A/N: New story idea. I'm also muddling through a one-shot that's about 15'000 words long at present.

The Grand Adventure, Chapter 1

Wish

Great things are said to come to those who wish upon a star.

Anna Eugenia wasn't one to believe much in the way of the stars, however. Fairy-tales only held out for so many years until the harsh truth of reality settled into young, impressionable minds one by one. Granted, having a wild imagination and a rambunctious personality made giving up the tales all the more difficult for the young red-head, but even the most wonderful of dreams must come to an end eventually.

Having never known her true parents, Anna had grown up in the quiet, rustic city of Arendelle, often scavenging from the trash and gutters to find what sustenance the gentle patrons afforded to be discarded; the Home for the Abandoned never seemed to have enough sustenance to go around, and it was all the owners could do to keep the lights on. Anna never knew any better and thus couldn't blame her assumed guardians for what most would label as their failures.

And as bright eyes and young minds are wont to do, they believe. They believe in the spirit of the world, in humanity's goodness and the kind hearts of those more and less fortunate. And with this incredible power of belief, Anna earned herself a very prestigious reputation with those so unfortunate as to be condemned to the Abandonment Home without salvation.

The Tooth Fairy had been a sham at age eight. Easter's Bunny at age ten. The Sandman and the Leprechaun both went at age twelve. Santa Claus made it to age thirteen. But of all the tales she'd grown up with, she refused to lose hope in the one she'd loved most as a young girl, the tale of the Fall.

The Fall was a widespread event of wonder that had captured the hearts of even the most stoic, disbelieving residents of Arendelle. Legend had it that the Fall was an event that could be witnessed anywhere on earth, but to be blessed with seeing the Fall meant that the week to follow would be a wonderful time indeed. Anna hoped to see the next Fall and prayed to a deity she lacked faith in to grant her just one wish, just one chance to see the fabled event of old.

The story of the Fall is as follows: Once, there was a boy with hair of gold and eyes of green who believed that stars were magical. At the tender age of three, his sister was born, hair as fair and eyes like the ocean. He loved her dearly, and she just as much of him, and he vowed to protect her no matter the consequence. And so they grew, until he was just age eight and she five, and then a terrible thing did happen. The little boy and the little girl, both fair children with equal parts happiness and wonder, stole away in the midst of the blackest of nights they'd ever seen. So curious to see the wonder of the darkness were they that they knew not of the evil that lurked behind, and when the boy was silently taken from the girl she took no notice, gazing at the darkened sky with curiosity and awe. And when she finally looked over to see where her dear brother was, she found nothing but a burn on the cobble directed toward the forest. She chased the burn, deeper and deeper into the wood, until she found her brother lying atop a tree stump, a knife deep in his breast, his blood on the hands of a wicked witch. The girl began to cry. "Hush child, or you'll be next," the witch said. "Why did you kill him?" the girl asked. "Blood of children keeps me young," the witch said. She laughed as the girl wept, and a single pinprick of light came from above to shine on the boy's face. The girl looked up and saw a single star through her tears. "Please," she cried, "please, I wish my brother was still here with me, please oh please." And then…the star shone brightly, and twinkled as it began to spin like a top. The girl stopped crying as she watched, and the star raced down to earth, down and down it fell until it crashed against the clearing with a light so bright the sun came out, and the witch screamed as she melted in the sunlight, and the boy woke up from his sleep, and the knife was no longer in his chest, and he was no longer bleeding, and the girl was no longer crying, and they hugged and rejoiced and danced gaily as they hurried home to their parents, so happy to have one another once again.

Anna knew that the story was nothing but an old wives' tale designed with the intention of keeping pretentious children indoors at night so that the wild coyotes would not make meals of them, knew that things like witches and life bestowed by stars were folly in the purest sense. She wasn't so blinded by her imagination and her hope that she confused the fable with fact. But she had seen the clearing, the glimmering trees coated in an iridescent layer of stardust that refused to scrape off no matter how hard she tried. She'd seen the very tree stump in the middle, saw what she believed was a dried stain. She'd even let herself believe that the jagged mark in the center of the stain was where a knife could have been poised. And while she had no proof of what had actually happened in that clearing, the signs she bore witness to seemed to be powerful enough to convince her of the legend's origin.

