Other Fan Fiction ❯ Reprise ❯ Paying Off Debts ( Chapter 39 )

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CHAPTER 39: Paying Off Debts

Boats stretched across the mighty fjord, facing outward. Each flew the dual flags of the Southern Isles and Weselton. Hans's flagship held behind the blockade, barely visible.

"Do you think this is going to work?" Ariel asked Rapunzel who steered.

"If Elsa believes it will work, I think so. She's confident enough of our powers."

At the bow, Elsa held a telescope to her eye. She stood like the maidenhead of the ship they were on.

"I just hope she's confident about hers."

Above the bowsprit was a gigantic copper cone, manned by an ensign. The wide end pointed at them, making them think it was some kind of cannon. But it was a megaphone, as they discovered when the captain spoke into it.

"Approaching vessel, lower your emblem and raise the white flag to signal your intent to surrender." The voice warbled across the water, echoing and distorting the words.

Ariel stepped up beside Elsa. "Isn't that cute? They think I'm going to surrender," Elsa said to her.

The opposing captain waited for them to make an intention toward the flagpole. When enough time had passed, he declared "Approaching vessel, signal your surrender."

Ariel raised her trident. "I can make your voice louder."

Elsa grinned and nodded.

"No." Her voice carried with the same volume and weight as Hans's.

"Queen Elsa, this doesn't have to be a bloodbath. Anchor your boat and we'll board you. We'll make this nice and quick."

"Remove your vessels from Arendelle waters," Elsa said. "Or we'll remove them for you."

The captain talked to someone at his side, then returned. "You can't seriously think you're going to overcome two combined navies. You have no armada."

"I have no armada?" Elsa said. She raised her hands. "I AM the armada."

Dark clouds crawled in from the edges of the horizon, surrounding their little section of ocean. A pelting ice rain fell, churning the waters and soaking all sailors to the bone with ice coldness. They could hear the distress from here.

"Cease this immediately or we will open fire. You've given us no choice."

Elsa nodded to Ariel. Her trident stopped glowing as the magic surrounding her voice ceased. "No choice? I'll show you what it's like to have no choice," Elsa muttered. "Full sail."

Ariel and Rapunzel scattered across the ship, readying sails and ropes. Ariel shot a beam into the water, creating a firm wave that pushed them forward. Rapunzel hooked her hair across riggings and swung to each mast, letting out the sails to their maximum spread.

Cannons boomed through the hazy mist of the cold rain. They fell short of the bow.

"Ariel, need you at the front. Rapunzel-"

"I got it," she shouted from the crow's nest, where she already was. "Three-quarters north by northwest."

As Rapunzel called out the location of the next ships to open their cannonade, Elsa focused her attention. Giant icicles dropped out of the clouds, falling in slow motion onto the ships. The icicles exploded into shards as sailors ejected off deck. One ship careened onto its side, already halfway sunk, as the two next to it rocked back and forth.

More cannons. Their whistling call narrowed the gap, prickling their hairs on their necks. Ariel shot the closest. The iron globe disintegrated in a ball of gold light. Another exploded out. Ariel shot that too.

Elsa dropped three more icicles on ships near Hans's. Like divine angels of retribution descending the heavens. They fell as slow as molasses, giving the enemy time to ponder their fate.

"Northwest," Rapunzel shouted. She lassoed the crow's nest crossbar and swung down to the deck, rejoining her two friends. "They're pulling away."

"But Hans's ship is still there- whoop!" Ariel caught sight of a cannon ball mere yards away before destroying it. "It's harder to spot them in time." A boom to the left. Ariel had to fire three times before hitting it.

"No one hurts my friends." Elsa spread out her arms, controlling the storm, the icicles, and now, the snowballs knocking the cannonballs off course. Lead shot crashed into them with an awful tinkling sound.

The temperature around Elsa dropped suddenly enough to make Rapunzel shiver. She looked at Elsa. Her eyes were white. Frost was dripping down her outstretched arms.

"Elsa, be careful," Rapunzel said. "You're using too much power."

This was what she was afraid of. Elsa's power was their best chance at surviving. But that meant putting herself at risk to become a heartless monster again. Rapunzel tugged at Elsa's arm.

"Power? I'll show them power," Elsa said.

A line of icicles stabbed out of the frothing water, trailing towards the ship left of Hans. They speared the boat through its belly.

"Elsa. Stop, you're going to lose control," Rapunzel said.

