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The ice horse descended with grace that belied its crystalline construction, touching down before the cottage with barely a sound. Elsa had transformed during her brief flight—no longer the terrified, bleeding child who'd fled this place, but something else entirely. Silver hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of moonlight. Her elegant blue gown flowed around her small frame, and the translucent white cloak billowed in the wind like captured clouds.
She looked like a queen from the fairy tales Violet used to read at bedtime. Regal. Untouchable. Beautiful.
But her eyes held the haunted quality of someone who'd seen too much, too young.
The ice horse knelt, lowering its master gently to the ground. Elsa slid from its back, her bare feet touching the scorched earth. The cottage stood before her, door still slightly ajar from when King Riku had chased her out. Such a small detail. Such enormous implications.
Maybe, she thought, clinging to desperate hope with a child's illogical optimism, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Mama is inside waiting. Maybe Anna survived—she's strong, she could have survived. Maybe I can use my powers to heal them, freeze the wounds, do something...
"Mama? Anna?" She called out softly, approaching the door with tentative steps. "I'm home. Elsa's home now."
She pushed the door open wider.
The first thing she saw was blood.
A large, bloody footprint marred the floor—adult-sized, masculine, leading from the interior toward the exit. King Riku's footprint, made when he'd stepped through Anna's pooled blood on his way to hunt down the last survivor.
He'd walked through her sister's blood like it was nothing. Like she was nothing.
The fragile hope in Elsa's chest shattered like dropped glass. Reality reasserted itself with crushing weight—no wishful thinking could change what had happened, no prayer could undo the murders committed in this small cottage.
No, she thought numbly. No, no, no...
Her legs moved on autopilot, carrying her deeper into the cottage even though every instinct screamed to run. She had to see. Had to know for certain.
Violet lay exactly where Elsa had left her—neck bent at that wrong angle, limbs arranged in the awkward sprawl of violent death. But what drew Elsa's gaze and broke something fundamental inside her were her mother's eyes.
They were open. Still open. Staring at the ceiling with that same accusatory glare, as if even in death she couldn't forgive what had been done.
Elsa didn't remember crossing the remaining distance. One moment she was in the doorway, the next she was kneeling beside her mother's corpse, her small body moving like a puppet with cut strings. She felt nothing—couldn't feel anything—as though all her emotions had been locked away behind a wall of ice that matched her new powers.
This is what it means to be a walking corpse, she realized distantly. This emptiness. This nothing.
Her hand trembled as she reached out, fingertips barely brushing Violet's cold cheek. The skin felt wrong—waxy, lifeless, already beginning the transformation that came after death. But Elsa forced herself to move her hand higher, to Violet's still-open eyes.
"I'm going to close them now, Mama," she whispered, though she knew her mother couldn't hear. "It's okay. You can rest."
She pressed gently, eyelids sliding shut beneath her small fingers. This time—perhaps because her daughter had survived, perhaps because some mercy existed in the universe after all—they stayed closed. Violet's face took on a more peaceful expression, as though she'd finally been released from whatever torment had kept her eyes open before.
"There," Elsa breathed. "You can sleep now."
Then she turned to her sister.
Anna lay in a congealed pool of her own blood, her small body impossibly still. The shot had entered through her chin and exited through the top of her skull, leaving devastation in its wake. Half her lower face was simply gone—jaw shattered, teeth scattered in the crimson pool, tongue partially visible through the ruined flesh.
The bullet had been instantaneous mercy, at least. Anna wouldn't have felt pain, wouldn't have suffered the prolonged agony of strangulation. She'd been giggling one moment, confused the next, then nothing at all.
Is that supposed to make this better? Elsa wondered, staring at her sister's mutilated face. Does it matter if it was quick?
"Why?" The word tore from her throat—not a scream, but something worse. A quiet, broken question directed at a universe that had no answer. "Why did they have to die? Why did any of this have to happen? We didn't hurt anyone. We just wanted to be a family."