Every year, the eve of her arrival day (given that the day of her birth was a mystery to her), she'd lean out the upstairs window she'd been granted at the ramshackle building and clasp her hands together, like a good schoolgirl would, and she would plead with the stars above to accept her wish, her wish to find out who her family was and where she had come from, to find out why she existed and what she was supposed to do.

To find out who she really was.

Sadly, every year, she'd come away disappointed, never knowing more about anything than she had the day prior, although the fresh loaf of bread she'd been given every year made things a bit better (mostly because she was offered fresh food instead of stale bread or garbage, even if just for one day). And so it was that on the eve of her eighteenth arrival day, she leaned out the window once more, resting her bosom against the wooden sill, and clasped her fingers together once again.

"Starlight, starbright…sparkling star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, I…I wish to have one wish tonight. I wish…"

She paused, her eyes casting down to the cobble of the alleyway below, the rubbish can she'd scoured for food still open to the night. She wasn't any bit convinced that the wish would get her anywhere, and she found herself choking on the lump in her throat.

"I wish…that this year will be different."

She struggled, fighting to speak with a conviction she hadn't believed she possessed.

"I wish that I might know who I am and where I came from…why I was left on the doorstep alone as a baby…and what I'm supposed to do with my life. I know I have to work hard and try to learn something…and it's hard, y'know, feeling so…so dumb and small, but…but I just…I need this. I need to know…I need to. Please. I…I wish to know."

She withdrew her shaking arms, grasping for the shutters. She felt stupid and numb, cold invading her body even as the feeble wooden doorlets closed against the outside. Living so far north on the coast of a turbulent ocean meant reasonably mild temperature changes with a subdued chill in the air at all times, and even as spring was fast approaching summer the winter's decline in temperament hadn't quite given up hope of freezing the lonely and the meek.

With reckless abandon, Anna donned a tattered jacket and fled the Home, needing comfort and solace the wooden edifice surely could not offer. She fled to the wood, darting between trees along the same invisible path she'd traversed a thousand times before, never once tripping over a rock or brushing a rogue leaf despite her normally clumsy gait. She rounded a particularly thick pine and let a half-smile coat her cheek.

She stepped into the glittering clearing, eyes eagerly drinking in the details she'd memorized at such a young age, determined to commit the dreamscape to memory (as young girls were wont to do). She sat with her back against the pine and gazed up at the twinkling sky above. The moon was dark, with the ambiance from the town hidden behind the trees, leaving the clearing to bask in a brightly lit kaleidoscope of celestial wonder. Anna drank it all in, the chill slowly receding to leave her comforted and cozy. She sighed. Life was simple as long as she chose to make it so.

She heard a rustling off to her left and let her eyes flick toward the sound. From between the trees, a hunched figure lurched into the clearing, heedless of the spectator leaning against the pine. The staggering cloak tripped over a loose root as it approached the dais, leaning heavily against the rough bark as it panted. Anna watched with baited breath as the figure opened the enshrouding cloak to reveal a grotesque woman with wrinkled skin and bony fingers, hair whiter than snow and exceedingly thin. She reached with creaking limbs and dropped a bundle onto the dais, and Anna realized with a start that it was a child.

The woman stepped away, muttering under her breath, and Anna caught sight of golden hair. His breathing was shallow, and he lay utterly motionless atop the tree stump. Her breath hitched in her throat as she watched the woman wave her arms in the air, creating a flurry of purple and green sparkles that swirled to form a flask. She bit her finger, drawing blood to drip into the flask, before turning to the boy.

"Blood of the host, to seal the spell."

A knife blade, black as pitch and sharp enough to cut the very air it touched, protruded from the woman's hand. A maniacal gleam took to her eye as she brought the blade up, and with a tremendous swing it crashed through the boy's chest, splitting and rupturing the heart within as blood sprayed outward. Anna gasped, clasping a hand to her mouth in hope that the hag hadn't heard her.

