Wonder Awaits beyond the Crooked Crown, a frozen fanfic

Her er det ingen levende mann kan trå: Here, no mortal man may tread.

- The Runar Fulminikar, p. 192

An ancient runic text now intelligible to a scant few scholars surviving the Christianization of Arendelle, Elsa had fascinated herself for weeks with its tales of men cursed with the power of ice. Bedtim stories from her mother had told legends of the frozen land forsaken by the old gods. Said to dwell in perpetual twilight even in high summer, Elsa hoped she had not found the map stitched into the old book too late in the year to see for herself.

Kristoff looked up from his map and circled around to get his bearings from the landmarks. Elsa's ice palace twinkled at him from the peak of the Nordberg looming low in the southeast; a beacon to guide their way back from where they now stood in the unclaimed north, their own fair county of Arendelle far behind them. He caught the shape he sought further off to the north - a ring of black peaks higher on one side than the other; the Crooked Crown.

He turned back to his campsite and saw Olaf tottering around with Sven, unearthing patches of lichen and moss. He had offered to help pull the sled in return for accompanying them, but Kristoff doubted it would have been much use. Sven munched at a patch of grass sticking out from the slushy earth. Close as they were to the Arctic circle it was colder than usual, even in late summer, but as hardy reindeer as Sven didn't mind licking moss from cold rocks; even if it wasn't as pleasant as the soft hay of Arendelle's stables.

Behind the two of them sat the igloo where Anna and Elsa slumbered. Kristoff hadn't been so bold as to suggest sleeping with both of them or asking Anna into his tent. Sven licked the last of the moss from the rock Olaf had found him and moo'd at him as if bored.

"I know, buddy, it's already been an hour, but they're girls, and one of them's a Queen. I'll let them sleep in."

Olaf reclined against the rock once Sven had licked it clean.

"Whew, that was hard. Am I sweating?"

Olaf wiped his brow and looked up at Kristoff. His personal flurry twinkled with ice in the morning sun and snow fell on his head. He wiped his brow pointlessly; no moisture had evaporated from his surface. Kristoff shook his head and smiled at the simulacrum of human behavior. Uncomfortable with any further delay, he called out to the royal igloo.

"Anna, it's time to get moving."

He heard her start awake with a flurry of snorting.

"Just give me five more minutes, Kristoff."

Kristoff frowned at her unexpected laziness and strolled across the campsite to enlist Olaf's help rousing Anna from her troublesome slumber.

"Hey, Olaf, if you go in there and wake up Anna - I - will make - you - a new wooden nose."

Olaf gasped and held his hands to the sides of his mouth.

"Wood, like my arms?"

Olaf glared down his carrot nose and pondered its impermanence relative to a sturdy wooden model.

"Nah, I like this one. But I will go see what Anna's up to."

Olaf tottered into the igloo and Anna screamed.

"Olaf, we're naked! Don't you know how to knock?"

Olaf ran back out.

"Hey Kristoff, have you seen those huge lumps on Anna's chest? They're like, the size of oranges."

Kristoff chuckled to himself and patted the snowman on the head.

"Thanks buddy."

Magical snow-light flashed in the corner of Kristoff's eye and he turned quickly enough to see the igloo dissappearing. Elsa glided toward him over the snow-patched ground and he stared longingly at the majesty of her ice dress sparkling in the rising sun. If he could do half as much with ice as Elsa he would consider himself the luckiest man alive. He returned to his senses before Elsa drew close enough to notice his staring and looked into her bright blue eyes.

"It should only be a couple of hours to the valley, and once we're through it's only a llittle further to Yoitsu."

Anna threw her featherbed into the back of the sled and hopped into the front seat. From her shoulder bag she withdrew a huge baked donut and bit into it hungrily. Elsa sat down in the back seat of the sled with her own satchel and removed a thing strip of dried meat. Heavily spiced and smelling strongly of pepper, Kristoff's mouth watered for it. He turned to Anna in search of his own meat.

"Do you have any of those?"

