Frozen Creed

Chapter 1

First Kill

December 1 1761

Anna saw the snow falling out side and jumped for joy as she ran to her sister's door.

"Elsa? (knocks)
Do you want to build a snowman?
Come on, let's go and play!
I never see you anymore
Come out the door
It's like you've gone away
We used to be best buddies
And now we're not
I wish you would tell me why
Do you want to build a snowman?
It doesn't have to be a snowman"

"Go away, Anna." Elsa said
"Okay, bye" Anna said sadly.

It had been a week since Elsa had moved out of their room and the gates had been shut. Anna couldn't leave the palace and her parents wouldn't tell her why, or why Elsa would barely speak to her anymore. She wandered the castle for hours until a lonely dinner with her parents, and then was put to bed. She couldn't sleep. The sky was awake so she was awake. She wandered the halls in darkness, but the darkness never bothered her anyway. She found herself standing in the ballroom looking at the picture of Joan of Arch. The painting reminded her of her sister, her strength, poise, but also her coldness and aloofness. She smiled as she stared at the painting. Not wanting to leave she laid down on the couch and continued to stare at Joan until she fell asleep. Her mother was not pleased when the servants found her the next morning, but Anna didn't care. She was lonely and confused. She couldn't go outside, Elsa wouldn't play with her, and she didn't know what to do. So she wandered over every inch of her home, stopping only to eat and go to bed, or to knock on Elsa's door. Hours turned to days, days to weeks, and weeks to months as she thoroughly and methodically charted and found every hidden room and castle. Some led outside, but she didn't dare her parent's wrath if she left without permission. Some tunnels led to hidden rooms, and some led nowhere, to collapsed tunnels or dead ends. However, it was in the library where she made her greatest discovery, the last room she searched because she didn't think there was anything interesting among the boring books. She searched every corner that didn't have shelves on it, pushing every panel, and pulling on anything she could reach. It was when she pulled on the candlestick next to the fireplace that she heard the familiar click of a wall opening. She pushed on the wall and slowly, gratingly it opened. She saw stairs descending into pitch blackness. She took one of the candles off a table and lit it at the fire that had been set earlier to keep of the February chill, and fearlessly descended the stairs. She descended into the darkness, her candle a puddle of light in a sea of black. After what seemed like an hour she reached the bottom to find it even blacker, if that was possible. She carefully walked around the room trying to extend the light of her candle as far as it would go. The light shone on a large metal bowl with coals in it. Her feet caught on the edge of the elevated dais, and the candle flew from her hands as she tripped, falling into the bowl which flared up, casting light through the room. Anna saw that another bowl sat beside the first one and looking around saw a torch in a sconce. She managed to lift it out of the scone and dragged it over to the fire and managed to get it lit. She then carefully brought the torch to the other bowl and shoved it in. The bowl flamed up bringing more light into the room. Anna looked around in wonder. It was carved right into the stone under the castle in a round bowl. There were three doors, the one that went to the castle, one at the other end of the room and the third at the back. There was a beautiful symbol, a stylized A laid into the floor. Toward the back of the room was a large circular table surrounded by chairs, all made of stone carved into the floor. Anna climbed into one of the stone seats and saw that the table had another A on it. She hopped down and saw that there were bookshelves all around the walls of the chamber. They were filled with books, but also with rolled up pieces of paper. Anna ignored them and after getting the torch out of the fire took it into the room behind the table. The torchlight showed another bowl next to the door. She stuck the torch into it and light filled an armory. There were swords, spears, maces, and even a crossbow sitting on racks, and in the middle of it all stood white robes with leather armor. Next to the robes sat a table and on the table rested a pair of bracers. Anna picked one up and saw that it had a blade in side. She tried to put it on, but it was too big for her. She put it back on the table and walked back out into the main room.

"What is this place?" She asked the empty room, her voice echoing off the walls. With no other ideas, and not wanting to go back up to the empty castle she began to peruse the books. Anna could barely read, having relied on Elsa to read for her, but with no other option she tried to muddle through herself. Many of the books she looked at were in different languages, with symbols she didn't even begin to understand.

"Elsa could probably read these" She thought sadly, as her eyes lit on a book that was printed in their own language. "Assassin's creed" was the name on the title. She took the book down and walking to the stone table climbed into the seat and opened the book.

"This book has been translated from the writings and wisdom of the great masters of our order, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze. To those of you who seek to follow the creed let their wisdom guide your blade" Anna struggled to understand. She read and re-read the passage for an hour, but her five year old brain couldn't make any sense of it. Her stomach growling made her close the book and take it with her. She made sure to put the lids on the braziers, once again plunging the room into darkness. She took the torch with her to the entrance and left, ascending the stairs through the darkness back to the light of the castle.

