Longing to Hear a Kind Hello
A/N: Well, I've rewritten this chapter enough times to publish an entire novel of rewrites. They're all just as trippy, if not more so, than this one is. And they're way more. . . ick. And you're all tired of ick by now, right? Right?
Anyway, if you're actually still bothering to read this, thank you. This story was crappy to begin with and remains as such, so it's always nice to see people that are hopeful for change.
TeamArendelle: Thank you for your kind words. They're much appreciated!
Schlevznark: Thank you! Your stories, Death, Personified and Immurement inspired me to write these, so it was awesome to see you leave such a kind review. All of your questions will be answered in time. This will be a longer story, depending on how long it can captivate my interest.
And thanks everyone else for the favorites, the views, etc. You're all awesome.
TW: Drowning, Death, Squeamish Moments, Blood, DRAMA GALORE, uh. . . Darkness. We're almost done, I swear.
Darkness.
This wasn't an unusual event, per say. He was perpetually draped in darkness, the kind that behaved more so like a thin blanket than it did anything else- it provided a layer of false security, wrapping itself around his depreciated form yet doing nothing to cure the cold or hide him from lurking monsters. The trapdoor that perched precariously above his head, now splintered and bloody from his prying, grimy fingernails, allowed only the thinnest slivers of light to touch his hardened gaze. On nights when the moon was shrouded by clouds or absent from peering eyes, he could hardly see the ever-present stone in front of his face.
This particular darkness, however, the one that he now saw (or did not see), was that of an acquired taste. Pure, unadulterated black, bitter and silent and colder than ice. It was heavy, like fog, and stretched up to the ceiling above his prison cell and seemingly lurked the hallways beyond. Not a flicker of a lamp nor the twinkling of a star broke the void. It was as though the shadows had swallowed the night sky, moon and all, and had left nothing behind to remember.
Perhaps he had awoken to it. He faintly remembered having grown tired, arms sore and screaming as they hovered above his head. He slumped, his bony spine scratching against rock as he shut his eyes for the briefest of moments.
He was there.
And then he was not.
And now, standing there in the gloom, he felt strangely numb. He couldn't feel his aching stomach, or his pounding headache, or his outstretched arms. It was as if he were disembodied, floating in the abysmal darkness that currently encompassed his prison. He tried to move, to stretch, to yell for help, but found that neither limbs nor lungs responded to his command.
An odd thought occurred to him.
Was he even in his prison anymore?
"Oh, my dear. . ."
Her voice was closer than usual.
Instinctively, he glanced up, not expecting to see a figure looming in the darkness above him. How he could see it in such pure black, he'd never know. It gazed at him with hollow eyes, grinning a toothless smile. His breath would have hitched, if he'd had actually been breathing.
The silhouette shifted like a broken automaton, cocking its head to an impossible angle. An audible crack echoed through the black, and he could see the ragged necklace of rope dangling from its beaten body, swinging like a pendulum in the night.
"Hans, dear, won't you say hello to your mother?"
And suddenly he fell.
The bones beneath his tattered feet gave way as the earth opened up and swallowed his body whole. He gasped as he felt a splash of cold winding around his face, slithering into his lips and effectively smothering his soundless screams. The ink engulfed his frail frame, lapping against his infected wounds and swirling into his bloodshot eyes.
Oddly, in this senseless moment, a memory of his time at sea crept up into his thoughts. A sudden gust of wind had stirred the ship he was commanding and knocked him and an unfortunate crew member overboard into the ocean. He remembered watching as the boy- no older than sixteen- screamed, flailing as he was overcome by the treacherous waves of the Atlantic and pulled below the surface. He remembered diving down, deep into the water, pushing desperately against the heavy current as he reached out for the sailor. The boy was kicking, mouth opened in a silent scream as he sunk further and further into the depths. His eyes remained perpetually open even as his movements slowed.
Eventually he stilled.
And then the child was gone.
And now, as he floated into the abyss, curls of liquid shadow slipping down his throat and into his frozen lungs, he suddenly realized that this was probably what the boy felt like as he drowned, cold and alone, struggling against the merciless sea.
Forgotten
Abandoned.
Alone.
His resolve hardened in that moment, and the will to fight, to live, arose from his spirit. He tried in vain to kick the shadowy ribbons away, to move against the dark, yet he remained motionless. He tried to swim upwards, begging his legs to kick and his arms to paddle, but nothing happened. He was paralyzed as black tendrils wrapped around his wrists and dragged him further down into the icy depths. He was helpless, dying.
