For those of you who are Star Trek fans, Because I Told You So Productions proudly presents:
“Mirror, Mirror” (A Frozen morality play)
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” Elsa intoned, then with a smirk she turned to her helpless captive trapped in a mound of ice reaching to his knees that held him fixed to the floor and said, “Oh, but that was the other man, well men. The German ones. They were so much more inventive than you. But soon, I am afraid you will be equally dead.”
“You will never get away with this!” the man cried as he struggled against the ice. “The Southern Isles will never bow down to you.”
“Oh, but they will Hans – I can call you Hans, yes? Mr. Andersen sounds so formal, and I think we’re beyond that by now.” Elsa’s smile, beatific as it was, neatly framed the teeth of a predator. “They will bow down to me. They are in fact doing so right now. The King and all thirteen of his sons in that vile rabbit warren of theirs are dead, even the heroic runt – his name was Hans too, by the way.” Elsa started to pace, her finger on her chin in a mockery of thought. “I think I’ll hang you next to him over the castle gate.” Elsa gestured vaguely out the window where the front of her castle was festooned with frozen corpses tinkling in the breeze like so many Christmas ornaments. “Then I’ll have a pair of Hans.” She chuckled at her own joke.
“But the people, in their hearts --” Hans Christian Andersen’s voice shook with the cold as the ice crept up to his torso.
“In their hearts the people are terrified and eager to embrace their new Queen, the Snow Queen as you so wonderfully named me, and now that they will no longer have your seditious writing to buoy those hearts, I am sure they will stay that way.”
“You cannot win,” Hans croaked. “Evil will never --”
He was silenced as the ice, following the command of Elsa’s gesture, grew to cover his mouth and nose. Panic blazed in his eyes, but he was immobile – as frozen as a statue.
“Win? Triumph? Oh that is so tiresome. Of course I will win. I’m a god. Who possibly can stand against me?”
Elsa wheeled and with a gesture blew the doors to her private office/interrogation chamber open. “Guards! Please take Mr. Andersen to his spot with the others. Have the ice carver chisel ‘Treason and Sedition” on his chest. Tell him that a little blood would make a wonderful accent color, especially as Mr. Andersen is likely to live just a while longer.”
Once the guards had done as she asked, Elsa used her magic to create a table with an expansive three dimensional map of Scandinavian and Europe. Anna’s conquest was going well. Once Elsa had dispatched, with varying degrees of showmanship and horror, the rulers of Norway, Sweden, Corona and those pesky Southern Isles most of the rest of Europe fell into line with her demands that they surrender. The kings, queens and dukes bowed to her and offered up their crowns, their lands, and their people – or just plain fled, hoping that warmer climes might protect them. They were wrong, of course, Elsa thought, but they would learn that soon enough.
There were a few holdouts. Castille had tried defiance. But now that their generals and barons were ice statues sprinkled around Madrid for the pigeons to roost on, and their queen was in her dungeons awaiting Elsa’s pleasure, and Elsa did intend to take her pleasure on her before ending her life, Anna had triumphed.
Avalon had proved more troublesome. Their navy was formidable and more importantly used to sailing in the freezing storms Elsa had thrown their way. Of course she could have just frozen the entire series of islands and that would have been that, but there was no fun that way. No begging, no crying, no pleas for mercy. Also the entire population would die, too, and Elsa appreciated that slaves native to the land they were working did a much better job.
So Anna had take a fleet of ships, some of the traditional variety, some entirely made of ice and crewed by snowmen, to force Avalon to its knees.
Word had come back though, brought by snowravens, that Anna’s sojourn had not gone as well as it should have. The Avalon ships proved as skilled at hiding as they were at fighting. They had adopted guerrilla tactics, launching small quick strikes to keep the fleet occupied and indeed to whittle down their numbers, that Elsa hadn’t anticipated. They were clever those Avalonians, and Elsa almost hated to waste the cleverness their leaders showed. But she was not going to be defied, and she certainly intended to punish them for the irritation they had caused her. Elsa would find their weakness and the way to exploit it, Anna would do her bidding, the isles would fall, and Elsa would exact her revenge on the Avalonian royal family and its military leaders. It was inevitable. In fact, Anna was to return any moment with a prisoner she had taken from one of the larger ships in the Avalonian fleet. That prisoner, and the information Elsa would joyously pry from her, would be the key.