"No, they're too spicy - but look, I've got tons of lard rings!"

Anna opened her bag for him and reveal several of the large, hard, fat-laden fried rings of dough filled with mincemeat. She handed him one and Kristoff bit into it. Disappointed that despite its name the filling was more fruit than meat, he handed back the rest and motioned for Sven to come over and be tied to the sled. Sven moo'd at him as Kristoff patted him on the head.

"Let's have a good day out there."

Sven moo'd at him again and turned toward the distant peaks.

Kristoff pulled down his tent and packed it into the sled as Elsa helped Olaf into the seat next to her. He sat beside Anna and shook the reigns. Sven kicked at the ground and carried them off toward adventure - or perhaps merely a trip through a cursed valley for a forbidden town mired in eternal darkness.

Before long Elsa tired of the shocks and jolts the sled suffered as it hit rocks and patches of dirt. She called Kristoff to a halt and with a flourish of her arms conjured a snowcloud in the sky in front of them. In seconds the ground before them lay beneath a perfectly fluffy blanket of snowpack. The cloud sped off toward the mountains and Kristoff spurred Sven on to follow. The sled glid over the ribbon of white smoother than if it had wheels.

Olaf marveled at Elsa's powers.

"Ooh, Elsa, can you make me a sled too? And my own reindeer!?"

Kristoff laughed.

"It takes a while to learn how to drive a sled, Olaf. You might even have to train that snowdeer."

"Yeah but, I still want to learn how!"

Elsa patted him on the back.

"Olaf, when we get home I'll make you a whole team of reindeer."

Anna sighed at the adorable image of Olaf dressed as a miniature Kristoff pulled by a team of snow-deer.

When they approached the mouth of the valley Kristoff called Elsa's attention to the oddity of what lie between the peaks. A snowstorm had kicked up, not falling from the mountains above; the Crooked Crown remained black and dry. This snowstorm rose from the valley floor and soon a flurry of white was visible as they drew closer.

"That's... not yours, is it?"

A howling wind rushed a wave of cold from the valley's mouth to meet them and Kristoff held his hand before his face. Tiny snowballs pelted against his glove. Anna shivered and put on her cloak, then turned to her sister.

"Elsa, was the legend true? Do you think someone like you is doing this?"

Elsa stepped down out of the sled and made herself a pair of icy skates. She glided down to the gap and raised her hands into the air to tried to banish the flurry as if it were her own cloud grown out of control. The defiant storm continued to blast ice at her, curiously rising from the floor and up through the pass. Elsa looked up at the black peaks of the Crooked Crown and pondered the mystery for a long moment before she heard the sled coming up quickly behind her.

"There's no way this is natural"

Kristoff ran up alongside her, shielding his eyes from the violence of the icy wind, as he looked down into the valley beyond trying in vain to find the source of the myserious storm.

"Can you make it go away?"

Elsa gestured dismissively at the violent snowstorm. This time the curtain of white fell back and all but a few flakes vanished. Kristoff could see far enough now for the green of the valley beyond.

Kristoff walked back to the sled and took the reins u again while Olaf spoke a word of warning.

"I know I don't have a reason to worry, but are you all sure it's a good idea to ride into a cursed valley? Maybe somebody wanted the snow there for a reason... just putting that out there."

Kristoff and Anna stared at Elsa. She waved her hands in front of her.

"No, no, you don't have to come if you don't want to. The snow can't hurt me, but I can't promise I'll be able to keep you safe if it comes back stronger."

Anna leapt from the sled and took hooked her arm around Elsa's and led her back.

"Nothing is ever going to split us up again, especially not a little snowy weather. We agreed to see this through together. Pfft, snow. Who cares about a little snow?

Elsa coaxed Anna to let her go.

"Switch seats with me. If I sit next to Kristoff I can see where we're going."

Anna sat down in the back next to Olaf. Elsa took the seat next to Kristoff and cast a fresh carpet of snow down into the valley. Kristoff shook the reins and Sven took off again like a bolt. Once they'd passed between tall black walls, the flurry fell back down behind them. Snowflakes whipped around Anna's head and she gulped in worry.

