Many Beauty and the Many Beast

by Felicity Collins

  I couldn't help but think of the mess I did here and what she did in Drakora. Skylynn and I did the same thing, but I screwed up and she didn't. What made me feel worse was that I gave her the instruments to reach her glory and I wasn't able to use them. She didn't even want to be queen! Landon had to propose to her twice before she accepted to marry him. But once he died, Skylynn worked her ass off and is fulfilling her duty as queen. Ever since I've known her, as time passed by, Skylynn was getting stronger and changing every day and now she is where she is because she never gave up… Elsa was right once again. When she said those things to me, Elsa had known my sister for barely two weeks and she knew more about her than I did in 14 years… and this scared me. The thin line that separated us and that I wanted to break, had just gotten thicker. Thick like a wall dividing a fortress from invaders.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was dawn and I was already being escorted by two guards to the sled where the blonde gorilla, Kristoff, was waiting for me, it was an ordinary day by now. After my time in the Southern Isles mines, I was used to wake up before dawn and head to work. Unlike the ice-harvesters, miners didn't need to wake up that early, but my brothers were nice enough to point out that unlike the other miners, who were honest men trying to work for a living, I was a treacherous convict who did not deserve any mercy. That meant that if at dawn it was possible to start working, the other inmates and I had to make ourselves useful at least to the miners and start working before their arrival. As for the job itself, ice-harvesting is hard work but at least it is not as dirty as mining and you get to work out in the open, rather than dusty caves.

  Of course, I was permanently shackled. The only moment in which my hands were free was while working as I had at least twenty eyes pointed at me. Not to mention that my shackles were exactly like the ones I had Elsa's hands put in. When I got to the sled, the guards gave Kristoff my shackle keys and helped me on the sled. As I was about to sit down next to the big guy, Kristoff stopped me.

  "No, no. You sit in the back today" he said

  "Why?" I asked eyeing him suspicious.

  "Kristoff! I'm here! Wait up!" Anna's voice said as she appeared from the palace doors in her winter attire.

  "There's your answer" Kristoff said and took a few steps towards her.

  "She's coming with us?" I asked surprised to see the princess.

  "She wants to see how we work and since she's my fiancée, I don't see why she can't come with me" Kristoff said eyeing me as if underlining the fact that Anna was engaged to him.

  "Sorry, I couldn't find my boots and I didn't want to wake up Elsa" Anna said hugging him as she got to us "So, are we going?" then she saw me and her cheerful face fell "Please don't tell me he's riding with us"

  "Sorry, Queen's orders" Kristoff said.

  "At least put the work tools on the front" Anna said "I wouldn't want to come back with an axe in my neck" she said glaring intensely at me.

  "Tempting, really. But as you can see" I said holding my shackled hands up "My hands are shackled" I paused and smirked at her "Too bad Elsa isn't coming with us, I wonder if she remembers these shackles"

  "Okay, that's enough! Let's go" Kristoff thundered before Anna could snap something back and grabbed me from the collar of the wool coat, just like his, pulled me off the sled and helped me up in the back as Anna took my previous seat. While we were going up in the mountains, Anna wouldn't stop glancing back at me every five seconds. There was much more tension in the air than there usually was. When it was just Kristoff and I, the big guy would just glance at me every now and then and not say a thing. Anna looked like she was about to throttle me if I just dared to open my mouth to say the wrong thing, which was basically everything, but having her glance at me every two seconds and glaring was seriously getting on my nerves.

  "Will you stop that?" I snapped when I couldn't take it anymore "Stop looking at me every two seconds, it's annoying"

  "Well, excuse me. I'm not the attempted murderer who is sitting two inches away from ice cutting tools" she snapped back.

  "Oh, and I thought you were just checking me out"

  "For your information, I'm engaged and Kristoff over here is a thousand times better than you" she snapped back

  "Funny, coming from the reckless fool who wanted to marry a stranger" I challenged "But back to the topic, stop looking at me. First of all, it's annoying. Second, let me remind you I'm shackled. I'm harmless"

  "Funny, coming from the one who was about to chop my sister's head off with a sword"

  "Guys" Kristoff said trying to get in between.

