"So, what are you going to do?" Anna asked, leaning over the small table and folding her hands neatly under her chin, eyebrow raised. "You're caught; I've got you pinned in a corner, so just admit it. You're done."
Kristoff swallowed uneasily, his eyes flicking from his wife's beautiful sky-blue orbs to the door sitting just barely ajar to his left. Maybe if he made a run for it now he'd get past the threshold before Anna could follow. But no, even in the early stages of her pregnancy the princess was as spry as ever.
"Anna, this isn't entirely fair."
"Fair? Since when did fairness enter the equation? You're the one who wanted to do this, and now that you've made your bed you have to sleep in it. Come along, husband-of-mine. You're just stalling."
"I…I can still—"
"Aww, what's the matter? You seemed so sure about yourself a few minutes ago. What changed, Kristoff?" Anna goaded, tilting her head to one side and giving her husband a wicked grin. She knew she had him, and it was fun watching him twist on her line like a freshly caught fish.
"This isn't over," Kristoff snarled, running his hands through his thick, blond locks and staring hard at the table in front of him. How had everything gone so wrong so fast?
He heard movement behind him and turned to see Elsa rise from her seat behind her desk, four books and a large stack of papers in her hands. She passed by the table where Kristoff and Anna sat staring at one another, glanced down at the chessboard between the two, and nodded dubiously.
"She has you in three moves. You're pretty much beat."
Kristoff exhaled exasperatedly and knocked down his black queen, conceding the game to his wife. "Alright, alright I know when I'm beat."
Anna gave a triumphant whoop and began resetting the board. "A wise man knows when to admit defeat."
"A wise man wouldn't attempt to play chess against a royal, especially you."
"Oh don't be a sore loser," the princess said standing. "You've only been playing for a few years. I've had all my life to practice."
Kristoff shrugged and moved around the table to help his wife, but Anna batted his hands away. "At some point you're going to have to let me walk on my own. I've got six more months to work on my balance."
"She's right you know," Elsa said from the other side of the room as she returned the books she'd needed to their proper shelves, careful not to let the pain show on her face whenever she twisted or flexed her torso. "Wait until her baby bump really starts growing. If you think Anna's klutzy now…"
"Hey! I'm not that bad!" Anna said picking up a pillow and throwing it at her sister. It was a dead on throw that should have hit Elsa square in the back of the head, and since the queen wasn't looking it should have connected, but to Anna's complete surprise her sister whirled and caught the pillow, spinning effortlessly back around towards the bookshelf as if nothing had happened, pillow clutched to her chest. The princess felt her mouth fall open.
"Wow! How'd you do that?"
"Do what?" Elsa asked without turning, thankful she was able to hide her winces of pain.
Damn, Revel was right about those sandbags, she thought trying to inhale as carefully as possible while her ribs and torso screamed at her each time she shifted. She'd have to loosen her bodice again if she was going to make it the rest of the day without letting on she was in a near constant state of ache.
"How'd you know I'd even thrown the pillow?"
"Dear sister, you can be entirely predictable sometimes," the queen said in a light voice and turned back toward the rest of the room now that her face had been schooled back into a pleasant mask. The truth was, she'd surprised herself. Elsa had suspected her sister would throw something, but somehow she'd sensed the pillow hurtling towards her and reacted upon instinct just as Revel had been teaching her with swinging sandbags.
"Uh huh, I'm sure," Anna mumbled unconvinced, and stared hard at her older sister as if trying to see through her calm demeanor. The princess had noticed a change in her sister over the past three months. It was subtle things that most people would miss entirely, but Anna's sharp eyes instantly picked them out. For starters, she walked gingerly almost every day. Of course, Elsa was always the poised queen: back straight, shoulders back, hands folded neatly in front of her, but over the past few weeks she'd been hunching more and walking carefully, not putting much weight on the balls of her feet. Sometimes Anna would catch her leaning against a door frame or a window ledge as if out of breath. Sometimes a flash of discomfort would arch across Elsa's face when shaking hands with guests or dignitaries, or when she bowed.