"She can't stop," Ariel said. "We're too close. They'll kill us."

"One time," Elsa said, cradling a deep breath. "I cut off a horse's tail when I was little. Just out of curiosity."

Ariel and Rapunzel looked at each other.

"I wrote a love letter to the stable boy," Elsa said. "I didn't tell him who I was. I told him I'd meet him behind the fountains at midnight. But I was too scared and never showed up."

Her white eyes faded back down to her normal blue ones.

"When I was nine, I got sick the day they were painting our yearly portrait and I threw up all over Anna and mom. I can't read books where there's a dog, because I'm too afraid the dog will die."

It was working. Whether by whim of the storm or not, Hans's escort vessels angled away, leaving his ship alone.

"One time I was really mad at Anna and I called her stupid and fat and sloppy when she was being really obnoxious and wouldn't leave me alone. I never apologized to her. Sometimes I faked being sick just so I could get attention from mom and dad. I was always in my room, so it was the only way to get them to stay with me."

Between the pelting rain, the cannons, the ice chunks and trident blasts, chaos swirled around them. Rapunzel ran to the wheel. Ariel used her trident to summon a wall of cascading water on both sides of the ship. The force of the flow would curtail any close shots. But it had the side-effect of closing their view to only the destination ahead.

Elsa stood before the storm, tears like needles in her eyes from the stinging wind.

"I thought about suicide a lot. Like, a lot. Both before Mom and Dad died and after. It would have been easier on everyone if I just hadn't existed. All I did was cause trouble. I stole a kitchen knife, but my dad found it hidden in my dresser drawer and took it away. He never told anyone about it. But I didn't need it. I could have stabbed myself with an icicle. I thought about tying the bed sheets into a noose and jumping out the window. I didn't want to live if I was going to stay in my room for the rest of my life. But when I was going to become queen it got... worse and better. I had something to live for again, but I had to do it alone. I was always alone. I was always-"

"Elsa!" Ariel shouted.

Elsa stopped talking. She saw Ariel below her, holding her hand. Rapunzel was next to her.

"We're through," she said.

Elsa looked around. The sky was bright blue, with the expanse of water before them. No ships, no armada. No Hans.

"Are you okay?" Ariel asked gently.

"It was the only way to keep my heart from freezing," Elsa said. "I had to keep it open." She wiped her eyes.

Rapunzel embraced her cousin in a hug. Ariel joined in.

"I don't want to do that again," Elsa said, sobbing.

"No, no, you don't have to do that again," Rapunzel replied.

"I don't think I could do that again," she said with a half-laugh. "It's just... it's just too much."

"How do you feel?" Ariel asked.

"Like scum," Elsa said.

"Hey." Rapunzel took Elsa's face in her hands. "We still love you. We will never stop loving you. You don't need to be forgiven."

"We all have had terrible things in our lives. Terrible things we've thought about," Ariel said.

"When Mother said I could never leave the tower, I had some really dark thoughts that time," Rapunzel said.

"And I don't know what I'd do if I never got to see the human world," Ariel said. "But it's all past you now, right?"

"Yeah." Elsa stood up straight. "Unless we don't get to that bomb. Then it'll be nothing but the past."

She picked up her telescope. Though distant, she could distinguish Hans on deck talking to the Duke of Weselton. The smugness had been replaced with rage befitting a sociopath.

"They're heading towards us," Elsa said as she snapped the telescope closed. "Let's get ready."

Aboard Hans's flagship, they saw the blockade close in on the single galleon. They saw the storm rage in. They saw cannon fire and heavy artillery rendered useless by snowballs and light beams. They saw spouts of water churn and geyser into the air, sending all the ships distant corners away. Now they saw the galleon heading straight towards them.

Hans fingered the flintlock pistol at his shoulder. He stared at the incoming vessel, searching for a sign to give the command to fire.

But the boat continued on toward them, following the breeze. It curved and slid alongside there's. Still, not a soul had presented itself.

"What is going on?" The Duke of Weselton asked. "It's a ghost ship?"

"There are no ghosts," Hans said.

Once the ship had pulled alongside theirs--only a few yards distance between siderails--it suddenly halted. The wind vanished and the water below became as still as a pane of glass. Neither of their boats were going to move for a while.

"Sorcery," the duke said.

"Of course it's sorcery," Hans said. "That doesn't mean we can't defeat it. And it definitely means someone's in control." To the officers beside him, he said, "Send all but the most essential men over. Search everywhere. This boat didn't sail itself."