  "Considering I had ordered an execution for her without a problem I don't think she would have been missed much" I snapped. Anna glared at me intensely.

  "At least she would have been missed by more than just one person unlike you" she snapped. I tensed up and glared back

  "Anna, it's not worth it" Kristoff said

  "And if she were in your shoes, Elsa would be doing anything in her power to make up for her mistakes, as well as being extremely careful not to make another because she would never forgive herself for being selfish and still alive… because she let her sister die" she said with as much venom as she could muster and I snapped.

  "Don't you dare blame that on me too! I didn't ask Skylynn to put her neck on the line for me!" I shouted.

  "Then I would think twice before doing something that would get my sister executed. But I guess you wouldn't care, after all, you can't feel anything with a frozen heart" she snapped.

  "Anna!" exclaimed Kristoff.

  "Listen up you little!-" I was cut off, falling face first behind Anna and Kristoff's seat, hitting my head on the back of the seat, when the mountain-man instantly stopped the sled and grabbed Anna before she could fall over.

  "We're here and that's enough! Anna, you stay here. You get off this sled. NOW" he thundered pointing at me.

  "Oh, I'm still recovering from serious wound infections and you made me hit my head, but I'm fine! Thank you for asking" I complained but followed his orders.

  "You shut your mouth!" he snapped "Now you see those guys over there?" he said pointing at the ice harvesters already at work as he unshackled me. We were in the high mountains where the ice never melts. Snow covered the mountains while the lake's surface was solid ice.

  "Yeah?" I said smugly.

  "They will introduce you to someone and then tell you what to do" he said "Go. One wrong move-"

  "Yeah, yeah! And I can kiss my freedom good-bye. This is getting old"

  "Listen to me very carefully, pretty boy" the blonde gorilla said grabbing the collar of my coat with a hand "I don't like you. I don't like you for what you did to Anna, I don't like you for what you did to Elsa, and I don't like you in general. You're a just a disrespectful, ungrateful, lying, manipulative, power hungry sociopath, who should consider himself lucky that Elsa and Anna have been so merciful of you. Next time you talk to my fiancée like that again, recovered or not, I'm going to kick your ass. Am I clear?" Kristoff snapped

  "Crystal" I said. I'm not going to lie. BBG a.k.a. Big Blonde Gorilla can be intimidating.

  "Good" he let go of my coat "Now get to work" I immediately obliged. I looked back only once to see Anna smirking triumphantly at me and giving Kristoff a hug after jumping down the sled, only to be welcomed by his scolding look. I shook my head and walked to the ice harvesters who immediately started mocking me when I got there.

  "If it isn't the Fallen Prince" said the first big guy who saw me

  "Hey, he passed the second week and isn't complaining yet. Not bad for a shrimp like him" said another.

  "Wait until he is recovered, then you'll see how he's going to beg for a break" mocked another.

  "Master Ice Harvester said you wanted to introduce me to someone" I said not bothering to answer them.

  "Oh, yes. We did" said one with two big mustaches "Come over, pretty boy" I rolled my eyes but followed him. I couldn't help but feel nervous as I followed this guy,
simply because I had other 20 looking at me and the others were either working or still to come. Plus, I am 6'1" and I am the shortest of all… that's saying something.

  "Here" the ice-harvester said "Meet Mr. Hook" and he threw me a metal bar with a hook that I easily caught "And this is Mr. Saw" he said and handed me a really heavy saw I saw them use to cut the ice "Now, you take these two, you cut a big ice pool and with the hook you take it out of the water and put it near the lifting machine. We will do the rest" he said "Now run along. Have fun"

  "Hooray…" I mumbled and carried the heavy tools with me until I found the perfect spot, the ice seemed solid enough and it wasn't too far from the machines. I put down the hook, grabbed the saw and immediately got to work. I'm going to repeat it, working with the ice harvesters was hard and Kristoff was still going easy on me because I was recovering, but there was something positive in this: the sights. When we first arrived here it was freezing cold and the sunrise made the snow from the higher mountains turn into light shades of pink that, as the sun got higher, became orange until the snow got back to its white color when the sun rose completely, but those few hours of sunrise were beautiful and comforting in away.

