The Snow Queen: Jelsa *Third Book to Frozen Love*

Chapter 14

"Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so." --Disney Pixar's The Incredibles
 
Elsa

The scepter's jewel dimmed and the whole staff fell to the floor.
For one thing, I realized a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I finally knew what happened, and it gave me a weightless feeling. But there was still a hole.
"It is rude to go through other people's things." Ursa's stone-cold voice told me she was behind me.
"Yeah, well, you said it's all going to be mine soon," I growled, rolling the scepter over to me with my toes, quietly.
"Not. Yet." I heard the click of her teeth. In one movement, I through the acceptor up into the air with my foot, caught it, and faced her.
The air force in a moment of tense silence between us. Ursa stepped an inch closer to me. My fingers around the scepter handle curled tighter. Her hand moved toward me, and the scepter disappeared with a swish. Suddenly, I wasn't holding anything anymore, except for tiny flecks of snow that blew back to the chamber in a clump. I let go of the breath I'd been holding in a small white wisp.
Ursa flashed me a saccharine smile. "Perhaps you need some time to yourself before the coronation tomorrow."
By the time several minutes had passed, another powerful wind had roughly forced me into the same cell Jack and me had shared. Only this time I was alone.
Well, I was at first.
Once I'd given up pounding on the door until my fists stung, I glared at a pair of yellow eyes breaking the shadows. My now bare feet slapped against the ice, the only sound in the sullen room, as I marched towards Lady Pitchiner's.
"I suppose you were a lot of help just then," I snapped. "What happened to us being on the same side?" Lady Pitchiner didn't even enter one of the shafts of light being cast around me to speak, so all I saw were the narrow beads of gold.
"I don't join a side unless I know it's the winning one. You, however, will need much more help to win."
"I don't want to win! I just want my life back: one without secrets or death or fear, with the man I--I love." I exhaled.
The golden eyes blinked.
"Besides, were you not the one who told me to use the scepter?"
"Yes I was. And now you know how to use it. It will be be an important tool." She scoffed, "If you only knew the power you held."
"Do you have something against me or is the the same cheerful disposition you share with everyone?" The eyes disappeared, as if Pitchiner was closing her eyes and shaking her head. But I didn't hear anything else. "Pitchiner? Who do I get help from?" No answer; lovely. I wandered back towards the middle of the room.
So I needed more help. But the Guardians were nowhere to be found, probably being guarded by an army of winter animals.
Actually, my best chance was...well, the animals. They could destroy the fortress from the inside, if they resented Ursa for her control over them, which was safe to assume.
First, I needed a plan and supplies, those which wouldn't be noticed by the polar bears that looked into the room every hour.
I walked deeper towards the back of the cell, where a few ice formations could obscure me. As I broke off an icicle from the formations, I heard the miserable whistle of a dog.
I froze. I very slowly spun the icicle around in my hand to hold it like a dagger. I crept around a shelf of ice, following the whine.
I stopped with a jolt when I faced a white wolf, lying at my feet. The wolf's thin sides were heaving, stained with dried blood seeping from four long scratches on the right side of his rib cage. Cautiously, I knelt down beside his lolling tongue and bent over the wound. I held my breath against the tang of blood and drool. He might've bitten at me if he hadn't have been so exhausted; his green eyes were glazed over.
I dropped the icicle and crafted a thick roll of blue cloth in my hand, spreading it across his scratches. His muscles tightened, but he did nothing more than whimper as I pressed down. "Ursa did this." I knew it before I whispered it. But only because the image of a muscled male wolf with bared teeth, Ursa bringing up the rear, had appeared in my head as suddenly as lightning. I remembered what she had said about disobedient assets being punished. Then I stared into the wolf's eyes, which were now clear as cobalt.
I supposed this was another unknown power strengthened by being in in Ursa's environment.
It took twenty minutes,--as well as leaning against a wall when the two bears looked in--but the bleeding eventually relented enough for me to tie another cloth around his body as a bandage.
After that, I picked up my icicle and started drawing my schematic of the entire fortress in the snow, piecing together all that I knew of the place. Then it hit me. "What's your name?" Yet another thought crossed my mind as if dropped there. By him.
Balder.
Soon after, the wolf fell asleep.