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CHAPTER 63:
THE TOLLING KNELL OF DUSK'S ARENDELLE
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Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'Moonlit Night Theme,' from the SUIKODEN II Original Soundtrack, Volume Two, Disc One; and afterwards, 'Roxas,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS Original Soundtrack Complete, Disc Three; and after it, 'Sky Gate,' from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack, Disc One. The first composition can be found on Zophar's Domain, and the second two in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
Elsa seated herself on her throne with a practiced mask of surely composed royal poise, on her provisional throne, aware she needed to push her terror for Anna aside, and assume the responsibilities that now weighed upon her beyond contrast much more heavily than the coronation crown she'd once thrown aside when she'd cast her ice palace.
However, with Anna taking her own seat in a chair to Elsa's left, still without an additional slightest shift in her face, or another single word, about how Elsa had broken her promise to not shut Anna out anymore, after what Elsa had seen, and heard, from her younger sister, when they'd returned from Ahtohallan, Elsa barely registered, on the most distant fringes of her awareness, she had duties to shoulder.
Anna didn't have any tinges of the cheer on her face, or in her body language, that was usually remained in the lines of her face, even if it was all but imperceptible to anyone but Elsa, and perhaps Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven.
And there wasn't any of the pain that was just as evident when Anna wholly wore it on her sleeve, the times she did let her vitality and resilience of spirit totally vanish.
Nothing was showing, even an absence of emotion, or a mask, or even the ordinary muted quietness Elsa recognized so well in Roxas' mannerisms.
The way Anna's face, and body, had been moving since they'd returned, and their initial reunion had ended, it was as though Elsa breaking her promise to never shut Anna out once more for the rest of their lives was supposedly an entirely and completely ordinary event, no different than taking a commonplace walk down a well kept cobblestone sidewalk; an unremarkable day to day incident Anna had no reason to feel anything about, positively, or negatively.
Even unmitigated ebullient sadism, or a whole lack of feeling at the worst horrors possible, or Roxas' quiet ordinariness that at least held tinges of resignation Elsa was able to recognize, as retch insides distorted contorting as that would have been, would have been better than this.
Whatever had been going wrong with Anna since Lauriam, and Elrena, had first revealed what Elsa had done to their parents, and delivered the Foretellers' threats to them both; and since Anna had discovered what Kristoff had done to Elsa's first ice curse, and then she'd unintentionally gotten Jiminy murdered; and all the rest, it was shredding Anna to strings and threads more than Elsa could even plumb the brush most fringe surface of.
Elsa could barely register the terror she'd known when she'd first declared war on the Foretellers, now.
What else did you think you'd cause?
You shut her out for years.
After you at last let her take care of you, and she gained the happiness she sought for so long; she's now faced with the possibility, even the likelihood, you'll be hurt even worse, and there's nothing she can do to prevent it; and she'll lose everything she's sought for most of her life.
What else was there for you to believe you did to her?
Grandpa really is correct about you.
Granpabbie was right, also, when he first told you your powers were dangerous.
Roxas and Xion and Sora and Donald and Goofy can say all they want, and yes, your talents can be a quality, not a liability.
But you believed they were nothing more than a hindrance to your family, and your people, for far too long to make an about face now.
You can love Anna, and your people, all you want.
It's still too late for you to become the sister, and the Queen, your people need.
Love or light, cold or darkness, the light in the darkness shines the way home solely for people who trust in it.
You spent most of your life believing you didn't have a light.
To you, the most gossamer dream of its warm hearth was the most whimsical fancy imagination could conjure.
Anna, Sora, Donald, and Goofy can light your way home, but you've wandered the darkness as a castaway for far too long to be what Anna, and your people, need you to be.
How could she give anyone warmth?
Anna could, unfailingly, unfalteringly.
However, it was years too late for Elsa to be able to give anyone, or anything, a heart and home that, fear or love, wasn't frosted.
She couldn't give it to Anna.
She couldn't give it to Olaf.
She couldn't give it to Roxas.
She couldn't give it to Xion.
She couldn't give it to Kristoff.
She couldn't give it to Sven.
She couldn't give it to anyone in Arendelle.
She couldn't give it to anyone on her world.
She couldn't give it to anyone, everywhere, any current of the clock, in all of reality's time.
That also meant she knew what happened if she stopped, at least, making the effort, though.
Elsa took a measured, deep breath, and she drew herself up.
Anna had brought her back to the warmth of hearth, and home, once.
