I'm Afraid of What I'm Risking if I Follow You

Part 3

Elsa's jaw clenched. Yelena had brought up her leaving the Northuldra a time or two, but she couldn't possibly be ready, could she? "Do you really think Hans has powers?" she asked.

Yelena shrugged. "I don't know. But you would be the one to help coax them out, if he did."

She sighed, exasperated. Elsa knew she was right, but that would require being nice to Hans, helping him out, even. But it'd been some time since he arrived. He still had yet to try anything nefarious. And she could handle this, she kept telling herself. "I'll figure it out," she promised. "Eventually."

"Good." Yelena stood. "I'll send him over now."

"That's not what I—"

But too late. Yelena was already up, stealing Hans's attention away from the kids. He slowly made his way over to Elsa, wincing from his wound as he sat beside her. And there was Bruni, diligent as ever as he rested comfortably on his shoulder. They were at a respectable distance, but if Elsa wanted, she could reach over and push him away. Punch him in the shoulder, hard.

"Yelena said you knew something about the voice?" he asked, taking off his boots.

"It's what called me out here, yes," she replied, trying to be cordial and curt. "There used to be a mist surrounding the forest, and Anna and I... we freed it."

"So the voice is good," he reasoned. "I thought it sounded more like a harbinger of death, to be honest." Hans also rolled his pants up, dipping his feet into the river to cool down.

"I thought so, too, at first," Elsa sighed, leaning back to face the sun more. "But I think my powers let me know it wasn't."

"Your powers," Hans repeated, looking to Bruni briefly. "He catches fire, but I don't feel it—do you think..."

"I don't know." Elsa shook her head. "Your emotions would have had you conjure something by now. At least, that's how they work for me."

"How does it feel?"

"When I...?" Elsa held up one of her hands, flexing her fingers. "It's... a tingling feeling. If I think about Anna, or what makes me happy—" Light snowflakes danced around her hand. "—it's weightless, freeing. And when I'm fearful, the feeling is heavy and jagged."

"And when you're powerful?" Hans asked, raising a brow. Was that even a bit of a playful smirk, a glint in his eyes? "Because I've seen that before."

"'Don't be the monster they fear you are,'" she said, remembering his words. "You thought of me like that?"

Hans shook his head. "I said 'they,' as in that damn Duke of Weselton and his goons who kept trying to brand you like some witch the moment you ran away. I honestly find your powers fascinating—breathtaking, even."

Her mind flashed back to how Hans had been the only presence to bring her down from that high, how his words came through to her because he approached with caution—talked first, acted diplomatically. Unlike the Duke's guards, who attacked her on sight. When he approached her in the dungeon, there was this genuine look of hope and fear in those green eyes, putting faith in her fragile self like she could undo the winter.

Yet he tried to slay her on the fjord. Because he figured that would be the only way to stop her crazed winter after begging.

Elsa swallowed thickly. "When I feel powerful, the tingling is more of a surge, like I can do anything." And with her new discoveries of her powers, who knew where they would take her?

Hans shook his head. "I'm feeling none of that," he replied. "No lightness or warmth, no fear or weight." He lifted his foot, watching droplets fall back into the river and ripple. "I just know this little guy doesn't burn me when I touch him."