It was the smell of the place that stood out the most to Elsa, for whatever reason. It was a dank, wet scent, and it was all around her. She'd wandered into the mouth of a cave, which had stood dark and significant against the wind-swept white of the snowy mountainside. She took small, careful steps on the uneven ground, her fingers brushing against the rough rock of the wall to steady her if she should misstep. Ahead of her, the light from outside faded into blackness as the cave stretched into unknown lengths. While she couldn't see anything more than a few feet ahead of her, she knew somehow that the path continued on and on, deep into the heart of the mountain, and there…
She was jarred from any speculation by an odd noise, a rhythmic tapping that seemed to have no clear point of origin. Taking a tentative step forward, she squinted into the darkness ahead of her, assuming that the noise was a part of the mystery of this place. When it rang out again, however (tap, tap, tap-tap, tap), it was from all around her. She turned sharply to look around her, and, quite suddenly, the light streaming in from the outside moved to swallow her up.
"Elsa?" Anna called through the door, knocking once more. "Are you in there?"
Her sister's question sounded almost panicked, and Elsa struggled to pull herself out of an uncharacteristically deep sleep to answer. She sat up and scrubbed a hand over her face, pushing her hair hair back. "Come in," she called, throwing back her covers and rising. "It's unlocked."
It was, and Anna entered promptly after she had the go-ahead. She was balancing the breakfast tray most usually wielded by Gerda, and her expressive face showed plain surprise at the sight of her older sister. She let out a small snort of laughter as she kicked the door shut behind her. "Wow. I'm wide awake before you? What's the occasion?"
"You tell me," Elsa responded wryly, setting her feet into her slippers and grabbing up her robe. Judging by the tray Anna carried, they were going to have a quiet breakfast in her quarters. She'd worry about dressing afterwards. She cast a glance towards her large window. The sun wasn't yet so high. "It's not particularly late. Why are you up so early?"
"Oh, well," Anna started with a shrug, looking a little sheepish and moving through the room to make her way to Elsa's adjoining parlor. Elsa heard the faint clinking of the tray being sat down and the dishes being laid out. "I sorta have a date."
"Ah," came Elsa's brief answer. She'd hastily re-braided her hair, and she tied it off before following Anna's path into the parlor, taking a seat across from her sister. She poured herself a cup of coffee before continuing, conversationally, "Only sort of?"
"What?" Distracted by buttering toast, Anna had lost track of her own words. It only took a second for it to re-register, though, and she laughed brightly at herself. She took a bite of the toast and answered around it, even less prone to a proper princess's manners in the presence of familiar company. "Oh, well… We're going ice fishing. Kristoff said he'd teach me how to gut and fillet 'em, too, and Olaf's coming with us. It's not exactly super-romantic or anything."
Given that admission, however, Anna seemed no less delighted at the prospect. Elsa's mouth stretched into an easy smile as she cracked open the shell of a soft-boiled egg. They spent close to an hour over breakfast, chatting idly about nothing and everything. By the time Anna had to leave to meet her ice harvester, Elsa had forgotten all about the deep cave and the lingering smell of the wet rock.
Later that evening, as the last ounces of daylight were fading out, she spied the pair as she passed an upstairs window. They sat sideways on a backless bench in the courtyard below, Anna with her back to Kristoff, head rolling as he massaged her shoulders. The span of his hands against her back made her look rather small, and she looked smaller still when fell playfully back into him and allowed him to gather her up in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, and they sat like that for some time. They must have been talking, Elsa imagined, and she wondered what sorts of things they talked about as she left the window and continued on her way.
Once again, Elsa approached the mouth of the cave, a pin-prick of shelter in a landscape of harsh whiteness and howling winds. Once again, she entered on careful footing, hand against the wet and cold rock of the wall to assure her own steadiness as she slowly made her way forward. This time, she made her way into the darkness, leaving the daylight behind altogether. She proceeded with her head up high, unafraid but unsure of why. Down and down she went, then up again, on a curving, curling path into the heart of the mountain. All was darkness and quiet for quiet some time until, finally, she heard noises somewhere in the dreary distance ahead of her.
They were the sounds that come with living, the hustle and bustle that come complete with any home. There was the clinking of tableware and the snap of clean linens, the crackle of a fire and the faint, airy sound of individuals brushing by one another in close quarters. Finally, there were voices, too, starting soft and slowly rising over the din, "Your Majesty… Your Majesty…"
Elsa's eyes snapped open as Kai called out to her once more, reality rushing in quickly with wakefulness. "Just a moment," she called, scrambling from her bed to shove her feet into her slippers. She bid the beloved steward to enter as she tied her robe closed. He was accompanied by both Gerda and another maid, as was the usual routine, and he read off her day's schedule while the ladies helped her make herself ready.