Whatever was really wrong with her, Elsa could find a way to do the same for Anna.
Her stomach churned with slight sickness.
And Mickey's isolationist warnings were no longer valid.
The war had begun, and even though Grandpa at least purported to have defected from Yozora to Maleficent, the Foretellers had a hand in Maleficent's pie as much as in anyone else's.
Arendelle would stand by its allies.
If it didn't, what was the purpose of wielding her talents for love?
Elsa looked to her right, ignoring the surge of agony that engulfed her at not keeping Anna in her peripheral vision, where Elsa could look after her at least a little that way.
King Mickey was standing there, far enough to her side so as to make it clear he had no authority in her court in Arendelle, or anywhere on her entire world, looking out at the current icy assemblage that was what remained of Arendelle with a number of feelings on his face, including resigned sadness and guilt Elsa recognized.
In addition, however, for the first time, Elsa could see the tinges of a quiet determination in the set of his face she couldn't believe she had the most minute reserves of calling upon herself.
King Mickey was wrong, but that didn't mean Elsa was unable to recognize a royal leader who knew how to perform his responsibilities past fathoms better than her, when she saw one.
M
King
Mickey turned to face her.
"Have you heard about Simba?" King Mickey queried, and Elsa's insides distorted at the careworn and weary weight and depth the fatigued sadness in his voice carried, and the years they sounded as though they stretched back over.
While Elsa believed she had things to feel guilty about.
She had just begun to grasp the scantest surface of the debilitating burdens of leadership with the lightest spun feather.
It wasn't, solely, the weary pains in Mickey's voice, however.
It was the cheerful smile on his face, and in his voice, that was still able to overlay all of what Elsa could hear, and witness.
Elsa was being impolite, though, so she pushed these emotions aside, and she dammed these ones off the way she was teaching herself to, without concealing them.
For whatever difference that makes.
"I've heard pieces and bits, but I haven't asked for that many specifics," Elsa responded.
To her own ears, her voice was steady.
That didn't mean, though, Elsa could trust what her hearing was telling her.
Elsa pushed these feelings away, walling them off without concealing them, too.
Was there really any difference, however?
Had Elsa stopped concealing?
Or, was she wrong to even believe she was even capable of weaving loving spun glass sculptures, and not suspended frigid Kingdoms and emotionless pinnacles of rock?
"Why do you ask?" Elsa continued.
"During a return visit to Simba's world, after he claimed his throne, determined not to repeat the mistakes of his late uncle, not a grandfather, Sora already saw King Simba go through this."
Elsa started, slightly.
She knew better than to push away the hope that rose in a rush within her, though.
Whether she was still concealing, or not, if she walled that off, there was no question she would be doing so.
"It was mistakes with a father, and not a sister, he was attempting to step out of the shadow of, in the past, and present; but he'd still spent much of his life running away from them, and the rest of his problems."
Now, Elsa couldn't breathe.
The warmth of tears pushed behind her eyelids.
Elsa, however, kept them back.
At long, finally last, she could stop crying about this.
She doubted Xion, or Axel, had identified this.
But whatever Simba had done to his father, whether Simba was a kindred spirit who could assist Elsa in her current dilemmas, for the first time, she knew who the true royal was Roxas should be a knight to, and who was the one person in perhaps all the realm of light, if not existence, they knew of, who was in a position to keep Roxas safe from himself.
Elsa was nothing more than the false Queen.
Dim fear passed through Elsa, at the concepts of 'true King,' and 'false Queen.'
That, however, didn't matter.
She'd place what she was thinking of, sooner, or later.
She couldn't think of anything to do for Anna.
However, she at last knew what to do for her two best friends.
Elsa at last knew how to liberate Roxas from his life as a black pawn on a chessboard, and how to show him how to stand on his own strong legs as an individual white that was no playing piece for anyone, and who lived solely as he chose to, unfettered by the abattoir torture dungeons of the accident of his birth he hadn't asked for; and his service in an army he'd been conscripted, not enlisted, into, from his own decision.
And how to light Xion's way even farther back to a lasting hearth of home sweet home.
And, perhaps, Simba could better do for Roxas what Elsa was still attempting to make sense of addressing herself.
As the Commander in Chief of all of Arendelle's military, Elsa knew Roxas, and Xion, still had no true concept of what it was they had wanted Lea, Isa, and even Namine, to do for them, when they'd been Axel, Saix, and Kairi's Nobody, to their uttermost.
Roxas, and Xion, hadn't enlisted.