Anna had even noticed a change in her sister's wardrobe. Since the Great Freeze, the queen had taken quite a liking to wearing dresses that were more form fitting and lower cut. Nothing crass or unladylike, but Elsa preferred lower neck lines and thinner material, opting for single layers when the fashion was to wear multiple. She'd also found a love for corsets and bodices, but recently the queen had taken to wearing longer-sleeved dresses and replacing her bodices with fitted vests or sashes. It wasn't all that strange attire, fashion in Arendelle changed quickly like any other kingdom, but it was strange seeing these changes affect the queen. No, there was something going on, and Anna wanted to know what it was.
Elsa stared back at her sister, cerulean-blue eyes daring the princess to ask the questions she knew she wanted to ask. Of course the queen had known Anna would pick up on the fact that she was hiding something from her. Anna might be a bit airheaded at times, but she was as sharp as a tack underneath her loose exterior. Regardless, Elsa had thirteen years of concealing practice under her belt.
"You're hiding something," Anna frowned, folding her arms across her chest and narrowing her eyes. Kristoff looked between the two, brow furrowed.
"A very accurate statement, Anna. I am the queen, and it's my job to keep things from my subjects," Elsa said with a nonchalant shrug that woke an aching burn down her right side where a particularly hard sandbag had caught her last night.
"I thought we said we wouldn't keep things from each other anymore," Anna pressed.
"And I haven't broken my promise. I assure you, I'm not keeping anything nefarious from you, little sister. Plus, when would I have the time to 'be up to something'?" Elsa asked, using air quotations. "Between planning for the holiday season and the Spring Trade Summit, when would I find the time to sneak around doing the things your mind seems to be creating? The only time I'm free is during the evening and at night, and I'm busy sleeping, as you should be too."
Anna opened her mouth but promptly shut it, knowing she didn't have a good answer at the moment.
Elsa moved back towards her desk and closed the ledger she'd been writing in most of the afternoon. She usually didn't do any work on Sundays, preferring to keep with biblical tradition and using it as a day of rest, but with the holiday season and the Trade Summit fast approaching there just wasn't enough time during her normal work week to get everything done. Still, she wasn't about to lose her entire day to menial tasks like signature signing and invitation writing, not when the weather was unseasonably warm for October and the sun was shining.
"Going somewhere?" Anna asked as her sister moved towards the door and stepped out into the hall.
"Just getting some air. When you're done whipping your husband at chess, please shut the door behind you."
Anna nodded and watched her sister pad down the long hallway, watching her steps closely. Yes, Elsa was definitely being careful with how she walked.
"You know staring isn't going to get you any answers," Kristoff offered, moving next to her and wrapping his arms around his wife's slender waist.
"She's hiding something," Anna said with pursed lips.
"She's allowed to have her secrets."
The princess turned towards her husband and made a face. "Not from me. What if she's doing something dangerous?"
"Like what?" Kristoff asked with a chuckle. "I can't see our reserved queen doing anything that might put her in harm's way. Maybe she's riding again?"
"When? She's always in meetings or shut in here doing work. When would she have the time to do anything like that?"
"Anna, what if it's nothing," Kristoff said quietly and pulled her close, planting a kiss atop her head. "She's the queen, so who knows what strange tasks the council or bishop Arren make her do on any given day. Maybe she's just not sleeping well or going through growing pains. Her powers have been a little…erratic lately."
Erratic wasn't the right word Kristoff had been looking for, but it was the best he could come up with. It wasn't that the queen was losing control of her power, that wasn't the case at all, it was just that Elsa seemed to be using it more often. Most of the time she used it for pure amusement or the playful torment of her sister. Icy pranks had become the norm around the castle when the queen was in high spirits, and the royal sisters had taken to trying to one-up the other whenever the opportunity presented itself. Without ice powers, Anna had to find more devious and organic means of pranking her sister while Elsa delighted in using her powers to create wonderfully elaborate pranks, oftentimes with Olaf close at hand. But the sisterly pranks had been the norm for three years. What Kristoff had seen recently was what confounded him.