Hatred rose in her chest like a living thing, hot and venomous and all-consuming. She hated this world that had murdered her family. Hated Doflamingo for existing. Hated King Riku for his twisted justice. Hated every citizen of Dressrosa who'd participated in the systems that led to this moment. Hated the Celestial Dragons, the World Government, the very concept of power that let strong people crush weak people without consequence.
She hated everything.
The emotion surged through her, and her Devil Fruit responded like it had been waiting for permission. Cold erupted from her small body—not the gentle frost of her earlier experiments, but a raging blizzard of ice and fury. A snow tornado manifested in her palm, growing larger with each second as her control slipped completely.
Frost raced across the floor in crystalline patterns, climbing the walls with geometric precision. The temperature plummeted, each breath visible as white vapor. The cottage's wooden walls groaned as ice encased them, reinforcing and transforming the structure into something entirely new.
A tomb, Elsa thought through her haze of grief and rage. They need a proper tomb. Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere no one can disturb them ever again.
She raised her hands, and the ice responded to her will with terrifying obedience. The structure began to grow—walls extending upward and outward, the ceiling rising to cathedral heights. Intricate pillars of ice formed from nothing, supporting archways decorated with frozen fractals that caught and refracted light into rainbow patterns.
The Ice and Snow Mausoleum expanded far beyond the cottage's original footprint, claiming the entire remaining open space atop the King's Plateau. Ten meters tall. Fifteen. Twenty. The building grew with impossible speed, its architecture more elaborate than anything a five-year-old should be able to conceptualize—vaulted ceilings, buttresses, stained-glass windows made of colored ice depicting scenes of family and love and loss.
The temperature within the mausoleum dropped to well below freezing, yet Elsa felt perfectly comfortable. This was her ice, after all. Her power. Her domain.
When the main structure was complete, she turned her attention to more specific needs. A gesture scattered snowflakes across the floor, and where they landed, ice began solidifying into two coffins—one large enough for an adult woman, one sized for a small child. Both were exquisitely crafted, covered in delicate frost patterns that resembled flowers blooming across their surfaces.
But she couldn't move the bodies herself. Couldn't bear to touch them, to feel their weight, to acknowledge their absolute lifelessness.
"I need help," she said aloud. "Someone to guard this place. Someone to protect them when I can't."
She inhaled deeply, then exhaled a concentrated breath of arctic air. The vapor swirled and compressed, taking shape with startling speed. Within moments, a towering figure stood before her—easily three meters tall, clad in ornate armor made entirely of ice, wielding a massive sword that gleamed like frozen lightning.
The Ice General's face resembled Senior Pink's—the same gentle features beneath the ridiculous baby bonnet, though rendered in crystalline ice rather than flesh. Even though Senior hadn't come to save her, even though he'd failed when she needed him most, Elsa couldn't bring herself to hate him. He'd protected her for years, after all. Had been kind when kindness was rare.
If he'd been there, she thought, maybe none of this would have happened. Or maybe he'd just be dead too.
The Ice General moved experimentally, testing its limbs with the cautious precision of a newborn learning to walk. Then it turned its blank ice-crystal eyes toward Elsa and bowed deeply, awaiting orders.
"Put them in the coffins," Elsa commanded, her voice steadier than she felt. "Gently."
The construct approached Violet's body with surprising care, its massive hands somehow tender as they lifted the dead woman and carried her to the larger coffin. It laid her inside with the reverence of a knight handling sacred relics, positioning her arms across her chest in the traditional pose of peaceful rest.
Then it moved to Anna. The child's body was so small in those huge ice hands, so obviously broken. The General placed her in the smaller coffin with even greater care, as though aware that this was a child—someone who deserved gentleness even in death.
When both bodies were properly arranged, the Ice General stepped back and returned to Elsa's side, mission complete.
But something about Anna's appearance bothered Elsa. The ruined jaw, the exposed teeth and tongue, the gaping wound—it was too horrible, too undignified. Her sister deserved better than to spend eternity looking like that.
Elsa approached the small coffin and reached out one final time, her fingers brushing Anna's cold cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to protect you. But I can do this, at least."
