Chapter One – The Stone

I once heard it said that tragedy has a way of making people believe in things they never would have before. That grief can make people cry out to God for some sort of answer, or relief from the pain of loss. That it can make people so desperate that they'll grasp at anything that promises to give back what they've lost, no matter how far-fetched it is.

If someone had asked me a year ago if I believed that, I would have been unsure. I had never experienced loss of any sort, being sheltered my whole life. Sure, Elsa may have shut me out, but she was still there, and I never gave up hope that one day she might let me in again. My parents were always there for me, and I held onto the idea that they would always be there for me, no matter what. After all, what could possibly take them away? I couldn't understand the kind of grief that made people go to extreme lengths to get back what they had lost. But now? Well, nothing else could explain what I was about to do. I tugged my black cloak tighter against the cutting wind that blew around me. It was foolish, really, what I was trying to do, but I didn't have any other options.

Just a day ago I had walked into the library, seeking some kind of comfort. It had always been papa's favorite room in the castle. I walked over to his worn leather chair and sat down in it, inhaling the scent he left behind—hints of tobacco and a musty sort of smell that reminded me of books. It was purely papa. I didn't mean to find the paper, but when I sunk down into his chair, I caught sight of a corner of paper sticking out from one of the drawers in papa's desk.

I sat up and leaned forward, pulling it open. The paper was folded in half, with a worn, leather bound volume lying underneath it. Unfolding the paper, I saw that it was a map of Arendelle. There was the fjord, and the castle, and up high in the mountains, in the midst of what looked like a clearing was a red 'X' mark. A red dotted line led from the castle to the marked spot. What did it lead to? I decided to see if the book held the answer. Placing the map on the top of the desk, I reached inside and lifted the book out. The runes on the cover told me that it was a book on folklore. I began flipping through the pages.

When I came upon a picture of what looked like a dead man being brought back to life by a shadowy figure, my heart leapt to my throat and I felt hope for the first time since I learned of my parents' death. On the page it said that a map was enclosed inside the book, so that must be what was marked on the paper. I held the book closer to my chest.

Don't worry, mama and papa, I'm going to find a way to save you, I thought.

It was easy to sneak out of the castle, considering I had spent years running through the halls and knew every nook and cranny. There was a small crack at the foot of the wall near the south entrance, leading right out to the woods behind the castle. I knew the guards patrolled the castle grounds every ten minutes, so when they were out of sight I ran to the crack and started digging. It took about five minutes, but I finally managed to make a hole big enough for me to squeeze through, and then took off for the marked spot.

Dirt and mud caked my elbows, hands, and the bottom half of my skirt, but none of that mattered right now. I held the map out in front of me and followed the landmarks drawn on it. Finally, I came upon a field, and knew it had to be the one marked on the map, but when I looked around, all I saw were moss-covered boulders scattered all throughout the clearing. Maybe they were hiding.

"Um…mysterious shadowy figures? Are you here? If you are, could you please come out?" I called out, feeling silly. Maybe this was just a foolish quest to try and make myself believe that there was a way to save my parents.

After a few moments of silence I heaved a sigh and walked over to a particularly large rock, sitting down in it. A moment later it gave a shudder beneath me.

I screamed and jumped up, stumbling back. The edge of my cloak got caught beneath my foot, pitching me backwards onto the cold, hard ground. Suddenly, the motionless stone began to roll towards me. It came to a stop about a foot away from me and uncurled, revealing a head and body. For a moment both of us stared at each other in silence, until the figure finally spoke.

"Princess Anna," he said, giving a slight bow.

"It's the princess!" I heard another voice cry out, and suddenly all the stones began to transform, revealing themselves. I was at a loss for words. Along the way I had practiced what I would say, and how I would plead for the ghostly figure from the book to save my parents, but nothing had prepared me for this. The book only said the creatures with the powers to bring life back were 'ancient, mysterious beings', but these were trolls—rock trolls!

"How do you know my name?" I asked, suddenly regaining my voice. I picked myself up from off the ground and stood tall and proud, just like mama and papa taught me.

"I knew your parents."

My eyes widened in surprise. I never knew mama and papa had met the trolls before. They certainly never mentioned it to me. "So you heard about what happened?"

