FIYEEEEROOOOOO

And Elsa caught her breath, Elsa pulled herself to her feet, and the thought hit her.

 

Elsa let go of her sister’s corpse. Hans scrabbled for his broken sword. “You said she was already dead.”

 

Hans managed to grab the hilt and staggered to his feet. “She—she was—I thought she was—”

 

“Liar.” The wind pushed her forward.

 

Hans face darkened. He hefted the blade and glared down its edge. It was a foot long and jagged where it had shattered, glinting silver, silver like the streak in Anna’s hair. “I’m sorry, Queen Elsa.” Hans pointed the tip at her throat. “This is the only way to save Arrendelle.”

 

He lunged. Elsa threw up her hands and braced herself for the blow.

 

But it never came. She opened her eyes and saw Hans gaping, throat pulsing red around a shard of ice. He tumbled to the ground. The snow ran crimson.

 

Elsa pulled her hands against her chest. The dignitaries gasped.

 

The Duke of Weselton broke the silence. “Kill her, someone,” he said. “Kill the witch.”

 

Anna’s friend, the blonde boy, ran between her and the guards, Arrendelle’s guards. They were trading glances. One of them was loading a bolt. “It was an accident!” He turned to look at her. He tried to yell something else, but a sob ate the words. He took a step towards her, reached out a hand.

 

“Don’t come closer!” Her voice was shrill in the wind. “Don’t touch me!”

 

The ice slashed a thin line against his cheek. The man stepped back, closed his mouth.

 

“Nobody touch me.” /I need to go, I need to go/, she thought, and hurled the thought onto the ice. The guards were yelling something, but the rapidly growing mound of snow on the ice—the beast, a hulking beast with six arms and demon’s wings, a beast with a crest like Elsa’s hair—roared and drowned them out. It cradled Anna's corpse against its chest. Elsa stepped on the hand it lowered for her and clambered on the ridge of its back, wrapped her arms around its neck. It pelted into the storm. The beast stretched its wings, caught the wind, and the ground dropped out of Elsa’s world for the second time that day.

 

 

                                *               *               *

 

 

"You would have loved it, flying," Elsa told the boots of the corpse. The snow was as good a pillow as any. "It's like ice skating."

 

The wind howled outside and the beast did too. The second fortress had been easier to raise than the first, had taken less time, reached twice the height. It clawed its way out of the side of the mountain. The walls careened into the floors. This room had a floor sloped so steeply that Elsa and her sister would have tumbled down into the bottom corner if the Queen hadn't raised a second platform, jutting forward and nearly perpendicular to the ground. It didn't quite shake in the wind, but the building moaned with every updraft.

 

Elsa pushed herself into a sitting position and hugged her knees, stared at her sister's shins. "It's okay, I can fix this." She pulled herself to her knees and pressed her shaking hands against the statue's abdomen, breathed out. Pictured the girl running across the halls, breezing through a dance, rapping a door with her knuckles. Opened her eyes.

 

The statue gleamed dully in the bits of sunlight that refracted this far inside the fortress, motionless.

 

Elsa cradled her head in her arms and apologized.

 

Elsa felt a hand on her shoulder. It was cool against her skin.