She needn't have worried, for the witch was busy dripping rivulets of crimson from the blade. She then pushed the knife back through the boy's chest, leaving it to stand as a deadly totem, testament to the horror committed in the clearing.

"Life of the child, condemned to hell."

The flask glinted in the starlight, half-full of dark liquid and shimmering like the trees. She swirled her fingers over the flask, the contents swirling and lightening to a milky grey color.

"A dose of magic, to mix with thee;"

The flask was raised high into the air as the crotchety voice ground out one more line, eyes blazing under the light of the stars.

"Starlight from above, grant my eternity!"

"No!"

Both Anna and the witch whipped to face the source of the noise, a young girl with light hair and eyes wet with tears.

"That's my brother!"

The woman cackled, a sound that raised hairs on the back of Anna's neck. "And if you don't pipe down, you'll join him on that stump, my dear."

The child ran forward, scrambling up the stump to stare at her brother's pale face as she wept. The witch up-ended the flask and tossed the morbid contents down her ancient throat, gurgling as the serum meandered down to her stomach.

"You killed him! Why, why is he dead? Why did you do that?"

"I needed the blood of an innocent child to stay alive, my dear. And if you want to live forever, you'll be needing the blood of innocent children as well. I can teach you how to live for eternity, eons and eons of time if you wish."

The wrinkles had begun to recede, the aged flesh regained volume. Hair gradually streaked from white to a lush black. The crooked teeth of her smile had begun to straighten, lightening from the decaying brown to a more pearly white. Anna watched in terrified fascination as the witch became a young woman, strikingly beautiful and with a softness in her eyes the witch hadn't possessed. Were they truly the same person?

"I can show you the way," the woman cooed, kneeling beside the girl to run a hand through her wavy blonde hair. The child whimpered before her eyes slid closed.

"Starlight, starbright, first star I see tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might just have one wish, this wish, tonight:

I wish for the spell to come undone

Bring my brother back, Old Ones."

The child craned her neck back to stare straight up into the sky at the twinkling stars. The woman began to giggle.

"Oh, my dear…the stars don't listen to prayers. They…"

Her eyes widened in sync with Anna's, for a golden corona encircled the young girl's crown. A high-pitched whistle was heard far off, and Anna let her eyes drift to the heavens above to see a comet, streaking across the sky, twinkling and glowing as it fell. She looked back toward the girl only to jump to her feet in fear as her dream came to an abrupt halt: nobody was in the clearing with her, and yet as her eyes glanced skyward, the comet continued to shine, swelling in size and with a significant volume increase as it fell.

And Anna screamed. The comet was plummeting straight toward the earth, aimed directly for the clearing.

She spun on her heel and narrowly dodged an eye gouging courtesy of one needle-laden branch as she hastened to flee, sprinting through the forest along an unfamiliar path. She had barely gone twenty steps when a thunderous explosion blasted her forward, skinning her knees against an exposed tree root as a torrent of dirt and needles grenaded outward from the center of the clearing, cluttering her already messy hair with more detritus. She groaned as her face met loam, the flash of light slowly dimming.

After a moment of collecting her dizzy thoughts, she hoisted herself up onto her elbows and chanced a gaze over her shoulder. A glowing, star-shaped object hovered several inches above the dais, and Anna scrambled to stand, her curiosity overwhelming her stifling fear. She crept toward the light, eyes glued to the star.

She stepped into the clearing, wary of a possible attack and very aware of the fact that she'd just witnessed the legend of old take place before her very eyes. She somehow managed to contain her desire to whoop and holler, settling instead to walk forward on shaking legs. She stopped when her knees hit the edge of the stump. The star glittered with a surreal light, glowing and sparkling even in the midst of near-total darkness.

The desire to reach forward and touch the glittering marvel suddenly took over Anna's mind, and with one shaking finger she reached out, tapping it to the cold, metallic surface of the fallen star.

And everything around her vanished in an explosion of white and blue light.

Chase this story on tumblr; it's posted under "fricfics dot tumblr dot com". I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, and I'll be back soon! ~Kyttin