  I don't know for how long I had been working, I just knew that I was so hot I would have taken my coat off if it wasn't because I knew that having sweat freeze on me wasn't exactly the most brilliant idea, good thing I didn't have a hat. To top it all, my back was killing me. I had to take a break. The only nice thing Kristoff had said to me, so far, was that when I felt the need I could take some time off, but made it clear to specify that I was allowed to do so only if necessary. I got out of the water one last ice block and pushed it near the lifting machine with the others, luckily it was the last of the series so I could relax a bit, while the others lifted it up on the sleds. I sat down next to the machine, resting my back for a while. In the meantime, I entertained myself looking at Anna who was having trouble getting a block of ice out of the water. I chuckled lightly as I watched her struggling to lift it up. She wasn't too far away from me, in fact I believe she heard me snickering behind her, as she turned around to send me a glare, but kept on trying, clearly not wanting to give up and probably prove a point to me.

  Soon enough Kristoff came along and told her to let him do it, but she stubbornly kept going, not even allowing him to get close to the ice block. He sighed and shook his head. Then Anna, surprisingly managed to lift the ice block out of the water and put it on the ground, only to slip on the ice and fall on her butt afterwards. I couldn't stop myself from chuckling, good thing they weren't looking at me, too wrapped up in their own laughing. Kristoff immediately helped the laughing Anna up, but before he could say anything, she had already grabbed one of the hooks and started pushing the ice block towards the lifting machine, BBG trailing behind her just in case. As they got closer, I stood up and dusted myself off the snow, taking it as my cue to go back to work, then I heard the typical snapping sound of a broken rope.

  "WATCH OUT!" a man had shouted. I didn't realize that the rope lifting up the ice cargo had snapped… and I was right underneath it. The moment I realized I was about to get squashed like a bug by the ice, someone tackled me to the ground and the ice crashed a few feet away from us. But that didn't stop me from yelping in pain and squeezing my eyes shut when my back touched the hard ice, ignoring the light weight of the person who tackled me, whom I felt immediately getting up.

  "Anna! Are you alright?" I heard Kristoff ask as he got closer to me.

  "Yeah, I'm fine" I heard Anna answer "Hans are you okay?" she asked me.

  "My back… I think a wound or two reopened…" I said through gritted teeth "Geez! It hurts!"

  "Let me see" Kristoff said and carefully helped me sit up. I painfully lifted up my shirt and coat so that Kristoff could take a peek, only to have him make me pull my clothes back down immediately "A couple of wounds reopened and you're bleeding. I have to take you back, you need a doctor" he said "Is everyone alright?" he asked to the others and received positive responses "Alfred, Edvard, Klemens" he said pointing to a few ice harvesters "You guys repair the lifting machine. Gregor, Baldor, Kaspar" he pointed to others "You guys clear out this mess. The rest of you get back to work. I'll be back shortly" he said and helped me up and to the sled, Anna trailing behind us. "Anna, stay here next to him" Kristoff said. I thought she was going to complain, but she didn't and obliged, surprising me even more when she took off her cape and put it on my back. Then it dawned on me.

  "Princess Anna…you… you just saved my life" I said looking at her incredulously "That thing would have squashed me, if you hadn't push me away"

  "Yup! I did save you. Now you know that's my specialty" she said with a smile.

  "But you hate me. Why?"

  "I saved him from wolves once" she said pointing to Kristoff "I can save you too" she answered. No one said anything afterwards and I couldn't help but feel like a worthless worm even more, knowing that I tried to kill her and Anna saved my life… when she had no need to… or obligation… she could have let me die and have me out of her life forever… but she didn't… she saved me when I left her to die…

  When we came back and the doctor took care of my wounds, Skylynn was the first to burst inside the room and ask me how I was and what happened and instead of answering like a normal person, I snapped back like an angry dog. No wonder why Skylynn got angry this time and got out of the room like a tornado. I instantly felt bad… I was angry with myself and I had taken it out yelling at her. This didn't help at all with the inner turmoil I was going through at the moment… I had just brought myself lower than I already was.