December 1 1765

The next five years between her lessons and begging Elsa to come play with her, Anna explored the hidden rooms under the castle and read everything she could about the Assassin's. It turned out they were an ancient order dedicated to killing corrupt leaders in order to bring peace and safety to the population, and to protect individual freedom. The more she read, the more she admired them. Yes they killed, but from what the books said, it was almost a law that they never kill an innocent, and that the people they did kill were all bad. But what she loved the most was their training. Not the killing techniques, those kind of scared her, but their methods of climbing and running along rooftops and there training to vanish in plain sight. For someone whose whole world had been these four walls, who was terrified of what her parents would do to here if they caught her outside the castle, the thought of leaving, of vanishing into the crowd was sorely tempting, and she often daydreamed about it. She also used the training and climbing equipment she found in the sanctuary to practice the climbing and free running skills in the books. After five years she was rather good at it, to where she actually had her own places to go on the roof to be alone and even a few caves in the mountains around the castle, her favorite being one with a beautiful waterfall over it.

The snow was falling again and she was filled with happiness.

(Laughs, knocks)
(Singing) Do you want to build a snowman?
Or ride our bike around the halls?
I think some company is overdue
I've started talking to the pictures on the walls!
(Hang in there, Joan.)
It gets a little lonely
all these empty rooms
just watching the hours tick by...

(tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock). She clicked her tongue as she watched the pendulum swing. She thought this time Elsa would come out and see her, but no such luck. After about an hour of lying in front of the clock she went down to the sanctuary. As buried as it was it should have made her feel even more lonely and isolated, but it was the opposite. She could feel the weight of years enveloping her, the presence and wisdom of the assassins that had come before her, and it made her feel less lonely. She sat and read one of master Ezio's treaties. Her tutors thought she was a poor student because she had begun to learn French, and was doing rather poorly at it, in contrast with Elsa who was said to be acing all her lessons. The truth was that she had learned what they taught her, she just wasn't interested in proving herself to them. Shut up in the castle she didn't see the need to prove that she was smart. She had also learned to read both Italian and Arabic by asking for it, though her tutors thought it was a lost cause for the same reasons as French and thought her either spoiled or foolish. Thanks to them she had been able to translate a few words of each book and by finding a version in Italian, Arabic, and their language she was able to learn to read them. There were many of the books that were translated into her native tongue but just as many that were in scroll form and in Arabic and Italian. They opened up a whole new world for her, and reading the books in the two mans names made it feel like she had two more friends just like the painting of Joan in the gallery only they spoke to her through their books. Altair was almost like a second father, with his teachings of holding life sacred because an assassin was trained to take it so easily. His words on the creed and its tenets also helped her realize what kind of person she was, and who she wanted to be. Ezio was like an older brother, his wit and charm coming through the pages, but also his own form of wisdom. Ann was not afraid to admit she developed a bit of a crush on the dashing man who had written these words. Anna closed the book and sat back in her chair.

"Is my life fated to be forever shut away in this castle, to grow old and die within these walls without even seeing any of my own Kingdome?" She wondered.

"Elsa is the heir. She will be Queen one day, but will that change anything? Will she open the gates, or will she keep them shut?" Anna looked back at the book and pondered on the former masters words, and on the creed

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted. When I first heard that I thought it meant I could do anything I wanted, but now, I realize that it is so much more." She thought as she remembered one quote from Ezio

"To say that nothing is true is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile, and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization. To say that everything is permitted, is to understand that we are the architects of our actions, and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic."

"Is that what it means to be an Assassin Ezio, that we shepherd society by killing the bad people so that the good people can live in peace?" Anna asked out loud. The second part she understood all too well from getting into trouble while practicing her free running around the castle to help stave off boredom. That she could do whatever she wanted as long as she was ready to deal with the consequences. The second part was also the reason why she gave the impression she was failing her lessons. She could live with being seen as a fool and idiot, she didn't care. What she wanted more than anything was to leave the castle, to at least see the town.

"Everything is permitted" she thought and made her decision. She couldn't live shut away like this anymore. She wanted out, she wanted to be free, and she was willing to accept her parents wrath if that is how it ended, but for the first time in forever, she would see what was outside.

Ok, here is the first part of the new Frozen Creed story where Anna first finds the sanctuary. For the time being I'm having it be an ancient relic that not even her parents know about, but with the gear and information preserved by the darkness and dryness of the cave, and the magic of writing. If Anna seems somewhat too smart for herself, I've always believed that she's at least as smart as Elsa, but her naiveté and impulsiveness get in the way, and the fact that she's kind of a type B personality who's not really interested in showing off. Also in case you're wondering, outside of her Uniform and role of Assassin she will still be the impulsive naïve innocent we all love from the movie. It's a physical representation of the contradiction of the Assassin's being able to be two opposites (naïve innocent and skilled warrior/killer) at the same time. That is why I put in "do you want to build a snowman" to show that even after all she's learned she's still fun loving and innocent at the same time and that is how she'll stay.