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[muse-et-al]

Thanks a lot for your horror short story, posted in the Jelsa tag without even thinking to post it under a cut, for those who don't wish to read it. I now have to console my 11-year-old sister, who likes to sit with me and look through the tag in the hopes of seeing new pictures of her favourite pairing, and instead read that instead. Seriously, did you even think?

Hello, Anonymous. I am so sorry that this caused so many problems. I did write a warning that there would be mature and violent themes at the beginning. But that probably wasn’t enough. I took your comment to heart and did an undercut. I’m so sorry. EireneHarmonia. 

[muse-et-al]

Coq au Vin

Coq au Vin

Word Count: 1121

Rating: Mature. Violent themes.

The sun was just setting past the horizon when Jack and Elsa pulled up to the quaint little French restaurant. It was a new establishment in a neighbourhood on the edge of the city. The restaurant had refurbished the old Romanesque house into a picturesque restaurant that stayed open late into the night. It worked well for the young couple, especially since Jack preferred to eat much later.

The restaurant was empty when they entered. It was dimly lit with the soft light of crystal chandeliers, tables were covered with white cloth, chairs were lined with red fabric, and sweet piano music played in the background. Jack suddenly stopped, pulling Elsa to a sudden halt. His nostrils flared, and he blinked in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Elsa asked. He turned at the sound of her voice as if pulled from his thoughts. His eyes were hard, narrowed for just a moment before he shook his head and smiled.

“Nothing. I just – just thought I smelled something funny,” Jack said.

“Ah, you must be the couple that reserved a table at 10 pm,” called a voice with a melodic French accent. The young couple turned to see a young waitress greet them. “Come let me take you to your table.”

She wore a complete black ensemble with her brown hair tied back in a neat, tight bun. Her stiff appearance looked a little out of place for such an elegant restaurant. But she led them to a small table in the far corner of the restaurant out looking the expansive, dark forest behind it rather than the quiet street in front of it.

“Here are the menus. I’ll give you two a moment,” the waitress said cheerily before strolling away.

Elsa opened her menu to find nothing but French words and no pictures to guess her way through dishes.

“Do you know any French?” Jack asked lightly.

“I’m Norwegian, Jack,” Elsa replied, flipping through the menu and trying to decipher the language. “Why did you pick a French restaurant if we can’t speak French?”

“Because it was the only fine dining restaurant open this late,” he replied. “Besides, it’s fun to be a little adventurous…right?”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Right.”

“Have you made a decision?” the waitress asked, making an appearance again with two glasses of water.

“Actually, could you recommend me something?” Elsa asked.

“Of course! Our bourguignon is exquisite. It’s a mushroom, carrot, and ah, meat stew cooked with red wine.”

“Sounds great,” Elsa replied, handing the woman the menu back. Jack hesitated for a moment, scanning the list with confused eyes.

“And I’ll get the… uh… cass..ou...let,” he said, attempting to sound out the name of the dish. Elsa pressed her hand against her lips, trying to suppress a giggle.

“Ah, the cassoulet,” the waitress said. “Good choice, sir. Could I get anything for you two to drink? We have quite a nice wine collection, not as wide as the larger restaurants, but our family has deals with a small vineyard in France that makes excellent flavourful red wines.”

Jack nodded. “Sure, we’ll take two glasses.”

The waitress grinned and walked away, ducking behind a sliding door that Elsa assumed was the kitchen.

“She’s certainly lively for someone working at 10 pm,” Elsa commented. Jack hummed.

“Not everyone is a morning person as you are,” he replied. “Some people actually like to sleep in.”

Not soon after, their meals came. The waitress set before Elsa a steaming bowl smelling richly of spices and in front of Jack a plate with bean casserole of some sort. She then placed two wine glasses onto the table and popped open a fragrant bottle, pouring dark red.

“Enjoy!” she said, disappearing behind the doors again.

Jack swirled his glass once before raising it in a toast. Elsa followed, playing along to his antics.

