Thaw (Jelsa Fanfic)

Savior

Every choice we make marks a fork in the road of our lives. We will never be granted the opportunity to retrace our steps, to go back and try again if we come to realize the path we choose leads to a dead end. We must then forge our own path, battling our fears, our insecurities. We are forced to face our own trials, our own tribulations...and isn't that fair? For free will is a heavy burden to bear, and though we took it for ourselves at the dawn of time...we still have yet to use it wisely.

There will always be times when we chose the wrong road and are forced to build our own. To go forth, continuing to fight the briars that reach to stop us, the obstacles that wish to detain us. Yes...we fight, because deep down, we know we will eventually find the road again.

When we do, it will be sweet. And it will lead us home.

When Elsa woke, she found herself to be standing at the edge of one of these dead ends in life. She was alone, she was afraid, and she was cold. That last sensation was the one unnerved her the most, for Elsa could not remember a time when the chill of the air had ever given her pause. Pushing herself to a sitting position, she blinked at her surroundings, recognizing them immediately. The impossibly tall walls, the cavernous quality of the room...she'd visited this place once, not long ago. It was the very same place that had hosted her nightmare...the place where she had come face to face with the Reaper himself.

Everything came rushing back to her, crashing around her like that shattered pieces of every dream, every hope, every thing that had ever been good in her life. She had literally traded her soul to the darkness, and there was no changing what she'd done. She did not regret it...she'd never regret the sacrifice that had saved her sister's life. But she was scared...more so than she'd ever been in all her life. Even when Wessleton's men had stormed her ice palace to take her life, she had never felt the fear in which she felt for herself in Pitch's cavern. At least with Wessleton's men, she had known what they'd wanted...her death. She had no idea what Pitch had planned for her, and if it involved the Reaper, Elsa thought she'd surely go mad from terror.

She stepped away from the couch she had been laid upon, realizing for the first time that she was not bound by chains any longer. In fact, her hands had been left completely free...as if Pitch had known all along that she wouldn't dare test her powers against him and risk the deal they'd made.

Such a clever snake.

There wasn't much in the room...no windows, no fireplace, not even a lamp to banish the darkness. There was a candle however, perched on a high candlestick in the corner...and for that, she was grateful. There was a dusty and forgotten armchair next to it, and weathered book rested on a tiny end table. Curious, she moved to pick it up.

Strangely, it was a book of fairy tales. The pages were yellowed and curling at the corners, having likely seen the passage of an incredible amount of years. Opening it, she saw that there was a faint script on the inner cover, just barely visible in the faint light. Elsa raised it toward the candle, squinting to make out the handwriting.

My darling daughter,

Read one each evening, my little girl, before you close your eyes to sleep. These are happy stories, and with them, you'll always have happy dreams. I wish I could be there to read them to you...but you can pretend, until we are together again. Just think of my voice and know that though I am far away, my soul is wherever you are.

Love,

Papa

Papa? Elsa blinked at the volume in her hands, trying to make sense of it. How strange that the Nightmare King would possess such innocent reading material...stranger yet that it would be marked by such tender words. It wasn't possible that it ha been Pitch who'd written the excerpt, was it? Surely he'd never had a daughter...

There was a horrific crash just on other side of the iron door to the room, and Elsa jumped so violently that the book tumbled from her hands to the cobblestone floor. She whirled toward the sound just in time to watch the door as it flung open with such force it nearly exploded from the hinges.

Elsa shrank back against the wall with a little a little shriek of terror as her eyes landed on the intruder. The Reaper himself stood in the doorway...impossibly tall, cloaked in black with the suffocating thickness of pure and unabated evil permeating the room from his very presence. And though she could not see his eyes, she somehow knew that his focus was directly on her.

"No...stay back. Please, just leave me alone!" Elsa gasped, raising her hands. She could feel the temperature around her beginning to plummet, and knew that her fear would soon cause her powers to lash out despite her desperate attempts to keep them in check. She would have loved nothing more than to unleash the snow and ice against the monstrosity, but she knew that doing so would seal her fate. He could likely kill her with no more than a wave of his hand...and judging from his entrance, that was exactly what he wanted to do.

Pitch entered from behind the Reaper, looking thoroughly vexed. "This truly isn't necessary...if you will simply listen to me..."

The Reaper didn't even turn his way. One arm lashed out, freakishly fast...and then, Pitch was bleeding. His bottom lip had been split down the middle, and the blood flowed in a thick torrent into his raised palm. The stunned Nightmare King looked at the thick substance with apparent shock...and the Reaper advanced.

"Please...please, no. I'm going to lose control and I don't want to!" Elsa cried, but even as the words passed her lips, it was too late.

Ice rose around her, sharp and deadly, pointing directly at Death himself. There was a horrendous crack as two of the larger chunks broke free, spiraling through the air at breakneck speed. Just how the Reaper avoided being in paled on those shards, Elsa didn't know...but Pitch was very nearly caught in the crossfire. She was aware of his thin frame crashing to the floor at the last minute to avoid the attack, even as the Reaper launched his own.

The scythe appeared out of no where, and he swung it for her with such force that she could hear it whistle through the air as it narrowly missed her head. Elsa threw herself out of the way, hitting the floor and rolling instinctively as the scythe struck again, making sparks fly from the cobblestone floor. With a strangled cry, Elsa raised her hand, letting her energy flow freely. Ice shot forth, and Elsa watched in growing horror as the nightmarish creature avoided each strike. How was it possible that he could move so quickly?

A thick and vaporous cloud had begun to billow from the Reaper's sleeves, and Elsa began to choke as her eyes watered. She began to scramble in the direction of the couch, coughing and sputtering and thinking only of finding clean, breathable air...

She sensed motion, and turned just in time to see the Reaper's scythe descending directly for her. She had no time to react, aware only of the way the sickly yellow light of the room glinted off its lethal tip. With a anguished cry, she closed her eyes and waited for the agony to follow.

Only it never came.

Stunned, she opened her eyes...surprised to find that the smoke had cleared. Blinking furiously against the sting of her eyes, she tried to make sense of the scene before her.

The scythe was suspended, torn from the hands of the Reaper and suspended in shadows. Pitch had risen and was standing behind the Reaper, breathing heavily as blood dripped in rivers from his chin. His fingers were raised, Elsa could just barely make out the thin black cords connected to them.

Finally, she understood.

Pitch had used his shadows to stop the downward motion of the scythe, somehow managing to pull the weapon from the Reaper's grasp entirely. If he hadn't, she had no doubt it would have sliced her in two. But for some reason...he'd saved her life.