But Lea, Isa, and even, partially, Namine, had.
If it had been Elsa, not Xemnas
If things had gone differently, you really could have been; or, at least, in I
leading the first Organization, she wouldn't have threatened to execute anyone who defied direct orders.
But, as long as she had been certain doing so wouldn't physically cripple them, and just strip them of rank and outstanding privileges from their abilities, and Dusks truly were as sentient as Nobodies who wholly retained their human forms, Elsa would have responded to gross insubordination, dereliction of duty, or both, particularly in the face of the enemy, as necessary.
And she would have changed anyone from Elrena to Lea into a Dusk for disobeying a direct order from an officer who outranked them, if not thrown them in a military prison.
However Roxas, and Xion, saw it; Lea, Isa, Lauriam, and Elrena had sworn an oath to serve.
And they were even more binding than oaths of country, or nationality.
Soldiers from foreign locations were bound to serve the state they swore to, no matter their location of origin.
If they didn't, it was insubordination, dereliction of duty, misconduct, and even treason, even if they were ordered to fire on their own former kinsfolk.
Namine had been in a gray area, but, as Elsa understood it, she hadn't been a member of either Organization, but she also hadn't been a draftee in all but name.
The oaths Lea, Isa, Lauriam, and Elrena had sworn had been vital underpinnings of what allowed locations such as Destiny Islands, Twilight Town, Arendelle, and the Pride Lands, to give people homes, and protect them.
Roxas, and Xion, were partially correct to feel abandoned, and betrayed.
But they'd also wanted Lea to stop being Axel, and Isa to stop being Saix, and abandon, and betray, vows that were just as binding.
Lea, and Isa; and Namine, herself; could have gone about it much better than they had.
However, they had been partially correct to attempt to do what was best for all parties involved, overall, and not just give Roxas, and Xion, special privileges.
If they'd put aside their vows of service as easily as Roxas, and Xion, wished they had, that itself would have been just as bad, if not worse, than what they'd done, said, not said, and done.
And they'd have been as unscrupulous, and inhumane, as Xehanort, and Xemnas, and Xehanort's Heartless, and the other Xehanorts, in different ways.
Now, however, Elsa didn't need to be the one to point that out.
Simba was in a better position to know.
Why isn't it Mattias who is the one who is here?
He'd know what to do, the most of all.
About Roxas.
About Xion.
About the interstellar war with the Foretellers.
About the war with the Treaty of Flames.
About Grandpa.
About Anna.
Why could Elsa never be there, when Anna, or anyone, needed her?
Elsa suppressed the urge to sag back against the back of her throne.
"I have memories of both of those visits," Xion put in from behind Elsa, and to her left, between Anna, and Elsa.
Xion was standing between Elsa, and Anna, and slightly behind both sisters.
However, while she was looking at Elsa, for the most part, she could still see Anna in her peripheral vision.
And the expression on Anna's face terrified Xion more than Elsa's own mannerisms.
Rather, the lack of any.
Including of, in any sense of the concept, or its own lack, Xion could express, its absence.
Even the silent despair and anger in Roxas Xion was becoming acquainted with identifying didn't appear present in Anna's set visage, or posture.
Xion didn't know Anna well enough to decipher her facial expressions, and body language, as they could mean different things depending on which person was expressing them, so for all Xion knew, they were there.
But Xion could understand Elsa's attitudes enough now to know, if even the traces of the morass Xion had been drowning Roxas in since she'd first learned how she'd been created were there, Elsa wouldn't be as terrified for Anna as Xion had much better reason to believe Elsa, herself, was.
"It's too late… for me to undo my mistakes."
"You're all just lining up to lose out. Dooming others to take the fall with ya'."
"Tricks like that don't fly for your average joe."
"Yes, hearts are powerful when they're connected. But if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking."
No.
This spiral, at least, had ended.
It had been too late before she'd even discovered what she was.
Even if she'd returned to Roxas, and Axel, and she'd told Roxas she had a heart; and verbally, or even, if all else failed, by force, even if she hadn't realized what it meant for Roxas, and Axel, themselves, convinced Axel to confront what that meant for the three of them, the energy siphon still would have claimed Roxas.
And she could see no paths leading to their salvation now.
Regardless, believing there was an answer would suffice.
Xion knew she, as much as Roxas, had led Sora to Arendelle.
For all you know, that's why Elrena said their ranks were filled out.
She identified your pr
Xion pushed the terrors, and doubts, away.
Anna would not be her next victim.