Dead.
He found that his eyes were glued open as, in one of the most cliché moments of his being, he was forced to watch his life pass by-
His brothers, laughing and playing with wooden swords, whipping him across the back with their fake-weapons. . .
Dragging his bloody and beaten body up the stairs. . .
Reading a book next to his mother, underneath the old oak tree. . .
His father's fist colliding with his mother's porcelain skin. . .
The hatch on the hanging platform dropping. . .
Anna's face as her hope died away. . .
Elsa's broken form at his feet. . .
And finally, the guards dropping him into the oubliette.
They never did say goodbye.
In that moment, Prince-Admiral Hans Westergaard realized that he was at his end. The real end, not the end when his mother died or when his family dropped him down a hole- the kind when his heart stopped beating and his father threw another unfortunate prisoner on top of his corpse to rot away, until he was nothing but measly scraps for the rats and bits of bone dust to waste away into the ground.
As he watched the visions fade away, and he felt the cold churning in his numb flesh, he saw something.
A soft light peered through the gloom, dancing haphazardly against the surface of the water. It twisted, blinking in and out like a dying fire.
"I can help you." It whispered, it's voice fading with every syllable.
His eyes widened, and he tried to call out, to reach out to the surface, but his descent continued.
The light grew smaller and smaller, fading into a spark. His hope simmered, and he knew he wasn't going to make it back, when the voice spoke again.
"All I need is your name."
The binding around his neck loosened imperceptibly, and he found himself nodding eagerly (when had his muscles started working again?).
The light chuckled, and it grew. . .
And grew. . .
And he was gone.
Again.
A soft breeze shifted against his cheek, prompting grass blades to gently caress his face. The sun's rays radiated warmth upon his gaunt face, casting a red, soothing glow behind his eyelids. He breathed in the summer air and sighed contently. If this was death, then he could live with that.
That is, until a rock connected with his cheek.
"Get up!"
Hans eyes shot open and he gasped, scrambling to his feet. He whipped around, clutching his chest to still his racing heart, ready to take on whoever had dared attack him- until something clicked in his brain.
He was alive- and not in his prison.
He was in a small clearing in what appeared to be a forest. A ring of evergreens stood guard around the area, stern and tall against the brilliant blue sky. Songbirds fluttered from branch to branch, chirping and whistling with glee as the fanned their wings in the summer heat. The smell of ripe cloudberries assaulted his nose, and their white flowers barely poked out between an array of purple and blue petals swarming with colorful butterflies and hungry bees. He could see the tops of mountains peaking up beyond the forest, brushing against the stark white clouds drifting through the sky. The landscape was wholly untouched by man's deadly hand; not a building nor path could be seen for miles.
But he found that the unsettling part was not the fact that he was suddenly out of his prison, or that his hazy memory reminded him that he had just had what he could only attribute to a near-death experience; no, it was the fact that the meadow was covered in dozens of mottled stones. They were all approximately the same size and the same oval shape, colored a uniform blueish-grey. No rock overlapped another; they all had their little resting place, nuzzled against patches of grass and worn dirt. This was. . . odd. There was no way nature could have naturally positioned the boulders in such a precise manner, and despite the fact that the rocks had obviously just recently been placed, there were no human footprints in the mud save for his own. He sucked on his lip, and the skin stretched out and aggravated the wound on his cheek. He paused, glaring at the stones before shaking his head.
There was no time to think on such things when his attacker still lurked nearby.
He lifted his fingers to his injury, lightly grazing the swollen and bruised skin. There was no blood, as if the weapon used wasn't sharpened to cut at all. A blunt rock.
His head shot up to glare at the large stones, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
He crept between the rocks, finding himself careful not to step on any (though he wasn't sure why). He crouched, darting through the tall grass like a deranged pheasant, peeking warily around each stone in search for the assailant.
His fuzzy senses, still recovering from their brief departure, didn't acknowledge the presence of a living creature behind him. Something hard tapped against his calf, and he whirled around, stretching out a fist to hit the attacker. His arm blew through thin air, and the force of it whirled him around like a tornado. He fell, knocking his chin against a rock that he could have sworn was not there two seconds ago, and sent his teeth through his bottom lip.
He sputtered indignantly, a line of red curling down his bearded chin.
"Well," a deep, worn voice said, sounding amused, "That was not very bright, now was it?"
