Other Fan Fiction ❯ Reprise ❯ For the Last Time in Forever ( Chapter 40 )

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CHAPTER 40: For the Last Time in Forever

From the thick gray fog, it looked like a volcano at first. But the temperature drop didn't agree with that. The floor no longer felt like the soft wood of the boat.

"Rapunzel?" she called out. She waved her hand through the fog.

"You're only here because of your power. You're not my equals. I could have killed you eons ago," Arcius's bodiless voice said. "You're no better than the power you hold. The power you don't deserve to hold. It brought about your weakest moments, when you were your worst person."

The fog in front of Elsa cleared. She was standing on a frozen plain. Another Elsa sat on her knees, weeping, while Prince Hans approached her from the back. He held up his sword, ready to strike.

From nowhere, Anna stepped in between them, arms raised against the incoming blow.

"No!" she shouted.

Anna froze solid into unblemished polar blue ice. The sword struck her ice-solid hand and shattered.

Elsa--the real Elsa--fell on her knees. She had never seen this moment as an observer. Never seen Anna's face as she jumped in between he-r and the sword, so filled with terror and bravery. All while she sat there, weeping like a weak little girl.

"Caused by your cowardice," Arcius said. "Your selfishness. Your indifference-"

"No." Elsa said. She rose. "I won't be tortured by images of the past. I've learned from this. I won't let it define who I am today."

"You don't have to let it exist at all."

The world wiped away into darkness. The air crisped and chilled. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw her mother holding eight-year-old Anna in her arms. Elsa gasped as her father's arm cradled her shoulder. She was standing in this exact spot ten years ago, feeling the same panic and fear.

Grand Pabbie touched his cold granite hand to Anna's forehead.

"It's for the best," her father said.

The best? The best for what? Elsa shook her head without intention. This couldn't be happening again. It's for the best. That was father's response when she asked if Anna would remember her powers. The beginning of his vow to keep her suppressed.

"You can fix this," Arcius's voice whispered. "You can change it all right here. See what a difference it makes."

Pabbie continued. "Listen to me, Elsa. Your power will only grow. There is beauty in it, but also great danger." The old troll waved his arm, sending sparkles into the air. They swirled into a shadowy vision of her using magic, for good and for evil. "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy."

Time seemed to slow down. Elsa couldn't tell if it was real or perception. Here she could change everything. With the experience she lacked as a child, she could stand up to her parents. She could tell them she wouldn't suffer a decade of misery. She could stop them from the shipwreck that killed them.

"No. We'll protect her. She can learn to control it, I'm sure." Her father gripped her tighter, pulling his family close.

If Arcius was telling the truth, she had only one shot at this. One second to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life.

"Till then, lock the gates. We'll reduce the staff. We will limit her contact with people, and keep her powers hidden from everyone. Including Anna," her father said.

Break free. All she had to do was break free. Tell them what would happen. Shout and scream. Tear away from it all.

"No," Elsa whispered. "No, Arcius. I'm not going to let you manipulate me into a decision I don't want to make," she shouted. "Do you hear me? My parents were wrong, but their intentions were right. That doesn't make what they did better, but we all make mistakes. And who knows what else would have happened? Anna never would have met Kristoff. Someone else would become the victim of Hans's treachery. And most of all, I will not become like you!"

The frozen tundra disappeared, replaced with the wispy fog of before. Elsa picked up her skirt and began running through the miasma. "Rapunzel? Ariel!" she called.

Rapunzel heard the same as Elsa did. "The power you don't deserve to hold. It brought about your weakest moments, when you were your worst person."

The fog swept away. She was in her tower room. A woman in a black cloak writhing and howling as her skin whitened and wrinkled. As she neared the window, her feet tripped over a cord of hair.

Rapunzel instinctively reached for her, the same as she did those years ago. But she couldn't reach in time. The woman windmilled her arms and fell out.

It happened again. The woman cackled from one end of the room to the other. She backed against the window and tumbled to her doom.

And again.

And again.

"Stop it!" Rapunzel cried, tears flowing.

"I can't stop it," Arcius said. "Only you can."