When she wasn't directing the stormcloud to keep fresh ice under Sven's feet Elsa scanned the vista for anything that looked like it could be causing the snow to fall upon them, but as soon as they had passed through the mountains, it stopped. The four of them, Olaf included, turned to see a blizzard descend over the pass again, the wind howled more violent and terribly than before and Anna and Kristoff again looked at each other, this time with concern.

Elsa, meanwhile, looked at the snow with a curious anger. It was unusual for the frosty climate not to obey her, and though she gestured at the storm it did not now respond.

"Let's just keep going. We're almost there. Doesn't appear to be any more snow anyway", she said, and nodding, Kristoff threw the reigns again, and Sven pulled them forward.

"Elsa, has that ever happened before?", Anna asked her sister. "No, Anna. Never", Elsa replied. She could not hide the concern in her voice and Anna raised her eyebrows and nodded back at her.

"If it gets really bad I could lead us back out", Olaf said from the backseat. The three others considered his words but did not respond, and as they came into the grassy floor of the valley, Elsa, Kristoff, and Anna could see that they appeared to be in a bowl made from stone. Mountains rose around them on three sides, the Crooked Crown off to the south, and another peak, slowly belching black smoke, lay to the east. "A volcano", Elsa thought.

To the west grey stone hills stretched out as far as they could see, oddly dotted with peaks here and there, as if someone had selectively flattened them, rather than the slow violence of time, wind, and rain. They didn't look passable at any rate. Only the path to the north lay open, wide and free, the path to the legendary land of Yoitsu.

In the stories their mother had told, Yoitsu was a land of giants. Not giant men, but giant animals had lived there, wolves, ravens, bears, and owls, all of them with the power to transform and come down from their land to dwell among the people in the guise of human beings. Anna thought back to the tale and remembered her most favorite of the Yoitsu stories, about Horo the Wise. In her youth, Horo the wise had been born to the wolf clan of Yoitsu, and in seeking good fortune she had been sent off to the south when she was still a small girl, or a small giant wolf, as Anna had remembered.

Anna's mother told her the story of how Horo the wise had watched over the southern lands, farther south than Arendelle, on the main land of Europe, and dwelt there for years, keeping their peoples' harvests bountiful through her wolf magic, chasing away pestilences and plagues and keeping even robbers and ghosts at bay from the land she'd been pledged to protect. Anna had loved the tale of Horo the wise and wished she could one day have her own land to protect in that way; but she was still relieved that Elsa ruled over Arendelle.

Anna was sure Elsa had heard the same tales from her mother, but wasn't sure which had been her favorite. "Elsa probably didn't like those fairy tales anyway", she thought to herself, and brought her mind back to the present. Anna looked out over the green fields and thought she spied a village down to the east, towards the volcano's side of the valley, but when she blinked she lost sight of it, and couldn't find it again.

As they passed onto a slope rising out of the valley, Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa noticed the most unusual thing they had ever seen was happening. Night was falling around them, even as the sun was in the sky. The golden disc hung in the air but no longer illuminated the ground beneath them as strongly, and when they had left the grassy valley floor behind it was as though night had set over the land completely.

The stars shone in the dark sky, as did the moon, opposite the sun, and illuminated the ground, but only as a crescent. Kristoff pulled Sven to a halt and descended from the sled. He got out a book of matches and lit both the lantern on the sled and a torch, which he handed to Anna. "No telling what's around here in the dark", Kristoff said.

Olaf looked around in wonderment at the impossibility of what had happend. In summer, near the arctic circle, just after midday, it was night out, with the sun shining down from the sky regardless. Even Elsa was unprepared for this fantastical event, concern hung over her face.

"This was a mistake. I shouldn't have brought us here. This was a mistake", Elsa muttered to herself worriedly. "First the snowstorm, now this. I think I'm in over my head", she continued, and hung her head against her chest.