The officer nodded. He shouted orders and soon a large contingent gathered on deck. Men lowered three long planks as bridges between the two ships.

The leader of the search party crossed first and shouted, "We know you're here, girls. Come out and show yourselves."

Only the stillness.

Men scattered around the deck, expecting to see someone at the wheel, rudder control, a sailing master, a gunner. But not even a swabbie could be seen.

The lead officer blinked his eyes. To his second-in-command, he appeared frozen in thought. "Sir?"

"I... sorry, I thought I just saw them."

"Where?"

"... nowhere. I just... I feel like they're right in front of me. But I..."

Ahead of them lay nothing but air and the storage compartment on the quarterdeck.

"I feel it too," the second-in-command said. "It must be our instincts telling us we're on the right track. Let's keep searching."

The officer shouted. "Proceed below deck. Leave nothing unturned or unopened." The officer rested his hand on his cutlass's hilt and proceeded onward.

"I think it's working," Rapunzel whispered as the two officers moved further down the deck. She fastened her grips on Ariel and Elsa's hands.

"It's like they see us, but they don't see us," Ariel said. "We were standing right in front of him."

"Do we need to whisper?" Elsa asked. "If they couldn't see us, they couldn't hear us too."

The three of them switched from looking at the sailors invading their ship to the planks. Ariel held Rapunzel's hand with one of her own. The other gripped the crystal glowing contented blue to her chest. Elsa kept her fingers around Ariel's wrists.

"Let's go aboard," she said.

Rapunzel led the three of them across the plank to Hans's ship. No one noticed them. Hans and the duke stood on the quarterdeck, staring at the Barefoot Maiden, waiting for something to happen. The only other people aboard were three men surrounding something against the wall of the gun deck.

"That's Hans?" Ariel whispered to Rapunzel. "I see why Anna fell for him."

Elsa stood in front of the guards, trying to look between them to see what they were guarding.

"Captain!" said the one in front.

Hans turned to him. He did a double-take, but said nothing.

The guard looked sheepish. "There's... I... er, nothing. Sorry."

Ariel and Rapunzel looked at each other. "That was close."

Elsa unstilled herself and stood on tiptoe. Behind them stood a small, innocuous barrel. The word "DANGER" was stenciled in white on the lid. A temperature gauge, like one would find in a turkey, was stuck through the lid.

"That must be it," she said. "How can we get it? I know no one can see or hear us, but does touch could break the spell?"

"Could we use the trident?" Rapunzel asked Ariel.

"What if it blows up?" she responded.

Another of the guards lifted his hands. "There! I see... I mean... no... never mind."

"What? What is it?" Hans asked impatiently.

"It's just. I thought I saw the queen and her cohorts standing right there."

Hans swept his eyes back and forth. He was looking right at the three of them, but didn't know it.

"It's like they're ghosts. It's giving me prickles on the back of my neck," said a guard.

Ariel giggled. The crystal in her hand pulsed once.

"There is something strange going on here," Hans said. He wandered off to confer with the duke.

The left guard reached out his hand, feeling for something that wasn't there. His fingertips came inches from Elsa's nose. She leaned back as far as she could without losing the morimema's protection.

"They're getting wise. We need to do this fast," Elsa said behind her teeth.

"All three at once," Ariel said.

"I got the left, Elsa the right, Ariel--center," Rapunzel said. "One-two-three-GO."

Elsa raised her hand. A pillar of ice rose from the deck, elevating the rightmost guard above the deck. The guard shouted "whoa" and lost his balance. Elsa extended the top of the pillar into a long sheaf of ice. He slid down, somersaulting all the way, and fell into a square hole below deck.

At the same time, Rapunzel bashed her guard in the helmet with her frying pan. He toppled over, chin first. She lassoed his legs with her hair, then whipped him to the other end of the boat.

The guard in the middle started thrusting out his spear at random points in space. "Begone, demons!

Ariel parried it with the trident tucked under her arm. She caught its pointed end between the tines, spun it once, then threw it into the air. The guard was still watching it drift upwards when she blasted the ground below him. The shockwave cast him in the same direction as the spear.

Ariel watched him careen over the side of the ship, ending in a resounding splash. As she smiled, the spear landed, knocking into her hand. Surprise made her jump back, which made her lose grip on the morimema.

The crystal fell to the deck where it shattered into a million tiny glittering pieces. Its blue glow faded instantly, giving the debris the appearance of sand.

