"We're almost done, your majesty." said an officer to a dizzy Elsa. She was a bit nauseated as it was her first time on a big ship. The ship wasn't even that large, just a small Brig, (the best they could afford) big enough to accommodate Elsa, some cargo and her crew.
"Thanks, Alrik." Elsa said calmly to the trembling officer, who, like nearly all of the crew, looked like a snowman, due to the vast quantity of snow in his coat.
While Elrik walked towards the docks, Elsa looked around and watched the crew working with ropes, cannons, and she still attended some of them bringing livestock into the ship.
"Poor pigs, nearly freezing to death." a voice behind her muttered. She turned around to see Kristoff, in light clothes, wearing a brown tricorn. "What do you think of my hat?"
Elsa ignored the question and said "You'll be the one freezing to death if you don't put on a coat." she said, after noticing that he was not trembling at all.
"I survived in the cold of the woods for most of my lifetime. I practically don't feel cold anymore." He smirked. "Just like you, except that I wasn't born with this resistance."
Elsa sighed softly. "Kristoff, you don't need to go if you don't desire to. I caused all of this, and as Queen of Arendelle it is my duty to ensure my Kingdom lives on by all means necessary. Even by..." She hesitated. "Privateering."
Elsa stopped looking into Kristoff's eyes, and remembered the harsh conversation that took place months ago between her and Arendelle's advisors.
"It is the only way!" shouted Agnes, a fat, old woman, and also Elsa's main advisor.
"No, no and no." Elsa said firmly. "We are NOT getting money by STEALING from other kingdoms!"
Elsa and Agnes kept staring into each other's eyes until Edward, another advisor, sitting opposite from Elsa at the round table broke the silence, "My queen," he started, clearly afraid of staring into her icy blue eyes. "Since we closed our trading routes with the Southern Isles, our Kingdom has been lacking several main supplies."
"Exactly!" Elsa turned towards Heinrich, another advisor sitting right next to her. "The kingdom's supplies of spices and vegetables is terribly low, and you know that we can't have a harvest in this harsh winter! We don't have anything to sell anymore as most of the products we used to sell to other kingdoms were made from raw material from the Southern Isles, meaning we don't have a source of income!" he tried to look Elsa in the eyes, but after seeing her glare, Heinrich swallowed and looked down.
"Your Kingdom is hungry Elsa." said a daring Agnes. "Your Kingdom is poor. Your father is probably rolling in his grave."
Elsa could feel small ice shards form around her hands under the table as Agnes stared at her with eyes that said "You are useless."
But suddenly, she felt warm, and the ice melted. As she felt the water pour on her feet, she fronted up and caught her sister's head, looking at her with a goofy grin. Her sister's arms were on her shoulder, and Anna almost embraced the chair.
"Anna." Elsa muttered, to which her sister responded with "Hi there!"
Anna. Anna was the only thing that could make Elsa forget about all the problems that were slowly killing her Kingdom. Her face, her beautiful eyes, her voice. Elsa was helped out of stress more than once by simply seeing the amazing woman that was her sister. Anna was the thing that Elsa loved most in her life, and if she needed, she would give all of Arendelle for Anna.
"Elsa" Anna replied, now with a serious facial expression. "I've been out. Out of the castle. Things are not going well. There are sick people on the street, Kids begging for money, It's horrible."
Agnes glanced at Elsa with a face that read "I told you so."
Elsa sighed, closing her eyes and putting her hands on her shoulders, pressing her palms against her sister's hands. The advisors stared intently at her. After a long pause, she finally broke the silence: "If this is the only way, I'm afraid we'll have to follow it. We will go out, deep into unknown seas to steal money from other kingdoms." While saying that, she glanced at every single advisor in the room. When she reached Heinrich, he was almost crying. "But there is one condition. I won't risk my people in this suicide mission. I will go myself as the captain, along with a crew. I will choose each member of the crew myself."
Anna let out an excited grin.
"Heinrich, see that we get all the equipment we need. Guns, ammo, bunks and food. And a ship."
Heinrich nodded and quickly left the room, stumbling out of his chair.
"Dismissed, all." Said Elsa, giving one final look to Agnes, who was smirking. Anna left the room running and kept running through the corridors as if she were 9 again.