“To trying new things,” he said, clinking glasses with Elsa’s. She took a sip. The wine was crisp, but it left a strange aftertaste that coated her tongue in a strange, floral film. Jack made a face, putting his glass down.

“Uh…I am no wine connoisseur, but that tasted terrible.”

“Maybe that’s just French wine,” Elsa said, putting down her glass and pushing it away.

“Hopefully French food is better,” he said, picking up his cutlery. She followed in-suit, dipping her spoon into the soup and taking a mouthful. The broth was rich, warm, and full of flavour and now she finally realised just how hungry she was.

“The stew’s really good,” she commented after another mouthful. She scooped a piece of the tender meat onto her spoon. “How’s your uh… dish.”

Jack didn’t reply, picking at his food with an anxious look on his face. “The beans taste fine – pretty good actually. But… I just can’t… pick out what kind of meat it is… and it tastes kind of.... Elsa? Are you alright?”

Something felt wrong.

She was blinking rapidly now. Her vision was beginning to blur.

Everything was starting to spin.

“Elsa,” Jack called again.

His voice sounded muffled.

“Elsa?”

Far away.

“Elsa can you hear – Ugh!”

“El…”

“Elsa…hear….up?”

“Elsa…. Please wake up.”

Cold.

It was freezing.

“Jack?” she mumbled, her tongue felt so thick in her mouth.

“Oh, thank God. Elsa, I’m here.”

She blinked, trying to clear away her blurry, dark vision. Trying to peel open her stiff eyelids and keep them open.

“Love, you have to stay with me,” Jack said.

“What’s going on,” she asked, almost incoherently. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t remember what happened. She needed to rub her eyes, but she couldn’t move her arms. Her fingertips were so cold that she couldn’t even feel them. “Why was it so cold?”

“Elsa, Elsa. I am so sorry. The food, the wine, everything. It was drugged. They drugged us – knocked me out cause I found out before the drugs took effect…then dragged us here.”

“I – I don’t understand. Where’s here?” she asked.

But then things were starting to piece together.

“Love, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”

Her vision cleared.

She shouldn’t move her arms because they were hanging above her head. Tied together and attached to a hook.

She couldn’t feel her fingers because she was cold. Shivering cold. The room was cold. Across from her was Jack in a similar situation. Blood dripped down the side of his face, caked in his white hair.

More images formed now.

Scents filled her thoughts.

Iron. Suffocating iron. Blood. Blood. Blood and red.

So much red.

Beside her hung frozen figures.

Filleted. Skinned.

“Jack,” she whispered. “Is that. Is that –”

“Yes,” Jack replied hoarsely. “The restaurant owners are cannibals. We’re in a meat locker, Elsa.”

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Flat Out of Luck

Halloween Three: 

Flat Out of Luck

It was past midnight when the couple got a flat-tire on the empty roads.

“You go back into the car, babe,” Jack said, his voice breaking the silence of the hazy night. “I’m almost done.”

“I can’t leave you alone,” she replied.

“Thinking a racoon will eat me?” he asked.

Elsa sighed at his bad joke but complied.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Jack said when he got into the driver’s seat.

But Elsa didn’t reply. She starred wide-eyed at the rear-view mirror.

“Elsa?”

Jack glanced into the backseat.

There, sat a black humanoid figure brandishing a large, rusting butcher’s knife.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Prickling

Halloween Two:

Prickling

“Jack, wait!” Bunnymund shouted as I weaved ahead of him. I slowed, lingering in the Mirror House, stepping only when my outstretched hands touched empty-air.

Then cold-glass pressed against my fingertips and my reflection pouted in the mirror before me.

Dead-end.

But there was someone behind me.

A girl in a tattered blue-dress and platinum-blonde hair matted with blood.

I spun around.

But there was no one, nothing but endless reflections of my startled face.

“Bunnymund?” I called.

No reply.

I turned, slowly.

She was there.

Hovering over my reflection.

Staring at me with bloodshot eyes.

Breathing down my neck.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Beneath the Waters

Halloween One

Beneath the Waters

Long ago, there was a boy named Jack Frost who drowned in the Burgess Lake.