And it was not too late to remove Elsa from the line up she'd been keelhauling in her wake for so many years, and months.
"Because you've got friends in high places, you mean. Tricks like that don't fly for your average joe."
At this point, all Xion could actually do to take a true first step in that direction was one decision.
Whatever answer she found, it would be as an average joe; not someone powerful, and useful.
What if it means you can live, in whole freedom, but you still need to reclaim everyone's memories of you, for good, and begin all ov
Xion pushed it away.
That itself would be dooming Roxas, Axel, Namine, Isa, Elsa, Olette, Hayner, and Pence to take the fall with her, another time.
That doubt was a moot one.
And if she didn't find an answer with her own two hands, walking on her own legs, without anyone, or anything else, giving her that answer for her, or telling her what that answer was; if she sought that answer from power in high places; she'd never truly cease to be Number Fourteen of the first Organization, and Number Thirteen of the second, the thirteenth vessel for Xehanort who sought the empyreal Kye-Blade to unlock the supernal Godhead of existence.
Axel, twice.
Then Roxas.
Then Tidus.
Then Ven.
For all the Xehanorts did to Roxas, and Axel, and the others, who was the soldier who obeyed their most excessively barbaric orders, the whole time, short of actually completing th
Cold enshrouded anyone, everywhere, existence and its absence, and self.
But even if Xion was still willing to give up, she knew all it could have done was erase them.
Because Xion couldn't shut out this.
Part of what had been clawing at Xion about Synchronicity Perceptual, and Sora's last destiny, at last manifested in her mind's eye.
The one thing Sora, even now; even after whatever Young Xehanort, and the second Terra-Xehanort, and Christopher, and Maleficent, had done to him, and whatever else had happened in the real Scala ad Caelum she still didn't know about; was in no condition to confront.
The reason Xion had known she needed to be the one to tell Sora Kairi would be okay.
Because no one else, other than the person who had let Xemnas turn her into the shatterpoint that broke Roxas, and Axel, could have understood what he was going through.
The last reason it had taken spending time with Anna to remind him what warmth was.
Part of where he'd really been, during his time away.
An essential thread of what the Gap Amidst Transparency genuinely was.
Maybe even the filaments of the tapestry of Synchronicity Perceptual.
Xehanort's Kye-Blade wouldn't have been completed if, after Xehanort had fragmented Kairi, Sora had just turned, and walked away.
And if Riku, Mickey, or both, hadn't followed Sora's example, Sora had then made sure, by force himself, if he needed to, Riku, and Mickey, did the same thing.
Doing that to even one of them would have been a challenge, if it came down to a battle, particularly with Xehanort able to interpose himself in it at any time with Sora out of position to intercept any strikes at him.
However, the others weren't that far away, and even with as much hate, and anger, as the rest of them had had for Xehanort
Would you have stood down, o
Sora might still have been able to gain enough allies, at least from Donald, and Goofy, to break the Second Keyblade War up.
As much as they'd kept avoiding it, it had been there all along.
The truth had been painted blotted white, bleached black, smeared transparent, and off gray, from the very beginning, itself.
It had been Sora, not Xehanort, who had unraveled the skein of the Keyblade War to its conclusion, after ageless eons.
Whatever his last act was, or drafts of acts he could choose between, that had been Sora's destiny, right around the corner.
That had been what Sora had been the child fated to actualize into accomplishment.
Sora, not Xehanort, had been etched to bring darkness to prevail, and light to expire.
And Kairi had been destined to be, not Sora's brightest light in the deepest darkness, but the accretion disk torch who guided him on his road to do so.
Kairi knew a lot of the details, and what they meant, but she still didn't know the total specifics of precisely how Sora had reacted, when Xehanort had struck her down.
Xion knew she was still holding onto the last gossamer shreds of strings she could grip, to keep from drowning, she hadn't turned Sora into an uttermost instrument of ruin.
Muted anger still thrummed through Xion at what she now perceived Kairi had kept from her.
Because, even though Sora deserved to be the one to do it
You don't know that for certain
You don't know why Kairi was crying when Sora fa
Xion was comparison less worse.
Even Riku, and Mickey, had let Kairi hold onto the last faint tatters of hope she could.
While no one else would even tell themselves.
Even Riku, and Roxas, couldn't gaze at that truth for what it was.
And that was, very possibly, part of, if not the sole, reason, Riku was Xion's Dream Eater.