"Uh-oh," Ariel said. The three of them looked up.

Prince Hans was standing behind them. So was the Duke of Weselton, holding out a sword. Hans aimed a flintlock pistol.

"I knew it. I knew it was some trick," Hans said. "One of your little ice and water shows."

"I'll give you an ice show," Elsa said, preparing to raise his hands.

Hans brandished his pistol. "Uh-uh. Keep your precious little gloves on. You too, princesses. I know all about your magic hair and your trident." Hans glowered.

"You know you're working with a dark sorcerer now," Ariel said.

"He must be getting desperate if now he's working with the likes of you," Rapunzel said.

"If that's what it takes, fine. He was the only one that came to me when I'd hit rock bottom. I was rotting in a swamp, watching over pitiful peasants."

"And what did he promise you?" Ariel asked. "A kingdom of your own? Treasure and jewels? Revenge on all your enemies?"

"And then some," Hans said.

"Just take me," Elsa said, stepping forward. "I'm the one you want. I'm the one that wronged you."

"What? Oh, you didn't think I cared about 'protecting' Arendelle, did you?"

"You plunged our countries into war!" Ariel shouted. "You killed how many dozens, maybe hundreds of people just to get your share? How could you do that?"

"I'm a chameleon," Hans said with pride. "I adapt to any situation to make people feel comfortable. Comfortable enough to give me what I want."

"Even if it costs your soul?" Rapunzel asked.

Hans grimaced. "You'd never know unless you were me, how it feels to receive the dregs of everything. I don't care who I have to deal with. I didn't choose to be the lastborn of the Westergaards. But I'm not going to let that determine my fate."

"Wait, what?" Ariel said. "Your last name is Westergaard?" She muttered to herself as she eyed the ground. "Westergaard, Westergaard, where have I heard that name."

"In the grotto!" Rapunzel said. "All those debt notices."

"What are you talking about?" Hans asked. "That debt was paid off. It took decades, but it was paid."

Rapunzel pointed at him. "Except the documents were all forgeries. At least that's what the letter said. It said the coat of arms didn't match the year the ledgers were written."

"Someone was going to a banquet to prove it, but the ship must have sunk," Ariel said.

"The spymaster..." Hans finished.

"That's right."

"Everyone in my family knows that story. Three generations ago, the kingdom was in debt up to its ears. It seemed to come out of nowhere. And you-"

Before Hans could turn, the duke grabbed the gun out of his hand and pointed it at him. "Now, now, let's not be hasty here. We have an alliance now. The debt's paid off."

"A debt we never owed you in the first place," Hans said, scowling.

"Well, come on. That was years ago," the duke said. "You don't seriously... expect... all right now, back off." He brandished his gun. "This may only have one bullet, but none of you want to be the one who gets it, eh?"

Rapunzel's eyebrows raised, but she said nothing. She stepped behind Ariel and Rapunzel, letting them hold the conversation.

"If you really forged those documents, there'll be proof of that. We keep much better records now."

"And won't your family be proud that you've solved the case, hm? Then where am I? You think Weselton can pay that all back? Do you think I was in Arendelle a year ago, trying to find their trade secrets for fun?"

"As soon as I get back to the Southern Isles, I'm finding those documents. I'm sure they're in the royal archive. And we'll find out the real truth."

"Then I'll have to make sure you never get back to the Southern Isles." He raised the gun. "Any last words?"

Hans stood stunned, unbelieving his partner would shoot him.

"I do, actually," Rapunzel said, stepping forward. "Just one question. Have you looked at your left shoulder lately?"

"My what?"

The duke turned his head to his left shoulder, as Rapunzel expected. This distracted him from his right shoulder, where Pascal actually was. The lizard darted out his tongue and stuck it in his ear.

The duke shrieked. The gun fired, emitting a puff of smoke, then he dropped it.

Ariel shot her trident at the duke's feet. The lightning bolt impacted and sent the Duke of Weselton rocketing off, arcing against the blue sky. He landed somewhere far away in the water with a distant plop.

Pascal turned cartwheels in the air. Rapunzel rushed up and caught the chameleon in her soft hands. "Are you okay?"

His eyes spun, but he gave a thumbs-up with his three flat toes.

"Find shelter," Rapunzel whispered. She set him on the deck and ran to the two others.

"Is everyone all right?" Elsa asked, patting her body for bullet holes. Rapunzel and Ariel did the same, as if searching for where they left their keys.