* * *

“Hi,” said a boy with white-hair, pale-skin, and hollowed blue-eyes.

The young girl hesitated, “Hello…”

“Whatcha doing?”

“I wanted to play in the snow,” she said.

“The best snow is down by the lake, wanna see?” the boy asked.

The girl nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Elsa,” she replied.

“I am Jack Frost.”

* * *

He returned, but as an angry ghost luring children and dragging them into the depths of the lake to join his rotting corpse.

You mustn’t go near the lake.

Especially on Hollow’s Eve.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Guardian

Guardian

When Jack, the heir to Frost Corporations, was heading home in the early morning hours, he was confronted by a man.   

“Well, well, what do we have here?” the man grabbed a fistful of the CEO-to-be’s white-hair. 

And before Jack knew it, he was surrounded by several of the man’s friends.

 “Take him down and take everything.” 

Suddenly a figure-in-black came. 

Punches, grunts, and broken bones. 

The man let go of Jack, and they all ran, screaming. 

“Forgive my tardiness, Mr Overland.” 

“No need, Elsa,” Jack replied, brushing dirt off his suit.

 She bowed, before returning to the shadows. 

Elsa. 

His bodyguard. 

His guardian.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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In Promises to the Wind

In Promises to the Wind

“I love you,” she whispered against his skin, pulling him closer. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“And I want too as well,” he said, each word broken by the pause of a kiss.

“Lady Elsa, you have a telegram.”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s run away,” she said. “Get married.”

“No. I’ve already enlisted,” he said. “When I return as from the war, I’ll ask for your hand in marriage. Properly.”

Miss Elsa Arendelle,

We deeply regret to inform you that Private Jackson Overland-Frost was officially reported as killed in action.

“Alright, promise me, Jack.”

“Promise.”

Fin.

Image found on PInterest.

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Love is Blindness

Love is Blindness

The house was quiet.

Jack was alone.

Well, save the pleasant company of a half-empty decanter of cognac.

Jack turned groggily when the front door opened, watching through bleary eyes as his wife tiptoed into the kitchen.

She jumped in surprise.

“J-Jack, you’re home.”

“Elsa,” he greeted dully, he took another swig before wobbling towards her.

She stepped backwards until her back pressed against the wall.

He leant down, pushing her blonde hair over her shoulder and trailing kisses up her neck.

“Jack?”

Her perfume lingered on her skin, and there was another scent too: cologne.

But it wasn’t his.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Unexpected

Unexpected

It was a lazy night for Elsa. She was just about to head to bed when a knock came at her door. “Elsa?” called a familiar voice.

It was her new neighbour, Jack. He always greeted her with a smile.

“Elsa, could you, uh, open up please?”

She quickly got up and upon pulling her door open, she saw him. Blood caked his white-hair.

Dirt covered his black shirt.

“Find the agent and kill him!” called a man from down the stairs.

“That would be me,” Jack said with a smile. “Let me in, please?”

There goes her lazy night.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Trembling

Trembling

Red-orange leaves tumbled down from the tree, falling into the quiet blue-green waters below.

“You’re going to fall, Jack,” she warned, watching me walk barefooted across a thinning tree-branch.

“Relax, Elsa,” I laughed.

I wobbly put one foot in front of the other.

The branch cracked under my weight.

And down I fell.  

Black.

My throat burned.

Soft lips.

Then the taste of red-cinnamon gum.

A gasp of air: her orange-blossom perfume.  

I opened my eyes to blue speckled with ripples of green: her irises.

She hovered above me.

Cheeks flushed. Hair wet.

“Oh thank god,” she panted. “Thank god.”

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Black Bargain

Black Bargain

“Ah, forbidden love.” Kozmotis Pitch scoffed, brandishing an ebony dagger in his hands. “To think that the cold Prince of Winter has fallen for a mortal human.”

“Jack,” she whispered, “Run he’ll kill –”

But her words were cut short, as Nightmare King wrapped his tendrils of shadows tighter around the young woman’s throat.