When Rapunzel opened her eyes, she was in her castle. It was too dark to see well, but a cool night air breezed across her face. When her eyes adjusted, she was in her parents' bedchamber. A lone bassinet sat at the foot of their bed. And a dark shape was approaching it.

"What is..." Then she realized what she was seeing.

The living shadow hovered over the baby. It reached in. "Flower gleam and glow. Let your power shine," she sang.

The cradle emitted a sunny glow, lighting up Mother Gothel's face. She held up a strand of the baby's hair and cut it, halting the glow. The crone's hand morphed from vulture claw to youthful vigor. Then back again. Gothel gasped, as did Rapunzel.

"This is your chance. All you need to do is intervene. Bring back a life with your parents," Arcius said.

Was he serious? Was he really giving her the chance to change everything? Here and now?

Mother Gothel swooped up the infant. Rapunzel couldn't believe it happened this slow. She could jump in now. Stop it all from ever happening. Stop the misery, the loneliness. She reached out a hand.

Then thought of Flynn. What would happen to him? He was a baby now too. She would never know him.

And then what would happen? Everything would be different. He'd be killed as a criminal. And her friends in the Snuggly Duckling would still be there, drinking and fighting instead of pursuing their dreams. Maximus would be just another soldier's horse. The kingdom's rule wouldn't be marked by her parents' mourning. And Mother Gothel might still be alive, making someone else suffer for her mad desire.

The king and queen stirred in their beds. They spied Mother Gothel at the window, baby in the crook of her arm. She flourished her black cape, then she was gone.

A shadow appeared in the fog to the right of her. Elsa burst through. "Rapunzel? Are you-"

Rapunzel's fists clenched, her eyes vibrating. "I let her go," Rapunzel said. "I let her go. So it could all happen again."

"He gave me the same choice too. But I thought about everything that wouldn't have happened. What-"

"You don't... you don't understand. She was the only mother I knew for that long. She kept me safe. I thought she was keeping me safe. I don't..." She collapsed onto her knees and cried into her hands. "She was all I knew for eighteen years," Rapunzel whispered. "You can't let go of something like that. I'm going to be locked in the tower-"

"You're not there now." Elsa held Rapunzel's cheek and turned her toward herself. "You never were. She might have held your body, but not your spirit. Arcius is trying to make it like it's your fault. It's not."

Rapunzel wiped her eyes and stood up, helped by Elsa. For some reason, that got through to her.

"Is Ariel here?"

"Ariel! Ariel!" the two of them shouted.

Your weakest points. Your worst person. What did Arcius mean? It sounded like something was about to happen. The tone was so prophetic.

The mist cleared away and before her lay the sea floor--her home. Open blue expanse, the sandy ground, a few flat rocks. And in front of her was a plant. A mossy-colored seaweed unfurling to the shape of an old man with a long mustache.

"Daddy?" Ariel whispered.

The polyp's jaundiced eyes stared up at her. How could you? How could you force me into this? Your stubbornness, your ignorance. You've lost us the whole kingdom.

Ariel bent on hands and knees. Tears filled her eyes. "Daddy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for-"

She was barely aware of a shadow in the fog behind her. Memories of this regret and sorrow held her fast. Even though he was only transformed for a short while, at the time, she thought it was forever. This was a memory he took to his death. This was-

"Ariel."

A hand grabbed her neck. She lifted off the floor, her throat constricting.

"Me again," Arcius said.

Ariel scratched at his grasp, but her twiggy fingers slid off his iron grip. He seemed so much taller, so much stronger than last time.

She lifted the trident. The sorcerer yanked it away, like taking a lollipop from a little girl.

"Like I said before. I only need one of you." He turned his gaze to the trident. "And in your case, not even you."

He dropped her. She collapsed, coughing for air.

Arcius gripped the trident in both hands. Its yellow light glowed and pulsed like a heartbeat. Energy traveled through Arcius's arm, giving him the same amber aura. The trident's majestic brass faded to slate gray, dull as iron.

Arcius squeezed his amber fist. The trident snapped in half like a twig.

"No!" Ariel yelled.