The rock that he was resting on suddenly moved upwards, sending him sprawling onto the ground face-up.
Above him loomed a stone with a bulbous nose and elephant-like ears. It gazed at him with wrinkled, tired eyes, its headdress blowing in the breeze.
He blinked once.
Twice.
The ground shook.
Suddenly, the clearing shifted into a realm of chaos as all of the rocks unfurled from their hiding positions, rolling out into humanoid figures that each donned mossy clothing and a necklace of colorful beads. They began chattering amongst one another, voices mixing into a chorus of curiosity and anger.
He blinked again.
"Now, now." The elderly rock said, placating the crowd with a single gesture of its stubby arm, "Let us all calm down. He doesn't know what he did- this time, that is."
All of the rocks turned and glared at him with that sentence, their eyes burning into his very soul- or lack thereof.
He gulped, and clambered backwards, his spine slamming into the trunk of a pine tree.
Great.
He was cornered by a clan of angry rocks.
"Um. . ." he scratched the hairs on the back of his neck, the sea of angry boulders silent as they waited for what he presumed was an explanation. He sucked on his bloody lip, and for once in his life, found he had nothing to say. What did they want from him? What was even happening?
"Well?" a feminine voice piped up, "What do you have to say for yourself? Do you realize what you've done?" The voices stirred up again to a heated level, churning furiously and clambering for his attention as he sat in the dirt, a trail of blood leaking from his torn lip.
"Not really, no." he finally said, shrugging. The crowd became quiet, deathly so. "Although it looks like I'm either sleeping, drugged, or dead." He paused. "I hope it's the first, honestly."
"You were dead", the shaman- he assumed it was a shaman, anyway- said, "She brought you back, and in the process ruined everything."
He frowned, remembering the darkness and his mother and the grabbing arms and the drowning sensation. . .
"You were being dragged down to Hell."
Ouch.
"Where you belong!" The womanly rock said, raising a fist into the air. The mob resumed their chanting, which Hans finally recognized as being something akin to "Destroy him! Destroy him!", and the old stone sighed.
"Bulda, enough! We need him to cooperate if we're going to fix this mess!"
Hans watched as the throng surged and spat like an angry, rocky wave, wishing for nothing more than to beat him into the ground. And for what?
He wasn't quite sure of.
"Alright." he said, gathering his strength and heaving himself off the ground. The stones paused, and he suddenly realized that they were rather short. Maybe that's why they were so angry.
He straightened his back, trying to ignore the harsh crack that resounded from his bones and the winces from the rocks, and regarded the talking boulders with his classic "Admiral" look, since his "Prince" look never really worked on anybody what with him being in no position of real authority.
"Explain."
They sat around a burning fire, although he couldn't for the life of him understand why- they were rocks, and it was summer. Even in the evening it was only slightly chilly, and the hum of insects continued to buzz past his ears in the dimming sky. Perhaps it was just for the effect. The trolls- he learned they were trolls when he called them stone-men and that Bulda woman threw another rock at him- all looked grim, the fire casting dark shadows down their prominent features and hiding their scowls from his eyes.
"You made a deal with a very powerful witch." Grandpabbie (also courtesy of Bulda, nobody liked him calling the guy Old Rocky or whatever) began, his voice grave, "Her name I cannot speak, for it contains too much evil for my lips to-"
"Get on with it." Hans said stiffly.
A rock flew through the air and connected with the side of his head, and Hans barely contained a scream as his vision shorted out briefly.
Grandpabbie sighed, sending an exasperated grimace towards his daughter as he waited for the forsaken prince to regain his bearings. "Yes, well, she has the ability to connect to the spirit world. She was able to speak to your soul as you died, and you made a deal with her; she would bring you back from the dead and release you from your prison, if you gave up your existence."
Hans frowned and raised his shaking hands to the fire. His thin, pale skin reflected shades of red in the light, and he could see his veins pronounced and pulsating with life. He gently rotated his wrist, watching the shadows deepen and dance across his knuckles as the light magnified every minor imperfection on his hands. He gently tapped a fingernail, feeling the broken nail bed beneath, and skimmed the rough callouses on his palms. He brought his fingers up to his mouth, rubbing the dense scar tissue already forming on his lip. The trolls watched in silence.
"I think you're confused", he mused, a smirk playing on his lips, "I do believe I'm still here." He raised a hand, showing the trolls, that yes, he was in fact real.
