He awakens under the canopy of frosted boughs.
It is still dark, but there's an aura of orange light winking in the skies, like lightning behind clouds.
Swimming back to semi-consciousness, the very essence of thought has his head aching like a blacksmith's anvil. Slowly his senses come back, one by one: the smell of burning wood and its thick smoke; the sight of the darkened night sky, a few grey clouds stretching across its expanse; the feeling of snow beneath his back, his head . . .
Snow, but it's still summer here. Here, in Arendelle.
Taking a deep breath, the world tilting left and right, Michael slowly blinks and tries to remember his breathing. He rolls to his side, finding an edge in the snow beneath him. Reaching out his arm, he feels the blades of wet grass at his fingertips, the cold of the snow at his wrist.
He can feel the snow, yet he can't feel it cling to his clothes – in fact, his clothes don't even feel wet . . . On his shirt and pants and boots are streaks of dirt and gravel chalk. It seems like someone dragged him from the temple.
Is this still a dream . . .?
Whatever.
Michael forces himself to roll onto his stomach, letting his head rest against frigid, white cradle. Despite how hot his body feels, the snow doesn't melt upon the touch of his forehead.
Sweet, cold and frigid snow.
Quicker than he'd like, the smell wafts to his nose. There is vomit on his shirt and pants. And then there is . . . He wet himself.
His face heats, but he shoves away the thoughts about why he pissed himself, why he'd hurled his guts up.
And that last thought, about the fire, the magic . . .
"Michael," a voice says with a gentle croon behind him. He doesn't hide his groan, his irritated exhale at the thought of having to turn on his other side when the world is just starting to settle –
Footsteps crunch the grass behind him, slowly making their way around to his front. Despite the exhaustion, his back still tightens, feeling it arc like a cat at the sounds in his ears.
The skirt of a periwinkle gown, along with some slippered feet steps into his view, the skirt pooling and gathering as the Princess of Arendelle kneels before him, her freckled hand reaching out to him.
Michael blinks and breathes as his vision blurs in and out, switching between focusing on the princess's face, or the full moon behind her.
"Anna," he manages to grumble. Gods his voice is like sandpaper, and his lips feeling cracked they're so dry. "What - ?"
The princess quiets him. "Take it easy. You're going to be fine."
Strong and leveled words, but she can't hide the haunted look in her eyes, the pinching of her brows as she looks at him.
At this point, Michael doesn't care, he's beyond care about his appearance. All of that was flayed under the choking flames of the magic.
However, the smell of snow-covered lilacs manages to push away the smell of his own filth, as well as ignite, something in his mind to make him turn to his right side.
Head throbbing, he finds the Queen of Arendelle standing a few feet away from him, her hair billowing in a hollow breeze, monstering the smoldering temple ruins ahead.
Michael's eyes flick to the temple, to the trees beyond.
The forest is burning all around the temple in a radius he doesn't have the nerve to measure. Anything that was there before is gone, as well as the grass, and the dirt.
Only blackness all around, and the smothering shroud of grey smoke.
Yet the temple remains intact. The stones still shine brightly, near golden in the light of the flames. Untouched.
Michael stares in horror as he pushes himself to his feet. Anna protests, but he waves her off, resulting in her helping him to his feet. Elsa doesn't turn to look at them. Supporting himself on the thick trunk of the tree, Michael watches as veils of snow pick themselves up, almost seemingly sentient, and undulate towards the flames.
How long has she been working to suffocate them?
"She's been at it for almost an hour." Anna mumbles, reading the question on his face. "Kristoff and Sven were here earlier, but we sent them back to control and disperse the people who were at the ball."
That may explain who might've dragged him from the temple.
"Was he alright?" Michael asks.
"A little choked up, but he claims he's been through worse." Says the princess with a breathless chuckle.
Michael looks over to Elsa, who still hasn't turned to look at either of them.
"Is she alright?" Gods his throat burns.
Anna shrugs her shoulders. "She hasn't said a word since she started, and I didn't want to break her concentration. She only told me to keep an eye on you."
Looking at her again, Michael fights a tremble that threatens to rattle his body. How much power could she have? To try and extinguish all that fire, as well as making sure the pile of snow he was on didn't melt a single flake, to keep that snowman Olaf alive . . .
Michael pushes off of the tree and staggers towards the queen, her spine steeled and unfaltering. She doesn't even acknowledge his presence as he steps up to her side.
After a long, silent moment, he asks, "Can you put it out?"
A terse nod. "I'm almost done." In a moment, the flames closest to Arendelle's walls goes out. "We can't have something or someone being attracted to your fires."
Though her voice is steady, Michael can hear the exhaustion.
This is a weapon, this power. A different sort of weapon than blades and arrows.
It is a curse.
And a horrible, disgusting part of him despises the sudden understanding he has towards the former king of his own kingdom. The part that is beginning to make sense of why he despised magic and didn't trust its wielders. He never had the guts to send his troops out and slaughter all of them, not with the already growing rebellion. But still . . . .
"You should be careful. You don't want to burn yourself out." he says.
"How do you mean?"