He gave a grave nod. "Yes, and I am deeply sorry for your loss, Princess."

"Then you know why I'm here?" I reached into my cloak and pulled out the book, flipping to the page. "It says that you can heal the sick and injured, and sometimes you can even restore life."

"In rare cases, yes, but this is not one of them. I'm sorry."

I could feel my heart drop to my stomach, and tears welled up in my eyes, biting at the edges of my vision. "Why?"

"Your parents' bodies were lost at sea. I cannot restore life when the body has been lost. Furthermore, my magic can only work while the spirit still resides in the body—when the person is teetering between life and death. My powers of healing will only work up until the point when they let out their last breath."

My knees gave out from under me and I dropped to the ground. So this had all been for nothing.

"Oh, you poor dear," I heard a warm, motherly voice say. A moment later I felt a pair of arms wrap around my shoulders, holding me in a rock-like embrace. I turned to see a female rock troll standing next to me, looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. She rubbed one hand up and down my back in a soothing motion.

"So there is no hope," I said, turning my gaze back to the elder troll.

"I cannot do anything…" he said slowly, and bit down ever so slightly on his lip. His gaze flickered past me and he looked like he was at war with himself about whether he should continue. I felt my hopes rise.

"But…?" I prodded.

After a moment or two of silence he finally returned his gaze to me. "There are stories of six powerful stones scattered all throughout the nine realms."

At that, my mind flashed back to the old pagan stories my parents read to Elsa and I as children—legends about gods and monsters and the end of the world. In a few of the stories there were mentions of a world tree called Yggdrasil. It was said the branches of the tree connected nine realms in the universe. Our planet was called Midgard, but I had thought they were just stories.

"So you mean all those stories about gods and monsters…" I trailed off.

"The beings in the stories are not gods in the sense that you think of, but they are from an advanced civilization that lives in another realm far from our own." I was trying to digest all this information, but there was so much to learn.

"So what are these stones? Do they have the power to raise the dead?" I asked, wanting to get back to the topic.

"No, but one stone—the one left on our planet centuries ago by the beings your stories speak of—holds the power to control time. It allows it's user to move forward in time, create infinite time loops, and even travel back in time."

"Where can I find this stone?"

"Princess, you must first understand that this stone is very powerful. It holds infinite power over time, and can be very hard to control, especially for someone who doesn't know how to wield magic."

"I understand, and I'm not afraid. I'll do anything to save my parents," I pleaded.

He studied me for a moment before giving a nod. "All right." He shifted back into a ball and rolled away, out of sight. A few moments later he came back and handed me a piece of cloth with a map on it. "The stone is hidden in a deep chamber inside the North Mountain. This will lead you to it."

I rose my eyebrows. "The North Mountain? You mean, Arendelle's North Mountain?"

I couldn't believe my luck! This stone was hidden within Arendelle's borders—it was like I was meant to go and find the stone!

"Yes, when the beings from Asgard came here, they entrusted us with the location of the stone, and we have been guarding it for centuries against those who would use its magic for evil."

I suddenly understood how much trust they were placing on my shoulders. "I promise I won't let it fall into the wrong hands. As soon as I save my parents, I'll put the stone right back."

"There is no need. Once you have changed the past, there will have been no need for you to find the stone in the first place, and it will go back to its original place. However, take caution—once you find the stone you must go to a safe place to use it. Go to a place where you will not be disturbed and concentrate only on your parents—the memories you have of them right before the accident, and hold onto that. If you do anything different, the results could be catastrophic. You could find yourself thrown back centuries before, or even catapulted into the future, and if such a thing were to happen, the stone would be left behind at the place where you used it."

"I understand, and I promise I'll be careful. Thank you so much," I leaned forward and gave him a hug, which he returned with a slight chuckle. I turned to the troll woman to my left and gave her a hug in return before standing and wishing them all a good day.

I had a stone to find.


The stone was heavy in my hand, the knowledge of its immense power seeming to weight it down. My hand formed a tight fist around the small blue stone and I could almost feel its energy crackling. I quickly dropped it into a sack before turning away from the pedestal the stone had been resting on. I clutched the pouch with both hands and held it close to my chest, never stopping to rest until I got back to the palace.