"Don't worry, Elsa, we can turn around and go back through the valley", Anna said to her sister, but then asked of Kristoff "Can't we?" "Unless something weirder than this happens next", Kristoff answered, as he looked around the area for any sign of civilization. In the distance he thought he saw a window of a house glinting in the moonlight. "Let's head over that way", he said to Anna and Elsa, climbed back into the sled, and urged Sven to carry on in its direction.

As they drew closer, Kristoff could see that it had indeed been a window, at least at one point. A crumbling stone wall stood in the distance, joined to another, a number of windows, broken and shattered, still hung from their panes on the remnant of the destroyed building.

Casting the lantern light around Kristoff could see the ruined foundations of many other buildings nearby. Noticing what looked to have once been a town square, Kristoff again urged Sven to continue.

In closing to the square, a horrible sight met the five of them. Strewn among the rubble of stone buildings, giant bones and teeth lay upon the ground, an open graveyard of giants, it seemed, the bones, clean from what must have been decades of frost and thaw, were clean, but not bleached. They glowed yellow in the torchlight.

Kristoff alighted from the sled and picked one of the mighty teeth from the ground. He struggled with its weight. "If this came from a wolf it must have been about the size of a ship", he said, before dropping it to the ground. The enormous canine clattered upon the ground and the sound of its falling echoed against the few stone ruins still standing around them.

"What could have happened to this place?", Kristoff wondered to Anna and Elsa. Elsa was incommunicable. Huddled over in the front seat in terror, she could not even hear Kristoff over the fear that gripped her mind. Anna rose from the back seat and joined Elsa in the front. Putting her torch in a sconce on the front of the sled she hugged her sister around the shoulders and rubbed them tenderly. Anna knew if whatever had happened could scare Elsa she had even more reason to be afraid, but she chose to be brave for her sister.

"We've been here too long. The sun is setting. Elsa, Elsa, please, look at me", Kristoff pleaded with her. "Can you make an igloo big enough for all of us, and the sled? I don't like the idea of moving around here without the sun up, even if it's not shining, and I don't like the idea of staying out here in the open".

Elsa brought her chin away from her chest and took comfort in his words. With her ice magic she could protect all of them. With a stomp of her foot Elsa summoned a platform to raise them from the ground, and began building snowy walls a good ten feet around the sled.

Worried about the torches melting the room around them, Kristoff asked Anna to put hers out. From his pocket he drew an iridescent crystal. It glowed red-orange in the lantern light. Kristoff took it in his hands and snapped it in two. He threw it upon the ground and a strange fire grew from it, which gave off light but not heat, and finally Kristoff blew out the lantern.

The fire crystal of the trolls would keep burning through the night, he knew from experience, and without potentially melting their icy safe haven. Kristoff put his hand on Elsa's shoulder as well, and he and Anna comforted her. "Olaf, would you mind keeping a look out for us, buddy", Kristoff asked of the friendly snowman. "Sure, count me in", Olaf replied, and Elsa opened a hole in the roof and ascended him to the top of the igloo.

"Let us know if you seeing anything, okay", Kristoff asked. "You got it", Olaf called back. The immortal snowman would be the safest of all of them should anything occur, and the unnatural keenness of his icy eyes would warn them about any danger drawing near well before a human eye could.

Kristoff unfurled his tent upon the ground and lay Anna's feather bed and his own sleeping bag upon it, to keep from growing wet or cold if their body heat melted the snow. 'Let's all try to get some sleep, he suggested, and Anna led her sister over to the feather bed, which was large enough for the two of them, and laid her down. "Thank you, Kristoff", Anna said.

Anna laid down next to her sister on the feather bed and drew its sides over them both. Anna hugged her sister against her body and closed her eyes. She hoped nothing would happen during the night. Kristoff took a bale of hay off the back of the sled and set it front of Sven. Patting his friend between the antlers, Kristoff bid him a good night's rest before taking his boots off and shuffling into his sleeping bag.