Rapunzel and Elsa appeared out of the mist, running toward them. They halted at the edge. "What happened?" Rapunzel asked.

Arcius smiled. His fingertips glowed with a golden aura. "Yes. This is excellent. This is divine power."

The fog disappeared as light flooded the area. They were in a circular room, on a platform floating on nothing. No walls, just open space. Consoles rimmed the edges of the room depicting mystical runes, crystal objects, and incomprehensible writing.

"Welcome to the laboratus. This is where I do all my best work." He gestured to a pedestal in the center of the room. It was the same pedestal where the grain of time sat, sparkling like a star.

Arcius waved his hand over it and the altar floated up into the aether where it disappeared.

"You're probably wondering how I was able to manipulate events so well. Well, I do it here."

The blackness dissolved into an enveloping view of the world. Landscapes and oceans zoomed out at them. Ragged mountains burst from the earth, then withered away. Rivers twisted through dry deserts like snakes, as lush forests bloomed around.

"I can observe all of time from here. From the first atoms to the last light," Arcius said.

"Stop this," Elsa said. "This is madness."

"No, it is not madness to wish for things to change. It is human. Why you deny it, I don't know. But that hardly matters." He clenched his fist. "With this power, I will be able to control it for eons. And after that..." He regarded the girls. "I have you."

A cylinder of wavering air appeared behind the three of them. It looked like a glass case, big enough for all of them to fit inside.

"Now you can enter that of your own free will, or enter it forcefully. But you will enter it," Arcius said.

"What is it?" Ariel asked.

"A point in space where time slows to eternal days. Do you know what an eternal day is?" He paused as if they would answer. "It's a useful little measurement we savants of chronology employ. You might know it as a proverb. High up in the northland, there stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by."

Arcius smiled to let it all sink in. "Disregard the philosophical pith for the moment. What it means is that we can extrapolate further units. Three hundred sixty-five eternal days is an eternal year. One thousand eternal years is an eternal millennium. And so on."

The three girls stared at him dumbfounded. Arcius pointed to the chamber again.

"In that, you will last preserved ten thousand eternal years. Oh, you won't sleep. You'll be conscious. But isn't that better? Your bodies will last. Perhaps your mind won't, but..." He shrugged. "Such is the cost. After such a span, all I would need is your power. Now, like I said--you can get in voluntarily or not."

Elsa didn't even speak. She shot her ice power at him. It fizzled out before Arcius with a wave of his hand.

"You tried that before. It didn't work then. It surely won't work now."

Elsa continued shooting, thrusting magic after magic combined with fear and courage.

"Don't make this hard on yourself."

"We will never stop fighting you," Rapunzel said.

Arcius sighed. He waved his hand.

Ariel lifted into the air, carried by a force pulling her towards Arcius. Her toes dragged along the ground as her body knocked Rapunzel and Elsa aside.

The sorcerer grabbed her and wrapped his arm around her neck. Her legs went limp. Only Arcius's grip kept her upright.

"This one, I don't need to preserve."

"Let her go!" Elsa shouted.

"Go on. Attack me."

Ariel shouted in pain.

"Right now I'm making each of her joints stretch out at once. From the knees to the tiny stapes in her finger bones. I can do worse."

"Don't stop." Ariel grunted through gritted teeth and flecks of spit. To Arcius, "I'd rather die than see you harm my friends."

"I had intended on letting you live. I could simply cast you back into the world and let fate do its will. Unless your friends comply?"

Elsa and Rapunzel froze.

Arcius raised his eyebrows, daring them. "Are you sure? There won't be enough for plankton to feed on when I'm through." He raised his hand. A humming golden aura formed around his clenched fist. Tiny rays sparkled from between his fingers.

Rapunzel picked up her hair nervously, stroking it like an old maid. "Remember Ariel, everyone has a weak point."

Ariel blinked. Something about her tone...

Rapunzel nodded.

Ariel dropped one of her hands like a hammer, nailing Arcius in the crotch.

Arcius doubled over, but didn't lose his grip. His eyes drew to Elsa, expecting her to attack. She was the fastest and could attack from range.

Which is why he didn't see Rapunzel whip out her hair. The golden strands lassoed around Ariel's waist and wrenched her out of his grasp.

