Palace of Isolation

by NeuralBallast

The formerly great Kingdom of Arendelle has fallen into financial ruin after more than a decade of increasingly long and harsh winters. Anna, the Crown Princess, is called upon to rescue Arendelle from disaster with a timely marriage - to a handsome stranger she cannot trust. But when the sacrifice demanded of her becomes too great, she runs for the mountains. Rescued from death in

1. Prologue

Legends of ice monsters haunt every country with harsh winters. When the world has been a blinding, freezing whiteness for months on end, until no one can even remember that other colors once existed; when the livestock freeze to death and the fuel runs low and the children cry and the old folks shake their heads and tell you that this is nothing, it was far worse when they were young; these are the times when people feel the need to blame something, someone, for this miserable tormenting cold that rules their every moment.

So they dream up the snow monsters. Huge shaggy beasts ten feet tall that live on human flesh. Demons who freeze the living at a single touch. Witches with hearts of ice who cast spells of eternal winter on the land.

Chilling stories, perhaps - but such stories can make a tiny fire seem much warmer by comparison.

And so the stories are told. And so they grow, year after year, until no one remembers who first invented them, who embellished them, who told them in words that made the stories seem so real that even the tellers began to believe them.

And so the stories come to life.