What if Hans had kissed Anna?
He kisses her.
It's a short, business-like kiss, but Anna likes it. It feels nice.
"Did it work?" She looks up into Hans' solemn face, her own expression eager, trusting. So trusting.
She doesn't feel any different. She still feels cold to her very bone despite the blazing fire. Her heart still throbs in her chest, leaden. But maybe it just takes a little time. Of course it worked.
"Of course it worked." Hans voices her thoughts exactly, and she smiles, though it hurts to smile.
"Our mental synchronization," she whispers to herself, eyes fluttering closed.
Hans, too, smiles, wrapping a thick wool blanket closer around her, movements brisk and harried. "Can have but one explanation."
A gust of frigid wind blows the window open and howls into the room. Hans curses and slams the shutters closed.
"I have to leave, darling. Urgent business--the kingdom is desperate. The fire is hot, you'll be fine. Just wait here and get your strength back."
She nods imperceptibly, tucking her chin in under the blankets. "Meant to be," Anna
says, dazed. Why does she see the full moon dancing before her eyes? It isn't night. Is it?
She hears him leave, his boots soft on the carpet. She hears him close the door quietly behind him.
She doesn't hear him turn the key and lock her in.
~~~
Kristoff's work in Arendelle is done. Broad shoulders slumped, he begins the long, weary trek back up the mountain.
Then Sven is nudging at him, forcing him to look back. He doesn't want to look back, but he does.
And the worst storm he's ever seen brews above the castle. A massive, hulking thing, it swirls slowly, stirring up shreds of white and grey. It looks like a crouching animal made of cloud, and it threatens to spill over any minute, onto hapless Arendelle, onto the castle, onto Anna.
Kristoff shakes his head. She's with her true love. She'll be fine.
But will she?
As he wavers, worry gnawing at his stomach, Sven pushes him hard with spiky antlers. The mountain man glares. The reindeer simply makes a face and nods towards the castle.
Before Kristoff even knows what is happening, they're charging back down the mountain, back down the paths they trudged moments ago, this time their flight wild and determined as if driven madly by an unseen force.
~~~
Anna's sunk into a hazy sleep when a loud crash wakes her again. She starts from the sofa, afraid for a second, then realises that it's just the window. It's blown open, again.
Hans said to rest, but the banging shutter annoys her, so she swings her legs off the sofa and attempts to stand.
Her legs feel stiff and hard, like they're carved out of oak, and she only takes one step before she falls with a little gasp. A hand strikes the table, sending pain shooting up her arms. Anna looks at her hand, and for a moment is seized by paralyzing fear. Tendrils of ice reach through the skin, forming patterns almost like the rosemaling on her woven skirt, stinging like acid. They'd be beautiful if they weren't so terrible.
It should be working by now. Why isn't it working?
The window still stays open. The wind still screams through the room. Anna curls into herself at the foot of the sofa. She can't reach it. It's too far.
She's too cold.
~~~
Sven pounds down the mountain, Kristoff clinging tight to his rough fur. Both of them are silent save for heavy breaths as they race through the forest, down into the valley, into the city. They enter the castle complex. The reindeer's hooves coax sparks from the cobblestones.
Anna. She'll be alright, Kristoff tells himself, but he can't shake this feeling in his chest that something's gone terribly, terribly wrong. And Sven seems to feel the same.
At any rate, it can't hurt to see her again, one last time.
They blaze through the main square, but are stopped at the castle gates by the guards. Desperately, Kristoff tries to explain his mission, resisting the urge to pound on the heavy doors that separate Anna from him and Sven. Either he isn't making any sense, or he just looks too disreputable, because the guards dismiss him in no uncertain terms.
Kristoff lets out a groan of frustration, tugging at his own blond hair. Then he sees a man about to make a delivery of wood at the side gate.
He scoops up a handful of wood from the cart, leaves Sven behind and slips into the castle seconds before the gate slams shut.
~~~
Anna can feel the wooden floor through the carpet as she hugs her arms to herself. Her bones ache with an old sort of ache. Out of the corner of her eye she sees white snake its way down her carrot braid, turning it into a rope of ivory.
Her heavy cape does nothing for her. This cold comes from the inside.
For the millionth time her heart stabs in her chest, sending out needle-like icicles that reach to pierce her lungs. Anna cries out sharply, but there's no one to hear. She tries to take deep breaths. They come out short and ragged.
She pictures the curse creeping up her limbs, weaving into her skin, turning flesh and blood and bone into ice. She wonders which part will freeze last.
She wants to scream, but she can't. Her voice sticks in her throat, and even the effort causes a ringing agony to spread across her chest.
Sleep starts to tug at the edges of her vision. The pain dulls, heart growing heavy in her chest.
Ice. Ice, like fire, consumes all.
It didn't work. Why didn't it work?
This is her last thought before she sinks into the black, black cold.
~~~
By the time Kristoff breaks into the room, wood splintering beneath his fists, it is too late.
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