"Does anyone hear that hissing?" Ariel asked.

They followed their ears to the source. The barrel was emitting a geyser of smoke from a crack where the bullet had grazed it. The temperature gauge's needle was climbing towards the red zone.

"That can't be good," Rapunzel said.

All three knelt in front of the barrel. Three small locks latched the lid.

"Blast it!" Ariel said. She pointed her trident.

Rapunzel stuck her hand between her and the box. "No, that could set it off! Let's throw it overboard," Rapunzel suggested.

"It's strong enough to destroy a city. I don't think that's going to save us," Elsa said. "Hans, how does this thing work?"

They looked around the deck. "Hans?"

Something clunked against the side of the ship. The three ran to see Hans pulleying the longboat into the water.

"I'm not through with you yet, Duke," he said as the dinghy landed. He detached the ropes and started rowing away.

"Coward," Elsa muttered.

They returned to the barrel. The needle was seconds away from the red zone.

"We've got to do something," Elsa said. "We can't just sit here. Throwing it in the water won't help. Destroying it won't help. I can't freeze it, I don't know what's inside."

"This is just what he wanted," Rapunzel muttered. "For us to call him for help."

"Who?" Ariel asked.

"Arcius. He could turn back time, get us out of this mess, if we agree to help him."

"He started this mess in the first place," Elsa grunted. "I won't give him the satisfaction. I'd rather it explode. I'd rather be destroyed than..." she paused. "Your hair! It's indestructible."

"That's right!" Ariel said.

"Guys, I don't know if it's that indestructible," Rapunzel said.

"Do we have any other options?"

Rapunzel smoothed out a swath of her hair. Elsa and Ariel wrapped it around the barrel like a yarn ball. "Cover it. There can't be any square inch exposed."

They continued wrapping it was taut. A faint whistling began from under the pillows of yellow thread.

"If we can still hear it, does that mean it's tight enough?"

"It needs more," Elsa said. She shot her magic at the ball of crumpled hair. Blue ice formed a jagged meteorite around it. The ice chunk began to vibrate.

"Oh no you don't," Ariel said. She fired her trident. A translucent golden shield enveloped the lump, which began to rise in the air.

It trembled like a fluttering dandelion. Elsa and Rapunzel turned away. Ariel shut her eyes.

The ice ball stopped trembling. It fell to the ground.

Elsa touched the ball of ice she had made. Wispy snowflakes fluttered away like escaping fireflies. When they unraveled it all, the only thing left was smears of black soot, which wiped away easily.

"We did it," Rapunzel said. She shouted into the air. "You hear that Arcius? We did it! We did-"

There was a sound like tearing cloth.

"What was that?" Ariel asked.

"There," Elsa pointed. "Do you see it?" She leaned to the left and the right.

In the space before them, part of the air was sliced and torn. Like the world was made of canvas and been slit by a vandal. Jagged edges marked the fissure. Everything within the tear was the same as its opposite side, though slightly askew.

"What is that?" Rapunzel asked.

Ariel poked her trident through. It emerged to the left as if refracted in a glass of water. "It's like a rip in the world," Ariel said.

"Or a rip in time," Elsa said.

"Should we go through it?" Rapunzel asked.

As suddenly as it appeared, the rip closed. Another appeared, right next to Elsa. She jumped back, colliding with Ariel who caught her. Inside this one, the day was darker. The seas roiled pea green.

"I think we should get out of here," Elsa said as she backed away.

The rip closed. Another appeared on the opposite side of them. Then it closed. Another opened even closer.

The three of them ran back to the upper deck. They had little recourse as the fissures were pushing them away from their ship. As Elsa reached the upper deck, she heard a feminine "whoop"

"Rapunzel?" Elsa turned to her. "Rapunzel, are you all right?"

No answer. The world was shredding itself to pieces around them.

"She disappeared," Ariel said. "She ran right into it."

Elsa and Ariel reached for each other's hands. "Maybe we should stay still."

More appeared around them--thin lacerations winking in and out of existence, each in a different spot. How long would this last?

Ariel dropped. A hole in space appeared under her. Elsa lost her grip--she expected Ariel to be taken from the side, not under.

"Ariel!" Elsa got down on hands and knees and shouted into the hole. No sign of her. The warped space sealed.

Now she was on the ship. All alone.

Another rip appeared in front of her. She didn't wait. She jumped in.