Within the past three months, the mountain man had caught Elsa forming her ice into more questionable things like small knives and arrows. She would examine the sculpture as only an artist could before dispelling it with the flick of her wrist only to recreate it a second later as if timing herself. Kristoff had kept that part of Elsa's broadening ice usage from Anna, fearing the princess would be alarmed to discover her sister was making weapons out of ice. Why she was doing it was beyond him, but if she had her reasons, and wasn't hurting herself, Kristoff would let the queen have her secrets.
Anna sighed and leaned back against her husband, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just seeing things."
"Or looking too closely at what you're seeing," Kristoff offered.
"That too." Anna stretched and felt her shoulders pop, sighing contentedly. "You know, it's a Sunday afternoon. The castle staff is really thin right now. We could always…"
Kristoff scooped up his wife and the princess giggled. "I think you read my mind."
Anna went limp in his arms like a penny opera actor, legs and arms splayed. "Then take me away Reindeer King! Off to the blissful silence of our much-used quarters!"
Elsa wandered the long halls at a leisurely pace, happy for the chance to let her guard down and relax. It was becoming a chore keeping a placid face when her body was a screaming mess of aches and pains. Revel had warned her, but she hadn't really taken his words seriously…until now. Three months of constant nightly training was starting to take its toll.
His first lessons had been the basic foundations of combat, and they ran in four-week courses five days a week. Lesson one had been striking and falling. According to the Captain, they were the two most important tools a person could have when in combat.
"A good strike can topple an enemy just as effectively as a knife to the throat," Revel had said circling behind the queen as she practiced on the heavy bag with the wooden base. Despite having the snug security of her hand wraps on, Elsa's knuckles were beginning to ache from prolonged striking. Revel was having her work on what he called a hook punch that required her to step to the side and deliver a savage blow to the side of the bag while keeping her left arm up. With each punch she felt her knuckles grind against the now sweaty wrap material and gritted her teeth.
"Let's work on your left hand now," Revel said seeing the discomfort on the queen's face. He knew she had to build up a tolerance to the pain -surprisingly enough she had quite a high tolerance to begin with- but it didn't hurt to give one muscle group a chance to recover. Elsa had happily complied and began working on her left hand.
That had been just the striking. Falling came next and it was no less strenuous.
"If you fall while in combat there is a good chance you won't get back up. A man on his back is generally a dead man if he can't right himself quickly," Revel said two weeks into his lessons. Tonight he'd opted to wear a sleeveless gray tunic and his customary black breeches. He'd unrolled a padded matt across half the training square and was standing at the center. Elsa stood at the widest edge, brow creased in slight confusion.
"So, we have to learn how to fall correctly. Here, push me."
"Beg pardon?"
"Come up to me, and push me back as hard as you can," Revel said without breaking his calm demeanor.
Reluctantly, Elsa walked up to him and did just as he asked, putting her shoulders into the shove. Revel toppled backwards but rather than landing flat on his ass, like most people would have, he used the momentum to roll backwards over his right shoulder and spring back up onto his feet.
"Good shove. You've definitely got some strength in your shoulders," Revel grinned.
"Two weeks of constant strike training has helped," Elsa replied with a nonchalant shrug, trying hard to keep the blush from her face. "So, how did you get back up so quickly?"
"Ah, the trick is in how you move with the motion of the push and how you allow one half of your body to collapse. When shoved, a person usually allows the push to direct them, but you can turn it around in your favor by redirecting your momentum. What I did was simple. When you pushed me I immediately collapsed my right leg behind me and rolled back on my right shoulder. My body did the rest automatically. Here, do it again, but watch my legs."