He laid awake against the soft, feathery pillow for a few moments and worried about whether they would make it home safely, but ultimately decided he should trust Elsa's abilities and closed his eyes for the night.

Above them, Olaf kept watch just as he promised he would. In the night he thought he could see ghostly apparitions of the giants Anna had told him roamed the now lost realm, but they could, he thought to himself, have just been flurries of snow in the distance. Though he did not know fear or concern for his mortality, Olaf did feel loneliness if left alone for prolonged periods of time, and he wished he could be down in the igloo with his family and friends. Silently, so as not to wake them, he stood guard.

When the sun broke the horizon a few hours later, what would anywhere else have been dawn found the little snowman lying on the dome of the igloo, napping. All were safe and sound inside, and Anna stirred from her slumber first. Yawning she found she was still holding her sister. She was relieved Elsa was still there next to her.

Refreshed from the sweet filling of the doughy treat her sister had given her, Elsa considered with a clear head that she should consult the Fulminikar for advice. She arose from the feather bed, withdrew the ancient tome from her satchel, and flipped through the pages to the place she'd marked before they had set out and translated the ancient runes as she went down the page. She found passages talking about the land they found themselves in, now lost in eternal night, but the book was so old it spoke of Yoitsu as though the passages had been written as eyewitness accounts.

Elsa skipped past all of the pages detailing the civilization which had once prospered in the graveyard she found herself in and noticed that in the margins of the last page, below the sentence declaring Yoitsu a pleasant destination for travelers along the coast, someone had scrawled in a spidery hand in modern lettering, "Reported destroyed 1632", and in larger print all in capitals, "BEARS". The year now was 1845. Elsa couldn't believe how foolish she had been, to embark on a journey to a place she knew nothing about without even finishing the book that discussed it. She wondered why Anna had trusted her to come along. "After all she knows more about these kiddy stories than I do. How could have not known it was destroyed?", Elsa thought.

Elsa put aside the thought of confronting her sister when she heard Kristoff yawning as he woke from his slumber. She brought the book to him.

"Kristoff, does this note about bears mean anything to you?", Elsa asked the Icemaster of Arendelle. Kristoff yawned again and rubbed his eyes with his palms. "Bears?", he replied. "Yes, look at the note here in the book", Elsa said, shoving the ancient text into his face. "Destroyed, 1632", he read back, then shook the last of the sleep from his head and looked up at the snow queen.

"I guess whoever wrote it was right", Kristoff said as he pulled himself out of his sleeping bag and rose from the ground, "Because this place is definitely destroyed". "It could be daytime now, uh, well the sun could be back. Can you lower the walls?", Kristoff asked Elsa. With a wave of her hands the igloo around them diminished and evaporated away. Olaf fell in from the roof and landed on the ice below, still soundly imitating sleep. He realized he'd fallen from above and looked up at Kristoff and Elsa. "Mornin', everybody. Everything go well?", he said, grinning at them. "Thank you for watching out for us, Olaf", Elsa said, and picked him up from the ground to give him a hug.

Elsa put the snowman down in the sled and looked around the pillar of ice she'd made for them to spend the night up off the ground. They were 30 feet up and able to see above the ruined walls strewn randomly around them. In the distance Elsa saw the line between darkness and sunlight that marked the border between Yoitsu and the valley they'd passed through. She shuddered at the strangeness of such a thing.

Elsa lowered the pillar they stood on and Anna noticed something strange had happened while they had slept through the short polar night. "Is it just me or are there a lot more bones around us than there were last night?", she wondered. Kristoff looked around at the ground and noted that there indeed seemed to be dozens more piles of bones surrounding them, and laid out in patterns that gave the appearance they had been part of fully assembled skeletons that had simply stopped and fallen in place where they stood and shone in the moonlight.