Michael glances to the far left over as another large section of the fires extinguishes like a candle. "All magic wielders have a bottom, a limit to their power. The breaking point. Those with weaker gifts can deplete it easily, but in turn, it easily refills. But those with stronger gifts can take hours to reach their bottom, to summon their power at full strength."
Finally, Elsa turns to look at him. He could've sworn she seemed paler, about ready to collapse once she snaps the netting she's casted across the sea of flames. "What about you? "Did you reach the bottom of it?"
"No. There wasn't any. But, maybe mine was just nonexistent due to the runes."
Elsa nods, slowly turning her gaze back towards the darkening circle. "What were those, runes?"
"I don't know. Another kind of ancient language, one that I didn't recognize."
"And that woman?"
Michael grows as still as death. "I don't know." He rubs his arms as an unsettling warmth tickles its way up to his shoulder. It is quickly darkened into anger. "But I plan to find out. She said some, interesting things. But we can talk about it back at the palace."
Another stiff nod. Anna approaches his left, arms folded. After another moment of watching Elsa suffocate the flames, she asks, "Did you manage to grasp your magic? Did you get a sense of how it felt?"
"It seemed like a tether at first, but then that tether led to a well. A well that opened up wide."
Another nod.
"Some of the wielders in the rebellion told me how some use runes to summon such powers. Some use it to control them. I've read ancient tomes that spoke of how primitive tribes tattoo themselves with such runes as a form of permanent restraint on their abilities. Sometimes even inserting iron bits into their arms or stomachs." Another breeze carries a heavier shroud of snow and more of the flames die. "You can do other things at the same time, but there is always some part of you that is in there, pulling up more and more, until you reach the bottom."
"Does it normally do that – just releases itself in some giant wave?" Anna asks this time.
"Keep in mind my situation is different. I had runes practically overflowing my well until top and bottom and in between didn't exist. But to answer your question: no, that doesn't happen. Some can do it if they want to; some choose to release it in smaller bursts and can go on for hours. But it is hard to hold back. Many can't tell friend from foe when handling magic like that."
"That's why it takes time for them to recover." Elsa finishes. Michael nods thinking back to how healers would spend days out of work after fixing a magical catastrophe or healing many of the soldiers. "Depending how they use it and how much they drain."
Anna hums once more.
"Some make the mistake of taking too much ahead of time, others hold onto it for too long and they burn out mentally, or physically. The shaking is my body's way of telling me not to do that again."
"I hope you're going to listen."
Michael nods, turning and walking back towards the circle of snow, dropping to the ground. He wants to bury himself in it. To cocoon himself in an icy tomb just to smother the flame and warmth that still sits within him.
With his mind clearing, his body seemingly starting to feel like his own again, a seed of realization sets in his head. Michael slowly looks to the sisters. Anna turns to him, Elsa next, taking a deep breath as she does.
When her eyes meet his, he can see her understanding darken them.
Taking a breath that rattles upon inhale, he asks, "How did you know?"
Anna freezes like a stag at gunpoint. Her eyes flick between him and her sister.
"How did you know?" he grinds out. The anger rises quicker than he expected, and for a moment, Michael fears he may have another explosion. He doesn't know if his magic is heavily fueled by emotions, so he tries to suffocate that heat of the anger, turning it cold and solid, like a freshly forged blade.
It's not better, because he can feel it fade into the frigid silence that's pulsed in place of his heart since that day he saw his father's head roll off the chopping block.
And Elsa, ever the graceful queen, simply squares her shoulders and says, "I had found out that day I had healed your arms, and your feet."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I was worried, Michael." She tries to stop the sharp, jagged breaths. "The way I had discovered it was so, intrusive, I was worried you'd be mad at me for the extreme invasion of privacy."
His blood roars in his ears, only fanned by the understanding, and worried quiver in her voice. She was going to tell him, he knew that, and it's now like anyone had expected him to find some ghostly goddess that would forcibly unleash his own magical abilities.
Still the haze starts to creep over his vision, his muscles seizing painfully, his fingertips curling as if imagining shredding into someone –
"I wish you'd have told me sooner." His voice is tight – cold. He sighs, shaking his head as his trembling hands fiddle with the clasp of his cloak.
"Michael," Anna croaks. "before you had your magical, frenzy, something happened. Something . . . changed."
Michael huddles further into the cloak, gripping the tree and forcing himself to his feet despite the barks of pain in his legs. Still the princess presses.
"It was like a fog vanished from your face; your features sharpened, your muscles expanded, becoming thicker and pronounced. Your form became more, detailed, somehow."
He doesn't want to remember. Not yet. Not when he won't be sleeping for weeks. Those feeling . . . That fire . . .
After a moment of silence, Michael mutters, "I'll meet you back at the castle."
The words were raw, broken.
"I'll come with you –" Elsa starts.
"No."
"You shouldn't be walking on your own. Your mask –"
"I said no." Michael seethes.
He pauses, folding in his lips at the outburst. He can sense the sisters growing still, the tension stretching between them until it trembles.
He understands.
Of course he understands why she was afraid to tell him.
But if he has to talk to someone, he'll explode. If he has to do anything right now other than walking –
"I'll meet you back at the castle." He repeats and starts the trek back to the castle.