With Ariel out of the way, Elsa let loose her full power. Blue ice soared like a shooting star into Arcius's chest.

He staggered back. The yellow aura around his hand fizzled out.

Ariel crawled back to Elsa and Rapunzel. They helped her up, checking for injuries.

Arcius dropped to one knee. He clutched his chest. "Wha... what happened? You...You froze my heart."

"Your heart was already frozen," Elsa said. "Frozen in time. You're locked in some world where past and future have no meaning. And when that happens, you stand still."

"But this isn't just any heart. It's the heart of Temeris." He reached out his hand. Yellow embers fizzled and disappeared. "I can't... I can't use it. You stopped the magic."

Black returned to the spinning world, which disappeared. The pedestal that held the grain of time lowered back down.

"Look," Ariel said.

Arcius's face flashed. Parts of it dissolved into air while others melted. Instead of his handsome, dapper appearance, he looked drained. His sunken-in, yellow eyes gawked as if they had no eyelids. With the white hair, the gray leathery skin, he looked like a decaying corpse. Worse than Lowther or Ravir.

Elsa said to her friends, "I think... I think we did it. Accidentally. Instead of destroying the grain of time or Arcius, all we needed to do was prevent his magic."

"He did become corrupted," Rapunzel said. "It was just an illusion. Meant to make us feel comfortable."

"I just wanted my time back," Arcius wept. "By the time I learned how to control the magic, I was near the end of my life. I could have gotten that back."

"You gambled on power and you lost. You spent all that time hoping you could live all over again," Elsa said. "Well, gambles are just that. You don't always win. Sometimes you make that journey and win. Sometimes you don't."

Arcius scowled. "I can't afford not to win," he growled.

The sorcerer leapt forward, onto the pedestal, and snatched the grain of time. Amber light gathered from his body's limbs--legs, arms, head--and funneled into the object in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Rapunzel asked.

"Conveying all my energy and power into the grain. If I can't use it, it's useless to me."

"How are you going to use the grain of time if you have no power?" Elsa asked.

"Like this."

Arcius slapped the grain into his forehead. An ethereal buzzing--like thousands of wasps--sounded. White tendrils erupted from his body. Arcius pushed out his chest, suspended in pain, as he levitated above the floor. The humming amplified until a white light flashed.

Arcius's clothes turned white, dappled with black. A white aura wisped and sinuated behind him. And his eyes glowed with eerie opalescent fire.

"Such power," Arcius said. His voice echoed in throngs. "I should have done this a long time ago."

"He merged with the grain of time!" Ariel said.

"Now I have complete control over time itself. I can see all things as they happen. All things as they shall happen. All instances." He looked down at them. "And you have no part of it."

He spun a circle in the air. A giant vortex appeared behind him--swirling black and white mashing together. "Do you know what this is? It's anti-time. This will take you to a time before time. Before the universe began. Where you will have no world. No memory. And no existence."

Wind began drilling against them, pushing them closer. Ariel, Rapunzel, and Elsa joined hands, helping each other maintain footing.

"Give up," Arcius said with a laugh.

"I'll never give up," Ariel shouted.

"You?" Arcius said. "You don't even have your trident. What are you going to do?"

"We don't need her trident," Elsa answered. "We have each other."

"We're stronger even if we didn't have powers," Rapunzel said. "Because we love each other."

"Seriously?" Arcius said. "You're pulling this?"

"You say that because you don't know what love is," Elsa said. "Love is breaking through the ice someone puts around themselves."

"Love is giving up something for your friends, no matter if you want it or someone else gives it to you," Rapunzel said.

"Love means finding your voice," Ariel said. With that she began to sing. The same haunting melody that she sang for Ursula, for Ravir. Now she sang it for herself.

Elsa and Rapunzel joined in, facing Arcius and singing as loudly as they could. The echoing chamber amplified the sound.

A heart began to form between them and the portal. Its iridescent surface was faceted like crystal ice. But a warm aura surrounded it, like the sun's corona. And deep inside, beneath the opaque surface, sloshed a watery core, as dark as the ocean. The elements of their three souls.