This time, the dream lingered in the back of her mind well into the morning. By the time she'd started wading into the day's matters of politics and policy, however, it faded once more from her thoughts.
It wasn't until nearly a week of experiencing the same dream that Elsa finally spoke of it. It was a somewhat dreary Sunday afternoon, the autumn air cold and the sky overcast, and she, Anna, and Kristoff had retired to the library after lunch. While she and Anna sat in comfortable chairs before the fireplace, the Royal Ice Master and Deliverer chose to occupy a writing desk nearby, bent quietly over his ledgers while the sisters talked.
She hadn't pushed it into the conversation, but she was relieved when she was able to bring it up in a natural sort of way. Anna had dreamed the previous night that Sven had learned to fly, and Elsa had seized the opportunity to relate the imagery of the mountain, the cave, and the apparent life within.
"And you haven't ever made it to wherever the noise is coming from?" Anna asked, literally on the edge of her seat, fingers tapping her chin.
"I have not," Elsa answered, amused at the image her sister was presenting.
"And you've have this dream for six days?"
"Mm-hm."
"Well, Elsa! That's got to mean something!"
The queen was about to answer that she wasn't so sure about that, that that was the sort of thing out of fairy stories, but Kristoff, who'd been contributing quite sparingly to the conversation, spoke up before she did. "Anna's got a point," he said, flipping his books closed and stowing the pen he'd been using. "That sounds like a prophetic dream if I ever heard one."
"You can't be serious," Elsa replied, keeping a playful tone in her voice. From what she knew of Kristoff, which admittedly wasn't a great deal, he was a very practical man. He wasn't prone to the same flights of fancy that tended to overtake Anna, and that helped to make them a balanced entity. To think that he would latch onto such an idea right away… "That's fairytale stuff."
Both Anna and Kristoff fixed level looks at her, and she realized how especially silly that claim sounded, coming from her. She did have magical ice powers, after all, the sort of thing one might find in a fairytale. Suddenly a bit embarrassed under their gazes, she wrung her hands for a moment and then let out a heavy, good-natured sigh.
"Fine," she conceded, eyes fixing on Kristoff. By this point, he'd moved from the desk and was leaning casually against the back of Anna's armchair, now fully involved in the discussion. "If it is prophetic, what do you think it means?"
His answer was immediate but slightly frustrating. He simply shrugged with a wide, closed-mouth smile. "No idea," he said, and Elsa opened her mouth to say something in return, perhaps offer a sarcastic word of thanks, but she was cut off as he pressed forward. "I know somebody who will know, though, if you want to find out."
It was two more days before their schedules allowed them a day to follow through with the proposed plan, and three more nights of the same dream. By the time they saddled up to go into the mountains, Elsa was relieved and eager for answers. The ride up seemed to take a very long time, the trail unfamiliar though she'd taken it once before. Anna had kept the conversation going almost single-handedly for the entire ride, getting somewhat short answers from the other two, while Kristoff concentrated on leading the way and Elsa found herself preoccupied with the worried possibilities of her dream.
She'd thought that the worst of her trials had passed after the events of her ruined coronation. While the magic she possessed was still a part of her life and was by no means fully under her control, her summertime winter and Anna's sacrifice had helped her to better understand that aspect of herself. Her understanding wasn't complete, however, and she frankly wasn't ready to wade any deeper into the mysterious and long-forgotten aspects of the world.
At some point during her musings, a frost had begun to creep from her hands and down her reigns. There was a lapse in Anna's conversation that didn't even register with Elsa, lost in thought as she was. She started at a hand on her arm, and turned sharply in her saddle to see her little sister's concerned and sympathetic face.
"You don't have to worry, Elsa. They're really nice, just… You know, they're a little loud, and a little overbearing…"
"Don't forget inappropriate," Kristoff called from ahead of them, humor laced through his voice.
"Right, and they're inappropriate," Anna noted, and there was an easy cheer throughout her whole being that Elsa found immensely comforting. Her too-tight grip on her reigns loosened, and she reached up to set her hand over her sister's before stopping short, that life-long fear reasserting itself. Anna didn't care, didn't pay it a bit of mind in the face of her faith, and she moved her hand from Elsa's arm to grip her hand instead. She gave it a brief squeeze before releasing it, taking up her reigns again to steer her horse around a tree. "But they're really nice. You'll see."