Kristoff lit the torches and the lantern on the sled, and lowered his torch to inspect one of the bones, another tooth, sharper than thise he'd seen the night before, This one was shaped like a curved half-diamond, with sharp edges on the back, and it lay among numerous others. Kristoff counted them. 42 teeth in all stood underfoot around him. "Let's get into the sled and leave", he said, as he did not lack the desire to see whatever force had moved the giant teeth into that exact position, alongside what looked like a giant jawbone, as they slept.

Anna and Olaf agreed from the back seat and urged Elsa and Kristoff to return. Kristoff ran around to the front and patted Sven on the head to wake him "Come on, Sven", he said, and the reindeer came to his feet and stood ready to pull them once more. Kristoff ran along and rolled up the sleeping bag and feather bed in the tent and threw them in the back of the sled.

A sharp clatter echoed off the half-destroyed walls around the former town square. The sound came again, from further away. Not knowing what was causing it, Kristoff jumped into the sled alongside Elsa, gave Sven's reins a tug and they took off.

They knocked the bones aside as they went, and behind them they heard a clattering sound rise immensely. Olaf and Anna turned and saw that the bones were scuttling around on the ground by themselves in the wake of the sled, falling back into whatever patterns they held before it passed. Back by the ruined fountain that marked the square a flurry of bones flew together in the unnatural moonlight, shaped itself into an upright standing skeleton and gave chase after the sled.

Anna turned back around and said with worry in her voice, "Kristoff, please go faster". "Much, much, faster", Olaf chimed in. "Why, what's the matter?", Kristoff replied. Anna turned back around to take another look at the calamity of bones rushing toward them and recognized the shape they took. "Uh, a bear", She replied, and Elsa turned her attention from making the ice road to the rear of the sled. She gasped as she laid her eyes upon the enormous skeletous threat. "Hold on to the sled!", she cried out, and waving her hands at its rails conjured a pair of blades made from ice underneath it. The sled bounced into the air and then picked up speed as the rails met the ice road and skidded along ever faster. Kristoff urged Sven to pick up his pace.

Sven kicked at the ice beneath his feet faster and faster. The sled glided over the ice as fast as he could carry it. As they approached the border of the eternal darkness the sky above them lightened, night gave way to twilight.

Just as Sven neared into the undimmed sun the skeleton of the bear lunged forward. He caught the bags holding their camp supplies and the largest store of their food and water, ripped them from the sled, and threw them aside. Sven broke from the dusk into the full morning's light and carried the sled over behind him. The bear clambered on but as it reached the border of the dark it seemed to crash against an invisible wall and clattered to the ground.

Kristoff looked back to see what had happened and when he noticed that the bear was no longer chasing them he heeled Sven to a halt. "What on Earth was that?", he said to Elsa. "The moon-chasing bear", Anna replied in her place. "The what?", Elsa asked. "Mom told us stories about it when we were little. Don't you remember, Elsa?", Anna answered her. "The moon-chasing bears were the wolves' enemies. They fought them all over the world", she continued. Elsa didn't remember reading anything about them in the Fulminikar, and she couldn't remember her mother ever telling her any stories about them. Anna was the only one who seemed to know what had happened. Kristoff looked up into the sky and though he could no longer see it, he knew it had chased toward the moon by the giant.

"Was that the best sleigh ride ever or what? Huh? Am I right? What's life for if you're not being chased by giant skeletons?", Olaf said to try to lighten the mood.

Kristoff got up from the sled and looked in the back. The giant had torn the sack right off. The straps which had held it in place dangled uselessly. He thought about sending Olaf back into the eternal night to retrieve them, but realized he wouldn't wish that fate on even Prince Hans. "Do we have enough food to make it back home?", he asked Anna and Elsa. It was a day's journey back to the camp they'd set the day before, and from there still five days back to Arendelle. Kristoff thought they might make it in three with the rails of ice Elsa had put on his skids, but Sven would have to eat on the way, too, and the mountain passes would put a lot more stress on him than travel across open country. Kristoff thought that maybe if they gathered enough grass from the valley floor it would keep Sven from getting hungry on the way back, but staying any longer might mean risking their own food.