"I don't know what that is. But I have no intention of dealing with it. Or you." Arcius shot out his hand. "Enjoy being unmade from existence."

A beam of light, striped in white and black like the anti-time portal, streamed out. When it hit the heart, it fizzled out.

"What?" Arcius shot again. Nothing happened. The beam went out. Again. Nothing.

"I will destroy you if it's the last thing I do." Arcius haunched up, wringing his arms. He flew forward on a course to ram it. White streaks of energy trailed behind.

On impact, Arcius bounced back, careening end over end until he fell into the portal.

He froze. The vortex froze.

All was silent.

Arcius choked. His form turned blocklike. The portal started swirling again like an engine building up. Arcius's limbs twisted, contorting like a surrealist painting. His eyes lost definition.

The portal shrunk around him and Arcius along with it. His arms and legs switched from three dimensions to two back to three. Choking gasps continued while his screams burst from whisper to agonized defeat.

The portal collapsed like a star until it was no bigger than the head of a pin. A white light flashed.

Ariel, Rapunzel, and Elsa shielded their eyes, anticipating an explosion. But there was no aftershock. The portal was gone. Arcius was gone. In its place was the grain of time, floating to the ground. Gold dust trailed behind like the tail of a shooting star.

"Is he gone?" Ariel whispered.

"Looks like it," Rapunzel said. "How did we survive?"

"Because love is eternal," said a voice.

The transparent form of a beautiful woman appeared over the sparkling crumb. She had a magnificent emerald dress and golden hair. Her viridian eyes looked down upon them.

"Love is eternal. Neither time nor anti-time can remove that from existence." She smirked.

"Who are you?" Ariel asked.

"Don't you recognize me? I'm what you've been fighting for this whole time. I am the grain of time."

"You're a person?" Rapunzel asked.

"Mmm, maybe not person. But sentient. All the sands of time are. You can't have this much power and not be." She giggled.

"Did Arcius know this?" Elsa asked. "He was keeping you enslaved for your power. Did he know you were conscious?"

"Time is not just a matter or a concept. It has an energy. Within the sands of time, we are immortal. But taken out, our vitality succumbs to entropy."

"That's why he was so concerned about draining you. You weren't just an artifact. And if you lose your energy, you die," Rapunzel said.

"Yes," the goddess said. "Though sadly, that appears to be inevitable. I've just become too exhausted to continue." Her shoulders slumped. Her transparency was fading. The grain of time was twinkling like a candle, dimming with each flash.

"No," Elsa said. "No. We can... we can find a way. Maybe there's a magic-"

"Oh, don't worry about it," the goddess said. "I welcome this. So many of my kind wonder what's on the other side. I will be the first to know." She smiled. "But I still hold enough spirit within to grant a boon."

"A boon?" Elsa asked.

"A favor. A gift. A wish. To revert that which brought you this turmoil in the first place. Unfortunately, I can only do this for one of you."

They each looked each other, considering what had drawn them here in the first place.

"You could fix the broken trident? Restore its power?" Elsa asked the maiden. The maiden nodded.

"What about Rapunzel?" Ariel countered. "It might be the only way to get rid of her hair. Otherwise, she'd be a target of thieves and villains the rest of her life."

"But you could bring back summer to Arendelle," Rapunzel said to Elsa.

"Yes, yes, and yes," the floating maiden said. "Choose quickly. My life is fading. I can feel it will be gone soon."

The three girls glanced between each other, caught in a standoff of selflessness and well-being.

"We've got to pick something. We can't just let this go," Elsa said.

"How are we supposed to make a decision?" Rapunzel asked.

"Rapunzel, it's got to be you," Ariel said. "With your hair, your healing powers, everyone's going to want you for themselves. You'd never be safe."

Elsa said "But it's your trident. I know how important it is to you. And your people. Let alone it's the weapon of a god."

"The fewer people with weapons, the better," Ariel said.

"I'm just one person," Rapunzel said. "Both of you have entire kingdoms depending on you. Arendelle is still in danger."

Again, dead silence within the vacuous chamber. Each watched the other.

And then, a decision was made.