“No. Stop!” Jack yelled. “Alright – alright. Whatever you want – I’ll give it to you.”

“Your powers, for her life.”

Jack quickly tossed the conduit of his powers to Pitch in one swift, thoughtless motion. “There. It’s yours. Just. Just let her go.”  

Pitch grinned.

“No.”

“ELSA!”

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Daydream

Daydream

“Arendal Castle,” Aster said as he and Jack wandered through the halls of the old castle. “Famous for being haunted by the ghost of the Ice Queen Elsa.”

“Ghost, did you say?” Jack asked. 

“Don’t get any ideas –”

“Wait, did you see that?” Jack snapped.

“Ha. I am not falling for that, mate.”

“No,” Jack insisted, following a retreating figure into the throne room. “I’m not kidding you – ”

Then the doors slammed behind him.

His breath suddenly came in cloudlike fogs.

He turned to see a woman.

Elsa.

“Hello, Jack Frost,” she whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

Please help me credit the amazing artist if you guys know who.

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For Wine-Coloured Days

For Wine-Coloured Days

“You need to leave, Jack,” Elsa said as she pulled him into the backseat of the black sedan.

“What?”

“The Families have started a war. It’s too dangerous for you to stay.”

“What about you?!”

“I am the Don of the Arendelle Family,” she said.

“I can’t leave without you.”

“But I cannot abandon the Family,” she said. “The driver will take you to the airport. I’ll come find you when it’s over.”

He moved quickly, pulling her close and pressing his lips against hers.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She didn’t answer.

Because her ‘I love you’ meant ‘goodbye’.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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The Show Must Go On

The Show Must Go On

The sound of sharp-metal caught his fading attention.

When the fog in his eyes cleared, he saw her holding a dagger in her hand.

His eyes widened as she tossed the knife towards him.

He yelled, trying desperately to pull his body away – only to find himself tied to a panel.

“What are you doing?!” he asked.

“Performing,” she replied. “You’re my new assistant, remember Jack? And it seems as though I made a mistake.”

He winced, noticing a burning pain blooming on his cheek.

“Oh well, the show must go on,” she said, pulling another knife from her belt.

Fin

Image found on Pinterest.

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In the Waters Below

In the Waters Below

Jack wasted no time exploring the beaches of the island when his ship docked on the shores of the Caribbean. When he happened on a hidden cove with calm, clear, blue waters, Jack was quick to tear off his shirt and boots, leaving only his breeches as he dived with a mighty yell.

The salt burned his eyes, but he caught a glimpse of a fish with thin fins in a blue-green hue.

He blinked, turning to catch another glance at the beautiful creature.

Pale human skin.

A halo of blonde hair.

It wasn’t a fish.

It was a mermaid.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Kogarashi

Kogarashi

He waited in the throne room, kneeling on red-carpeted floors anticipating her arrival. His hands were clammy and he could barely breathe: the room was filled with the foggy mist of incense.

Jack: son of the Emperor of Shuang and an Imperial Consort.

The Second Prince, but never to take the throne for his mother was a concubine.

Reduced to a political chess piece.

Now he stood before the court of another country, prepared to marry for the sake of an alliance.

He hated this.

“Presenting, Her Imperial Highness, the Empress of Arendaru!”

But there was no turning back now.

Fin.

Kogarashi - a cold North wind that blows at the beginning of winter

Shuang - is pinyin for frost in Chinese (I think)

Arendaru - is the romaji for Arendelle in Japanese.

Image found on Pinterest.

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Song for Lovers

Song for Lovers

Jack sighed, the smell of incense always lingered in the palace. But now, there was another scent that filled his senses.

Elsa’s perfume.

He lay by her side. So close that he could hear her breaths. So close that silk-sleeves of her dress brushed against his cheek.

He closed his eyes, imagining how gracefully she moves as she plucks the strings of the guzheng. Oh, how he wished that she played those songs of love for him instead of just… for him.

But that was just his fantasy, for he was the crown prince and she was a court musician.

Fin.

Image found on Pinterest.