Elsa obliged and pushed the Captain again, trying hard not to notice the sinewy muscles of his broad chest under his tunic. Revel flipped backwards just as he had before and popped back to his feet. Having watched closely, the queen had indeed seen what he'd been describing and already her sharp mind was breaking down how she could copy his move.
"Shall we have you give it a try?" Revel asked with a wide grin. Elsa only hesitated for a moment before nodding and began the second phase of lesson one. It took her the rest of the month to become comfortable with the different ways one could stop a fall.
Lesson two covered balance and speed, and this was where the pain really began to set in. Revel taught her how to maintain speed while attacking, making her train with heavy sacks of sand strapped to her back and shoulders. Sometimes he opted to see how far her endurance could stretch by making her run the perimeter of the training chamber with the same weights strapped to her body; other times it was evasion training, Elsa attempting to evade Revel's advances through quick footwork alone. Usually by the end of the lessons the queen could barely walk out of the chamber, each step agony on her screaming muscles.
But the long hours of discomfort and pain were slowly beginning to pay off in surprising ways. Elsa began to notice a change in her body, muscles becoming more lean and defined, her steps, when not hellish agony, more lithe and sure. She'd never had problems with balance and poise before, that honor was saved for Anna, but Revel's training had definitely made her more surefooted.
Lost in her thoughts, she passed by one of the large bay windows overlooking the guard tower and its small oval courtyard without noticing the large crowd that had formed there. Three or four steps later her mind caught up with what her eyes had seen, and she turned around and went back to the window, curiosity piqued. There were about thirty men standing in a large ring at the center of the stone courtyard, gesturing excitedly at the two men circling one another in the middle of the pit. The two opponents, stripped to the waist, prowled around the ring of bodies, each sizing the other up like wolves competing for pack status. Eventually, one man made the first move, a blinding strike that would have caught his opponent square in the temple, effectively ending the match and most certainly the man's life, but the opposing fighter raised a swift block and countered, dragging the first man to the ground.
Elsa quickly walked the rest of the hallway until she reached a small private balcony she often used for reading during the twilight hours and stepped out into the soft warmth of the mid-afternoon sun. At the railing, she had a much better vantage point of the fight. Her first thought had been to call the palace guards to break up the squabble, but then Revel's words floated back to her and she calmed a bit.
"Sometimes my men just need a chance to let off some steam, so on Sundays, if the weather permits, I let them openly spar in the guard's courtyard," the Captain had said during their first few lessons together.
So this is how my guards spar…not too certain I agree with the brutality, but Revel knows what he's doing.
The two opponents were on the ground now in a tangle of arms and legs that was impossible to tell apart. Every now and then one man would get in a good punch or elbow, but eventually the second striker was able to get his arm around the first's neck and squeezed until the man slapped the ground three times in quick succession. The crowd, subdued until now, erupted into cheers as the winner untangled himself and popped to his feet, roaring triumphantly. The queen could see the wide swatch of bright blood steadily growing under his nose, but the guard, whoever he was, didn't seem to notice or care. The other man was being hauled up by his friends, his face a mess of darkening bruises and blood. He approached his opponent and the two men clasped forearms, grinning like fools.
"Alright you dogs," Elsa head a familiar voice say seconds before the crowd split apart and Revel entered the ring. "You've had your fun, now let's be off!"
The crowd booed and jeered until Revel was forced to raise his hand, a wide smile splitting his face. He wasn't wearing his customary guard uniform, opting for a more casual blue tunic with brown pants. His hair was unoiled, wavy locks falling around his ears.
"What? You don't want to get back to work?"
Another chorus of discontent rippled through the crowd.
"Well then what do you want?" Revel shouted, egging his men on, his grin growing by the seconds.
"Captain's fight!" the onlookers shouted almost in unison, feet stamping the cobblestones.