The sun had sunk low by the time they reached the edge of the Valley of Living Rock. Concerned that their horses would spook when faced with the mass of curious, pushy beings that they'd planned to meet, they left the beasts to graze and proceeded on foot. Sven trotted merrily ahead of the party, and Kristoff alternatively walked ahead of and alongside the sisters, who walked arm-in-arm. Soon they came to the heart of the Valley, where shelves of rock led, almost as steps, into the dip of land inhabited by perfectly round, moss-covered boulders. The light fading fast, now, Kristoff offered his arm repeatedly as they made their way down. Their timing was perfect, and the last of the day vanished behind a nearby mountain as their feet met the smooth rock of the valley floor.
Elsa caught a glimpse of teeth in the near-blackness as Kristoff shot her sister a grin, then he turned towards the assembled mass of boulders and hollered. "Hey, everybody! I'm home!"
She'd been eight when her parents had ushered her into the trolls' territory. While the night had remained prominent in her memory since then, certain aspects of it has become blurred into the background. She would never forget hurting Anna, would never forget the fear that had taken over her heart and ruled her for the next thirteen years… The odd imagery of watching a group of rocks turn suddenly into a group of fantastic monsters? Now there was something she'd lost the specifics of. It caught her by surprise, then, when an uncountable number of eyes were suddenly staring at her, each pair set in a round, stony face illuminated by glowing crystals.
There was a brief moment in which she could hear a few murmurings around her, things like 'Ooh, the queen!' and 'Oh, my! How lovely!', but they were very soon drowned out by a raucous cheering. Kristoff was home!
While the trolls seemed to treat her appearance with a little more reservation, the same was not true for their behavior towards Kristoff or Anna. They descended upon their adopted clansman immediately, stacked three-high to straighten his hair and pinch his cheeks. Within seconds, Anna's braids had been threaded with numerous flowers, and a group of young trolls were giggling at her feet. It was a lot of activity all at once, and a lot of noise. Despite the fact that the trolls seemed content to leave her to her own space, the flurry of movement and voices made caused her to tense up. She drew her shoulders up and clasped her hands together in front of, waiting anxiously to address what they'd come to address.
Finally, she heard a frustrated groan from behind her, and she turned to find that the trolls had shoved Anna and Kristoff close together. One of the female trolls was chatting animatedly at Anna, who looked far more amused than her beau. The blond man wore an open pout, making him look rather boyish, and he topped off the image by whining, "Ma! Lay off already! Please!"
The troll in question, apparently Kristoff's mother, opened her mouth to protest. She was interrupted, however, by a level voice, soft but stern, near Elsa's feet. "That's enough, Bulda. If you keep teasing him, he'll get cold feet."
The queen jumped, startled, and a thin frost shot out from under her feet. Pabbie merely chuckled, cold feet indeed, and continued forward, stopping in front of her. He looked calmly up at her, and she noted that he hadn't changed an ounce since she'd last received his words. This scene was so much like what she'd experienced that night, and the grim feelings that came with the memory settled heavily in her belly. The old troll bowed to her, and Elsa inclined her head politely before moving to crouch before him.
"Your Majesty, you've grown well," he began, his small arms reaching forward to take her hands carefully in his. His gaze was penetrating, but not unfriendly, and he didn't take his eyes from her when he addressed their mutual companion. "Kristoff?"
Slipping from his mother's adoring scrutiny, the ice harvester stepped forward. Despite all of his magics and eyes that seemed to see through you, Pabbie could not read minds. Kristoff had brought her here. Why was that? He cleared his throat and answered, "She's been having the same dream every night. It's been nine in a row, so far."
With another of his low hums, Pabbie nodded in understanding. "Would your Majesty mind describing this dream?"
Her Majesty would not mind, as it turned out, and she did as she was asked. She related her mind's nightly journey, into the white, windy mountains, and into the cave from there, and down, down, down… She found herself frustrated that she could provide no satisfying ending to her story. She thought herself ineloquent when she had to trail off and leave the whole thing open-ended. "And that's it," she finished lamely. "I start to hear noises, to hear life, but I never get any closer to it. I always wake up before I see what's in the heart of the mountain."
The chatter of the surrounding trolls had quieted while she related her dream, and now an odd silence hung in the air around them. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but it felt heavy all the same. It was Kristoff who tentatively broke through the quiet. "An omen, Pabbie?"
"No, my boy," the ancient troll assured, though he seemed no less comforted by his own words. He kept his eyes steadily on Elsa, still, and moved to gently clasp one of her hands between his own two. Voice still low and soothing, always so, he finally provided the answer they'd come for. "Not an omen, but an invitation."