She focused her power, crafting a delicate half-mask of translucent ice that covered everything from Anna's nose down. The mask was beautiful—decorated with tiny snowflakes and designed to blend seamlessly with her sister's face. Now, instead of a horror, Anna looked like a sleeping princess from a winter story, peaceful and untouched by violence.
"Goodbye, Anna. Goodbye, Mama." Tears froze on Elsa's cheeks before they could fall, turning to ice crystals that pattered to the floor like diamonds. "I loved you both so much. I still love you. I'll always love you."
She raised her hands one final time, and the coffin lids slid into place with barely a whisper of sound. Perfect seals formed where ice met ice, creating an airtight environment that would preserve the bodies indefinitely. No decay. No corruption. Just eternal rest in a frozen moment, their beauty locked away from time's ravages.
One year. Ten years. Ten thousand years. It doesn't matter. They'll stay beautiful forever.
With the burial complete, Elsa stood in her magnificent mausoleum and felt... nothing. Empty. Hollow. The deepest parts of her soul had frozen solid alongside the tears on her face, transforming grief into something cold and permanent.
Where did she go from here? What did a five-year-old orphan do when her entire family was dead, her home destroyed, and the only power she possessed was the ability to freeze things? The ocean was vast and cruel. She had no safe harbor, no allies, no destination.
I've lost everything, she realized. The moment these coffins closed, I lost my home forever.
The world tilted suddenly, dizziness overwhelming her senses without warning. Her legs buckled, strength abandoning her body all at once.
"What's... happening..." she managed before consciousness fled entirely.
She collapsed onto the ice floor, her small body curled in on itself. The excessive use of her newly awakened Devil Fruit had drained her completely—children weren't meant to create entire buildings and animate constructs within hours of gaining their powers. Her body had simply reached its limit.
Outside the mausoleum, the Ice General heard the sound of his queen falling. He moved toward the entrance immediately, concerned for his creator's wellbeing.
"Wait." The Ice Pegasus stepped into his path, its crystalline hooves clicking against frozen ground. "Our Queen has only just awakened her ability. Her body needs rest to recover. As her subjects, we shouldn't disturb her sleep."
The Ice General paused, his massive sword halfway drawn. He studied the Pegasus for a long moment, and something that looked remarkably like jealousy flickered across his frozen features. "You were created first," he said, his voice like ice cracking in a thaw. "You'll always be Her Majesty's primary guardian. I'm merely second."
"Does that matter?" The Pegasus swished its icy tail. "We're both elemental creatures born from the Queen's power. We serve the same purpose."
"Perhaps." The Ice General thrust his sword into the ground between them, a gesture of resolution rather than aggression. "But you'll ride beside her. Share her adventures. See the world through her eyes." He turned back toward the mausoleum, his posture radiating quiet melancholy. "I'll spend my existence here, guarding this tomb. Protecting the dead while you protect the living."
The Pegasus moved to stand beside him, gazing up at the magnificent structure their queen had created in her grief. "There's honor in that duty. The dead need guardians too."
"I know." The Ice General's voice carried no resentment despite his earlier jealousy—only acceptance of his purpose. "Until Queen Elsa wakes, we maintain absolute peace here. No one enters. No one disturbs her rest. We give everything for her sake. That is our existence."
"Agreed."
The two constructs took their positions—the Pegasus standing guard at the mausoleum's entrance, the General patrolling its perimeter with tireless vigilance. Both watched over their sleeping creator with the unwavering loyalty only magical beings could possess.
Above them, the Ice and Snow Mausoleum rose like a monument to love and loss, its crystalline spires catching the dying sunlight and scattering it across the ruined King's Plateau in prismatic colors.
Inside, Elsa slept the exhausted sleep of someone who'd lost everything and survived anyway.
And in their frozen coffins, Violet and Anna rested in eternal peace, preserved forever in their final moment of beauty.
The tomb stood silent and cold and magnificent—a five-year-old's monument to the family she'd never see again.
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