he can say. His face turns from hers as does the heat protruding from his body. He stares into the darkness, almost wishing he could take back his light and extinguish it forever.
"I never thought anyone else was born with powers," Elsa practically mumbles this more to herself than to Hans pulling her icy hand up to her cheek.
"Born?" The Prince turns his head back around.
Elsa looks up, staring at the Prince's illuminated face, the face she thought she knew – she thought she could trust. Ice stands formed behind him, as if reminding her of her own predicament, "yes," she lowers her gaze, "born with this... this power to control elements."
Hans shakes his head, "I was never born with this," his lips tremble on the following words as his anger starts to mount, "I was cursed, Elsa!"
The Queen's eyes betray her and look back up into the Prince's examining the pity in the shades of green surrounding the pupil. She scoots over from the wall and pats down beside her, slightly reminiscing from her earlier days with Anna. How the two girls would sit side by side and contemplate life.
"Sounds like you have some explaining to do," is all she can say in a friendly manner to the sulking Prince.
He shakes his head, massaging his empty gloves in his laps, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But I can't just tell you," he turns to her pale face, "it's personal."
Elsa's muscles ignore her brain as her frozen hand moves for his aflame one, she clasps his into hers as the ice and fire meeting sizzle with conflict, extinguishing the light around them, "I don't think it's as personal as you're making it out to be."
Hans lets out a breath, he was going to need it, "The Southern Isles and the Westerguard Dynasty have two things in common. A love for war." He forms the words quicker then time gives him to check the memories, he knew them all by heart, "When I was seven we had been at war with the Østlige Islands for a few years now. This gypsy woman, she had come to our castle to seek refuge, but my father refused her assuming she was from our warring neighbors. She left and stayed out in the cold and the rain. A day later she returned, denouncing my father for his hatred. She told him he would need to sacrifice one of his sons."
Elsa looks at the Prince's far off gaze. She could hardly believe the story she was hearing her family, for all she knew stayed neutral in world affairs. What it must have been like to grow up, knowing people could raid your home at any second.
"Naturally, my father chose me. The son who would never be a King, who would never amount to anything... who was overall, and generally a disappointment in every aspect..." Hans sighs as he massages his forehead, "the gypsy took me right before my brothers in the middle of the palace, ignoring my pleas. They all turned away as she took my hands and forced this curse of fire into them. She said I would cause my own home's destruction, and that was my father's punishment."
Elsa listened to his voice, not the charming and confident one he usually boasted in... but the sad one, the one that made him the most human person she had ever met.
"From that day forth... it was all about concealing the baby Prince. Keeping him away from the city, stopping him from destroying the town. That's what my life was like when people knew what powers I had, and that's not what I wanted here."
His eyes play the memories of the past having finally caught up to his words, showing him the day his mother refusing to hold him any longer due to his curse. When his brothers started pretending he didn't exist. Looking down at parties from the banister of the balcony because he'd be too much of a hazard to interact with others instead of enjoying them like his siblings. These memories eat at the Prince's heart, almost taking the heat out of him, almost freezing him whole.
Elsa watches Hans's flame become dimmer and dimmer. She doesn't look at him any longer, "I apologize, I didn't know it was that big of a family affair," and yet she shakes her head still not understanding all of Hans's actions, "but you were just going to keep this a secret from Anna?"
Hans stays still, "that's what I was hoping," he pauses, "but you were in danger, and I couldn't see you so I stepped in and helped."
The Queen's mood changes, he had revealed his secret to protect her. No one, besides Anna, had gone as far as he had to keep her safe. She forces her lips to smile, "Hey, let's continue through this cave. I'm sure your horse has already exited through it, can't be much longer."
Hans's foul attitude at having struck bad memories sticks with him, "if I ever have to head through a cave again, it'll be too soon."
Thanks for reading, any reviews and comments are really appreciated!
Luvmoony89 - I have a good feeling that your suspicions... were true. Hahaha, hopefully his came out in the right manner! So happy you love the story!
LillyStoppable - Love your reviews! I hope I am sufficing your Helsa needs! All the characters in Frozen get a little shout out, duh! ;D I hope you review again because I love getting your feedback!
Troopper17 - Hopefully this chapter was awkward enough for you. Hahaha, thanks for the review! :)
ThePhantomWolf - Fooling anyone of what? ;) Well, cat's out of the bag now! Thanks for reading, and hope you continue to like the story!
MythsandMaddness - What could he POSSIBLY not be telling her? ;D Hahah, it's pretty fun. After this chapter there are still a lot of secrets both of them have from each other. And wait till Anna finds out... well, actually, even I don't know what'll happen when Anna finds out, hahah! :D
Blossomfern - I'm writing as fast as I can! :D Of course though, not sure if you know this, but if you go on my page I actually have a huge Hunger Games fanfic. Because. I. Love. Hunger. Games. I didn't even realize I put that in there until you commented, but it seriously is a total Peeta moment! ;D You have to get your sister into the fandom! Once you get in, you'll never get out! ;) Who could possibly hate Frozen?
LittleMissPanda84 - Well, I'm responding again, hahah! :) Hopefully the reveal was good enough for you! I tried to make it surprising, but Hans is pretty bad at hiding it. ;)
JavertInMinature - Hahah, gotta love Oaken! Yoo-hoo! Ummmmmmmmmmm, well, after this chapter... I guess you can see I was trying to suggest such a thing, hahah! :D So you got it right on the money! I know! One minute they're close and the next they're pulling away. ;)