"Oh, ho, ho, so you bastards think one of you is man enough to beat me? Well then, who is the unlucky fool? Come, step forward little lamb. I promise I won't bite…hard."
The crowd parted again as a second man joined Revel at the center of the circle pit. He was a head and a half taller than the Captain and about fifty pounds heavier. Stripped to the waist, Elsa could see the challenger was a man who took his training seriously, every muscle of his body defined like sculpted marble. He wore his hair cropped short against his scalp, so it was impossible to tell hair color, but from his pale complexion, the queen suspected he was naturally blond.
"Ahhh Sigmund, I had a feeling it would be you," Revel said with an unsurprised sigh.
"Be a pleasure to whoop your ass, sir," Sigmund said with a growl, cracking the knuckles on each hand one at a time. Elsa felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She had a sick feeling this fight had a personal twist to it. Revel seemed unimpressed and shrugged.
"You can try, my mighty friend." Stepping back a ways, Revel pulled off his shirt and tossed it down at his feet, rolling his shoulders and flexing his hands while bounding from foot to foot, loosening the tight muscles of his chest, shoulder, arms and legs.
The Captain was a well-built man with sinewy muscles that looked like corded rope coiled under his skin. He wasn't unnecessarily bulky like his opponent, but there was power in his frame that bespoke of a man well versed in the art of combat. Elsa felt her face suddenly ignite in a flaming blush and swallowed, feeling for all the world like a voyeur.
The two men came together in the center of the ring and touched fists before beginning the customary circling, eyes searching for a weakness. This went on for a few moments until Sigmund grew tired of the initial dance and lashed out with hook punch. Revel countered easily and ducked away. Again they circled and it was Sigmund who struck a second time, swinging his leg a vicious kick aimed at Revel's thigh. The kick was sound, and Elsa could hear the connecting smack of skin on skin all the way up in her balcony and winced.
That's going to leave a bruise.
Revel took the blow in stride, shaking his leg to regain feeling in it, but not trading Sigmund blow for blow like the other men had. He continued moving in a slow circle, his hands held loosely in front of him. The big guard lashed out a third time and caught Revel in the face with a meaty fist, sending the Captain stumbling into the crowd where at least ten men kept him from falling and pushed him back into the ring. Elsa felt her breath catch in her throat when Revel stumbled, but now she saw that a wicked grin was slowly spreading across his face as blood began dribbling from his nose and split lip.
"Well struck," he conceded, trying to wipe the blood from his face but only managing to smear it.
Sigmund gave no indication he'd heard and lunged into another attack, but this time Revel reacted and it was like bottled lightning released. Stepping out of the way with near superhuman speed, he caught the man in the jaw with an uppercut that sounded like a hammer striking a log. Sigmund reeled back from the blow, but Revel didn't let him get far. His second blow, a savage straight forward punch with all his weight put behind it, caught the big man in the stomach, driving the air from him. With Sigmund bent nearly in half, the Captain grabbed his opponent's left wrist, spun under it as he raised it in an arch, and flipped him as easily as if he were a sack of potatoes. Sigmund went down hard on the flat of his back, wheezing, blood dribbling from his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue. Revel continued with the momentum of the throw and brought his knee down hard on the big man's neck, fist raised for a finishing strike. The entire attack had taken less than four seconds from start to finish, and the crowd, queen included, gaped in utter amazement.
"Do you yield?"
Even at a slight distance, Elsa could see that Sigmund was fuming, his face a mess of embarrassed anger. For half a heartbeat she thought he was going to push Revel off and attempt another attack, but it appeared the guard had better sense and sighed, a small smile cracking his face.
"Gods above Revel, where'd you learn to fight like that?"
The Captain broke into a grin and helped the big man up. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Fine. Keep your secrets, but at least show us how you threw me."
A chorus of 'aye, show us' and 'give up the secret' echoed through the crowd and Revel laughed again.
