Beware the Frozen Heart Epilogue - Winter's Bite

Anna woke weeping.

There was no barrier between sleep and wakefulness, no blessed moment where she could convince herself that this was all a dream. She woke cold, shivering, helpless… and completely aware of how she she had ended up this way. She had fallen asleep yesterday from sheer exhaustion, crying as she pressed against her sleeping sister, her entire body hurting from what had been done to her even as the ice seemed to burn at her skin. Part of her was surprised that she could still feel anything at all… that it hadn’t done permanent damage by now. The rest of her understood. It didn’t because Elsa… her sister… didn’t want it to.

Elsa…

Anna wept more. What had happened to the sister she loved? When she had been grabbed out in the city, dragged into an alley, it had been the most terrifying moment of her life. As they had tied her up and put her down in the basement, she had felt just as helpless as she had the day Hans had left her die… stupid and worthless and weak. But then the men had laughed, and told her that her sister had paid her ransom, and she was going to be free to go. Anna was determined to make them regret it. They thought her some stupid, airheaded socialite… even if she had fallen into her trap like one, she wasn’t. They didn’t conceal their faces nearly well enough. She had seen most of them… was pretty sure she could recognize them. She knew who had done this. She would see them brought to justice for what they had done, once she was reunited with her sister.

And then her sister had…

Anna didn’t know what her sister had done. The things she had said… the things she had done… the things she had made Anna read in those letters… none of it seemed real. She wanted to reach out to her. To hold her. To tell her that she was forgiven, that everything was going to be ok… but Elsa was gone, vanished from the room before she had woken.

She needed to get free.

Anna began to scream for help, louder and louder. Elsa would hear, probably. She would come back and… and… hurt her again, but someone else would hear too. Together, they could bring Elsa back to her senses. Together, they could reach her, Anna knew it. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed… and no one came. No guards. No advisers or butler or maids or staff. No Elsa.

Something was wrong.

The ice was inflexible and strong as steel… but the bed sheets it was attached to were not, and the ice had frozen them solid. Anna thrashed violently on the bed until one bit of the sheet simply tore off beneath her right arm and it came free, bands of ice and all. Moving deliberately, Anna worked to free her other limbs the same way until, shivering, weak, exhausted, Anna was free. She rose quickly up, abruptly shy about her nakedness as she stood in the room… but she didn’t have time to try to wear something. She shoved open the door and…

…and also shrieked in embarrassment as a man was looking right at her. Duncan, one of the palace guards, his hand raised as if he were about to knock at the door and investigate the screaming coming from Elsa’s room. His eyes were wide in surprise as he looked at her, seeing the naked princess in all of her glory. “Duncan!” Anna cried, quickly trying to cover herself with her hands. “I need help! Elsa, she’s… something’s happened to her, I need… I need… I…”

Duncan wasn’t moving, and his eyes weren’t focusing. Now that she was calming she noticed he wasn’t really looking at her but simply straight ahead, at where the door had been. Looking right through her. In horror, Anna realized that he was completely coated, like someone had poured around him to make a perfect shell in his shape out of glass.

Not glass. Ice.

Horrified, Anna ran past him, calling for help… and finding others frozen the same way. The guards Samuel and Eli and Matthias. The butler Shen. The maid Jezelyn. Even Kai… all of them frozen in place, transformed into perfect, motionless statues of ice. Frozen by her sister.

Anna ran to the door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t open. She ran back into the hallway, grabbing one of the heavy chairs… too large for her to lift comfortably, but she brought it down against the door over and over again until it broken, and the gates didn’t budge. Eventually, she threw it at one of the glass windows…

And it bounced off, breaking into pieces.

Awed, Anna put her hand against the window… and found it cold. Frozen over… just like everything else. She could, however, still see through it.

She could see her sister, standing in the town square, wearing black. She could see it as she knelt on the ground, conjuring dark shape after dark shape out of the ice and sending them off into the world. She could see it as the first snowflakes began to fall down out of the sky.

The world was a vile, wicked place.

Elsa wore black as she stood in the middle of town, her gown harsh and cut in sharp, dark lines. She had to resist the urge to pace, as especially as the calls from the crowd got louder. They said it was cold. They asked what they were doing here. Some of them, the more perceptive ones, called out for mercy. She ignored all of them.

One, two, five, a dozen at a time, her soldiers – constructs of dark, nearly black ice that seemed to shimmer in the fallen snow – marched her people into the same town square they had raped her in… my. Had it really been less than twenty four hours ago that the last one had finished with her? It seemed so much longer. Her eyes lingered on the raised platform, the stockade still there. A reminder.

She didn’t answer any of their shouts. Elsa couldn’t care less what any of the monsters had to say, not anymore. They were either the kidnappers, or complicit in their schemes… each and every one of them. The first wave of guards she had conjured had left the city, stalking out into the countryside and looking for people fleeing. Already some had been brought back. Maybe the kidnappers were among them. Maybe not. Either way, they wouldn’t get far… she would get everyone before too long. They would all face justice.

It took six hours before everyone was here. A weak mass of crying, shouting, shivering men and women, kneeling in the cold, watched over by dark figures like black knights out of old stories. Really. After what they had done, how they had looked at her when she was the helpless one, did they expect their display to provoke pity? It was pathetic. Face the justice for your deed like adults.

The snow was up above her ankles as Elsa began to speak… and then to sing.

The road ahead is deserted and dead,

not a person to be seen

A kingdom of desolation

and it looks like I’m the queen

For my whole life

I’ve done exactly as I should

But now I know,

none of this world is good…

They said ‘be nice’, they said ‘be kind,’‘

"Wear a mask, and never speak your mind,’‘

"Your people need you, you have to care…"

Well I don’t care!

Let it out, let it out,

Won’t hold it back any more

Let it out, let it out,

Shut them out and lock the door

I won’t care if I cause distress

They will all bow down

Let the world feel the depths of its wickedness

It’s funny how some distance

Makes all of you seem small,

And the fears that once controlled me

Can’t get to me at all!

Let the whole world draw back in fear,

My coronation day is here!

Too late for mercy now from me…

I’m free!

Let it out, let it out,

Let them beg and let them plead!

Let it out, let it out,

Their complaining I won’t heed!

I’m your queen, You will all obey!

All the world bows down…

My power grows within me feeding on my hate...

Save your excuses and apologies ’cause it’s too late

To try to change my mind,

or force me to give in!

You’ve begun a war which I intend to win!

Let it out, let it out,

Let the winds of winter roar!

Let it out, let it out!

I will never be your whore!

Here I stand,

Cold and merciless!

You will all bow DOWN…

Elsa lowered her hands, looking out over the assembled crowd… all of them covered in a thin layer of impervious ice, preserved in a perfect prison by her magic. She didn’t know if she could find any citizens worthy of a queen like her… but she already knew that she would have to search elsewhere to find out. These had already proved themselves as scum.

She could feel the blizzard she had conjured growing, spreading, gaining in intensity as it gained in size, spinning out from Arandelle to consume the world. All the world would bow to its queen… or they would starve in eternal winter. Already, messenger birds of ice that would never tire were flying to distant kingdoms, carrying her demands with them. Whispering, she voiced the final line.

Let the world feel the depths of its wickedness…

Smiling to herself in satisfaction, Elsa turned and began to stride back towards her palace… or what was her palace for now. She still owed Anna some citizens to rape her senseless. She would have to go find some worthy of the task. In the meantime, it was time to see if her tongue was feeling any better…