The chunk of ice Elsa called a boat did little to protect Hans and Agust from the cold, but at least they were out of the water. The two men huddled too close for comfort, doing their best to stay warm. Hans's hands and feet ached with numbness and were difficult to move. He blinked forcefully, trying to stay focused, and continued rubbing his arms to get his blood circulating. He began to understand just how cruel letting Anna freeze to death was.

Anna froze...

"Elsa..." He chattered through clenched teeth. The queen looked at him tiredly. She was perched at the end of what could be considered the ice boat's bow, bedraggled and dripping with water like the rest of them but less phased by the extreme cold. At least it wasn't winter, Hans sighed, otherwise they'd already be dead.

She looked at him and silently inclined her head. Her hair was pulled out of and tangled painfully from the regal crown-braid she had it pinned in, and her dark blue makeup had washed down her face, making her pale skin seem almost ghoulish in the light. He swallowed, trying to push the images of sirens and banshees from his mind.

"Elsa," he continued with a shuddering breath. "The petty officer and I are going to freeze to death before the night is over unless we get warm."

"Which I'm the complete opposite of, if you haven't noticed." She replied guiltily, shifting farther away.

"I was thinking..." He began carefully. "That you would be able to pull the cold from us, just like you did when Anna froze..."

"No thanks to you!" Agust growled against him. Though the boy was angry, his face failed to voice the emotion, remaining slack and numb in the cold. His eyes were half closed and speech beginning to slur.

"Yeah, no thanks to me." Hans restated dryly. He didn't have the energy to protest there was nothing he could have done for the flighty princess. He didn't really love her. Was that really a crime? Okay, perhaps he could have tried to warm her up and not locked her in a room to die in order to inherit the kingdom, but there was no changing the past. "But my point is she survived because you pulled the cold from her."

"I-I don't know," she whispered, looking at her hands in thought. "Anna was frozen by my power, so that was why I could reverse it. Something was added to her and I simply removed it. This..." She glanced at them nervously. "This could be different. I could kill you."

"Well it's not like we're going live through this anyway."

"Why do you have to talk like that?!" She cried running her hands through her ratty hair. "Why do you have to talk like that...?"

"Look," he replied sternly, not interested in letting her succumb to hysterics. He'd seen what she could do when she lost control. "If you're concerned about bloodying your hands, just remember I told you to do this. I'm ordering you to do this!"

"You have no right—!" Hans pushed the quaking boy aside, cutting him off and giving Elsa room to do what he was demanding.

"Pull the cold from my body!" He commanded. "If it kills me then don't do it to Agust and just shove me overboard. I'm not going to sit here and wait for death. You're doing this!"

"Hans," she replied frantically, clutching her hands to her chest, "I don't even know how! I did this once and only because I was so overcome with emotion...!" She looked down, blinking back frustrated tears. Then, with a shaking breath, her cobalt eyes flicked back to him. They were hard and determine, like the day he and the Weselton boys cornered her in that ice palace. But instead of the need to kill, they held the determination to succeed.

XXX

Elsa stared at her shaking hands, heart crawling with fear as frost began to spread over them. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. She was the snow queen. Conqueror and savior of Arendelle. The incarnation of ice and snow. She had mastered these fears. She was in control. She was in control...

Her fists clenched, the ice on her skin cracking away, and shot a determine glare at the brash prince.

"Agust," she said in a low voice. "Move away from him, and frankly from me if you can. I'm not sure how this is going to work."

"What-what are you going to try to do my queen?" He stammered scooting across the floor of the rocking ice boat.

"I'm trying...I'm going to summon the cold from Hans's body and channel it into mine."

"And will that work?" Agust asked, somewhat hopefully, glancing at his own shivering body.

"Agust," Hans said through grinding teeth. "You're not helping." He leaned against the side of the small boat, digging his nails into the ice and braced for whatever was about to come.

Elsa stood slowly, clenching her jaw as her broken ribs throbbed and tears threatened to prick in her eyes. She took a shuddering breath, narrowed her eyes, and stuck her palms towards the castaway prince.

She summoned the power in her body, sensing the cold of the world around them, and called for it to join her arsenal of ice.