"Fine, fine I'll show you all tomorrow. But for now, polish and restack weapons! Get to it, and so help me if I find one single pommel unpolished when I make final rounds you all will get half rations of wine for dinner tomorrow night. Hold your fellow men accountable!"
The guards in the courtyard quickly dispersed, all chattering happily. Revel bent down to retrieve his shirt and upon standing back up, locked eyes with the queen. Elsa felt her body freeze. She'd been so sure she'd been hidden. Revel's grin turned into a toothy smile and he bowed as if he were a stage actor, shirt snapping out beside him with an audible crack.
You ass, Elsa thought, you were showing off the entire time.
Her face beginning to warm as blood rushed into her cheeks, the queen politely bowed back, thankful that the distance hid her blush. The two held each other's gaze for another few heartbeats before Revel turned and hurried after his men, shirt slung over his shoulder. He gave her one last grin before disappearing around a corner, and for the first time in never, Elsa felt what her sister had described as butterflies pounding around in her stomach.
"You were as bad as a stage actor," Elsa said as she spun out of the way of a swinging sandbag as gracefully as a dancer. Three more swung around her like interweaving clock pendulums, and she evaded those as well, keeping her hands up as she did.
"How was any of what happened today acting?" Revel asked from his place in the rafters, sitting contentedly on a wide beam with six more sandbags lined up beside him. "And watch your form when you spin, Majesty. Keep your elbows tight to your body."
Elsa tightened up her form as she evaded another swinging obstacle. Her objective was to reach the other side of the training square where a small green rag sat staked on spear without getting hit by any of the sandbags. If she was hit she had to start over. Once the rag was in hand she had to make it back across the square to the empty basket sitting on a low barrel. The same rules applied from the first crossing. Get hit, go back to start. So far she'd only had to restart two times, her footwork unusually good this evening.
"You played right into his attacks. All of those could have been easily evaded, but you let him hit you."
"Ah, so you were paying attention," Revel said with a wide grin, swinging his feet like a child who was too short to sit in tall chairs. He put a hand to his chest and sighed dramatically, "It warms my heart knowing her Majesty is being a dutiful student."
Elsa shot him a look and just barely had time to dodge one of the four sandbags.
"Keep your beautiful eyes focused on those bags, Majesty," Revel teased.
"If you call me Majesty one more time I'm going to freeze you," the queen snarled, attempting and succeeding in evading another bag.
"It's your proper title."
"It's what everyone calls me."
"Because it's your proper title," Revel said resting his elbow against on one of the remaining bags, happily watching his student spin and dance around his obstacles.
"In the privacy of this room," Elsa huffed, sweat already starting to roll down her back in tickling rivulets, "call me Elsa."
"As her Highness commands," Revel grinned impishly.
The queen chose to ignore his taunts and focused on getting past the last bag, timing it as closely as she could before jumping free of the obstacles with a triumphant whoop. Snatching the flag from the spear she raised her trophy for her teacher to see, smug grin barely contained.
"Back through, Captain?" she asked lightly, twirling the rag.
"Back through," Revel agreed, "but with a little more risk this time." Two more sandbags swung down with a snapping crack as the rope went taut. "That's six bags."
"I can count," Elsa grumbled, watching the chaotic swinging, trying to figure out the rhythm. Carefully, she jumped into the path of the first bag closest to her only to spin out of the way just before impact. This carried her two steps into the swinging obstacles. There had been little room to move the first go around, but with two new bags added she had to move fast or risk getting hit. Steps three and four nearly cost the queen her precarious position, the heavy burlap sacks just barely brushing her hip and shoulder as she danced past them. Step five wasn't much of a problem, the bag already starting to slow its swing, and six was a breeze compared to the rest.