Grandpabbie frowned and grabbed onto Bulda's wrist before she could pick up another rock. "You, as a person, still exist, but only as that. You were never born. There was never a thirteenth prince of the Southern Isles. There was never an Admiral Hans Westergaard. You were never engaged to Anna, and you never caused-"
"I did not!"
"- the Eternal Winter. You were never imprisoned. You never lived, and you never died. You have no identity- you gave that up when you signed her contract." Grandpabbie scooped up a pile of ash from the fire pit, and Hans could only watch as it exploded from the troll's palms and flew up into the night sky, forming silhouettes of his past memories. He watched as a ship was molded from the streaks of powder, swirling into a portrait of Queen Elsa surrounded by her palace of ice, and finally, a single image of him in his prison cell, slumped against the stone wall as he took his last breath.
Hans breathed deeply, casting his eyes to the dancing flames.
"Then how am I still here?"
Grandpabbie reached into an alcove next to the pit and withdrew a walking stick, balancing on it precariously as he waddled up to the former prince.
"Basically, she created a different timeline- and in effect, destroyed the one you came from." He said as he plopped down next to Hans, gently patting the man's knee like a loving grandfather. Hans froze like a deer caught in headlights, unsure of how to respond to the sudden, tender physical contact. He made a move to pull away, until he spotted Bulda's rigid glare from across the fire and settled into his discomfort. Better to feel awkward and uneasy than awkward and in pain.
"How do you know who I am, then?"
"We trolls are magical beings, and are not affected like mortal creatures are." Grandpabbie said, poking Hans on the bicep with the point of his walking stick. The prince's eye twitched. "Things didn't change much for us, however, we could feel what happened. We knew the change."
Hans grimaced and shifted from his kneeling position, opting to carefully sit on the ground with crossed legs. He sat, examining the mud stains on his knees as he searched for his once witty tongue.
"Why does all of this matter to you, then, if you aren't affected? I thought magical beings didn't get involved with humans." This garnered a chuckle from the crowd, and he felt a spark of irritation light up in the back of his brain. Lovely, they thought him an idiot. Yet, the look on Grandpabbie's face never shifted, and remained its solemn, comforting gaze. As comforting as a rock can be, anyway.
"Because you were never at Queen Elsa's coronation, she never revealed her powers. Because she never revealed her powers, she is trying to run a kingdom while hiding from herself- the pressure, and her powers, will only grow. Her ice will become stronger and stronger, until she can contain it no longer and freeze the Earth and everything in it."
Hans blinked.
Oh.
"It can't be that bad!" The ex-prince hissed, throwing his hands up in the air, "Her powers were pretty bad before, but nothing world-destroying!"
Grandpabbie sighed. "Not before, but it's been awhile. If you thought she was under pressure before, then you should see her now. No Anna to save her now, nobody to help her be a Queen, nobody to support her as she tries desperately to run a kingdom and hide her powers. She's alone. And you, of all people, should know what stress and loneliness will do to a person."
Hans' jaw dropped open at the accusation, but he knew it was true. He had nothing to defend himself.
"Yes, you screwed up. Majorly. And the witch knew this would happen. She got you to sign the contract- legally binding, even in the magical realm. We can't undo what she's done, time is locked in place. By doing this, you doomed the entire world. And the people must turn to her to save it- no one else will be powerful enough to stop Queen Elsa's accidental onslaught. And when she does that. . ." A silhouette of a woman surrounded by fire appeared, her face contorted into a sinister smile, "she will be the savior of this world. The people will love her for destroying the so-called Ice Queen. She will be the most powerful with Elsa out of her way. Elsa's presence and management of her powers after the Eternal Winter prevented her from attacking before; Elsa was too capable, and her people were too loyal. Now? The kingdom is sliding. People don't trust her. Anna doesn't trust her, Elsa doesn't even trust herself."
"Because of this", he continued, ignoring Hans contorting facial expression, "Queen Elsa won't be able to control her powers in her current state, and with no one to help her, the witch will turn things upon her. The witch has her opening. She can take over what she believes to be rightfully hers. . . Earth."
The ashes fell from the sky, dusting Han's hair with gritty specks of black. A sudden gust of wind blew the fire out, and the trolls were left in the darkness, their only light being the quarter moon barely glowing in the night.
Are you tired of cliche plots yet?
Then why are you reading this story? Get out, man, find yourself someone unlike me! An original storyteller!
Go, before it's too late!