Hans grimaced, his body stiffening as the magic did its course. Elsa's concentrated face broke into a smile as a starry blue color glowed on his skin. His face twisted in pain and his knuckles clenched the boat harder, but he didn't call for her to stop. With a deep breath, Elsa lifted the blue light from his skin and it poured into a single, bright tendril that snaked towards her hands. Her palms lit up whiter than sunlight on snow and the congealed energy disappeared inside her.

Her heart fluttered as the foreign power entered her body, swelling with new strength that she hadn't possessed. She always had used her own power, always returned her own power. This...this was like drinking in the power of the North Sea. It was invigorating.

As the last of the blue energy seeped into her palms, she jumped back in glee, clenching her fist greedily lest the new power escape.

"It worked!" She sang, almost dancing in joy. She calmed herself down as the boat began to rock. "It worked. And I feel so strong. I feel—!" She suddenly realized she was no longer in pain. "My side." She felt her ribs, no longer shifting sickeningly inside of her. "It's healed! It's—!"

"Your highness!" Agust's alarmed voice called her back to reality.

She stopped her celebration, finding the boy hesitantly shaking an unconscious Hans.

XXX

"Hans! Hans wake up!" Elsa pleaded, shaking him violently. He couldn't die, not because of her. To hell with what he said, if he died it was her fault. His skin was clammy and red, and alarmingly warm to touch. She'd taken too much cold from him.

His blotchy face twisted and a murmur of discomfort escaped his parted lips.

"What's wrong with him?" Elsa panicked, warily propping his limp body in the corner of the boat.

"Hyper-hyperthermia, your majesty!" Agust coughed spitefully, seeming to wish he was in Han's boots. "In trying to expel the hypothermia, you gave him the polar opposite! It happens to sailors a lot, but's rare on these waters."

"Is it bad?" She asked desperately, pushing his now sweat dripping hair from his face. "Will he be okay? Agust, stop that!"

She slapped the young man whose hands had somehow found their way up Hans's shirt. "I'm sorry!" He spluttered painfully. "I'm just so cold, and he's burning up!"

"Powers above us..." She begged, running her hands through her messy hair. "Hans, please wake up."

"Nngh..." Hans replied with a throaty gurgle. His eyes fluttered open and he lazily looked around, unfocused. "Cold..." He shuddered. "Water..." He struggled up into a sitting position and made to throw himself overboard.

"No!" She shouted, pulling him back in. "That's salt water, it'll only make it worse. And you're burning up..." Then an idea sparked and she quickly formed a snowball in her hands. She put patches of it onto Hans's swelling body, and then made another that she worked into his swelled, rubbery hands.

"Start to drink the water when it melts!" She ordered with new energy from brilliance of her plan. Hans did as she said and quickly begged for more.

"Your majesty," Agust chattered from where he sat, curled tightly for warmth. "If you c-could try again?"

"Try again?" She repeated, looking from Hans's red body to Agust's blue. "You see what he's going through! I nearly killed him!"

"Nearly." He hissed, shoving his frozen fingers under his arms. "Don't go as long this time. And even if you do, if he can take it I know I can."

Elsa bit her lip in hesitation, looking warily at her hands. Her hands that hurt others. She exhaled the apprehension. She could do this. She would try again.

This time she kneeled by and grasped Agust's hands in hers. His hands were so cold... She swallowed and, as before, reached for the North Sea's chilling power and beckoned it to join her own.

Agust's eyes grew wide and his mouth parted, dilating as the magic rushed from his body. She saw in the reflection of his eyes the startling blue of her own. They were glowing like stars. Agust gasped, a dry sound, and she quickly broke the connection. The blue tendrils that connected their hands shattered and what was left seeped back into his pours. She tried to ignore the unsatisfied feeling in her soul.

"Are you alright?" She asked with a touch of fear, gently placing her hands on his head to bring his eyes to hers.

He took a staggering breath, but shook his head up and down. She breathed a sigh of relief and conjured up a snowball for him to melt and drink from as well.

"Elsa?"

She turned towards the pitiful croak that came from Hans. He had a dazed expression on his face, but the swelling seemed to be going down. The only good this blasted cold was good for—breaking fevers.

"My feel bad…" he mumbled, gesturing at himself sloppily. Then he threw up.

This was going to be a stressful voyage.