Glowing with a second wave of triumph, Elsa turned towards Revel and barely had enough time to turn sideways before a seventh bag swung free of the rafters and slammed into her with all the force a free swinging, eighty pound sack could muster. For the briefest moment she was hovering above the ground before it came crashing up to meet her with an ugly thud. Winded, the queen lay where she'd fallen, sprawled on her back. The earth stopped spinning after a few moments, but still she didn't rise.
"That was unfair," she wheezed, feeling her bruises, old and new, all begin to scream at once.
"Two lessons were learned here. One is to never believe anything is ever finished, not even our games. So, return to start and try again."
Elsa groaned and held up the green rag as if it were evidence of her win.
"You got the rag, yes, but you didn't get it in the basket. Begin at start, Majesty."
"Elsa," she corrected.
"Begin at start, Elsa," Revel said. A sudden, unfamiliar burst of warmth erupted across his chest at the same moment his tongue began to tingle. To use the queen's birth name so freely seemed like the ultimate taboo, but it left such a wonderful taste in his mouth.
The queen felt it too, electricity arching down her spine and exploding into a hundred thousand butterflies in her stomach. It was scandalous to have someone so low on the social status ladder use her first name, but Elsa couldn't bring herself to care. Sometimes it was nice being reminded she was a normal human under the label of queen, and she reveled in the mischievous glee of having her tutor speak her given name.
"What was the second thing I learned this evening?" Elsa asked, pulling herself up onto unsteady feet. The bag had definitely jarred her equilibrium because everything kept tilting to one side.
"The second is that when it comes to me, I never fight fair," Revel replied from his seat in the rafters, sly grin on his face. He'd suspected the queen would get overconfident at some point, as royals often did, so it was sometimes necessary to remind her that she wasn't always two steps ahead. Kept her on her toes.
"Is that so?" she mused, looking up at her teacher. He was grinning down at her like a fool, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to smack that grin off his face, but he was up there and she was…
With the flick of her wrist, Elsa conjured a small palm sized piece of not fully tangible ice. The tiny cloud hovered above her hand on a soft cushion of arctic air, dusted with minuscule fractals of ice and snow. She checked her trajectory only once before flicking her thumb and middle finger as if ridding herself of a pesky bug. The projectile shot from her hand and hit the Captain square in the thigh. Concentrating, she willed her ice to stick only to fabric, leaving his skin untouched, and the ice obeyed, immediately spreading. Before Revel could so much as utter a startled cry, his pants here completely frozen and stiff as the wood he sat upon. When he jerked back in surprise, he was shocked to find that not only were his pants frozen solid but they were also cemented to the beam.
"God's balls, that's cold as hell!" Revel exclaimed and began tugging at his pants, trying to detach them from the beam. When his efforts yielded no results, he turned his attention to the queen. "Alright, I get your point. Now unfreeze me."
"Why Captain, didn't you know?" Elsa asked, walking around the training square and heading for the door. She paused momentarily to throw her cloak over her shoulders and looked back at him. "I don't fight fair either. Goodnight."
"Wait…wait! How am I supposed to get out of these?" Revel struggled again but only managed to pull one already freezing foot half-way up his frozen pants leg.
"I'm sure a man of your talents knows how to unlace a pair of breeches," Elsa said, a wicked smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
"Somehow I don't think unlacing anything is going to help me here," Revel muttered with a grunt as he attempted once again to pull himself off the beam.
"Then you have two options," Elsa smiled, reaching for the door. "One, sit and wait for them to thaw; or two, shimmy out of them. From what I understand you are a…flexible man. I have no doubt you'll be able to get free."
And with that Elsa threw the latch and stepped out into the night, cloak fluttering behind her. Revel swore loudly and began the slow process of pulling himself free of his pants, using the beams around him as leverage, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to be angry. That had been a low blow throwing the seventh sandbag into the mix, and he knew he deserved the retaliation. His grimace turned into a grin as he finally slid free on his third try, groin and legs completely numb but otherwise unharmed.
So you do have a little fire under that poised covering of ice. Excellent.