Childhood would end for Prince Hans exactly the second he stepped onto the gangplank. He would be happy to get rid of the oppression of his brothers, the stigma of being the spare, but for this he needed to leave behind a lifetime – eighteen boring, often wretched and lonely, yet years spent in familiar surroundings.
But who said anything would change? Why is it that even if he is a stranger and unnecessary in his native home, he would finally find his place in distant Arendelle? Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to it at all. Since when does the groom travel to the bride, and not the other way around! On the other hand, she would be the queen, and he would be her king. And he would never be superfluous again, never left in the shadows. And the time would come, and he would set conditions for his older brothers.
The suitcases were still on the beach. Hans couldn't bring himself to give the order to bring them in. He stood before the first step, unable to take it. As soon as his hand twitched towards the railing, he looked around. Behind him, at the port, his brothers were standing and staring at him with cold, indifferent looks, as if saying, "Just leave already – we have more important things to do." It was a shame, but it was familiar. They were another reason to finally take this step.
But besides them, he left behind the palace in which he grew up – his room, where he and his beloved nanny learned to read and played with toy soldiers. She was his dearest person in this world that seemed to push him out at every turn. The nanny had been working for other people for a long time, all he had left was correspondence. Where once he had waited less than a week for a reply, soon even a month would not be enough.
The king looked at his youngest son with the same coldness as his older children, and the queen, as if she were out of this world, did not even look at Hans. She looked at the sea and the sky, gray, cold, but still calm. And Hans knew she was the only one who cared about him today. She wasn't ignoring her son; she was simply making sure the weather would hold. And he would arrive safely.
His mother nodded imperceptibly at him, and he took the difficult, fateful first stride. Then the queen couldn't stand it and ran out to the pier to hug her son one last time. The young man turned around before he could step higher. Now he felt calmer: there would be a person who would pray for him, there would be a person on whom he would rely in case of trouble.
She took a deep breath and released the prince, but remained standing on the dock until the gangplank was raised and the sails lowered. Then she returned to her family and waved a tear-stained handkerchief after the departing ship for a long time.
The prince also stood at the stern and watched as his huge family gradually turned into indistinguishable figures, then into dots, and then completely merged with the surroundings. And so the horizon became unfathomably far away from all sides. Where the house used to be, there was now a dark strip of land where seagulls flew to their nests. His path lay in the other direction, to where the sea and sky merge, hiding behind them the mysterious closed kingdom of Arendelle.
It wasn't going to be a long journey, and at the end, it was going to be unknown. For many years now, the doors of their palace had been kept sealed. Hans would be the first one to enter there in a long time, and it was unclear how long he would be confined. And for what reason... What were they hiding that was so terrible? What was the threat to the new inhabitants of the palace? After all, Their Majesties forbade even taking a chamberlain with them, promising to provide a servant from their staff in order to let as few strangers into their house as possible.
"Your Highness, the cabin is ready," a voice sounded somewhere to the Prince's right.
Reluctantly, he let go of the fence and turned away from the house. His old house. Then he turned and made his way to a temporary shelter on the way to a new one.
A modest sailor's cabin. It didn't look like a prince lives here at all. No portraits, no silk sheets, no golden forks. Only the carvings on the baseboards betrayed the noble origin of the guest. There wasn't even a fireplace, did his father think his son was that stupid, even thinking that he might have burned down the ship trying to keep warm? Hans was left with only a kerosene stove, which can only light up a desk. And the prince would be kept warm by a brand-new woolen blanket in the colors of the Southern Islands - blue and white. His last warm reminder of his abandoned home.
Now he was going to become the king of a distant kingdom. Marry a girl locked in a golden cage, guarding something. Is the castle protecting her, or from her? What is it about this strange place? His father had traded with Arendelle. Very successfully. They supplied fine wood, and the rarest marble was mined in their mountains, on which Hans spent his childhood slipping on the palace corridors. He knew the Arendelle rocks, so to speak, by sight.
Even now, the deck beneath his feet was covered with pine planks, sawn from trees once owned by this strange kingdom. So many years had passed, and the ship was still moving. The ship had served for the royal family's short cruises, and the lessons of all thirteen princes in navigation. When each of them took the helm for the first time, he ordered all sails to be lowered and drove, pushed by the wind, cutting through the waves, to meet the open sea, the smell of salt and freshness, storms and gales — everything that made up the free and exciting spirit of life on the water. And here he was, Hans, on the same ship, with his own crew, but he was no longer interested in the steering wheel or the white crests.
As a child, this adventure had no end, the boys simply sailed the waters, having fun while the teachers drew routes on the maps to be able to return home. And now the end is quite obvious. There is a country, and in that country there is a port, in the port there is a pier. The pier is the end. The end of his past life as the last heir, the youngest son, and the loser by birthright. The pier is the beginning. The beginning of his era, the reign of King Hans.
The already leaden sky darkened even more under the onslaught of twilight. Darkness enveloped the cabin and pressed on his eyes and temples. The kerosene stove could no longer cope with its task, and Hans was in no hurry to pour fuel into it. After hours of brooding over his uncertain future, the walls began to close in on him. He wanted to relax so much, to feel the spirit of sea adventure, the power of the elements, the roar of the sea, the waves. Like any boy, Hans wanted to let all the colors of life pass through him: danger and salvation, threat, luck, fear, and that feeling of being on the verge of death and surviving — rebirth.
He went out onto the deck and lay down dangerously on the railing. The rounded railing did not provide reliable support, and his feet slipped on the wet deck. The sailors squinted at him and exchanged glances.
The sailors exchanged looks that said plainly: the prince is off to marry and rule, yet he looks darker than the sky. One wrong move and he'll go overboard. What's gotten into him? That, at least, was what their glances seemed to say.
Hans was glad to get a chance to build a new life, but the problem was the fear of failure. He couldn't become someone when he was born a prince, and now he had to become a king when he arrived as an outsider. The feeling of anticipating difficulties stifled the expectation of something new and joyful.
The wind played with his hair. Drops of water, foaming under the keel, pleasantly splashed against his face. The chill of the sea sent shivers down his spine.
This must be what the breath of change feels like.
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