As usual, he'd sensed the true danger to Sora, what Data-Namine had genuinely feared, what Ventus' Armored Nightmare had genuinely represented, and the essential reason Sora had trailed off when he'd claimed his friends were his power when he'd jumped back to the past.
Xehanort had, most likely, at least had the relative decency to do it, relatively, more humanely than Yozora had done it.
But he'd still done to Sora the same thing that Yozora had to Ava.
While even Ava hadn't almost erased all of the realm of light, if not the World.
She'd just been a catalyst that had fractured it into pieces, knowing they would remain as long as she followed the rest of her orders effectively.
And, whether he was willing to admit it, or not, more than a little, he'd been carrying the knowledge of what he'd done around with himself since then.
The here, and now, and Donald, Goofy, and Xion, had brought Sora back to his feet.
But that darkness had been there, since then, a conflagration of quantum particles cavorting at critical mass just waiting for whatever Yozora had written to coerce him into confronting it, in fathomlessly immeasurable more terrible ways than Zexion had forced Riku to confront doing the same thing to Destiny Islands.
Xion couldn't justify not letting tears out, at this.
However, for Elsa's sake, she couldn't.
Because, as Yozora's latest cosmic joke of futility in his everlasting spiral, at a time like this, that might be Xion's newest destiny.
Unbeknownst to Xehanort, himself, within a Kye-Blade that had already been there.
Xion knew that, itself, must be vital.
Xehanort hadn't recast the original Kye-Blade.
Sora already had.
Xehanort had smelted a second, brand new one.
Whatever that had accomplished, Xion knew that must be essential to why Luxu had believed his role was over before the Note Blade itself had been totally cast, itself.
If this was her current script, even if the Foretellers hadn't identified Goofy's strategy, Xion knew she wouldn't have even been able to take the chance of attempting to learn the ropes.
This was the same situation as why they'd searched for their guardians, before, and after, Xehanort had threatened Anna, Elsa, and Rapunzel.
And the springboard from which Goofy had gained his inspiration for their method of attempting to, not successfully fulfill, but defy, their destinies.
If Xion; with Riku, who had done for Xehanort's Heartless what Xion had for Xemnas, as her Dream Eater; told Sora, they might be able to be there for him, about this.
Then, Sora could be the one to tell Kairi.
Xion knew there could be any number of snares, in regards to this, however, with who knew how many of them feints that were hooks as insubstantial as a gossamer fishing net.
She also had no idea how much, or how little, time they had to tell Sora themselves.
Xion was now lighter.
Haste made waste, and it was, at least, likely enough the Foretellers wanted them to worry about how much time they had to assist Sora in confronting this.
Acting rashly, and swiftly, was too much of a risk of causing things to become worse.
And, when, at the least, this time, they'd all made it back home.
Merlin didn't count.
He'd had the chance to return Riku hadn't, when the front Door to Darkness had been closed, and he'd chosen to stay in the forest, with the Northuldrans, without anything preventing him from returning.
This was the first time they'd all made it back, and Xion could be reasonably confident the Foretellers wanted them to jump at the dimmest flickers of shadows, in regards to that.
So Xion could, at least, be reasonably sure they could risk not sprinting to Sora's side, and talk about this.
Not until Sora had gotten a chance to rest, and recover, from the morass he'd been asphyxiated by since he'd landed in Toy Box.
Xion could talk to Elsa.
"Even with how long ago they come from, should we really be maintaining the hearts of the ancient wielders, outside of Ven's, aren't connected to us any more than people from other worlds like Simba are?"
Xion suppressed the urge to start, at hearing Riku's voice, once more, contained worry in it.
Elsa, and Anna didn't react.
Mickey just shifted slightly, as though his heart had perceived something, but not as though he'd heard Riku.
Xion suppressed the urge to clench her teeth, a little.
That confirmed it.
No one but her could hear Riku, when he hadn't manifested as a Spirit.
She pushed away the surge of hate at the reminder of what she'd done to Ven.
Ven wasn't a prisoner.
Even, genuinely, in Halloween Town.
Far less someone else's heart.
However, he was still, literally, dead.
Though, he was with Jack Skellington, and Sally, and Doctor Finkelstein, and Bones, and the others; and even Lock, Shock, and Barrel. Even with what Maleficent was claiming, and implying, he could visit Christmas Town, and other worlds, and he wasn't much, if any, more restricted from doing so than anyone else who abided by the world order.
He was a lot better off than Roxas, and Namine, had been, and Xion had even unlocked his memories.
If Xion could confront what she did to them, she could do the same thing with Ven.