"Anna, Elsa, let's see what we've got left", Kristoff asked the two sisters. Anna spread a blanket on the ground, sat down, and began removing things from her bag. Elsa did the same, stacking her edible supplies on top of the old book. Between the three of them they had 5 lard rings, 6 strips of seal jerky, a half bottle of milk, 7 apples, and 4 carrots. "Shouldn't this be enough?", Anna asked.

"It's not bad but if there is anything we can get from this valley I want to do it before nightfall", Kristoff said. He sighted a copse of trees in the direction of the volcano. He thought if luck was with them the trees would bristle with ripe fruit or nuts that could feed them all on their way home.

"If we're looking for food I could have sworn I saw a village down there when were coming through the first time", Anna said. "Where?", Kristoff asked. "Closer to the volcano. I can't see it now, though", Anna replied. "Well let's head over there and look for it", Kristoff said. They all got back onto the sled and headed off.

The village Anna said she'd seen slowly became visible as they drew closer to the volcano. It mostly behind a hill, under a huge ash tree. It was only seven or eight houses, a couple of barns, and two other buildings. On the east side a grazing pasture was fenced off and on the south side a large pond was set aside a river flowing from the mountains. The hamlet wasn't marked on the old map. Kristoff spotted a path on the side of the next hill and once on it they wound ther way down the valley to the mysterious village.

Sven pulled them up to the end of the path. Here it splayed out into several footpaths, one of them led to the unidentifiable buildings they'd seen. They stood next to one another, and on approaching the one on the right Kristoff could smell mead on the air. Lively music played within, and Kristoff left the sled to see inside.

Kristoff opened the door and found a lively celebration. The tavern he'd walked into was hosting a couple of dozen revelers; all of them drinking, singing, dancing, smoking pipes, or playing whistles, flutes, lutes, and guitars. Kristoff's face lit up at their good fortune. Unnoticed by the merrymakers he went back outside and beckoned Anna and Elsa to come in and join him. Olaf came inside, too.

Once they were all inside, one of the men dancing came up before them. He wordlessly bowed and offered his hand to Anna. She took it and he led her back to the floor where everyone was dancing. They hopped on one foot and then the next in circles around each other and clapped their hands then turned and circled again in opposite directions. Every third time the inner circle switched places and partners with the outer circle. Anna danced first with the man whose hand she'd taken, a redheaded man with a full and wild mustache, and then switched off to a tall blonde woman, taller than Elsa. She quickly got into the rhythm of their switching partners and laughed as she clapped her hands above her head.

Anna and Elsa didn't recognize the language they were singing at first but tried to sing along anyway. Slowly it began to make sense to her and she knew the words were from an old song her mother had sung when she and Elsa played together as children. She slowly pieced together her memory - it was a song about a woman who danced with a bear. Suddenly the dancing stopped.

One of the larger men playing an instrument on the tavern's stage blew a horn. The low bass reverberated in the hall and everyone rose from their seats and bowed toward him. Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff noticed and bowed as well. A smaller woman produced a jar full of slips of paper. The man fished one of them out and read something unintelligible from it. Everyone cheered and then from the back one of the men, a fellow shorter than most of the others, with black hair, came forward and knelt in front of the stage. The woman who'd brought out the jar placed a crown woven from holly branches on his head. He stood and everyone in the tavern applauded. Unsure of what was happening, Anna applauded, too. Elsa looked on curiously.

Behind a long table a man hoisting a great barrel poured mead into mugs. Kristoff walked over and tried to talk to him. The mead-pourer was a tall and burly man, the muscles of his arms and back bulged through his shirt. Kristoff tried to introduce himself and offered his hand, but the mead man only offered him a mug instead. Kristoff took it and drank from it. A strange warmth stole over his body. He suddenly felt ten feet tall. He looked down and his shoes seemed to stretch away from him. Light-headed, he almost stumbled, but recovered and set the mug down.

The mead-pourer smiled at Kristoff and filled another great mug from the barrel. Kristoff tipsily stumbled back to Elsa. Something compelled him to offer her a drink from the mug as well.