I waited until the feet of the guards had passed before slipping under the crack and running inside. There were no servants running around frantically, or any disturbances, indicating my absence went by unnoticed. When I got to my room I locked the door and walked over to my bed.

I carefully put the pouch down and folded my legs under me. The dirt coating my hem was getting my covers filthy. I didn't want to waste time by changing or bathing, but when I met my parents I wanted to look presentable. I guess a quick bath wouldn't hurt.

I swung my legs off the bed and raced over to the water basin resting on a desk pushed against the wall. After stripping off my black mourning clothes, I scrubbed away the remaining dirt, and then changed into the clothes I had been wearing the day mama and papa left on their voyage: a burnt orange skirt with a rosemaling pattern all along the bottom, paired with an elbow length, light green shirt and a black bodice with similar patterns on it as the skirt.

Once I was clean and neat, I ran back to my bed and picked up the pouch. Reaching inside, I carefully pulled the blue stone out. I cupped both my hands over it and held it close to my chest as I closed my eyes and pictured mama and papa's faces when they told me they were leaving for a diplomatic mission—when they told me they would only be gone for two weeks.

I could feel tears building up behind my eyes, but forced my mind to focus on them—picturing how I remembered them. As I concentrated on that one moment, I felt a slight shift all around me, like the room was spinning.

I could feel my heart jump to my throat and barely containable excitement bubbling up in the pit of my stomach. I didn't dare open my eyes, but instead my mind jumped to the fact that my parents would soon be back in my arms. I would be able to hug them again. They would live for plenty more years, and die old and gray in their nineties. They would live to see Elsa and I grow up and have families of our own. They would live to see my wedding and their grandchildren—all the things that had been robbed from them.

As my mind turned to these thoughts I felt a sudden shift. It wasn't like the one before, but a lurch, like I was being dragged forward. Wind howled in my ears and I felt sick to my stomach before it all finally stopped.

Suddenly my face hit something hard, scraping against my skin and making me cry out in pain. My eyes snapped open and I looked down to see some sort of road. It was gray, and gravely to touch, almost like it was made of rock.

"Hey, watch out!" I heard someone yell. I looked up just in time to see someone on a bike headed straight for me. My arms shot up as a reflex and I braced myself for a collision, but at the last minute I felt a breeze skim past me, missing me by mere inches.

Brushing myself off, I stood and looked around. There were strangely dressed people walking along the road I found myself on, in a place that was definitely not Arendelle. So then…where was I?

The words of the elder troll rang through my head: "concentrate only on your parents—the memories you have of them right before the accident and hold onto that. If you do anything different, the results could be catastrophic. You could find yourself thrown back centuries before, or even catapulted into the future."

I bit down on my lip, remembering how I couldn't wait to see them again, and for them to live the life that had been robbed of them…a life in the future. My bottom lip quivered, realizing I must have been transported to the future because of that. There was no other explanation. There was only one rule with the stone—concentrate on the memories I had of my parents before the accident, and I still managed to mess everything up!

I realized my hands were still curled into fists, and slowly released them to find the little blue stone gone. It was just like the troll said—once I disappeared the stone would stay where I last left it, which meant it was probably lying on my bed back home at the castle—who knows how many years ago!

I raised my head to see massive buildings that rose taller than my castle, with windows that gleamed like sunlight. There were so many tall building that I felt like I was lost in a forest full of them. A loud honking sound interrupted my staring and my eyes snapped down to see a strange object zoom past me. It looked like a long carriage, except there were no horses to pull it.

Down below me the strange gray road seemed to end, and there was a slight step, where it gave way to a black road, with dotted yellow rectangles going down the middle. What kind of a place was this, and how far in the future was I?

More importantly, how would I get home?


This fic starts during the beginning of Frozen, and moves into events before Big Hero 6. And for those of you who caught it—yes, the stone that the trolls referred to and that Anna used is the Time Gem from the Marvel Comics. I figured that since all animated Disney movies are set in the same universe, and since Big Hero 6 is part of the Marvel Universe, that it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume that Anna could find an Infinity Gem.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed the start of this story! The next chapter will be from Hiro's POV. Let me know what you thought in the comments. :)