"Pirates!" she said, almost failing to contain her excitement with the idea of traveling around the world, fighting sharks and using a pistol. "We are going to be pirates!"
Elsa sighed once gain when she stopped remembering that day and saw a huge smile on Kristoff's face.
"Hah, Elsa, I know that you hand-picked me because I'm one of your closest friends! I wouldn't let you and Anna venture into the other half of the world alone!" He paused and looked down for a second. "I'm gonna miss Sven, though..." He took the tricorn out of his head, clearly sad that he wouldn't see his best friend for a year or two.
"Well, actually" Elsa started, facing to the side and taking hold of her shoulder. "Anna is not coming."
"WHAT?" Anna screamed. Her voice echoed through the walls of the large room. The portrait room, in which she lived most of her childhood because of her sister who wouldn't ever speak to her. She was redder than ever.
"Anna, please understand, you're the only person left in our family!" Elsa tried to explain, failing to contain the sadness in her voice. "If something ever happened to you, I would never, never forgive myself." Elsa clearly didn't want to get separated from Anna, but she worried too much about her baby sister to let her go on a life risking journey. A life risking journey that Elsa had caused.
"But Elsa," her sister got down, letting out a few tears. "We promised to each other we would never let each other go away again." She was now sobbing, and tears ran down her face like a waterfall.
"Anna, this discussion is over."
"Amazing. You haven't changed one bit." after babbling that, she ran past Elsa and entered her room, locking the door behind her.
Elsa felt a stab in her heart, for the first time.
Kristoff was now counting the crew. He was still surprised due to the fact that Anna, who always liked adventures, wasn't coming on the biggest one so far.
"Egil Pjorn!" he exclaimed, and faced around for whatever signs of Egil.
A dark haired man near the main mast said "Here."
Kristoff checked the name on the list and went to the next.
After calling 29 names, he read the last one. "Andrew Johan?" No response. "Andrew Johan!" Kristoff waited a bit more. After 2 minutes had passed, he started going towards Elsa, near the captain's quarters (a small room under the area in which the helm was located), but then he heard a woman scream "Here, here!". Or so he thought. He turned around to see a red-haired man on his knees, thin and short. Kristoff noticed that the man had been running a lot as he was panting, tongue sticking out. The man then suddenly, as if remembering something, got up from the floor and said "Andrew Johun reporting for duty!"
"Andrew Johan?" Asked Kristoff, raising an eyebrow.
"Uh, yes, that's me!" said the little man, staring at Kristoff with bright green optics.
"He must be nervous." Kristoff thought to himself. "Alright, I think we're good to go, everything is loaded." He turned towards Elsa, not noticing Andrew letting out a "phew" behind him.
Elsa finished talking to the officer and entered the ship through a small plank. She turned to the docks and saw her advisors, along with a bunch of people staring at her, some with fear in their eyes.
"They fear for you, Elsa." Kristoff said, helping Elsa up the steps that went to the helm.
"No. They are worried that I won't bring money." She said, sparing the suffering people on the docks a last glance.
"Alright men!" Elsa shouted so that everyone would hear it. "We are sailing to distant seas. Seas which we never heard of before. Oceans full of mysteries and treasures. Seas in which in which our targets will be. Now, everyone here today must acknowledge that you can die, and probably WILL die.
Some men started looking to the sides. -
"If you desire to go away; leave me behind, leave your allies behind, and leave your kingdom behind, the time is NOW." She finished, with a confident face that could credibly cause a rabbit to enter a fox hole.
No one said a single word. The frigid wind blowing was the only sound in the ship. Kristoff stared at Andrew, who was the only one smiling down the deck. Something about him seemed familiar.
"Perfect. And so we set sail!" With that said, the crew started moving towards their positions, and the sails were unfurled. The ropes that held the ship near the docks were cut, and the brig started moving towards the sea, the name "The Snowman" proudly displayed in white ink on its back.
Elsa wasn't excited by this trip, and neither was the crew. They all felt anxious. The cold and the movements the ship made while sailing weren't helping. The only happy person was Andrew, who hummed a song while scrubbing a cannon.
"Where to?" Kristoff asked.
"To the horizon."