Elsa cocked her eye at Kristoff and glared at the mug he thust toward her. Kristoff smiled and urged her to share in his good cheer. He lifted his chin up and down and nodded at her. Elsa looked over at Anna and saw that she had been handed one of the mugs as well and was about to drink from it.

Elsa worried about her sister for a moment but before she could do anything Anna lifted the mug to her lips and gulped down the sweet mead. Her small stomach filled up quickly but Anna gulped until the last of the mead was gone. Kristoff looked over at her too and cheered her on, then turned back to Elsa and crossed his arms. "If she can do it you can do it, too" Elsa thought he implied, and she raised the brim to her lips and drank as well.

The same warmth that had stolen over Kristoff washed over her instantly. She felt heat rising up inside her, something the snow queen couldn't remember feeling in forever, and became dizzy and unsteady on her feet. Before she could fall over backwards Olaf steadied her legs. Elsa looked down at him and smiled, and then cast a glimmering stream of ice below her. A small stool formed behind her feet and Elsa flopped dowm onto it.

All at once the talking and laughing and music in the tavern stopped. Everyone but the four strangers looked over at Elsa. Someone in a corner uttered out of surprise in their strange tongue. "Jötunn", he said. Others repeated it, and soon a chorus of voices all muttered the same thing "Jötunn".

The shorter man in the holly crown muscled his way through the crowd and approached Elsa. He offered his hand to her and spoke in the same tongue, "Hva har fort deg til dette stedet, Jötunn?" (What has brought you to this place, Frost Giant?) Being the only one among them who knew the language as well, Elsa took his hand replied, in jest "I am Snow Queen Elsa and I claim this land in the name of my people".

The taverngoers roared with deafening laughter. The crowned man pulled Elsa to her feet and held him close to her. He looked into her eyes as if searching for something but could not find it, as he quickly released her and turned to the others. "Dette er ikke av de Jotunheimr. Hun er ett eller Aren frender." (This one is not of the Frost Giants. She is one of Aren's kin.), he explained.

Elsa glared and asked of him, "How do you know the name of our kingdom?" Kristoff looked on, confused, as she accused the holly-crowned stranger. He pointed to Anna, surrounded by the crowd, and said of her, this time in the language she spoke, "She is one of Aren's kin, too. The man is no one." Kristoff was about to speak up to defend his honor when the leader of the band on the stage took a mug in his own hand and offered a toast. "To the daughters of Jarl Aren!", he shouted, and all of revelers cheered and drank at once. Anna tried to as well but found her stomach already full of mead.

One of the taller blonde women sat her down at a table and beckoned to Elsa and Kristoff.

Elsa and Kristoff sat down on either side of Anna to keep her from falling over. "Why did he call us daughters of Jarl Aren? Our father's name was Espen, and he was a king", Elsa asked the tall blonde. "But you are from Arendelle are you not?", the woman asked. Even in her altered state Elsa knew something was amiss if these perfect strangers living in an unkown valley knew exactly where they were from. "We are, yes, but how did you know?", Elsa asked. "Because you have the Ice Makt, my dear. You are not Jötunn, so you must be one of Aren's daughters.", the strange woman explained.

"Aaahh. Who's Aren? Daddy never said anything about him", Anna asked with a yawn. The blonde looked at all three of them with confusion. "You mean you really don't know? Jarl Aren's name has been lost in the land which bears it?", she said. Anna yawned again and said "Oh, don't talk about bears. We've had enough bears for one day". Elsa scooted closer to her and rested Anna's head on her shoulder. "Who is Aren?", she asked.

The room seemed to dim around them, and the candles on the table grow brighter, as the woman spoke. "Jarl Aren was the mightiest lord in all the northern lands. He was master of this valley, and the city beyond, longer ago than any of your books can remember", the woman said as she motioned to the Fulminikar. "Forty generations ago he conquered it, and in alliance with the wolves drove off old King Beoric. He was a crafty and intelligent one", she continued.