  Elsa's POV:

  If on one side I was out of my mind with worry and was tempted to scold both her and Kristoff, on the other I was proud of Anna. That was my sister, she was always there to help those in need. No matter who they were. Hans was about to get crushed by a heavy load of ice and Anna reacted bravely, because she has a heart of gold. When she told me that she saved Hans, something came into my mind, though. Maybe this accident after my attempt to knock some sense into him did something. I needed to speak with him. Anna didn't head back to the mountains as she said that she had her ice harvesting share for the day. She decided to go to town with Olaf before her lute lessons with Skylynn, instead. Kristoff, though, headed back.

  As soon as I was finished with my reunion with my new commission of ministers, I went to see Hans. Part of me was not even sure where to start, but we needed to talk. When I was about to get to the door, though, Skylynn burst out of the room and stormed in my direction, visibly irritated, but greeted me with a nod of the head, anyway.

  "Hold on a moment. Not so fast" I said putting an arm in front of her "What happened?"

  "He- I-… Hans- he's just- I just-… ARGH!" she muttered angrily.

  "Listen, if you killed him, I don't want to know. Make up a plausible excuse and let someone else find the corpse, because I've had enough 'I-Killed-My-Sibling' issues to last me a lifetime"

  "No! I didn't kill him… yet" she said.

  "Okay, that's a good start- Wait-what?!"

  "Too bad he shaved off his sideburns because, frankly, the first thing I wanted to do was rip them off and choked him with them… Like you do with a rope, you know?" I raised my eyebrows and blinked. Silence… then… I voiced my thoughts

  "You're a psychopath"

  "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. There's a difference in that" she answered. I shook my head inhaling deeply.

  "What happened?" I asked

  "Him being a utter dick. That's what happened!" I raised my eyebrows.

  "Well, that makes sense" Skylynn took a deep breath closing her eyes.

  "I need to relax a moment. I'll go ride Black Beauty, you want to join me?" she asked.

  "I'll have to pass for today. Maybe next time" I answered.

  "I count on it. I'll see you later" and with that, she left. Considering that Hans had actually managed to tick Skylynn off
, it was probably best to see him later. So I turned on my heals and went to take care of the boring paperwork I had to look over.

  After dinner and my usual book reading time, I finally went to see Hans. It wasn't too late in the evening, so he was probably still awake. As I walked through the corridor, I saw the guards were at their place, as usual. The reason of what I did next are unknown to me, but I did. Part of me just told me it was the right thing to do: speaking to him privately with no one around risking to hear him.

  "Guards" I said

  "Yes, your Majesty?" they replied

  "Leave the door and come back in half an hour" I said

  "Your Majesty, are you sure?" said one of the guards.

  "I need to speak with the prisoner about a certain matter and for the sake of his privacy, I want to make sure no one is listening"

  "But, your Majesty. Are you sure it isn't dangerous for you to be alone around him?" asked the other man.

  "Trying something would be foolish, he knows that, but thank you for your concern" I replied

  "As you wish, my Queen" said the other soldier and as they left, I silently opened the door only to draw it back close the moment I saw Skylynn inside the room talking to Hans. I kept the door opened just enough so I could watch. She was standing up while he was sitting on the bed. I know, I wasn't supposed to eavesdrop, but I did anyway.

  "We took different paths, Hans" Skylynn was saying "It's not like we're in a hiking competition"

  "Isn't it though?" Hans answered in a depressed like way "Because since things happened I kept feeling like we're climbing this mountain together and you are just so far ahead, much closer to the top than I am… that…" he paused "You know when we were younger I liked the fact you would look up to me. I liked that I, being your big brother, was the one protecting you from our psycho siblings. I like the fact that I was your mentor and the first person you would go looking for, for help and support" he paused "And now I look at your life and even with all the crap and pressures you had and still have to deal with, I can't help but see how much our paths have taken different turns"