"I'm not saying this, just because Ava's heart is inside Kairi's, or because I once believed Kairi, Sora, and I shouldn't look out for anyone but ourselves, and perhaps Tidus,"
Xion couldn't justify pushing away the amalgamation of emotions that flooded her at the reminder of Tidus
"Wakka, and Selphie.
"That's too upfront for Yozora, assuming he isn't making an exception from his usual methods to throw us off.
"Remember the Reports from the real Ansem, and his belief the remaining mystery, about how Xehanort opened the world heart of Radiant Garden, was nothing more than a loose end?
"Another question we need to ask is why Ven had that vision of Kairi, to begin with."
Xion suppressed the urge to clench her teeth, closer to totally, at the awareness she'd overlooked that.
Before she could say anything, however, Kristoff raced from behind an igloo before them, and to their left, to run up in front of Elsa, and Anna, positioned closer to Anna, his face firmly set in studied neutrality.
Mare was right on his heels, her teeth clenched in more composure than usual, and she raced to Xion's left.
Xion let the corners of her lips curl up.
She was lighter at how it took no effort to smile, albeit with an exhaustedly hopeful one.
"Our scouts are in position, and all Arendellian civilians who didn't choose to take up arms to defend their home, of their own free will, are on their way to the ice palace to take refuge," Kristoff reported.
His voice was as composed as his visage.
"Companies of Arendelle's soldiers have set up fortifications, and breastworks, at the major bottlenecks in the pass leading to Arendelle from the direction of the North Mountain, and the fjord," he went on.
Mickey's face emptied of all emotion, but from his tautly thinned, composed expression, Xion knew he was taking this as all but a personal failure of almost everything he'd been raised to uphold, and promote.
Mare's hand fell onto Xion's shoulder, and she squeezed it with securely assuring and reassuring sustaining tightness she didn't release.
Xion's stomach somersaulted sickly, dragging her insides with it.
She could face this.
She'd weathered a localized war.
And many of the rising tensions, and flashpoints, that had brought it about.
She could confront the first battle; or skirmishes with single assassins, or squads; of a full scale war.
Even if it kicked off, or, it already had, a full scale interstellar war spanning all the stars.
"We have archers concealed behind spearmen, and spearwomen, on the slopes surrounding them; and as many intact carts with rags and cloths soaked in oil ready to roll down into the bottlenecks as we can find.
"Our other traps, and ambushes, are also in place.
"The trebuchets are also in place at the former harbor, loaded with not just solid ice, and boulders, but a minority of plies, and plans, we could find lying around. They've been arrayed as you requested to look as though you'll back them up with your talents.
"While the soldiers in the pass, and nearby, have their orders to cause their retreat to look like their lines have collapsed, thus luring the enemy in.
"Our relay system is in place, but still, no one has seen anyone."
A number of sentiments passed over Elsa's face.
She drew herself up into her entire regal poise.
Anna, finally, shifted slightly.
She sat up, and she turned her face, and eyes, to her sister.
She knew better than to smile with encouragement, however.
Xion was just as aware of this.
"As we assumed," Elsa intoned, and her voice was now nothing other than determined regality.
"Nevertheless, there is no time to summon Roxas to attend us.
"He has another duty to attend to.
Xion suppressed the urge to start in shocked surprise.
"We cannot let Grandpa," there was no shift in her voice at that, "or Hans, launch their first assault, small, or large, at a time, and place of their choosing.
"Now that the battlefield has been prepared, we must do the same for the battle.
"To that end, my first order is for anyone who is not of Arendelle to remain out of sight, and establish a convincing ruse that Arendelle is now at its weakest."
Anna shifted once more, less this time.
Mare clenched her hands into more composed fists.
Kristoff's face shifted.
Xion swept anything she was feeling to the side.
"When the Treaty of Flames launches its first assault, if Sora, and the others, can trace the connections of its soldiers, assassin, squads, or assassins back to Grandpa, Hans, and the Duke of Weselton, Roxas is to then utilize whatever form of pathway he chooses to move to their location, and bring them before me to be judged for high treason, and as a prisoner of war."
Elsa took a single, steadying, deep breath.
"Then let's get a m"
Elsa's intonations remained regal, and composed, concealing all evidence of what was passing inside her heart, and her thoughts' essence.
"Operation Nibelung Uroborus is now in effect, by my command."
.
"Come to me, my dark warriors! Battle awaits us!"-Lenneth Valkyrie, Begin Ordinary Battle Comment
VALKYRIE PROFILE